Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/26

 tribes the author says: "They are all very fond of singing, and some of their tunes are plaintive and sweet. The following are some of those that I can recollect. They generally improvise as they sing; but, when they have no particular object to sing about, they use certain words which have about the same meaning as our fa, sol, la. There does not appear to be any regular form of words used like songs with us, but almost always the incidents of the moment form themes for their tunes, as with us they are subjects for conversations. While these songs are sung, time is kept by beating with sticks, or thumping the roof of the lodge with a pole."

Hezekiah Butterworth was born in Rhode Island in 1859. He became assistant editor of Youth's Companion, wrote several cantatas and was the author of popular children's books, including The Log School-House on the Columbia, from which this poem is taken.

In the forest lodge of the old chief of the Cascades "there was a kind of tambourine, ornamented with fan-like feathers. . . . Fair Cloud used to play upon it, or rather shake it in a rythmic way. There was also a war-drum in the lodge, and an Indian called Blackhoof used to beat it and say: