In Search of the Shadow People

By Brian Jacob

In 1884, an expedition of 65 hunters, led by a retired Colonel and guided by Indian trackers, set out into the wilderness to find a mysterious tribe of Indians known as "The Shadow People". Only one returned. Now, 30 years later, an Indian tracker named Waha Tankany tells the story of what happened to the expedition, and how it relates to Ishi, the "Wild Man of Mill Creek".

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781631924262

Book preview

Spirits

1

The Sphere of Influence

Good morning everyone! May I have your attention? Please, may I have your attention? Thanks! Thank you. We need to get started. I want to welcome all of you to this very special Anthropological/Archaeological Forum, here at the University of California at Berkeley. I had hoped, when we sent out the invitations for this event, that we would be able to bring the brightest minds in our respective fields of science together in one hall. Needless to say, I am not disappointed! As I look around this auditorium, I see numerous colleagues and friends, including Dr. Francis Pollard from that other" Bay Area University. Even though we have had some heated disagreements in the past, I am so glad that you are here. Hope we can change your mind on a few points today. Over there to the right, I see Dr. Shannon Chamberlain. She chairs the Anthropology Department at the University in San Luis Obispo. Dr. Chamberlain’s work on ancient villages of the North American Indians has distinguished her as one of the top research anthropologists of our generation. She is currently working intensively on a marvelous dig site in Oregon and would most likely prefer to be in the field rather than in this auditorium, so we are very grateful that you made it. I am sure that you will not be disappointed that you came. Although he needs no introduction, Dr. Brent Sullivan is seated there in the sixth row. Please stand up, Dr. Sullivan. For all the reporters in the room, Dr. Sullivan runs the Archaeology Department at the University of Chicago. In his spare time, he has written multiple books, including one of my favorites regarding the cave paintings of North America and their creators. It is my privilege to have him here today. I hope your trip wasn’t too uncomfortable. I also see Dr. Michael Thornton up there in the last row. Dr. Thornton comes all the way from South Dakota where he works primarily on transcribing, and translating, the myths and legends of many of the Dakota Indians. Glad to see you and your associates here today. And thanks to all of the other professors and students alike that have come here from schools all over the country. Welcome!

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am so thrilled to see that we have filled this 200-seat hall to capacity! I am particularly pleased with the number of students in attendance. It is such an exciting time for our disciplines. As we discover new sites that unlock history, it is especially important that the youth in the room further the advances in our fields of study. We need you to continue these forums and debates of perspective and scientific facts. Our sciences can only benefit from them. Now, I know that we have all had our differences of opinion on many issues over the past 30 years. Well, for some of us, it has been disagreements about the last 10,000 years, but who’s counting? However, I think that we all can agree on the importance of our work for future generations. This forum, and many more to come, will be an important part of that work. With all that said, let’s get to the issue at hand.

"For those of you who are not aware of how I am involved in this gathering, let me give you a little background. My name is Dr. Thurmond P. Chase, and I am currently a Professor of Anthropology and the Curator of the Anthropological Museum at the University of California at Berkeley. For many years, I have been researching an expedition that took place in 1884. The expedition in question consisted of approximately 65 hunters, one journalist who helped raise the money to fund the expedition, a retired Colonel, three Indian trackers and one African tracker. We are not sure of the exact number of hunters because they lost and gained some throughout the life of the expedition. What we do know is that they were all in search of a lost tribe of Indians. Horrifically, our research shows that only five members of the expedition returned! Let me repeat myself, only five members of this expedition actually returned. The survivors included the Colonel, the reporter and the three Indian trackers. None of the surviving members have ever spoken about what happened. Soon after their return, the Indians vanished, the Colonel died and the reporter became a recluse. To further the mystery, none of the hunters’ remains or weapons have ever been discovered, nor have we ever found any trace of the Indians they were searching for. So, you can all see our dilemma! The truth seems to be lost to history.

