A SILENT TRIBE.
It was sunset on the bluffs and valleys of the Columbia. Through the tall,
dark pines and firs the red west glowed like the lights in an oriel or
mullioned window. The air was voiceless. The Columbia rolled silently in
the shadows with a shimmering of crimson on its deep middle tides. The
long, brown boats of the salmon-fishers sat motionless on the tide. Among
the craft of the fishermen glided a long, airy canoe, with swift paddles.
It contained an old Umatilla Indian, his daughter, and a young warrior.
The party were going to the young chief's funeral.
[Illustration: _Multnomah Falls._]
As the canoe glided on amid the still fishermen of other tribes, the
Indian maiden began to sing. It was a strange song, of immortality, and of
spiritual horizons beyond the visible life. The Umatillas have poetic
minds. To them white Tacoma with her gushing streams means a mother's
breast, and the streams themselves, like the Falls of the distant
Shoshone, were "falling splendors."
She sang in Chinook, and the burden of her song was that horizons will
lift forever in the unknown future. The Chinook word _tamala_ means
"to-morrow"; and to-morrow, to the Indian mind, was eternal life.
The young warrior joined in the refrain, and the old Indian listened. The
thought of the song was something as follows:
"Aha! it is ever to-morrow, to-morrow--
Tamala, tamala, sing as we row;
Lift thine eye to the mount; to the wave give thy sorrow;
The river is bright, and the rivulets flow;
Tamala, tamala,
Ever and ever;
The morrows will come and the morrows will go--
Tamala! tamala!
"Happy boat, it is ever to-morrow, to-morrow--
Tamala, whisper the waves as they flow;
The crags of the sunset the smiles of light borrow,
And soft from the ocean the Chinook winds blow:
Tamala, tamala,
Ever and ever;
The morrows will come and the morrows will go--
Tamala! tamala!
"Aha! the night comes, but the light is to-morrow--
Tamala, tamala, sing as we go;
The waves ripple past, like the heart-beats of sorrow,
And the oar beats the wave to our song as we row:
Tamala, tamala,
Ever and ever;
The morrows will come and the morrows will go--
Tamala! tamala!
"For ever and ever horizons are lifting--
Tamala, tamala, sing as we row;
And life toward the stars of the ocean is drifting,
Through death will the morrow all endlessly glow--
Tamala, tamala,
Ever and ever;
The morrows will come and the morrows will go,
Tamala! tamala!"
The paddle dipped in the wave at the word _tamala_, and lifted high to
mark the measure of the song, and strew in the warm, soft air the watery
jewels colored by the far fires of the Sound. So the boat swept on, like a
spirit bark, and the beautiful word of immortality was echoed from the
darkening bluffs and the primitive pine cathedrals.
The place where the grave had been made was on the borders of the Oregon
desert, a wild, open region, walled with tremendous forests, and spreading
out in the red sunset like a sea. It had a scanty vegetation, but a slight
rain would sometimes change it into a billowy plain of flowers.
The tribe had begun to assemble about the grave early in the long
afternoon. They came one by one, solitary and silent, wrapped in blankets
and ornamented with gray plumes. The warriors came in the same solitary
way and met in silence, and stood in a long row like an army of shadows.
Squaws came, leading children by the hand, and seated themselves on the
soft earth in the same stoical silence that had marked the bearing of the
braves.
A circle of lofty firs, some three hundred feet high, threw a slanting
shadow over the open grave, the tops gleaming with sunset fire.
Afar, Mount Hood, the dead volcano, lifted its roof of glaciers twelve
thousand feet high. Silver ice and black carbon it was now, although in
the long ages gone it had had a history written in flame and smoke and
thunder. Tradition says that it sometimes, even now, rumbles and flashes
forth in the darkness of night, then sinks into rest again, under its
lonely ice palaces so splendid in the sunset, so weird under the moon.
Just as the red disk of the sun sunk down behind this stupendous scenery,
a low, guttural sound was uttered by Potlatch Hero, an old Indian brave,
and it passed along the line of the shadowy braves. No one moved, but all
eyes were turned toward the lodge of the old Umatilla chief.
He was coming--slowly, with measured step; naked, except the decent
covering of a blanket and a heroic ornament of eagle-plumes, and all
alone.
The whole tribe had now gathered, and a thousand dusky forms awaited him
in the sunset.
There was another guttural sound. Another remarkable life-picture came
into view. It was the school in a silent procession, following the tall
masks, out of the forest trail on to the glimmering plain, the advent of
that new civilization before which the forest lords, once the poetic bands
of the old Umatillas, were to disappear. Over all a solitary eagle beat
the luminous air, and flocks of wild geese made their way, like V-letters,
toward the Puget Sea.
The school soon joined the dusky company, and the pupils stood with
uncovered heads around their Yankee pedagogue. But the old chief came
slowly. After each few steps he would stop, fold his arms, and seem lost
in contemplation. These pauses were longer as he drew near the silent
company.
Except the honks of the pilots of the flocks of wild geese, there was a
dead silence everywhere. Only eyes moved, and then furtively, toward the
advancing chief.
