STILL the process of reconstruction was slow. The wounds which had been made were deep, and distrust reigned between the two parties for a time. Although conquered, all were not converted, and some of them at times longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt. Two things gave much opportunity for gossip during the following winter. The business of logging had gone down and the Indians had little to do. Also, during the previous summer, the chiefs had not attended to their proper business, and had let a number of crimes go unpunished, especially drunkenness, and the new board of chiefs had so many to punish that it created considerable feeling. At first the shakers took hold well in our meetings, as well as if they were one with us. But a child of one of them was taken fatally sick, and while nothing could be proved, yet there was evidence enough to convince most of the Indians and whites that there was a little shaking among them, and then the other Indians lost confidence in their sincerity and did not longer want them as leaders of religion, and so they dropped into the common ranks.

A slightly new element also kept affairs disturbed. It was Big John. At the time of the big meeting in August he was present and was attacked with the shaking as badly as any one. His wife belonged in that region, and so he did not return to the reservation with the other Indians, and was not here when the victory over them was obtained. He went to Mud Bay and set up a party of his own, and he carried the shaking farther than the originators had done. He even out-Heroded Herod. He claimed to be Christ, a claim which was allowed him by his followers, and at the head of about seventy-five of them he rode through the streets of Olympia with his hands outstretched as Christ was when crucified. After the conquest had been made at Skokomish, he was ordered by the agent to return home, as he was creating so much trouble among other Indians under Agent Eells. But he was slow to obey. He came once in November, when he was so attacked in regard to his claims of being Christ by the school-teacher and the Indians, that he gave up this claim and said he was only a prophet. As he had not brought his wife with him, he returned to her, and it was not until several orders had been given for him to come home, and policemen had gone for him more than once, that he came. His orders then were to remain on the reservation, and stop shaking. He remained here for a time, but kept up a quiet kind of shaking more or less of the time. At last he left the reservation and went back without permission. He was again brought home and locked up for about four weeks. This conquered him, and he made but little further trouble, and this pretty effectually killed the return of any on the reservation to shaking.

Three of the shaking set have now been admitted to the church, after six and nine months’ probation.

Off of the reservation this shaking spread. It took almost entire possession of the Indians on the Chehalis Reservation, and entered the school in such a way that the agent and school-teacher there felt obliged to stop it by force, or allow the school to be broken up.

At Squaxon there were no government employees and it was not possible to put a complete stop to it there, so it was allowed to have its own way more. Their great prophecy has been that the world would come to an end on the Fourth of July, 1884, but, although they assembled and held a big meeting, and waited for the expected result, it did not come, and so their faith has been somewhat shaken, although now they have extended the time one year. Going to various places to obtain work has also broken them into very small parties, and also occupied them, so that at present it seems to be dying.