Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/51

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The folk-lore of the Indians in the Oregon Country—rich in myths, legends, creative stories, and traditions—has been compared with that of the Greeks prior to the age of Homer. The stories, repeated by these simple people at their camp fires, were so interesting that the whites recite them to this day.

Not only is Oregon Indian folk-lore entertaining, but it also has a certain educational value. It gives correct ideas of the more serious things which the primitive people of our land believed and discussed, such as their theories concerning the beginnings of things—the creation of mountains, of men, of birds and fish and beasts. In this respect their folk-lore was their unwritten Book of Genesis. Hence it is worthy of careful study. That the reader may obtain a glimpse of the intellectual and spiritual life of the Oregon aboriginese, a few Indian myths have been selected from Lyman's "History of Oregon" and other sources.

When man came to dwell upon the earth there was peace and plenty everywhere. No winter, no poverty, no sickness marred his happiness. But with his children came quarrels; because the two eldest sons claimed an undue portion of the inheritance which the father had bequeathed. To quiet their dissensions the Great Spirit decided to take the children to a new home which was toward the rising sun. So while they slept one night, he carried them to the top of a great mountain chain which sloped to the east and to the west. Then he bade the two sons to shoot arrows toward the sky, saying to each that wherever his arrow fell there he was to make his home. The sturdy young warriors