Produced by David Widger
By
Charles M. Skinner
Vol. 8.
The Voyager of the Whulge
Tamanous of Tacoma
The Devil and the Dalles
Cascades of the Columbia
The Death of Umatilla
Hunger Valley
The Wrath of Manitou
The Spook of Misery Hill
The Queen of Death Valley
Bridal Veil Fall
The Governor's Right Eye
The Prisoner in American Shaft
Like the ancient Greeks, the Siwash of the Northwest invest the unseenworld with spiritual intelligence. Every tree has a soul; the forestswere peopled with good and evil genii, the latter receiving oblation atthe devil-dances, for it was not worth while to appease those alreadygood; and the mountains are the home of tamanouses, or guardian spirits,that sometimes fight together—as, when the spirits of Mount Tacomaengaged with those of Mount Hood, fire and melted stone burst from theirpeaks, their bellowing was heard afar, and some of the rocks flung byTacoma fell short, blocking the Columbia about the Dalles.
Across these fantastic reports of older time there come echoes of a laterinstruction, adapted and blended into native legend so that the point ofdivision cannot be indicated. Such is that of the mysterious voyager ofthe Whulge—the Siwash name for the sound that takes the name of Pugetfrom one of Vancouver's officers. Across this body of water the strangercame in a copper canoe that borrowed the glories of the morning. When hehad landed and sent for all the red men, far and near, he addressed tothem a doctrine that provoked expressions of contempt—a doctrine oflove.
To fight and steal no more, to give of their goods to men in need, toforgive their enemies,—they could not understand such things. Hepromised—this radiant stranger—to those who lived right, eternal lifeon seas and hills more fair than these of earth, but they did not heedhim. At last, wearying of his talk, they dragged him to a tree and nailedhim fast to it, with pegs through his hands and feet, and jeered anddanced about him, as they did about their victims in the devil-dance,until his head fell on his breast and his life went out.
A great storm, with thunderings and earthquakes! They took the body downand would have buried it, but, to! it arose to its feet, as the sun burstforth, and resumed its preaching. Then they took the voyager's word fortruth and never harmed him more, while they grew less warlike as eachyear went by until, of all Indians, they were most peaceable.
Mount Tacoma has always been a place of superstitious regard among theSiwash (Sauvage) of the Northwest. In their myths it was the place ofrefuge for the last man when the Whulge was so swollen after long rainthat its waters covered the earth. All other men were drowned. The wavespursued the one man as he climbed, rising higher and higher until theycame to his knees, his waist, his breast. Hope was almost gone, and hefelt that the next wave would launch him into the black ocean that ragedabout him, when one of the tamanouses of the peak, taking pity on him,turned his feet to stone. The