Smohalla - Transcript.

Abstract

"But the business of the commission was not over yet. It began now to investigate the 'Dreamer' religion of the Indians. Smohalla, also known as Yu-yan-i-pit-qu-na, The Shouting Mountain, a Walla Walla Indian with a slight, deformed body and an abnormally large head bent forward above humped shoulders, had been pointed out as the man responsible for this so-called sophistry. Joseph was said to be one of his followers and many of the other non-treaty chiefs and medicine men were called Dreamers because their statements seemed influenced by Smohalla's doctrines. The white men found it difficult to believe that Indians thought and that they created a philosophy and religion for themselves."