Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/32

 preted as a very real "encounter" rather than as a mere dream—would never be revealed to another native for fear of losing the "power" the song conferred. But if a native dreamed of relatively commonplace matters—saw dead people, walked or ran or fell or swam or hunted or what not—possibly the usual thing upon awakening was to tell the dream content to any sympathetic or merely attentive relative or listener then present. Both discussed seriously what the dream might mean. For it was never a mere dream to them; it was a real experience, not of the dreamer's physical body, but of what might be labeled inadequately his "soul." There were certainly scores of ready-to-hand, stereotyped dream (or rather, "soul" experience) explanations and interpretations. If the native had dreamt of paddling out to sea without incident or accident, that meant his life would be long. If he stumbled in the dream experience, or had fallen, or been hurt in some manner, it meant his life span would be short. If he dreamt of sexual matters, he knew when he awakened that for days after he would hunt game in vain, because the game would smell him and keep out of range.

A dream of snakes would be interpreted to mean that a hostile shaman at a great distance was undoubtedly working evil magic power on him. A dream of fire meant the coming of sickness or disease. Dream interpretations were most often predictions of death or long life or health or wealth.

A dream of a person singing beautifully might not be told, because the dreamer might choose to try to dream this dream again and again, and so encounter more intimately a potential guardian spirit power that had tried to call to him in song. To reveal the dream would prevent its return.

The natives seem to have occupied themselves with a remarkable quantity of dream content speculation. "Conditioning" to close attention to dream content from early childhood years, may have produced a regionful of natives (now unhappily almost vanished) able to observe and report minutely on their nightly dreams.

All native Coos guardian spirit power-conferring dream-