[CPProt.net] FBI investigates theft of ceremonial tomahawk

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

FBI investigates theft of ceremonial tomahawk

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- The FBI is investigating the theft of a ceremonial
tomahawk believed to be the weapon used to kill Dr. Marcus Whitman, the 19th
century missionary and one of the leaders of Northwest settlement.

Whitman and his wife, Narcissa, were killed by Cayuse warriors who blamed
the Whitmans for a deadly measles epidemic.

Tomahas, a Cayuse tribal member, is believed to have used the tomahawk to
kill Marcus Whitman on Nov. 29, 1847.

The tomahawk disappeared from a display case during visiting hours at the
Whitman Mission National Historic Site in southeastern Washington. The thief
used a special tool to dismantle the case, said Roger Trick, chief of
interpretation at the site.

"Someone brought in exactly the right-sized wrench," Trick said.

Steve Yu, a criminal investigator for the National Park Service, said there
were no leads or suspects.

"It might be solved in a year; it might not show up for 20 years," Yu said.

The hatchetlike weapon is one of two so-called "Whitman tomahawks" that may
have been used to deliver the fatal blow. The second is on display at the
Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Ore., where officials are careful to
note there is no way to be sure if either one was actually used nearly 160
years ago.

Both tomahawks were fashioned of iron with hollow wooden handles and
designed for dual use as hatchet-style weapons and ceremonial tobacco pipes.

Five Cayuse men were charged with killing 14 of 72 people at the Whitman
Mission at Waiilatpu, "the place of rye grass," just west of Walla Walla.

Whitman, 45, was killed with a tomahawk but his wife, Narcissa, 38, died of
gunshot wounds suffered in the attack.

Historians believe two of the men, Tomahas and Chief Tiloukaikt, probably
took part in the murders but that the other men may have surrendered to
prevent the destruction of the entire tribe by vengeful frontiersmen. The
five men were tried in 1850 in Oregon City and hanged.

The man generally believed to have triggered the murders was a half
French-Canadian, half Delaware Indian from Maine named Joe Lewis who arrived
in Oregon on a wagon train, Trick said.

Lewis whipped the Cayuse into a frenzy over a rash of deaths from measles,
but he dropped out of sight after the attack on the Whitman Mission. Some
think he was shot to death in a stagecoach holdup near Missoula, Mont., in
1862.

Transcripts of the Cayuse men's trial make it clear nobody knew what had
happened to the tomahawk used in the killings, said Malissa Minthorn,
archives and library manager at the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute on the
Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton.

Minthorn is a descendant of Kiamasumkin, or "Cougar Shirt," one of the men
hanged. He claimed innocence to the very end, she said.

The tomahawk may have been nothing more than a prop that was featured in
photographs taken by Maj. Lee Moorhouse of Pendleton, who produced 9,000
photos documenting American Indian life between 1888 and 1916, Minthorn
said.

The stolen tomahawk probably had nothing to do with the death of Marcus
Whitman and may even have been made many years later, she said.

Marsha Matthews of the Oregon Historical Society said the 18-inch-long
tomahawk on display in Portland appears to have been made in 1846. But
little is known of its history before 1899, when it came into the collection
of the Oregon Pioneer Association, later to become the Oregon Historical
Society. It cannot positively be linked to the Whitman deaths, she said.