THE
Oregon Historical Quarterly
RELIGION AMONG THE FLATHEADS[1]
By T. C. Elliott
The religion referred to in the above title is that of the white men, not of the natives, and the Indians are, in particular, the four who appeared at Saint Louis in the fall of 1831 and designated as Flatheads, but, in general, the several tribes residing west of the Rocky Mountains.
The year 1934 was centennial in Oregon, commemorative of the arrival of Jason Lee and his group of Protestant missionaries one hundred years before. They built a mission and home on the bank of the Willamette River near the present city of Salem. Ninteen hundred and thirty-six is centennial in Washington and Idaho. In December, a century ago, Doctor Marcus Whitman and the Reverend Henry Spalding and their wives, Narcissa and Eliza, established missions and homes in the valleys of Walla Walla and Lapwai, among the Cayuse and Nez Perce Indians. The missionary societies of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches in New York and Boston were then in a period of religious fervor in behalf of missions to foreign and distant lands. Suddenly they were called upon to send men and women across the Rocky Mountains to christianize and civilize the Indians there. This urge arose through a highly colored report of the presence in Saint Louis in the fall of 1831 of four Indians from that region in search of religious teachers to reside among their tribes. The presence of the Indians at Saint Louis is beyond dispute; two of their number died and were buried in
the cemetery of the Catholic cathedral and permanent record made of their decease. All were innocently described as Flat-
- ↑ Informal address at annual meeting of Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, February 1, 1936 (amplified for publication).
