THE AGED PAIR——BIRTHPLACE OF LEGENDS.
The scene changes, and we stand on the deck of a river steamer with its
prow pointed eastward.
For hours we have steamed along in the shadows of the Cascade mountains,
through deep, dark cañons, with walls so high that the smoke-stack of our
little boat seemed like a pipe-stem. “Puny thing” it is. Yet it bears us
over boiling eddies and up rapids that shoot between high rocks like
immense streams of silver from the great furnace of creation.
We are startled at the sound of the whistle on our deck, and grow anxious
when the nearest cañon answers back, and still another takes up the sound,
and the echo turns to its original starting-point, and finds its own
offspring talking back in fainter voice, until it dies away like the
rumbling of some fast-retreating train rushing through the open field or
wooded glens.
Soon we are on board the thundering train, whirling away toward the upper
cascades, swinging around curves and beneath ledges, and overhanging the
rushing floods hundreds of feet below. As we fly swiftly along, the
conductor, or some one familiar with this cascade country, points out the
battle-grounds where the red men fought white men for their homes. The
battle was a fierce one, and lasted several days, when the Indians
withdrew.
There are traditions yet among Indians and white settlers; and it is
related that in former times the Indians who lived along the banks of the
Columbia were employed to assist the white men in transporting goods over
the portages (or carrying places), and they were ill-treated by their
employers, and their rights disregarded.
The invasion of the country was not the most grievous complaint. They were
furnished whiskey, were debauched, and corrupted as a people, until virtue
was unknown among their women; the men themselves selling their wives and
daughters for the basest purposes. Degraded, polluted, and in despair,
they sought to wreak vengeance on their seducers.
If those who debased them were the only victims, no just condemnation
could be pronounced against them.
There is a feeling of respect for the man, though a savage he may be, who
defends his home, and resents imposition even at the risk of life. But
humanity revolts against the butchery of innocent persons, no matter what
the color may be, or the cause of provocation of race against race.
A few survivors of the Cascade tribes may be found now on Warm Springs and
Yak-a-ma agencies.
The traveller on the Columbia meets, occasionally, a man and his family,
still lingering around their old homes, living in bark-covered huts,
sometimes employed in laboring for the Steam Navigation Company, who
transport the commerce that passes through the mountain at this point.
These stragglers are poor, miserably degraded savages, and are not fair
specimens of their race.
An old Indian legend connected with the Cascades has been repeated to
tourists over and over again. It has been written in verse, in elegant
style and forceful expression, by S. A. Clark, Esq., of Salem, Oregon,
published in February number of Harper’s Magazine for 1874. The poem is
worthy of perusal, and ought to make the author’s fame as a poet.
The substance of the legend is to the effect, that many, many years ago,
before the eyes of the pale-faces had gazed on the wonders of the
Cascades, the river was bridged by a span of mountains, beneath which it
passed to the ocean; that to this bridge the children of Mount Hood on the
south, and those of Mount Adams on the north, made yearly pilgrimage, to
worship the Great Spirit, and exchange savage courtesies, and to lay in
stores of fish for winter use. The Great Spirit blessed them, and they
came and went for generations untold.
They tell how the exchange of friendship continued, until at length a
beautiful maiden, who had been chosen for a priestess, was wooed and won
by a haughty Indian brave of another tribe. On her withdrawal from the
office her people became indignant, and demanded her return. This was
refused, and when, on their annual visit, they came from the north and
from the south, bitter quarrels ensued, until, at last, fierce wars raged,
and the rock spanning the river became a battle-ground. Soch-a-la
tyee——God——was vexed at the children, and caused the bridge to fall. Thus
he separated them, and bade each abide where he had placed them.
The legend still lives fresh in the memory of these Indians, and they
respect the command. Few have changed their residences. The ragged
mountains on either side support well the historic tale. High, bald
summits stand confronting each other, and it requires no effort of the
imagination to see the Great Bridge as it is said once to have stood, and
to hear rising on the winds, the weird, wild songs of the people at the
time of sacrifice.
At the place where this legend had its origin the “Columbia” is crowded by
its banks into so narrow a channel that an Indian might, with his sling,
make a stone to trace the curves of the ancient arch. The waters rush so
swiftly that the keenest sight can scarcely keep the course of timber
drift in view. The river’s bosom is smooth above this rapid flow, and,
widening, takes the semblance of a lake, in whose depth may be seen the
trees that once were growing green, but now to stone have turned; they
never move before the breeze; they sway not, nor yet can yield to the
gentle currents, still standing witnesses of the legend’s truth.
