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[Illustration: · THE · DISCOVERY · FIRST · VISIT · ON · PUGET · SOUND ·
1792 · OFF · BLAKELY · ROCKS ·· BY · RAPHAEL · COOMBS ··· 1895 ·

VANCOUVER’S SHIP DISCOVEROR.]




                               THE SIWASH
                                  THEIR
                         LIFE LEGENDS AND TALES

                             [Illustration]

                    PUGET SOUND AND PACIFIC NORTHWEST

                            FULLY ILLUSTRATED
                            BY J. A. COSTELLO

                             [Illustration]

                                 SEATTLE
                           THE CALVERT COMPANY
                            716 FRONT STREET
                                  1895

                           COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
                             J. A. COSTELLO
                                   AND
                            SAMUEL F. COOMBS




PREFACE


The excuse for this book is that it is the first attempt to depict the
life or ethnology of the maze of Indian tribes on Puget Sound, and it is
believed, will be found not wholly uninteresting. It has been the aim to
attain as nearly the facts in every instance as possible which in any way
lead to a proper understanding of the natives of the country as they were
found by the first whites to arrive. Mika mam-ook mika tum-tum de-late
wa-wa. Ko-pet mika ip-soot halo mika tum-tum ko-pa o-coke. De-late wa-wa
mika tum-tum, nan-ich Sahg-a-lie Tyee; my heart speaks truthful and I
hide nothing I know concerning the things of which I speak. My talk is
truthful as God sees me.

From the old pioneer and the more intelligent native have all the
material facts been drawn, and as these opportunities will not endure for
many years longer it is the belief and hope that this work will find an
enduring place in the home and public libraries.

For material aid in the compilation of the historical and pictorial
matter of this work the author is indebted to Samuel F. Coombs, one
of the few pioneers who has a genuine interest in the preservation of
the life and habits and traditions of the aboriginees; H. A. Smith, of
Smith’s cove; Rev. Myron Eels for valuable information and assistance,
touching the Skokomish Indians; Edward Morse, son of Eldridge Morse, than
whom, probably none have a truer insight into the mysteries of early
Indian life on the Sound; E. H. Brown, and to W. S. Phillips, F. Leather
and Raphael Coombs, artists.

SEATTLE, December 14, 1895.




CONTENTS


                                              PAGE

                    CHAPTER I

    A bit of history                             1

                   CHAPTER II

    Fifty-four forty or fight                    4

                   CHAPTER III

    Pioneers of the forties                      6

                   CHAPTER IV

    Siwash characteristics                      10

                    CHAPTER V

    The Flathead group                          13

                   CHAPTER VI

    The Chinook la lang                         15

                   CHAPTER VII

    Traditions of Vancouver’s appearance        17

                  CHAPTER VIII

    The Old-Man-House tribe                     19

                   CHAPTER IX

    The Twana or Skokomish tribe                33

                    CHAPTER X

    Do-Ka-Batl, a great spirit                  46

                   CHAPTER XI

    Their game of sing-gamble                   51

                   CHAPTER XII

    Twana Thunderbird                           53

                  CHAPTER XIII

    Superstition their religion                 57

                   CHAPTER XIV

    Their daily existence                       62

                   CHAPTER XV

    Legend of the first frog                    69

                   CHAPTER XVI

    Another man in the moon                     71

                  CHAPTER XVII

    S’Beow and his grandmother                  72

                  CHAPTER XVIII

    The demon Skana                             74

                   CHAPTER XIX

    The fall of Snoqualm                        75

                   CHAPTER XX

    Legend of the Stick-pan                     77

                   CHAPTER XXI

    The magic blanket                           79

                  CHAPTER XXII

    Legend of Flathead origin                   81

                  CHAPTER XXIII

    Legend of the first flood                   82

                  CHAPTER XXIV

    Origin of the sun and moon                  83

                   CHAPTER XXV

    Skobia the skunk                            84

                  CHAPTER XXVI

    The extinct Shilshoh tribe                  86

                  CHAPTER XXVII

    Quinaiults and Quillayutes                  90

                 CHAPTER XXVIII

    Tradition of a great Indian battle          99

                  CHAPTER XXIX

    Sealth and allied tribes                   102

                   CHAPTER XXX

    The Makah tribe                            115

                  CHAPTER XXXI

    Footprints of unknown travelers            122

                  CHAPTER XXXII

    Some neighborly tribes                     124

                 CHAPTER XXXIII

    Totemism and superstitions                 132

                  CHAPTER XXXIV

    Mythology and native history               139

                  CHAPTER XXXV

    Yalth and the butterfly                    142

                  CHAPTER XXXVI

    Potlatch and Devil dance                   145

                 CHAPTER XXXVII

    The T’Klinkits and Aleuts                  148

                 CHAPTER XXXVIII

    The Indian and the south wind              156

                  CHAPTER XXXIX

    Pleasure and profit in the marsh           159

                   CHAPTER XL

    Indians in the hop fields                  162

                   CHAPTER XLI

    Legend of the crucifixion                  166

                  CHAPTER XLII

    Romance in real life                       168




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


    Vancouver’s ship (frontispiece)           PAGE

    On the Sound                                 3

    Sunlight on the water                        9

    Typical Siwash face                         10

    A Klootchman                                11

    La Belle Klootchman                         12

    Launching                                   16

    Paddling                                    18

    All that’s left of Old-Man-House            20

    Wm. Deshaw                                  22

    Grand potlatch                              25

    Old-Man-House village                       28

    Digging clams                               32

    Guardian spirit Totem                       41

    Wolf mask                                   42

    Wolf mask                                   44

    Bowl and spoon, by Twana Indians            47

    Vignette of Chief Seattle                   50

    Night around the sing-gamble                53

    The Twana Thunderbird mask                  54

    Box made of slate, carving                  56

    Thunderbird, Dakotah Indians                58

    Ojibwa, flying Thunderbird                  59

    Haida Thunderbird head                      60

    Ojibwa Thunderer                            61

    Building Siwash canim                       63

    Symbolic drawing                            68

    Indian implements                           76

    Face mask of Twanas                         83

    Charm mask                                  84

    Stone and copper war clubs                  85

    Quinaiults hunting the hair seal            97

    Copper and iron daggers                     99

    Twana war clubs                            100

    A Quinaiult hut                            101

    Chief Sealth                               102

    Oldest house in King county                110

    Duke of York                               112

    East Indian carving                        113

    Canoe head Totem                           114

    Totem column, northern Indian              126

    The bear mother                            129

    Haida child dance at Houkan                130

    Haida Thundermask                          133

    Skamson the Thunderer                      137

    Corner of Houkan village                   138

    Haida grave-yard                           140

    Mrs. Schooltka                             143

    Silver and copper ornaments                144

    Quinaiult tribesman                        147

    Yakutat Alaska                             149

    Volcano of Boguslof                        151

    Kodiak Alaska                              153

    “Kla-how-ya”                               157

    Spearing the hair seal                     158

    Indian duck hunting                        160

    Klootchman gathering rushes                161

    An educated Indian                         163

    Stone hatchets                             164

    Sea otter lookout                          165

    Beaver marsh                               167




THE SIWASH




CHAPTER I

A BIT OF HISTORY


Early explorations of the Northwest coast now embraced in the limits of
the state of Washington came after the discovery and occupation of the
coast further south. Unlike the Mexican and California conquests it was
devoid of wild and extravagant fact or fancy. There is found in the old
annals no mention of barbaric splendor, no great empires or extensive
cities, no magnificent spoils to be carried away.

The Spaniards first laid claim to the island of Vancouver in 1774. During
the war of the Revolution, when England was occupied with her rebellious
subjects on the Atlantic sea board, Perez Heceta and other Spanish
navigators, explored and took possession, in the name of their sovereign,
of the largest island on the Pacific coast.

What is now the straits of Juan de Fuca, or at that time Anian, had been
explored by trading vessels from Spanish settlements along the Mexican
coast, and doubtless by navigators of other nationalities, but it was
not until near the close of the eighteenth century that the Northwest
coast became disputed territory between Spaniards, English, Russians and
Americans. In 1688, Martinez and Haro were dispatched by the government
to the Pacific Northwest, to guard their newly claimed possessions, and
here in the following year, Martinez seized a couple of English craft
and immediately embroiled his parental country in a serious dispute with
Great Britain. This was the initial movement in that spirited competition
between the two rival nations which only ended when the Spaniards finally
succumbed to British diplomacy and betook themselves to their southern
possessions.

Captain Cook, the English navigator, who later fell a victim to the
savage inhabitants of the Sandwich islands, was sent over by his
government a few years after the Spanish occupation of the island,
to discover, if possible a northwest passage which should unite the
widely separated waters of the Atlantic and Pacific. Cook perpetuated
the memory of this voyage by giving names to a number of capes and
promontories, chief of which is Cape Flattery. At that time the waters of
Fuca strait, Puget Sound and lands adjoining had not been christened by
those names by which they are now known.

English navigators explored and gave names to Queen Charlotte islands and
the surrounding waters soon after the occupation of the larger island of
Vancouver, but they appear not to have visited the waters of the Georgian
gulf until some years afterwards.

Numbers of navigators sent out by English companies visited the Northwest
coast prior to the voyage of Captain Cook in 1785, and he, in succeeding
years by many others who followed close upon his heels, giving names to
and exploring channels and passages on the west side of Vancouver island.
Among the latter navigators who visited the country from 1785 to the
close of the Eighteenth century were Captain Portlock in the ship King
George, the ship Queen Charlotte, Captain Dixon, the latter naming the
Queen Charlotte islands, Dixon strait, etc. Then there was the Imperial
Eagle, Captain Barclay, who sailed into the waters of Barclay sound,
since which they have perpetuated the name of the worthy captain. Captain
Barclay sailed into the mouth of Fuca straits and sent a boat out on a
short exploring expedition. He then passed on south of Cape Flattery,
where he had the misfortune to lose a boat’s crew at the hands of the
savages. Captain Meares came the following summer, visited Clayoquot
sound, gave the name to Fuca straits, christened Tatoosh island, and
sailed along the coast southward to Shoalwater and Deception bays, and
on to Cape Lookout, and thence retraced his steps to Barclay sound.
While here an exploring party of twelve men under First Officer Duffin
were attacked by the Indians and beat a hasty retreat to the ship, after
being severely wounded. The vessel soon after returned to Nootka sound,
where the ship Iphigenia, Captain Douglas, and the sloop Washington had
arrived, followed soon after by the Columbia, Captain Kendrick, from
Boston. A new vessel had been built at Nootka during that year, and was
christened Northwest America, which sailed soon afterwards, accompanied
by the Iphigenia and Felice.

Captain Gray, of the Washington, wintered on the west coast of
Vancouver island in 1788, and the following year circumnavigated the
island, explored the west coast of Queen Charlotte island and called
it Washington island. He had, also, during this winter, a residence at
Clayognut harbor. Captain Gray built a fortification, and launched a
small vessel, which he sent to Queen Charlotte island, previous to his
sailing for the Atlantic coast. George Vancouver did not come till 1792.

Soon afterwards Gray took command of the Columbia, sailed away for Boston
and returned on a second voyage, and entered and named the Columbia
river.

Captains Lewis and Clark explored the interior of Washington territory
during Jefferson’s presidency and settlements were made by the Hudsons
Bay company in 1828. The renowned Whitman came in the 30’s to the Walla
Walla country and Americans began to settle in 1845 on this side, then a
part of the Oregon territory.

The name Puget Sound, as given by Vancouver, the British navigator, in
1792 extended only to the waters south of Point Defiance, near Tacoma.
The waters north of this point were named Hood’s canal, Admiralty inlet,
Possession sound, Rosario straits, Gulf of Georgia, etc.

The name Puget Sound afterwards was applied to all the waters included in
the American possessions south of British Columbia.

The Greek pilot Juan de Fuca is supposed to be the first man who ever
sailed into these placid waters. He thought he had at last found the
“Northwest Passage,” but finding that such was not the case, he took
possession of the country in the name of the king of Spain and then
made his way back to Mexico. The straits of Fuca are about 12 miles in
width and 100 miles long from its beginning to where it is lost in the
many bays and fjiords and waters that surround the numerous islands at
its head. There is perhaps no body of water that is as secure for the
navigator as the straits of Juan de Fuca, there being no rocks or shoals
in it. These northern waters are filled with numerous islands and the
character of the country is almost the same from the 47th to the 60th
parallel.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER II

FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT


Oregon was the name given to the country west of the Rocky mountains and
thought to extend to 54 degrees 40 minutes north. England also claimed
the entire territory. In 1827 a treaty of joint occupation was formed,
terminated in 1846 by the United States and it seemed for a time likely
to embroil the two countries in war. A compromise was however effected
fixing the international boundary at the 49th parallel, and through the
good offices of the German Emperor, the beautiful San Juan islands were
at last given to the American government. It had been said in the English
parliament, by Sir Robert Peel: “England knows her rights and dares
maintain them;” while Wentworth, of Illinois, in a speech before congress
in January, 1844 said: “I think it our duty to speak freely and candidly
and let England know that she can never have an inch of the country
claimed as a part of the United States.” Such is in brief the history of
Washington prior to the actual occupation and settlement along in the
latter 40’s and the early 50’s. Of these we shall speak more fully.

Many yet living within her borders and enjoying the benefits of mature
and full-fledged statehood remember the time when Washington was an
almost unexplored wilderness, silent and tomblike as the Sphinx. The
first faint echoes of civilization were heard only along the shorelines
of its inland sea, or along the water course of its debouching rivers.
The vast and wealth-laden interior was unknown, the inner secrets of the
Dark Continent today being perhaps better known than was the heart of
this then northwestern territory. Ships of sail on occasional voyages
ploughed the waters of the placid Sound, distributing here and there
along the deeply wooded shore lines a pioneer with his family and
rude effects, while the less majestic, though none the less important
white-winged “Prairie” schooner, via the Willamette and the Rocky
Mountain passes brought his neighbor, perhaps of Yankeedom, to keep
him company in the wilderness. Suffering from the agonies of long sea
voyages, or racked with the ills and tribulations of long overland
journeys across burning sands and rocky passes, they pitched their rude
habitations here in the primeval wilds to become neighbors of the dusky
red man for many years while waiting for the population which should
follow in their wake.

It was early in the forties when this onward march of civilization began
landing in this country. ’Tis true the fur gatherer was here before
them, but they were only transients and saw not, nor cared for the great
natural wealth of the country that spread out before them.

In the Sound country, Fort Steilacoom, Port Townsend, Olympia and Seattle
and a few down Sound ports became the central points of the sparse
settlements which thus early began to spread over the country. The buzz
of the saw mill was simultaneous with the first efforts of these early
settlers, and in its wake came one of the most potent factors in the
development of new countries—the newspaper.

As it was in California, so it was in a great measure in this northwest
country, the greed for gold formed the incentive that hastened the
early and quick settlement of the Northwest coast. “To Frazer River,”
was the watchword from California and the east, and thousands hastened
to the unexplored country to find first, disappointment, and secondly,
permanent homes. The overflow from the mines added many hundreds to the
permanent settlements on the Sound and in the interior and the march of
civilization and commerce was greatly augmented.

In 1858, and even at an earlier date, the newspaper became an important
factor in the development of the country. On the 12th of March of that
year, the first issue of the Puget Sound Herald appeared. The editor
thereof, Mr. Charles Prosch, has humorously written of the manner in
which he gathered in the $20-gold-pieces from enthusiastic subscribers,
and speaks of his reception by the hardy settlers as having been
exceedingly gratifying and flattering. At that time but one other
newspaper was issued in the territory, that being the Pioneer and
Democrat, a partisan journal of bitter proclivities.

Previous to 1845, this magnificent arm of the Pacific ocean—Puget
Sound—was used only as a thoroughfare of trade by the Hudsons Bay
company, and save the arrival of a few vessels in that company’s service,
its placid water was disturbed only by the canoe of the native red man,
and the unbroken silence of the tree-clad shores proclaimed the country
a wilderness. The posts of the above named company at Cowlitz river and
Fort Nisqually were the only evidences of civilization. No extensive
explorations had ever been made by the company’s agents, and the Indians
confined themselves to the streams and shores of the Sound and so gave no
information regarding the country in the interior.




CHAPTER III

PIONEERS OF THE FORTIES


In August 1845 Col. M. T. Simmons, George Wauch and seven others arrived
at Budd’s inlet, under the pilotage of Peter Bercier, the first American
citizens who ever settled north of the Columbia river. Being pleased
with the appearance of the country Col. Simmons returned to the Columbia
where he had left his family and in October of the same year moved over
accompanied by J. McAllister, D. Kindred, Gabriel Jones, Geo. Bush and
families, and J. Ferguson and S. B. Crocket, single men. They at first
settled on prairies from one to eight miles back of the present town of
Olympia.

They were fifteen days in completing this journey from Cowlitz landing to
the Sound, a distance of 60 miles, being compelled to cut a trail through
the timbered part of the country.

In the fall of the same year J. R. Jackson located at Aurora.

In 1846 S. S. Ford and J. Borst settled on the Chickeeles river, Packwood
and Eaton with their families also joined the American settlers on the
Sound the same year and Col. Simmons erected the first American grist
mill north of the Columbia river. Previous to this the inhabitants had to
subsist on boiled wheat or do their grinding with hand mills.

In 1847 the first house, a log cabin, was built in Olympia and E.
Sylvester, Chambers, Brail and Shayer located on the Sound during the
same year. The first saw mill was erected at the falls of Deschutes
river by Col. Simmons and his friends during the same year. In June 1848
the Rev. Father Richard established the Roman Catholic mission of St.
Joseph on Budd’s inlet, one mile and a half below Olympia, and a few more
families were added to the settlement of the Sound country that year.

In the year 1849 the brig Orbit from San Francisco put into Budd’s inlet
for a load of piles and that was the opening of the lumber trade.

In 1850 the first frame house was put up in Olympia, and during the same
year Col. I. N. Eby made a settlement on Whidby island and a number of
other improvements and new settlements were made during the year. In 1851
Fort Steilacoom was established by Capt. L. Balch, and Bachelor, Plummer,
Pettygrove, Hastings and Wilson, names familiar even at this day around
Port Townsend, came in the same year, while Steilacoom City by J. B.
Chapman and New York (Alki point) by Mr. Lowe were founded.

From the beginning of the 50’s the settlement of the country became too
swift to permit of following the individual pioneers in their brave and
daring exploits in hewing homes out of the primeval wilderness. There
was no general way of reaching Puget Sound up to this time except by the
toilsome trail from the Columbia river, and the necessity of a steamer
from San Francisco became the leading topic in the settlements. Capt.
A. B. Gove of the ship Pacific took the matter up and agitation, as it
always does, soon after had the desired effect.

The report of Wilke’s expedition and the development of the fur trade
caused American interests to be directed toward this country. The account
of Joe Meek who went overland from Walla Walla and gave such glowing
descriptions of the Territory of Oregon had its effect, 1848, as he
expressed himself; “this was the finest country that ever a bird flew
over.”

The lower house of Congress passed a bill to establish a territorial
government for Oregon January 10, 1847, but many difficulties were in
the way before it became a law, and the slave question, 1848, had its
influence. It was in the middle of August of the last year of President
Polk’s administration before the territorial government bill for Oregon
became a law and the long journey over the mountains caused much more
delay.

Joseph Lane of Indiana was appointed Oregon’s first Governor with
Knitzing Pritchett of Pennsylvania as Secretary, W. P. Bryant of Indiana
as Chief Justice, F. Turney of Illinois and P. H. Burnett of Oregon
as Associate Justices, I. W. R. Bromley of New York as United States
Attorney, Joseph L. Meek Marshal and John Adair of Kentucky Collector of
the District of Oregon. Turney declining, O. C. Pratt of Ohio was named
in his place. Bromley also declined and Amory Holbrook was appointed in
his place. The party landed at Oregon City two days before the expiration
of Polk’s term of office.

During the fall of 1852 the people of Northern Oregon, now Washington,
were loud in their demands for a separate territory and The Columbian,
a bright little paper published at Olympia, became a zealous worker in
behalf of a separate jurisdiction.

Northern Oregon was at first slow to attract the full tide of emigration,
the worn out travelers who had journeyed across the plains were glad to
find a resting place in the valleys of the Columbia or Willamette and
those people who had homes established in Southern Oregon were always
eager to discourage the emigration to the northern territory and often
circulated reports condemning the Puget Sound country that caused a
degree of enmity to exist between the two sections of the Northwest. The
majority of the population being south of the Columbia river had the
result of causing the attention of the government to be always directed
to that part of the country and every appropriation from Congress was for
the benefit of Southern Oregon and for a time the country bordering on
Puget Sound was left to take care of itself. That naturally caused the
people who had sought homes in that northern part of the country to ask
that they be formed into a separate territory.

Not among the least of the trials and dangers which beset the early
pioneer, were those which arose by reason of the contact with Indians.
The average Siwash was a peaceable being, but the worst danger came from
the deceitful and savage northern tribes and east of the mountain clans.
From Nootka sound, Queen Charlotte and Vancouver islands, came swarms
of the red devils in their nimble canoes and left havoc and destruction
among many a pleasant home and settlement. Across the Cascade passes came
bands of painted warriors spreading terror and death on every side.

Numbers of the early settlers fell early victims to the atrocities of
these bloodthirsty bands, and their names are only remembered by the
few survivors whose silver hair and wrinkled features form objects of
interest, as they stand upon the pavement, in the pushing throng now
crowding our busy thoroughfares. If you will ask Charles Prosch, Hillory
Butler, Judge Swan, John Collins, G.A. Meigs and other old patriarchs yet
among us, they can recount many a stirring tale of battle and ambush, and
name over many an old settler who years ago gave away his life in his
efforts to pave the way for the thousands, who, happy in the peaceful
present, go about their daily work with scarce a thought of those early
times.

Concerning themselves the rightful owners of the soil, the Indians,
looked with jealous eye upon the daily encroachment of the whites and
regarded with increasing and ominous distrust the oft repeated and oft
broken promises held out to them that this land would be purchased
under treaties with the government. Then the habits of the Indian was
disgusting to the eye of civilization and no language can ever draw the
slothful and dirtyness of this people, yet there were many wrongs done
them and it was no more than could be expected that they would, true to
their nature, do such acts of barbarity as would shock the whites and
bring upon the Indian a terrible revenge and that a war for supremacy
would only end in his discomfiture.

“Money was plentiful,” remarks one of the early chroniclers of those
times, “and I was not a little surprised at the abundance of money in
the hands of the people. All but the farmers seemed to carry purses well
filled with twenty dollar gold pieces. The farmers had been driven from
their homes and impoverished by the Indian wars of 1856, from the effects
of which they had not had time to recover; but the men engaged in cutting
piles and logging for the mills (and they comprised a large proportion
of the whites here) suffered but little from the same cause. The man
who owned the building in which I first printed my paper could neither
read nor write, but managed to earn thirty dollars a day by hauling piles
with three yoke of oxen from the timber to the water. Soldiers received
permission from the officers to cut these piles, and earned ten dollars
each a day. All lumbermen were paid in like manner.”

The now historic Hudsons Bay company was in early Washington days a power
in the wilderness and with the native Indians. Their agents and trappers
encroached upon every square mile of wilderness, almost from Hudsons
bay to Puget Sound. Their forts occupied the most important places in
the developing Northwest, and were viewed with more or less of distrust
by American settlers. Fortunately, a friendly and parental government
intervened in time, to the great advantage of the pioneers dwelling
upon the disputed country. First a ten years’ lease of, and then final
purchase of the improvements of the Hudsons Bay company did away forever
with the English fur monopoly in Washington territory.

In 1858 the permanent white settlement on Puget Sound numbered, according
to one chronologer, 2500. The festive boomer in real estate and the
dispenser of town lots and “wildcat” schemes was a being incognito. His
sun had not then risen. A single newcomer in those times was an event of
neighborhood notoriety. The blowing of an incoming steamer’s whistle was
a signal for every resident, male, female, child and Indian to hasten
to the landing, the former to peer into the faces of the passengers for
friends or relatives, the latter to gape in open-eyed astonishment at the
white man’s monster, the steamboat.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV

THE SIWASH CHARACTERISTICS


The history of the Siwash is tradition, as it is with all aborigines.
The early tales of the Norsemen, the Gaul, the Celt, are mere matters
of history, perhaps distorted, but withal, history. The lower the order
of the race, the lower its mental capacities, the more truth there is
in the lore—the tales of its past. The incidents of their lives which
collectively become their history, are handed down from father to son,
from generation to generation, plain and unembellished. The Siwash, a
race to whom instinct is superior to thought, are perhaps the strongest
example of a people whose history is least faulty. What grandsire has
told to father is retold to son in a language whose vocabulary is so
limited as not to permit of changing of the original subject matter.
True, the same deficiency of mental power blots out the distant past.
Three generations represent the era of their history; beyond that the
grandsire’s memory closes; but as the incidents which are here chronicled
are within the memory of many natives living at this time, and from
whom they were gathered and related without variation it can be truly
accepted as authentic. It has been practically accepted as a historic
fact that Vancouver first penetrated into Puget Sound with his vessel the
Discoveror. Juan de Fuca preceded him on the straits, but to Vancouver
belongs the glory of having first penetrated to the upper Sound and
pointed out a way for the sturdy pioneers that were to follow him. The
first vessel of which the Indians, on the upper Sound at least, had any
memory at the time the whites began to flock among them was certainly
Vancouver’s.

[Illustration: TYPICAL SIWASH FACE]

The Siwash of Puget Sound (a general term applied to males of all the
tribes) and the Indians of the entire North Pacific coast, like every
native of every country possessing significant features of topography,
flora, and most of all climate, is bent to his surroundings. The Siwash
is the creature of the circumstances of climate in a very great degree,
and he could never escape it—never will till the last of his race is
lost in oblivion. His mode of life, the almost continual living in a
squatting, cramped position in his canim from generation to generation,
shows in his broken, ungraceful proportions today; and it cannot
be doubted but that in the humid atmosphere of Puget Sound and the
abbreviated territory in which he has lived are to be found the potent
factors that have united to make him at this day the essence of ugliness
in human mould.

No matter where the Siwash came from, his past is so remote it will never
be known.

A favorite way some have and a plausible excuse for saying anything at
all, is to speculate on the Asiatic origin of the Indians of this part
of America. Captain Maryatt tries to locate the Shoshones, whom he gives
very wide latitude and longitude on the Pacific coast, among ruined
cities and an extinct civilization and fauna, in distant Tartary; the
Hydias are ascribed to Japan; the Kanacka resembles the Japanese, etc.
As well assume the Siwash of Puget Sound are descendants of the Dakotahs
or of some of the tribes east of the great Father of Waters, because
the Thunderbird myth is traced from east to west with slightly varying
antecedents and forms from one tribe to another. The Indian origin is a
theme for speculation only.

[Illustration: A KLOOTCHMAN]

The Siwash is indubitably the result of hundreds of years residence on
the forest-fringed shores of his Whulge. He probably could not endure for
a generation elsewhere. He is completely moulded to his surroundings and
is more nearly able to resist the deleterious results of the superior
civilization than 99 out of 100 of the tribes in the broad interior of
the American continent. Years and years ago, when the renowned old Chief
Sealth was at the head of the allied tribes around Sdze-Sdze-la-lich and
Squ-ducks (Seattle and West Seattle, or Elliott bay and Alki point), it
is said that his legions numbered not more than 750 or 800 Indians. Who
today will say that there is not now nearly that number of Indians almost
within the same confines? In the face of the most aggressive development
and civilization of the last ten years, robbed of every favorite haunt
for hunting and fishing, with paddle wheels never ceasing to disturb the
quiet waters of his ancient rivers and bays where the salmon was wont to
sport, and with new population that had encroached upon every foot of
land where his klootchman might have raised a little patch of potatoes,
as she did a score of years ago, he has withstood it all and continues
to hold on. No one ever hears of a Siwash dying unless occasionally on
the reservations. A papoose dies once in a while during a change from
the ordinary modes of life brought about by annual migrations to the hop
fields.

[Illustration: LA BELLE KLOOTCHMAN]

The Siwash is the very reverse of a Nomad. He is studious only in his
stolidity and inactivity. He never travels within the meaning of the
word, and there’s probably not a dozen of the full-blooded Indians who
have been fifty miles from salt water. It was not infrequent for the
plains’ Indians beyond the great coast range of mountains to descend to
the sea, but that the Siwash should ascend to and beyond the summit of
those lofty and snow-clad hills—never.

Out of his canoe he is a fish out of water, a sloth away from his natural
surroundings. He is like a seal on shore, a duck on dry land, ungainly
and awkward. He never, probably, was brave, never quarrelsome in that he
went out in search of war. Not infrequently he was the object of forays
by his kinsmen from the far north or the east. Then he defended himself
and family as best he could and got into the brush with all possible
haste, where he was as safe from pursuit as if in a citadel. Not in the
museums anywhere in the country is there at this time, it is believed,
a single genuine implement of war of the early Indians who lived on
the shores of Puget Sound. The Atlantic seaboard and the interior were
deluged with centuries, it may be said, of savage warfare. One short war,
a mere uprising on Puget Sound in early days, and that instigated by
natives living beyond the edges of the Puget Sound forest, and all was
over. Ever after the Siwash was an indifferent, uncomplaining creature.
He drew one or two short annuities and government aid was practically
withdrawn, and that, too, after his heritage of woods and waters had been
taken from him. But one hears no plaint of disturbed and unmanageable
Indians. He is content to live on so long as there is space for his cedar
canoe to glide on the water and an open beach whereon he may erect a
temporary tent.




CHAPTER V

THE FLATHEAD GROUP


The Puget Sound Indians have generally been classified according to the
language spoken by them in the Selish family or Flathead group. They
were first classified in this way by Albert Gallatin, who was one of
the first Americans to interest himself in the ethnology of the North
American Indian. The extent of the Selish family was not known by
Gallatin, neither did he know the exact locality of the tribe whose name
he extended to this great family of tribes. The tribe is stated to have
resided upon one of the branches of the Columbia river, which must be
either the most southerly branch of Clark’s Fork or the most northerly
branch of Lewis river. The former supposition is correct. As employed
by Gallatin the family embraced only a single tribe, the Flathead tribe
proper. The Atnah, a Selishan tribe was considered by Gallatin to be
distinct, and the name Atnah according to him would be eligible as the
family name; preference, however, is given to Selish. The few words given
by Gallatin in his American Archæology from the Friendly Village near the
sources of the Salmon river belong under this family.

Since Gallatin’s time our knowledge of the territorial limits of this
great linguistic family has greatly extended. The most southerly tribes
are the Tillamooks who extend along the Oregon coast about 50 miles
south of the Columbia river. Beginning on the north side of Shoalwater
bay, Selishan tribes held the entire northwestern part of Washington,
including the whole Puget Sound region except some insignificant spots
about Cape Flattery, which were held by the Makah and the Chimakuan
tribes. The Selishans also held a large portion of the eastern coast of
Vancouver island, while the greater area of their territory lay on the
main land opposite and included much of the country tributary to the
upper Columbia. They were hemmed in on the south mainly by the Shahaptian
tribes. They dwelt as far east as the extreme eastern feeders of the
Columbia, and on the southeast their territory extended into Montana.

Within the territory thus indicated there are a great variety of costumes
with greater differences in language.

During the early explorations along the Pacific coast the Selishan
Indians held the territory along the western coast of Vancouver island as
far north as Nootka sound, but since that time the Aht races of the west
coast of the island have crowded them to the southward and eastward until
now even the Neah bay agency is largely composed of Makah Indians, while
the Chimakuans have obtained a strong foothold further south along the
coast.

These Selish Indians were subdivided into numerous tribes, each one
speaking a language a little different than the rest.

The Semi-ah-moos occupied the region of country nearest the British
boundary line, but they were not a large tribe.

Proceeding southward were the Nooksacks, who inhabited the valley of the
river of the same name; the Lummies, who lived around Bellingham bay; the
Samish Indians, who camped along the banks of the Samish river and around
its mouth, while the more important tribes to the south of them were the
Skagits, Snoqualmies, Nis-qual-lies and Puyallups. On the west side of
the Sound the most important tribes were the Chehalis, Clallam, Cowlitz,
Sko-ko-mish or Twanas and Chinook Indians.

The Snoqualmies occupied the valleys of the Snohomish and Snoqualmie
rivers from a short distance above the mouth of the Snohomish. The
Snohomish Indians proper lived around its mouth. Much of the time
the Snoqualmies occupied a large portion of the Still-a-guam-ish and
Sky-ko-mish valleys. The tribe known as the Snohomish Indians never
extended their territory far above the mouth of the river.

The Puyallups lived along the river of that name and about Commencement
bay, while the Nis-qual-lies were most numerous around Olympia and the
Stillacoom plains. There were also a number of smaller tribes that have
not yet been mentioned who lived for the most part along some portions
of the streams or lakes which bear their names. Among them the Duwamish,
Samamish, Satsops, Stillacooms, Squaxons, Sumas, Suquamps and Swinomish
Indians.

The Makahs around Cape Flattery, as has been stated, were closely related
in language with the Indians of Vancouver island and it also appears
that the Clallams or the Nus-klai-yums, as they called themselves, were
closely connected with them ethnically, but though they show certain
affinities for the Nootka dialect there is no doubt but that they belong
to the Selish or Flathead stock.

The dialects of the Lummies and Semi-ah-moos have some affinity with the
Sanetch dialect of Vancouver island as well as for the Nootka and the
Skagit, Samish and Nisqually Indians which strongly approach each other
while there are some wide variations among the dialects of some of the
intervening tribes.

Of all the languages spoken by the aborigines of the Northwest coast of
America the Chinook spoken in various dialects by the tribes around the
mouth of the Columbia river is the most intricate. The English vocabulary
does not contain words to describe it. To say that it is guttural,
clucking, spluttering and the like, is to put it mildly. The Chinook does
not appear to have yet discovered the use of tongue and lips in speaking.
Like the T’Klinkit of Alaska, their language contains no labials, but the
T’Klinkit is music in comparison to it.




CHAPTER VI.

THE CHINOOK LA LANG


There is danger of falling into error concerning the Chinook jargon, by
confusing it with the intricate language of a tribe of that name. On the
other hand, people are apt to make the mistake of imputing its invention
to a few of the Hudsons Bay company’s factors at Astoria.

The Chinook jargon was and is yet employed by the white people in their
dealings with the natives, as well as by the natives among themselves. It
is spoken all over Washington, Oregon, a portion of Idaho and the whole
length of Vancouver island. Like other languages formed for convenience
it is in all probability a gradual growth. There seems but little doubt
that the rudiments of it first existed among the natives themselves
and that the trappers and hunters adopted it and improved upon it to
facilitate intercourse with the natives. Slowly it was brought to its
present state.

When Lewis and Clark reached the coast in 1806, the jargon seems to
have already assumed a fixed shape. It was extensively quoted by those
explorers. But no English or French words of which it now contains so
many, seem to have been added after the expedition sent out by John
Jacob Astor reached the coast. The words of the original jargon have
been modified to a large extent however. They have been so changed as to
eliminate much of the harsh guttural unpronounceable native crackling,
thus forming a speech far more suitable to all. In the same manner, some
of the English sounds such as “f” and “r,” which are so troublesome
to the native were either dropped or changed to “p” and “l,” and all
unnecessary grammatical forms have been eradicated. Even the Chinook
jargon is not without its dialects. There are many words used at Victoria
that are not used at Seattle or at the mouth of the Columbia. This fact
may be accounted for in various ways, but chiefly by the introduction
of foreign words. Thus an Indian sees some object that is unfamiliar to
him and asks to know the name of it. The trader tells him a name and
with him it continues to be the name of the article ever afterward. For
example: bread, is always biscuit; whisky is paih-water, or in some
localities, paih-chuck; a cat is expressed as a puss-puss, an American is
a Boston-man, and a Britisher a King-George-man. However, in different
localities the things may be named quite differently.

Mr. Gibbs, formerly of the British boundary commission, has stated that
the number of Chinook words were about five hundred. After analyzing the
language carefully he classified the words into the various languages
from which they originated and came to the following conclusion as to
the number of words derived from each: Chinook and Clatsop, 200 words;
Chinook having analogies with other languages, 21 words; interjections
common to several, 8 words; Nootka, including dialects, 24 words;
Chehalis, 32, and Nisqually 7 words; Klikitat and Yakima, 2 words; Cree,
2 words; Chippeway, 1 word; Wasco, 4 words; Calapooya, 4 words; by direct
onomatopoeia, 6 words; derivation unknown, 18 words; French, 90 words;
Canadian, 4 words; English, 67 words.

There are many people who think the Chinook jargon to be the invention
of McLaughlin, the Hudsons Bay company’s factor at Astoria, but the
foregoing facts cited by Mr. Gibbs would seem to indicate that nothing
could be further from the truth. There is no doubt however, that the
great fur company assisted it in its development and aided in its spread
but even then, American settlers and traders contributed more than the
Hudsons Bay company ever did. It is a remarkable fact that such old
Indians as came in contact with the Hudsons Bay company only, could
not speak Chinook while the younger class who came in contact with the
settlers and traders could all speak it.

It is already on record that Chiefs Sealth and Hettie Kanim belonged to
the former class who never learned to speak Chinook.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER VII

TRADITIONS OF VANCOUVER’S APPEARANCE


Jacobs, Big John, William Kitsap and others were among the leading or
head men of the tribes on the upper Sound when the whites came. They
were given christian names by the early settlers and before their deaths
commanded the respect of the whites, who not only learned their simple
tongue, but were often regaled with the traditions and history of their
tribes. From these men were gleaned the account of the arrival on the
upper Sound of the first ship. Before any of these existing Indians were
born, so their fathers had imparted to them, during the early part of
a “warm sun” (summer time) just after sunset while the Indians were in
camp at Beans point, near what are now known as Blakeley rocks, the camp
was thrown into great excitement and they ran about the beach uttering
exclamations of wonder and astonishment. There upon the bosom of the
placid Sound was the first white man’s ship with wings outspread. Never
had Indian eyes looked upon anything so wonderful. “Uch-i-dah uch-i-dah”
wonderful, wonderful. “Ik-tch-o-coke; Ik-tch-o-coke!” what is that, what
is that. Then the astonished natives took to the woods, fearing the
greatest evil and disaster as they heard for the first time the noise of
firing cannon. The more superstitious conceived it a message from the
Great Spirit and were filled with the greatest alarm. Old Chief Kitsap
was there and the brave old fellow stood his ground and by his demeanor
allayed the fears of the more timorous, as well as by pronouncing it a
big canoe. It is believed that Kitsap had, on some of his migrations to
the lower Sound waters and straits, come in contact with some of the
earlier Spanish cruisers. This was the belief of the older Indians at the
time of the first white occupation of this country. Both Kitsap and old
Chief Sealth had made voyages at that time as far north as what is now
Victoria harbor.

The next day following the appearance of the strange visitors, old Kitsap
with a few of his sub-chiefs were persuaded to go on board the vessel and
were filled with unbounded astonishment at what they saw. It was with an
evident relish and much interest that the old Indians above named related
through the interpreter Alfred, the story of the visit aboard the first
ship, as it was related to them by their fathers and grandsires. Iron,
metal goods, knives, forks, chains, firearms and hard bread and other
goods were brought out for their inspection. They were offered the hard
bread and molasses to eat. The Indians called the latter Ta-gum, which in
Chinook means pitch, but after persuasion tasted it and were well pleased
and partook of both bread and molasses. Old Kitsap soon made himself at
home on board the vessel and the strange white creatures that flitted
about her decks were, after the first visit or two, without fear for the
sturdy old native. The Indian account, meager as it is, tallies well with
Vancouver’s record of the same when, for instance, he says it was on
the 16th of May, 1792, that he anchored off an island which they named
Bainbridge and near a ledge of rocks they called Blakeley rocks.

