Wigwam and War-path Or the Royal Chief in Chains Part 11

The man who was trying to do good had undoubtedly answered when some one else had been called of G.o.d to preach the gospel. He would, perhaps, have made a pa.s.sable mechanic, but he had no qualifications for preaching to Indians. He was not human enough. He was too well educated. He knew too much. Had he been _less learned_, or possessed more _common sense_, he might have been competent to teach great grown-up children, as these Indian people are, in the Christian religion.

A short colloquy overheard between two of the red children he had been preaching to would have set him to thinking. The talk was in the Indian language, but, translated, would have run in about the following style:--

"Do you understand what all that talk was about?"--"No; do you? Well, he was talking wicked half the time, and good half the time. He was telling about a man getting lost a long time ago. Got lost and didn't find himself for forty years. That's a big story, but maybe it is so. I don't know.

Never heard of it before."

I need not say to the reader, that this minister had been preaching about Moses. Perhaps he was not to be censured. He may have done the best he could. He did not know how to reach an Indian's heart.

The schools at this agency were not flourishing. The reason was that the mode was impracticable. Schools were taught with about as much sense and judgment as the preaching just referred to.

After several years of stupid experimenting, at an expense of many thousands of dollars, there was not among these Indians half a dozen of them who could read and understand a common newspaper notice. The fault was not with the pupils; it was the system.

The Indians of this agency are farther advanced than those of any others in Oregon, in everything that goes to make up a civilized people. They have, since the allotment of lands, made rapid progress, and bid fair to become rivals of other people in the pursuit of wealth, and other characteristics that make a people prosperous. Some of them are already the equals of their white neighbors in integrity of character and business tact. They have abandoned their old laws and customs, and have been working under civil laws. They elect officers and hold courts, somewhat after the manner of a mock Legislature; in other words, they are practising and rehearsing, in antic.i.p.ation of the time when they shall become citizens.

Like all other races, they learn the vices much quicker than the virtues of their superiors. It cannot be denied that they follow bad examples sometimes, especially intemperance; but when considered fairly, taking note of the influences that have been thrown around them; the many different agents, and kinds of policies under which they have lived; the fact that they were wild Indians sixteen years ago; that they have been kept in constant fear of being removed; hope deferred so often and so long; that they were remnants of many small tribes; that their numbers have decreased so rapidly,--then they stand out in a new light, and challenge commendation.

Lift your heads, Indians of Grand Round! you are no longer slaves; you are free.

This agency, with the people who are there now, and who have been there as Government officers and employes, would furnish material for volumes of real live romance; racy stories, sad tales, great privations, disease, death and suffering make up the history of such places. No character required to make a thrilling drama, a b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy, or comic personality, would be wanting. Better live only in tradition, or fireside story, than in printed page. The latter would embarra.s.s men who have pa.s.sed through some of the chairs of office, and poor fellows, too, who have sponged a living off of "Uncle Sam," and cheated the people of thousands of dollars, and months of labor, that they were paid for doing.

Let the history die untold, since it could not restore justice to either Government or people. Some of those who have administered on Grand Round Agency have left the Indians in much better condition than they found them, and will live forever in the memory of those they served so faithfully.

Before leaving this agency I would state one feature of Indian life that exists everywhere, but it is less prominent on this than other agencies.

I refer to the _poor_ and the _old_. Perhaps the last Christian virtue that finds lodgment in Indian hearts is regard or reverence for age, especially old women. They are drudges everywhere, and when too old to labor are sometimes neglected.

Poor, miserable-looking old women, blind, lame, and halt, charity would shed more tears at your death than your children would. While this deplorable indifference for them exists to a fearful extent, there are notable exceptions, particularly among the Grand Round Indians. In every council they were found standing up and pleading for something to be done for the old and poor. These old creatures nearly always hobble to the meetings, and although they seem fair specimens of the Darwinian theory, they, nevertheless, have feelings and grat.i.tude even for small favors. A grasp of the hand seems to impart a ray of sunshine to their benighted faces.

A few years more, and all the old ones will be gone, and their successors will take the vacant places with prospects of more humane treatment than they have hitherto received.

Heaven pity the _poor_ and old, for man has little for them that casts even a glimmer of hope, save on their waiting tombs!

CHAPTER IX.

THE AGED PAIR--BIRTHPLACE OF LEGENDS.

The scene changes, and we stand on the deck of a river steamer with its prow pointed eastward.

For hours we have steamed along in the shadows of the Cascade mountains, through deep, dark canons, with walls so high that the smoke-stack of our little boat seemed like a pipe-stem. "Puny thing" it is. Yet it bears us over boiling eddies and up rapids that shoot between high rocks like immense streams of silver from the great furnace of creation.

We are startled at the sound of the whistle on our deck, and grow anxious when the nearest canon answers back, and still another takes up the sound, and the echo turns to its original starting-point, and finds its own offspring talking back in fainter voice, until it dies away like the rumbling of some fast-retreating train rushing through the open field or wooded glens.