Now, the tribe that the expedition was searching for had been written about in many newspaper articles across the western United States. My research shows that all of the articles were written in the years prior to the expedition. In most of the articles, there were claims of small settlements being attacked, and women and children being taken by a raiding party. The attacks were usually over as quickly as they had begun. The details of the raids were always sketchy at best. The survivors claim that the Indians were being helped by everything from grizzly bears and Bigfoot to evil spirits and the devil himself. Some claimed they were ghosts because they would disappear into the forest and leave no trace of their ever having been there. We know the descriptions of the raiding party ruled out the local Indian tribes, but most of the time, they were blamed anyway. My research shows that 45 women and at least 32 children were abducted by these raiding parties" throughout the western United States from 1875 through the start of the expedition in 1884. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a single survivor. As far as I know, none were ever seen again.

"Very few, if any, anthropologists or archaeologists have ever written about this tribe in the past 25 years because, simply put, we haven’t had enough evidence. Now, Dr. Pollard and I have had disagreements about whether this tribe is real or not, but there is one thing we cannot dispute. It is a fact that many different Indian tribes across the western states thought that this tribe was real, ancient and apparently extremely violent. Some of the Indian nations called this tribe ‘the Ones Without Faces.’ Other Indian nations called them ‘the Shadow People’ because the tribe always disappeared without leaving any tracks. The few artifacts that were found at the places where the Shadow People supposedly lived indicated the possibility that this tribe might have traveled here from another country. Dr. Sullivan recently found some cave drawings that might validate this theory. The truth is, we just don’t know. There are so many questions that remain unanswered. Did the expedition find the Shadow People? What happened to all the hunters that were hired by the Colonel, John Massey? No one even had the chance to question Colonel Massey because he fell ill and died days after his return. The journalist, Mr. Joshua Corbin, is currently living in Boston. He was an avid writer hired by a San Francisco newspaper to document the expedition and draw pictures of everything that he saw. Where are all of those drawings? Why he hasn’t published a single article, or any pictures, is beyond our comprehension. Unfortunately, Mr. Corbin has not granted an interview to anyone in 26 years. Believe me, I’ve tried! On several occasions, I contacted his family and was told through their lawyers that he will not speak to anyone about the expedition. They told me that he had proven to be an embarrassment to the Corbin name, and as far as his parents were concerned, Joshua would never talk about the expedition again. I was led to believe that Mr. Corbin no longer had a full grasp on reality. This was disheartening news, to say the least. My only option left in my search for the truth was to find the three Indian trackers.

"I realized that if I wanted to find the trackers, there was only one place I could look. So I began traveling to the Indian reservations 10 years ago. I needed to locate the Indian trackers and convince them to tell their stories. For 10 years, I had no success. The Indians I met on the reservations did not want to speak to a white man, much less help me find the trackers I was looking for. At one point, I was told the trackers had all died years before and I should never come looking for them again. After the way they were treated, I could hardly blame them. Finally, after years of searching with no success, I received a letter from an anonymous source. The letter indicated that one of the Indians that I was searching for was still alive and would tell the true story of the expedition of 1884. The letter said that I had been looking in the wrong places and that I was to contact our guest on the Crow reservation, where he had been hiding for over 26 years. Excited, and a little confused, I immediately boarded a train and traveled to the Crow reservation, where I met an old Indian tracker who claimed to be a member of the expedition to find the Shadow People. He agreed to come here today and share his story.

Our guest is a Yosemite Indian from the Miwok Nation, but he prefers to be known by the tribal name Awaneechee. His name is Waha Tankany and he was one of the three Indian trackers hired by Colonel Massey to guide the expedition of 1884. His ability to speak several Indian languages, including the Sioux language, made him a valuable asset to the expedition. Waha Tankany told me that he believes an Indian captured right up here in Oroville on August 29, 1911—Ishi—may be related to the tribe known as the Shadow People, which, according to Waha Tankany, was found by the expedition. Now, as most of you know, Ishi has told Dr. Kroeber and Dr. Waterman that he does not know where his people, the Yahi, originated from; he believes they simply appeared at Mill Creek. Could Ishi be the last of the Shadow People? Will we uncover the truth today? I will let each of you decide for yourself. So without further delay, please give a warm welcome to my guest, Waha Tankany.

