Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/45

Rh have been drawn from them and treasured up have vanished with them into the darkness. Yet many Indian legends have been preserved in one manner and another, and these are sufficient to convince us that the native races are of the same nature as ourselves. Some of the legends which students of Indian lore have gathered, will, perhaps, prove interesting to the reader.

A quaint Nez-Percé myth accounts for the creation as follows: There was during the time of the Watetash a monster living in the country of Kamiah in Central Idaho. This monster had the peculiar property of an irresistible breath, so that when it inhaled, the winds and grass and trees and even different animals would be sucked into its devouring maw. The Coyote god, being grieved for the destruction wrought by this monster, made a coil of rope out of grass and with this went to the summit of Wallowa Mountains to test the suction power of the monster. Appearing like a tiny spear of grass upon the mountain, he blew a challenge to the monster. Descrying the small object in the distance Kamiah began to draw the air inward. But strange to say, Coyote did not move. "Ugh, that is a great medicine," said the monster. Coyote now took his station upon the mountains of the Seven Devils, a good deal closer, and blew his challenge again. Again the Kamiah monster tried to breathe so deeply as to draw the strange challenger into his grasp, but again he failed. "He is a very big medicine," he said once more. And now Coyote mounted the top of the Salmon River Mountains, somewhere near the Buffalo Hump of the present time, and again the monster's breath failed to draw him. The baffled Kamiah was now sure that this was most