GRETCHEN'S VISIT TO THE OLD CHIEF OF THE CASCADES.
"Go to the chief's lodge, Gretchen, and stay until the Potlatch, and I
will come to visit you." Such were the words of Mrs. Woods, as her final
decision, after long considering the chief's request.
The forest lodge of the old chief of the Cascades was picturesque without
and within. Outwardly, it was a mere tent of skins and curious
pictography, under the shadows of gigantic trees, looking down on the
glistening waters of the Columbia; inwardly, it was a museum of relics of
the supposed era of the giant-killers, and of the deep regions of the
tooth and claw; of Potlatches, masques and charms of _medas_ and
_wabenoes_; of curious pipes; of odd, curious feathers, and beautiful
shells and feather-work and pearls. But, though all things here were rude
and primitive, the old chief had a strong poetic sense, and the place and
the arrangement of everything in it were very picturesque in its effect,
and would have delighted an artist. On a hill near were grave-posts, and a
sacred grove, in which were bark coffins in trees. Near by was an open
field where the Indian hunters were accustomed to gather their peltries,
and where visiting bands of Indians came to be hospitably entertained, and
feasts were given _à la mode de sauvage_. From the plateau of the royal
lodge ran long forest trails and pathways of blazed trees; and near the
opening to the tent rose two poles, to indicate the royal rank of the
occupant. These were ornamented with ideographic devices of a historical
and religious character.
The family of Umatilla consisted of his squaw, an old woman partly
demented, and Benjamin, who was now much of the time away with the
schoolmaster.
The old chief was very kind to his unfortunate wife, and treated her like
a child or a doll. Benjamin was about to take as his bride an Indian girl
whom the English called Fair Cloud, and she was a frequent visitor at the
tent.
To this patriarchal family Gretchen came one day, bringing her violin.
Fair Cloud was there to receive her, and the crazy old squaw seemed to be
made happy by the sight of her white face, and she did all that she could
in her simple way to make her welcome. She gave her ornaments of shells,
and pointed out to her a wabeno-tree, in whose tops spirits were supposed
to whisper, and around which Indian visitors sometimes danced in the
summer evenings.
The Indian maid was eager to hear the violin, but the old chief said: "It
is the voice of the Merciful; let it be still--the god should not speak
much."
He seemed to wish to reserve the influence of the instrument for the
Potlatch, to make it an object of wonder and veneration for a time, that
its voice might be more magical when it should be heard.
There was a kind of tambourine, ornamented with fan-like feathers, in the
lodge. Fair Cloud used to play upon it, or rather shake it in a rhythmic
way. There was also a war-drum in the lodge, and an Indian called
Blackhoof used to beat it, and say:
"I walk upon the sky,
My war-drum 'tis you hear;
When the sun goes out at noon,
My war-drum 'tis you hear!
"When forkèd lightnings flash,
My war-drum 'tis you hear.
I walk upon the sky,
And call the clouds; be still,
My war-drum 'tis you hear!"
The tribes of the Oregon at this time were numerous but small. They
consisted chiefly of the Chinooks, Vancouvers, the Walla Wallas, the
Yacomars, the Spokans, the Cayuses, the Nez-Percés, the Skagits, the
Cascades, and many tribes that were scarcely more than families. They were
for the most part friendly with each other, and they found in the Oregon
or Columbia a common fishing-ground, and a water-way to all their
territories. They lived easily. The woods were full of game, and the river
of salmon, and berries loaded the plateaus. Red whortleberries filled the
woodland pastures and blackberries the margins of the woods.
The climate was an almost continuous April; there was a cloudy season in
winter with rainy nights, but the Japanese winds ate up the snows, and the
ponies grazed out of doors in mid-winter, and spring came in February. It
was almost an ideal existence that these old tribes or families of Indians
lived.
[Illustration: _An Indian village on the Columbia._]
Among the early friends of these people was Dick Trevette, whose tomb
startles the tourist on the Columbia as he passes Mamaloose, or the Island
of the Dead. He died in California, and his last request was that he might
be buried in the Indian graveyard on the Columbia River, among a race
whose hearts had always been true to him.
The old chief taught Gretchen to fish in the Columbia, and the withered
crone cooked the fish that she caught.
Strange visitors came to the lodge, among them an Indian girl who brought
her old, withered father strapped upon her back. The aged Indian wished to
pay his last respects to Umatilla.
Indians of other tribes came, and they were usually entertained at a
feast, and in the evening were invited to dance about the whispering tree.