Hello, my name is Waha Tankany. I want to thank both Dr. Chase and the University for allowing me to speak to you this day. Like Dr. Chase said, I am an Awaneechee of the Miwok Nation. A great spirit, Iskee Wa Notchee, told me to come here. He said that I should tell the story of the expedition to find the lost tribe of the Ones Without Faces, the Shadow People. I know you all search for your history in the distant past by uncovering the bones of those who were here before us, and by reading the drawings on walls of caves and on the side of stones in the canyons, but that is not the Indian way. We keep our histories alive in the stories that we tell to our children and grandchildren. We tell them every detail, so that they will not forget. In this way, the history of our people is a living history, and it can never be taken from us. I’m going to tell you the story of this expedition of 1884 in as much detail as I can remember. This is the Indian way. This is where we will begin.

2

Beginnings

Indian children begin hearing stories of the Shadow People at birth. Stories of how the Shadow People attacked all of the Indian nations—the Nez Perce, the Washoe, the Yurok, the Chinook, the Scarce, the Kiowa, the Sioux, the Crow, the Navajo, the Cherokee, the Paiutes, the Shoshone and the Flathead. All of these nations and many others lost wives and daughters to the Shadow People. None of those that were captured by the Shadow People had ever escaped. They were lost forever. Some of the nations thought that the Ones Without Faces were from the spirits and were sent to punish the nations for their inability to work together. Still others thought that this was just another nation who wanted to take over the land and the hunting grounds. Some of the stories that were told said that the Great One, or what the white man called the grizzly bear, protected the Shadow People. Indians would not speak of this to the white man for fear the Shadow People would be angered and come to their village in the night. It was known that many Indian nations wanted the Shadow People to attack the white settlers as well.

My father told me of this when I was a young boy. He would say, Pay attention and learn. You never know when the Shadow People will come. You must be ready! My father started teaching me the ways of our people and those of other Indian nations at an early age. I learned these lessons well. I became the best tracker in my village. Our main food supply was being killed by many white men with the long gun. Because of this, many of the Indian nations were forced to hunt far away from their lands. We would go into other nations’ lands and hunt, hoping to find the elk or the buffalo. I learned to speak many tongues so that my people could trade with the other nations. I learned the language of the Crow, the Sioux, the Modoc, and others. Sometimes we would go to their nations and ask for their permission to hunt, and other times we would not ask. This could make talks difficult and would sometimes lead to raids from the other tribes.

My father taught me the songs and the dances of the spirits, and made me remember the stories of our nation. He taught me how to speak in signs, and taught me the signs for the other nations. Some of the signs were similar to ours, and some were not. I learned them all. I was known for my memory of detail. I could remember things from many years ago as if they happened the day before.

As I grew older, I began to wonder if there really were any Shadow People. I thought maybe my father had told me the story to make me behave and be mindful. My mother told me that one day I would use what I learned to protect my wife and children, and to help teach my sons. My father always said that the family was the heart of the nations, and that no nation would disappear if fathers taught their sons, mothers taught their daughters, brothers helped brothers, and nations helped other nations. My father was wise and had taught me well.

I grew up in a time of unrest between the white man and the Indian nations. Many wars were fought, and the Indian nations have come out on the losing end of most of them. Much mistrust has come from these wars. The papers that the Indians were forced to put their marks on have made many hard feelings between our peoples. The white man’s diseases killed many of my people and those of other Indian tribes in the land of California. I was married when I was a young brave and my wife was with child. Just before she gave birth, a white man’s disease took them both from me. Although I knew they would walk in the spirit world with our ancestors, it made my heart sad and heavy. My father said the Great Spirit had a plan for me, and that I would see them again. Their spirits were in our land, and we would always find them there.

My father knew we were the keepers of our land, but he also wanted me to be able to live in the world with the white man. He taught me to speak the white man’s tongue, and he said the Great Spirit of the heavens and the earth had told him to be respectful of the white man, for they would come and be as many as the grains of sand in the prairie. When my father was young, he learned of some white settlers who had lost their way in the northeastern corner of our valley, in the land of the Yosemite. The white rain had forced them to stop, and they were captives of the land. My father said that there were some in our tribe that wanted to let the white man die in the white rain. My father did not think it was right to let the white man die on our land. He said we should always show compassion and help other humans when it was possible. He searched for them and found them. He took them to the town called Modesto where there was a white medicine man. My father found out later that the family was related to a military man named Colonel John Adam Massey. The Colonel came to our village to thank my father personally for saving his family. My father had contact with the Colonel many times after that.