The Indians’ account of Vancouver’s movements while anchored off and in
view of what is now Seattle harbor or Elliott bay, corresponds with his
own. Kitsap piloted Vancouver up the Sound to what is now Olympia. While
on this cruise with row-boats they visited the celebrated Old-Man-House
at North bay, an Indian rendesvous already mentioned. After an exploring
expedition of ten or twelve days up the Sound, old Chief Kitsap as pilot
went with Vancouver on a cruise down inside the Whidby island channel to
Bellingham bay. Vancouver’s ship remained at anchor nearly two moons at
Blakeley rocks and the Indians secured of him the first instruments made
of iron with which they executed fine carving, after the fashion of the
totem posts at the Old-Man-House.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER VIII

THE OLD-MAN-HOUSE TRIBE


The history of the Old-Man-House (or as the Indians called it
Tsu-Suc-Cub) if fully known would unfold a story as interesting as
romance. At this late day its time and surroundings are so shrouded in
the mists of the past that but only a glimpse can be had. Its habitats
like itself have long years since withered and returned to dust. Probably
the best and most authentic account of its history and purpose is the
story told by Indian Williams, or as the Indians called him, Sub-Qualth,
about 80 or 85 years old at that time, and long since joined to his
fathers. Old Williams told his story through an intelligent interpreter
also of the Old-Man-House reservation, whose name had been christianized
to that of H. S. Alfred.

In the Tsu-Suc-Cub lived eight great chiefs and their people. Space in
the big house was allotted to each chief and his people and this was
religiously consecrated to them and never encroached upon by others. To
old Chief Sealth was given the position of honor; Chief Kitsap came next,
Sealth’s aged father ranked third, and Tsu-lu-Cub came fourth. These four
Sub Qualth remembered and they represented one-half of the Tsu-Suc-Cub.
The next four Sub Qualth did not remember but his father, who was a
cousin of Chief Sealth had told him their names. There was Bec-kl-lus,
Ste-ach-e-cum, Oc-ub, and Lach-e-ma-sub. These were petty chieftains with
subordinate tribes and authority and each had a carved totem supposed
to properly delineate and perpetuate the deeds of valor of himself and
people.

In 1859 there were many of these carved posts remaining and yet standing
in fairly good preservation with the big logs still resting on them 16 to
20 feet above the ground. Three of them remained in position in 1870, but
during the next fifteen years all were torn down, or falling from decay,
were carried off and lost to the historian.

The posts in the front were about 25 feet apart, making the length of
the structure over 1,000 feet frontage with the width of the main room
fully 60 feet inside. The big corner post was of cedar, as were all of
them for that matter, and was of immense size, showing that the tree from
which it was cut must have been seven feet through. Clear and distinctly
cut on the front of the big totem stood out first and foremost the big
Thunderbird in the proportions in which it had fixed itself in the minds
of the particular tribe. On the same totem was carved the full sized
figure of a man with bow and arrows, representing the old Chief Kitsap,
the most noted chief for great strength and prowess on the Sound, save
possibly old Sealth.

[Illustration: ALL THAT’S LEFT OF OLD-MAN-HOUSE]

What a home it must have been. Although the family residing there was
large, yet never a resident of Washington lived in a home more spacious.
It covered the length and breadth of sandy beach like a king’s palace
that it was. Three hundred and eighty-four or ninety-four yards, as Wm.
Deshaw remembered, did it stretch away up and down the beach of the
narrow Agate passage. Twenty yards or more in breadth it extended back
to the edge of the little bluff where its long timbers rested as on a
footstool, and high enough for the tallest Indian brave.

The outlines of the old pile are still readily traceable along the ground
although it has been nearly thirty years since the Indians gave it up as
a place of abode and took to constructing little huts and lean-tos along
the beach and on the gentle slopes above. The attractive relic of the
old structure and the one that lends the best idea of the old building’s
original shape, is one of the log rafters still resting in position on
two immense uprights just as it did in the days when the allied tribes
hoisted its great weight into the air. It is a cedar log 63 feet long,
12 inches in diameter at the smaller end and probably 23 or 24 inches at
the larger end. The uprights, to lend color to the great proportions the
old building must have attained, are of immense cedar trees that must
have been four feet through. The one nearer the water is 12 feet high and
the other fully eight feet. The big timbers were first split asunder and
the inside hollowed out and hewn away until a piece probably 10 or 12
inches thick had been left to form the upright. They have been hoisted
into position with the convex or bark side turned to face the interior of
the house and tamped into the ground until they became solidly set and
able to support the great weight that was put on above. Back of the row
of uprights that stood at the rear and furthest from the beach, extended
another row of stringers or girders to the bank, supporting also a roof,
and this greatly enlarged the area of the building. Up and down the beach
are numberless posts and foundation blocks of the old house and all in a
good state of preservation, as is the single big rafter and two uprights
yet in position. These latter are only worn and rotted where they came
in contact once with the other or where they enter at the surface of the
ground.

An alder bush, a salal bush, and a weed or two have found a foothold in
an old wind crack of the rafter and now add to its quaint and picturesque
appearance. All else has been torn down or fallen down by the lapse of
time and has either floated off with the tide or been burned up in their
earthen fires.

Five hundred, six hundred, and as high as seven hundred Indians lived
in the big palace here at one time. They lived here long after the
white people came among them. The site had been their great village for
probably hundreds of years before. Successive chiefs have sat in council
here and great war dances and night orgies held through generations of
time under the chiefs of the Sealth.

Great banks of crushed and broken and roasted clam shells that whiten
the beach and cover the bottom of the sea as with a porcelain lining far
out into deep water, attest this better than could have musty scroll
or parchment. The entire sea beach extending back onto the high ground
is but a bed of decayed clam shells, and even as high up as the Indian
farmer’s little garden, soil had to be carted in and put upon it, in
which the seed germs could take hold and grow. Below it was a bed of
lime-like earth, the offal and remains of many thousands of Indian feasts.

Besides the vast amount of crumbled shell mounds there are other and
smaller mounds about the site that look as if they might have served the
purpose of an elevated fire place. The whole area is overgrown with a
thick carpet of short sand grass which even now makes it a most inviting
place for campers or picnic parties. Beyond the few things mentioned
above there is nothing to remind one now of the interesting past
hereabouts.

An interesting character still resides, 1895, at the Old-Man-House
reservation. He is William Deshaw, whom the tides of time cast upon the
beach at Agate point, Kitsap county, 27 years ago.

[Illustration: WILLIAM DESHAW, THE PIONEER AND INTIMATE FRIEND OF CHIEF
SEALTH

From a Life Sketch]

Deshaw, a rank copper-head to this day, is part of the flotsam and jetsam
that came into the Sound along with the early tide of emigration. He was
born in Galveston, Texas, in 1834, and was part of the early drift of
Arizona, New Mexico and California. He went into the Sacramento valley
a year before the others struck the coast and true to his nature of
moving out on the flood tides soon left there and came this way. He has
been shot full of arrow holes, and has among numerous other trophies
five Indian scalps in his trunk of his own taking. That he ever remained
here so long is entirely due to the climate. Let the rains of one long
winter on Puget Sound percolate down a man’s back and he seldom gets
away after that. He takes to it, as it were, like the moss on the roof,
and becomes a fixture of the location. And so it was with the old Texan.
He drifted in here for a stay of a month or two and he is here yet. He
soon got mixed up with the natives, became a squaw man and never after
that could he pull himself away. And why should he leave? He had wedded
into the royal house of Sealth; wedded a princess, a grand-daughter of
the chief of the allied tribes of the Duwamish, Samamish, Squamish,
etc., and probably forgot about his old-time habit of drifting. Mrs.
Deshaw, nee Princess Mary Sealth, has been dead these many years, and
now lies buried in the little reservation churchyard on the hill across
the narrow strip of tide water. There are, however, two fine looking
girls and some boys left of the union, and in their society the old man
is happy and contented. Speaking of the little “God’s acre” on the hill
near the reservation church reminds us very vividly that within its
sacred precincts rests almost all that there is of the races and tribes
of Sealth. Eighteen new mounds have been added during the past year. Yet
a little while and there will not be a solitary individual left alive to
remind those of to-day that such a people ever lived. Father Time has
wrought some rapid changes with the allied tribes since the whites came
among them. The evil and contaminating influences that have ever followed
civilization into the dominion of the simple natives, coupled in this
case with their severe and taxing superstitions, have combined to quickly
wipe them out of existence.

So quickly have the changes been wrought that whole families have
disappeared almost in the night-time. A Siwash with a wife and eight or
ten apparently healthy children might wake up to-morrow to find himself
a widower without family. Men there are now at the Old-Man-House who
have buried their third wife and living with the fourth. Klootchmen were
pointed out who have married five different times and only the fifth
man living. Chief of Police Jimmy Sealth is the fourth husband of his
present wife, who is not over 30 years of age. She lost her first, second
and third husbands successively, and with the first one buried seven
children. The record of the second and third marriages was not given.
Jimmy Sealth, no relation of the old chief, who besides being chief of
police, was sheriff, prosecuting attorney, judge and general factotum
on the reservation, has been married two or three times and buried two
children by his first wife. In one little family plot in the reservation
churchyard 23 graves were counted side by side. The dead are not alone
buried side by side—they are piled in one on top of another in many
cases, although there is a waste of wilderness on every side of the
burying ground.

Disease has fallen with a heavy hand upon the allied tribes, but even
in the memory of the first white man superstition has done almost as
much in the labor of thinning out the population. Graves there are at
the Old-Man-House that have been wet with the blood of human sacrifice
within the memory of their great Ta-mahn-a-wis, William Deshaw. One man
there is on the Old-Man-House reservation who has slain 11 children in
the practice of their Skal-lal-a-toot, or hoodooism, and whose blood
saturated the tomb of their hy-as-tyees.

Such in a few words is the rather sympathetic story of a people who
hereabouts were the first in the land. A people whose Ta-mahn-a-wis men,
or great medicine men, foretold the coming of the white people days and
days before the Indians themselves saw the ships of Vancouver sailing
from out the heavy cloud banks and high up in the air, for from such
a source did the three ships appear to the simple natives as told now
in some of their traditions. The Old-Man-House, or Port Madison Indian
reservation lies about 15 miles northwest of Seattle and not far from the
Port Madison mills, one of the big lumber camps of Puget Sound, now idle
and almost tenantless, a result as much probably of extensive litigation
as anything else. It is a mill town owned exclusively by the mill
company, which furnishes all the employment of the place to its 300 or
400 inhabitants when the mill is busy. Now that there is nothing to do in
the mill there is no occasion for remaining there and the mill men with
their families have moved elsewhere and the rows of pretty whitewashed
cottages are empty and voiceless.

The mill property is situated in a pretty little bight of the Sound,
once a favorite nook of the Indians, hid away from view until one is
right upon it. It is located nearly at the northernmost end of Bainbridge
island, and the mill town at one time besides supporting a considerable
mill population, was the county seat of Kitsap county. But during a few
years past, however, the most officious and omnipresent individual over
there was the court’s officer, who held the keys to the mill and looked
after the property for the court pending final adjudication of the case
on behalf of all litigants.

The Indian reservation lies about three miles distant from the mill and
separated from it by Agate passage, a narrow thread of water 900 feet
across at half tide.

The way over to the reservation is nothing more than a narrow trail
hewn out of the woods a few feet up from the beach, and was apparently
first cut by the men who strung the old Puget Sound telegraph and cable
company’s wire to the lower Sound.

[Illustration: GRAND POTLATCH—OLD-MAN-HOUSE.]

At the extreme limit of Bainbridge island is Agate point and directly
across, the reservation. On the point is the old trading store of
William Deshaw, first started in the early sixties, and has been a
trading store ever since. Deshaw has been left in undisturbed possession
ever since and there he is to-day, probably his only accumulation being
his now motherless but happy family of half-breed boys and girls.
Every nook and corner hereabouts appears remindful of the musty past,
everything is interesting to look upon or ruminate over. Deshaw’s old
trading store is a museum of antiquities, and its restless, gray-haired
and slippered proprietor is the one living specimen and most interesting
of all there is on exhibition. Sixty years old, yet he is apparently as
full of vitality as he ever was. There is just as much fire in his small
gray eyes and as much of a spring in the step as there was when he was
taking the scalp-locks of the bloodthirsty Comanche and Apaches.

The old gentleman hearing our approach one Wednesday morning came
shambling out onto his front porch and was soon in the midst of an
interesting talk on the Indians with whom for so long he has been
associated. Although the better part of his life he has spent among the
tribes that first held possession of the wooded shores of the Sound here,
he is by no means an Indian lover, especially of the renegade set which
now has possession of Old-Man-House village. He has without doubt during
the last 25 years talked twice as much Chinook and pure Siwash as English
yet he uses the strongest expletives of the English tongue in speaking of
his present Indian neighbors. “Lo, the poor Indian,” finds no sympathy in
his breast. He thinks it a great pity that 14,800 acres of land should be
kept exclusively for a few shiftless and unworthy Indians to live upon it
to the exclusion of the white people, and so it appears. They have had
these lands for generations yet there is just the narrowest border of
clearing along the waters that bears any resemblance to cultivation, and
that for the most part is due to the labor of a few white men rather than
to the Indians.

“They never would work,” says Deshaw, “and never will. Kindness is wasted
upon them; every kind act done them is returned with an injury.”

Probably the otherwise kind-hearted old man would not talk so but for
the fact that the old Indians, those who gave allegiance to old Chief
Sealth, have all been crowded out and either dead or driven away and
become lost in other tribes by renegade Indians. These last are “cultus”
people, who have been run out of and off other reservations and becoming
wanderers and veritable Indian tramps have at last found a stopping place
at Old-Man-House.

Deshaw says there are about 60 inhabitants on the reservation, big,
little, old, young and indifferent, but the agent would probably give
a larger number. Of these, he counts but six that are truly men of the
allied tribes, once ruled by old Chief Sealth. These men are Big John,
now chief, Charley Shafton, Charley Uk-a-ton, Charley Ke-ok-uk, one of
the two honest Indians on the reservation, according to Deshaw, George
Thle-wah and Jacob Huston, one of the old-time Indians, but a slave.
None of these are of the family or descendants of the old chief though
the families of Big John and Jacob have always been considered among the
nobility of the allied tribes. Not even all the six Indians mentioned are
good Indians, for Deshaw reckons but five on the reservation who care
for a home or make any effort toward providing for their necessities in
the way the white men have taught them. They prefer to keep to their old
customs and superstitions; would rather troll for salmon and send their
klootchmen to dig for clams than plant potatoes or milk a cow. Two or
three years without the watchful care of the government and the very few
whites who take interest enough to look after them, and they would drift
back into a barbarism as deep as that of 50 years ago. The government
pays a man to reside upon the reservation in the capacity of Indian
farmer to see to it that the men with families and homes do something
toward raising gardens and gather the fruit that ripens in the little
orchards. The Indian agent proper does not reside there but anon visits
the spot in his official capacity. That personage lives at Tulalip,
Lummi, Old-Man-House reservation, Muk-il-shoot and one other. The present
Indian farmer, J. Y. Roe, and his wife, have been upon the reservation
a little over a year and are full of sympathy for the wards they watch
over. They have done much to improve the situation on the reservation and
give up all their time and a portion of the small pittance they receive,
$50 a month, to do the work. Among the improvements in the village on the
reservation the farmer has accomplished is the building of a new court
house or town hall and “skookum” house, and a number of other things in
the way of improvements to the small gardens and orchards.

The reservation forms a large body of land which ends in a beautiful
peninsula between Squim bay and the narrows. The site of the reservation
village which is also the site of the famous Old-Man-House, fronts the
water on the south in a gentle slope, covered with half grown evergreens
and the narrowest border of cleared lands set to orchards, flower
gardens and vegetables. The most conspicuous figure of the village is
the Catholic church, a perfect little model in its way, and as white and
gleaming in the sun as a snowy peak. It will bear the utmost scrutiny for
it is just the same in or out, far or near. By far the most interesting
thing to be found there at this day is the relic of the Old-Man-House,
which can just be made out from the porch of the old trading store on
the opposite side of the bay. It is down close to the water’s edge and
about midway in the little clearing. But how can one be expected to glean
anything from its past and old associations without the presence of the
big Tah-mahn-a-wis man along. So Mr. Deshaw shambled away after his big,
rusty key, locks up his store and goes off for a whole day with us,
perfectly unconcerned as to the propriety of good business methods.

At the waters’s edge on the reservation side of the narrows lives the
Indian farmer, a sub-agent, and his spouse, a very easy-going, plodding,
pleasant natured old couple. Old-Man-House is usually as serene and quiet
as a Sabbath day, in fact every day is a Sunday in this respect.

There is a school, but no business, no nothing but what would prove
to a white person a monotonous and unbearable existence. There is one
irregular and vagrant looking street connecting with a little beaten
trail that leads to the cemetery on the hill. Here is the populous part
of the village. We lead the way into the inclosure and through the
windings between the thickly made mounds, a large portion of which have
a little emblem of the crucifixion raised above them. The old Texan
with us has known, in their day, most of the Indians who are sleeping
the last quiet sleep here and hesitates not to indicate who were the
cultus and who were the good Indians. “That fellow,” he would say, “was
as big a rascal as ever lived,” or of another, “he was a good Indian
and a hard worker.” Directly he leads the way up near the north side of
the inclosure where a large marble monument marks the resting place of
some big tyee. There are a dozen small mounds in the same little plot
and ranged on either side of it, but the only inscription is on the big
monument and it reads:

                                 SEATTLE

                 Chief of the Suquamps and allied tribes
                            Died June 7, 1866
               The firm friend of the whites, and for him
                    the city of Seattle was named by
                              its founders

On the reverse is inscribed the following:

                Baptismal name, Noah Sealth. Age probably
                                80 years.

That is the only bit of history there is about or on the monument. The
little plot is not enclosed, and the weeds have full possession. The
dozen or more graves in the same plot are of the family of the old chief,
but the Texan fails now to call them by name. He however takes exception
to the inscription as being incorrect, and in part superfluous. He
objects to the name Sealth or Seattle, but says the Indian pronunciation
was as near Se-at-tlee as the English language can reproduce it. The word
Sealth, says Deshaw, was the translation of the old settlers who lived
on Elliott bay. The old chief himself spoke the name for him a thousand
times or more as given above, as did the people of the Old-Man-House. The
Indians never knew the old chief by the name of Noah, that word being
used probably but once, and that at the time of his baptism into the
Catholic faith.

There are graves of other old-time chiefs in the little churchyard,
the most conspicuous one being that of Alex. George, whose little
monument is surrounded by twenty-two other graves, all enclosed in a neat
white-washed picket fence. They are all of the immediate family of the
dead chieftain.

On the way back to the village we stop and inspect the garden and orchard
of the boss gardener of the Indians, John Kettle. Besides himself and
wife, he has about a score of dogs of every hair and color, which set up
a perfect pandemonium as we approach. Kettle is one of the old slaves,
a Clayoquot sound, or West coast Indian, who was sold to a chief of the
allied tribes when a boy by some other tribe who had captured him and
brought him into the Sound country. Kettle seemed pleased at the interest
shown his garden and orchard and said he had 160 acres of fine land, and
some day would be a rich Indian.

[Illustration: THE OLD-MAN-HOUSE VILLAGE AS IT APPEARS TO-DAY]

Kettle when brought into the allied tribes’ camp could not speak a
word of their language nor could they understand him. He was almost
starved. The old chief who bought him was with the family eating from a
big kettle of roasted or boiled clams. When Siwash and Chinook failed,
the old chief motioned to his slave to eat clams. John didn’t wait for
a second bidding, and soon finished the kettle of clams. Then another
kettle filled with the bivalves was prepared for him. John had heard the
Indians speak the word kettle several times when dipping into the pot
and he took the word to mean clams. So John began to call out as best he
could,“kettle, kettle.” “Umph,” cried the old chief in Siwash, “he wants
more clams. I have it, that will be his name, John Kettle,” and from that
day to this the new slave was called John Kettle. The fellow is not over
35 years old, but his wife, who has been married five or six times and
had a cultus husband every time, and who has been beaten all through her
life, looks as if she might be John Kettle’s grandmother instead of his
spouse.

The first “Boston” house built on the reservation is still standing and
occupied by one of the chief men of the village. It was built entirely
at the expense of William Deshaw as his first free offering towards a
reform in the mode of life of the Old-Man-House Indians. This was a
reform very much desired by the government at that time, but towards the
accomplishment of which it did very little according to Mr. Deshaw.

The Old-Man-House agency was, according to this authority, very much
of a sinecure to the early agents, a half dozen of whom he thinks,
probably never set foot on the agency. Deshaw for several years acted as
a sub-agent for these appointees and virtually had the say in everything
at Old-Man-House or that concerned the allied tribes. He got to be such
a trusted lieutenant that he would be intrusted with large sums of money
to spend for the Indians and at one time had $18,000 which the government
gave him and with which he bought supplies in Portland. This was during
the incumbency of the late George D. Hill of Seattle as Indian agent.
Hillory Butler of Seattle was another agent for whom Mr. Deshaw looked
after things at Old-Man-House.

The first great duty with which the government charged Mr. Deshaw was
the breaking up of the Old-Man-House and the isolation of the 600
or 800 Indians in separate households with the idea of inculcating
civilized ideas of living. It was a hard task and one fraught with many
disappointments before it was accomplished. The Indians were a curious
lot. To-day they were your friends; to-morrow they were ready to plug you
full of lead from an old Hudsons bay company’s musket. Finally he got one
or two to make the first attempts at separate residence and by degrees
got them all out of the building and ruined it from further inhabitancy.
But in almost every instance the Indians wanted the work all done by the
sub-agent and refused to lend a hand themselves.

Old Chief Sealth was a great power at Old-Man-House and lived for several
years after Mr. Deshaw went among them. He became very friendly with the
sub-agent and accepted his advice in everything and tried to make his
people live up to the orders of the great father at Washington City.
According to Deshaw, the old chief was greatly reverenced and to as great
degree feared by the Indians. Sealth gave all the assistance in his
power to Deshaw in an effort to break up the heathenish practices of the
Ta-mahn a-wis men and destroy the superstition of their scal-al-a-toots,
but these evils were never eradicated and to this day, but for the
ridicule cast upon them by the whites, thy would still practice them
openly.

The habit of burying their dead in trees and elevated places was in vogue
long after Deshaw went among them, but was never done openly or with the
consent of the old chief. Even the baneful practice of slaying the dead
chief’s horse or dog and his slaves on the grave was religiously carried
out for several years after Deshaw’s appearance whenever the Indians
could do it with safety.

Deshaw tells of one prominent Indian now living on the reservation,
Huston, who was a slave at that time and who was with his klootchman and
his little daughter doomed to suffer death on the grave of their master,
Chief Ska-ga-ti-quis. Huston got wind of what the Indians were about to
attempt and, with his klootchman and 12-year-old girl, slipped away in
a canoe to the other side of the narrows and took refuge in Deshaw’s
trading store. Seventeen big and brawny bucks with Hudsons bay company
muskets followed the refugees over and stormed the store. They rushed in
clamorous and gesticulating and swinging their guns, and demanded their
prisoners, saying they were going to kill them over Ska-ga-ti-quis’
grave. The prisoners were hid away in a little side building. Deshaw
began parleying with the blood-thirsty fellows and directly several of
them carelessly lay their guns on the counter. Deshaw, without attracting
attention, moved up close to them and quickly pulled the guns over and
allowed them to fall on the floor back of the counter. Almost at the same
time old Chief Sealth, who had heard of the trouble at the store, quickly
got into a canoe, paddled across and went rushing into the store. The old
chief possessed a powerful voice and herculean strength.

“Whoo, whoo, do I hear; what do I hear,” he cried several tunes upon his
entry, but the Indians began falling back and said never a word. Then the
old chief’s little grand-daughter, one of Mr. Deshaw’s daughters, yet
living, went up to the old gray head and in her Indian and childish way
said, “Grandpa, they are going to kill the Hustons over Ska-ga-ti-quis’
grave.”

Then, “whoo, whoo,” puffed the old chief, and grabbing up a musket,
prepared to slay every Indian in sight, but the Indians knew the old
fellow’s temper too well and shot out of the doorway in a twinkling, and
went pell-mell into the water and scrambled into their canoes. The old
chief rushing after them grabbed up a big cedar rail, after dropping the
gun (it was entirely too light for him), and tried to reach them with
that, but they got away and across back to the village. The old chief
kept right after them, and once on his own side called the whole village
together and made the people a speech.

He could be heard distinctly on the opposite side of the channel
haranguing them on the evil of killing their slaves.

“Mr. Deshaw, the big white medicine, did not want it done, Governor
Stevens did not want it, Colonel Simmons did not want it, and the great
chief at Washington City did not want it, and it must stop.” Such was the
speech, as now remembered and translated by one of those most interested
in the occurrence. The speech seemed to have a good effect, at least for
the time. Guards were placed over the Hustons, and they remained out of
sight for a week or more, and no attempt was again made to take and kill
them in so barbarous a way.

Until quite recently several very aged Siwash resided at the
Old-Man-House reservation. There was Jacob, aged about 75 years, a
grandson of the old Chief Kitsap; old man Williams, aged about 85;
William Kitsap, grandson Of old Chief Kitsap, and H. S. Alfred, both
educated Indians. Old William’s daughter married a Kitsap county pioneer
who as the years went by grew rich and prominent and his half-breed
progeny promise to become honorary and intelligent members of society.

When old Williams was a boy his people were very numerous and happy,
and dwelt on the borders of the salt water from Vashon island to Port
Townsend On the beach in front of Tsu-Suc-Cub, were drawn up at all times
hundreds of canoes, so many that all the beach was covered with them.
Many thousands of Indians gathered and lived in the big Tsu-Suc-Cub, and
the country round about it. There were so many that chiefs Sealth and
Kitsap were very big Indians, and were not afraid of any warlike tribes.
Sealth the first, and Chief Kitsap once headed an expedition against
the Cape Flattery and Victoria Indians, but this was at so early a date
that William himself was too young to take part. His father was a brave
and helped fight the enemy. At the head of great numbers of war canoes
they raided the villages of the tribes on both sides of the straits, and
at Victoria harbor a great battle was fought. The older Chief Sealth,
or as he is sometimes spoken of, Sealth the First, it was said could
drive an arrow through the side of the biggest canoe, and his strength
was most wonderful. This expedition was an epoch in the Indian history
of the Puget Sound natives. It was successful and the raids that had
annually been made by the tribes from the north on the southern Indians
of the Sound ceased, and it was due to the bravery of the two chiefs
Sealth First and Second, that it was so. To the latter was due the
glory of patting a stop to the invasions of Puget Sound Indians by the
tribes east of the mountains. Sealth the Second, he for whom the city of
Seattle was named, exercised late in his life so powerful an influence
over near-by tribes that he was able to consolidate six tribes into one,
which took the name of Duwamish or the allied tribes. He was an orator;
an arbitrator rather than a great warrior, and with the exception perhaps
of a great campaign to head off the invading Indians from east of the
mountains which he executed at one time most successfully, never was
engaged in any great battle. Not only was that affair well planned, but
it proved a great and decisive battle. No whites were living on Puget
Sound at the time. There are no recorded facts regarding it. It was told
by the father to the son, and was one of the cherished memories which the
whites first heard when they arrived.

Old Williams was asked who did the carving on the totems and why no work
of the kind had been done since the whites came among them. The old
fellow said that long ago there were many skilled carvers of totems and
fine canoe builders and their implements were made from flints, agates
and elk horn, fashioned into the shape of rude hatchets and knives.
Many, many years before, while the old Indian was but a little boy,
one of the chiefs of that day secured a piece of iron or steel from a
Spanish trader, and for years after this piece of iron was turned to
good account by the canoe builders in the tribes in making their canoes.
Before the year 1800, or about that time, as arrived at by computing the
time given in his aboriginal way by old William, only horn and agate
hatchets and shell instruments were used in the work of totem carving or
canoe building. These rude instruments were fastened on to rude handles
wound around and bound around, and were deftly handled in carving and
fashioning the softer woods as alder and maple into totems, canoes or
bows and arrows.

Then came Vancouver, and from him old Kitsap procured a good supply of
knives and iron which for fifty years after were used and in the keeping
of the tribesmen, replacing the older instruments of their ancestors.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IX

THE TWANA OR SKOKOMISH TRIBE


In the days and generations past, when the Indians were the only
people who occupied the shores of Puget Sound, the Twana tribe, now
the Skokomish, lived in the broad strip of territory bordering on the
west side of Hood’s canal and extending back to the top of the Olympic
mountains and reaching from the Skokomish river on the south to Quilcene,
near Port Townsend, on the north. They had for neighbors on the south
and east the Squaxon tribe, while near them on the north and northwest
were the Clallams and Ma-kahs. On the west were the Quillayutes and
Quiniaults, but as the high mountains intervened there was not much
intercourse in that direction, either in peace or war. The Twanas
apparently much preferred peace to war and happiness on their own hunting
and fishing grounds to pillage and robbery, for there are no old-time
battle grounds pointed out now as having been once the scene of great
carnage among them. However, they were Indians and as remarkable for
their extreme and foolish superstitions and baneful practices as any on
the Sound.

They possessed a fine country, especially the beautiful valley of the
Skokomish river, which today is one of the prettiest places in the state.
When the government made a treaty with these Indians and took most of
their land away from them it left them the best section of all their
territory for a permanent home. That was the ground at the mouth of the
river on the north bank. Here resides the remnant of the Twanas, which,
however, is composed of the blood of three former tribes, the Skokomish
proper, Quilcenes and Duhl-ay-lips, the head Indian agent for whom is
stationed at the beautiful agency of Tulalip on the east side of the
Sound.

There are about 200 of these mongrel Indians now living on the
reservation of 5,997 acres at the mouth of the river. Twenty years ago
there were but about 250 of them, so that the decrease in population has
been comparatively very small. In 1880 a census taken that year showed
237 Indians. In 1890, ten years from that time, there had been 100 deaths
on the reservation, but the increase in population from birth alone was
such that the real decrease was not more than fifteen persons. There is
little if any increase to the population from people settling there from
other tribes. This showing is better than that of any Indian tribe on the
Sound, and is undoubtedly due to the isolation on the west side of the
canal and removal from the contaminating influence of worthless white
people. One beneficial effect of late years, really for the past thirty
or forty years, has been the example of a few good farmers who settled in
the fine valley of the Skokomish. Then to, they have always been blessed
with good Indian agents, which cannot be said to have been always the
case at many other reservations. The Indians generally nowadays work well
and want to work and make good lumbermen in the logging camps, earning
almost as much as the white men when the camps are going.

The Indian lands are patented to him but are owned in severalty and
there are many creditable places at Skokomish. There is assigned to a
single Indian from 80 to 170 acres according to whether the land may be
all valley or partially hills. No matter how much or how little land an
Indian may possess, he seldom, if ever, gets beyond the point of a small
truck farmer. If he happens to get under cultivation an area that would
by a stretch of the imagination take the name of a field, he is most sure
to let out the land to a white farmer on an annual cash basis. There are
a few such cultivated fields at Skokomish. A farmer, whether Indian or
white, whose insane desire for gambling will lead him to spend a whole
night out in the woods chanting the monotonous song of the “sing-gamble”
pot-latch, at harvest time is not expected to prove a howling success as
a granger.

In another generation if there are any Twana Indians left they will
probably rate as first-class farmers, for the government is progressing
very well in the matter of training them. The children attend school
ten months in the year, have good instructors chosen from the whites,
and the boys have over them a special instructor whose duty it is to
see that they work half of every week-day with a view of acquiring
methodical and industrious habits. This is abhorrent to the tender Indian
mind, but as the entire education of the Twana youth is one of the
charity undertakings of the government and does not cost the old folks
a cent, they seem to like it and force their youngsters to attend. The
maintenance of the schools is kept up by yearly appropriations and could
be cut off any time if the government cared to do so. In that case the
little Twana might be permitted to spring up as unconscious of the future
as the weeds that infest the door-yard and garden patch of every Indian
domicile. However, among the Twanas there is already a fair standard
of rudimentary education acquired, for every Indian below 30 years of
age can read and write English, and all under 40 can talk the language.
The true specimens of the savage ancestors are the old men and women
yet living, who cannot, rather will not, admit to any knowledge of the
English.

The Indian here is an obdurate, slow-moving being. He will begin a thing
but complete it in a year, or ten years, or never, just as the notion
takes him. At this time the residents have in mind the construction of a
new church. They have gone so far in the undertaking as to have secured
the lumber and floated it from the mill up the river and piled it upon
the bank of the stream on the reservation.

“We got it long time ago,” said one fellow, “to build a new church, but
don’t know whether we will ever build it or not.”

The vicinity of the old lumber pile now seems to be a favorite rendesvous
for the inveterate “sing-gamble” players, for they ride there from all
directions at night time. They light camp fires and, forming a large
circle around it, go through their uncanny practices until the cocks crow
for morning. All the male population of the reservation over age are
voters under the constitution of the United States. They cast their first
vote at the election for delegates to the state constitutional convention
after the passage by Congress of the enabling act. The reservation has
been set off in a precinct by itself, and by this the Indians elect their
own justices of the peace and petty officers without the interference of
the whites and without having anything to do themselves with the election
of officers to govern the white people.

In the very nature of things the Chinook and mother tongues will, in
a few years more, be unknown on the reservation. So rapidly is this
coming about that at this time half the conversation of the reservation
is carried on in English, even when all engaged in it are Indians. At
their sing-gamble and other Indian ceremonies English is as much spoken
as their own tongue. Superstition will only die out of the Indian mind
when the last of the race as dead and gone. On the banks of the lovely
Skokomish it would seem that superstition could have no abiding place.
Yet it is there today as it probably has been in all the past thousands
of years. The beneficent influence of the white man’s religion has
superceded it in its outer and practical application, it is only a few
years ago when the efficacy of the red and black “ta-mahn-a-wis” was
thought to be greater than all the religions of the pale faces in the
world.

There were four kinds of ta-mahn-a-wis, sometimes spelled ta-mahn-o-us,
or spirit practices in vogue among the Twanas as there were among the
great family of Selish Indians in Washington, which included most all,
but not all, the tribes from the Spokane river to Cape Flattery, all
understanding in part a common language. The Cape Indians and Yakimas
are two of the exceptions to the above, according to some of the best
informed men on the subject. The word ta-mahn-a-wis may be and was used
in the sense of a noun, an adjective or a verb. As a noun it means any
kind of a spirit in the spirit world from the Sahg-ha-lie Tyee, or
supreme being—sahg-ha-lie meaning greatest, highest, above—to the klail
ta-mahn-a-wis, or devil, literally, black spirit.

As an adjective a ta-mahn-a-wis stick, stone, person, etc., is a thing
or individual with a ta-mahn-a-wis or spirit either of good or evil in
it. As a verb it is used in the sense of invoking the aid of spirits, as
“mah-mok ta-mahn-a-wis.”

The four kinds of ta-mahn-a-wis of the Indians of the Twana tribe at
least are: The “ta-mahn-a-wis over the sick,” the incantations of the
medicine men; the “red ta-mahn-a-wis,” the “black ta-mahn-a-wis,” and the
“spirit land ta-mahn-a-wis.”

The sick ta-mahn-a-wis was only practiced for the healing of the sick,
and was often a severe and taxing ordeal for the patient if he were
really sick. This ceremony was always conducted by the ta-mahn-a-wis men
assisted by the friends and relatives of the sick in an effort to drive
out the spirit of one that was supposed to have taken possession of the
body of the sick.

The red ta-mahn-a-wis was a winter pastime and was a common arrangement,
a proceeding, so far as its being a part of a religious belief, a kind
of a camp-meeting. The red, or pill ta-mahn-a-wis, was an assembling
together, an invocation, in short, of the spirits for a good season the
following summer. It generally lasted three or four days and consisted
of singing, dancing, the beating of tom-toms, drums and the decoration
of the face and limbs and body invariably with streaks and spots of red
paint. From this it was given the name of the red ta-mahn-a-wis, pill
meaning red.

The black, or klail ta-mahn-a-wis, was the free masonry of the Twanas
and was without doubt the one great religion of all religious practices
among them. It was a secret society to a very large extent, and none
but the initiated were ever permitted to have anything to do with it.
It was a very severe initiation that candidates had to undergo to get
acquainted with it, and little was ever learned of its mysteries by the
whites. It was practiced at Skokomish as late as 1876, but after that
time it was never seen. At that time it was given out by the participants
that it was to be dead after that. It is said that it is still slightly
followed by the Clallam Indians to this day. No doubt but that among the
residents of the Skokomish reservation there are many Indians who were
initiated into its dreadful mysteries, but their number is probably too
few to revive it. Both men and women were initiated into the practice and
mysteries of the black ta-mahn-a-wis. The significance of this ceremony,
from the secretiveness of the Indians, was never clearly learned by the
old residents, who had most to do with the Indians, and it probably will
never be understood, at least as it was believed in by the various tribes.

In the practice of it, however, the Indians invariably painted themselves
very hideously with black paint, daubing and streaking the face and
limbs, and while going through the ceremony of initiation were without
clothing. Masks made in rude imitation of the wolf head were used, and
these were called shway-at-sho-sin. The mask was adopted by the Twanas
from the Clallam tribe, as was the name and hence the word is the same
in both languages. The Twanas seem to have imported their masks from the
Clallam country in most part, very few of their own make having ever been
found, and these of a less degree of artistic appearance. To a certain
extent the ceremony of the black ta-mahn-a-wis was a public one and many
of the old-timers have witnessed that portion of it. The more important
and probably much more severe part was the private ceremony confined
to the initiated. The public ceremony was a long drawn out affair of
dancing, singing, beating of drums and tom-toms, rattles, etc. During
the progress of the affair the candidates for whose special benefit the
ta-mahn-a-wis was given, were stripped and painted and put through all
manner of gyrations and exercises, the while wearing the wolf mask,
that in the least resemble the antics of the animals they were trying
to imitate. While this was going on the candidates were tied about the
middle with a long rope, the loose end of which was held by other Indians
in order to keep the candidate from running away or from doing harm
to any spectator, for he was supposed to do just like a ferocious and
enraged wolf in all things. The other exercises which are supposed to put
on the finishing touches to the great event, were always carried on in
secret rooms made of their blankets or tents and were never permitted to
be witnessed.

The practice of the spirit land ta-mahn-a-wis was associated with or
founded on a very pretty myth believed in by the old Twanas to the effect
that a year or two perhaps before an Indian died he or she lost his or
her spirit. Spirits from other places, always from below, would visit
the Indian and, quite unaware to the person would take and carry off
the spirit and sail with it to their abiding place, there to hold it in
captivity unless released by spirits from this life. Whenever an Indian
lost his spirit in this way there would always be a little left him
which would be sufficient to last him until he died, by which time every
particle of it was absorbed, vanished, gone. To elaborate the fanciful
theory, there were always living Indians who professed to be able to go
to the spirit land, down below, and see what was going on and recognize
spirits taken from Indians of his own tribe and village. These trips may
be made to the spirit regions at the will of the Indians, sometimes when
off in the hills hunting, or when out on the salt water chasing the whale
or the seal. After a journey of such a character the Indian’s word was
never doubted by his tribe’s people, when he on returning informed them
that he had been on a journey below and had seen the captured spirits of
this or that relative or friend. The next question was as to the recovery
of the spirit, and there were always willing hands ready to assist.

There was always great ceremony, great care and at times extreme caution
to be maintained in this undertaking. The Indians had to make the journey
down below, cross their death river, their river Styx, and perform
various other and wonderful feats, the entire ceremony lasting three or
four days.

The first ceremony, accompanied by a great beating of drums, of rattles,
tom-toms, dancing, singing, chanting and yelling, is that of breaking the
ground to effect an entrance below. This was done by digging a little
hole in the dirt floor of the house where the ceremony was taking place.
This accomplished, other mythical performances were gone through with,
the more important one being “cooning” across the Styx river in a long
procession, where the greatest caution was observed, for the warrior
who should fall off while going over was doomed to die before long. A
bridge was constructed of boards in the house by having two of the boards
resting obliquely against the ends of a third board, which is elevated
to near the roof of the building. The army on the chase for the lost
spirit “cooned it” across this improvised bridge, and were then over the
river Styx into spirit land. They searched for and with great noise and
hubbub found the departed spirit, took possession of it amidst a great
and imaginary battle, and returned to the land of the living. They would
tear about the room during this performance, rant and roar, run out of
and around the house, tear the roof off in their frenzy, which was truly
a genuine article, and then, after having reached the limit of their
strength and exertion, would find the spirit, sometimes in the form of a
rag doll or some other object just as ridiculous, and carry it in triumph
to the Indian who had lost his spirit. This individual, so fortunate in
recovering his spirit, and therefore a new lease of life, is overjoyed
at the thought and laughs and cries alternately, and concluded the
performance by a great manifestation of joy in every conceivable style.

