Like other Native American prophets, Smohalla was labeled a fraud by the American authorities and press. They blamed Smohalla and his new Washat dances for stirring up discontent. They claimed he was the mastermind behind all Native acts of resistance. On several occasions they sought to force him to agree to treaties, but each time Smohalla outmaneuvered the Americans and kept his small community off the reservation. He would meet with the American negotiators on reservation lands, out debate them and shame them, camp there until they were gone, and then return to the Columbia, where his people, the Wanapams, the River people, would continue to live as they had for centuries. In every regard Smohalla rejected settler culture. He did not want their money, their annuities, their schools, their technology, or their churches. He was an iconoclast. He did not see any value in what they offered him. Instead , he preached the old values of his ancestors. While other yantcha upheld the same message, Smohalla became the most widely revered. His integrity and tenacity, as well as his reputation for outsmarting the aggressors, won him converts throughout the Plateau and as far away as Nevada and the Dakotas. The Washat dances spread far and wide, creating more anxiety among the American authorities.
--We Survived the End Of The World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope by Steven Charleston
