Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/186

180 very light, and the edges are ornamented with Sea Shells. These people are also ingenious in the manufacture of mats of rushes, and hats and baskets of grass. Some of their baskets are water tight, and many of them are ornamented with devices of beasts, birds, and flowers, worked in various colors. The religion of these Indians is much the same as that of the other tribes of America. They believe in one Superior Presiding Influence, which they call the Great High Chief. They believe also in an Evil Spirit, and in numerous inferior Spirits, both good and evil, which inhabit the earth and air, and are invisible or assume the form of smoke or vapor: the evil Spirits afflicting mankind with misfortunes, disease, and death. They also believe in the Spiritualization of beasts, birds and fish, and even of their clothes, ornaments, canoes, tools, implements of war, etc.; of fruits, flowers, and numerous other inanimate things; and we are inclined to the belief that they extend this Spiritualization to all organized bodies. It is on account of this opinion that they bury their dead in their canoes, with many of the articles which belonged to them, while living—such as arms, clothing, ornaments, etc—and furnish them with a supply of food, which they suppose sufficient to last them to the Spirit Land. For the same reason a horse or a dog is frequently butchered beside the grave of a hunter. The Spirits of all of which things, according to their opinion, will be required for their comfort and subsistence when they themselves have come to be disembodied Spirits. They are in many respects very superstitious: one instance of which is shown in the removal of a large stone, which lay in the way of some men who were taking saw-logs into the River, a mile below Oregon City. The workmen were about to remove it, when they were forbidden by some of the Indians, and told that it was once a man, and if they removed it, the River would rise up to it. They, however, removed it, and it