At this ceremony the Indians had an idol which exercised a great power,
in their overwrought imaginations, in the success of the undertaking.
This idol was a very sacred being, and was always kept hid away in the
mountains and never brought out only on such ceremonies. It was never
given up to the whites, and there is probably not now one of these
strange things to be found anywhere. The only one known to have been seen
among the Twana tribe was about four feet long, of very rude carving, in
imitation of a person without arms or feet. In place of feet the idol
ended in a stick, so made that it could be fastened firmly in the ground.
It was raised in the center of the room, and around it the weird and
uncanny ceremony progressed. This idol the Indians named Sh-but-ta-dahk,
but just what its peculiar properties were probably is not known.

Several of the more intelligent and younger men on the reservation were
talked to about this idol or totem, but they did not know anything about
its history or supposed properties. One of the men said that about three
years ago, while going through the woods about three miles back of the
reservation, he came across a cache where there were two of these idols
hid away. They were time-worn and considerably decayed, and as he stated,
had “been there long, long time.” He placed them under an old tree, but
never returned to get them. They had men’s faces carved upon them, and
were undoubtedly genuine Sh-but-ta-dahks.

There is another one about four or five feet long in the possession of
a resident of Lake Cushman, which was found in the woods about ten or
twelve miles back of the present reservation. Many, probably all, of the
Indians of today on the reservation have faith in the Sh-but-ta-dahk and
the ceremony of the spiritland, ta-mahn-a-wis. One, in telling about it,
said that not many years ago a spiritland ta-mahn-a-wis was held, when
one of the Indians fell while crossing the death river, and that a short
time after he died, hence they knew that the spiritland ta-mahn-a-wis was
true.

The theory of the medicine ta-mahn-a-wis is that when a person is sick
some evil spirit has taken possession of the body, sometimes more than
one evil spirit, and of different kinds. It may be that of a bird or
beast, a bear, a panther, wolf, a bluejay or a weasel, or anything
else having hair or feather or scale. It was always the duty of the
ta-mahn-a-wis doctors to find out what kind of a spirit had entered the
body, and then by incantation and ceremony to drive it out. Some dry
board or rail or piece of wood was secured by the friends of the patient
and placed conveniently near, and on this they would beat with sticks to
make as much noise as possible, also bringing into their aid the drum
and tom-toms or rattles. The medicine man would take a bowl of water
by the side of the patient, who had been stretched out on a mat on the
ground, and begin his examinations. He would chant in a monotonous way
and perform various mysterious things about and over the sick person.
Sometimes he would take hold of an arm or a leg and lift apparently with
all his strength without so much as moving the member in the least. When
the din and hubbub would be sufficiently distracting the medicine man
generally discovered what kind of a spirit had taken possession, and was
able to get hold of it. Often he would raise that part of the person in
which the spirit had secured a place of lodgment, and would douse it in
the bowl of water and drown it. At other times he would draw it out of
the body by inhaling it in his own lungs, and would then go to the door
and give a great puff and blow the evil spirit far across the mountains
or water.

If, under such a course, the patient did not get well at once, there was,
of course, other evil spirits in the body which must be gotten rid of,
and the process would be repeated with minor variations. By and by the
patient would either get well naturally or die, which ended the matter.
In either case, the potent power of the doctor was never questioned.
The Indians believed that while the body was in possession of the evil
spirit, the Indian’s spirit may take its flight to some distant place
temporarily. It was part of the duty of the medicine man to locate and
bring the absent spirit back. This he did by other and mystical processes
equally as absurd to civilized minds. In one account, which was written
out by an educated brother of a sick boy at the Skokomish reservation,
the departed spirit of the patient was discovered 15 miles distant
at what the Indians called Du-hub-hub-ai, now called by the whites
Humi-humi. The evil spirit always took on very curious shapes when drawn
on paper by the Indians for the edification of the whites. They usually
represented very vaguely images of fish, jelly-fish, imaginary beasts,
etc.

That the Indians of the Skokomish tribe once engaged in war is
evidenced by the existence of implements of battle now preserved on the
reservation. Of their war clubs there is one about twelve inches long,
which weighs three and a half pounds. It is a big wedge shaped affair,
rounded, and recedes sharply to a blunt point. There is a hole drilled
in the handle end by which it could be suspended from the warrior’s
waist with buckskin thongs. This weapon was made, without doubt, by the
Skokomish or Twana tribe.

Another war implement and one much more formidable, is a long copper
club, two feet long, much in appearance like a broad sword. This club
also has a hole in the heavier end, from which to suspend it to the
waist. Both weapons have rude imitations of the Thunderbird on their
heavier ends, and go to show how thoroughly the Thunderbird myth was
believed in and how it pervaded every act and thought of Indian life.

Before the white people came into the country the Indians had to depend
on their own ingenuity for all kinds of implements. Many of these are
yet preserved by the Indians themselves, as well as by the whites. The
Indians are careless, however, and as long as they can get an easy
living, don’t seem to care much what becomes of their old tools. They
have yet a few of the old war clubs, among them, ta-mahn-a-wis rattles,
made out of deer hoofs, bear and beaver teeth, etc. They have a few of
the old style bows and arrows, hunting bows, with quivers of arrows to be
used in the chase or in war. The latter are of a superior workmanship,
and must have occupied lots of extra time in their manufacture. They have
few of the old style dress garments, but have not yet lost the art of
manufacture, as they will for money set about and make very interesting
dresses and coats out of the cedar bark, or from the cat-tail reeds
that grow in the swamps or marsh lands. There is yet preserved several
specimens of the dress of the nobility, made from the hair of the
mountain goat, though it is not unlikely that these latter were secured
in barter from the tribes occupying land on the east side of Puget Sound,
as the mountain goat is not known to have flourished between Puget Sound
and the Pacific ocean.

[Illustration: A GUARDIAN SPIRIT TOTEM]

The Twanas’ and perhaps many of the other Indian tribes’ superstition
as to the origin of the sun and moon is of more than passing interest.
A very long while ago there lived an aged Indian woman who had a son.
He must have been a bright, uncommon lad, for he was not only stolen
from home, but grew up into a young man possessing wonderful powers.
The boy was stolen from the care of his grandmother and carried away to
distant parts, beyond the mountains, where if anyone tried to follow,
the mountains would come together and crush the life out of them. When
the boy’s mother learned he had been stolen she was greatly grieved, and
declared she would find her another son, and so she did. He grew apace
and became also a bright promising lad. By and by, as the days passed
away, the first son found his way back through the treacherous mountains
and surprised his mother when he put in an appearance at home once
more. He does not seem to have been pleased at the prospect of finding
his place at home taken by a brother, and he at once declared he would
change the brother into the moon, and let him rule the world by night,
while he himself would be changed into the sun and govern things by day.
This shows that the family to which this ambitious young man belonged
was a great family, and probably governed the world before that time in
darkness.

The young man kept his word and wrought the marvelous changes, and it
must have occasioned great surprise next morning when the people got up
and found all the land aglow with light and beauty. But as the sun got up
higher, the people doubtless wished for their darkness back again, for
it got awfully hot. The brother—as the sun—in his great wrath burned so
fiercely that the heat dried up all the rivers of the country and killed
off all the fishes, and the people of the land sweltered and died in the
suffocating heat that pervaded everything.

The brother saw that things could not last long in this way, and he
decided on a change. So he changed things about, made his weaker and
younger brother into the sun and himself into the moon, and this worked
better. Ever since that day there has always been “a man in the moon,”
and a boy in the sun, but the light of the latter is too strong for the
boy’s face to be seen.

The Skal-lal-a-toot was a name applied, it seems, to the stick
ta-mahn-a-wis, or spirits of the woods which are accredited with the
power to change people into toads, birds, beasts, etc., and keep them as
long as they like, or until they see fit to return them to their proper
form.

People there are infected with the evil eye, in the imagination of the
Indian, and such they always try to avoid—especially so with children,
and hence a charm in the form of a rattle was always provided to hang
over the bed or cradle of the child. If a person entered the room and
made pleasant with the child, and took the rattle, all well and good.
If he avoided the child and rattle and acted suspiciously, look out for
him—he was one possessed of the evil eye, and was cultus.

[Illustration: WOLF-MASK—Used in the ceremony of the Black Ta-mahn-a-wis
by the Skokomish or Twana Indians]

Such persons were invested, in the Indian mind, with the spirit power,
and through the influence of this evil eye men and children were wrought
upon by the Skal-lal-a-toot and changed to various forms of birds,
beasts, trees, stones, etc. These evil-eyed geniuses were able to exert
this influence for bad to great distances, from the Sound to the Columbia
river, and infect individuals there with its baneful influence, the same
as if they were by their side.

The Indians used in this connection a mask, which might be called the
crying mask, for it seems to have been used as a kind of “Winslow’s
soothing syrup” to make the children stop crying. A representation of
one of these masks made out of cedar wood and still in good preservation
is shown in a sketch herein. The mask is nothing more than a flat
board-like piece, longer than the ordinary shingle, with the face cut
into it by a series of holes. It was placed in front of the person’s
face, and the mother or person using it would suddenly appear before the
child to be quieted, singing a peculiar monotone song. It was simply a
repetition of the word “skal-lay-a, skal-lay-a,” with the last syllable
drawn out indefinitely. Doubtless the charm worked well, and such
practices probably had as much to do with the establishment of the seeds
of superstition in the infantile mind as any after teaching could have
had.

The Puget Sound Indian generally appears to have been but very slightly
advanced in the art of carving and what work that is left is of a very
crude workmanship. A few good specimens are found among them but it is
questionable if any of them are original. In the illustrations is the
rude carving of the bear totem on the stem of a canoe found among the
Skokomish Indians, though the canoe might have come from the northern
Indians who followed more closely the practice of decoration of the canoe.

In comparison to this is shown a carving, the figurehead of the old bark
Enterprise which has lain a wreck on the beach at Agate pass, near the
Old-Man-House reservation, Port Madison, since some time in the early
50’s. This figurehead was removed from the old hulk and is now among the
Indian relics of the old pioneer, William Deshaw. The carving is the work
of native East Indians, according to the story of the skipper of the old
bark. He came with his vessel from Calcutta to Puget Sound, and while in
a port of East India went out with the nobility on a tiger hunt. Securing
one, he expressed a desire to have a carving of the head for his vessel
in honor of the hunt, and by direction of the rajah or some other high
potentate it was made for him by the natives. It is of teak wood and well
preserved and hard as flint almost. The figurehead was adorned with large
eyes of pearl which after the old bark was wrecked were removed. When the
captain expressed a desire to have a tiger head like the animal killed,
the Indians set to work and in just two weeks had it completed and at the
vessel when it was put on. A good story was told by William Deshaw on
Mr. Meigs, the mill owner, at the time the old bark fell to pieces while
lying at the mill wharf. It was a calm day, no wind, but the bark all of
a sudden went to pieces from sheer age. The mizzen mast went by the board
on the very day that Mr. Meigs was in Seattle getting insurance on the
vessel as he had just about concluded a purchase of her. Meigs returned
to the mill that evening and seeing the wreck said to her old skipper:
“Well, I guess you’d better get that old hulk out of here or it will be
tearing down of my wharf.” They started in to get the old hulk away from
the wharf and she was hauled across the narrow stretch of water onto the
beach. As the tide went out she careened over and as Deshaw says, “just
naturally wilted away.” The old bark still lies on the beach where she
was left twenty-five years or more ago, and the sand has drifted in and
about her till it is in places eight and ten feet deep and she is almost
lost to view.

The face mask shown in the illustrations herewith, now hangs on the walls
of Wm. Deshaw’s store at Agate pass and was given him many years ago by
a chief from the straits tribes, and was given with the assurance that
it was one of the most powerful charms the Indians possessed. It was
particularly efficacious in keeping off the “evil eye” and all that was
necessary to be done was to keep it hung up where everyone who entered
the building could see it as he entered. If the person entering was
possessed of the evil eye, after seeing it he would be powerless to do
any evil.

[Illustration: WOLF-MASK—Made by Skokomish Indians, now in possession of
Rev. Myron Eels]

Deshaw had performed a great kindness for the Indian, and had won his
everlasting gratitude. The Indian had no money, nor could money have
bought the charmed mask, but he gave it up in return for the kindness of
saving his daughter’s life.

One day a band of the Indians had come up sound and camped on the beach
at the reservation for a few days. While there an Indian daughter of
the chief got sick and a terrible hubbub was raised by the Indians in
their efforts to drive away the evil eye that had fallen upon her. The
medicine men exhausted all their powers and could not bring her around.
Deshaw went across the passage to see what all the noise was about and
found the girl stripped and lying on a mat on the beach with the medicine
men beating her body with hot rocks. Blood was oozing from her ears and
nostrils and she was almost dead. He quickly drove the medicine men away,
had her wrapped in blankets and carried across the water to his trading
post. Here proper treatment and medicine brought her around and in a day
or two she was in swimming as lively as any of the other children. Before
leaving the old chief went to see Deshaw, told him he was poor and had
no money, but some day would come and give him something. Time passed,
and when another year had rolled around, one day there walked into the
trading post an Indian with something rolled up under his arm. The bundle
was neatly wrapped up in a lot of skins, there being a beaver, marten and
silver gray fox skin among them. Deshaw had forgotten the circumstance of
the sick child and forgotten the man, but thought he had seen him at some
previous time. Watching his opportunity, the old chief took the white
man off to one side and recalled the incident and gave him the mask, and
told him what it was and what to do with it. Deshaw followed instructions
and apparently the mask has served its purpose well. “The evil eye” has
remained aloof from the trading post, and it looks as if, like the old
bark above referred to, it and its genial proprietor will continue to
jog on down Time’s broad way until they fall to pieces together, “just
naturally wilt away.”

The totem on page 41 was one very efficacious in their superstitions
regarding children. It was given to Deshaw in 1861 by Charley G’Klobet,
an Indian of prominence in the early days. It was the guardian spirit of
children before mentioned herein. The medicine men, who were supposed to
get their powers from it would not part with one of them to save their
life, so deep and strong was their superstitious belief in regard to it.
In their incantations over it they would kneel before it at night on
mats spread out, and with their long, greasy hair done up in weird and
fanciful knots, their face and bodies painted and besmeared with paints,
run around it, talking to it, praying to it and caressing it until they,
in their over-wrought imaginations had imbibed all the information it
possessed in regard to the children.

The totem has a long nose, over-hanging brow, two big bead eyes, with
streaks of white paint across the face half way between the eyes and
mouth. There are daubs of blue paint all about the mouth and chin
and a small streak of blue around the neck. There is a circle on the
breast cut with a knife and radiating from the two upper arcs are small
three-pronged notches cut in by the same process much resembling a bird’s
claw and intended to represent the superstition of the great white eagle,
from which, and a great whale, the Indians there are said to have sprung.




CHAPTER X

DO-KA-BATL, A GREAT SPIRIT


The religion of the Siwash is spiritualism pure and simple. Every tree
and shrub, beast, bird or fish had its spirit, and every mountain was the
abode of invisible gods who rode on the winds and clouds.

The existence of a supreme being or spirit was prevalent in the untutored
minds of the aboriginal inhabitants of Puget Sound. They believed in it,
yet never worshiped it, and never made much practical use of this belief.
They believed in the devil or a spirit answering to that dreaded, though
invisible monster, yet in their simple daily life there were intermediate
spirits far more potent for good or evil to the minds of these dusky
people. They laid strong hold of the power for good of an individual,
independent spirit for each and every inhabitant, a sacred, protecting
star through life, and no circumstances or conditions seem ever to have
been strong enough to cause a violation of the sacred tenets of that
religion. Every Indian possessed a guardian spirit of his own. This was
supposed to watch over him, protect him from the evil spirits that filled
the woods and the air, and as long as it was kept inviolate was the one
beaming, assuring and ever-present guardianship of the Indian life.

When of youthful age—12 or 13 years—the Siwash would betake themselves to
the woods, to an isolation as deep and perfect as that of Elisha in the
cave in the forest attended by his ministering ravens. There a process of
purification, almost of sanctification, would be submitted to, continuing
from eight to thirteen days, or as long as the physical powers of the
Indian could bear up under it. They refrained from eating, and practiced
a self-imposed bodily chastening, until the extreme of physical suffering
and mental anguish and over-excitement being reached, the Indian mind was
in a condition to believe anything or see in the solitude about him any
beast, bird or spirit the freaks of the overwrought imagination might
conjure up.

That settled it. The first object, be that beast or bird, that passed
before his vision and reflected in his diseased mind, was ever after
sacred to him. The spell was broken and the Indian hied himself away
to his fellows, happy and ready to stand among his tribe a favored
individual. In their hunts and migrations that beast or fowl was never
molested by that Indian. Others might kill or conquer, but he, never. It
followed him through life, and was believed to exert a great power for
good.

The traditions, superstitions and fetish practices of the early Indians
of Skokomish and Old-Man-House as well of the Sound seem to blend and
intermingle in such a way that it is almost impossible to clearly
define them. Only deep and continued study can avail to get a proper
understanding of them. Of their traditions the greatest seems to have
been that of Do-ka-batl, a great spirit, whose peculiar powers lay in his
ability to change big and little mortals into any kind of a beast, bird
or stone or thing that his fancy dictated. Under such conditions it could
not be otherwise than that very great respect should be shown to this
masterful spirit, and respect and reverence for it seems to have been
rather than fear and trembling.

[Illustration: BOWL AND SPOON OF MOUNTAIN SHEEP HORN—TWANAS]

The tradition of Do-ka-batl among the Twana or Skokomish Indians is alive
to-day and they have always maintained that the great spirit was a woman,
while the tribes north of them hold to the belief that it was a man.

At any rate Do-ka-batl made a great sensation when he or she first took
it in mind to go abroad among the tribes that infested the Sound. The
coming was like a great big cloud that overspread the whole sky. He
came up out of the sea, way over in the southwest from the direction of
the Gray’s harbor country. It does not appear that Do-ka-batl came with
great noise and tumult, with rattling of thunder, or peal of lightning,
but like the great, even tempered spirit that he was; he came like an
angel of peace to teach the people good things. He found the Twana
Indian ancestors trying to catch fish in Hood’s canal with their hands.
Do-ka-batl taught them how to make traps and stretch them across the
river and waters and take great quantities of fish, and so the Indians
after that had life easy and lived in contentment and with little labor.

Then, it was a very, very long time ago, there were not deer to run the
woods, nor humming birds to make music with their little wings, no pretty
blue jays to go cawing among the trees and a great many other useful and
ornamental things of nature had not any being. Do-ka-batl provided for
all these, though it must be said that a great many naughty Indians were
sacrificed in order to bring it about. Their tradition of Do-ka-batl’s
transformation of the deer is much like that of many other of the Indian
tribes.

The great spirit on his visit came across a worthless fellow one day who
was making sharp the edge of a knife, probably a very different affair
from the steel knife of to-day. The great spirit said:

“What are you doing there?” This in the Twana dialect, of course.

The worthless fellow replied, “Nothing,” also in Indian.

The Do-ka-batl replied: “I know what you are doing; you are going to kill
me. Give me that knife.”

The Indian was frightened but gave up the knife and turned to run, but
as he did so the great spirit stuck it in his heel and the Indian began
to jump about and he has been jumping about ever since in the shape of
a deer, for he was quickly transformed into one as soon as the knife
entered his heel. The little hoof that sticks out of the deer’s foot just
above the two main hoof toes and at the back is the handle of the knife
that Do-ka-batl stuck there.

While among the Twanas Do-ka-batl came across another fellow flopping his
hands over his head much like a donkey does his ears when keeping the
gnats and flies out of his eyes. The Indian, however, was trying to keep
off the rain. Do-ka-batl thought that a fellow who was afraid of getting
wet was no good, so he changed him into a humming bird while he was still
at the foolish pastime, and the Indians say that is why the humming bird
always keeps its wings going. The Indian when changed did not stop his
foolish flopping of his hands, but kept right on.

One day, while Do-ka-batl tarried among them they were at their
ta-mahn-a-wis, and one of their medicine men, probably all of them, had
his shock of black greasy hair done up in a top-knot on the top of his
head. This angered Do-ka-batl and he thought such an Indian would be
more useful in the form of a pretty bird, so he changed him into a blue
jay, with his top-knot still tied up on the top of his head. That is why
the blue jay wears his hair pompadour. The grating sound of the blue
jay’s voice probably is a reproduction of the medicine man’s song at the
time, though this does not form a part of the tradition.

There is a very pretty tradition among the Indians at the Skokomish
reservation about the origin of the big marsh lands at the mouth of
that river. A vast reed-grown area blocks up the river to-day and it is
a great place for all kinds of water fowl and the like. Cat-tails grow
there enough for all the rush mats of the entire Indian population,
so that while Do-ka-batl under the guise of his wrath made a great
transformation that brought lasting good to the red faced people. When
Do-ka-batl left the Twana village at the mouth of the Skokomish to
continue his journey on down the beautiful shores of the canal his big,
foot slipped from under him at the edge of the water and he fell.

This made him angry and he cursed the ground, and, lo; the water went
away and a great mass of ground rose up, half sea half land, and so it
is to this day. The pretty cat-tails and tula grass came up over the
ground and the ducks and geese came and made their nests and gathered the
tender shoots and leaves of the sea-weed for food. Had it been any other
great spirit than Do-ka-batl he might have placed a curse on the people
of the Indian village rather than on the ground, but he did not and they
have lived and prospered ever since. Though their number is small to-day
they have the best gardens and fields and orchards and houses of all the
Indian people on the Sound. Do-ka-batl continued his journey down the
canal after getting upon his feet again and to this day the Indians still
point to the marks in the rocks along the beach made by his big feet.
There are two big prints a few miles from the beach close to what is now
Hoodsport, which have vague resemblance to a mammoth foot-print, and
these the Indians say were made by Do-ka-batl.

Their traditional story of the deluge is much like that told by some of
the eastern tribes, excepting as to canoes which, of course, the Indians
here used to ascend to the top of their biggest mountains instead of
going up horse-back.

With the Twana Indians they did not succeed in getting onto the highest
mountain, but on one much less in height. The big waters kept creeping
up the mountain sides and as the Indians had neglected to tie their
canoes many of them were swept away and carried down to the mouth of the
Columbia river, and there the survivors waited until the floods abated,
and formed another tribe.

Some very long cedar bark canoes remained to the Indians, however.
Do-ka-batl, or some other good and friendly spirit, however, must have
been about to look after the Twana Indians, for the waters acted as if
they were not allowed to engulf the Indians on the lower mountains.
Instead of presenting a level plane the waters took the position of an
inclined plane, reaching from the top of the higher mountain which they
engulfed down to the peak of the lower one, whose top was not covered,
and so the Indians were saved. These mountains, in the tradition, were
far to the northeast or east from the site of the Twana Indian village
and the Indians traveled a long time in their canoes to reach them.

One day an Indian lad was going with his gourd for water. The boy or the
water he was carrying was making a “chug, chug, chug” noise, that sounded
much like the song of the turtledove nowadays. The Do-ka-batl was near at
the time and not liking the noise he transformed the Indian boy into a
dove and sent him off into the woods to sing away his life in solitude,
and that is why the song of the turtledove can be heard floating out in
summer days from among the green branches and woods of the forests.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: THE GAME OF SING GAMBLE—SKOKOMISH TRIBE.]




CHAPTER XI

THEIR GAME OF SING-GAMBLE


There are still many practices of the early Indians continued through
the present generation of half civilized and half-blood descendants. The
Indian has an inveterate love of gambling. Indeed, the Indian life is
all a game of chance, so superstitious a being is he. They probably have
gambled ever since the days of the first Indian. Among the games is that
of “sing-gamble,” which though divested of much of its old-time ceremony,
is still the great game of chance among them. In its simple form it is
but a plain game of guessing with the chances equally for or against the
players. The Indians, however, believe in it with all their soul and
they will throw their whole soul into it to-day as they will risk their
all, horses, dogs, canoes, jewelry, almost their wives and children upon
its infatuous chances. The preparation and ceremony formerly attendant
upon it is what gave to the game its great renown. To-day when played
with more than a dozen persons it is still a game of great moment. The
writer, who recently visited the Skokomish Indians had the pleasure of
witnessing a “sing-gamble,” which lasted almost an entire night, though
but a few took part. The illustration accompanying this story is a good
representation of the scene, as it is an exact likeness of the half-breed
and full-blood Indians who participated. Night time, that lends the most
weirdness, is chosen as the time for the “sing-gamble.”

In brief, a huge fire was built, on either side of which a long board was
laid down on a shorter piece, so that they might be said to represent the
strings of a violin. The players ranged themselves back of the boards
in two opposing sides. The gambling paraphernalia consisted of several
sticks of green alder with the bark peeled off, excepting some that had a
little ring of bark left around the middle of the stick. Counters for the
game were secured in the shape of sharpened cedar sticks, which were set
in the ground on either side of the fire in front of the players. In that
instance 30 points constituted the game, though it is often run up to 60.
Preliminary to the start the bets had to be arranged between the players.
Two canoes, a silver watch, two ponies, $1.50 in silver, a coat, a shirt
and some other things were wagered on the result. This preliminary took
up a great deal of time and much talking, but was finally adjusted to the
satisfaction of all. Then the game began.

Two of the players on one side selected each two of the alder sticks,
which were about four inches long and an inch in diameter. Each man took
one clean of bark and one with the circle of bark left in the middle,
that was the distinguishing mark. The point to be detected by the
opposing side was which hand held the clean stick or which the one with
the bark on it. First the two Indians having the sticks fumbled with them
under their shirts, then they brought them forth and the music began,
all the Indians on that side joining in and at the same time those not
holding the sticks keeping time by rapping on the board in front of them
with long sticks of hard wood. The music, if such it could be called, was
rapid and vociferous, a kind of sing-song monotone drawling affair, which
at times changed to something very like a rude melody.

All this time the two players were swinging their hands at half arm,
bending at the elbow, in front of them, while they leaned far forward
with their bodies, anon at times throwing their heads back and their
chests out and all the time keeping up that dreadful, unearthly singing.
Occasionally they would dextrously throw the short sticks in the air,
catch them again and slap them under their shirts, bring them forth
again, all the time keeping up with the procession of noise and the
motions of their bodies.

The more pandemonium, the more hurrah the harder it was supposed to be
for the opponents to guess the proper hand that held the bark-ringed
stick.

Whenever an opponent made a guess he quickly threw out one hand to arm’s
length in a pointing way, while with the other he made a fanning motion
in a half circle, placing the palm of the hand over the other arm at
about the elbow. Practice makes this a very graceful motion. The singing
and noise ceases and the player opens up his hands. If the other has
guessed rightly, the two sticks are tossed across the fire and the other
side takes them up while the men just losing them become the guessers.
Two Indians do the playing while two are selected on the other side to
do the guessing. Whenever one side makes a point, which consists in a
failure of the opponents to guess rightly, they mark it up by sticking
one of the cedar sticks into the ground in front of them. When they lose
they pull one out.

This game lasted from about 9 in the evening until 3 in the morning, and
before it ended the Indians were nearly exhausted from their excessive
singing and excited motions. Sweat poured off some of them in streams
during the performance, and they divested themselves of everything but
trousers and shirt. Some became very hoarse from the singing. Many of
them rode to the scene on their ponies from distances of several miles
and next day it was one of the topics of the reservation.




CHAPTER XII

TWANA THUNDERBIRD


The Rev. Myron Eells, who for a score of years has been a missionary
among the Indians of Puget Sound, has made investigations into the myths
and traditions of the people among whom he has labored, and has stored up
many an interesting story of the Thunderbird superstition. He says:

The general idea among the Indians is that thunder is caused by an
immense bird, whose size darkens the heavens, whose body is the thunder
cloud, the flapping of whose wings causes the thunder, and the bolts of
fire, which it sends out of its mouth to kill the whale for its food,
are the lightning. The Makahs and some other tribes, however, invest the
animal with a twofold character, human and bird-like. According to them
the being is supposed to be a gigantic Indian, named in the dialects of
the various coast tribes Kakaitch, T’hlu-kluts, and Tu-tutsh, the latter
being the Nootkan name. He lives in the highest mountains and his food
consists of whales. When he goes after food he puts on a great garment,
which is made of a bird’s head, a pair of very large wings, and a feather
covering for his body, and around his waist he ties the lightning fish,
which slightly resembles the sea horse. This animal has a head as sharp
as a knife, and when he sees a whale he darts the lightning fish into
its body, which he then seizes and carries to his home. Occasionally,
however, he strikes a tree, and more seldom a man.

The origin of the bird, according to Mr. Swan, as given by the Chehalis
and Chinook Indians, is as follows: “Ages ago an old man named Too-lux,
or the south wind, while traveling north, met an old woman named
Quoots-hooi, who was an ogress or giantess. He asked her for food, when
she gave him a net, telling him that she had nothing to eat, and he
must go and try to catch some fish. He accordingly dragged the net and
succeeded in catching the grampus, or, as the Indians called it, a little
whale. This he was about to cut with his knife, when an old woman cried
out to him to take a sharp shell and not to cut the fish crossways, but
split it down the back. Without giving heed to what she said he cut the
fish across the side and was about to take off a piece of blubber, but
the fish immediately changed into an immense bird, that, when flying,
completely obscured the sun, and the noise made by its wings shook the
earth.” They also add that this Thunderbird flew to the north and lit
on the top of the Saddleback mountain, near the Columbia river, where
it laid a nest full of eggs. It was followed by the giantess, who found
the eggs; whereupon she began to break and eat them, and from these
mankind, or at least the Chehalis and Chinook tribes, were produced. The
Thunderbird, called Hahness by those Indians, came back, and, finding
its nest destroyed, went to Too-lux, the south wind, for redress, but
neither of them could ever find the ogress, although they regularly went
north every year.

[Illustration: THE THUNDERBIRD MASK—TWANAS]

As to the cause of thunder among these tribes Mr. Swan says that when
a young girl reaches womanhood she has to go through a process of
purification, which lasts a month. Among other customs at this time, if
there is a southwest wind, with signs of rain, she must on no account go
out of doors, else the southwest wind is so offended that he will send
the Thunderbird, who then, by shaking his wings, causes the thunder, and
from whose eyes go forth the flashes of lightning. As far as Mr. Swan
knew, every thunder storm which occurred while he lived at Shoalwater Bay
(three years) was attributed by the Indians to this cause—that is, to
some girl disobeying this law.

The Indians are very superstitious in regard to this bird, believing that
if they possess any feather, bone or other part of it, or bone of the
lightning fish, it will be of supernatural advantage to them. A Makah,
who had been very sick, was reduced to a skeleton, and it was believed
could not recover, yet he managed to crawl one day, says Mr. Swan, to a
brook near by, and while there he heard a rustling which so frightened
him that he covered his face with his blanket. Peeping out he saw a raven
near him, apparently trying to throw up something, and, according to the
Indian, it did throw up a piece of bone about three inches long. The
Indian secured this, believing it to be a bone of the Thunderbird, and he
was told by the Indian doctors that it was a medicine sent to him by his
Ta-mahn-a-wis, or guardian spirit, to cure him. It was a fact that he did
recover very quickly, perhaps through the effect of his imagining it to
be such a bone and a strong medicine. It may also have been dropped by
the raven.

On one occasion, at a display of fireworks in Port Townsend, a number
of rockets bursting showed fiery serpents. These the Indians believed
belonged to the Thunderbird, and offered large sums for pieces of the
animal. They told Mr. Swan they would give two hundred dollars for a
backbone of one.

A Quiniault Indian once professed to have obtained a feather of one of
these birds. He said he saw one of them light, and, creeping up softly,
tied a buckskin string to one of its feathers and fastened the other
end to a stump. When the bird flew away it left the feather, which was
forty fathoms long. No other Indian saw it, for he was careful to keep
it hid, but possession of it was not questioned by the rest, as he was
very successful in catching sea otter. According to the Makahs, one of
the principal homes of the bird is on a mountain back of Clayoquot, on
Vancouver island, where is a lake, and around it the Indians say are many
bones of whales which the bird has killed.

Many of the northwestern Indians have a performance in honor of this
Thunderbird, which is called the thunderbird performance or “black
ta-mahn-a-wis.” It is said to have originated with the Nittinat Indians,
according to the following legend, as recorded by Mr. Swan: Two men had
fallen in love with the same woman, but she would not give either the
preference, whereupon they began to quarrel. But one of them, of more
sense than the other, said: “Do not let us fight about that squaw. I
will go and see the chief of the wolves and he will tell me what is to
be done, but I cannot get to his house except by stratagem. Now, they
will know we are at variance; so do you take me by the hair and drag me
over these sharp rocks, which are covered with barnacles, and I shall
bleed and pretend to be dead, and the wolves will come and carry me away
to their house.” This was done, but when the wolves were ready to eat
him he jumped up and astonished them by his boldness. The chief wolf was
so much pleased with his bravery that he taught the man the mysteries
of the Thunderbird performance. This, the most savage of all the Indian
ceremonies, spread among all the Indians on Puget Sound, as well as to
the north, the latter being the most savage in the performance of the
ceremonies. Among other things, the performers hoot like owls, howl like
wolves, paint their bodies black, especially the face, from which fact,
in whole or in part, comes the English name “black tamahnawis;” scarify
their arms, legs and sometimes the body, so as to bleed profusely, in
remembrance of its origin; they make much noise by firing guns, pound
on drums to represent thunder flash torches of pitchwood about as a
representation of lightning, and whistle sharply in imitation of the
wind. The ceremonies, however, vary in different tribes, being much more
savage and bloody in some than in others. Among the Makahs five days are
usually occupied in secret ceremonies, such as initiating candidates and
other performances, before any public outdoor ceremonies take place.
Among the Clallams the candidate for initiation is put into a kind of
mesmeric sleep, which does not appear to be the case with the Makahs.
Among the Clallams, however, the secret ceremonies are not always as long
as among the Makahs.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER XIII

SUPERSTITION THEIR RELIGION


Superstition was born with the first man, and is about the only thing in
the world that remains unchanged today. The more ignorant the people the
deeper we find them plunged into the dark maze of the mythical. People of
highly civilized nations are not free from this clinging shadow of the
forgotten or unknown past, and, although they laugh at the idea as being
rank foolishness, they will feel a little shiver if they are the first
to cross the track of a funeral, or they will stop and pick up a pin
which points toward them on the sidewalk, not because they need it, but
because—well, just because they want to. Civilized people call this trait
an eccentricity in themselves and superstition in the savage.

Savages the world over are steeped in superstitious myths, traditions
and in folk-lore which is peculiar each to its own tribe, or clan, but
through it all there are threads which connect one tribe or people with
another, though miles of distance may intervene.

The stories vary in detail and in the telling, but the main points are
identical, showing conclusively that at some pre-historic time men had a
means of inter-communication without telegraph, ships or railroads, and
that a myth originated by the medicine men or prophets of one tribe or
nation would spread far beyond the boundaries of the tribe which first
practiced it.

There are today two remarkable instances of this fact, both
semi-religious a and both originating with the medicine men.

The first is the ghost dance, made vaguely familiar by the battle of
Wounded Knee some years ago in the Dakota Bad Land. The other is the
myth of the Thunderbird, the Skam-son of the Haidas, and known from Cape
Flattery to Wisconsin by various tribal names.

The object of this chapter is to show the remarkable hold which a
mythical tale can get on the savage mind, and how the Ta-mahn-a-wis sway
the people of their tribe by their dark practices; hence the myth of the
Thunderbird as believed in by them from the coast to the great lakes.

The tale involving the origin of this strange creature has already been
given as it is told among the Twanas, but it is more than probable that
each tribe has its own version of the first appearance of it in their
horizon, as all Indians believe in a multitude of spirits, both good and
bad.

The idea of a Great Spirit as is generally taken by whites to cover the
Indian religion is erroneous, as every mountain, river, lake or other
natural object, as well as natural phenomenon, is accredited with being
the home of some particular spirit; in fact, the old Greek mythology is a
good comparison, and illustrates the idea exactly.

Hence we find the thunder personified by an immense bird with some
tribes, and with others as half bird, half man, or a man who wears
a bird’s skin, but, all agree that the personage is of colossal
proportions, and give it the name of Thunderbird.

[Illustration: DAKOTA DESIGNS OF SMALLER THUNDERERS.]

Surroundings modify the form and features of this mythical being to a
great extent, and account for the different descriptions of it given by
different tribes.

The Twanas believe it to be an immense bird which lives on the top of a
high mountain, and feeds on whales which it kills by lightning. It is
here in the form of an eagle, with quill feathers sixty fathoms long in
each wing.

With them it is a good spirit, harming no one unless an individual has
displeased it; then the person is killed by a glance from its eye, which
is the lightning. They believe that it is the god of rain, and also
that the image of it carved on their implements of war or the chase
gives the owner strength in fighting and good luck in hunting. Thus it
is a hunter-warrior-rain god. Rev. Eells reports a carving of the Twana
version cut in a basaltic boulder near Eniti, Wash., which the Indians
say is the face of the Thunderbird, and they believe that if the rock is
shaken or removed in any way it will cause rain.

Among the Haidas of Queen Charlotte island it is believed to be an
immense creature, half man, half bird, whose body is the mountains to the
sea, shielded from view by heavy clouds, the main difference in the story
being in the lightning, which is here personified by the fish instead of
described as a glance of the eye of the bird covered with feathers, and
who is accompanied by the lightning fish, which he darts at the whales
and kills them for food. This lightning fish is pictured as the Killer
whale, which is feared by the Indians, as it attacks them sometimes while
voyaging about in their canoes; hence they credit it as a companion of
the Thunderbird, or Skam-son, as they call it. As with the Twanas, the
thunder is caused by the flapping of the wings as the creature flies from
Skam-son. This is easily accounted for by the fact that the Haidas are a
sea-going nation, a nation of fishermen, who gain their living from the
ocean; hence they would naturally associate a fish of some kind with any
tradition or myth where it could be used.

They tattoo the image of the bird on their bodies as a clan or family
mark in t he same manner as they do the otter, halibut, skate and other
designs, to signify the family the individual belongs to; or, as one
remarked to Judge Swan of Port Townsend: “If you had the image of a swan
tattooed on your body the Indians would know your family name.”

The figure is carved on their totem posts and canoe stems and painted
on the house fronts, and various implements with the belief, as among
the Twanas, that it gives them power, courage and luck in hunting,
fishing or war. A mask representing the head of the bird is worn in the
Ta-mahn-a-wis dances and ceremonies, which have something to do with the
Thunderbird, though just what this is has never been clearly ascertained,
as the Indians will not allow whites to witness these Ta-mahn-a-wis
practices, which are of the nature of a secret society among civilized
people.

The Twanas and the Clallams also use a mask of a different design for the
same purposes. No tribes tattoo the figure on their person, so far as
known, outside of the Haidas.

[Illustration: OJIBWA FLYING THUNDERBIRD]

Leaving the coast and going eastward we find the Thunderbird among the
Sioux of Dakota and Eastern Montana again, this time being personified
in an immense eagle, with four joints to the wing and which dwells in
a lodge on the top of a high knoll or butte. The lodge has four doors,
one for each cardinal point of the compass, and at each door there is a
guardian spirit. These spirits are a beaver, a butterfly, an otter and
one other animal not clearly defined, whose duty it is to guard and act
as messengers for the Thunderbird.

As with the Twanas, the lightning is a glance from the eye, and a
person who has a presentment that the Thunderbird is displeased with
him and intends to kill him, retires to a high hill to await his doom,
after having bid his friends farewell. Sometimes, owing to the isolated
position of the individual, he is actually struck by lightning during
some of the heavy thunder storms of the region, and that settles the myth
all the firmer in the Indian mind, for the Thunderbird it was who killed
him, just as he said it would. Here the myth assumes three or four, or
rather a family of thunderers, some good, some evil, some who guard the
destiny of the warrior and strike terror into the heart of the enemy,
others who see that the hunter does not come home empty handed.

Some are headless and have wings, some are wingless but provided with
heads, but the Thunderbird, with a big “T,” who is the rain god and
thunder creater and good spirit-in-chief, is described as a very large
bird which flies fast. This bird has a whole brood of little ones, who
follow behind the big thunderer and make the long rumble noticeable in
the prairie thunder peals. The old bird is wise and good, harming no
one, and causing rain, which makes the plants grow, but the young ones
are like young men, very mischievous, and will not listen to counsel and
are continually doing a great deal of damage, and killing an occasional
person purely in a playful way, for when they grow old, they settle down
and become good spirits, too. Nothing can kill or destroy the Thunderbird
but an immense giant, who can stride over rivers and mountains and can
kill anything by a look. This giant still exists, but nobody knows where,
and is always hunting for the thunderer, who has to fly from place to
place to keep away from the evil giant, thus causing storms by flying
about. The old bird starts with the loud crash of noise, and then the
little ones rise in a swarm and make a lot more noise, but not so loud as
the old one, which flies very fast.