Midway between the shores an island stands, fashioned and fitted for a
burial-ground of the tribes that had oft, in ages past, made use of it at
nature’s invitation, and had borne to this resting-place the warriors
whose spirits passed up to the happier lands; while the body resting here
might wait for the coming of some Great Prophet, who should bid the bones
to rise and become part and parcel of human forms, and mingle with those
who remain to build the nightly fires and feed the mouldering bodies of
their dead, until the great past should be re-born and live again attended
by all the circumstances of savage life.
[Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF INDIAN LEGENDS.]
Sitting in the pilot-house of the steamer “Tenino,” beside “McNulty,” her
captain, hear him tell how these people come, at certain times, to pay
honor to their dead; how, in years gone by, from the “Tenino” he could see
the old sachems sitting bolt upright in their wooden graves and calmly
waiting, watching, with sightless eyes, for the coming hour foretold
before they died; how, with fleshless hands, they clutched the rotting
handle of the battle-axe of flint or fishing-spears.
Then see his eye kindle while he tells you of relic-hunters from the East,
who came on board the “Tenino” with boxes and lines and other devices for
relic-hunting, and requested that he would land them on the shores of this
lone island. You will feel the fire of that eye warming your heart towards
the dead, and living too, when it declares in full sympathy, with the rich
Irish voice, “That while he commands the ‘Tenino’ _no grave-robbers_ shall
ever disturb the old heroes who sit patiently waiting for their
resurrection. No sacrilegious foot shall leave his vessel’s deck to
perpetrate so foul a deed!”
You will honor him still better when you learn that, in his whole-hearted
generosity, he declares that “No man shall ever disturb the repose of the
congregated dead, on that little island, while he lives, and escape
unpunished.”
Brave, fearless captain, many years have you passed daily in sight, and
scanned their sepulchres; self-appointed guardian, you have been true to
the impulse of a noble heart; you have exalted our opinion of the race you
represent; and for your fidelity to the cause of a common humanity, and
especially to the race whose dark faces seldom light up from recognition
by those whose power has been but the destruction of their own, do we
thank you.
May many winters come and go before their snows shall bring to you old
age; and when, at last, the “Tenino” shall be laid aside, may you still be
guardian of this spot, so sacred to many a sad and hopeless heart.
Leaving behind, on our upward journey, the burial-ground of the mountain
tribes, in charge of the faithful McNulty, we pass beneath high rock
cliffs, sometimes near beautiful valleys, with farm cottages and lowing
cattle on hill-side pastures. Through the deep cañons that cut the table
mountains in twain, as if made on purpose for tourists’ delight, Mount
Hood, the father mountain, comes suddenly in view; the beauty much
enhanced when seen through nature’s telescope, made by rifts in solid
rocks, with sky-lights reaching to the stars above. Words may not give
even a faint outline of the scene. McNulty, though for years he has gazed
on this sublime painting,——at morning, when the shadows cover the
telescope, but light the mountain up; and at evening, too, when both were
shaded,——sees new beauties at every sight; and, not content to worship all
alone, he rings his call to the engineer, and the vessel slackens her
speed, and “rounds to” in proper place, while the captain calls his guests
to the grandest banquet that earth affords, and points out the beauties as
each one paints the panorama on his soul.
See, there the old Father Hood stands, with his wreath of snow, which he
has worn since the time when man was unknown. Sometimes he hides his
hoary head in clouds, unwilling to witness the injustice done the puny
children who have played around his feet for generations past. We see his
own sons, still in primeval manhood, with heads crowned with fir or
laurel, standing at his side and looking up, are ever ready to bear the
winter’s burdens that from his shoulders fall.
