Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/141



THE CENTFA'NIAL HISTORY OF OREGON 73

cover his body and the skins that formed his bed. The Indians that lived by the river side and the ocean, possessed canoes on whieli they set great value. And in the interior far from the navigable rivers, Indians possessed large numbers of hoi'ses of the size of ponies. And on these they traveled from place to place, fi'eqnently making long excursions where there was no danger of war. The In- dians of the Snake river valley, Shoshones, would go cast beyond the Rocky mountains to hunt or trade for bufifalo beef and skins. The Indians of the Rogue river valley in Southern Oregon would come over into the Willamette valley, and the Klickitats of White Salmon and the Yakima would range all over the coun- try everywhere on horse trading expeditions, and when no favorable trades were offered would not hesitate to steal. The word Klickitat is said to mean "ma- rauder" or "robber." The Indians of Southeastern Alaska would come down to PugeL Sound (as they do yet to pick hops) by the hundreds in the finest canoes in the world, to trade and barter with the Puget Sound Indians. The Indian women of all the tribes, and especially of those in Alaska, were skilled in making baskets of willows and grasses, many of them water-tight, and that would last a lifetime. They were also not only skillful, but also artistic in weaving feathers and beads into ornaments to distinguish the "chief," or add to their own per- sonal charms. And some even had attained to the art of spinning in a rude way the wool of the mountain sheep and weaving it into serviceable shawls and blankets.

The idea of a "Great Spirit" that ruled all the universe that the Indian could see or comprehend was universal with all the Indians from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. And it must be conceded that this idea must have been evolved from the inner consciousness of the Indian himself, or it must have come to him from some foreign land so far back in the past that there is no history or dis- tinction of the fact. This universal idea assumed dilferent names and meanings with different tribes, and in consequence thereof, there came to be a lot of petty deities, or subsidiary gods, in the Indian theology. But over and above all these petty deities the Indian recognized one God subordinate to the Great Spirit, whose name was in some tribes Talipas, or Tullipas, and in others "Coyote." In relating the wonderful things performed by "Coyote" the Indian will go into many fanciful details. And sometimes he will vary the particulars of the story to suit what he may think is the fancy of his auditor. One story is as good as another to show the trend of the Indian mind in referenc-e to the supernatural. Here is the most prevalent one as to how there came to be different tribes of In- dians in this Old Oregon country.

"A long time ago," said an old Klickitat chief and medicine man. "when all kinds of animals could talk like men, and before any of the present tribes of In- dians lived on the earth, there was a mighty beaver, ' Wish-poosh,' who lived in Lake Cle-el-lum. This big beaver was the god of the lake, and claimed all the fish in the lake and all the trees around about the lake. He lived in the bottom of the lake and had eyes like balls of fire, and immense nails on his big claws as bright as silver. But like some other gods of the Indians he was a bad character, and killed many things, and made the lake a place of terror, because he had killed and eaten everything that had come in his way. To the animals he could not kill he denied the privilege of catching fish in the lake of which there was plenty for all. All over the country the Indians were hungry for fish, but not a fish