[Illustration: HAIDA TATOOING—THUNDERBIRD HEAD.]

The giant killed one of the old ones a long, long time ago, back of
Little Crow’s village, near the head of the Mississippi river, and the
medicine men still have totems made of the feathers and bones, and they
are very strong medicine against evil.

This bird had “a face like a man, nose like an eagle bill, body long and
slender and four joints to each wing, which were painted zigzag like the
lightning, and the back of the head was rough and red,” according to the
Dakota tradition. This is the Sioux story of the Thunderbird. Going a
little further east we find the Ojibwa, who live in Minnesota and around
the shores of Lake Superior with a myth of the thunderer which makes it
entirely a good spirit, a sort of servant of the medicine man, shaman or
priest, and who helps them to work cures, find good medicine plants, and
many other things which have a good influence.

With the Ojibwa it is also an immense eagle-like bird but without any
superfluity of wing joints. The thunder is the noise of its flying and it
causes rain which makes medicine plants grow and also it can apparently
find a medicine plant to fit the particular disease by looking on the
earth, in the sky or in the inside of the earth, either of which places
it can visit at will under the instructions of the medicine man or
shaman, who holds a controlling power over it.

There is no record of any masks being used to represent the thunderer,
directly east of the coast tribes, the only representations being from
Indian drawings, which interpret their idea and which are represented in
this book.

There are no carvings or images except those worked in beads, from near
Fort Snelling, Minnesota, which represent the bird with the red breast
and tail, and having somewhat of an eagle form.

[Illustration: OJIBWA THUNDERER]

The Ojibwa figures are from drawings on the “music board” used by the
Ojibwa at the initiation of candidates into the society of the Mide-wiwin
or great medicine, and are really notes in the medicine song of this
society, for they are only one of numerous characters painted in rows on
a board which are translated into a chant by the Mide men to mean some
particular achievement of the Thunderbird under the guidance of that
society.

This Thunderbird lives somewhere up in the sky and can only be brought to
the earth by the Mide or shaman priests, who are the medicine men of the
tribe, and members of the Mide-wiwin society, and then only to serve some
good end in the making of medicine.

Thus the Thunderbird of the Pacific Coast degenerates into a servant of
the Ojibwa medicine man, or else the servant grows to the proportion of
a God as he travels West according to which version is taken as to the
origin, but it is likely that the servant grew to be the God, as all
tales grow in the telling, especially among an ignorant people like the
Indians.

Most of these myths and folk-lore tales have their origin in a “dream” or
trance of some medicine man whose word is taken without question by his
people because he is really a religious magician or prophet-doctor who
is credited with many supernatural powers, has “visions” and foretells
events. They are clever in the means they employ to bring about a desired
end and thus “speak a single, straight tongue” to their people who would
as soon cut off a hand as to doubt the statements of the Ta-mahn-a-wis
men. With this kind of a power wielded over them it is no wonder that
the simple-minded Indian peoples the earth, the sea and the air with all
kinds of demons of which the Thunderbird is but one example, and has a
noise for every Skal-lal-a-toot, and a Skal-lal-a-toot for every noise,
with spirits inhabiting everything, totems, fetiches and charms for
and against a thousand and one things which he does not understand and
credits to the supernatural.




CHAPTER XIV

THEIR DAILY EXISTENCE


The illustrations of the Puget Sound Indian accompanying are very
characteristic of the race. In the main the general characteristics are
such that they cannot be mistaken. The infusion of white and foreign
blood during the last 30 years or so has had a marked effect upon the
later generation and to a great extent changed the current of Indian
life. Leaving out of the question the general features of color and
vigorousness of form they are readily distinguishable from the pure
bloods about them. Half-breeds more readily fall into and adopt the
customs and practices of the whites and to a considerable extent are not
averse to manual labor. Hence they are found in the mills and forests of
the country sharing the burdens of civilized life.

But work for a genuine Siwash is no more palatable than it is to a
Patagonian. He sticks to his “canim” like a leech to the epidermis.
Laziness is a cultivated characteristic of the old-time Indian, is
grafted into his being as indelibly as the tattooing on the arm of an
East India man and he will never work so long as the sands on his native
beach contain a live clam or the hills above a huckleberry bush from
which his klootchman can dig a bivalve or pick a wicker basket of blue
berries. He will not even deign to assist in these simple labors, and
in this he does not surpass his kinsman who are reared in the interior.
These are the drudgery of his klootchman and night or day, sun or rain,
she may always be found on the beach rustling up the next meal. He will
sometimes accompany her and when there are two baskets to “tote” he may
even consent to carry one, but it is much more to his nature to trudge
along at the rear empty handed. This characteristic is more apparent in
the cities when, having more of one or the other than the family larder
requires for the time being, they seek the towns to dispose of it for a
trifling sum, which is to be expended in knick knacks, gew gaws, etc.,
etc., that are the fancy of the Indian mind.

[Illustration: BUILDING SIWASH CANIM]

The one thing only which the old-time Siwash thinks it not beneath his
dignity to indulge in is fishing, and this is his particular special
privilege which he never permits any interference with. True, his dame
has the privilege of fishing for cod and dogfish and the commoner
species, but the taking of the lordly salmon is never relegated to her.
If he is one of the old-time Indians wrapped still in the superstitious
beliefs of his ancestors, not only is she not permitted the pleasure
of the chase for salmon, but she is never permitted to put her foot
inside the salmon canim, nor is she ever allowed to touch the salmon
line or hook. That would forever spoil either canoe or line from use by
the imperious head of the household. These practices, while still in
vogue among the more isolated villages, is not so strictly adhered to
by Indians who almost daily come in contact with the whites, nor are
these remnants of a superstitious race very widely known among their
enlightened and civilized neighbors. A trip to any of the favorite
fishing grounds about the Sound and a study of the life of the village
will convince any one that were they suddenly removed from all influence
of civilized life, the Indian of today is just as he was when the
first white man’s boat ploughed the gentle waters of the Sound. The
thoroughbred Siwash will not even countenance the pretty gearing of the
modern fisherman, but clings tenaciously to those articles fashioned by
his own hand. He, however, will use the spoon in trolling, but it is one
he has made himself from the metal and polished in his own way, swung
from a bit of wire crooked and fashioned in his own odd fashion. His is
an invention unprotected, yet he will never trouble himself about letters
patent, for no white man can ever imitate his work successfully. There
is something about it that seems to have a most unusual attraction for
the finest and best, for a Siwash is seldom met with winter or summer,
on a fishing expedition without one or more of the best fish the water
contains.

They know just the hour, just the spot and place when and where to fish
and seldom are seen trolling any other time. Trout a Siwash has no
love for and never attempts to take. He may have his camp on a stream
alive with the finest of the trout species, but he never molests them.
A polluted dog salmon lying dead upon the sand bank is more preferable
in his eyes and he will pick up one and walk away with the same grim
satisfaction that he will after having speared or hooked a monster silver
side, the king of the genus.

The klootchman is no less characteristic in appearance and features than
the Siwash himself. They are decrepit in looks, bowed in form from the
constant life-long use of the canim, prematurely old and unsociable as
a black bear. There is if possible more superstition, more mystery to
the klootchman than to her lordly partner. She never talks to the whites
unless it is to offer for sale the fruit from the forest, the catch from
the salt water or when around on begging expeditions, and of the latter
there is little. The Siwash will stoop to outright begging, especially
if he is a chief or has become debauched by associates with evil-minded
whites, but his wife scarcely ever.

La belle klootchman is both the pride of the family and the belle of the
village, and on her is lavished all the fashion and vermillion of the
sweet society of the natives. She dotes on loud colors and is noticeably
proud of whatever she wears as long as it is bright and showy. She
ages, however, like an autumn leaf and once past sweet sixteen she is
relegated to the shades of ugliness and forgotten. Of all things, Indian,
the hardest to determine would be the age of the pure blood Siwash or
klootchman. They may be about 30 or may be 75, they all look alike after
reaching the usual majority in years.

Outside the supplying of daily wants the only other task of the
pure-blood Siwash is the building of his cedar canoes. Seldom is it
that the whites get an opportunity of seeing this work in progress. It
is most always done on or near the beach in out-of-the-way places and
the old-fashioned Indian-made hand adz is as religiously adhered to
as it ever was. The interior of the cedar log was originally cleared
by burning, but occasionally they will now condescend to the use of a
heavier instrument secured from the whites to get rid of the core. In
trimming down, fashioning and finishing up the canoe the little bit of
sharpened steel is, however, always used.

Early Indians, and for that matter all of the present day, entertained
a righteous dread of photography. Electricity, the galvanic battery and
the telegraph wires were things as dreadful to them as their imaginary
Skal-lal-la-toot, that ranged the woods about their villages. They
believe that these things are spirits of some kind that have been through
the influence of the white man’s Ta-mahn-a-wis or big medicines enslaved
to the fellow who happens to possess the electrical appliance.

When the old trader, William Deshaw, who has been frequently mentioned
in connection with Port Madison Indians, first came to Agate pass to
look after the Indians there he took with him an old-fashioned galvanic
battery. This mysterious instrument probably invested him, in the eyes
of the simple savages, who had never before heard of such things, with
greater power than anything else he could possibly have taken among them.
It promoted him at once to the position of a great white Ta-mahn-a-wis,
whose influence was never afterwards disputed. Soon after his appearance
there and acquaintance with the Old-Man-House tribes the construction
of the old Puget Sound Telegraph & Cable company’s line was carried
past their village and it became a thing of dreadful consequence to the
Indians. They avoided it and feared it as they did the “evil eye.” It
was quite an impossible thing to ever get an Indian to lend a hand at
replacing the wires in position when they happened to become broken down
during the winter storms. Touch an electric wire? They would sooner have
suffered the loss of a hand under a chopping block.

The old trader tells of many amusing spectacles with the use of the
old galvanic battery on some of the Indians. As before stated the
practices of their severe superstitious rites often caused many of the
Ta-mahn-a-wis men to fall into trance-like and comatose conditions,
from which it was impossible, by any known Indian agency to arouse
them. The old trader tells of one that occurred at Old-Man-House in
which the efficacy of the old galvanic battery was proved to the Indians
satisfaction with a vengeance. One of these old medicine men had after
several days of unusual exertion and privation fallen into a comatose
condition. Every art known to the other’s Ta-mahn-a-wis had been exerted
to no purpose and as a last resort the Indians had sent for the white
Ta-mahn-a-wis living across the narrow pass.“So he’s dead, is he?”
inquired the trader of the Indians who went after him.

“Yes, he’s dead. Indian Ta-mahn-a-wis no good for him,” returned the
couriers.

“Umph! yes, well white man’s Ta-mahn-a-wis fetch him,” said the trader
and he went after the old battery. Going across he found the Indian lying
on the floor of a hut upon the inevitable rush mat and to all intents and
purposes dead as a mackerel, with a howling, prancing mob of his brethren
about him.

The trader felt of him, but he was cold and bloodless without apparent
pulse or life. He cleared a space about him and arranged his battery. The
Indians becoming subdued watched the process with incredulity and stoical
silence. The poles of the instrument were placed so that the full effect
of the electric current would be most keenly felt, and then the operator
turned it on with force enough to have broken up the nerve system of a
dozen ordinary men. With a bound and a shriek the prostrate form was on
his feet in an instant and so sudden was the transformation that half the
onlookers were knocked down by the terrified and quickened medicine man
by his wild leap into the air. He bolted for the door and took for the
woods amidst the greatest consternation of his mourning friends. He did
not return for some days, but the evil spirit that had been supposed to
have taken possession of him was effectually squelched. After that there
was no more incredulous smiles and looks when the galvanic battery was
around.

This trader, who knew Seattle’s famous old chief almost as a brother,
says they had a great time trying to secure a photograph of him in the
early days. There was but one small photograph gallery in Seattle at that
time. Many days and weeks passed before the old settler could induce
the chief even to go near the place. By degrees they got him in the
building, but when he would see the muzzle of the camera pointed at him,
he would invariably break away. One day the settlers went all the way to
Fort Steilacoom and bought a new suit of soldiers clothes for him to be
photographed in. The old chief was greatly pleased at such a compliment,
but when he found there was to be a string to the proposition, a
consideration in the way of submitting to be photographed, the settlers
could do nothing further with him. In the language of the old trader,
“That put a squibosh on the whole business.”

At the next attempt to get the old fellow photographed somebody got
him to “swilling” a little and managed to get the old fellow into the
gallery. He was too much under the influence of the liquid to know what
was being done, and the photographer got a shot at him. When the old
chief came to his senses he was dreadfully outraged in feeling and said
that he “didn’t want any more shots at him.” After that when looking
through a picture book the old chief was very careful. The Indian’s
superstition led him to believe that men in a picture took the evil
genius of the photograph, or the electric wire lurked to pounce out and
enslave him.

[Illustration: SYMBOLIC DRAWING—Northern Indians]




CHAPTER XV

LEGEND OF THE FIRST FROG


It may be interesting, and at this time something of a relief from the
duller monotony of the pages preceding, to give one of the characteristic
legends which were current among the Indians when first the whites came
among them. This may properly be termed the Siwash legend of the first
frog, and gives the sad fate that befell a too ardent Indian lover.

“Many many snows ago the Great Tyee of all lived upon the earth; the
snows that have come and gone since then cannot well be counted by men.
The Great Tyee was not only chief over man, but also over the birds, the
fish and all the animals in the woods. All feared him and did his bidding.

“The Great Tyee had been very successful in his wars, and had subjugated
all the chiefs but Clack-a-mas, a warrior who had long and well fought
against the Great Tyee. At last both, growing tired of war, resolved
to smoke the great peace pipe and bury the hatchet, and to more firmly
cement their growing friendship the Great Tyee asked for and obtained the
consent of Clack-a-mas to the marriage of his daughter Kla-Kla-Klack-Hah
(the woman who talks) to Wah-Wah-Hoo, the Tyee’s only son. But the Great
Tyee’s plans for the marriage of his son were destined to be nipped in
the bud. Wah-Wah-Hoo had long and ardently loved a maiden of his own
tribe, a daughter of one of the lesser chiefs. Hah-Hah had all those
graces which go to make a woman charming, and she was as deeply in love
with Wah-Wah-Hoo as he with her.

“It is easier to imagine than to depict the grief of the lovers when they
learned the will of the Great Tyee. To Wah-Wah-Hoo it seemed that nothing
was left him to do but to prepare for the wedding, which was to take
place immediately. It had not as yet occurred to him to disobey the Great
Tyee. Such a path was fraught with too much danger to be taken at once,
and for the present no ray of hope penetrated through the dark cloud
that had settled down and quenched the bright light of his and Hah-Hah’s
happiness.

“Daily the preparations for the marriage went on, and as the day of its
consummation drew nearer Wah-Wah-Hoo became more and more reluctant to
carry out the command of the Great Tyee. On the day before the wedding
Hah-Hah, robed in her brightest skins, went to keep the last tryst with
her recreant lover. They met in a grassy dell, sprinkled over with
brightest wild flowers; but to the infatuated lover Hah-Hah was the
loveliest flower of them all. Love stole away his reason, and, forgetful
of his duty to the Great Tyee, his father, Wah-Wah-Hoo gathered Hah-Hah
up in his arms and hurried away into the forest. They journeyed many suns
into the somber woods and finally built themselves a shelter on the bank
of a great river, where, forgetful of the wrath of the Great Tyee, they
were happy.

“The wedding day dawned. Kla-Kla-Klack-Hah, robed in her best skins,
stood waiting the coming of Wah-Wah-Hoo to claim and to carry off his
bride. The minutes swiftly multiplied into hours until Clack-a-mas,
deeply chagrined at the disdainful treatment of his daughter, sought an
explanation of the Great Tyee. A search was immediately instituted for
Wah-Wah-Hoo, and then, and not until then, was the flight of the lovers
discovered.

“At once the Great Tyee ordered his swiftest runners and his best
trailers to follow and to bring back his disobedient son. Swiftly they
ran through the woods, searching long and far, but baffled at last,
they were compelled to return to the Great Tyee with the story of their
failure.

“Then the Great Tyee went out, and, seated upon the river bank, called
about him the chiefs of all the animals in the woods and of the fishes in
the sea and commanded them as they feared his anger to search for and to
find his son. They, dreading his power, immediately set out upon their
quest.

“The snake, squirming his way in and out among the berry patches,
searched long and arduously for the lovers. The chief of the mosquitos,
calling about him his band, who number more than the grains of sand
on the sea shore, searched for and found the lovers; but the chief,
remembering that when, in an inadvertent and hungry moment he had
alighted upon Hah-Hah’s cheek she had spared his life, ordered his band
to disperse and to say nothing of the lovers. The squirrel, running up
and down the trees hoarding his winter stores, kept watch that the lovers
did not go by him unseen. The eagle, in ever-increasing circles, soared
high above the land and kept a watchful eye that the lovers did not
escape him. The chief of the wolves found them, but, remembering that
Wah-Wah-Hoo had saved his life when caught in a trap, he, too, commanded
his followers to say nothing of the lovers.

“Soon the chilling blasts of winter went whistling through the woods,
and the ice king, seizing the earth in his stifling grasp, wrapped it
in a mantle of snow. Hunger—grim, gaunt, unrelenting hunger—entered
Wah-Wah-Hoo’s wigwam, and stole from him that which he loved best of all,
Hah-Hah. Wah-Wah-Hoo, looking for the last time upon his sweetheart,
turned away and hurried to the big rock overlooking the swirling water
of the river. There, singing his death song, he flung himself into
the water. But Wah-Wah-Hoo was destined not to die. The chief of the
fishes swallowed him, and, swimming to the spot where the Great Tyee was
standing, spewed him forth upon the bank.

“The Great Tyee cursed his son and changed him into a frog, whose dismal
croaking is now heard, telling his sad story to the sons of man and
warning them to be obedient.”




CHAPTER XVI

ANOTHER MAN IN THE MOON


The man in the moon, among some of the tribes, has a very pretty story
reserved for him, which like the young brave who was turned into a
croaking frog was placed in the moon for his too ardent love for a dusky
maiden. The legend more properly belongs to the Vancouver island tribes.
The following version was told by an Indian who is thought to be over 100
years old and it is faithfully believed in by himself and his tribe:

“‘Many, many snows ago, long before a white man came to this country,
there lived in a village on Quatsino sound the Great Tyee of all. He was
not only tyee over men, but also over the animals, birds and fishes. His
smile was like the sun coming from behind the cloud, his frown like the
lightning, quick and awful, no man could stand before it and live.

“‘Wah-nah-ho, the Great Tyee’s son, was just the opposite from his
father, sunny tempered, and loved by every one. The animals and birds
in the forest, the fishes in the sea, all loved and did his bidding.
Now, Wah-nah-ho was unhappy. He loved Tum-Tum, the fairest maiden in all
the land, and the Great Tyee had commanded him to marry Shingoopoot’s
daughter, who was ugly, ill-tempered, and who had already had one
husband. Now, Wah-nah-ho, who in all things else had been a most obedient
son, rebelled against his father, and with Tum-Tum at night when all the
village was asleep, stole away, and running swiftly, hid themselves in
the forest.

“‘The Great Tyee, when he discovered the flight of the lovers, was very
wroth, and swore that he would not show himself to his people until the
couple were found and brought before him. All the young men of the tribe
immediately plunged into the forest and hurried away to look for the
lovers. They searched long and at a great distance, but unsuccessfully,
and one by one returned to the village. Then the Great Tyee ordered all
the animals and birds out of the forest, and all the fishes out of the
rivers determined that hunger should compel his disobedient son to return.

“‘Finally, as day after day, he set his unsuccessful snares in the woods
and searched the streams for food, Wah-nah-ho was at last driven to
return to the village. He sought his father with his sweetheart, and on
his knees told him of his love for Tum-Tum, and begged for forgiveness.
The Great Tyee’s wrath broke forth at the sight of his son, and he placed
him in the sky with his sweetheart, where they now dwell, telling the
sons and daughters of man to be obedient.’”




CHAPTER XVII

S’BEOW AND HIS GRANDMOTHER


The wonders of the course of nature have ever challenged human attention.
In savagery, in barbarism, and in civilization alike, the mind of man has
sought the explanation of things. The Indians around Puget Sound have
not been less curious than the other races. Like the rest, they have a
strong yearning to understand the causes of all natural phenomena, such
as the movement of the heavenly bodies, the change of the seasons, the
succession of the night and day, the powers of air and water, the growth
of trees, the overflowing of rivers, the curious forms of storm-carved
rocks, the mysteries of life and death, the origin of the institutions of
society all demand explanation. While the desire of the savage to know
is as strong as it is with the civilized man, his curiosity is much more
easily satisfied. The sense of the savage is dull compared with that
of the civilized man; some people think that the barbarian has highly
developed perceptive faculties. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
For he sees few sights, hears few sounds, tastes of but few flavors,
smells of but few odors, so by reason of the extreme narrowness of his
experiences his whole sensible organization is coarse and blunt and his
powers of penetration are limited. He experiences some things difficult
to account for with his crude understanding. But he attempts to explain
it nevertheless. To his understanding supernatural power is necessary to
the performance of the acts which he describes, so he invents a story
which explains the phenomena to his satisfaction. He repeats it to
others and in their hands it grows and changes, becoming more refined
and reasonable as the race advances. Thus are the mythologies, the
philosophies, the religions, and the explanations of natural phenomena
of the savage man evolved; and just in proportion as he advances in the
scale of civilization the less he believes in these old traditions; the
more difficult the phenomena of nature for him to explain, the more
skeptical he becomes; in short, the more he knows, the less he thinks he
knows.

Their folklore explains all of the phenomena of nature to the
satisfaction of the savage, however foolish and simple it may seem to us.

Our Indians have not advanced far enough yet for their myths to contain
any of those lofty ideals and refined sentiments which crept into the
poetic legends of Greece, neither have they any conception of infinite
power. But nevertheless the performances of their Demi-gods, with that
queer mixture of power and weakness, and our “stick-siwashes” bear a
striking resemblance. The myths of the origin of the world and of man,
the fire-stealing, the romantic adventures of gods and heroes, and of the
sun and moon, have much in common, one with the other.

The most remarkable character in lore of the Puget Sound Indian was
old S’Beow. As the stories go, he is supposed to have been originally
an Arctic or white fox; but changed himself into a man. Ki-ki, or the
bluejay, was his grandmother. He had great power over his enemies
although he was often misled and even killed by them. He could change
himself into the form of any animal or thing he wished to; could cut
himself to pieces and put himself together again, and do many other
wonderful things. He is described as having cut himself in pieces and
poking the pieces out through a small hole in an ice house in which he
had been imprisoned and securing his liberty. There is also a story of
S’Beow playing ball with his own eyes.

Eldridge Morse, who has studied these legends systematically describes
the Indians’ conception of S’Beow as follows: He was a very short, pussy,
big-bellied man who looked a little like Santa Claus, with a long, heavy
white beard reaching to his waist; short white hair, sharp black eyes,
sharp pointed ears like those of an Arctic fox, and small hands and feet.
From either side of his mouth protruded an ugly cougar’s tusk. He wore a
short coat of mountain goat’s wool and had four live bluejays for buttons.

An old Indian up on the Stillaguamish river believes that his father saw
S’Beow once. He relates the experience as follows: At the southern point
of Camano island there is an old land slide.

Many years ago there was a band of Indians camped at that point on the
beach. His father and family were in a canoe paddling toward the camp.
It was just dusk and the ruby rays of a summer sun-set had not yet
disappeared. As if by magic or ta-mahn-a-wis, a man stood out on the
bluff above them. He swelled himself up and again he swelled himself up
until he was recognized as the form of old S’Beow, standing there as tall
as the big fir trees. Presently S’Beow kicked the bluff over onto the
Indians camped on the beach and buried them all, then stepped across onto
Hat island and disappeared.

Indians riding by the spot mourn and wail and cry for them to this day.
This fact together with the existence of the old slide at that place
proves the truth of the whole story to the entire satisfaction of the
savage.

It is very difficult to gather legends from the Puget Sound Indians,
however. Rev. Myron Eels, the venerable missionary of the Skokomish
reservation, Judge James G. Swan of Port Townsend, and Eldridge Morse, of
Snohomish, have met with some success. The latter gentleman is the only
one who has gathered them systematically and he has published nothing.

The Indians manifest much embarrassment when approached by a collector
of traditions until they learn that he is already familiar with them,
then his sailing is clear if he does not make fun of them. After all the
investigator is not sure at the present day how much of the story is an
Indian tradition and how much of it has been mixed with a story that some
missionary has told.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE DEMON SKANA


The Makahs of Cape Flattery tell many stories of animals quite
allegorical in their nature, which differ in details only from the
legends of the other West coast tribes. One of their leading characters
is the demon Skana. According to the Indian belief he can change himself
into any form. There are many stories told of him. A long time ago the
Indians were seal hunting in calm weather on a smooth sea. A killer
whale kept close to the canoe, and the Indians amused themselves by
throwing stones from their canoe ballast at him. The creature, tiring
of this treatment, made for the shore, where it grounded on the beach.
The curious Indians were attracted by a smoke which they saw curling
up from the beach, and put for shore that they might learn its cause.
Upon reaching the shore they were much surprised to find a large canoe,
instead of Skana, on the beach, and that a man was on shore cooking some
food by an out-door fire. He asked them why they threw stones at his
canoe. “You have broken it,” said he; “now go into the woods and get some
cedar to mend it with.”

After they had complied with his request he said to them: “Turn your
backs to the water and cover your heads with your skin blankets, and
don’t look till I call you.” They obeyed, and heard the canoe grate on
the beach as it was being hauled into the surf. Then the man exclaimed:
“Look now!” They looked and saw the canoe just going over the first
breaker, the man sitting in the stern. They looked again and the canoe
came up outside of the second breaker a killer, and not a canoe, with the
man, or demon, in its belly. According to James G. Swain this allegory is
common to all the tribes of the Northwest coast, and even in the interior
where the salmon takes the place of the ocra, which never ascends fresh
water rivers. To the north the Chilkat and other tribes carve the figure
of a salmon, inside of which is the full length figure of a nude Indian.

A casual observer might mistake this for another Jonah story taught the
Indians by the missionaries, but it is said to too far antedate their
arrival.

James G. Swan tells the story of one legend of the man in the moon, which
is common to the West coast Indians, and quite interesting.

The moon discovered a man about to dip his bucket into a brook after some
water, so it sent down its arms, or rays, and grabbed the man, who, to
save himself, seized hold of a big salal bush, but the moon being more
powerful took the man, bucket and bush up to himself, where they have
ever since lived, and can be seen every full moon during clear weather.
The man is a friend of the wind god, and at the proper signal empties his
bucket, causing it to rain on the earth.




CHAPTER XIX

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]




CHAPTER XX

LEGEND OF THE STICK-PAN


One of the most common legends among the Indians around Puget Sound is
the story of the stick-pan or the magic pan. “Stick-pan” is the Chinook
name of a shallow wooden tray upon which the Puget Sound Indians served
their food in their days of savagery. The story of the magic stick-pan
was current among all the tribes of the region, each of them representing
the scene of action to be along the river or stream most frequented by
them.

According to their idea, S’Beow, although possessed of many supernatural
powers, was thoroughly human. He could be led astray, overcome by
superior force, killed or otherwise disposed of as easy as any other
Siwash so far as his carnal self was concerned; but his spirit was
unconquerable. The spirit was immortal and S’Beow was never so dangerous
as just after he had been killed.

In defending the blind woman Skotah, S’Beow was overcome by superior
force, killed and thrown into the river. All night his dead body drifted
down the river. On the following day as he was rounding a bend in the
stream he came in sight of some thin, pale blue smoke curling heavenward
from a smouldering vine maple fire and on the bank of the river in front
of it he beheld two squaws who were preparing a couple of silver salmon
for their dinner.

By this time S’Beow’s dead body had grown very hungry, even more hungry
than he had ever been when alive, and he was at a loss to know how he
could get something to eat. After a moment’s reflection, however, a plan
suggested itself; S’Beow transformed himself into a very elegant, richly
painted stick-pan. Immediately upon catching sight of it the squaws put
out in the middle of the river in their canims (canoes) to catch it as it
passed by.

“What a fine stick-pan,” exclaimed one of the klootchmen.

“Just what we need,” replied the other, or as the old Indians express it:
“Ya-ka de-late klosh stick-pan,” while the other replied: “Mi si-ka hi-as
tick-kee o-coke.”

They picked it up, put it in their canoe and paddled ashore. Upon
reaching the spit they proceeded with the preparation of their dinner,
resting their fish before the fire on crossed sticks and roasting it in
Indian style.

They ate from their newly found stick-pan. While they were consuming the
upper half of the first salmon the lower half disappeared, they knew not
where.

S’Beow had eaten it.

With a second salmon they met with a like experience for S’Beow was very
hungry. At supper their previous experience was repeated, so thinking
the stick-pan was possessed of demons and being very angry at it for
consuming so much of their food, they smashed it to pieces.

At this stage old S’Beow cried with the voice of an infant: “I’ll be your
baby, I’ll be your baby, if you don’t hurt me.”

S’Beow became their baby, was taken to their rancheree and placed on
a board, a weight placed on his head and suspended from posts by two
strings so that he might swing as in a hammock instead of being rocked in
a cradle.

S’Beow was a “de-late klosh ten-as” (a very good baby). When the women
were at home he would do much loving and cooing, but would rarely or
never cry, but when they went out fishing or gathering salmon berries he
would transform himself into old S’Beow, get up and eat of their stores
of dried salmon until his enormous appetite was satisfied and would then
change himself back into a baby again before the women returned.

Badly as these childless, lonely women wanted a baby, they could not help
thinking that the baby was possessed of evil spirits and that he ate the
dried fish either when they were absent from the house or when they were
asleep.

At length they reached the conclusion that the baby was old S’Beow, and
one night while the fire was yet burning they talked the matter over and
resolved to kill him.

S’Beow, hearing this, again took upon himself the real character of
S’Beow and departed. At dawn he reached the fish-trap where the women had
caught their salmon and trout. He found it full of fish. His heart was
aching for revenge so he destroyed the dam and allowed the fish to escape.

The fish were all very grateful to him for his kindness and they
remembered him for it, so as he proceeded down the river the salmon and
trout came and poked their heads out of the water at every meal time so
that S’Beow could choose from among them the fish that he wanted to eat.

There seems to be neither moral nor location to this fragment of legend,
but it illustrates clearly some features of old S’Beow’s character as the
average Puget Sound Indian used to understand him.




CHAPTER XXI

THE MAGIC BLANKET


One of the best stories known to the Indians around Puget Sound is the
legend of the Ta-mahn-a-wis, or magic blanket.

Once upon a time there lived a boy with his parents on the shores of
Puget Sound, who was just budding into young manhood. He had reached that
point in life where boys prepare to fight life’s battles for themselves,
and where the Indians in former times sought to discover their totem,
or guardian spirit. This boy went alone with his bow and arrow into the
woods to hunt the little birds and little squirrels, and had good success
in killing the little birds and little squirrels. He took the skins of
the little squirrels and the feathers of the little birds and wove them
into a blanket. Many days this little boy hunted in the woods for bird
feathers and squirrel skins with which to make his blanket, until his
parents, friends and all the rest of the people became suspicious of him
and began to think that he was possessed of evil spirits.

Still the boy continued to work on his blanket day after day, from early
dawn until nightfall, and all the while his friends knew not what he was
doing. At length they became so much alarmed at the evil spirits of this
young man that they picked up all their effects, and got in their canoes
and sailed a long way across the waters, and left the boy alone in the
woods without fire, food or shelter.

The boy went home at night after having completed his blanket, upon
which he had been at work so long. When he found the home deserted he
exclaimed, according to the rendering in classic Chinook:

“Halo piah, pe halo muck-a-muck, pe halo stick, pe halo ictas, pe halo
tillicums. Nika de-late sick-tum tum.”

If he had spoken in English he would have said:

“There is no fire, and no food, and no house, and no pots, pans, kettles,
no friends; in short, nothing. It makes me sick at heart.” He looked all
round for his people, but could find no trace of them. They had taken all
of the canoes with them so that he could not follow them. He then thought
of his blanket. He went and got it and walked down the beach to the
edge of the salt water. He dipped one corner of the blanket in the salt
“chuck” and shook it, and out fell wood, and he shook it again and there
was fire. Again he dipped the blanket in the water, and when he shook it
out there were many little Siwashes to keep him company, and shaking it
again, they became big Siwashes. Again he dipped his blanket in the water
and shook it, and there were thousands of beautiful smelt. Just then a
big bird came along and gobbled up all of the fish that it could carry
and flew a long way over the waters with them to where the boy’s people
had gone.

The boy’s old mother was on the beach looking across the waters and
bewailing his sad fate, and thinking how she loved him and how sorry she
was that she had left him, and how she wished she had not left him to
perish there alone.

She thought she would see the rest of the people and see if she could not
prevail on them to go back to her son, for she could not believe that he
was possessed of demons. The woman looked up and saw a great bird flying
from the direction where her boy was living. The bird flew directly into
her canoe and began to spew up smelt. Between the pumping Kuhl-kulli,
for that was the bird’s name, would exclaim: “I-bro-ught-these-from-your
boy! I-bro-ught-these-from-your-boy!” The great bird continued to spew up
fish until the canoe was half filled with smelt, all the while saying: “I
brought these from your boy!” As the mother looked across the waters in
the direction in which the bird came her heart leaped high with joy, for
in the dim distance she beheld a smoke rising heavenward, which informed
her that her boy was all right, for she knew that her boy could not
starve with so many fish and a fire to cook them. She was sure that he
was possessed of a good, and not an evil, spirit.

The mother told her friends all about what had happened, and persuaded
them to go with her back to where her son was living, and the boy and his
parents, his old friends and his new friends all lived happily together
for many years afterwards.




CHAPTER XXII

LEGEND OF FLATHEAD ORIGIN


James Henry, a well known Indian of Port Gamble, who follows the sealing
business is responsible for the story of the sky falling down.

A long time ago all the Indians with flattened heads lived away up north
in the region of perpetual ice and snow. The parents of the race were ten
brothers and all of them were very big men. They lived on deer and bear
meat and the flesh of tarmigan or white grouse. They were all excellent
archers and they killed so many white grouse with their bows and arrows
that the Sagh-a-lie Tyee began to think that they would exterminate the
species and he told them to kill no more white grouse for one “snow,” or
winter season. They heeded him not, for they kept on slaughtering the
grouse and eating them. In those days the sun passed over the earth from
east to west and retraced its steps while they slept, and the sky was
above the sun. One day the Sagh-a-lie Tyee became much angered at them
for killing so many grouse, so he let the sky fall on them.

Then there followed a long hard winter and many people perished of hunger
and cold for they had not killed bear and deer and prepared for the
winter and it was so dark and there was so much ice and snow that they
could not see to hunt and fish. These ten brothers awaited the return of
day for a long time and at last the youngest of them in utter despair set
about it and tried to lift up the sky with poles, and all his brothers
helped him. They worked in this way for many months. They would raise one
corner of the sky up so they could just see the day light and it would
fall back on them, and again all would be total darkness, and all the
land would be covered with ice and snow. At length, however, they got one
big tall pole and all the Indians went to work with it and tried to prop
the sky up, but for a long time they met with failure. At last, however,
they succeed in getting the sky to start up long enough so that the sun
could get under the great hollow hemisphere which they believe the sky
to be, then the sun followed around the longest way in the day time of
summer going back on the upper, or outside of the sky in the shortest
route by night. In the winter months it passes across the under side of
the sky by the shortest route, and back on the outside by the longest
route so that ever since that time the Indians have had the longest days
and shortest nights in the dry months of summer when they wanted to fish
and hunt. It has always been light in the day time so that people could
see to work, and dark at night so that they could sleep better, and the
Indians have had the longest nights and shortest days in the wet months
of winter when they could do but little and wanted to sleep most of the
time.




CHAPTER XXIII

A LEGEND OF THE FIRST FLOOD


The story of the big flood is common to all the tribes around Puget
Sound. The mountain referred to is usually the loftiest mountain nearest
them. The Lummi Indians refer to Mt. Baker, the upper Stillaguamish to
Mt. Pilchuck and the Nisquallies to Mt. Rainier, and each of them call
their mountain Ta-ho-ma, from which is derived the name Tacoma. Ta-ho-ma
means a lofty mountain, but does not refer to any peak in particular.

It was a long time ago, just after the breaking up of the great winter,
that the sky opened and a terrible rain and snow deluged the world and
the water kept on rising higher and higher until the great mountains
were covered beneath it and ice and snow, and the bones of bear and
deer and clam shells and fishbacks and logs floated on top of the water
and settled on the mountain tops as the flood subsided. That is why the
mountains are always covered with ice and snow. This also accounts for
the presence of logs upon the tops of the mountains where trees have not
grown and fish bones and clam shells and the like may be seen where they
could not now exist.

Another legend of similar nature but more appropriately giving the Indian
tradition of the first man and woman is told by one writer as follows:

There once fell upon the earth a long terrible rain; the Whulge arose; it
filled the mountain walls, and all the tribes perished except one man.
He fled before the rising waters up the sides of Mt. Rainier. The waters
rose and covered the mountain. They swept over his feet; they came to
his knees, to his waist. He seemed about to be swept away, when his feet
turned to stone.

Then the rain ceased. The clouds broke and the blue sky came again, and
the waters began to sink.

The one man stood there on top of Rainier. He could not lift his feet;
they were rocks. Birds flew again, flowers bloomed again, but he could
not go.

The Spirit of All Things came to him. “Sleep,” said he. And the one man
with stone feet slept.

As he slept there the Spirit of All Things took from him a rib and made
of it a woman. When he awoke there stood his wife ready-made on the top
of Mt. Rainier. His stone shoes dropped off and the happy pair came down
the mountain to the wooded paradises of the Whulge on the sunset sea.
Here sprung the human race at the foot of Rainier.




CHAPTER XXIV

ORIGIN OF SUN AND MOON


[Illustration: MASK USED TO APPEASE CRYING CHILDREN—OLD-MAN-HOUSE TRIBE]

Joe Anderson, a Port Madison Indian, tells the story of the origin of
the sun and moon, a story which many of the Indians still continue to
believe, notwithstanding their present Christian education.

Long, long ago an Indian woman went to a creek to wash some clothes and
left her little babe at home alone. When she returned she found that the
child had been stolen and she wept bitterly. When she again went to the
creek to wash she took the baby’s clothes with her. While washing, some
of the baby’s dresses sunk to the bottom of the creek and some mud got
on the inside of them. When she lifted them out of the water the mud was
transformed into another baby. However, it was not a bright clean baby
like the other, but a very black and dirty one. The new baby thrived and
grew very rapidly and the mother loved it dearly, although she longed for
her kidnapped child to return.

When the new baby got big enough he was always out at play in the mud
puddles, seldom returning until late at night.

After awhile the prodigal boy returned and played with the other boy, who
still continued to wear a dirty face.

The parents loved the clean boy best and the dirty boy became very
jealous. So one day the dirty boy thought he would go home as clean as
the other boy and spent the whole day in washing himself. At night when
he returned he was as clean and bright as the sun, and his brother who
had hitherto been so clean shone only like the moon in comparison. Then
the clean boy said: “You be the sun and I’ll be the moon,” and together
they flew away and the once dirty boy became the spirit of the sun which
throws bright light on the earth by day, and the once lost boy became the
moon which reflects dim light on the earth by night.




CHAPTER XXV

SKOBIA THE SKUNK


Quite an interesting legend is the one describing how Skobia the Skunk
came to be so small as he is:

A long time ago there lived a pole-cat who was the parent of all the race
of skunks. He was a great skunk. In size he approached the cinnamon bear;
his perfume was strong in proportion, while his tread was correspondingly
heavy and loud. Many were the nightly visits of “Skobia,” as the skunk is
called by the Indian, to their camps and great was the damage to life and
comfort caused by him.

[Illustration: CHARM MASK AGAINST THE EVIL EYE—OLD-MAN-HOUSE TRIBE]

The Indians were at a loss to know what to do with Skobia, but at length
they thought of old S’Beow and sent for him. Upon his arrival on the
scene S’Beow caused them all to get in a great potlatch house, a large
building used by the Indians of the Northwest coast on their ceremonial
occasions. Then they all set themselves to cutting a big pile of vine
maple wood and bringing it into the potlatch house. At length when a
sufficient pile of wood had been gathered together they built a great and
very hot fire of the wood. They fastened up all the doors and each Indian
cut himself a cudgel about six feet long. All but old S’Beow went to bed
and pretended to be asleep.

