Mormonee and Mericats

Captured as a child by wicked Goshutes, Loudhawk was taken north to Fort Lemhi on the Salmon River, sold as a slave to the Cheyennes and did not escape from them till he was grown. Back home again, he found himself neither Paiute nor Cheyenne but as strange to his whole tribe—and even his sick mother and the blue quamash—as a snake with legs. Everything had changed. The Mormonee had come into the land with spells and charms, pants, straw hats and hoes. Even great Chief Kanosh wore the pants, the hat, talked the talk, but would not touch the hoe. Chief Kanosh wanted a rifle and got a rifle. His warriors the same, and bullets too. To Loudhawk other strangers were called the Mericats. Mericats and Mormonee did not like each other though speaking both the same tongue, Mericat. So it was said at the Council Fire, where no room was made for Loudhawk. He must prove himself, he was told. Not in the old ways. Now he must go far away to Jondy Lee and get the pants, the hat and hoe, and learn to say in Mericat I want a job, I want to earn some money. He did all this and everything went as it should. With some of his wealth he bought a pony and started home, and on the way by means of an enchantment plucked a redbird off a bush (as though it had been a rose) for the daughter of Chief Kanosh. But she was gone when he rode in with it, wed in the canyonlands, and his mother was dead. He had proved himself. Chief Kanosh took his wealth. And now at the Council Fire Loudhawk had a place. He also had a voice but somehow did not raise it, even though the treaty puzzled him. The treaty said: Your people and my people shall band together against the Mericat. But Mormonee and Mericat were one tribe. Both “moving people.” How do you tell one from the other?  “Who’s on the Lord’s side, who?” the Indians heard the Mormonees sing as they rode painted and in their feathers like Indians themselves onto the cliffs to join them in battle. That’s how you tell, the Mormonees were on the Lord’s side. And the Mericats lay below in the Mountain Meadow . . .
     --From Variation West