The song for the reception of strangers, which was sung at the dance, was
curious, and it was accompanied by striking the hand upon the breast over
the heart at the words "Here, here, here":
"You resemble a friend of mine,
A friend I would have in my heart--
Here, here, _here_.
"My heart is linked to thine;
You are like a friend of mine--
Here, here, _here_.
"Are we not brothers, then;
Shall we not meet again--
Here, here, _here_?
"Mi, yes, we brothers be,
So my fond heart sings to thee--
Here, here, _here_.
"Ah! yes, we brothers be;
Will you not answer me--
Here, here, _here_?"
Gretchen was happy in the new kind of life. She did not fear the Indians;
in fact, the thing that she feared most was the promised visit of Mrs.
Woods. She was sure that her foster-mother's spirit would change toward
the Indians, but the change had not yet come.
One evening the schoolmaster came to call. He was bent upon a mission, as
always. The family gave him a seat outside of the tent, and gathered
around him, and they talked until the stars came out and were mirrored in
the Columbia.
One of the first questions asked by the old chief was, "Is Eagle's Plume
(Benjamin) brave?" (a good scholar).
"Yes, brave at times; he must learn to be brave always. He must always
keep his better self. The world would be good if people would learn to
keep their better selves. Do you see?"
"Yes."
"A chief should conquer himself first; obey the will of the Great
Manitou--do you see?"
"Yes, but how can we know his will?"
"It is his will that we be our best minds. Forgive, and so make bad people
good, and return good for bad. Do you see?"
"Yes, boy, do you see?" (to Benjamin).
"Yes, yes, I see what white man means. But white man do not so. He
cheat--he kill."
"_Boston tilicum_, what do you say?" asked the chief.
"White man does not follow his best heart when he cheats and kills. It is
wrong. All men should be brothers--see?"
"Yes, I have tried to be a brother. I have no shed blood--I live in
peace--like yonder river. The stars love to shine on the peaceful river.
Benjamin will learn. I go away when the swallows go, and no more come when
the swallows bring the spring on their wings again. Teach Benjamin to be
his good self all the time; make him good _here_."
All the Indian visitors who came to the place examined the violin
cautiously, and the Indian hunters seemed to regard Gretchen with
suspicion. When any asked her to play for them, the old chief would
answer: "Not now, but at the Potlatch--then it speak and you will hear;
you will hear what it says."
But, of all the people that came to the lodge, no one could have been more
curious than Mrs. Woods. She had been living in terror of the threatened
events of the October feast, and yet she wished to make the Indians
believe that she was indifferent to their ill-will, and that she possessed
some hidden power that gave her security.
She approached the lodge slowly on the occasion of her visit, picking red
whortleberries by the way. Benjamin watched her nervous motions, and felt
that they implied a want of respect, and he grew silent and looked
stoical. Gretchen went out to meet her, and brought her to the old chief.
[Illustration: _Afar loomed Mount Hood._]
It was a beautiful day, one of those long dreams of golden splendor that
glorify the banks of the Oregon. Eccentric Victor Trevette and his Indian
wife were at the lodge, and the company were joined by the Rev. Jason Lee,
who had come up the Columbia in the interests of the mission in the
Willamette Valley. Seattle[B] was there, from the Willamette, then
young, and not yet the titular chief of Governor Stevens.[C] It was a
company of diverse spirits--Trevette, the reputed gambler, but the true
friend of the Indian races; Lee, who had beheld Oregon in his early
visions, and now saw the future of the mountain-domed country in dreams;
sharp-tongued but industrious and warm-hearted Mrs. Woods; the musical
German girl, with memories of the Rhine; and the Indian chief and his
family. The Columbia rolled below the tall palisades, the opposite bank
was full of cool shadows of overhanging rocks, sunless retreats, and
dripping cascades of glacier-water. Afar loomed Mount Hood in grandeur
unsurpassed, if we except Tacoma, inswathed in forests and covered with
crystal crowns. The Chinook winds were blowing coolly, coming from the
Kuro Siwo, or placid ocean-river from Japan; odoriferous, as though
spice-laden from the flowery isles of the Yellow Sea. Warm in winter, cool
in summer, like the Gulf winds of Floridian shores, the good angel of the
Puget Sea territories is the Chinook wind from far Asia, a mysterious
country, of which the old chief and his family knew no more than of the
blessed isles.
"It is a day of the Great Manitou," said the old chief. "He lights the
sun, and lifts his wings for a shadow, and breathes on the earth. He fills
our hearts with peace. I am glad."