Along about midnight, after the fire had burned to a bed of live coals
the heavy tread of Skobia was heard approaching the potlatch house. To
illustrate the heavy tread of Skobia, the Indian will get down on all
fours and slap the palm of his hands heavily on the ground after the
fashion of the bear, skunk, weasel and other flat-footed quadrupeds.

Skobia came to the door and demanded admittance, but no one paid any
attention to him. He then begged of them and plead with them and told
them that he was their friend and wanted to come in to see them. At
length old S’Beow pretended to rouse up and, like one just waking from
a deep sleep, he stretched and yawned and inquired of Skobia what he
wanted. “I am your friend and I want to come in and visit you,” replied
Skobia.

“You’re a skunk and will stink us out!” said old S’Beow. “I’m your
friend! I won’t hurt you,” replied Skobia. At last S’Beow told Skobia
how he might enter the house. Skobia was advised to go up on the roof,
blindfold himself and just reach his toes down through the opening in the
smoke hole so that S’Beow could catch hold of them. He did so and S’Beow
caught hold of them and quickly opened up the smoke hole and threw Skobia
down on the bed of burning coals.

[Illustration: STONE AND COPPER WAR CLUBS—TAKEN FROM SKOKOMISH INDIANS]

The Indians then who pretended to have been asleep all this time, but who
had not been asleep at all, sprung to their feet, grabbed their cudgels
and turned Skobia over and over on the live coals and they kept turning
him over, and turning him over, and Skobia kept growing smaller, and
growing smaller, a long time until he was no larger than a rat and would
not stink enough to hurt anybody. They then opened the door, kicked him
out and ever since then the skunk has been a very small animal and no
Indian has been afraid of him.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE EXTINCT SHILSHOH TRIBE


Of the Shilshohs, a tribe once inhabiting the country about Salmon bay
and in ante-civilized times all the country from Smith’s cove and Lake
Union north to the Snohomish river, there is not at this time a single
known representative living, the tribe is extinct. Of these Indians
little is known. Dr. H. A. Smith, of Smith’s cove, who settled among them
about the time of the first settlement of Seattle, probably has the best
general knowledge of these bygone people. He furnished the author the
following particulars:

When I settled here in 1853 about a dozen Indian families of the Shilshoh
tribe were still living on Salmon bay and I learned from them that within
the recollection of their old men they numbered between 500 and 600
including children, and according to tradition their numbers once ran up
into the thousands and that they occupied the entire country from Smith’s
cove and Lake Union to the Snohomish river. They claimed that the cause
of their rapid decline was owing to frequent raids made upon them by the
Northern or Stickeen Indians, who visited the Sound every year for the
purpose of plunder; that they were a very cruel people who delighted in
murder and never spared prisoners except for the purpose of enslaving
them. That they lived in constant dread of their northern and warlike
foes is evident from a circumstance that came under my own observation in
the fall of 1853.

Desiring to reload a revolver that had become somewhat rusty, I stepped
out into the yard and fired five or six shots in rapid succession about 8
o’clock in the evening.

Three days after one of the Shilshohs came to my house in a very agitated
frame of mind to inquire if I had seen anything of the Stickeens. He said
his folks heard rapid firing in the direction of my house three nights
before and thought I had been attacked by the Northern Indians, perhaps
killed, and, to save themselves his people had all taken to the woods,
where they were still in hiding. He had skulked around by Lake Union and
along near Salmon bay and up to my house to learn if possible whether
the Stickeens had left Salmon bay. Although I assured him that I had
been the innocent cause of their alarm it was several days before they
ventured back.

The few families that were here when I first came to live in the Cove
melted away like a morning frost. Gambling is a ruling passion among
nearly all Indians and I attribute their rapid extinction largely to that
vice.

After the “Bostons,” as they called Americans to distinguish them from
the Hudsons bay traders, came among them they soon began to live better.
They bought flour, beans, rice, clothes, blankets, and many of the more
enterprising among them lived quite comfortably until a gambling mania
would seize them when they would frequently gamble off everything they
owned, even their clothes, and then sleep on the bare ground or some
newly gathered ferns or moss and so nearly naked. The result of course
would be colds ending in pneumonia or consumption.

Dr. Jim, a genuine herb doctor, who was quite renowned for his many
astonishing cures among the sable sons of the forest, was the last of
the Shilshohs. He was really a superior Siwash, manly, fine looking and
intelligent, and during the last years of his chequered life he spoke the
English language fluently. About fifteen years ago he grew weary of this
world and left it by hanging himself to a rafter in his own house at the
mouth of the Shilshoh bay one morning while his old wife was preparing
breakfast.

Never having been blessed with offspring and his last wife being a lake
Indian, his death struggles ended the cares of a man-cursed tribe, once
famed for its manly men and comely maidens. Of course they were not
comely viewed from the standpoint of a cultured American esthete, but the
maidens with fine features and red cheeks were as beautiful to the tawny
hunter tribes as a Hebe would be to a Bostonian.

Of their life and legends Dr. Smith never fully acquainted himself. Here
is one tribe of native people at least who will pass into oblivion with
scarcely a line left to the history-loving and history-writing people
who have taken their places. One legend alone and that the pioneer has
reduced to verse has been preserved. The legend, as it appears, was
written 40 years ago merely for the pleasure of it by the old pioneer and
never was offered for publication. It is tinged with romance and relates
to an Indian maiden whose betrothed was killed during a raid by the
Northern or Stickeen Indians to Shilshoh bay. The Indian maiden’s grief
was so great that she became deranged and on several occasions started
alone in search of the absent lover in a canoe imagining she could sail
to the happy hunting grounds and into the sunshine of his happy presence.
One morning she was missing and as her lover’s canoe was gone and as her
tracks proved that she had taken it her friends easily guessed her fate:

GAZELLE, THE FOREST MAIDEN.

  The birds and the beasts had retired to rest,
    The sun’s lingering rays from the mountains had fled,
  And angels had folded away from the west
    The wind-woven curtains of purple and red.

  The moon’s silver morning had mantled the hills,
    Inviting the world’s weary millions to lay
  Their sorrows aside for the beauty that thrills
    And soothes into silence the cares of the day.

  When, lured by the luster of mountain and lea,
    A maniac-maiden stole out of her tent
  To wander and weep by the sorrowing sea
    And sadden the night with her mournful lament.

  A sibylline song to her lover she sang,
    As she sat in the moonlight alone by his grave,
  And a more mournful strain on the night never rang
    Or saddened the soul of a guardian brave.

  “How oft have I seen him when only a child,
    His forehead with feathery fetishes crownded,
  Arrest with his arrow the deer in the wild,
    Or bring the gray swan from the sky to the ground.

  “How oft have I seen a strange light in his eyes
    As over the white foaming billows we whirled
  And watched the red lightnings dart down from the skies
    To pilot the hurricane over the world.

  “No more by the tempest tossed sea will he stroll,
    No more will he worship the wilderness here,
  For his spirit has gone to the home of the soul
    Where bison and elk are abundant as deer.

  “O that the Great Spirit would answer my plea
    And bear me away on the wings of the waves
  To that lovelier land that lies over the sea,
    Where winds never moan over moss-covered graves.”

  While singing, her eyes by fatality strayed
    To a little canoe, that she loved as her life,
  In which they had sailed from a flowery glade
    The morning he promised to make her his wife.

  Soon a wild fancy seized her, she paused not to ask
    A moment its meaning, her only desire
  Was strength to perform the congenial task
    Her _genius loci_ saw fit to inspire.

  A brief minute more and the bark was untied,
    With a fluttering heart and a tremulous hand,
  And launched on the waters, so lonely and wide,
    That rapidly hurried away from the land.

  “I’ll find him! I’ll find him!” she shouted in glee,
    “His tent must be pitched in some flowery dell
  In the land of the sachems beyond the blue sea
    Where now he is waiting to welcome Gazelle.”

  The full moon was nearing the noonday of night,
    The waves sang the songs she had loved when a child,
  And her young, happy heart was elate with delight
    As they bore her away from her dear native wild.

  And as onward she sped at the tide’s rapid pace,
    Alone with her heart and the heavens above,
  The silent stars looked on her young, sinless face,
    Too full of faith’s pathos, with pity and love.

  For, far to the westward the winds were at war,
    And soon sudden darkness spread over the world,
  The waves were abroad with a hoarse, sullen roar
    And nearer and colder they eddied and curled.

  The moon and the stars with their stillness were gone,
    Red meteors darted anon through the dark,
  And fate seemed to hurry the hurricane on
    Where rocked on the billows a rudderless bark.

  When Neptune, near morning, the billows had bound
    And stars hung in heaven like spangles of gold,
  Deep down in the regions of silence profound
    A form, faintly human, lay lifeless and cold.

  But where, oh ye winds, is the maniac-maiden?
    And what of love’s hopes that so often have lied?
  Let us trust she arrived at the red hunter’s Aiden
    And greeted the warrior awaiting his bride.




CHAPTER XXVII

QUINAIULTS AND QUILLAYUTES


Beyond the black range of the Olympic mountains, which can be seen
standing out in such bold relief against the western horizon from the
bluffs about the cities of the Sound on bright days, sits the little
village of the Quinaiult Indians, whose last remnant of a once mighty
tribe now scarce numbers a hundred persons. There’s a long shingle of
beach, a glistening reach of sand, bright under the glare of summer suns,
with a broad sweep of salty bay, flecked here and there with a few jagged
and black-looking rocks, the sporting ground of the sea otter the year
round. Outside the line of pointed rocks the swells from the restless
Pacific ocean come tumbling in and are broken into white foam and dashing
spray upon the rocks or, missing those roll on upon the beach and curl
the shimmering reach of sand into pretty riffles. At the rear is a dense
background of forest that reaches far into the interior until it runs
out at the timber line far up the sloping sides of the Olympics. The
Quinaiult river rushes out through the tangle of forest past the village
and pours its purling waters into the long stretch of bay, as if glad to
escape from the imprisonment of woods and jungle. The little village is
an ideal scene, one to swell the ambitions of the artist, and to please
the fancy of the legend-lover or the story teller. To the north’ard many
miles and on clear days can be seen the jutting outline of Cape Flattery,
that most northwesterly point of land in these United States, and around
whose base the waters of the ocean surge and roll and never rest, and
where, ’tis said, “a day has never passed whereon it has not rained.”

To the south’ard is the long reach of coast land, with few breaks, that
runs away into the distant perspective and finally loses itself in a
hazy and blue horizon. Many, many moons ago, so runs the tradition of
the Quinaiults, their people were numbered by the thousands, and they
held a great power over other and adjacent tribes, above that of any
tribe that inhabited all the coast lands thereabouts. But many changes
have taken place since the sun of the ancient Quinaiult was in the
zenith. The warriors of the tribe lie buried in the dense copse and
wood that feather-edge the great sand stretches of the ocean beach, and
a degenerated handful of men and women and children, a few dogs and
chickens keep watch over the graves and cling to the little grass plats
that formed the nucleus of their once almost boundless domain. Worse
far, all their happy hunting grounds have been curtailed by a maternal
government until now but a stretch of ocean beach and a narrow breadth of
mighty forest land is all that is left that they can call their own.

One street, crooked in a right angle half way in its length, serves the
little village for a thoroughfare, aye, more than answers, for little use
have the handful of Quinaiults who are left for street or thoroughfare
other than the naked beach. The ocean shore is their highway and the
cedar canoe their favored and their only equipage, and they ask for
nothing better.

Of their habitations there is not much to attract except in their very
quaintness. There are very few and as the years roll by there will be
fewer still, for the Quinaiults will soon be known only in history or
musty tradition. Several of their rude structures, bare imitations
copied from the whites who have crowded them down upon the narrow beach,
are raised on stilts or elevated foundations just out of reach of the
turbulent tides. These raised structures are not, however, the rule, for
the larger number line the little foot-path out of reach of the restless
waters. The majority of the buildings have for the floor the mother
earth. The exteriors generally are as rude as the floor. An ordinary barn
far outranks the unclassic habitation of the older Quinaiults, and even
the rising generation fails in its efforts to approach the rudest ideal
of the Boston man.

The “renaissance” erections of Quinaiult and also the two government
buildings, for there is an agency on the ground, only serve to contrast
with the ultra-conservatism apparent in the greater portion of this
veritable wind-washed place. Hand-riven cedar, now darkly stained and
moss-covered by age, rudely but snugly laid together after the fashion
of a barn, describes the exterior. But within, what study! The colder
comfort of the exterior has vanished. There is little light, for there
are no windows, and the smoke from the fire which burns somewhere within
hides one’s view. Gradually, however, one can see.

The household is generally squatting upon rush mats, with darkened faces
and queer fashion presenting a strange picture illumined by the glow of
the small log fire. The most conspicuous of the group, perhaps, will be
an old woman or older man of short stature and appearing broken down
with age. The rank growth of heavy gray hair, for all wear it to its
full length, covers almost entirely the small, wizened features, now
characteristic of little but decrepitude and imbecility, but showing
a sharply receding forehead, sharp eyes, and small, regular teeth,
yet preserved with fair whiteness; covered with a parti-colored shawl
or blanket, clothed in an ordinary skirt and bodice, or with a dirty,
faded shirt, if it be a man, and decorated with ancient trinkets which
have dangled from the ears for perhaps a hundred years, forms one only
of the old dames or graybeards who are found attached to the Quinaiult
household. If a squaw, her time is occupied stirring the contents of
an iron kettle containing salmon, while other members of the family
engage in mat-making or basket-weaving. One or two fat and naked little
Quinaiults are also in view, playing with the domestic pets of all
kinds—chickens, cats and dogs. They are watched by the mother with a
truly maternal care. The latter displays, with average height but heavy
proportions, a healthy, active form, indicating a strength not much
inferior to that of her liege lord and husky-looking husband. Indeed, the
woman is built for the work in which she so exerts herself when poling in
the canoe on the rapids of her own Quinaiult river, for a long reach of
their favorite stream running back into the hills the tribe holds as part
of its own domain. Her features are full and round, of the usual Flathead
type, and display an intelligence immediately remarked in contrast
with her aged kindred. Though living in huts no better than stables or
outhouses, she is contented, rather neat in attire and not unhappy.

But the truer type of the tribe, the head of the household, is also
there, a living study for the enthusiast—a portrait not yet portrayed.
His face and his bearing recall the Indian stoic of romance and bring to
mind the heroes of the sun dance. In youth this full-blooded nomad of
the water had slain three men in single-handed combat or accomplished
other warlike deeds. There is some trace of thought in his countenance,
and, notwithstanding the flat head he bears himself as a freeman. The
eye of the man is small and oblique, well lashed, and surmounted by
heavy eyebrows. The nose is wide, not very prominent; mouth large, and
of impressive line. His figure is well balanced—a heavy frame covered
by rounded flesh, not particularly sinewy. His negligee is a shirt
only—there is no orthodox dress for the male portion of the tribe.

Types in the tribe are greatly varied at this late, or rather last,
period of existence. The specific characteristic is the flat head.

In physique the Quinaiult cannot compare with his brother of the plains.
He has matured in the damp shadows of the forest and in the cramped
limits of the cedar canoe—not on the boundless prairie. The group before
us, however, shows signs of health and strength, without great vivacity.

The method of dining is as simple as the meal itself, for each of the
family dips promiscuously into a kettle with a small ladle of horn.
Salmon, often without other addition whatever to the bill of fare, is
relished to excess.

Since the days to which their earliest tradition extends the lordly
salmon has graced the Quinaiult’s frugal board. True the waters that wash
up against his rude dwelling contain countless thousands of other fish,
but they never show themselves in the fresh water streams.

Of game they have but little, and as the years go by what little they
have been used to gradually diminishes. Salmon is the chief staple diet
and will continue to be so until the last Quinaiult has departed to the
happy fishing grounds.

Besides the salmon and other fish the older Quinaiults lived upon the
products as well of the forest and the stream, as do in a measure the
remnant of the tribe now left. Encroaching civilization has driven the
game almost out of his reach now, for the Quinaiult is a hunter who
doesn’t like trailing through the dense woods. He must now depend on a
relish from the garden of some sort to take the place of the juicy steaks
of the game of the forest.

In the waters of the ocean they still seek the valuable sea otter, the
seal, and sea lion, and at times the whale from which everything eatable
almost is sent to the larder. In the woods they still track the deer, the
elk and the bear and trap the otter, the beaver and the mink at the river
brink, though had they still to depend upon these for sustenance they
would go to bed on half rations. The furs they secure, however, go a good
ways in keeping the proverbial wolf from the door of their hovels.

In the ocean and river chase, however, is where these redmen excel,
for they have literally been bred, born and brought up on the waters.
Bravery in the canoe, on the surf or in the rapid rivers where no other
craft can live, is the leading virtue of the Quinaiult. He will pack in
his ictas and his household, and course the waters of the river or the
coast and send the canoe spinning through the strongest currents that
chase about the base of Flattery Rocks with the daring hardihood of a
Dohomian warrior in battle. He will course along the coastland in waters
that no ordinary vessel will attempt and seldom is it that the Quinaiult
population is decreased by wrecks at sea.

The Quinaiult has no excessive love of life. He is stoic, living in the
hope of the happy hunting or fishing ground, and a few years ago the
custom of slaying the pony of the dead at the grave was still practiced.
It is even now the custom to place the gold of the dead in the mouth
and hands, burying it with them. “They will need it on the journey to
the happy hunting grounds,” and the cupidity of the Quinaiult is never
aroused at the sight of gold when one of his people dies, for they like
all other western Indians have an excessive love of family.

Along the somber banks of the Quinaiult river at this day are many
graves, bearing on the exterior, in decorative form, the minor personal
belongings of the body within. There were graves pointed out which were
made earlier than their tradition records and once graceful canoes of
cedar placed above their dead owners are now crumbling into unshapely
forms.

Marriage is a simple institution of “take a wife and live with her.”

The potlatch dance, or gift feast, is the year’s social event at
Quinaiult.

Upon the acquirement of wealth the fortunate man issues a manifest to
his own and other tribes that it is his intention to hold a potlatch
merriment. He gives up his entire fortune, for he acquires thereafter the
title of “tyee” or chief. Presents of all values are lavishly distributed
to those who attend. It is a grotesque ceremony and lasts many days.

The superstition of the tribe forms a weird chapter. The medicine man is
the chief factor. He has in his possession hideously painted and carved
wooden images, shamens of wonderful power in Quinaiult. Representing
grossly exaggerated human proportions, and of no merit as a work of art,
they bear no description. It is in sickness that these “big medicines,”
as they are called, are used by the doctor, who remains in practice
against all devices of the evil one to suppress his power.

One of the latest affairs in which this big medicine was practiced,
resulted in the death of three children, all of the same family, after
many weeks of noisy demonstration by the doctors. The father’s wealth was
spent in heavy payments to the medicine men, called by him from various
tribes to administer to his sick girls, who at first showed nothing
more than the symptoms of a simple disease. In company with the doctors
also were many neighbors, who crowded the limited quarters of the sick
room to suffocation, in the performances of their wild orgies. Night
and day would be heard the hoarse chant of the medicine men, chorused
vociferously by the crowd, and the beating of the tom-tom drum. The young
ones lay helpless and unattended, without hope or chance of recovery.

Few strangers pass through the village without hearing the noise of the
tom-tom, and the chant of death at the sick bed. However trifling the
complaint the medicine man is called and heavily recompensed for his
services.

The indulgence of superstition, however, is better illustrated by the
recent conduct of the unhappy mother of a child which became slightly
sick. The incident happened during one of the cold and stormy nights of
winter. Darkness had long announced the hour of sleep when a wailing
cry was heard coming from the side of the river, where nothing but a
forest-covered bluff exists. The cry was one almost of agony and was
continued throughout the night. At times the wail of woe would be borne
away by the soughing of the woods in the gale or be drowned by the roar
of breakers close at hand. No light was seen. With the faith of a fanatic
and endurance of a mother’s love the mourner spent the night alone in
the cold and rain, wrapped in no cover but a single blanket, in the
belief that the evil spirit would not find her babe in the darkness. The
strange faith of the woman is paralleled by the worship practiced by an
old medicine man, still living, of the tribe. In a dilapidated dwelling
the Indian erected a charred hemlock pole of slight dimensions, securing
thereto a covering of eagle and other feathers. The idol was complete
in its simplicity and exemplified a tradition of the medicine man’s
power. Its significance, however, remains buried within the bosom of
the taciturn worshiper. For days and nights he knelt beside this strange
design without eating, without sleeping, but partly chanting, partly
talking, with earnest gesture and uplifted face, he called up the mystery
of his superstition.

The great highway of the tribe, next to the ocean itself, is the swiftly
flowing Quinaiult river, up which they run their light canoes to the lake
of the same name. In the summer and sometimes, too, when the snow whitens
the upper lying forests, the canoe highway is relinquished and the Indian
takes the trail through the woods or over the mountains. From the lake of
Quinaiult, resting in the foothills of the Olympics, within hearing of
the ocean’s roar, many trails are blazed to camps, made long years ago,
where fat elk have been butchered and dried by the Indians.

The mountains form the summer’s paradise of the tribe. It is there that
bands of elk may be seen gamboling on the unmelted snow in the glare
of the sun; and the black bear may be seen in numbers feeding on the
luxurious wild berries. But the lake itself, perhaps, is regarded by the
Indians as their greatest natural treasure. The year round it is the
haunt of numerous kinds of salmon, tempted there from the ocean to spawn.
Thousands of trout may be seen also in its transparent depths and wild
fowl flock to its inviting feeding grounds in great numbers from all
climes. At times, too, a deer makes its way from bank to bank. It is an
ideal spot, but will not much longer be the domain of the Quinaiult tribe.

The interior of the Quinaiult hut is more interesting than the outside.
In the smoke and dull light the details of the house are almost
invisible. The mountings of a rack of firearms, seven or eight in number,
attract inquiry as they glimmer in the firelight. They are relics of many
years with the exception of one or two. The most ancient is a flint-lock,
of immense bore and short barrel, the stock being inlaid with native work
of bone. Another is an old muzzle-loading Kentucky rifle standing as
high as the hunter himself; and of more recent date is the old reliable
Sharp’s, picked up by the present generation in their migrations to the
hop fields on Puget Sound or in barter.

Here and there many things tell of the chase—the short thick string bow
of Alaska cedar, together with a quiver of feathered arrows, steel traps
and the salmon and otter spears (fir poles an inch in diameter and 18
feet long) mounted with two keen points of elk or deer horn, and secured
by thongs of rawhide, and a dozen other curious relics. The domestic
belongings of the family are within the building. Canoe poles of young
hemlock and the strong, light and gracefully made paddles of native
yew-wood are stowed away under the roof. Hanging on the walls are rush
mats, clam baskets and more fancifully-designed baskets delicately weaved
of dyed spruce roots, forming one of the more profitable pastimes of the
women. Relics of the hunt, hides, furs, tanned skins, horns and skulls
are in every odd corner. Fresh meats and fresh salmon are hung in the
cool shade without the house. Salmon is also hung up to dry in the sun
without, and masses of salmon are hanging from the rafters within, curing
by smoke from the daily fires. Salmon aroma is everywhere.

There is no furniture proper. The family beds are laid upon platforms
raised a few inches from the floor, with a few rush mats for mattresses.
The appearance of the whole interior is primitive to a degree. It is a
study on nature’s own farm.

Probably of all their pastimes the sea otter chase lends the greatest
excitement and shows the Quinaiult Indian at his best. The otter loves
the surf that tosses about around and over the jutting rocks that fringe
a few islands out in the bay in front of the village. Strong tides rush
in eddying currents between the rocks and the shore line, and following
these the Quinaiult pushes his sea boat out on the leeward side of the
rocks and meets the glossy-coated animal in his most pleasant haunt. The
smoothbore is now used largely by the present hunters, but the spear once
formed the only weapon used in the chase as the bow and quiver did on
land.

The Quinaiult builds himself a lookout on shore and a sentinel is at all
convenient times perched up aloft with his gaze seaward, on the lookout
for any object of the chase by sea. When a whale or otter or a herd of
seals is spied the sentinel gives the warning and all able-bodied members
of the tribe rush for the fleet of canoes always drawn up on the beach.

Few ships appear in the offing and fewer steam vessels beat the waters
along the shoreline, for Quinaiult is nearly midway between Gray’s harbor
and the entrance to the straits at Cape Flattery. There are no roads
leading across country to the distant settlements on the Sound, and
Quinaiult is therefore a lonesome place. The white settler is encroaching
upon the Quinaiult, but his life must be largely an extension of the
native’s for many years to come until the friendly railroad reaches
him—if it ever does.

[Illustration: QUINIAULTS HUNTING HAIR SEAL]




CHAPTER XXVIII

TRADITION OF A GREAT INDIAN BATTLE


The Puget Sound Indians have a tradition of a great battle in which the
Quillayutes were almost annihilated:

[Illustration: COPPER AND IRON DAGGERS, MOOSE HIDE SHEATH-SOUND INDIANS]

For many years in the early days of the country, as early as 1869,
residents of what is now Jefferson county were puzzled over the vast
number of human bones, principally skulls, that lay scattered about the
beach not far from the military post that had been established at Port
Townsend. That a great Indian battle had been fought and great slaughter
made by the defeated, was plain but where and by whom was a mystery. The
Indians then resident near the post were mysterious and non-committal on
the subject and their chiefs smoked and were mute. The noted paper chief,
Duke of York, though the heydey of his power was gone, was still an
important personage among the Indians and settlers and from him Mr. J. A.
Kuhn, then residing at Port Townsend, decided to obtain the information
so much desired. Strategy alone could succeed; mild persuasion had been
tried often and by various ones. The great chief of the Clallam tribe
persistently refused to tell and insisted vehemously that he could not
account for the presence of the human relics. However, Mr. Kuhn one day
induced the old chief to accompany him to an island in the Sound to
search for shells, leaving the chief’s two wives, Jenny and Queen, who
were always his traveling companions, at home. While there, Mr. Kuhn
after all endeavors to get the Indian to divulge the story of the battle
had failed, told the chief to call at his home on a certain day and he
would show him a sign from heaven and prove to the Indians that he was
no ordinary being and that if the Duke did not tell him all he knew of
the massacre he would cause the chief and his people great trouble. The
noble old Indian with a large retinue of followers was on hand at Mr.
Kuhn’s house on the day appointed. Mr. Kuhn’s trick was the old one of
bringing on the darkness, and the untutored and savage mind was to be
awed by an eclipse. The white man’s power of foretelling being ascribed
to the supernatural and a direct connection with the spirits that control
all things on the earth and in the sky. It was known to Mr. Kuhn that on
the day set for the appearance at his house of the old Indian there would
be an eclipse of the sun sufficient in importance to overawe the mind of
the chief and compel him to tell the story from fear. When the eclipse
occurred the old chief readily complied and told the story of a great
massacre of the people of the Quillayute tribe whose possessions extended
along the Pacific ocean south of Cape Flattery and joining on the straits
that of the Clallam tribe over which the old Duke reigned on the east.

[Illustration: TWANA WAR CLUBS]

The Clallams claimed all the shore of the country extending from Pysht on
the straits of Fuca to Hood’s canal. The Quillayutes had invaded part of
the ground claimed by the old Indian and his tribe. They hunted in their
woods, fished for their salmon and dug their clams without permission.
Hatred for them soon caused the Duke of York to plot their extermination.
The Clallam tribe not being strong enough of themselves to make war upon
the invaders, the crafty old chief sent emissaries to the Skagit tribe
to induce them to enter with him upon a war. The mission was successful
and a number of their allies prepared to commence the slaughter of the
unsuspecting enemy. The Quillayutes at the time were encamped upon the
beach fishing and merry-making all unconscious of the terrible fate
so soon to overtake them. They were there with all their ictas, their
papooses scampering about the white sands, or scudding through the woods
in the rear while the death-dealing Duke of York was planning their
destruction. The Skagit Indians brought on the attack by appearing in
front of the peaceful Quillayute camp in canoes, yelling and hooting to
attract the attention of the enemy and bring them all out and down to
the beach. The old Duke of York and his warriors, who were hidden in the
woods in the rear, rushed out of their hiding places and the slaughter
began. The Skagit warriors landed and the battle was soon raging
fiercely. The attacking parties were too strong and the Quillayutes were
soon at their mercy. The battle lasted but a short time and soon there
was not a Quillayute brave left. There is nothing to mark the site of the
great slaughter at this day save a few ghastly skulls whose wide eyeless
sockets stare up at the passerby from their bed of gravel on the beach.
Picnics are now held on the old battle ground and it sometimes happens
while some young lady and her lover stroll about the shaded paths, or
seated on some mystic seat their tete-a-tete is interrupted by a sudden
view of one of these mementoes of the once numerous tribe of Quillayutes.

[Illustration: A QUINIAULT HUT]

Another account which seems to cover much the same similar occurrence at
the same place gives it that the tribe of the Duke of York were massacred
with the exception of a very few. This took place, so it is related, when
the old Duke was a small Indian about 14 years of age. The assailants
were Sitkas, T’Klinkit or some other band of Alaska Indians who came by
the way of Oak bay, near Ludlow, across the spit to the present site of
Hadlock, caught the Clallams asleep and killed some 600 of them. It is
claimed that the remains are still discoverable at that point. As the
Duke was about 80 when he died some years ago, this must have taken place
between 1820 and 1825.

The first raid affecting the white population of the Sound was when a
crowd of T’Klinkits (or in this case probably some more southerly tribe)
came to Whidby island in 1855 and murdered Colonel Ebey, then collector
of customs for the Puget Sound district. They not only murdered him, but
beheaded him. Several of his posterity are now living and can give full
facts in this case.




CHAPTER XXIX

SEALTH AND THE ALLIED TRIBES


Sealth, second chief of the allied tribes in early days and previously
of the Squamish and Duwamish, was the greatest Indian character of the
country. Like the historic chief of the Mingoes, he was a friend of the
white man and enemies he had none. A statesman and not a warrior he
swayed the minds of his people with the magic of oratory rather than
of war. Without a knowledge of the polyglot language common to all the
tribes and the early white men, he was able by his superiority of mind
to mould the turbulent and warlike spirits about him to his way of
thinking, and to not only control them individually but to unite them
into one grand peace union and to ever after maintain over them against
all opposition a power as potent for good as the spirit and nature of
the one who prompted it. Many chiefs who had before enjoyed chiefship
without hinderance and directed and controlled his people at his own
sweet will yielded to the superior power of Sealth, acted his part after
the federation only as a lieutenant or sub-chief. Many old-timers yet
survive who enjoyed the friendship of the old chief. Samuel F. Coombs,
who probably has as intimate a knowledge of the early Indians as any one
living, says of the old chief Sealth:

“The first time I ever saw Chief Sealth was in the summer of 1860,
shortly after my arrival, at a council of chiefs in Seattle. At that time
there was an unusually large number of Indians in town, over 1000 of them
being congregated on the sandy beach. Most of the Indians were standing
around talking in groups or listening to the deliberations of the council
of about twenty of the oldest Indians seated in a circle on the ground.
The chief figure was a venerable-looking old native, who was apparently
acting as judge, as all who spoke addressed themselves to him. Matters
of grave importance were evidently being discussed, and I was greatly
impressed with the calm and dignified manner in which the old judge
disposed of the matter in dispute and the great attention and respect
shown him when speaking. From an intelligent-looking Indian who could
speak English I learned that the old judge was Chief Seattle, or, as he
was then known, Sealth, and that those seated about him were ex-chiefs
and leading Indians of the various tribes then living about here. Among
them were Seattle Curley from the mouth of the Duwamish; Tecumseh, from
the Black river; Shilshole Curley, from Salmon bay; Lake John from Lake
Washington, and Kitsap, from Kitsap county.

[Illustration: Chief SEALTH

SEATTLE

RAPHAEL · COOMBS · 95 ·]

“With this young man as an interpreter I interviewed several of the
oldest natives as to how Sealth became head chief of so many tribes.
They said that about fifty years before that time, when Sealth was 20 or
22 years old, news reached the various tribes in this vicinity that a
large number of the mountain or upper Green and White river Indians were
preparing to make a raid upon the salt water tribes. Great anxiety was
felt among the latter, as the mountain tribes were redoubtable warriors,
and had on several previous occasions vanquished the salt water tribes
and carried off many of their people as slaves. Accordingly a council of
war, composed of the chiefs and leading warriors of the tribes expecting
to be attacked, met at the Old-Man-House near Port Madison. This place
was the principal rendesvous of these tribes for potlatches and councils.
At this council many plans were discussed as to the best method of
resisting the invaders. None of those suggested by the older men,
however, was satisfactory, and then the younger men were called upon for
suggestions. At length young Sealth, a member of the Old-Man-House tribe,
presented his plan, and it was so well devised and so clearly presented,
that without listening to any others, it was adopted and he was appointed
to carry t out, being given command of the expedition.

“Information had reached the salt water tribes that a large force of
the mountain tribes intended to come down the Green and White rivers in
canoes and inaugurate their attack at night. Sealth organized a band
of warriors, and the day before the raid was expected they went up the
river to a place on White river, near where John Fountain now lives above
Black river bridge, and where the bluff on one side reaches to the river
edge. The river here makes a short bend, and the current is very swift.
A little below the bend a large fir tree standing on the bank was felled
in such a way that it reached across the river and lay only a few inches
above the water, so that no canoe could go under without upsetting. The
work of felling the tree was done with rude axes, some made of stone,
and it took the band nearly the whole day to bring it down and get it
into position, which was finally accomplished before sunset. Sealth then
ambushed his warriors, armed with bows and arrows, lances, tomahawks
and knives, on either side of the stream, and confidently awaited the
invaders.

“As soon as it was dusk five large canoes loaded with 100 selected
warriors started down the stream, and as there was a strong current it
was not long before they fell into the trap. The leading canoes were
successively swamped before their occupants could realize the nature of
the obstruction. The cries of their unfortunate companions, however,
enabled those in the last two canoes to reach the shore before coming to
the log. In the meantime thirty of the occupants of the leading canoes
were either drowned, killed or captured by Sealth’s warriors, and those
who reached shore in safety betook themselves up the river again, and
their account of the disaster which had befallen their companions so
discouraged the remainder of the expedition that they retired to their
mountain homes.

“When Sealth and his warriors returned to the bay with such substantial
proofs of the victory gained over their former persecutors great was the
rejoicing among the salt water tribes and the hero of the hour was the
young warrior who, by his cleverness, boldness and courage, had delivered
them from a great danger. A grand council of the tribes was called,
composed of the chiefs and leading warriors and medicine men from the
following six tribes: Old-Man-House, Moxliepush, Duwamish, Black River,
Shilshole and Lake, whose chiefs were Kitsap, Seattle Curley, Tecumseh,
Salmon Bay Curley and Lake John, Seattle Curley being chief of both the
Moxliepush and the Duwamish tribes. At this council Sealth was made
great chief of all the tribes and the former chiefs became tyees, or
sub-chiefs. The Moxliepush, Black River and Lake tribes, however, did
not consent to a consolidation and Sealth, having assumed the authority
conferred upon him by the majority, determined to make his authority
respected by all. He organized an expedition composed of the bravest of
his followers and made a tour of the three rebellious tribes, going by
way of Shilshole and Salmon bays, Lake Union and across the portage to
Lake Washington and thence to Black river and back to Old-Man-House.
Though prepared to give battle if necessary he subdued his opponents by
diplomacy. He held councils at various places on his route, made speeches
to the tribesmen and won them over from their chiefs, and when they had
submitted he took a number of hostages from each tribe along with him.
In this way he gained the submission of all the rebellious chiefs and
tribesmen without fighting a battle or killing a man. When the first
white man came here Chief Sealth had quite a number of these hostages,
who were called slaves by the other Indians, but who were not treated any
differently, so far as the whites could observe, than the other Indians.
Indeed, many of these so called slaves afterwards became Chief Sealth’s
principal lieutenants.

“After Chief Sealth had consolidated the tribes and enforced his right to
the chieftainship, he still further strengthened his influence over the
tribes by checking other raids by unfriendly tribes from the north and
south, and concluded treaties of friendship with them. He even carried
his wise rule so far as to anticipate the formation of the Chinook
language by the Hudsons Bay traders by so adapting the several distinct
dialects then prevailing amongst the different tribes scattered over a
large area, that at length they could converse with one another, where
before they could not. Thus he brought about the formation of a language
common to all the tribes from the Snohomish and Snoqualmie as far south
and west as Olympia.

“By his great exploits in war, his wisdom and prudence in council,
and the nobility of his character, Chief Sealth obtained a wonderful
influence over all the natives in this section, whether belonging to his
tribes or to others. And thus it was that, when I first saw him, his deep
voice, slow and grave speech were listened to with such marked deference
and respect by all. He was the supreme arbiter in their disputes, and
his decisions were accepted as final and conclusive and carried out with
unquestioning obedience. Having early been converted to the Catholic
faith, he introduced and successfully carried out many moral reforms
among his people. He reprimanded them often for drunkenness, fighting and
their loose sexual relations with the whites. He was a great peacemaker
and always avoided bloodshed whenever possible. He even undertook
to subvert the ancient traditional customs of his race in regard to
bloody retaliation for mortal wrongs, and to inculcate among his people
Christian principles.

“Though a man of great natural abilities, Chief Sealth never learned
either the Chinook or the English languages; nor did any of the older
Indians whom I knew. An interpreter was always necessary whenever any of
the whites wished to converse with him. In appearance he was dignified,
but somewhat bent with age when I knew him, and at that time he always
walked with a staff in his hand. He looked like a superior man among his
people. Though the top of his head had been flattened in childhood, the
malformation was not so apparent as it was in all the other old Indians
of his day. During the summer months and when I first saw him he wore but
a single garment. That was a Hudsons Bay company’s blanket, the folds of
which he held together with one hand, and from their midst appeared the
broad chest and strong arm of bronze which grasped his staff. The sketch
herewith represented the old chief as he appeared on the streets of
Seattle thirty-four years ago.

“The later years of Chief Sealth were passed at his headquarters at the
Old-Man-House in Kitsap county, near Port Madison, and in visiting the
tribes, administering justice, reproof and counsel to his devoted people.
He was often in Seattle, where he was respected by all the white people.
The Old-Man-House, where he resided was a famous gathering place for the
natives from all over the Sound, and some of the potlatches held there
have been attended by as many as 8,000 Indians. I saw one there at which
there was fully 1,500 present.

“After a long illness, during which the old chief was frequently visited
by natives and early white settlers from all over the Sound, he died at
the Old-Man-House. His funeral was attended by several hundred white
people and by more of his own people. G. A. Meigs, proprietor of the
Port Madison mill, shut down his mill and on his steamer took all the
employes and others over to the funeral. A great many also went over
from Seattle. As the old chief was a Catholic he was buried with the
ceremonies of that church, mingled with which were customs peculiar
to the natives. The ceremonies were imposing and impressive, and the
chanting of the litanies by the native singers was very beautiful.

“During his life Chief Sealth had two or three successive wives, but he
did not have many children.

“Princess Angeline was his only child by his first wife. When I first
knew her she was a washerwoman for the white people, among whom she was a
great favorite, and although she was a buxom widow and not bad-looking,
she was always esteemed as a virtuous, good woman. She had a daughter who
married a half-breed, and by whom she had a son, now living, named Joe
Foster. His parents died early and old Angeline has reared him, slaved
for him and begged for him. She has gotten him out of many scrapes and
her whole heart is wrapped up in the boy, ‘My papa’s great-grandchild.’

“Angeline had a half-sister who married a chief on Lake Samamish and died
some time ago, but I don’t know any more about her. I think Chief Sealth
also left by his last wife a son, who is now living at Old-Man-House.
This son has a grandson there who is a dwarf. He is 20 years old and is
only thirty inches tall, is very bright, well formed, talks English and
is the pet of all the Indians on the reservation.

“During the past thirty-three years I have on many occasions endeavored
to learn from the oldest and most intelligent Indians something of their
earlier recollections; for instance as to when the heaviest earthquake
occurred. They said that one is said to have occurred a great many years
before any white men had ever been seen here, when mam-ook ta-mahn-a-wis
was carried on by hundreds. This is the same performance they go through
when they are making medicine men, and consists of shouting, singing,
beating on the drums and sticks and apparently trying to make as much
noise as they can. While making a medicine man I have seen upwards of 100
painted Indians driving on the streets here a young man stripped nearly
naked, with a long lariat fastened to a girdle around his waist. At one
time it took them over a week to make a ta-mahn-a-wis man of the fellow
they were driving. After he became supernaturally fixed he came near
dying, and old Dr. Maynard, the only physician then in town, was called
in to give him a dose of civilized medicine.