Again we glide on the smooth surface of the shining river until we hear
repeated the captain’s call to witness now how impartial God has been, and
to prevent any jealousy that might arise, has made on the other shore,
looking northward, twin telescope to the first, and twin mountain, too,
for now we see another hoary head, rich in clustered snow-banks that
ornament her brow. Mother Adams stands calmly overlooking her daughters,
who modestly wear garlands of wild wood-vines, and heavy-topped fragrant
cedars. She feels her solitude, and when “Hood” draws his mantle over his
majestic shoulders, she, too, puts on a silvery veil of misty wreath, or,
in seeming anger, drapes in mourning and weeps; the deluge of her tears
giving signs of willingness to make friends again. And then these two old
mountains smile and nod, and looking above the clouds that covered the
heads of younger ones, they, giants in solitude, become reconciled. The
lesser ones then peep through the rising mist, and smile to catch their
estranged parents making up.
Leaving these grand scenes, the mountains, smaller, waste away into gentle
hills, and we feel that we have passed the portals of a paradise, shut out
from ocean storms by great barriers of rocks. The river grows narrow, the
banks are perpendicular walls of solid rocks of moderate height. Rounding
a turn in the river, suddenly comes to view “The Dalles,” a small city
near the river brink, nestling in an amphitheatre, formed by curved walls
of rocky bluffs. In times past _The Dalles_ was a starting-point for the
mines of Eastern Oregon and Idaho, and was, also, the seat of a United
States fort. Its streets have felt the tread of merchant princes, and
miners of every grade and color; of the tramping of bands of Indian ponies
brought here to be sold or to parade some red man’s wealth; of heavily
ladened wheels bearing merchandise.
Busy throngs peopled then its streets, but now they are less merry;
business has taken long strides toward surer success and larger life. Long
years ago it was a great resort for Indians, who came to feast and gamble,
and exchange captive slaves. Many old legends date from this post, and
some of them are rich in historic truths; others in romance of human
lives, and, others still, of fairy tales and ghostly stories.
A few miles above the city the river passes between almost perpendicular
walls of stone, while through the narrow gorge the water leaps from ledge
to ledge in quick succession, making huge billows of the rushing current,
so rapid that no steamer or canoe has ever upward passed, though both have
downward been in perfect safety. At this point the great schools of
salmon, on their journey to the lakes and smaller streams, halt to rest,
and thus prepare themselves for more severe struggles and more daring
feats. Here the red men have, year after year, come to lay in supplies of
salmon.
These fisheries are of great value, and, when the Portland, Dalles, and
Salt Lake Railroad is completed, will become sources of untold wealth,
furnishing Eastern markets with choicest salmon. Before leaving this
fishery, I would state, for the information of by readers, that the
Indians have some peculiar ideas about salmon. They “run” at regular
seasons of the year, and the Indians gather on the banks and make
preparations for catching and preserving them; but they do not take the
_first_ that come up, because they believe that, since the “Great Spirit”
furnishes them, they should be permitted to pass, in his honor, and
because the _first_ that come are supposed to be bolder, and will succeed
in getting to better spawning-grounds in higher streams.
The females always precede the males, who follow several weeks later. No
Indian would make use of the first fish caught, because of the sacrilege.
As soon, however, as the “run” fairly begins, the Indians, in their way,
give thanks, by dancing and singing. The ceremonies of opening the fishing
seasons are serious and solemn in character.
The manner of taking salmon varies. Sometimes they use dip nets, attached
to long poles resting in a crotch or fork, or, maybe, pile of rocks, as a
fulcrum. Others, with spears made of bone, pointed at each end, attached
by a strong cord of sinew at the middle to a shaft made of hard wood, with
three prongs in the end, of each of which a socket is made, wherein one
end of the bone spear is thrust, the cord attachment being of sufficient
length to permit the escape from the socket of the spear.
Thus equipped a fisherman thrusts the three-tined spear into the water at
random, and when a salmon is struck, the spear leaves the shaft; but,
still secure, turns athwart the fish, and his escape is impossible. When
he is landed the fisherman’s work is done. The fish is turned over to the
women and boys, and carried to a convenient camp, where the work of drying
them is performed by first beheading and then splitting them in two
lengthwise. They are spread on long scaffolds built on poles, and with
occasional turning are soon dried by the air and sun. The average weight
of salmon at this fishing is about fifteen pounds, though sometimes much
greater. Some have been taken weighing sixty-five pounds each, and many of
them forty pounds.
Another noticeable fact is that the nearer the ocean they are taken the
better. Those which succeed in stemming the many rapids en route to the
head-waters are poor and thin, and of little value. They often ascend
streams so small that they can be caught with the hand. It is doubtful
whether they ever return to the ocean.