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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 91 presently came tolight that he had delegated his brother to act as chief during his absence, and, probably because of appeals from his representative, had sought to'direct matters in.the village by corre-spondence. Now this was not according to my programme. The gov-ernment of Oraibi I had placed in the hands of a commission, and it seems that the actions of the friendly judge who was serving on this commission did not always please some of the friendly faction. In-vestigation proved, however, that the very reasons they assigned for urging his removal were the best ones in the world for keeping him in office. It was thought wise, therefore, for the supervisor to take a representative from Oraibi to Riverside to talk things over with Ta wa quap te wa. This stroke of diplomacy did the business. The conference soon reached an understanding as to the status of the governing body, and the interference of the school-going chief came to an end. In concluding this bit of history I would say that Super'visor Perry, who dealt with the trying crisis at Oraibi as my representative and straightened out the tangles on the civil side of it, was in constant and close communication with me all the time by wire. He was cau-' tioned throughout against any measures which would bring unneces-sary hardship upon the poor, benighted creatures with whom we had to deal; to keep the situation always firmly in hand but never to force it; to induce submission rather than reduce the Indians to it; to repeat to the hostiles, whenever occasion offered, my message that the Government was their best friend, was trying to help and not to hnrt. them, and had no vengeful feeling for anything that. was past, but would welcome them as cordially as the friendlies to its care when they got ready to come; to exact from the friendlies jnst and fair treatment of the hostiles, and to make everyone understand that the Government took no sides in the local quarrels over religious matters, but that Washington's platform was simply peace, education, and conformity to law. These instructions Mr. Perry appears to have . carried out in both letter and spirit. NAVAHO PRISONERB. In my last'report I gave an account of the suppression of a dis-turbance among the Navaho Indians, by the arrest of seven men involved in an insurrectionary attempt, and their imprisonment at hard labor on Alcatraz Islandin San Francisco Harbor. After a few months' confinement there I felt some fear that the dampness of the climate, to which they were wholly unaccustomed, might affect their health, and had them transferred to Fort Huachucha, in Arizona. On October 12. 1906, the one-vear sentences of Winslow. Tsosa Begay, and Ush Tilly, with commutation for good behavior, expired |