“The only total eclipse of the sun visible here during the past
thirty-four years occurred about twenty-five years ago during a clear
afternoon. The white settlers were preparing their smoked glasses.
Ex-Chief Lake John happened to come by about that time, and I told him
in Chinook that the sun was to be darkened in about an hour from that
time. He very sharply inquired how I knew, and I told him I was in klosh
tum-tum with the Sah-ha-le tyee, or that I was on good terms with God.
He laughed heartily at such a ridiculous notion, but when the sun began
to be obscured I handed him a piece of smoked glass, and after looking
through it he became very grave, and looking at the sky in amazement he
said with great seriousness, ‘De-late mi-ka cum-tux,’ you have told the
truth. When the eclipse became total the howling and pounding of drums
over at Plummer’s point, where the Indians were assembled, could be heard
all over town.

“In 1880, when the deep snow occurred in January, there being over four
feet of the beautiful, I inquired of an old Indian if he had ever seen
snow so deep before, and he said no, but that his father had told him
that there was one fall of snow many years before which was equal to it.
Lake Union has been frozen all over twice, and a number of times has
formed two to five inches thick in sheltered places of the lake. Only
twice since 1856 has it been as cold as it was this winter.

“A son of Pat Kanim, the old chief of the Snoqualmies, who now lives on
the Tulalip reservation, told me that his father had been a good, true
friend of the whites during the Indian war, and he corroborated what A.
A. Denny has said in his history of that war. He said that Mr. Denny had
with good reason placed confidence in his father, notwithstanding that
others thought he was not worthy of it. He said that Leschi and Nelson
were the leaders in the massacre near Slaughter, where eight whites
were killed in 1855. These were the same tribes that had attempted the
raid fifty years before which Chief Sealth foiled, and the same which
attacked the town of Seattle in 1856. This time they came across Lake
Washington instead of down the river, landing their canoes where is now
located Leschi park. They had not forgotten Sealth’s plan of resisting an
invasion by the river route.”

To Dr. Maynard it is said belongs the honor of naming the city of Seattle
after the old chief and also of conferring the name Angeline on his
daughter.

There is one descendant of the old chief who is at once the pride and
the one particular character of the Queen City today. That descendant is
Angeline, daughter of the old chief; Princess Angeline she is called.
She is not courtly or noble in bearing and never showed any superior
powers of intellect, indeed, it is not saying too much to say that to the
present residents who know her she does not exhibit even average Indian
intelligence, though great and enfeebled old age may in a measure account
for it. Angeline had a revelation last year when she was shown a painting
of the old chief, life size and true to the original. It is said of her
that at least she showed that she had a tender memory and soft heart, for
she cried and went about the streets muttering in her Indian way: “Utch
i-dah, utch-i-dah; nika papa hias klosh.” Wonderful! wonderful! good
picture of Sealth.

Poor old Angeline. Bent, decrepit and carrying the weight of 80 years
with an effort, she still possessed a heart full of tenderness that could
only find relief in a flood of tears.

Long, long ago it had been that old Angeline saw the royal old chieftain,
her father, for the last time. Only in her Indian memory had she communed
with him who was once lord of all around in the neighborhood of Elliott
bay. But now she stood face to face once more and looked into the kindly
face of the old chief, who has been dead these many years. It was Chief
Sealth, life size, as he appeared thirty-five or forty years ago, with
his big, blue-bordered Hudsons Bay company blanket hanging in Grecian
folds from his dusky shoulders. No wonder poor old Angeline cried and
sobbed and broke down in the rush of tender recollections that must have
filled her old soul. No wonder she exclaimed: “Utch-i-dah! utch-i-da!
nika papa hias klosh.”

It was her old-time friend Samuel Coombs, the pioneer, who took old
Angeline to see the picture of the old chief, painted by Mr. Coombs’ son
Raphael for the chamber of commerce of this city. Angeline, the last
survivor of the old chief’s family, did not know what was wanted of her,
but she knew that her old friend meant her no harm and she trudged along,
muttering in her peculiar guttural Indian dialect until she came plunk
upon the big painting. It shows the old chief as he first appeared to the
whites about 40 years ago, standing erect with a big shock of raven hair,
a broad face, kindly eye and the picture of a perfect Indian, showing in
a marked degree the great intelligence the old chief is known to have
possessed. He is as nature found him, bereft of ornament save the big
gray blanket with its broad border of blue about his shoulders.

Angeline’s judgment ought to be taken as to the merits of the picture.
She pronounces it good, very good, and it will probably become the one
great memento of the now vanished royal rule that prevailed over the
woods and bays and tribes hereabouts before the white man came and took
possession. In the perspective of the picture are the snowy lines of
the grand Olympic mountains, looking very pretty and true to reality.
Angeline leaned against the counter and cried till her Indian tears fell
thick and fast. “Nika papa hias klosh,” she muttered as she turned away
towards the door and then trudged off down the street, but not for long.
She trudged back for another look and many times during the afternoon she
passed and repassed the window, muttering that it was good, and peeking
through the big plate windows, for the picture had been set therein for
the passerby to look at. Young Coombs’ picture is from a photograph of
the old chief furnished by the old pioneer, Hon. A. A. Denny, taken years
ago.

To the older settlers Angeline’s name was given by some of the Indians
as Wee-wy-eke and by herself as Kakii-Silma; very pretty names both of
them. A daughter of Angeline, known to the whites by the unpretentious
name of Betsey, had the prettily sounding Indian name of Che-wa-tum.

There is another little painting by young Coombs, just as full of
interest as that of the old chief. It is a reproduction in oil of the
old log cabin, the first log cabin built by the white settlers forty or
more years ago, on Alki point. The picture is from a sketch taken a dozen
years ago while yet the old log hut was in a state of preservation and it
is said to be a very realistic likeness. The picture is now the property
of Mr. Denny and he treasures it as one of his most valued mementoes.

In his little book, “Pioneer Days on Puget Sound,” Mr. Denny, speaking of
the first log house says:

“Our first work was to provide shelter for the winter, and we finished
the house begun by brother and Lee Terry for J. N. Low, and took shelter
in it from the rain, which was falling more or less every day; but we
did not regard it with much concern and seldom lost any time on that
account. We next built a log house for myself, which increased our room
very materially and made all more comfortable. We had now used up all the
timber suitable for log houses, which we could get without a team, and
we split cedar and built houses for Bell and Boren, which we considered
quite a fancy, but not so substantial as log houses. About the time we
had completed our winter quarters, the brig Leonesa, Captain Daniel S.
Howard, came to anchor in the bay. Seeing that the place was inhabited by
whites, the captain came ashore seeking a cargo of piles, and we readily
made a contract to load the vessel. We had no team at the time, but some
of us went to work cutting the timber nearest the water, and rolled and
hauled in by hand, while Lee Terry went up Sound and obtained a yoke of
oxen, which he drove on the beach from Puyallup with which to complete
the cargo, but we had made very considerable progress by hand before his
arrival.

“Alki point had not been a general camping place for the Indians, but
soon after we landed and commenced clearing the land, they commenced to
congregate and continued coming until we had over 1,000 in our midst and
most of them remained all winter. Some of them built their houses very
near ours, even on the ground we had cleared, and although they seemed
very friendly towards us, we did not feel safe in objecting to their
building, and it was very noticeable that they regarded their proximity
to us as a protection against other Indians.”

Little more than one generation ago, at a date which would extend quite
beyond the date birth of very many people in Seattle, there was assembled
on the neck of land known as Elliott point, Alki point, Duwamish head
and West Seattle, or as the Indians called it Squ-ducks, a large band of
Indians and a great pow wow was going on.

One thousand natives of the Duwamish and other tribes with a few
stragglers from distant local tribes were assembled and sat about their
smouldering fires, lounged lazily in brown-colored canoes or were snoring
under rakish tents much as the Indians of today do about Ballast island
or the hop fields.

All was excitement.

History records the fact that the day was a beautiful one, a brilliant
sun shedding a brilliant light over a most primeval and rural scene.

[Illustration: OLDEST HOUSE IN KING COUNTY—J. W. MAPLE’S, WHITE RIVER]

Over all this vast congregation of God’s simple-minded children there
ruled a chief—old Chief Sealth—then a patriarch, aged, yet stately and
dignified; an Indian simple and untutored, though yet an orator of the
highest rank.

Old Chief Sealth, a name honored and revered even at that early day; a
name since become historic and wreathed with an enduring, undying fame.

It was at a day when the flames of Indian warfare were beginning to
smoulder after a long seige of war, of ambush and bloodshed on Puget
Sound, though the old patriarch of the forest, Chief Sealth, had
refrained from lending a hand in the bloody work of his tribal relations
and neighbors. He, like many of the proud chieftains in the earlier
settlement of the Atlantic and middle states, stood by the white men—the
invaders we might say—when their brethren wore the war paint and carried
the scalp-lock at their girdle.

On this historic day old Sealth sat gloomily down in front of his wigwam
waiting in stolid indifference for the coming of the Boston man, who was
to treat with him that day and bring him news from the great white chief
at Washington.

At last the great white chief’s agent, Colonel M. T. Simmons, made his
appearance, coming from the direction of Olympia, and landed in front of
the staid old Siwash chief’s camp. The ceremony of an introduction was
gone through with in the Chinook jargon, Colonel Simmons being a master
in that tongue, and being an emissary of the government of much repute
among the Indians.

We can imagine the old chief receiving in his dignified, though simple
style, this messenger from the government. We of today might clothe
our imagination with the vision of Princess Angeline, the old chief’s
daughter, then a maiden of comely, though dusky, looks, standing
respectfully near and listening, possibly in eagerness, to this bartering
away of her father’s domain—her own heritage—to the stranger.

Princess Angeline now broken and enfeebled by 40 years of care and bitter
memories, yet lives by that same seaside and almost within sight of the
identical spot whereon that great pow wow was held. Well for poor old
Angeline that her sensibilities are stunted and seared, that time has
graciously smothered any remembrance of those days of freedom, when none
but her people and kindred owned and traversed these woods and waters.

But to the story.

Colonel Simmons had left Olympia on the 15th day of May, 1858, to visit
the several Indian tribes on Puget Sound and conclude the treaties with
them and arrange for the disbursement of annuities and provisions. The
commissioner had first called at Fort Kitsap, G. A. Page local agent,
where some 400 Indians waited for him. Colonel Simmons, after the
preliminaries necessary for such an august occasion, was the first to
address the assemblage of chiefs and Indians. His speech was in Chinook
and no interpreter was needed. He referred to the promises that had been
made and which were about to be realized, and wound up with the reference
at the close of his speech to the propensities of the Indian for rum and
the evil effects therefrom.

The venerable old chief being first in authority among the assembled
red men, was the first to speak. With the dignity becoming the occasion
and the position of a great chief, he arose, wrapped his heavy blanket
more closely about his shoulders, and began his address. The reference
of Colonel Simmons to the Indian thirst for strong drink touched the old
man’s quick, though he did not show it by any outward sign or expression
of feature. No, old Chief Sealth was too august, too grand for that.
Colonel Simmons would learn of his displeasure, but in a manner and with
weapons of his own choice. Sealth would show that he was an orator.
Translated, he said:

“I am not a bad man; I want you to understand what I say; I do not drink
rum; neither does New-E-Chis, (another chief present) and we continually
advise our people not to do so.

“I am and always have been a friend to the whites. I listen to what Mr.
Page (the resident agent) says to me, and I do not steal nor do any of my
people steal from the whites.

“Oh, Mr. Simmons, why do not our papers come back to us? You always say
they will come back, but they do not come. I fear that we are forgotten
or that we are to be cheated out of our land.

“I have been very poor and hungry all winter and am very sick now. In a
little while I will die. I should like to be paid for my lands before I
die. Many of my people died during the cold winter without getting their
pay. When I die my people will be very poor—they will have no property,
no chief and no one to talk for them. You must not forget them, Mr.
Simmons, when I am gone.

“We are ashamed when we think of the Puyallups, as they have now got
their papers. They fought against the whites whilst we, who have never
been angry with them, get nothing. When we get our pay we want it in
money. The Indians are not bad. It is the mean white men that are bad to
them. If any person writes that we do not want our papers they tell lies.

“Oh, Mr. Simmons; you see I am sick, I want you to write quickly to the
great chief what I say. I am done.”

Then the old chief retired. Calm his mein, unruffled his spirits,
dignified his tirade, though age had bent his stately bearing, for old
Chief Sealth had even then—long before that day when he arose to call in
question the integrity of a great nation which had promised to pay him
for his birthright and had not done so—passed the milestones on life’s
great highway, when man’s and Indian’s, too, allotted days of labor are
over.

It was the same old story. The dominion of the untutored child of the
forest had been usurped by the ruthless hand of civilization and the
Indian life had been crushed out.

It had followed the red man from the bleak New England shore to a last
great stand on the borders of the western sea. Chief Sealth, like
Powantonimo, Red Jacket, Black Hawk, Tecumseh and all the great line of
chiefs of the American red man, had given up their ancestral possessions
to the pale faces and was ready to die of a broken heart.

[Illustration: DUKE OF YORK]

On the evening of the same day (May 15) Simmons and party reached Skagit
Head, under Captain R. C. Fay, where some 800 Indians of the tribes
of Skagits, Snohomish, Snoqualmies and others were assembled. He made
about the same speech to them as at Fort Kitsap, when Hetty Kannim, a
sub-chief, answered him as follows:

[Illustration: EAST INDIAN CARVING, FIGUREHEAD BARK ENTERPRISE]

“I am but a sub-chief, but I am chosen for my people to speak for them
today. I will speak what I think and I want any of the drinking Indians
to contradict me if they can. Liquor is killing our people off fast. Our
young men spend their money and their work for it. Then they get angry
and kill each other and sometimes kill their wives and children. We old
men do not drink and we beg our boys to not trade with cultus (bad)
Boston men for liquor. We have all agreed to tell our agent when any
liquor boats are about and help to arrest the man who sells it. I will
now talk about our treaties. When is the Great Father who lives across
the mountains going to send us our papers back? Four summers have passed
since you and Governor Stevens told us we would get our pay for lands. We
remember well what you said to us over there (pointing to Elliott bay)
and our hearts are very sick because you did not do as you promised. We
saw the Puyallups and the Nisquallys get their annual pay and our hearts
were sick because we could get nothing. We never fought with the whites.
We considered it good to have good white people among us. Our young women
can gather berries and clams and our young men can fish and hunt and sell
what they get to the whites. We are willing that the whites shall take
the timber, but we want the game and the fish and we want our homes,
where there is plenty of game and fish and good lands for potatoes. We
want our Great Father to know what our hearts are and we want you to send
our talk to him at once. I have done.”

“Hiram,” a Snoqualmie then spoke:

“We want our treaty to be concluded as soon as possible. We are tired of
waiting. Our reason is that our old people, and there are many of them,
are dying. Look at those old men and women; they have only a little while
to live and they want to get their pay for their lands. The white people
have taken it and you, Mr. Simmons, promised us we should be paid, you
and Governor Stevens. Suspense is killing us.

“We are afraid to plant potatoes on the river bottom, lest some bad white
man shall come and make us leave. You know what we are Mr. Simmons. You
was the first American we ever knew and our children will remember you as
long as they remember anything. I was but a boy when I first knew you.
You know we do not want to drink liquor, but we cannot help it when the
bad Boston man brings it to us and urges us to drink. When our treaties
were made we told our hearts to you and Governor Stevens and they have
not changed since. I have done.”

[Illustration: CANOE HEAD TOTEM, SKOKOMISH]

“Bonaparte,” a Snohomish chief, then spoke as follows:

“What I have to say is not of much consequence. My children have all been
killed by rum, and I am very poor. I believe what Mr. Simmons tells about
our treaty, but most Indians think he lies. My heart is not asleep. I
have known Mr. Simmons a long time and he never lied to me, and I think
he will tell the Great Father that we want to get our pay. I have done.”

The Indians at Point no Point were then seen and many speeches of a like
character were made and then the party returned to Olympia.




CHAPTER XXX

THE MAKAH TRIBE


In the extreme northwestern portion of the United States outside of
Alaska, around and about the base of that sightly headland Cape Flattery,
where it has been said in a spirit of half jest, but worth taking most
seriously, that never a day in the year passes without rain, dwells a
small nation of men and women who will go down in history, in song and
story perhaps, as a happy, contented people; a people doubly fortunate
in the possession of a unique territory abounding with fruits of land
and sea. Back of them are the mountains, their front door yard the
rollicking, boundless expanse of frothy ocean; fish in the one, fowl and
meat in the other. Under their feet are the white sands of the ocean
beach, and over them seems continually to watch a most magnanimous
providence. These people are the Makah Indians, robust, ruddy, big
brothers and big sisters, whose other branch of the family undoubtedly
exists on the further side of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, so much do the
general characteristics of the one with the other seem to run together.

The Makah Indians are many generations advanced in civilization to that
of some of the Sound tribes. Why this is so is—because it is so. They
have enjoyed no greater privileges than other tribes. They are in fact
further removed than most tribes from civilizing influences that have
prevailed in the last generation. Perchance in this very fact lies their
present condition. Association with whites generally brings the worst of
moral results for the Indians whenever the Indian is permitted to be his
own or his brother’s keeper to any great extent. He readily succumbs to
the vices of the white man, but removed from these associations for the
greater part of his time and under the guidance of a conscientious agent,
the Indian should advance morally and mentally. The infusion of a great
deal of white blood into the tribe of the Makah (for some of the earliest
settlers went to the Straits to settle) has had a good effect. At present
the leading men are largely half-breeds who have been to school and look
very intelligent fellows. They are lively and smart in business. They
know how to hunt and they know how to fish as no other Washington tribe
does. In fact, since the issuance of the decree of pelagic sealing the
Indian seal hunters of Neah Bay carry the palm of greatest success in
that line. They own schooners but they are not sailors. Somehow the
proprietorship of several well known sealing vessels has come to them
without any effort on their part; it was something of a parental care
on the part of a thoughtful government, and although the average Indian
found on board does not know a rat line from a marlin spike they go to
sea nevertheless, are blown out and blown in and always bring home seals.
When off on long voyages they are usually accompanied by white men with
more or less knowledge of sealing and navigation and are not so much at
the mercy of their own ignorance of those things. When it comes down to
hunting seal or fishing off the coast within sight of land, the Makah
asks nothing better than his stout, roomy cedar canoe. He will chase a
whale too, as quickly as he will a seal. They are great sea rovers, are
the buccaneers of the northwest, and will start off on a three hundred
mile voyage in light canoes, down the coast or up the Straits and Sound,
with no more serious consideration than if they were going only as far
as the nearest bight or inlet. They are a whole community of fishermen,
industrious but not frugal. Without money they are contented, with money
the reverse. An Indian knows nothing of the value of money beyond the
spending of it. The first thing the Indians do after a successful sealing
voyage or a trip to the hop fields where men, women and children unite in
gathering the hops, is to repair to the cities and larger towns on the
Sound and expend the proceeds in a thousand and one gaudy and useless
articles that please the passing fancy of the native. They have however
been taught to provide themselves with provisions and manufactured goods
for household use, and there are some very comfortable homes upon the
reservation.

Judge James G. Swan, of Port Townsend, who is a recognized authority on
the Cape Indians recently wrote a very interesting chapter on the Makah
Indians which appeared in the _Post-Intelligencer_, of Seattle, and is
partially as follows:

“From Neah Bay to the Pacific coast in a southwest direction is a prairie
through which runs a creek which empties into the Pacific ocean at the
Indian village Wa-atch, four miles distant from Neah Bay. A few miles
south of Wa-atch is another village called Tsoo-ess, and south of this
is another village called Ho-sett or Osette. These three villages with
the village at Neah Bay constitute the winter residences of the Makah
tribe of Indians. During the summer months they move to villages nearer
Cape Flattery, one of which is at Kiddecubbut, a few miles west of Neah
Bay, another is on Tatoosh island, and a third at Archawat, on the coast
near Wa-atch, so as to be near the halibut banks, the whaling grounds
and the fine seal fishing. In 1859, when I first visited Neah Bay,
the Makah tribe numbered 820 persons, 220 of whom were strong men or
‘braves,’ and the remainder women, children and slaves. Their means of
subsistence were almost entirely drawn from the ocean, and at that time
their principal food was dried halibut, dried whale blubber and oil,
salmon, true cod, Gadus morhua, cultus cod, Ophiodon elongatus, black
cod or beshow, Anoplopoma fimbria, with various other kinds of smaller
fish, and shell fish of different kinds, such as mussels, crabs, clams,
cockles, limpets, sea slugs and snales, octopus, squid and barnacles. Of
late years they have accustomed themselves to some of the white man’s
food, such as flour, hard bread, rice, beans and potatoes, and, like
other Indians, are very fond of molasses or syrup, which they eat with
their bread and rice; but all their other food is usually greased with
a plentiful supply of whale oil. I have frequently eaten with them, and
must confess that dried halibut dipped in fresh sweet whale oil is not an
objectionable repast to a hungry man.

“The whale blubber is cut in strips, then boiled to extract the oil
which is carefully skimmed off, and after being boiled again to expel
the moisture, is put into receptacles for use as food. The blubber after
being boiled is hung up in the smoke and dried and looks like bacon.

“The halibut is cut into thin flakes, which are dried in the sun without
salt, and when well cured is nice, either eaten dry, dipped in whale oil
or simply boiled or toasted before the fire.

“The Makahs are particularly dextrous in handling their canoes, and
proceed in them fearlessly many miles from land in pursuit of whales or
seals, or for fishing on the halibut banks fifteen miles northwest from
the Cape. Their canoes are beautifully modeled, resembling our finest
clipper ships. They are formed from a single log of cedar, carved out
with skill and elegance. The best canoes are made by the Clayoquot and
Nittinat tribes on Vancouver island, B. C., who sell them to the Makahs,
but few being made by the latter tribe, owing to the scarcity of cedar in
their vicinity.

“In attacking a whale their canoes are invariably manned with eight
men—six to paddle, one to steer and one in the bow to throw the harpoon.
The harpoons are either made of hoop iron, old sheathing metal or a flat
mussel shell sharpened to a point, having barbs of elk horn fastened on
each side of the flat surface of the point, securely bound with wild
cherry bark and neatly fastened to a stout lanyard varying in length
from one to four fathoms. The whole of the spearhead is smeared over
with pitch made of spruce gum, to give it smoothness and uniformity of
surface. The pole or staff is from fifteen to twenty feet long, tapering
at each end, and made of yew, which gives it strength and solidity. When
used the lanyard is made fast to a buoy of sealskin taken off whole from
the animal and dried with the hair side inward. This is first blown up
like a bladder, then the end of the pole is inserted between the barbs
and darted into the whale, leaving the pole which is taken back into the
canoe. The short lanyard is used when striking the whale in the head, and
has only one buoy attached. The long one is used in striking the body
and has three buoys to it. When a number of these buoys are fastened to a
whale, he is obliged to remain at or near the surface of the water and is
easily killed with spears and long lances. Seals and porpoises are killed
with similarly formed harpoons, but much smaller.

“Their fishing lines are made of the stem of the gigantic kelp,
Nercocystis, which is common along the northwest coast. This kelp,
commencing at its root in a slender stem about the size of a pipe stem,
or codline, rises to within a few fathoms of the surface of the water
with but little increase of size, and then gradually enlarges till it
terminates in a hollow knob or bulb, which always floats on the surface
of the water, and from this bulb issue long streamer-like leaves fifteen
or twenty feet long. The Indians cut off the long slender portion of the
stem, then soak it in fresh running water three or four days, or until
it turns white, and then stretch it and rub it to a uniform size, then
knot the pieces together, coil them up and the fish line is made. When
dry it is brittle and readily broken, but an immersion in water a few
minutes makes it pliable, when it becomes tough and exceedingly strong.
The bulb of this kelp and upper part of the stem being hollow, are used
for various purposes. Fish-bait is kept in them, and the larger ones are
frequently used as water bottles.

“The fishhooks of the Makahs are made of the knots or butt parts of
hemlock limbs first split into splinters of the required length and
whittled to the required shape, then placed in a kelp stem and roasted in
hot ashes till pliable, then bent into a form like an ox bow. The line
is fastened to the upper arm, and on the inside of the lower arm a barb
of bone is firmly attached, and with this rude and simple instrument
they readily secure the halibut and cod. For smaller fish they use steel
fishhooks purchased of the white men.

“The houses or lodges of the Makahs are built of cedar boards and planks
and are usually of large size, eighteen to twenty feet high and forty
to sixty feet square, with slightly elevated shed-like roofs. These
boards are split from cedar logs with little wedges of yew and require
skill and patience to make them. These houses are comfortable dwellings,
excepting the smoke, and as they have several families in each lodge,
each family having a separate fire the smoke of which serves to dry the
fish and blubber, the usual fumes cause an intense smarting in the eyes
of visitors who are not accustomed to so much carbon in the atmosphere.
During the past ten years some of the better class of Indians at Neah
village have built houses in white men’s style, but all the older
villages retain the ancient form of building.

“Their manufactures consist of such implements as are used in fishing
and hunting—harpoons, spears, bows and arrows and fishhooks. Bows and
arrows are now rarely used except by the boys for shooting birds, the
Hudsons Bay company musket taking its place, and of late years rifles
and double-barreled shotguns; the women braid mats very neatly from
cedar bark and weave blankets from dogs’ hair. Baskets and conical-shaped
Chinese-looking hats for keeping off rain, are made from spruce roots,
cedar twigs and bleached bear grass. They also make of these materials,
table mats which are very handsome and durable. The northern Indians and
particularly those of Queen Charlotte island, B. C., are very expert
carvers of wood and stone, and manufacture bracelets, finger rings and
ear ornaments of silver and gold, decorated with carvings of various
devices. The tribe south of Queen Charlotte group have little skill in
these particulars, and only carve rude faces of men or animals of their
mythology on their masks and other articles.

“The Makahs are fond of music, and many of their songs and chants, when
sung in chorus, are melodious and musical. They readily pick up tunes
from others and can sing the popular songs of the day, and some of the
scholars at the agency school learned to play the piano and organ; in
fact they can learn anything that white children are taught.

“The primitive dress of the Makahs at the time of establishing the
reservation in 1862 was simple and picturesque. During warm weather a
blanket was the usual covering of both sexes, the women simply adding a
cotton skirt or petticoat, or a cincture of cedar bark spun into a coarse
fringe, reaching from the waist to the knee. Some of the men tied their
hair into a club knot behind, around which they wore a wreath of hemlock
or spruce twigs or fresh plucked sea weed, giving them a picturesque
appearance. During rains or cold weather the men wore bearskin cloaks,
with the head part cut off so that the forepaws can be brought on each
side of the neck and fastened; the paws, with the great nails attached,
hang down upon the breast. On their heads they place the conical-shaped
hat painted with various designs, and in this costume, with the addition
of a gun or spear, they make a formidable appearance. Both sexes have
the cartilage of the nose pierced, and into this is tied a pendant piece
of abalone shell by way of ornament. Shell ear ornaments were also worn,
but now are but seldom seen. The females ornament themselves when in full
dress for dancing or ceremonial purposes, with a coronet made of the
dentalium, or tooth shell, called ‘haiqua.’ This is fastened around the
head in parallel rows, and its pearly whiteness contrasted with their
black hair is very ornamental. Into their ears are fastened strings of
haiqua, intermingled with brass buttons, thimbles, beads of various
colors and pieces of the green shells of the abalone. Rings of brass wire
encircle the wrists, bunches of beads of various colors are tied around
the neck, and strings of beads wound around the ankles; the line of the
parting of the hair on the top of the head is marked with vermillion, the
eyebrows blackened with charcoal, the face is greased with deer’s fat and
then rubbed over with vermillion, and this was the ornamental appearance
of a Makah belle when on dress parade.

“When about their usual work among fish and blubber, or when they are off
on a trading voyage with a load of oil and dried halibut, their dress is
very simple and very dirty. I have seen many of the men with a coating
of grease and soot covering their entire bodies, and the dresses of the
women completely saturated with oil and dirt; but as soon as they get
through their work or return from a cruise up Fuca straits there is a
general washing. This washing scene is the usual morning ceremony. They
are very fond of bathing in the surf, and do not omit their bath even in
the coldest weather.

“Breakfast immediately follows the bath, and as all their meals are
served alike, a description of one at which I partook in 1859 will give
an idea of the style then prevalent. On entering the lodge I was invited
to sit down near the chief or head man of the family. His portion of
the lodge was separated from the rest of the building by a screen of
mats to keep off the cold. Before me, circled round the fire, were the
children and slaves, for slavery existed among them at that time, and
on the raised platform sat the principal members of the family. At my
left, suspended from a pole stuck in the ground, hung the cradle of an
infant who was firmly lashed in an oblong basket, and its head compressed
by bark and moss bound tightly across its forehead. The mother, sitting
near, lulled the child to sleep by gently pulling a string tied to the
top of the pole, producing a motion not unlike a modern baby jumper.
Around the sides of the lodge were boxes and chests of the occupants,
and on shelves over these were piled baskets of potatoes and dried fish
and skins of oil; overhead hung blubber and fish to dry in the smoke for
future food. The meal consisted of roasted potatoes, boiled ducks, boiled
fish, dried halibut and whale oil. Hard bread and molasses were offered
me, but I declined, thinking that whale oil was more of a rarity to my
palate. The viands were served up in wooden trenchers, and all helped
themselves without any aid from knife or fork. When we had finished, we
wiped our greasy hands and faces on some cedar bark, beat into a soft,
fibrous mass, called ‘tupsoc,’ and rinsed our mouths with a drink of cold
water. They usually take three meals a day, excepting when they have a
feasting time when they go from house to house eating at every one. On
one occasion when I was taking the census of the tribe, I was invited to
partake of food in each lodge I visited. As that was impossible I asked
my interpreter what I should do, as to refuse hospitality is to give
offense. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘all you have to do is to put your finger down
your throat as we do, and thus relieve you stomach.’ And that really is
the only alternative, and with Indians it is very effective, as I have
seen an Indian apparently eat with relish seven or eight breakfasts, but
somehow I never could acquire the practice, and I was excused, as I was a
white man.

“Among the old Indians and those who have not been educated, these old
customs prevail, but with the younger generation who have attended
school, the habits of civilization are followed in a degree. The Makah
Indian agency was established in June, 1862, with Henry A. Webster United
States Indian agent. I was appointed teacher and superintendent of the
government building, and remained until August, 1866. My first pupil was
a bright little boy about nine years old named James Claplanhoo, the
hereditary chief of the tribe. Jimmie remained with me all the time I
was on the reservation, and then went to live with the Indian agent as
cook until he was old enough to marry, and then he married one of the
schoolgirls, Mary Ann Charliquoa, and has a family of boys and girls. His
eldest son, Jorji James, is captain of the sealing schooner Deeahks, and
his eldest daughter, Minnie, is married to Chistoqua Peterson, one of the
smartest young men in the tribe, a graduate of the Indian school, who
owns the sealing schooner Columbia and is a regular trader.

“The Makahs are a self-supporting and thrifty tribe. When I went among
them to reside officially, the largest vessels they had were canoes dug
out of cedar logs, and they were the most expert surfmen I have seen. I
advised them to get larger vessels and the government encouraged them,
and in 1888 the United States marshal sold to Chistoqua Peterson, Peter
Brown and John Tainsub, all Makahs, the seized schooner Anna Beck, of
sixty tons gross measurement, which they named the James G. Swan. In 1880
Peter bought the old schooner Letitia and sold her to some Vancouver
island Indians and bought the fine schooner Champion, which was lost on
Vancouver island. James Claplanhoo bought the pilot boat Lottie, but
she was wrecked. He now owns the schooners Deeahks and Emmet Felitz.
Lighthouse Jim owns the C. C. Perkins. Yokum, the storekeeper owns the
Matilda. The Puritan and August and several smaller sloops and boats
are owned by others. During all the ‘hard times’ this thrifty tribe has
made a comfortable living by sealing, whaling and fishing for halibut,
cod and other varieties. Several of these Indians, such as Capt. James
Claplanhoo, Chistoqua Peterson, Peter Brown, Shobid Hunter and others,
have comfortable homes like white people, and Kobal runs the only hotel
at Neah, which now looks like a little watering village, but the old
Indians and those who live in villages on the coast prefer their large
wooden lodges, and it will take another generation or more before they
will abandon their old customs and adopt the white man’s style of living.
But they show a degree of industrious thrift which could be profitably
emulated by croakers and idlers in all our towns.”




CHAPTER XXXI

FOOTPRINTS OF UNKNOWN TRAVELERS


Antedating the first arrivals of white people to the Sound in the 40’s,
were found in various parts of the country numbers of things showing
that white men or civilized or half-civilized people of some color
had visited the country. One instance particularly was the remains or
indications of a settlement or camp at the mouth of the Duwamish river.
As nearly as good judgment could fix it, this camp must have been located
at the beginning of the present century. It is not improbable that at
some very early day, some navigator bold built a new one or repaired
very materially a sailing vessel at that place. Stumps of trees that
showed they had been cut for scores of years were found, and the trees
themselves gone; strong proof that whoever stopped there did so for a
purpose, executed it and went on their way, leaving nothing behind by
which their identity could be made known to those who came after them.
The Indians had no recollection or tradition of those who cut the trees,
though it is not improbable that some one of the early navigators shortly
subsequent to Vancouver tarried there for a time.

Another find of later years was the uncovering of a strange and very old
cave, an old tomb in one of the public streets of Seattle.

There was not line or marble, nor carving, trinket, old coin nor scroll
to tell its history, to name its day. It was way back in the palmy days
of 1872 when the old tomb was unearthed and once more saw the light. The
toilers of that day were grading down to the virgin soil and carrying
Front street to the north. In their path at a spot opposite where the
Frye block now stands and just north of Marion street stood a small
mound. It must be cut down, and cut down it was; and the dirt carried
to a distance south of the present crossing at Marion street and dumped
into a small ravine or depression through which an old log-run threaded
its course to the higher ground. In the digging of the mound the workmen
laid bare the old tomb; and such a tomb! In the center of the mound it
was about five feet from the surface. Built up for two or three feet
with four walls of stone, boulders from here and there, but in a way
showing rudimentary knowledge of architecture and design. Inside was
the half-mummy, half-skeleton of some one unknown. Filling all of the
space of the sarcophagus was beach sand, apparently having been procured
with great care and toil. Such was the story of the unknown dead. It
astonished the local historian of that day as it is still the wonder of
those same historians who are yet living here today. The old tomb was at
least 100 yards from the then high tide line, and the carefully gathered
white beach sand had most certainly been carried over the intervening
distance from sea to grave. Some joints of the skeleton were decayed,
others not. The skull was perfect and what caused the local historian to
wonder, and wonder, and wonder again, was that the poll of the skeleton
was not flattened. For 20 years after the whites settled here, and for
times out of mind before that the Indians of the Sound had universally
flattened the skull. But then it was not Indian, why? Because the Indians
said it was not. Old Kitsap’s people said it was not, and the traditions
and customs of all the local Indians disproved such a proposition. It
was on the edges of the high bluffs around the bay, just underneath the
grass roots and tufts that clung to the very edges of the bluffs, where
the Indian dead were buried, had always been buried, and even up to the
present winter days of 1895, when an unusually heavy rainfall may occur,
the bones of the dead Indians may be found at odd spots along the bluffs.
They never put their dead under ground. The local historian has two
probable theories for the cave. In Vancouver’s first explorations of the
Sound his ships anchored off Blakeley rocks; after coursing Admiralty
inlet Lieu. Puget took a boat’s crew and paddled away even to a greater
distance up the Sound. Naturally they would explore such a pretty bay as
that around the rim of which the Queen City so proudly sits, and it might
have been that one of his men died and was buried here. Lewis and Clark’s
men or some early explorers may have ventured down the valley of the
Duwamish river in the dawn of the present century. Trees had been cut and
the stumps were still standing that marked the sites of the early camping
grounds, and axes had been used in the cutting. It might have been one of
those explorers bold, died and was buried in the stone grave so carefully
arranged to preserve the bones placed within. But these are only theories
and the wonder of the little mound will perhaps forever remain a riddle
unsolved.




CHAPTER XXXII

SOME NEIGHBORLY TRIBES


The beauty and grandeur of the great body of water forming the inland sea
known to the Pacific coast Indians as the Whulge, attracted many tribes
living at some distance from it both in the interior and to the north.
Among these visitors were what were always spoken of by the earlier
settlers as the Northern Indians. It is now known that these were the
tribes from both the British Columbia and Alaska coasts—the Haidas, the
most advanced tribe probably in the entire northwest; the T’Klinkets of
Alaska, and other less distinguished tribes.

The Haidas occupied principally the Queen Charlotte islands and the
Prince of Wales archipelago. There is nothing unusual about these
islands in topographical appearance. They present the same broken
surface, snow-capped mountains and deep canyons, with huge landslides and
sparkling glacial aspect so common in that region. But these same islands
of summer rains and fogs and winter ice and snow are peopled by one of
the most remarkable races of aborigines found on the American continent.
Like nearly all of the rest of the Indians of the northwest coast, they
live by hunting and fishing, and as the lands inhabited by them are
rough and broken, and subdivided into such small tracts by the numerous
mountain ranges, their only means of travel is by water.

The Indians about Dixon entrance are unquestionably superior in physique
to the coast Indians to the southward, and among themselves the physical
superiority rests with the Haida. This may be due to real ethnical
differences, but is probably accounted for in the fact that natural
conditions in the Queen Charlotte islands and around such an exposed arm
as Dixon entrance have produced a finer and more robust people than those
in less exposed regions. While there is considerable uniformity in the
general physical character of all the stocks on the northwest coast, a
practiced eye can readily detect the difference between them.

As the superiority of the Haidas to the T’Klinkets and Tsimshians
comprises the greatest difference in physical characteristics, so
with the emotional and moral nature of the three races, the greatest
difference is marked only by the superior sensitiveness of the Haidas.

It is in the intellect, however, that the greatest gulf exists between
them. One visiting the Haidas sees many strikingly intelligent and
attractive faces amongst the older men and women, where experience has
given character to their expressions. The dullness attributed to the
Indians of the interior here gives place to a more alert expression of
countenance. They acquire knowledge readily, and since schools have been
established among them their children have made fair progress. They learn
all trades with readiness, and before the missionaries and traders came
among them they exhibited much ingenuity, not only in the erection of
comfortable dwelling houses, but in their numerous carvings on wood and
slate, their working and engraving on copper and the erection of those
great totem columns which make every Haida village famous.

Their ingenious methods of hunting and fishing, their modes of living,
their food, their methods of warfare and their laws and customs are all
interesting subjects, but space will make it necessary to confine the
present article to some of their totem columns, carvings and engravings.

But little is generally known of the real meaning of these great columns
that form such a prominent feature in the Haida settlements. Government
experts have been among them during the summer months of several seasons
and studied them as thoroughly as possible at such seasons of the year.
Judge James G. Swan, of Port Townsend, has also gathered a valuable
and complete collection of Haida carvings, engravings, basket work,
implements, etc., for the Smithsonian Institution, but thus far there
has been but little attention given to the systematic study of the
mythology of the race, as that can only be studied with satisfaction
during the winter months when the natives are collected in their various
homes, thus rendering it possible for only a few of the more inquisitive
missionaries and traders to know anything of the legends that compose the
rich folklore of the Haida nation. A totem is a rude picture or carving
as of a bird or other animal, used as a symbol of a family. It represents
a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious
respect, believing that there exists between him and every member of the
class an intimate and altogether special relation. The connection between
a man and his totem is beneficial one to the other; the totem protects
the man and in return he shows his respect by not killing it, if it be an
animal, and by not cutting or gathering it if it be a plant.

There are at least three kinds of totems, namely the clan totem, sex
totem and individual totem. The clan totem is common to a whole clan
and passes by inheritance from one generation to another, while the
individual totem belongs to but one person and does not pass to his
descendants.

From their nature totems are constantly undergoing change. Clans tend
to become phrateries, split up into sub-phrateries; sub-phrateries
decay and finally disappear. An individual becomes wealthy or otherwise
distinguishes himself, and being one of the leading men of the tribe,
his totem, or rather his crest or sub-totem, which may previously have
been an obscure one, rises with him as he advances in importance in
his tribe. Under his successors, the totem widens in its numbers and
influence, and finally eclipses other clan totems, which in time melt
away, or are incorporated with it.

