Who was he?
Porcupine
1848-1929
In
his older years
I would like to tell you about a man whom history seems to have forgotten or never really told of… . I am surprised however at the write up in WIKI. I would recommend a read of the WIKI ditty. The article is actually not half bad… with some untrue statements… Porcupine was not a Medicine man by his own admission. However he was a chief, one of the last of the Dog Soldiers, apostle and as it seems, a friend of Christ. Of all the things said about him which made him a supposed criminal, he was guilty of only protecting and trying to live his way of life in which the encroaching Europeans were steeling from him and his people. Prohibiting their religious freedoms? Hypocrites! But then, according to the powers that be of the time, the native people were barely human.
Thomas B. Marquis seems to be
the main source for info in the WIKI ditty, a man who said he met Porcupine, but some of the testimony he gives is believable but more so I find hard to believe…
“As a
"bad Indian" he was of the most gentle type. The high regard for him
was not restricted to his own people ... Even the missionaries liked him, their only condemnation being that he was
an apostle of paganism.”
— Thomas B.
Marquis
But let me tell you what WIKI and apparently Marquis neglected to tell you as to why Porcupine is so well remembered by some of us…
So… let’s tell you of the actual event told by F. K. UPHAM, in the Boston Journal and Later published in the longest continuously published periodical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and show you why some took notice of Porcupine…
The following is dubbed as
the Walker Lake Incident… but it didn’t happen at
Sand Painting copy of the Ferron
Friends Panel
Done by my friend Tom Clah, Navajo
The following testimony of Porcupine, who participated in the
The occasion of this was the appearance of the disciple Porcupine, a
Some time last winter this
The recent return of Porcupine to the reservation made the
The reappearance of
Porcupine among such conditions added
to the complications with which the Indian agent had to contend, and he
requested by telegraph of the Interior department at Washington that Porcupine
might be arrested by the troops, which request was at once responded to by the
War Department, and the arrest promptly ordered. Porcupine immediately expressed his willingness, and in fact a wish, to go without delay to Fort
Custer and explain his position, and what he knew of the Savior who has come to his people. The agent withdrawing his request for the
arrest, Porcupine came to
He was an erect
handsome, and perfectly developed young Indian, standing fully six feet in
height, with a pleasant, sprightly face, the mobility of his features
indicating anything but the traditional Indian. Clad in a garment of striped
wool red and white, the stripes several inches broad, evidently made from blankets, belted at
the waist and extending to the knee, with a tuft of eagle feathers knotted in
his scalp-lock, certainly he was not lacking in the picturesque. Squatting the
fashion of his race, near the center of the room, just in rear of him his squaw
and the two companions of his pilgrimage, through an interpreter he told what
he had seen of the Christ who had now come.
His story was
prefaced as all Indian " talks" are by the information that what he
was now about to say was " the truth " and pointing to his mouth he indicated that his words would go straight to the
front "neither to the right nor the left, he had "no forked
tongue." Then rising to his full height, he assumed the exact attitude
which we have been taught to believe that Jesus took when blessing the
disciples the upper portion of the body slightly inclined forward, the arms
extended to full length, with the hands dropping downward the eyes closed, Then
he trembled violently from head to foot, alternately changing the position of
his bands to across his breast, then to the waist with the left hand, the right
dropping by the side. In this position he remained fully five minutes, during
which the heads of his Indian
companions were dropped in silence, and the room was so still that the
fall of a pin might have been heard. Having completed this, seemingly a silent
prayer, he resumed his former place on the floor and began.
On the wall hung a large military map of the United Sates, indicating
the various army posts of the West, and so nearly as the mysterious location
could to established where the Christ had been found, it was possibly in the
vicinity of Walker or Pyramid Lake in Nevada. It was in the mountains. Porcupine found himself with many strange
Indians, whose language he could not speak, and who like himself, had come from
far off, but all had come to see the Christ. At sundown the Indians collected
in large numbers, and after it became dark he appeared to them, a large fire being
built to throw the light on him. He was not as dark as an Indian, nor as light
as a white man, and his dress was partly like each. He sat for a long time in
perfect silence, with his head bowed, during which time the Indians neither
moved nor spoke. They were told that if they even whispered the Christ would
know it and be displeased. After a time he raised his head, and then Porcupine
saw that he was fair to look upon, that his face had no beard, and was
youthful, and that his bright hair extended to the waist. Porcupine had heard
that the Christ of the white man had been nailed to a cross, and, looking, he
was able to see the scars of the nails in the hands of the Indian's Christ when
he raised them. In his feet he could not see the marks of the nails by reason
of the moccasins, but he was told they were there, and that in his side were
spear marks which were concealed by the shirt he wore. Porcupine was told that his
own coming had, with eleven others been foretold by the Christ, who
had sent for him, and that was why he had involuntarily taken the long journey;
that all the heathen tribes there represented had been influenced in the same
manner, though all had not been individually called, as he had.
The Christ spoke to
them and took Porcupine by the hand, and told them, that they were all his
children. He talked to them until it was day, telling them that he had made
them, and all the things around them; that in the beginning God had made the
earth, and after a time had sent him on the earth to teach the people what was
right, but the people were afraid of him, and "this is what they did to
me," showing his scars. He said when he found the children were bad he
went back above, and promised to return after many hundred years. Now the time
was up, and God had told him the earth was old and worn out, and had sent him
again to renew it, and make things better. He said that all the dead were to be
resurrected and brought back to life on this earth, which was now too small to
hold them all, but he would do away with heaven and make the earth large enough
to hold them all. He spoke about fighting, that it was bad, and that Indians
must not do it any more; that the earth hereafter, was to be all good and
everybody must love one another. He said he would send those among them who
could heal wounds and cure the sick by a laying on of the hands, and that the
good would live here forever and the buffalo would Come back He said it was
wrong to kill men of any kind, that here after the whites and the Indian would
become one people; that if any man disobeyed these teachings he would be
banished from the face of the earth; that the Indians must believe all that he
now told them, and not say that he lied, for he would know their thoughts, no
matter in what part of the world they were, and they could not expect to
deceive him.
Among those whom
Porcupine saw were some who seemed like white men, but they all I seemed good,
there was no drinking or fighting, and all listened and believed what the
Christ said to them. During Porcupine's stay of many days the Christ several
times repeated these talks, and told the Indians that when they returned to
their people they must tell them all these things. But he was not at all times
visible, and could disappear at will.
"He is here among us tonight, and knows all
that we are talking about," said Porcupine.
Porcupine continued: "When I heard all these
things I came back to my people, and they listened to me. Ever since I heard
these things from the Christ I have thought they were good. I can see nothing
bad in them. I knew my people were bad, and I got them together and told them.
I warned them to listen, for it was for their own good. I talked to them four
nights and five days, and said just what I said here tonight. I told them, these
were the words of the Almighty God who was looking down on them and knew what
was in their hearts. I wish some who are here had heard my words to the
Porcupine in 1910