Soon we are on board the thundering train, whirling away toward the upper cascades, swinging around curves and beneath ledges, and overhanging the rushing floods hundreds of feet below. As we fly swiftly along, the conductor, or some one familiar with this cascade country, points out the battle-grounds where the red men fought white men for their homes. The battle was a fierce one, and lasted several days, when the Indians withdrew.

There are traditions yet among Indians and white settlers; and it is related that in former times the Indians who lived along the banks of the Columbia were employed to a.s.sist the white men in transporting goods over the portages (or carrying places), and they were ill-treated by their employers, and their rights disregarded.

The invasion of the country was not the most grievous complaint. They were furnished whiskey, were debauched, and corrupted as a people, until virtue was unknown among their women; the men themselves selling their wives and daughters for the basest purposes. Degraded, polluted, and in despair, they sought to wreak vengeance on their seducers.

If those who debased them were the only victims, no just condemnation could be p.r.o.nounced against them.

There is a feeling of respect for the man, though a savage he may be, who defends his home, and resents imposition even at the risk of life. But humanity revolts against the butchery of innocent persons, no matter what the color may be, or the cause of provocation of race against race.

A few survivors of the Cascade tribes may be found now on Warm Springs and Yak-a-ma agencies.

The traveller on the Columbia meets, occasionally, a man and his family, still lingering around their old homes, living in bark-covered huts, sometimes employed in laboring for the Steam Navigation Company, who transport the commerce that pa.s.ses through the mountain at this point.

These stragglers are poor, miserably degraded savages, and are not fair specimens of their race.

An old Indian legend connected with the Cascades has been repeated to tourists over and over again. It has been written in verse, in elegant style and forceful expression, by S. A. Clark, Esq., of Salem, Oregon, published in February number of Harper's Magazine for 1874. The poem is worthy of perusal, and ought to make the author's fame as a poet.

The substance of the legend is to the effect, that many, many years ago, before the eyes of the pale-faces had gazed on the wonders of the Cascades, the river was bridged by a span of mountains, beneath which it pa.s.sed to the ocean; that to this bridge the children of Mount Hood on the south, and those of Mount Adams on the north, made yearly pilgrimage, to worship the Great Spirit, and exchange savage courtesies, and to lay in stores of fish for winter use. The Great Spirit blessed them, and they came and went for generations untold.

They tell how the exchange of friendship continued, until at length a beautiful maiden, who had been chosen for a priestess, was wooed and won by a haughty Indian brave of another tribe. On her withdrawal from the office her people became indignant, and demanded her return. This was refused, and when, on their annual visit, they came from the north and from the south, bitter quarrels ensued, until, at last, fierce wars raged, and the rock spanning the river became a battle-ground. Soch-a-la tyee--G.o.d--was vexed at the children, and caused the bridge to fall. Thus he separated them, and bade each abide where he had placed them.

The legend still lives fresh in the memory of these Indians, and they respect the command. Few have changed their residences. The ragged mountains on either side support well the historic tale. High, bald summits stand confronting each other, and it requires no effort of the imagination to see the Great Bridge as it is said once to have stood, and to hear rising on the winds, the weird, wild songs of the people at the time of sacrifice.

At the place where this legend had its origin the "Columbia" is crowded by its banks into so narrow a channel that an Indian might, with his sling, make a stone to trace the curves of the ancient arch. The waters rush so swiftly that the keenest sight can scarcely keep the course of timber drift in view. The river's bosom is smooth above this rapid flow, and, widening, takes the semblance of a lake, in whose depth may be seen the trees that once were growing green, but now to stone have turned; they never move before the breeze; they sway not, nor yet can yield to the gentle currents, still standing witnesses of the legend's truth.

Midway between the sh.o.r.es an island stands, fashioned and fitted for a burial-ground of the tribes that had oft, in ages past, made use of it at nature's invitation, and had borne to this resting-place the warriors whose spirits pa.s.sed up to the happier lands; while the body resting here might wait for the coming of some Great Prophet, who should bid the bones to rise and become part and parcel of human forms, and mingle with those who remain to build the nightly fires and feed the mouldering bodies of their dead, until the great past should be re-born and live again attended by all the circ.u.mstances of savage life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF INDIAN LEGENDS.]

Sitting in the pilot-house of the steamer "Tenino," beside "McNulty," her captain, hear him tell how these people come, at certain times, to pay honor to their dead; how, in years gone by, from the "Tenino" he could see the old sachems sitting bolt upright in their wooden graves and calmly waiting, watching, with sightless eyes, for the coming hour foretold before they died; how, with fleshless hands, they clutched the rotting handle of the battle-axe of flint or fishing-spears.

Then see his eye kindle while he tells you of relic-hunters from the East, who came on board the "Tenino" with boxes and lines and other devices for relic-hunting, and requested that he would land them on the sh.o.r.es of this lone island. You will feel the fire of that eye warming your heart towards the dead, and living too, when it declares in full sympathy, with the rich Irish voice, "That while he commands the 'Tenino' _no grave-robbers_ shall ever disturb the old heroes who sit patiently waiting for their resurrection. No sacrilegious foot shall leave his vessel's deck to perpetrate so foul a deed!"