A single system of totems extends throughout the different tribes of the
Haidas. The principal totems found among them are the eagle, wolf, crow,
black bear, brown bear and thrasher.

The sub-totem usually comes from naming the child after some natural
objects from some accidental circumstance or fanciful resemblance, or in
nick-naming in after life.

The Haida Indians of Houkan often repeat a legend of a great war between
them and the T’Klinkets. While they were engaged in a great battle, which
afterwards decided the contest, a flock of ravens flew over and perched
on the side of the Haidas. And they being victorious, took “Yalth,” or
the raven, as the totem of the Haida tribes.

The carved columns of the Haidas may be divided into two classes, the
totemic and the commemorative. Those erected in front of houses are
usually very tall ones, and are for the most part histories of the
families who own them. The top figure is usually the clan totem of
the chief occupant. Those below may represent totems of his wife and
children, the children always taking unto themselves the mother’s totem.
Sometimes it illustrates some legend closely connected or referring to
the owner’s totem. Some of them deal with the history of the tribe, while
others are purely legendary, but refer to the totem of the owner. None
but the wealthy can afford to erect these carved columns, so that one who
is rich enough to own one has a prestige that is so desirable among them.
As the head of a household he becomes a petty chief in the village. With
the Haida, to accumulate sufficient wealth to own a totem pole and rise
to the dignity of a petty chief is the leading passion of his soul.

[Illustration: TOTEM COLUMN, NORTHERN INDIANS]

Ensign Niblock, of the United States navy, in speaking of these totem
columns, says: “A great deal of mystery has been thrown around these
pictographic carvings, due to the ignorance and misconception of some
writers and the reticence or deliberate deception practiced by the
Indians themselves. One of those Indians will not tell his stories or
explain his carving to any but the initiated, and then only when they
are in perfect sympathy with him. Mr. McLeod, the trader at Houkan, was
very successful in gaining information from them that would have been
impossible for Mr. Gould, the missionary, or his wife, the government
school teacher, to have obtained. Then they have their moods, and will
rarely tell their stories either in daytime or during the summer season.
But during those long winter nights which characterize that region the
old Indian will build a fire and settle himself down in business-like
manner and talk as long as the fire lasts. When the fire has burned down
to a bed of coals and the dying embers begin to fade away, his story
stops. Nor will he build another fire. Nothing more will be heard of
the story that night. Thus it often requires a week or more for an old
Haida to complete the narration of the story that is written on a single
totemic carving.”

Ensign Niblock was quite right when he wrote of these totem carvings:
“They are in no sense idols, but in general may be said to be ancestral
columns. The legends which they illustrate are but the traditions,
folklore and nursery tales of a primitive people; and while they are
in some sense childish or frivolous, and at times even coarse, they
represent the current human thought as truly as truly as do the ancient
inscriptions in Egypt and Babylonia, or the Maya inscriptions of Yucatan.”

The totemic and commemorative carvings are for the most part symbolical
of the objects they represent rather than imitations of them. There is
usually some arbitrary mark by which one of the initiated distinguishes
one symbol from another. Thus the brown bear is usually known by the
peculiar shape of the ears, the beaver by the shape of his teeth, the
raven by the sharpness of his bill, the eagle by the shape of his beak,
the owl by the ears, the grampus by his great fin, etc.

The explanation of the column in front of the Haida house given in the
illustration may be of interest.

The figure (a) at the top of the column represents “Hoots,” or the brown
bear, which is the totem of the proprietor of the house. The “disks” (b)
below the bear indicate the high rank or great wealth of the man who
erected it. Each one of them usually commemorates some meritorious act of
its owner, such as giving a great “potlatch” or winning a great victory.
Next proceeding down the column is “Yalth” (c), the great raven with the
moon in his mouth. Beneath him is the bear and hunter (d), and at the
bottom is “Tsing” (f), the beaver and totem of the wife and children. The
following is the story related by the carving of the bear and hunter:

Touats, the hunter, on one occasion visited the house of the great king
of bears. The great bear was not at home, but his wife being there he
made love to her. When Hoots (the bear) returned he found his wife very
anxious and much confused, so he charged her with unfaithfulness to him,
a charge that she speedily denied. She continued to go regularly for wood
and water. As the bear’s suspicions continued to exist, he fastened a
magic cord to her dress one of those days, and, following it up, found
her in the arms of the hunter. Hoots, being much enraged, killed the
hunter (Touats) after a hard fight.

It is not known whether or not this legend originated in the failure to
distinguish between the real bear and the bear totem. It is probable,
however, that the bear totem is referred to. An Indian moralist will find
in this story a warning to wives to be faithful to their husbands.

Above the bear and hunter is “Yalth,” or the great raven, carrying in his
beak the new moon and in his claws the dish of fresh water, illustrating
the most familiar version of the Haida legend of the creation. Yalth,
the raven and benefactor of man, stole from his evil uncle, the eagle
(the enemy of man), the new moon which he had imprisoned in a box, and
also got fresh water by strategy from the eagle’s daughter. The crafty
raven made love to the eagle’s daughter and won her confidence. He then
deceived her and flew out through the smoke hole of the eagle’s house,
taking the water with him. He also stole the sun and stars from the boxes
in which they were imprisoned by the chief of tides. When the sun shone
forth all the people were frightened and ran in all directions in search
of hiding places. Some flew to the mountains, others into the sea and
many took to the woods.

They were all transformed into animals suited to live in their respective
hiding places. He reached an island in the sea by the help of his magic
bird skin, and seizing a burning brand of fire started on his return to
Queen Charlotte island, but the journey was so long that nearly all of
the wood burned up, and even the point of his bill was scorched black, so
he had to let it drop. The sparks flew in all directions over the whole
region, so that ever after both stone and wood contain fire, which can
be obtained from one by striking and from the other by rubbing. There
are many versions of this story of creation, and many are the adventures
of Yalth, the raven, not to mention the other traditions, which are too
numerous for one Indian to learn in a lifetime.

There are several accounts of creation that have gained ground among the
various Haida tribes.

All of them agree that Yalth, or the great raven, is the benefactor of
man, and the creator of all things. According to one of the legends the
first people sprung from a cockle shell, and that the raven stole from
the eagle all the things which were needed by men. According to another
tradition the raven transformed himself into a drop of water and the
eagle’s daughter having drank him became impregnated with him and bore
him a man child, etc. The Indians at Houkan have still a different
version of the first part of the creation story. According to them the
sister of Mughilflass, the first man, was childless, and wished to
marry. Her name was Slaugfunt. She sat many days in the house of her
brother wishing for a mate to come along and take her. One day she saw
a whale-killer pass by, who returned and took her a long way out to sea
with him. While gone the man child was born. Varied as these legends are
concerning the first part of the creation they all seem to agree that the
raven stole the sun, moon and stars from the eagle, and the fresh water
from the eagle’s daughter, according to the story on the totem column
just described, and he did all these criminal deeds for the good of man.

[Illustration: THE BEAR MOTHER]

The Haidas show great ingenuity in their carvings on wood, but it is
in their slate modelings that their greatest skill is exhibited. They
mine their peculiar quality of slate on Queen Charlotte island. When it
first comes out of the ground it is soft and easy to work, but after it
has been exposed to the atmosphere for a few weeks it becomes very hard
and takes a good polish. On this slate they execute work that compares
favorably with many of the productions of highly civilized sculptors.

One of their best specimens is the Bear Mother, which also illustrates a
legend. There are several versions of it, but here is the most usually
accepted:

A number of Indian squaws were in the woods gathering berries when a
chief’s daughter, who chanced to be among them, ridiculed the whole bear
species. The bears poured down upon them and killed all but the chief’s
daughter, whom the king bear made his wife.

She bore him a child, half human and half bear. She was discovered up a
tree one day by a party of Indians, who were out hunting. They mistook
her for a bear, but she made them understand that she was human. They
took her home and she became the ancestor of all the Indians belonging to
the bear totem.

The carving represents the agony of the mother in suckling this rough and
uncouth offspring.

The Haidas believe in the transmigration of the soul and that men are
merely bears, wolves, ravens and the like transformed into men.

Upon examining their work on silver and copper one will be struck by the
neatness of the workmanship as well as the oddness of the designs of the
Haida smiths. If the Haida wishes to draw the picture of a man or animal
on a bracelet, ring or breast pin, he will split the face in the middle
and draw two side views, one facing the other.

[Illustration: HAIDA CHILD DANCE AT HOUKAN]

The boxes, food, dishes, implements, in short, everything used by the
Haida, are richly carved or painted with the totems of owners, and
illustrations of incidents of their lives, or legends of their totems. On
most Haida drawings the eye is placed on the breast, ear, foot, etc.,
of the figure, to give the idea of general utility of the power of each
number to look out for itself.

The carved box of black slate shown in the illustration has a sea lion on
each end. Each of them has a salmon in its mouth. The face on the side of
the box is “Hoots,” the brown bear, chewing up the hunter, and represents
the same bear and hunter story as has been explained in connection with
the totem column in front of the house.

There are many different types of rattles found in that region, the one
given in this book being the most common form of shamens or medicine
man’s rattle. It is carved of the famous yellow cedar wood and painted
in several brilliant colors. The carving on the breast represents the
sparrow hawk; the tail of the bird is carved to represent another bird’s
head with a frog in its mouth. The frog is supposed to possess a poison
in his head that the medicine man sucks out to give him power to work bad
spells.

The figure on the back is Ka-ka-hete, the whistling demon, who lived
in the mountains. He was capsized while traveling in his canoe one day
and nearly drowned. He swam ashore and made for the woods for shelter.
Some times he came down into the villages and stole the children, which
he took into the woods with him and ate. In later times he transformed
himself into a land otter. The two figures on the top of the rattle tell
a story of Haida love-making. The front figure represents the boy, while
the other one, the “birdie,” if you please, is the girl. The frog passing
from one mouth to the other indicates that a lie has been told by one of
them, and from the direction that he is traveling it appears that there,
as elsewhere, the boy had to bear the blame of it. The rattle, taken as
a whole, represents the great raven, with a brand of fire in his mouth,
which the Haida nations worship as the creator and benefactor of the
human race.

Before the whites came among them the Haidas made knives and daggers of
stone and copper, but steel is mostly used among them now-a-days for
such purposes. The daggers shown in the illustration have yellow cedar
handles, and each has carved on it the individual totems of owner. One of
them seems to be a chief of the beaver tribe, and is quite eminent, since
there are four disks on his hat.

The Haida tribes are rapidly undergoing a change. They are not slow to
abandon their own customs and adopt the methods of the Europeans. If
scholars wish to systematically acquaint themselves with the interesting
traditions of these people as illustrated by their carving, etching
and painting, they would better be about it. Their works are rapidly
deteriorating in the face of the new civilization and in the indifference
of the present generation. In fact the only young men who now engage in
such pursuits are the curio makers.




CHAPTER XXXIII

TOTEMISM AND SUPERSTITIONS


Those who have read of the wonderful totemic carvings of the Haidas
will no doubt take an interest in the peculiar laws and customs, and
the strange moral and esthetical standards of those remarkable people
of the North. If judged by the highest standard of nineteenth century
civilization, these people would not hold a very high position. But
if they were compared to surrounding tribes when they first came in
contact with whites, the thing that would be noticed most is the great
progress they had themselves made in morals. When first visited by
the early explorers these Indians, like all the other Indians on the
coast, were bold shameless thieves. With them it was not dishonorable
to steal, and, if caught, restitution settled the matter. On the other
hand they discriminated between a friend and an enemy and seldom or
never, stole from a guest and never robbed one of their own totem or
clan. And to this day an unwatched camp or an unlocked house is, with
them, sacredly respected, and the most valuable property that is hid in
the woods is just as safe from other Indians as if guarded night and
day. Unfortunately the white men have set some very bad examples in this
respect and the Indians have not so often sinned as they have been sinned
against.

In many of their race characteristics social customs, moral standards
and traditions, they bear a striking resemblance to the inhabitants of
Japan, and Tartary. Like them, they have great respect for the aged,
whose advice in most matters has great weight. Some of the older women,
even bondwomen in former times, attain great influence in the tribe as
soothsayers, due as much to their venerable appearance as to any pretense
they may make of working medicine charms. They are remarkably fond of
and indulgent to their children, rarely chastising them. Between the
sexes the rights of women are respected and the terms of equality on
which the men and women live are very striking to most visitors of the
region. Although marriage is essentially by purchase, and the question of
morality of the wife solely one of sanction by the husband, yet even this
restriction is centuries in advance of their Northern neighbors where
promiscuity and the most bestial practices prevail. The early voyagers
invariably mentioned Haidas as modest and reserved in bearing. The moral
virtues of these people have faded considerably in the presence of the
new civilization with its artificial needs of finery and luxuries.
The vices of civilization have had a most demoralizing effect on the
inhabitants of Queen Charlotte and the Prince of Wales islands. Like
most savages they are inveterate gamblers and have a strong craving for
tobacco and alcohol. In their disregard for the lives of slaves and in
their practice of acquitting murderers or other criminals by exacting
the payment of indemnity to the relatives of the injured, is seen simply
the customs, the operations of which, with them, has the force of law.
Murder, seduction, the refusal to marry a widow according to law, causes
general war, but any wrong may be righted by the paying of an indemnity
of the region. In writing of this subject Sir James Douglas, governor of
British Columbia, during the administration of the Hudsons Bay company,
says: “If unmarried women prove frail, the partner of their guilt is
bound to make reparation to the parents, soothing their wounded honor
with handsome presents. A failure to do this would cause the friends
of the offending fair one to use force to back up their demands and to
revenge the insult. It must not, however, be supposed they would be
induced to act this part from any sense of reflected shame, or from any
desire of discouraging vice by making a severe example of the vicious,
or deem the girl the worse for the accident, or her character in any
way blemished. Such are not their feelings, for the offender is simply
regarded as a robber who has committed depredations on their merchandise,
their only anxiety being to make the damages exacted as heavy as
possible.”

[Illustration: HAIDA THUNDER-MASK]

To such an extent was this question of indemnity carried, that when the
Russians tried to interfere with the killing of slaves on ceremonial
occasions, they were only successful in preventing it by ransoming the
proposed victim. And many were the exactions of the Indians for damages
on account of the accidental deaths in the employ of whites.

Along with the other artistic characteristics of these people, they are
exceedingly fond of singing and dancing. Some of them have rich voices.
Their rude, savage songs are not without melody and many of their weird
dances, by the music of various shaped and boistrous drums, exhibit
considerable art, especially of imitation. Their imitations of various
birds and wild animals, darting in all directions, screaming like
seagulls, howling like wolves and screeching like wild geese, imitating
the fierce, harsh music of the brown bear, the cries of great eagles
and ravens, are all worthy of special mention. They bathe frequently
in the sea, but on the other hand, continually daub their faces,
bodies and heads with grease and paint. However, this latter custom is
largely disappearing except on ceremonial occasions. They were formerly
indifferent to the stench of decaying animal matter, but have improved
wonderfully in recent years. They are still indifferent to the sanitary
laws of ventilation and betray a great fondness for putrid salmon and
herring noses, and rancid fish and seal grease. A visit to many of the
Haida houses where they have not come to using stoves is still quite a
trying ordeal to the uninitiated.

Totemism governs the whole tribal organization of the Indians on Queen
Charlotte and the Prince of Wales islands. The ceremonies at birth,
initiation, naming, matrimony, feasting, dancing, funerals and all other
social occasions, have for their object, in some way, the identity of the
phratery, more than of the totem or the carved image of the animal chosen
to represent him.

Birth-rights, such as property, rank wealth, etc., are received from
the mother. The question as to who is the father of a child is of but
little importance. The household is not the unit of the totem or of the
phratery, as more than one totem is represented in each, the father
belonging to one totem and the mother to another. Besides this, a brother
and his wife may belong to the household, or a sister and her husband;
thus numerous totems may be represented under one roof.

In the ordinary sense there is no absolute chieftainship. The family
is the political unit. The richest head of a household or the one who
has the greatest number of influential relations predominates over the
rest and is nominally the chief of the village. His authority is shadowy
and is dependent largely, aside from wealth and family influence, on
personal prowess in time of war, or on an aggressive personality. In
short the prominence of the chief is all that he can make it by the arts
of assertion, bargain, intrigue, wealth, display and personal prowess.
There are also petty chiefs who represent the principal clan totems or
households. For each household is with them a subordinate government. The
head chief merely overshadows in the extent of his influence, the petty
chiefs. Often reverses of fortune turns the tables so that some decline
in influence, while others rise in importance. Often the medicine men or
shamens unite with the chiefs to strengthen each other in the fear and
respect of the people. And bitter are many of the feuds arising from the
rivalries of households struggling for power in the tribe.

As a rule a chief is not treated with any marked deference except upon
ceremonial occasions when many marks of respect are shown him. When
engaged in treaty-making it is common to see him carried on the shoulders
of his attendants, as well as being made the central figure of many
pompous ceremonies. Slavery was common among them up to the acquisition
of Alaska by the United States government in 1867. The slaves did all
the drudgery, fished and hunted for their master; and strengthened his
forces in time of war. When they were too old to work they were for
the most part killed and many of them were sacrificed on ceremonial
occasions. They were never allowed to marry or hold property.

Councils were usually called only on occasions or necessity, there being
no stated period for them. Women usually had as much to say in these
meetings as men, especially on questions of trade, when their advice was
always given whether it was sought or not. However, they usually kept
mum on ceremonial occasions. In these deliberative bodies they sit in a
squatting position with legs crossed and deliver formal speeches in turn
which are heard with wrapt attention and approved by grunts and various
other signs.

In the division of labor men and women are quite nearly equal among the
Haidas. The men are the warriors and hunters although a women of rank
generally steers the war canoe. The different kinds of work are usually
divided among the people according to their skill. Some are exclusively
implement makers, others are wood carvers, and many of the women follow
basket making as a trade. Every chief keeps a man employed constantly
as a canoe maker. A visitor to a Haida camp will be struck with the
apparent equality of the sexes. The woman is always free with advice, and
a distinguished traveler has said cases of “hen-pecked” husbands are not
rare.

Very peculiar laws of inheritance and relationship exist among the Haida
people. First cousins may marry, but totally unrelated persons of the
same phratery cannot. In wars between households a groom may be called
upon to bear arms against his father-in-law on account of some feud of
trifling importance. Poligamy is tolerated but seldom practiced.

Property is inherited by the brother of the deceased, a brother’s son,
a sister’s son, or the mother in the order named in the absence of the
preceding one. As a rule the wife gets nothing but her own dowry. Whoever
inherits the property, if he be a brother or a brother’s or sister’s
son, must either marry the widow or pay an indemnity to her relatives.
In case the heir is already married, the next in succession takes her;
for instance, the brother may inherit the property and the nephew get the
widow. It will be observed that by the laws and customs of the Haidas,
they not only prevent the accumulation of wealth and power in one branch
of a family and allow it to grow opulent, corrupt and rotten, but provide
for the widows as well. It is the duty of the heir within a year after
the cremation or burial of the deceased to erect a commemorative column
at the grave or elsewhere in honor of him. It usually contains his crest
or sub-totem at the top and recites some of the leading incidents of his
life. Among the Haidas conjugal virtues have only a commercial value.
They are something to be bought and sold. One Haida thinks nothing of
selling his wife to another provided he can get his price. And cases of
one Indian renting his wife to another are very common.

Mr. McLeod tells the story of a case of this kind shortly after the
establishment of a justice court at Houkan. It was, by the way, the first
case that was called for trial in said court. One Indian was quite deeply
indebted to the other, so in order to satisfy the debt he rented his wife
to his creditor for a couple of weeks. At the expiration of the appointed
time the Indian refused to return the wife to her rightful owner, and the
injured husband appealed to the strong arm of American law to recover his
property.

Tatooing on the breast and arms of Haidas is quite general. They
are usually representations of some totem and commemorate deeds and
adventures of their lives. The women usually wear earrings and bracelets,
and rings are often worn through the noses of chiefs.

Although the methods of sepulture have changed in recent years, the
ceremonies remain much as they formerly were. On the demise of an
important personage it is customary to array the body in ceremonial
apparel and surround it with the tokens of his or her wealth. Thus laid
out in state the relatives and friends view the remains. In case that it
is a great chief who is well-known, Indians come from other villages, and
the body is thus displayed until in an advanced stage of decomposition,
when the final rites take place. In former times many of the slaves of
the deceased were dispatched at the funeral. During the first day’s
ceremonies the body was borne to the pyre, which had been constructed in
the rear of some house formerly owned by the deceased, and reduced to
ashes. In the meantime the mourners gathered themselves around the pyre
and with painted faces, their hair cut short, and their heads sprinkled
with eagles’ down they bewailed in the most dismal manner, the loss of
their kinsman. The service usually closes with a feast. The ashes were
preserved and deposited in a box near the top of the commemorative column
erected in honor of the deceased. In recent times the burial custom has
taken the place of cremation.

The houses of the Haidas are remarkable for their strength and comfort.
Their frame consists of huge logs, often two or more feet in diameter,
as posts planted securely in the ground, and large log plates of equal
proportions resting on them. The remainder of the frame is heavy and
strong in proportion. The posts are so beveled in the sides that they
hold the hewn planks in position, that compose the wall, while those
that constitute the roof are held in place by the weight of rocks. The
smoke holes are so arranged that protection can readily be shifted from
one side to the other so that the wind won’t blow down through it. The
dimensions of these houses are often 18×20 feet, and 12 or 15 feet high.
The various timbers are placed in position by the aid of rope guys. The
work of building a house often extends over a period of several years,
as most of the timbers are very heavy to handle by hand and must be
carved before being placed in position. Great crowds are employed in
building these houses and great festivities are indulged in on the days
occupied in the raising of the huge timber into position, corresponding
to our lifting-bees, so common in the rural districts. The houses are
generally made of Sitka spruce and yellow cedar wood.

[Illustration: SKAMSON THE THUNDERER—HAIDA TATOOING]

The great totem columns in front of the houses are usually upwards of
two feet in diameter and vary considerably in height. They are for the
most part carved out of yellow cedar wood by the native artist employed
for the occasion to commemorate the great achievements of the wealthy
house-holder, to celebrate the glory of his ancestors and record the more
interesting traditions of his totem.

These columns are never taken down or removed, but are allowed to stand
until, in many places, only the decayed stump remains. In Houkan large
numbers of totem columns are standing where the houses have long since
fallen down and many of them will be found in dense thickets. There
is one in front of the residence of Rev. J. L. Gould that has quite a
spruce tree growing in the top of it. The tall columns shown in the
illustration, in front of the houses, record the adventures, genealogy
and legends of the owner, and his totem. The shorter ones at the corners
of the houses, and in grave yards, are commemorative columns erected in
honor of a former occupant of the house.

No one is allowed to execute these carvings among the Haidas until he has
first had the medicine inoculated into his fingers by the shamens.

[Illustration: CORNER OF THE VILLAGE OF HOUKAN]




CHAPTER XXXIV

MYTHOLOGY AND NATIVE HISTORY


The column with the great heads on top, shown in the illustration, tells
quite an interesting story. It is variously told in different localities,
however, the versions differ only in the minor details.

The top group represents the head of an European with whitened face and
long black beard, flanked on either side by children wearing tall hats,
and represents the following legend:

A very long time ago a chief’s wife left the temporary camp used by the
Indians during the summer season, and taking her two small children with
her she went in a small fishing canoe across the narrows to get some
spruce boughs on which salmon eggs could be collected. She drew up her
canoe on the beach and warned her children not to wander off. On her
return nothing was seen of the children, they having disappeared. Many
times she called to them, and they always answered her from the woods
with voices of crows. Always when she sought them, two crows mocked her
from the trees. The children never returned and it was said that a white
trader kidnaped them and carried them off in his ship. The face with the
beard represents the European, and the figures on either side are the
kidnaped children which he is taking away with him.

Whether or not this story was founded on facts cannot be learned
definitely. However, some form of it is found in nearly every Haida
village, and as a nursery tale to frighten refractory children it is a
great favorite.

Next proceeding down the column is Hootzy, the wolf, and the children,
and below it is the mother bent over and weeping bitterly. The woman,
Kitsinao, of the crow totem, had many children and was very proud of them
(many with the Haida means more than four). She scoffed at the woman of
the wolf totem who had but one puny child. The feelings of the woman
were wounded so she appealed to her totem for protection and aid. A band
of huge Siberian wolves at once descended from the woods that line the
borders of those great hills and killed all of the sons and daughters of
the crow mother. The mother was very sad and sat down on a rock and wept
bitterly all the days of her life. In time she became incorporated with
it and to this day a traveler on the Prince of Wales island who chances
to call into American bay will see this modern Niobe bent over and
weeping bitterly. The Haida asks no questions as to the authenticity of
these stories, the fact that they have been carved on wood and slate, and
that the said rock is in existence is conclusive proof to him.

Next comes the story of the seagull, the beaver, and the beaver’s
daughter.

At one time there lived on the solitary shore of Daal island a beaver
with his only daughter, Cawk. His wife had long been dead and the two had
led a quiet life together. Cawk grew to be a handsome girl and all the
youths of Houkan, as well as others from far and near came to sue for
her hand, but none of them could touch her proud heart. Finally, at the
thawing of the snow in the spring, a great seagull flew over the sea to
the beaver’s house and wooed Miss Cawk with his enticing song:

  Come to me! Come into the land of the birds where there is never hunger,
  Where my house is made of the most beautiful woods,
  You shall rest on soft bear skins.
  My companions, the gulls, shall bring you food.
  Their feathers shall clothe you,
  Your fire shall always be supplied with fuel.
  Your basket shall always be filled with meat.

[Illustration: HAIDA GRAVE YARD—SHOWING TOTEM OF DEAD]

Cawk could not long resist such wooing and they went together over the
vast sea. When at last they reached the country in which the gull had
his home, Cawk discovered that her spouse had shamefully deceived her.
Her new home was not built of beautiful woods, but was only a tent of
fish skins, which were full of holes. It was a most wretched place that
gave free entrance to wind and snow. Instead of soft bear skins, her
bed was made of miserable hard hair-seal hides, and her only food was
the disgusting, half rotten fish which the birds brought her. Too soon
she discovered that she had thrown away her opportunities when, in her
foolish pride, she had rejected the Houkan youth. In her woe she sang:

  Sung! Oh, Father:
  If you knew how wretched I am you would come to me and we would hurry
    away in your canoe over the waters.
  The birds look unkindly upon a stranger in their camp.
  Cold winds roar about my bed.
  They give me miserable food.
  Oh, come father, and take me home again.

When a year was passed all the sea was again stirred by warmer winds,
the father left his home opposite Houkan to visit his daughter Cawk. His
daughter greeted him joyfully and begged of him to take her back home.
The father hearing of the outrages wrought upon his daughter determined
upon revenge. He killed the gull, took Cawk into his canoe and quickly
left the country which had brought so much sorrow to the daughter. When
the other gulls came home and found their companion dead and his wife
gone, they all flew away in search of the fugitives. They were very sad
over the death of their poor murdered comrade and continue to mourn and
cry until this day.

Having flown a short distance they saw the canoe and stirred up a heavy
storm. The sea rose in immense waves and threatened the pair with
destruction. In this mortal peril the selfish father determined to offer
Cawk to the birds and flung her overboard. She clung to the edge of the
canoe with a death grip. The cruel father then took a knife and cut off
the joints of her fingers. The joint of the first finger falling into
the sea was transformed into a whale, and the nail became whale bone.
The joints of the second finger became grampuses, or killers, while the
nail was transformed into those great fins which are so conspicuous in
the Haida’s representation of the killer. The remainder of the joints
swam away as salmon, herring, codfish, sea otters, hair seals, and fur
seals. In the meantime the storm had abated for the gulls thought Cawk
was drowned. The father then allowed her to come into the boat again.
But from that time she cherished a deadly hatred against him and swore
bitter revenge. After they got ashore she called her totem guardians, the
wolves, and let them gnaw off the feet and hands of her father, while
he was asleep. Upon waking the beaver cursed himself, his daughter and
the wolves which had thus crippled him; whereupon the earth opened and
swallowed the hut, the father, the daughter and the wolves.

Upon the whole, the column just described may be said to be purely
legendary, yet it seems quite generally to refer to the wolf totem.

In front of the residence of Chief Schooltka is also a column that
is full of interest. It was erected by himself and the carvings were
executed with steel instruments, so that superior designs and neater
workmanship have been obtained.

At the top of it is his crest or sub-totem, the eagle. The various
carvings trace in a general way the history of family for several
generations back, such as marriages of one totem with another. For
instance, the bear to the eagle, the wolf to the raven, etc. It also
indicates the number of children in each family, and the manner of
death that ended their lives by some conventional means that is
readily understood by the Haida. About midway down the pole is a rude
representation of a Russian priest of the Greek church with his hands
folded across his breast in reverential manner, with crude images of
angels around him and beneath it is the only legend carved on the column,
it is the bear and butterfly story, which is worth repeating:




CHAPTER XXXV

YALTH, AND THE BUTTERFLY


In the beginning, when Yalth, the great raven, the friend and benefactor
of the human race, was looking for a good region for men to occupy, the
butterfly hovered over his head as he flew. When he came to the country
now occupied by the Haida nations, the butterfly pointed with his
proboscis to the good lands and said, “Where the bear are, there salmon,
sprouts and good living will be found in abundance;” so that accounts for
the residence of the Haidas on the Prince of Wales island, and for bear
living so plentifully in that region.

At the base of the column is the beaver, the totem of Schooltka’s wife
and children.

At one corner of his house is a commemorative column somewhat shorter
than the totem column erected to his memory. Among other events pictured
on the incompleted column is his cordial welcome to the missionary and
the children with books in their hands, illustrate quite truthfully the
attitude toward the whites of this most truly noble Indian of the Haida
race. He was always the friend of the white man, and when the Rev. J. L.
Gould, the Presbyterian missionary arrived in the village, he received
a warm welcome from Schooltka. His comfortable house was placed at the
disposal of the missionary and his family, and the mission school was
conducted there for several years. The chief has now been dead several
years, but leaves a wife who possesses many of his good qualities and
shares in his friendship for the whites.

A visit to the home of Mrs. Schooltka would not be without interest. The
house is a modern form of Haida dwelling, covering quite an extensive
area and two stories in height, but constructed of huge timbers and hewed
boards in Haida fashion. One wishing to enter is conducted down several
steps to the door, which opens on the first floor, which is several feet
below the level of the ground. One large room includes all the lower
portion of the house. The great posts which compose its massive frame
are richly carved and painted with various traditions of the race, tribe
and family. Slate and wood carving rattles, carved instruments, models
of various shaped canoes and soldier clothes are scattered hither and
thither. There is a stage-like platform about six feet in width reaching
quite around a room which is only partially lighted by two windows in the
front of the house. In the center of the room a large box stove has taken
the place of the crude fireplace and smoke hole of their more savage
days. In one corner is a modern cooking stove with its pots, kettles,
pans, skillets, etc., showing that civilized methods of cooking have
superceded the old way of cooking meat and fish on sticks, or by roasting
in holes dug in the ground under a hot fire. Mrs. Schooltka has found
an easier way of boiling her food than by putting it in a water-tight
basket, covering it with water and casting hot stones into it. But after
all the most strikingly interesting figure in the room is Mrs. Schooltka
herself. In stature she is short and stout, though her figure is by no
means repulsive. She possesses a very alert expression of countenance
and her face is on the whole pleasing. Though about 40 years of age, one
would think her very much younger, owing to the absence of wrinkles in
her face. She takes a keen interest in everything, and never tires of
telling stories of her late husband. A visitor would no doubt be much
amused at the very indefinite idea of time which these Indians have.
Thus, if this good, but simple-minded woman is asked how long she lived
with her husband, her answer will be, in mixed English and Chinook,
“Klo-nass, ni-ka ha-lo, cum-tux; nika tum-tum klone hundred years,”
meaning that she was not sure, but thought she had lived with him about
300 years.

[Illustration: MRS. SCHOOLTKA, WHO LIVED 300 YEARS WITH HER HUSBAND]

There is one thing in which the Haidas differ widely from other Indians:
they are not fond of bright colors in their clothing, black being always
preferred. Even in their shawls and handkerchiefs they prefer that they
be black or some other conservative color. Missionary societies sending
them second-handed clothing make a great mistake in this particular.

Though the Haidas are as fond of display as formerly their ceremonial
dances, in which the whole tribe engaged, are now rare, in fact they
have not been seen for several years. The spirit of imitation has taken
hold of the Haida and he now copies the methods of Europeans in such
matters. Most of the petty chiefs have been to Victoria, B. C., and seen
the soldiers drill. They have also witnessed the operations of the fire
department of that place.

[Illustration: SILVER AND COPPER ORNAMENTS

HAIDA INDIANS]

Copying British styles they have uniformed themselves with red
coats, forming quite a large army, and have a brilliantly uniformed
fire company. Their parades are frequent and they present a very
self-important, if not formidable, appearance as they march proudly
along, keeping time to the wild, grand music of the tribes, their own
boisterous drums, and the native whistles and trumpets, through their
rough narrow streets, performing various evolutions and halting to drill.
Indifferent whether armed with guns or sticks, many of the swords of the
officers being of wood, they draw up in line, go through the facings,
marching and counter-marching, the manual of arms and various other
exercises. Conspicuous on such occasions is Mr. John, whose portrait
is here presented. He is very ambitious to become one of the general
officers of the army. So, as often as the drilling day comes around he
calls on the Rev. Gould, who was a soldier in the late civil war, for
instructions in military tactics. On one occasion the good man asked
him if he expected to learn in a moment what it took him (Mr. Gould)
three years to learn. This discouraged Mr. John for a time, but he soon
recovered and is now occasionally a military pupil of Mr. Gould’s. The
parades of the fire company are pompous and magnificent, but damaging
stories are told of them so far as their real usefulness is concerned.
One evening Mr. E. T. McLeod looked out of the door of his store and
beheld one of the Indian’s houses in flames. With the aid of a fire
extinguisher and a little water he quickly quenched the blaze before the
fire company arrived. The Indians who composed the company were very
angry with him for not waiting until they could get their suits on and
reach the scene in dress parade uniform. The latter incident illustrates
the childish notions of a savage race capable of a high degree of
cultivation.




CHAPTER XXXVI

POTLATCH AND DEVIL DANCE


The potlatch was the greatest institution of the Indian and is to this
day. It was the crowning glory of the Indian life and worth the meade
of a thousand victories over the foe. It was the ambition of the hyas
tyee, the politics of every ruler who could secure wealth enough to
accomplish the great and glorious end. It impoverished the giver but
brought gladness to the hearts of the people, and honor ever after to
him who gave. It was a beautiful custom; beautiful in the eyes of the
natives of high or low degree, confined to no particular tribe but to
be met with everywhere along the coast. It no doubt had its origin far
back in the misty past. Come from whence—who can tell? Perhaps, through
the generations of the world down through all the ups and downs and
changes and variation of mankind, keeping step with that most beautiful
of all civilized customs, the gifts of Yuletide, for Christ’s sake, and
perchance the very same origin marked the beginning of both.

Before the introduction of the cloths and implements of civilized man,
the simple native satisfied himself and the people by giving of those
things he could gather from the chase or manufacture by his crude arts.
Skins of wild animals fancifully wrought and colored, the wild ponies
of his herds, bows and arrows, his canoes, everything he sacrificed on
the altar of the potlatch which meant a gift, to give, etc. When he was
enabled to get blankets, knives, guns, etc., from the whites the potlatch
took a wider range and not even the glittering yellow gold was spared
the sacrifice. The great day set so many suns or moons ahead, arrived,
great was the interest and excitement of the occasion. From far and near
assembled the invited guests and tribes and with feasting, singing,
chanting and dancing, the bounteous collection was distributed; a chief
was made penniless, the wealth of a life time was dissipated in an hour,
but his head forever after was crowned with the glory of a satisfied
ambition; he had won the honor and reverence of the people.

The gifts were not always preserved by the recipients, especially with
some of the Sound tribes for it was a work of a noble unselfish brave to
immediately destroy whatever had been thrown to him. So it was that fine
new blankets, guns, bows and arrows and the like were often destroyed
scarcely before they touched the ground. At the Old-Man-House potlatches
have been given within the residency of the whites when the frenzied
Indians have fallen upon a shower of gifts and soon had them entirely
destroyed. The blankets, easily secured by barter with the Hudsons Bay
company’s agents, were usually hung up and with knives and daggers would
in a twinkling be slashed and cut into hundreds of fragments and strips.
The blankets in those days cost a great deal of money, $10 to $20 a pair,
so that in a very short time hundreds of dollars worth of valuables would
soon be destroyed.

Back in the distant past and not within the memory of the Indians of
to-day the ceremony had its attendant features of a more heathenish kind,
for the blood of sacrifice was spilled as a more fitting observance of
the grand occasion. Slaves succumbed to the horrible rites and moaned
out their death chants which blended and contrasted with the mirthful
song of their possessors, engaged for the time in their dance of blood.
An incident of the awful tragedies is inspiringly told, if such a
construction can be put upon it, by an early missionary, an eye witness,
whose description is re-clothed in the splendid words of Hezzekiah
Butterworth:

“I once witnessed a potlatch and I hope I may never see such a scene
again. I had landed among a tribe of northern Indians on the Whulge,
where I had gathered a little church some months before, and I expected
to hold a meeting on the night I arrived in one of the canoes. The place
was deserted; the woods were all silent. Sunset flashed his red light
along the sea, such a sunset as one only sees here in these northern
latitudes. A wannish glare of smoky crimson lingering long into the
night. As soon as the sun went down I began to hear a piping sound like
birds in all the woods around. The calls answered one another everywhere.
I had never heard a sound like that. I tried to approach one of the
sounds but it receded before me.

“Suddenly a great fire blazed up and lit the sky. I approached it; it
was built on a little prairie. Near it was a large platform covered with
canoes, blankets, pressed fish, berry cakes, soap—clayey or berry soap,
wampum and beads. Not an Indian was in sight save one. She was an old
squaw bound to a stake or tree.

“‘What is this?’ I asked in Chinook.

“‘Cultus tee-hee.’

“‘Cultus tee-hee?’

“‘Dah-blo!’

“She wailed in Chinook.

“‘When—tamala?’ (to-morrow.)

“‘Ding Ding’—

“‘Cultus tee-hee.’

“‘Cultus hee-hee.’

“‘Dah-blo!’

“Then I knew that all was preparation for a potlatch, and that there was
to be a devil dance—ding ding—at that very hour.

“It was a night of the full moon, as such a night would be selected for
such a ceremony. The moon rose red in the smoky air, and the sounds like
the bird calls grew louder and wilder. Then there was a yell; it was
answered everywhere, and hundreds of Indians in paint and masks came
running out of the timber upon the prairie. Some were on all fours, some
had the heads of beasts, fishes and birds, some had wings and many tails.

“Then came biters attended by raving squaws. The biters were to tear
the flesh from the arms of any who were not found at the dance after a
certain hour.

“Now the drums began to beat and the shells to blow. Indians poured out
of the woods in paint, blankets and beads.

“A great circle dance was formed; the ta-mahn-a-wis or spirit dance was
enacted. Great gifts were made as at a pow-wow or wah-wah. Then the dark
crowd grew frantic, and under the full moon gleaming on high came the
devil’s dance.

“The first victim was a live dog. He was seized, torn in pieces and eaten
by the dancers, so as to redden their faces with blood. The yells were
now more furious; the dancers leaped into the air and circled around the
old woman tied to the tree.

“I will not describe the sickening sight that followed; I will only say
that the old hag, who was accused of casting an evil eye, shared the same
fate as the dog.

“Why do you worship the devil?’ I asked an exhausted brave the next day.

“‘Good spirits always good; him we no fear. Please the devil and him no
harm you. All well—happy; good ta-mahn-a-wis, bad ta-mahn-a-wis, see?’”

It was plain—the old philosophy of the sinking sailor who prayed ‘good
lord! good devil!’ The tradition was—it came out of the long past—that
the devil must be appeased.

[Illustration: QUINIAULT TRIBESMAN]




CHAPTER XXXVII

THE T’KLINKITS AND ALEUTS


The T’Klinkit is the name applied to all the Indians on the upper coast
who reside between the north end of Prince of Wales island and Yakutat
bay, near the base of Mt. St. Elias.