"I only wish my people in the East knew how wonderful this country is,"
said Jason Lee. "I am blamed and distrusted because I leave my mission
work to see what great resources here await mankind. I do it only for the
good of others--something within me impels me to do it, yet they say I
neglect my work to become a political pioneer. As well might they censure
Joshua."
"As a missionary," said the old hunter, "you would teach the Indians
truth; as a pioneer, you would bring colonies here to rob them of their
lands and rights. I can respect the missionary, but not the pioneer. See
the happiness of all these tribal families. Benjamin is right--Mrs. Woods
has no business here."
"Adventurer," said Mrs. Woods, rising upon her feet, "I am a
working-woman--I came out here to work and improve the country, and you
came here to live on your Injun wife. The world belongs to those who work,
and not to the idle. It is running water that freshens the earth. Husband
and I built our house with our own hands, and I made my garden with my own
hands, and I have defended my property with my own hands against bears
and Injuns, and have kept husband to work at the block-house to earn money
for the day of trouble and helplessness that is sure some day to come to
us all. I raise my own garden-sass and all other sass. I'm an honest
woman, that's what I am, and have asked nothing in the world but what I
have earned, and don't you dare to question my rights to anything I
possess! I never had a dollar that I did not earn, and that honestly, and
what is mine is mine."
"Be careful, woman," said the hunter. "It will not be yours very long
unless you have a different temper and tongue. There are black wings in
the sky, and you would not be so cool if you had heard the things that
have come to my ears."
Mrs. Woods was secretly alarmed. She felt that her assumed boldness was
insincere, and that any insincerity is weakness. She glanced up a long
ladder of rods or poles which were hung with Potlatch masks--fearful and
merciless visages, fit to cover the faces of crime. She had heard that
Umatilla would never put on a mask himself, although he allowed the custom
at the tribal dances. Mrs. Woods dropped her black eyes from the ominous
masks to the honest face of the chief.
"There," said she, lifting her arm, "there sits an honest man. He never
covered his heart with a mask--he never covered his face with a mask. He
has promised me protection. He has promised to protect the school. I can
trust a man who never wears a mask. Most people wear masks--Death takes
the masks away; when Death comes to Umatilla, he will find great Umatilla
only, fearless and noble--honest and true, but no mask. He never wore a
mask."
"But, woman," said Umatilla, "you are wearing a mask; you are afraid."
"Yes, but I can trust your word."
"You seek to please me for your own good."
"Yes--but, Umatilla, I can trust your word."
"The word of Umatilla was never broken. Death will come to Umatilla for
his mask, and will go away with an empty hand. I have tried to make my
people better.--Brother Lee, you have come here to instruct me--I honor
you. Listen to an old Indian's story. Sit down all. I have something that
I would say to you."
The company sat down and listened to the old chief. They expected that he
would speak in a parable, and he did. He told them in Chinook the story of
_THE WOLF BROTHER._
An old Indian hunter was dying in his lodge. The barks were lifted to
admit the air. The winds of the seas came and revived him, and he called
his three children to him and made his last bequests.
"My son," he said, "I am going out into the unknown life whence I came.
Give yourself to those who need you most, and always be true to your
younger brother."
"My daughter," he said, "be a mother to your younger brother. Give him
your love, or for want of it he may become lonely and as savage as the
animals are."
The two older children promised, and the father died at sunset, and went
into the unknown life whence he came.
The old Indian had lived apart from the villages of men for the sake of
peace; but now, after his death, the oldest son sought the villages and he
desired to live in them. "My sister," he said, "can look out for my little
brother. I must look out for myself."
But the sister tired of solitude, and longed to go to the villages. So one
day she said to her little brother: "I am going away to find our brother
who has taken up his abode in the villages. I will come back in a few
moons. Stay you here."
But she married in the villages, and did not return.
The little brother was left all alone, and lived on roots and berries. He
one day found a den of young wolves and fed them, and the mother-wolf
seemed so friendly that he visited her daily. So he made the acquaintance
of the great wolf family, and came to like them, and roam about with them,
and he no longer was lonesome or wished for the company of men.
One day the pack of wolves came near the villages, and the little boy saw
his brother fishing and his sister weaving under a tree. He drew near
them, and they recognized him.
"Come to us, little brother," said they, sorry that they had left him to
the animals.
"No--no!" said he. "I would rather be a wolf. The wolves have been kinder
to me than you.
"My brother,
My brother,
I am turning--
am turning
Into a wolf.
You made me so!
