Knowing the history helps the story by Paty Jager

I’ve been interested in history, specifically the Pacific Northwest where I grew up and continue to live. If you’ve read my books, you know I like to write about this area and its history. I hope that with each book I write I sneak in a fact or two about either how people lived ( if it’s historical) or about a place or culture. I don’t pull things out of the air and put them in my books.

Well, okay, there is a lot of fiction in my fiction, but, I don’t make up cultures and tribes. I had one person leave a review saying I didn’t know what I was talking about, there wasn’t a tribe called the Cayuse.

I stared and stared at that review. All they had to do was google or look it up in an encyclopedia. Granted now there are no true pure blood Cayuse tribal members. But they were a tribe who lived in SE Washington and NE Oregon. I have a book titled: The Cayuse Indians; Imperial Tribesmen of Old Oregon by Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown.

They were a small and insular group. That was one of the things that caused their language to nearly become extinct. They spoke it only among themselves. They didn’t use it publicly. They were a unique tribe who only spoke their language and remained together in their territory. The area they claimed as their home held all they needed to sustain them. They were nomadic traveling from the Blue Mountains to the foot of Mt. Hood and north to the plains of SE Washington, staying within the boundaries of the heads of the Grande Ronde, Umatilla, and Walla Walla Rivers and the Deschutes River in Oregon and Washington

But because they remained close, when a disease hit, it would wipe out whole families and villages. With this happening they had to allow men and women to marry outside of the tribe. With their marrying into the neighboring Nez Perce and Walla Walla tribes, they slowly began to speak those languages. The Cayuse language slowly died each time an elder passed.

Their neighbor tribes were the Walla Walla and the Nez Perce. These tribes were all well known for their horse breeding and horsemanship. In the 1840s, the European settlers following the Oregon trail arrived in their territory. While they were curious and allowed Walt Whitman to establish a mission in their territory, when the white people brought measles which killed many of the Cayuse, they retaliated by killing and kidnapping settlers. This only brought the soldiers and more trouble which landed them on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation with members of the Walla Walla and the Umatilla tribes.

It is believed there is no longer a 100% Cayuse tribal member, but they are a rare and strong group of individuals that have grown and become prosperous on the Umatilla Reservation. I have been subscribed to the CUJ- Confederated Umatilla Journal- the newspaper printed on the reservation for several years. I enjoy reading about the business and social happenings along with the school information. They have a wonderful cultural center that I have visited multiple times.

My main character in the Gabriel Hawke Novels, is from this reservation and his mother still lives there. My 50th published book, Stolen Butterfly, book 7 in the Gabreil Hawke Novels is set on the reservation. It was written to bring more noticed to the MMIW organization. (You are the first to see this cover)

And now this reservation is the location of my new Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries. There is an Indian Casino on the reservation but I made up my own casino so I can have murders and events happen there that wouldn’t actually happen at the real casino. And I didn’t have to adhere to how one is run. 😉

This is my rebuttal to the reviewer who said, there isn’t a tribe called Cayuse. Google it!

I wanted to let you know that in May my 50^th book will be published or at least on pre-order. Because of that, I’m having a 50Book Bash! all month long on Facebook. Here’s the link if you want to sign up to say you're coming and get a reminder of the event. It will be a month of fun and chances to win prizes. I’m giving away prizes every day to people who comment.

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 50 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it. This is what Books a Plenty Book Reviews has to say about the Gabriel Hawke series: "The blend of nature tracking, clues, and the animals makes for a fascinating mystery that is hard to put down." 

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