These T’Klinkits are divided into so-called tribes; virtually families,
the chieftainship descending through the female line. The T’Klinkits were
generally known to the Siwash of Puget Sound under the general name of
Stickeens.

Among the principal families of T’Klinkits are the Stickeens, located
on the Stikeen river, which is near Fort Wrangle; the Takous and Aukos,
whose headquarters are in Takou inlet and on the present site of Juneau;
the Chilkats and Chilkoots, at the present head of navigation near
Pyramid harbor; the Hoonyas, near Glacier bay, and the Hootzenoos, near
the present town of Killisnoo, and the Sitkas, on Baranoff island.
The Sitkas are really composed of two families—the Kaksutis and the
Kokwautans.

In 1858 Commander Meade, U. S. N., found it necessary to reduce to ashes
two villages of the Kake Indians on Kiou island, on account of the murder
of innocent prospectors. These Kake Indians are the most hostile of any
of the Alaska families. They are probably not T’Klinkits. It has been
urged by some that they, as well as the Haidas, just to the south of
them, are descendants of the ancient Aztecs of Mexico, who were driven
out upon the fall of the great Montezuma.

Later outbreaks occurred among the northern Indians as late as 1879.
The garrison at Sitka, which had been established in 1877, had been
withdrawn, and Catlian, chief of the Kaksutis, had an idea, and so
informed all the T’Klinkits, that the United States had abandoned the
country; the natives were sole owners, and all persons in the country
were there at their peril. He first started off making orations at Sitka,
where he stirred up the young men of his family to attempt the massacre
of all the residents of Sitka, telling his friends that “they could kill
everybody, loot the stores, secure enough to keep them several years,
take to the mountains, and in a year or so all would be forgotten by the
United States government.” Luckily for the people of Sitka, Annahootz,
the chief of the Kokwautans, learned of Catlian’s threats, and one
evening when a crowd of drunken Kaksutis attempted to pass the stockade
between what is called Indian Town and Sitka, Annahootz, with several of
his young men met them at the gate. A skirmish took place. Annahootz was
badly wounded, but prevented Catlian’s crowd from reaching the citizens.

[Illustration: YAKUTAT, ALASKA]

The then collector of customs, Col. M. D. Ball, as far as possible armed
the citizens, who patroled the town night and day until the arrival of
the mail steamer from the Sound. An urgent request was forwarded the
government for help, and help was also asked from the British government
at Victoria. The American government being dilatory, Capt. A’Court,
of H. M. S. Osprey, went immediately to the scene of trouble. Through
the urgent representations of Major Wm. Gouveneur Morris, at that time
special agent of the treasury department (afterwards collector of customs
for Alaska), the revenue marine steamer Wolcott was immediately sent
north. As soon as orders could be given, the United States corvette
Alaska was sent to Sitka. Upon the arrival of the Wolcott, Capt. A’Court
offered the hospitalities of his cabin to Mrs. Ball and family to convey
them from the scene of trouble. Col. Ball thought he, with the assistance
of the Wolcott and Alaska, could hold the natives in shape, and declined
the offer. The trouble blew over, as Catlian saw he was over-matched. The
Alaska sailed south, and trouble again being threatened the Jamestown was
ordered to that port. Under the wise regulations of Captains Beardsley
and Glass, Indian Town (so called) was cleansed, whitewashed, the
turbulent natives being made policemen and carried on the rolls of the
ship as landsmen. They liked their authority, and with their big tin
stars, brass buttons and blue uniforms kept the place in good order.

The only other trouble was in 1883, at the Hootzenoo village uprising,
when Capt. Merriman, of the navy, was forced to destroy the village, for
which he was afterwards court-martialed and acquitted.

The Chilkats and Kakes have, up to this time, had the reputations of
being the worst in Alaska.

Of the T’Klinkits and their peculiar customs and changed conditions at
the present day, the _Alaska Searchlight_ in March last had the following
to say:

“Inter-tribal wars among the natives of southeastern Alaska have become
things of the past. A century’s contact with the whites has made the
T’Klinkits a changed people, differing in exact ratio as that association
has been the more or less intimate. Gone forever are their most striking
characteristics, their native customs and institutions, until today
their warlike achievements live only in song and story. Shamenism,
witchcraft and slavery have disappeared before the growing power of the
white man as the dreams of night are chased away by the morning sun;
but as in bosky dell or depth of woodland shade the dewy shadows linger
longest, so traces of former customs still remain among those natives
farthest removed from the white man’s influence. Fierce and bloody were
the frequent wars waged among the different tribes before they felt the
rule of the Russians, who did all in their power to divert the attention
of the Indians from warfare to the less dangerous pursuit of hunting.
Gradually they caught the spirit of trade which actuated their new and
powerful neighbors, and adapted new methods for the settlement of their
feuds and differences. In time blankets and other articles of value came
to be received in payment for insulted dignity or outraged honor, for
which formerly no atonement was known save that of blood. Captives of war
became slaves to their captors and passed their lives in bondage, unless
fortune chanced to smile upon the standards of their people and they
were retaken by them. The T’Klinkits waged war upon the British Columbia
Indians and took from them many prisoners. At times the most warlike
tribes held a considerable number of slaves, but as marriages among them
were of rare occurrence, and their number depleted by sacrifice, when
the wars ceased, thus cutting off the source of supply, slavery soon
died out, until at the present time there are no slaves left. An old
doctor at the village on the Takou river has a man with him who is said
to be a slave, but he has so many opportunities to escape and implore
the protection of the law that either he must be free or does not find
his bondage irksome. Kuh-hahla-tloo-ut was formerly a slave. Her face is
an exceedingly good type of the old T’Klinkit women, who have learned
patience and submission through long years of toil and hardship. Report
has it that there is one slave at the Chilkat village of Klak-wan, but
practically he is free, although at one time he was owned by a former
chief. Under the Russian rule wars among the T’Klinkit tribes became of
rare occurrence, but the number of slaves was kept up by purchase from
the Indians of British Columbia, chiefly the Flatheads. Throughout the
history of the world in all climes and under all conditions slavery has
presented the same general characteristics, and among the T’Klinkits
there was no exception to the rule. Slaves had no civil rights whatever.
They could own no property; whatever came to them through labor or gift
belonged to the master. They could not marry without his consent, which
was rarely ever given. When liberated, as they sometimes were, they
ranked the lowest among the people and were counted with their mother’s
clan. On festive occasions they were often killed or set free. At the
death of a chief or head man it was customary to kill one or more slaves,
sometimes ten or fifteen, that they might accompany their master and
serve him in the life beyond this earthly existence. The killing of these
slaves was attended with but little pomp or ceremony, their death was the
one thing to be accomplished. Among the Chilkats, it would be decided in
a secret council which of the slaves should be put to death. Unconscious
of their impending doom they would be struck down from behind with a
huge stone hammer. Able-bodied slaves were seldom sacrificed, as they
were considered of too much value, but the old and diseased were usually
selected as victims. If a slave should learn of his doom and succeed in
escaping or concealing himself he was allowed to live, and after the
festivities were over might return to the house of his master with no
fear of punishment. Chiefs often used to help favorite slaves make their
escape. After death the body of a slave received no more honor than that
of a dog. It was denied the right of cremation and thrown upon the beach,
food for the wolves, the fish and the birds. On the last evening of great
feasts the host would retire to a corner of the house accompanied by
all his slaves and don his finest costume—one kept especially for such
occasions. His favorite slave would be called upon to dress him, and
would receive for his services his freedom. One or more of the others
would be put to death, and after the sacrifice the valor of the chief
and his ancestors would be sung, and a distribution of gifts take place.
Sometimes a host would present guests whom he wished to honor greatly
with one or more slaves. At the potlatch at Klakwan last fall the wolf
robe of the chief was taken from its hiding place and shown the people,
and no blood sacrifice demanded, though the last time their eyes rested
upon this much-prized relic it is said that six slaves were killed to do
honor to the host.”

[Illustration: VOLCANO BOGUSLOF, OF ALEUTIAN ISLANDS]

On the Aleutian islands, or peninsula of Alaska, are found the Aleuts,
still presided over by priests and bishops of the Greek church. It is
probable that no thoroughbred Aleuts now remain in the territory. The
present inhabitants of the Aleutian isles all contain Russian blood in
their veins. The mixture has improved them much, in appearance at least.
Formerly they were of diminutive stature, not unlike the Eskimo in their
appearance and in the treachery of their disposition. Now they are much
larger in size, and it would be difficult to distinguish many of them
from Europeans, so fair is their complexion and regular their features.
The children, who attend the government schools, learn everything easily,
except mathematics. They very rarely pass fractions in the arithmetic.
Many of them sing hymns and patriotic songs well, and use the English
language very fluently when at play. Apparently all are devout Christians
according to the Greek faith, but the sailor who goes ashore at night
will be accosted many times by the Aleuts, both men and women, who want
“huchi-noo,” or whisky as we would call it. Cattle, sheep and goats are
raised to a considerable extent around Unalaska. Several fine appearing
Jersey and Guernsey cows were seen there with their udders well filled
with milk. The Aleuts ride from place to place in bidarkees, or skin
canoes. About Dutch harbor are centers interesting for the tribe, and
churches and schools are maintained. The services are largely attended
by the Aleut portion of Unalaska’s population. There are a bishop and
several priests present, who chant the service in Slavonian, which is
responded to by a small choir consisting for the most part of young
boys. Vast sums are lavished on the ornamentation of Greek churches.
Many are the designs in gold and silver on the furniture used in the
service. Like in the ancient Roman churches the services are conducted
by the light of many brilliant candles of various size. Some of the
paintings that ornamented the Alaskan Greek churches, especially those
of Sitka and Kodiak, are among the finest artistic productions of the
Slavonian school. While the dignitaries are chanting the service the
greater portion of the congregation keep constantly in motion, kneeling
and bowing their heads, and kissing the floor and crossing themselves in
Grecian fashion.

The Grecian cross differs materially from the Roman cross. The Roman
cross is but one erect cross. The upright portion of the Greek cross is
crossed three times, once by a horizontal bar and twice by inclined cross
bars, one being above and the other below the horizontal bar. These
crosses are to be found on all their churches and in all their cemeteries.

Dutch harbor is the headquarters of the North American Commercial company
for the northern district, and contains such buildings as are usual in a
station of its importance. It is the outfitting point for most whalers
and sealers for Bering sea, and is the place where American war vessels
receive their supply of coal, which is imported from Nanaimo, B. C. The
harbor is one of those small bays, well protected by the steep, high
hills which surround it, that are so common in Alaska.

[Illustration: KODIAK, ALASKA]

Unalaska proper is about a mile and a half away—situated on a long, low
flat under the shadow of several lofty hills. Its harbor is as safe as
Dutch harbor, but not so handy. The Alaska Commercial company has a large
establishment there. The town consists chiefly of the company’s large
buildings and about a hundred or more small tenement houses that the
company has erected for the use of its native hunters. All the houses
are built of imported rustic, and in most cases are painted with brown
ocher. The old Greek church has been demolished to give place to a grand
new cathedral, which is now under construction. At the present time the
devotees meet to burn their incense and otherwise worship in one of the
smaller ecclesiastical buildings.

The Alaska Commercial company has secured passage of a special law
allowing the natives of Unalaska to hunt sea otters at sea on schooners
fitted out in Unalaska, a privilege that none other than they enjoy.

The readers of accounts of adventures on northern seas and frigid lands,
such as often appear in magazines and story books, are apt to confound
the fur seal, hunted for that rich under fur which he possesses, with the
hair seal hunted by the natives of northern regions for the most part
for his fat. However, the skins of the latter are of considerable value
to a savage man. In the Aleutian islands their bidarkees (skin canoes),
houses, clothing, etc., are largely made from the skin of the hair seal.
It has not been uncommon in recent years to see in the great illustrated
monthlies and weeklies pictures and descriptions of Greenland Eskimos and
Siberian Tungusees stealing upon the inoffensive seal as he lies sleeping
on a block of ice, with their short spears and other weapons used in
his capture. Though so much has been written about hair seals, but very
little has appeared in popular publications concerning the more valuable
fur seal. This is largely due to the difficulty of obtaining correct
information concerning them. In former times they inhabited the northern
and southern parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But they have
been so closely hunted that at the present time the only rookeries left
that are worthy of mention are those on the Pribylof islands, of which
St. Paul and St. George are the chief, the Copper island rookeries along
the coast of Siberia and those in the waters of Japan. There are also
rookeries in the southern seas, along the coast of Patagonia, but the
seals are not very plentiful, and owing to the inclemency of the weather
can only be obtained by raiding the rookeries.

In order that the process of hunting the fur seal may be better
understood it may be proper to give a little space to a description of
them and their habits. They are usually brown or gray in color. The
males reach maturity when about ten years old. They often measure eight
feet from the nose to the end of the flipper, and their weight often
approaches 400 pounds. Some of them live to a great age and have fine
long manes on their necks. The females arrive at maturity when about
three years old, and vary in weight from 40 to 100 pounds. The male
seals are all congregated on the rookery in the latter part of June. The
females arrive there several weeks later. As fast as the females arrive
the strong old patriarchs take them in charge, each caring for as many
as he can guard, usually about fifteen in number. Very soon after the
female reaches the island the young one, usually known as the “pup,” is
born. At birth it weighs only a couple of pounds, and grows to weigh
25 or 30 pounds during the first year. It is said the noise of fierce
fighting among the many thousands male seals that gather on these wild,
barren, rocky shores at breeding time is beyond the power of human speech
to describe. Many thousands of them are killed every year, so fierce are
their raging battles. Strange as it may seem, in most cases the young
pups do not take readily to the water at first. More often than not the
older ones have to teach them how to swim.

As soon as the pups can travel the herds leave the rookery and proceed
southward. They go through passes that separate the Aleutian islands
one from the other in the latter part of September. The 1st of November
finds them drifting around in their winter quarters off the coast of
Mexico. As soon as good weather returns they proceed northward slowly,
congregating along the various fishing banks, where they are most
successfully hunted.

The country on the main land, both on the Shumagin islands and the
Alaska peninsula as well as on the Aleutian chain, is composed of ragged
bluffs and deep canyons, betraying evidence of much volcanic activity in
recent times. Where the rocks do not come to the surface these hills are
generally covered by a thin growth of small alders which rarely grow to
be more than six or seven feet in height. Between the clusters of alder
there are often found growing salmon-berry bushes which seldom exceed a
foot in height. Grass sprinkled with fragrant violets, grows luxuriantly
in some places. In others wild strawberries and small blackberry vines
are abundant.

In those latitudes strawberries and salmon-berries are ripe in the middle
of August; red and black huckleberries and blackberries in the latter
part of September. It is one of the few places where a cranberry marsh
can be found on a steeply sloping hillside.

Sand Point station contains a store with warehouses, and customs house
and such other buildings as are usually found in a frontier trading post.
There is also a large hotel which was built during the administration of
Mr. O’Bryon as factor for Lynde & Hough. O’Bryon has since been lost in
the schooner Mary Brown which was wrecked off Queen Charlotte island on
her passage down last fall. The hotel is probably the finest building in
Alaska. It is furnished with many of the modern improvements, and helps
to give the place the appearance of one of those boom towns that used to
be seen on Puget Sound a few years ago. No one to-day knows why the hotel
was built, not even the company. It is thought that O’Bryon intended
establishing a pleasure resort for tourists who would go there to fish
and hunt during their summer vacations. In front of the station lies the
hull of the old three-masted schooner John Hancock, which was wrecked
there several years ago.

The Hancock has quite an interesting history. The gunboat John Hancock
was built at Charleston, S. C., in 1846. She was then a side-wheel
steamer. After the Mexican war she was transferred to the Pacific coast.
She was Commodore Perry’s flagship when he negotiated his famous treaty
with the emperor of Japan. In later times the Hancock was purchased by
Lynde & Hough, of San Francisco, and transformed into a three-masted
schooner for the Alaskan trade. Her model was suited for swift sailing,
having been very long and slender. She made the quickest passage ever
made by a sailing vessel on that route. After she drifted ashore the
wreck was filled with rock and a wharf was built out over it.




CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE INDIAN AND THE SOUTH WIND


Intimately associated with the legend and folk lore of the Indians of
Puget Sound is the south wind, the balmy Chinook, the harbinger, the
first breath of early spring time. It is the precursor of all that is
glorious in pleasant days, sunshine and joy. It comes up over the land,
perfumed and odorous from the sea islands. Its touch is like that of a
maiden’s palm, gentle and soft. Its tread is silent like the flight of
a peri, but it is strong in its coming, for snow peaks and icy crags
melt before it like banks of fog. It may come in May or it may come in
December, and its influence is felt for good. The Indians watch for its
coming as they did for the salmon, the king of fishes, long before the
white man came upon the coast to share in its benign influence.

There was a beautiful superstition or tradition among the Indians that
the Chinook always came in the night time and the white man with all his
learning has never yet proved that it does not. The stolid Indian waked
in the morning, went to the door of his wigwam and found it fanning his
cheeks. The white man came, and he too when he waked himself at morning
would find the Chinook a-blowing. So it is to-day. Though the white man
has had a half century to discover the secrets of this pleasant wind,
they have never yet been told. They only know from whence to look for
it—from over the sea—as did the Indians before them.

As all meteorologists on the coast know and old residents as well, the
prevailing winds of the year are southerly, but all southerly winds are
not Chinook blows. They are as distinctly different as the vesper and
the Dakota blizzard. The Chinook is always a strong, steady southerly
wind, never from any other point of the compass, unless it be slightly
southwesterly. It is distinctly peculiar to the Northwest Pacific coast
and its source is far out in the nasty storm center of the Pacific
ocean, emanating from the famed Japan current which is the source of the
remarkable humidity of the North Pacific coast.

The Chinook is remarkable for the warming-up it brings, and what is still
more singular the glow from its presence is not dependent upon its force.
This peculiar wind is, indeed, not a blow in the sense that the word is
usually taken, but a smooth, steady flow of a great wind current that is
the delight of all who come under its enchanting spell. And what warmth
it brings. By official record on the Sound it has been known to elevate
the mercury in the thermometer 19 degrees in an hour’s time, and yet
the Chinook was not blowing above a 12-mile-an-hour rate. That is good
evidence that the amount of heat it brings is independent of the force of
the wind.

The spring months of the year is the season proper of the Chinook, but
meteorologists say there are exceptions and the old and observant pioneer
will doubtless bear out this statement. It has been observed to blow
in December at Olympia, where is located the oldest weather station in
Washington. There 20 years’ records of the weather in Western Washington,
from a total of 5,700 distinct and separate observations made with a
statement of every plus and minus change of 10 degrees or more in both
the maximum and minimum of the temperature, shows that the months of
the year when the most decided changes occur in Western Washington are
March, April, May and October. During the other months the temperature
varies but little from day to day. Of decided temperature in this
western country 24 degrees is the record of greatest variation in any
24 hours, either of maximum or minimum, that was ever noticed. A change
in the maximum of 40 degrees in 24 hours in Texas in winter is said to
be a common thing. The cause is said to be that immediately preceding a
norther comes a warm, moist wave, which runs the thermometer up to 65
or 70 degrees on a winter day, and by next morning the thermometer has
fallen to 30 or more degrees. By reason of our contiguity to the Japan
current such extreme and sudden changes are impossible.

[Illustration: “KLA-HOW-YA”—HOW ARE YOU]

It is only for two months in the year—July and August—that the prevailing
winds are not southerly; then they may be said to be northerly. June
immediately preceding the first of these two months, and September
immediately following them, each have about 50 per cent of northerly and
southerly winds.

This mere statement of wind courses is really an explanation of the
cause of such a long rainy season on the Northwest coast. By scientific
investigation it has been demonstrated that all cyclonic depressions
originating in or over the Pacific ocean during those ten months of the
year when southerly winds prevail pass at a sufficiently low latitude
to cause the winds in Western Washington to blow from the south or
southwest. These winds always bring up from the ocean that excess of
humidity or moistness which is so characteristic of the country.

[Illustration: SPEARING THE HAIR SEAL]

This prevailing moist-laden atmosphere or wind current from the ocean
and the presence of the towering Cascade barrier paralleling the coast
so closely is the true secret of the peculiar climate. Move the Cascade
range of mountains and meteorologists tell us that we would at once
experience a great difference in climatic conditions. The excess of
moisture now so common on a comparatively narrow strip of coast line
would find its way inland and distribute itself over a vast area of
country. Desert and sagebrush plains would be turned into blooming
gardens, and corn and wine would grow and flow where now only the
sagehen and jack rabbit find congenial homes. The prevailing south and
southwesterly winds would not, say the meteorologists, be interrupted in
their regular course because their source would not be interrupted. And
there is so much of that dirty weather always present in the ocean caused
by the presence of the Japan current which strikes our coast that the
atmosphere would still have its excess of humidity. In the Japan current
lies the source of bad weather off shore and on the coast line. To such a
nicety have meteorologists reduced this potent factor in our weather that
they can always with a degree of certainty scarcely attainable in other
sections, predict the character of the weather coming on.




CHAPTER XXXIX

PLEASURE AND PROFIT IN THE MARSH


Checked by the impenetrable forests that covered all the interior of the
country bordering on Puget Sound, the native Indians found pleasure and
profit in investigating the marsh lands, tules and tide lands and beaver
dams, and chasing the festive musk rat and the industrious beaver; or
taking the numerous water fowl by simple methods now forgotten or long in
disuse.

Nature for ages had been in process of forming vast tide marshes at
the deltas and mouths of the numerous streams, the Duwamish, the
Stillaguamish, the Skagit and Nooksack, Puyallup, Skokomish and others.
Around the mouths of these rivers many of the largest Indian settlements
were to be found. How long these rivers have been silently at work day
and night tearing down the mountains and carrying the fragments away to
the sea is a question no man can answer. For ages this work has been
going on, with results perceptible in the acres of marsh where the rivers
meet the tide. If diked and tilled this tide land is the richest and most
productive of the whole state for certain kinds of crops.

All hunters know that snipe, ducks and migratory water fowl galore are
temporary tenants of these marshy depths every fall and that good sport
comes in with the tide at the right season of the year.

At flood tide the “flats” are full of life, for then the little channels
that penetrate the tules like a labyrinth are peopled with thousands of
gull, ducks, snipe, heron and other water birds, feeding on the crawfish,
crabs and other crustacea that dwell in the slimy mud and only come forth
when the waters cover the myriads of holes that constitute their homes.
Muskrats paddle about towing bits of dead wood or tule in a streaming
wake as they take advantage of the tide for water transportation to bring
their winter bed to their burrow. Quaint little fellows they are, with
beady black eyes that see everything, and a shining coat of brown fur
which they oil and comb every time they can find a warm sunny nook where
the wind doesn’t blow too brisk. They are not very shy if left alone
and can often be seen swimming about or perched on some snag smoothing
their coat with a little black paw or huddled up until they look like a
brown ball of fur as big as your two fists. They have a tireless enemy in
the person of the farmer who owns diked land, for they are the bane of
his existence. Dikes seem to be a favorite place for them to dig their
burrows in, presumably because it affords them an elevation above water
level, consequently a dry home in the otherwise slimy expanse of marsh
that forms their habitat.

Muskrats are not the only inhabitants of these lonesome, wind-swept
deposits. Gulls wing their circling flight along the borders in quest of
food left by the last tide, and croaking herons rise on heavy, uncertain
wing, as they adjust their lank proportions to the conditions of aerial
navigation. The crows are there always; high tide, low tide or no tide,
the crows are about. At low water they pick up the clams and cockles
left on top of the sand, take out the meat of such as they are able, and
have a way of their own of opening those that persist in keeping their
shells tightly closed. On finding one of this kind they take hold of it
with their beak, give a preliminary croak or so, and rise in the air for
several yards, then they drop the clam and follow it like a black plumb
bob to the beach. The clam shell is cracked and mashed by the fall and
the crow has everything his own way by his sharp practices. They clean up
about everything considered eatable in the crow bill of fare that is left
on the beach by the tide and what they miss the gulls get, so that the
mud flats constitute a kind of a short order restaurant for the bird-folk
that inhabit our bay shores.

[Illustration: INDIAN DUCK HUNTING]

The stoical Siwash stalks, barefooted, over the broad expanse of sand,
gathering clams at low tide, or with silent paddle urges his cedar canoe
among the canals of the tule patches, looking for a “pot shot” at ducks
with his old Hudsons bay company musket. He never wastes any powder on a
single duck or risks a wing shot. There must be a whole patch of ducks
and they must be close and sitting still on the water before he turns
his old gas-pipe fusee loose in their direction. He don’t go for sport,
or sportsmanship, this aborigine, so he nearly always gets ducks and
generally several of them every time he chucks a double handful of slugs
among them.

He is silent as a shadow and piles branches and grass all over his canoe
to enable him to do just the right kind of a “sneak” on his unsuspecting
victims.

Mrs. Siwash paddles along the canals too, but she is on a peaceful
mission and only takes the tules and rushes that grow thick on the
tide-flat marshes for no other purpose, in her estimation, than for
making mats for her dwelling on the other side of the bay. She knows all
the devious windings of every little channel, though some of them are
only about wide enough to float her light craft and are hung so close
with grass and rushes that you would hardly suspect an open waterway.
She knows that this or that blind canal opens out and gives access to a
particularly fine patch of rushes a little further on and urges her boat
ahead with lazy stroke that makes it glide along even if there is no
water to be seen from your point of view.

[Illustration: KLOOTCHMAN GATHERING RUSHES]

These little waterways lead everywhere, and in walking about you find
yourself unexpectedly confronted by a ditch a little too wide to jump
over and a trifle to deep to wade, when you stop to consider that the
bottom mud may be any depth you take a notion to imagine it, but at best
deep enough to let the water in over the tops of your waders.

In the deeper ones crabs scurry away in a misfit, sideways fashion,
peculiarly their own, and flounders fan their shingle shaped bulk down
in the friendly slime and there lie buried as the roil drifts away,
conforming so closely with the color of the bottom as to be invisible to
any one but a Siwash. They can’t fool a Siwash a little bit for he just
picks up a spear from his canoe, makes a jab at the muddy spot and eats
flounder when he gets hungry.




CHAPTER XL

INDIANS IN THE HOP FIELDS


  There’s dusky maids
  In pinks and plaids,
  Maids from the forest free;
      In bright attire,
      Aglow, afire,
  On Ballast island by the sea.

  There’s the chief of his clan
  With his ughly klootchman;
  The gay young dude and his bride,
      With bows and quiver,
      And dog fish liver,
  And the ictas of his curious tribe.

  Camped below,
  In the beauteous glow,
  Such a “gypsy” crew so novel and bold;
      In their long canoes,
      And moccasin shoes,
  From the land of the Totem pole.

  Dotted all over,
  Like pigs in clover,
  The wickyups cover Ballast isle;
      Brown flitched salmon,
      Pappooses agammon,
  Pots and kettles in curious pile.

  When picking’s o’er
  We’ll have no more
  The smell that comes from Ballast isle;
      Glad then my eyes
      My spirits rise,
  For they’ve gone back to their paradise.

[Ballast isle is the camping spot near Seattle of the Indians during
their stop over to and from the hop fields.]

Hop picking on bright days in the valleys of Western Washington is the
delight of the native. It is for him and all his kith and kin, a joy
unspeakable. He comes from near and far. He will travel hundreds of miles
in his big canim with his full household and all his earthly possessions
to enjoy the delightful season as much for his real love for it as for
the money that he knows will always come at the close. Then the hop field
is redolent of perfume and melody. The fields are alive with pickers;
the air is joyous with sound. There is a richness and coloring in the
surrounding which form a perpetual delight. There is a novelty to the
beholder and a rurality of scene so peculiar, that makes one feel as if
they were in some enchanted country. If you have never witnessed a season
of hop picking you have missed a rare old time-treat which has its equal
only in the maple woods of the East during sugar making time, or in the
co’n shuckin’ days of old Kentuck, “when the mast am fallin’ and the
darkies am a singin’ and raccoon and possum am simmerin’ in the pot.”

In addition to its scenic beauties and pleasant surroundings a hop field
is a sanitarium for the invalid, and a resting place for the weary and
overworked.

Ranking next to the delightful exhilarating smell of the fresh pine woods
of Puget Sound is the rich agreeable odor of the hop fields. The hazy
half humid air of the lazy September days, the variegated coloring of
thousands of native pickers chattering in their gutteral Chinook; the
heavy foliaged banks of deep, intensely green fields of vines, with the
equally deep green of the conifera woods in the background; the white
canvas tents, the lines of curling smoke ascending heavenward; the half
agreeable smell of frying salmon, the universal meal of the brownskinned
Indians; the mingling and assimilation of a thousand rural and novel et
ceteras, form pictures and attractions seen no where else on earth save
in a Washington hop field. They are delights which enjoyed once, never
are obliterated from the pleasant memories of the beholder.

[Illustration: AN EDUCATED INDIAN]

There is not a rural panacea or health resort from Southern California
to Vancouver island that will afford a tithe of the good solid enjoyment
with the revivifying influence so beneficial to constitutions or
shattered nerves.

Six o’clock in the morning finds the fields redolent of odor, musical
with sound and swarming with pickers. Poles laden with wet vines are
falling here, there and everywhere. There are buckets, baskets, boxes,
babies and blankets in endless admixture, while white, black and Indian
are taking stations. Dropping polls, like snowflakes falling, are
heaping in miniature mountains in every row. So it goes. Day in, day out,
from morn to night, throughout the season, until the last pole has been
plucked and the last load rolled into the mammoth kiln.

Indians make the best pickers, and among the Indians the klootchman ranks
supreme. She picks hops while the lazy, indolent brave plays cards or
lounges in the shadow of his rakish tepee. His great delights are in
card playing and pony racing. Those of the interior will travel for days
across the mountains every autumn, not to pick hops but to horse race
on Sunday. Sunday is their big day, a day of carousing, gambling and
racing. On those days all the villages in the valley are overrun with the
pickers in holiday garb of fancy colors. Then assemble a cosmopolitan
crowd not greatly unlike such as gather at fair time in the far famed
Nijni Novgorod from the steppes of Tartary or Siberia. The Yakimas
and Klickitats and other interior tribes, male and female alike, are
scampering about on long haired ponies, while the more sedate Puyallups,
Nisquallys, Tulalips, and dozens of other coast tribes trudge hither and
thither, grunting and muttering and poking their fingers and noses into
anything and everything which can be eaten or worn. Night drives them to
their various camps, some scattered miles away in various parts of the
valleys, and the following Sunday the scene is repeated.

[Illustration: STONE HATCHETS OF PUGET SOUND TRIBES]

Near Puyallup in a long reach of level ground the Indians have raced for
years at hop picking time, and so great is the rivalry and excitement of
the sport that the whole interim from one autumn till the next is given
up in preparation and training of horse flesh with which to outrun rival
steeds on the race course. Sometimes but two, at other times six or eight
horses will enter in a single race. The race is always a running race and
the Indians mount without any reference to weight, handicap, jockey or
saddle. A big Indian will be seen mounted on a diminutive wooly pony, and
will sail over the course like a meteor, his long black locks streaming
in the wind. Bets of ponies, lodges, blankets, saddles, knives, money and
everything and anything tangible and movable will be staked on the result
of a race and paid with as much nonchalance as a thousand pounds Sterling
would be paid on Epsom Downs. Often there are seen at these Sunday races
3,000 people. Such days and places are the paradise of the gambler,
contraband whiskey vendor and trashy whites generally. They congregate
like vultures at a carrion feed. Only a goodly number of United States
deputy marshals prevents downright and open handed robbery and vice.

The close of the picking season always finds the principal towns flooded
with returning pickers and the dock fronts lined with long, lank Indian
canoes. The Indians are spendthrifts, and they plant the profits of the
picking season as generously as princes of the realm. Their canoes are
laden with bric a brac from the Boston man’s store as long as the money
lasts or as long as there is room to store them.

[Illustration: QUINIAULT SEA OTTER LOOKOUT]

They always bring with them from their mysterious northern lands the
fruits of the chase on land or sea, and the workmanship of rude hands,
for barter with the whites. Mats of reeds, images, miniature canoes,
bladders of fish oil, slabs of seal meat, dried elk and bear, seal skins,
beaver skins, pelts, sea otter skins, and such like, form their chief
staples in trade. These are generally bartered on the trip down, for
eatables, while waiting for the maturing of the hop fields, as they are
most always here weeks before the time for picking.

The coast Indians come generally in fleets of a dozen to twenty or thirty
big canoes, numbering fifty or one hundred pickers, who are generally
presided over by some scion of a royal line or by some head man elected
to chieftainship, much as the whites elect their officials. If there is
any tribal restrictions or dictatorial authority by the chief at home,
it is dropped when they start on their long water journeys, sometimes of
many hundred miles, to the hop fields.

The going and coming of the Washington hop pickers is as regular as the
annual migration of water fowl or the rotation of the seasons, and are
ever a source of attraction and interest.




CHAPTER XLI

LEGEND OF THE CRUCIFIXION


The Siwash have a legendary theory and story of the crucifixion. Hezekial
Butterworth picked it up while on one of his vacation jaunts to the west,
and tells it very prettily, though it has been told by a score of writers
and is one of the first to come to the knowledge of the white man:

Long, long ago, say the Siwashes, in the splendid sunsets of the Whulge,
or Puget Sea, there came a canoe of copper sailing, sailing. The painted
forest lords and feathered maidens saw it from the bluffs—in the sunrise
at times, or in the moonsets, but ever in the red sunsets, sailing,
sailing. The gleam of copper in the red sunset is more beautiful than
gold; and ever and anon on the blue wave was seen the burnished gleam
of the copper canoe. On it came, and the solitary voyager in the copper
canoe landed at last on the Whulge, under the crystal dome of Mount
Rainier, and he shadowed among the cool firs of the headlands there the
boat that flashed out the rays of sunset light.

He called together the tribes. They came in canoes from everywhere.
He began to teach and preach. “I come among you as a preacher of
righteousness,” he said, or thoughts like these. “All that men can
possess in this world, or any other, is righteousness. If a man have
that, he is rich, though he be poor, and his soul shall rise, rise, rise,
and live forever.

“Oh Siwashes,” he preached, “the unseen power that thinks and causes you
to act is the soul. It does not die when the breath vanishes. It goes
away with the unseen life and inhabits the life unseen. You have never
seen the soul, or life, but death is only the beginning of a longer life,
and the soul with righteous longings shall be happy forever.

“But war is wrong—the spear, the arrow, and the spilling of human blood.
Man may not kill his brother. The soul was meant for peace.”

He preached these or like doctrines, a beautiful gospel, like the Sermon
on the Mount.

The warlike tribes rejected the word. They nailed the Saviour who came
gleaming over the violet sea in the copper canoe, to a tree, and he
died there. They took down his body, but, wonder of wonders! it rose
from the dead, and appeared to all the tribes, and the risen Saviour
preached the same doctrine of righteousness and immortality as before.
The legend may have been derived from the preaching of some forest priest
in some distant place, for the Catholic missionaries were on the coast of
California before 1700.

Picturesque and profoundly romantic and imaginative is the Siwash legend
of the two grand old mountains, Rainier and Hood, one in Washington, one
in Oregon, with the mighty Columbia rolling between. It is the legend
of a stupendous battle royal, between mighty monarchs, and is as well
the sequel to the cascades and rocks that break the broad current of the
noble stream. The foundation for the legend is probably due to the fact
that within the limits of the Indian tradition or history of the past,
Mt. Rainier was in active eruption.

Long ago, almost beyond the time when Indian tradition and legend extend
the spirits of the mountains fought a long and bloody battle. Rocks
were hurled from the summits at the heads of the rival sentinels of the
cascades and a great commotion was caused throughout all the land. The
Siwash of the Sound say their tradition teaches them that it was the evil
and unruly spirits on Mt. Hood that brought about the great battle. They
would not keep still but were bent on raising mischief, and they did it.
When the great spirits of Rainier could not stand it any longer and could
not sleep, they rose in rebellion with a mighty noise that shook the
mountains and the sea and began a war on the noisy demons of Mt. Hood.
Great rocks were picked up and hurled back and forth, some so heavy that
they could not be thrown the great distance and they fell short landing
in the mighty Columbia with a great splash and making the earth tremble
from their violence. This quieted the spirits of Mt. Hood, since which
they have had peace; but the waters were dammed up and the cascades were
formed.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER XLII

ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE


A long time ago an English whaling bark, after many months of hardship on
the voyage, was caught in a heavy gale off Vancouver island coast. After
a gallant effort to save the ship and ride out the storm, the captain and
crew took to the life-boat, and though a long way from land and with the
tempest howling about them, struck bravely out for safety. Nothing was
ever heard or seen of the sinking ship. But one of the brave crew reached
land to live to tell the awful tale of shipwreck and death which engulfed
his companions. It was while trying to make land through the surf of
Queen Charlotte sound, that the captain and crew went down. The empty and
battered boat was cast upon the shore and with it one half-drowned sailor
who, after a time was able to rise from the sand and stagger about.

It was during the stormy winter of 1843, a time long antedating the
first general appearance of the settlers. In all the northwest there was
scarcely a clearing or hamlet. An occasional white-winged sail dotted
the water horizon or came to anchor in some quiet bay or harbor of the
Straits of Fuca, or the still less frequented waters of Queen Charlotte
sound. Ever and anon a Hudsons Bay company’s trapper or voyager emerged
from the bush upon the shore to remain a few days and then would be
gone again prosecuting his search after skins. That was all there was
to the civilization of the inhospitable northwest. The land all about
belonged to the simple children of nature the Indian, the beaver and
the bear. Such was the situation when the hero of our story was thrown
almost drowned upon the beach of Queen Charlotte sound. Scarcely had the
half-drowned mariner reached dry land than he was set upon by a party of
Indians and taken prisoner. He was escorted to the village of the head
chief and the usual council of war held by the braves to determine his
fate. The prisoner knew no word of the Chinook jargon or the King George
Indian tongue and could not gain the slightest inkling of the drift of
the pow-wow. For a time he felt that he was reserved for a fate ten times
worse than death at sea, and he cursed fate that he was not permitted to
go down with his companions and leave his bones to whiten and bleach in
the cavernous depths of old ocean. But he was not to be burned at the
stake, nor killed and eaten. The Indians at the close of their council
made no demonstration or dangerous move, and he soon learned that he was
to remain a prisoner and slave. His English boat was pulled upon the
beach and left to rot away. Time passed on and days run into months and
months swelled into years. The sailor soon fell into the style of living
of the natives and was adopted into the tribe, learned their strange
tongue and customs, sat in their councils, went with them on their long
canoe voyages to the south and towards the north, followed them in their
hunts for the bear, beaver and elk; engaged in their wars with their
enemies, dressed in their simple style, and was in every way save by
blood an Indian.

For five long years the prisoner lived with his captors on the shores of
Queen Charlotte sound, but there came a time when savage life palled and
the longing to see the face of a white man and speak his natural language
grew too strong to be shaken off. All the time he had lived with the
Indians he had not seen a white person. So in 1848 the sailor whose true
name was William Jarman, sought an opportunity to escape from the village
of his adopted people. He headed his canoe to the south and quickly and
quietly paddled away toward the waters of Puget Sound, hoping to fall
in with some trapper on the beach, or mayhap catch a sail in the waters
towards which he was going. Without mishap he got as far south as Point
Wilson, now Point Wilson light house, near Port Townsend, but had the
misfortune here to be overtaken by the very people with whom he had lived
so long. Broken and bewildered by his recapture, poor Jarman was escorted
back to the village in triumphant glee by his swarthy friends, now turned
to foes. The policy of the Indians again proved to be to keep him among
them as an unwilling prisoner and for four years more Jarman remained a
captive and prisoner. Afraid that he would again attempt to escape the
Indians took him to Queen Charlotte island, and he was not permitted to
return to the main land. Notwithstanding the close surveillance kept
upon him the sailor at the end of four years, a second time managed to
get away and this time made good his escape. By the time he reached the
Sound on his second escape many settlers had arrived and Jarman found
company and protection. Such was his wild and uncouth appearance that
his later friends gave him the sobriquet of “Blanket Bill.” He took up
his residence on the Sound, lived at Seattle, Port Townsend and Whatcom,
or about the settlements which as time passed on grew to those towns.
Blanket Bill after his nine years of wonderful life among the savages
never could quite get over the habits and peculiarities he had learned,
and consequently he became a notorious character among the white settlers
on the Sound. He was living up to a very short time ago somewhere in the
bounds of Whatcom county.