THE FALL OF SNOQUALM
Not far from the Snoqualmie hop ranch, on the Snoqualmie prairie, is
a large mountain called Old Si, with what seems to be the image of a
human form on the face of it. The story of its origin as told by the
old Snoqualmie Indians, is one of the best legends that the Puget Sound
Indians possess.
Snoqualm, the moon, then the king of the heavens, commanded the spider
ty-ee (chief) to make a rope of cedar bark and stretch it from the sky
to the earth. Upon seeing this, S’Beow’s son, Si’Beow, told Ki-ki, the
bluejay, S’Beow’s grandmother, to go up along the rope and then told his
father to follow her.
The bluejay kept going up and going up and going up and S’Beow following
after her, kept climbing up and climbing up and climbing up and the
bluejay kept flying up and flying up and flying up a long time until
she reached the under side of the sky, and S’Beow kept climbing up and
climbing a-lo-ong time until he too got to where the great rope was
fastened on the under side of the sky. And the bluejay began pecking away
and she continued picking away and picking away and picking away until
she made a hole through into the sky. It was well into the night when
Ki-ki finished making her hole through and S’Beow followed after her into
the sky. When S’Beow got through the hole he found himself in a lake. He
changed himself into a beaver and got caught in a dead-fall beaver trap,
which had been set by Snoqualm and when Snoqualm examined his trap in the
morning he found a dead beaver with his skull crushed in. The Great Ty-ee
took the beaver out of the trap, took the beaver to his home, skinned it,
stretched the skin upon a hoop, hung it up to dry and threw the carcass
over in the corner of his smoke house. All day long and well into the
night S’Beow lay there a dead beaver’s carcass. At last Snoqualm fell
into deep sleep and was heard snoring loudly. Then S’Beow got up, took
his skin from the wall, removed it from the hoop and put it on himself
and set about to explore the house of the Great Ty-ee. Outside the house
he found some great forests of fir and cedar trees, which he pulled out
by he roots and by his ta-mahn-a-wis (magic) made them small enough so
that he could carry them under his arm.
He then entered the house and found hidden on one shelf the machinery
that made the daylight, which he carried under the other arm. He took
some fire from under the smoke hole, put some ashes around it and wrapped
it with bark and leaves and carried it in one hand, in the other he
carried the sun which he found hidden on the same shelf as the machinery
which made the daylight. With all these things he proceeded to the lake
out of which he had been trapped on the previous day, transformed himself
into a beaver again, dove to the bottom of the lake and found where the
spider Ty-ee had made the rope fast. He changed himself back into old
S’Beow again and descended to earth, where he set out all the great trees
around Puget Sound. He gave fire to the people, set the Sun in position
and put the machinery that makes the daylight to working.
When Snoqualm awoke and saw what had been stolen, he in great rage
pursued old S’Beow, going straight away to the place where the rope was
made fast and started to descend to earth. The rope gave way with him and
Snoqualm and the great rope fell in a heap making that great mountain
near the head waters of the Snoqualmie river, and the outline of the
human face which the Indian fancies to this day that he can see in the
distance is what is left of old Snoqualm, once the Great King of the
Heavens.
[Illustration]