[Illustration: _The old chief stood stoical and silent._]
He reached the grave at last by these slow movements, and stepped upon the
earth that had been thrown out of it, and folded his arms in view of
all. A golden star, like a lamp in the windows of heaven, hung over Mount
Hood in the fading splendors of the twilight, and the great chief bent his
eye upon it.
Suddenly the air was rent by a wail, and a rattle of shells and drums. The
body of Benjamin was being brought out of the lodge. It was borne on a
bier made of poles, and covered with boughs of pine and fir and red
mountain phlox. It was wrapped in a blanket, and strewn with odorous
ferns. Four young braves bore it, besmeared with war-paint. They were
followed by musicians, who beat their drums, and rattled shell instruments
at irregular times, as they advanced. They came to the grave, lifted the
body on its blanket from the bier of evergreens and flowers, and slowly
lowered it. The old chief stood stoical and silent, his eye fixed on the
star in the darkening shadows.
The face of Benjamin was noble and beautiful in its death-sleep. Over it
were two black eagle's plumes. The deep black hair lay loosely about the
high, bronze forehead; there was an expression of benevolence in the
compressed lips, and the helpless hands seemed like a picture as they lay
crossed on each other.
As soon as the body was laid in the earth, the old chief bent his face on
the people. The mysterious dimness of death was in his features. His eyes
gleamed, and his bronze lips were turning pale.
"My nation, listen; 'tis my last voice. I am a Umatilla. In my youth the
birds in the free lakes of the air were not more free. I spoke, and you
obeyed. I have but one more command to give. Will you obey me?
"You bow, and I am glad.
"Listen!
"My fathers were men of war. They rolled the battle-drums. I taught my
warriors to play the pipes of peace, and sixty years have they played them
under the great moons of the maize-fields. We were happy. I was happy.
"I had seven sons. The white man's plague came; the shadow fell on six of
them, and they went away with the storm-birds. They entered the new canoe,
and sailed beyond us on the sea of life. They came back no more at the
sunrisings and sun settings, at the leaf-gatherings of the spring, or the
leaf-fallings of the autumn. They are beyond.
"One son was left me--Benjamin. He was no common youth; the high spirits
were with him, and he came to be like them, and he has gone to them now. I
loved him. He was my eyes; he was my ears; he was my heart. When I saw his
eyes in death, my eyes were dead; when he could hear me call his name no
longer, my ears lost their hearing; when his young heart ceased to beat,
my own heart was dead. All that I am lies in that grave, beside my dead
boy.
"My nation, you have always obeyed me. I have but one more command to
make. Will you obey me?
"You bow again. My life-blood is growing cold. I am about to go down into
that grave.
"One step! The clouds fly and darken, and you will see them return again,
but not I.
"Two steps! Farewell, sun and light of day. I shall see thee again, but
not as now.
"Three steps! Downward to the grave I descend to meet thee, my own dear
boy. Adieu, my people. Adieu, hearts of faith. Farewell, ye birds of the
air, ye mighty forests, ye sun of night, and ye marches of stars. I am
dying.
"Two steps more I will take. There he lies before me in the unfolded
earth, the life of my life, the heart of my heart.
"You have promised to obey me. I repeat it--you have promised to obey me.
You have always done so. You must do so now. My hands are cold, my feet
are cold, and my heart beats very slow. Three steps more, and I shall lay
myself on the body of my boy. Hear, then, my last command; you have
promised to obey it like brave men.
"When I have taken my last three steps of life, and laid down beside the
uncovered bed of earth beside my boy, fill up the grave forever; my breath
will be gone; Umatilla will be no more. You must obey.
"One step--look! There is fire on the mountain under the curtains of the
night. Look, the peak flashes; it is on fire.--O Spirit of All, I come!
One step more! Farewell, earth. Warriors, fill the grave! The black
eagle's plumes will now rest forever."
There was deep silence, broken only by the sobs of the little school. A
warrior moved and passed round the grave, and uttered the word "Dead!" The
braves followed him, and the whole tribe like shadows. "Dead!" "Dead!"
passed from mouth to mouth. Then a warrior threw a handful of earth into
the grave of the father and son. The braves followed his example, then all
the tribe.
As they were so doing, like phantoms in the dim light, Mount Saint
Helens[D] blazed again--one volcanic flash, then another; then all was
darkness, and the moon arose in a broad sea of light like a spectral sun.
The grave was filled at last. Then they brought the Cayuse pony of
Benjamin toward the grave, and a young brave raised the hatchet to kill
it, that it might bear the dead boy into the unknown land.
There was a cry! It came from Gretchen. The girl rushed forward and stood
before the hatchet. The pony seemed to know her, and he put his head over
her shoulder.
"Spare him!" she said. "Benjamin gave him to me--the soul of Benjamin
would wish it so."
"Let the girl have her way," said the old warriors.
The moon now moved free in the dark-blue sky, and sky, forest, and plain
were a silver sea. The Indians began to move away like shadows, one by
one, silent and slow. Gretchen was the last to go. She followed the
school, leading the pony, her soul filled with that consciousness of a new
life that had so wonderfully come to her. Her way in life now seemed
clear: she must teach the Umatillas.
She left the pony in a grassy clearing, on the trail that led to her home,
and hurried toward the cabin to describe all the events of the day to her
foster-mother.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote D: See Notes.]