Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 132, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1913 — BLIND INDIAN LIVES ALONE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BLIND INDIAN LIVES ALONE

Eschnumkein Paul, Aged Brave of Calispel Tribe, Leads Life of Seclusion.

Spokane, Wash.—Totally blind and living entirely alone, two miles from his nearest neighbor, building fires and cooking his own meals, even to making bread, is Eschnumkein Paul, an aged Indian of the Calispel tribe, according to the story brought here by Father Louis Taelman, president of Gonzaga university. Father Taelman, who a few years ago was a missionary to the Calispel Indians, still is their spiritual adviser, and makes frequent trips to their tented village on the Pend Oreme river, some 60 miles northeast of Spokane. ’But the old, blind tribesman lives apart from his people, a life of the utmost seclusion. "I was amazed at the case of old blind Eschnumkein Paul,” states Father Taelman. "I investigated his condition. He is stone blind and yet he lives entirely alone, two miles from

the nearest neighbor. The wonderful part of his story is that he travels at will, always going directly to the place at which he desires to visit. He never gets confused in roads by taking the wrong one, in a small cabin throughout the year without assistance. He builds all his own fires and prepares his meals. He can cut his meat or make bread as good as most persons who have the use of their eyes. “The only way in which 1 can account for his strange case is that the wonderful Instinct, which every Indian has. has become so acute in him during the 40 years of his blindness that it has taken the place of his eyes. "Among the Calispels there is a great deal of blindness and bad eyes, due to the smoke from their tepee fires. It has proved a great detriment to their more rapid advance in civilization. The old head chief. Masalah, is blind.”

Eschnumkein Paul.