You will honor him still better when you learn that, in his whole-hearted generosity, he declares that "No man shall ever disturb the repose of the congregated dead, on that little island, while he lives, and escape unpunished."

Brave, fearless captain, many years have you pa.s.sed daily in sight, and scanned their sepulchres; self-appointed guardian, you have been true to the impulse of a n.o.ble heart; you have exalted our opinion of the race you represent; and for your fidelity to the cause of a common humanity, and especially to the race whose dark faces seldom light up from recognition by those whose power has been but the destruction of their own, do we thank you.

May many winters come and go before their snows shall bring to you old age; and when, at last, the "Tenino" shall be laid aside, may you still be guardian of this spot, so sacred to many a sad and hopeless heart.

Leaving behind, on our upward journey, the burial-ground of the mountain tribes, in charge of the faithful McNulty, we pa.s.s beneath high rock cliffs, sometimes near beautiful valleys, with farm cottages and lowing cattle on hill-side pastures. Through the deep canons that cut the table mountains in twain, as if made on purpose for tourists' delight, Mount Hood, the father mountain, comes suddenly in view; the beauty much enhanced when seen through nature's telescope, made by rifts in solid rocks, with sky-lights reaching to the stars above. Words may not give even a faint outline of the scene. McNulty, though for years he has gazed on this sublime painting,--at morning, when the shadows cover the telescope, but light the mountain up; and at evening, too, when both were shaded,--sees new beauties at every sight; and, not content to worship all alone, he rings his call to the engineer, and the vessel slackens her speed, and "rounds to" in proper place, while the captain calls his guests to the grandest banquet that earth affords, and points out the beauties as each one paints the panorama on his soul.

See, there the old Father Hood stands, with his wreath of snow, which he has worn since the time when man was unknown. Sometimes he hides his h.o.a.ry head in clouds, unwilling to witness the injustice done the puny children who have played around his feet for generations past. We see his own sons, still in primeval manhood, with heads crowned with fir or laurel, standing at his side and looking up, are ever ready to bear the winter's burdens that from his shoulders fall.

Again we glide on the smooth surface of the shining river until we hear repeated the captain's call to witness now how impartial G.o.d has been, and to prevent any jealousy that might arise, has made on the other sh.o.r.e, looking northward, twin telescope to the first, and twin mountain, too, for now we see another h.o.a.ry head, rich in cl.u.s.tered snow-banks that ornament her brow. Mother Adams stands calmly overlooking her daughters, who modestly wear garlands of wild wood-vines, and heavy-topped fragrant cedars. She feels her solitude, and when "Hood" draws his mantle over his majestic shoulders, she, too, puts on a silvery veil of misty wreath, or, in seeming anger, drapes in mourning and weeps; the deluge of her tears giving signs of willingness to make friends again. And then these two old mountains smile and nod, and looking above the clouds that covered the heads of younger ones, they, giants in solitude, become reconciled. The lesser ones then peep through the rising mist, and smile to catch their estranged parents making up.

Leaving these grand scenes, the mountains, smaller, waste away into gentle hills, and we feel that we have pa.s.sed the portals of a paradise, shut out from ocean storms by great barriers of rocks. The river grows narrow, the banks are perpendicular walls of solid rocks of moderate height. Rounding a turn in the river, suddenly comes to view "The Dalles," a small city near the river brink, nestling in an amphitheatre, formed by curved walls of rocky bluffs. In times past _The Dalles_ was a starting-point for the mines of Eastern Oregon and Idaho, and was, also, the seat of a United States fort. Its streets have felt the tread of merchant princes, and miners of every grade and color; of the tramping of bands of Indian ponies brought here to be sold or to parade some red man's wealth; of heavily ladened wheels bearing merchandise.

Busy throngs peopled then its streets, but now they are less merry; business has taken long strides toward surer success and larger life. Long years ago it was a great resort for Indians, who came to feast and gamble, and exchange captive slaves. Many old legends date from this post, and some of them are rich in historic truths; others in romance of human lives, and, others still, of fairy tales and ghostly stories.

A few miles above the city the river pa.s.ses between almost perpendicular walls of stone, while through the narrow gorge the water leaps from ledge to ledge in quick succession, making huge billows of the rushing current, so rapid that no steamer or canoe has ever upward pa.s.sed, though both have downward been in perfect safety. At this point the great schools of salmon, on their journey to the lakes and smaller streams, halt to rest, and thus prepare themselves for more severe struggles and more daring feats. Here the red men have, year after year, come to lay in supplies of salmon.

These fisheries are of great value, and, when the Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake Railroad is completed, will become sources of untold wealth, furnishing Eastern markets with choicest salmon. Before leaving this fishery, I would state, for the information of by readers, that the Indians have some peculiar ideas about salmon. They "run" at regular seasons of the year, and the Indians gather on the banks and make preparations for catching and preserving them; but they do not take the _first_ that come up, because they believe that, since the "Great Spirit"

furnishes them, they should be permitted to pa.s.s, in his honor, and because the _first_ that come are supposed to be bolder, and will succeed in getting to better sp.a.w.ning-grounds in higher streams.