The Cayuse had become a praying people. In almost every lodge the family altar was erected. No doubt on the morning of the bloody 29th, the murderers were scrupulous to observe their morning devotions, again at evening, while the dead bodies of the slain lay about unburied, the food of the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the earth.
One of the actors of this horrible scene was a member of our church, and while he held one of the captives as his wife, the sport of his brutal passions, he was careful to have morning and evening prayer and to read a portion of scripture from his book, which we printed while he was in our school at Clear Water.
Their sick and dead had ever been the peculiar care and receivd the devoted attention of their missionaries. Yes my beloved associates, whose hands had so often furnishd winding sheets and coffins for their dead, were denied coffins and even a resting-place under the earth by this same professed Christian people. Such are the people who have committed the horrible murders of which it has become my painful duty to write.—Such the end of the once promising mission among the Cayuse Indians.
On the 18th of November Mr. Jackson, my daughter Eliza, ten years of age, and myself, left my place for Waiilatpu. My object was to spend a few weeks with Dr. Whitman, visiting his people, preaching, assisting him in his labors with the sick and dying. We were anxious to be present at some of the meetings which the Catholic priests were holding with the Indians to obtain locations near Waiilatpu, and to persuade the priests if possible, to allow the Indians to say whether Catholic or Protestant missionaries should remain among them. Should the Indians prefer the Catholic missionaries, we would then and ever been ready to leave the country and allow them to occupy the field unmolested. But should the Indians prefer that the Protestant missionaries should continue, we have ever felt the Catholics ought to leave us undisturbed. We have ever felt that unprotected by law, we could not be safe should the Catholics come into our field.
The feelings of the Indians were, that both missionaries could not occupy the same field. The Rev. Mr. Josette of the upper Catholic mission requested of the Nez Perces, two years ago, a location near my station. The principal chief Ellis said, “It will do for the French and English to have two religions, as they have laws, but for Indians who have no laws, it will not do. We have one religion with which we are satisfied. If the Catholics come in, there will be fighting immediately.”