Sometime in the white man’s month of May, in the year of 1884, the Colonel came to our village once again. He wanted my father to ask me if I would like to work for him on an expedition to find the Shadow People for the white man’s history. My father had worked out a deal with the Colonel to let my people, the Awaneechee, stay in the Yosemite Valley instead of being placed on the white man’s reservation. The Colonel said that it would depend on me taking the job with him. The Colonel guaranteed my father that our people would live out their lives on their land if I would work for him on this expedition. My father agreed to the Colonel’s terms, and put his mark on the paper. Then I put my mark on the paper, and it was done. The Colonel said my father would not have to worry about it ever again. This was the promise of the white man. The Colonel said that he had spoken to the great White Chief, and that he agreed. This is how it came to be.

The expedition was going to be headed by Colonel Massey. Before he retired from the white man’s cavalry, he fought in many battles and led many men. He was a tall, thin man, with a deep voice and long, dark gray hair pulled back in a tail. He wore a black coat and hat, and carried a pistol at his side. He had thick eyebrows above his dark eyes. He had much hair on his face, and on either side of his mouth were many gray streaks. He had many lines on his face as well, which was a good thing in the Indian nations. His face was important to us. It told us if he was an honorable man or not. He was a very intelligent man, and he thought with a warrior’s mind. It was said that the Colonel once stood in front of the big guns that roll, but they could not kill him. My father said that he was a great warrior and a good man. He seemed like a man that I could trust.

The Colonel drank the white man’s firewater, but did not seem to show the effects. He was married, but his wife and daughter had disappeared several years before this expedition while on their way to a place called Ohio by wagon. The Colonel was going to meet them there, but they never arrived. They were captured by a raiding party. The Colonel searched for them for several years, but never found them or the tribe that took them. Once he was told about the expedition, he thought that the Shadow People matched the description of the tribe responsible for their disappearance and was determined to find them. He carried a picture of his wife and daughter with him in a gold piece with a chain rope. I could tell that he had not forgotten them.

In the time before this expedition, reports of the Shadow People were in the white man’s paper. The Shadow People had attacked several white settlements in the Northwest. It seemed the more that the white man moved west, the more they came into contact with the Shadow People. There was a growing interest to find this tribe. There was a newspaper in the town of San Francisco that had written many times about the raids on the white settlements by Indians. They were not sure which Indian nation was responsible, but they wanted to find out. Many times, the white man would blame the wrong tribe, and they would look no further for the truth. The San Francisco paper had a great interest in creating an expedition to find the Shadow People. A young reporter named Joshua Corbin worked at the San Francisco paper. He was the paper’s best artist and one of the best reporters. Corbin had a sister that lived in the lands of the Shoshone. His sister’s daughter was killed in a raid by a tribe of Indians three years before the expedition. He intended to write an article on Indian raids in the Northwest. He seemed to blame the Shadow People for all of the unsolved raids in these newspaper articles. Corbin thought of the idea of an expedition and suggested it to the white leaders in the white man’s government in the town of Sacramento. The white chiefs there supported his idea for the expedition. Corbin went back to the town of San Francisco where he sought out Colonel Massey, who was known to spend most of his time in the white man’s saloons with a bottle of the firewater. He knew of the Colonel because he had written an article about how the Colonel had lost his wife and daughter.

It was late in the year 1884. We were already into the white man’s month of September. The winds were beginning to blow in the great valley of Sacramento. I was to meet the Colonel in the town of San Francisco to begin the expedition. I was nervous because I did not know what to expect on this expedition. I had not worked with the white man. Some of my brothers said that I should look closely at the faces of those who would stand around me. Their faces would tell me if they would turn on me when I closed my eyes. I was sure that I would find out all of these things soon enough. I felt that my brothers were trying to put ideas in my head to make me afraid of the white man.

I would travel many miles to reach the town of San Francisco on the northern coast of California. I came out of the valley of the Yosemite and dropped into the great valley of Sacramento. I followed the foothills north, and I could see the land was flat and the grass stretched as far as a man could see. My father told me that there were some hills that I would have to cross as I neared the town of San Francisco. First, there was a great river that I would have to cross when I reached the white man’s town of Sacramento. My father told me that it ran swiftly and was very wide. He said that the river had taken many men from this world.

I headed northwest to the town of Sacramento, and then turned west toward the town of San Francisco. When I reached the town of Sacramento, I found that the white man had built a wooden pathway