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 theupper 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.
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 shookit, 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.
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.
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.
MASK USED TO APPEASE CRYING CHILDREN—OLD-MAN-HOUSE TRIBE
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.
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.
CHARM MASK AGAINST THE EVIL EYE—OLD-MAN-HOUSE TRIBE
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, hestretched 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.
STONE AND COPPER WAR CLUBS—TAKEN FROM SKOKOMISH INDIANS
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.
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 bayand 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 westThe wind-woven curtains of purple and red.The moon’s silver morning had mantled the hills,Inviting the world’s weary millions to layTheir sorrows aside for the beauty that thrillsAnd soothes into silence the cares of the day.When, lured by the luster of mountain and lea,A maniac-maiden stole out of her tentTo wander and weep by the sorrowing seaAnd 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 rangOr 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 eyesAs over the white foaming billows we whirledAnd watched the red lightnings dart down from the skiesTo 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 soulWhere bison and elk are abundant as deer.“O that the Great Spirit would answer my pleaAnd bear me away on the wings of the wavesTo that lovelier land that lies over the sea,Where winds never moan over moss-covered graves.”While singing, her eyes by fatality strayedTo a little canoe, that she loved as her life,In which they had sailed from a flowery gladeThe morning he promised to make her his wife.Soon a wild fancy seized her, she paused not to askA moment its meaning, her only desireWas strength to perform the congenial taskHergenius locisaw 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 dellIn the land of the sachems beyond the blue seaWhere 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 delightAs 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 roarAnd 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 onWhere rocked on the billows a rudderless bark.When Neptune, near morning, the billows had boundAnd stars hung in heaven like spangles of gold,Deep down in the regions of silence profoundA 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 AidenAnd greeted the warrior awaiting his bride.
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 westThe wind-woven curtains of purple and red.The moon’s silver morning had mantled the hills,Inviting the world’s weary millions to layTheir sorrows aside for the beauty that thrillsAnd soothes into silence the cares of the day.When, lured by the luster of mountain and lea,A maniac-maiden stole out of her tentTo wander and weep by the sorrowing seaAnd 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 rangOr 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 eyesAs over the white foaming billows we whirledAnd watched the red lightnings dart down from the skiesTo 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 soulWhere bison and elk are abundant as deer.“O that the Great Spirit would answer my pleaAnd bear me away on the wings of the wavesTo that lovelier land that lies over the sea,Where winds never moan over moss-covered graves.”While singing, her eyes by fatality strayedTo a little canoe, that she loved as her life,In which they had sailed from a flowery gladeThe morning he promised to make her his wife.Soon a wild fancy seized her, she paused not to askA moment its meaning, her only desireWas strength to perform the congenial taskHergenius locisaw 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 dellIn the land of the sachems beyond the blue seaWhere 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 delightAs 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 roarAnd 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 onWhere rocked on the billows a rudderless bark.When Neptune, near morning, the billows had boundAnd stars hung in heaven like spangles of gold,Deep down in the regions of silence profoundA 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 AidenAnd greeted the warrior awaiting his bride.
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 westThe wind-woven curtains of purple and red.
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 layTheir sorrows aside for the beauty that thrillsAnd soothes into silence the cares of the day.
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 tentTo wander and weep by the sorrowing seaAnd sadden the night with her mournful lament.
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 rangOr saddened the soul of a guardian brave.
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 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 eyesAs over the white foaming billows we whirledAnd watched the red lightnings dart down from the skiesTo pilot the hurricane over the world.
“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 soulWhere bison and elk are abundant as deer.
“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 pleaAnd bear me away on the wings of the wavesTo that lovelier land that lies over the sea,Where winds never moan over moss-covered graves.”
“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 strayedTo a little canoe, that she loved as her life,In which they had sailed from a flowery gladeThe morning he promised to make her his wife.
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 askA moment its meaning, her only desireWas strength to perform the congenial taskHergenius locisaw fit to inspire.
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
Hergenius locisaw 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.
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 dellIn the land of the sachems beyond the blue seaWhere now he is waiting to welcome Gazelle.”
“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 delightAs they bore her away from her dear native wild.
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.
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 roarAnd nearer and colder they eddied and curled.
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 onWhere rocked on the billows a rudderless bark.
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 boundAnd stars hung in heaven like spangles of gold,Deep down in the regions of silence profoundA form, faintly human, lay lifeless and cold.
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 AidenAnd greeted the warrior awaiting his bride.
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.
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, afew 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 whichhave 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 havebeen 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 hisown 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.