Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/32



24 O. B. SPERLIN

1791 the Spaniards had been among the Tatooches endeavor- ing to convert them to Christianity. The chief said that he and several others had been baptized, as had several of their children. This ceremony he went through, as also the chant- ing of some of their hymns with the most serious religious air: "Though it was in broken Spanish [Latin?] and Indian, yet he imitated the sounds of their voices, their motions, and religious cants of their faces to a miracle, at the same time condemned our irreligious manner of life." These early bap- tisms by Catholic priests solve the strange mystery which troubled Galiano and Valdez 113 next year when they heard Tetacus (Tatooche) call his favorite wife "Marie"; which the chief pronounced over and over till he convinced the Spanish commanders that it was the real Christian name. After a musical concert by natives for a chief who had been sick for a long time over the death of his daughter, Hoskins 114 asked whether the music did not annoy the sick chief; the sick man replied that the music was very pleasing to him; for, he said, "a few nights since the moon when he was asleep told him that if he had have had a great deal of singing his child would not have died, and unless he himself had he would also die ; there- fore he every day should have a concert." "Superstitious wretch," cries Hoskins, "but thou art a child of nature !" Marchand 115 calls singing among the Indians a social institution. The lan- guage of song 116 was different from the language of conversa- tion. The Indians of the north coast seem to have been espe- cially fond of music, and proficient in the art as they under- stood it. "Sutil y Mexicana" 117 informs us, "Maquinna found fault with our trills and all music in which the soft langour of b flat predominated, saying that the one who trilled seemed to be shivering with cold, and the other sang like a man half asleep." Mosino 118 says, "Chief Quicomasia, having heard some of our instruments, said that they did not please him, as

1 13 Sutil y Mexicana: p. 3off.

114 Narrative: p. 113.

115 Voyage: I, 350. n6Tewitt: Adventures: p. 129.

1 17 Vol. II., p. 151.

118 Sutil y Mexicana: Vol. II., p. 151.