"My sister,
My sister,
I am turning--
I am turning
Into a wolf.
You made me so!"
"O little brother, forgive me," said the sister; "forgive me!"
"It is too late now. See, I _am_ a wolf!"
He howled, and ran away with the pack of wolves, and they never saw him
again.
* * * * *
"Jason Lee, be good to my people when I am gone, lest they become like the
little brother.
"Victor Trevette, be good to my people when I am gone, lest they become
like the little brother."
The tall form of Marlowe Mann now appeared before the open entrance of the
lodge. The Yankee schoolmaster had been listening to the story. The old
chief bent his eye upon him, and said, "And, Boston tilicum, do you be
good to Benjamin when I am gone, so that he shall not become like the
little brother."
"You may play, Gretchen, now--it is a solemn hour; the voices of the gods
should speak."
Gretchen took her violin. Standing near the door of the tent, she raised
it to her arm, and the strains of some old German music rose in the
glimmering air, and drifted over the Columbia.
"I think that there are worlds around this," said the old chief. "The
Great Spirit is good."
The sun was going down. High in the air the wild fowls were flying, with
the bright light yet on their wings. The glaciers of Mount Hood were
flushed with crimson--a sea of glass mingled with fire. It was a pastoral
scene; in it the old history of Oregon was coming to an end, after the
mysteries of a thousand years, and the new history of civilization was
beginning.
Evening came, and the company dispersed, but the old chief and Gretchen
sat down outside of the tent, and listened to the murmuring music of the
Dalles of the Columbia, and breathed the vital air. The Columbia is a mile
wide in some places, but it narrows at the Dalles, or shelves and pours
over the stone steps the gathered force of its many tides and streams.
Across the river a waterfall filled the air with misty beauty, and a
castellated crag arose solitary and solemn--the remnant of some great
upheaval in the volcanic ages.
[Illustration: _A castellated crag arose solitary and solemn._]
The red ashes of the sunset lingered after the fires of the long day had
gone down, and the stars came out slowly. The old chief was sad and
thoughtful.
"Sit down by my feet, my child," he said to Gretchen, or in words of this
meaning. "I have been thinking what it is that makes the music in the
violin. Let us talk together, for something whispers in the leaves that my
days are almost done."
"Let me get the violin and play to you, father; we are alone."
"Yes, yes; get the music, child, and you shall play, and we will talk. You
shall sit down at my feet and play, and we will talk. Go, my little
spirit."
Gretchen brought her violin, and sat down at his feet and tuned it. She
then drew her bow, and threw on the air a haunting strain.
"Stop there, little spirit. It is beautiful. But what made it beautiful?"
"My bow--don't you see?"
Gretchen drew her bow, and again lifted the same haunting air.
"No--no--my girl--not the bow--something behind the bow."
"The strings?"
"No--no--something behind the strings."
"My fingers--so?"
"No--no--something behind the fingers."
"My head--_here_?"
"No--something behind that."
"My heart?"
"No--no--something behind that."
"I?"
"Yes--you, but something behind that. I have not seen it, my girl--your
spirit. It is that that makes the music; but there is something behind
that. I can feel what I can not see. I am going away, girl--going away to
the source of the stream. Then I will know everything good is
beautiful--it is good that makes you beautiful, and the music beautiful.
It is good that makes the river beautiful, and the stars. I am going away
where all is beautiful. When I am gone, teach my poor people."
Gretchen drew his red hand to her lips and kissed it. The chief bent low
his plumed head and said:
"That was so beautiful, my little spirit, that I am in a haste to go. One
moon, and I will go. Play."
Gretchen obeyed. When the strain died, the two sat and listened to the
murmuring of the waters, as the river glided down the shelves, and both of
them felt that the Spirit of Eternal Goodness with a Father's love
watched over everything.
The old chief rose, and said again:
"When I am gone to my fathers, teach my poor people." He added: "The voice
of the good spirits ask it--the All-Good asks it--I shall go away--to the
land whence the light comes. You stay--teach. You will?"
"Yes," said Gretchen--a consciousness of her true calling in life coming
upon her, as in an open vision--"I will be their teacher."
The old chief seemed satisfied, and said: "It is well; I am going away."
Much of the chief's talk was acted. If he wished to speak of a star, he
would point to it; and he would imitate a bird's call to designate a bird,
and the gurgle of water when speaking of a running stream. He spoke
Chinook freely, and to see him when he was speaking was to learn from his
motions his meaning.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote B: See Historical Notes.]
[Footnote C: See Historical Notes.]