and the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society (from the 6th report, 1901, on).

"Life and letters of Samuel Fisk Green, M.D.," compiled by Ebenezer Cutler, D.D. Printed for family friends, 1891. (Introduction and at the end of the book, "Tamils Educated in Medicine by Dr. Samuel F. Green.")

MYTHS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE OREGON

INDIANS.

BY WILLIAM D. LYMAN.

As an introductory note to the sketch herewith presented, I may properly refer to the sources of my authority.

The chief scientific students of these Indians have been Mr. Albert S. Gatschet and Dr. Franz Boas, both of the Smithsonian Institution. They have done an invaluable work, the former especially among the Modocs, and the latter among the Clatsops and Chinooks.

For general information about Indian life and especially "Tomanowas," I am chiefly indebted to Hon. Edwin Eells of Tacoma, agent at the Puyallup Agency for many years, and to Rev. Myron Eells of Twana, Wash., a missionary to the Indians.

H. S. Lyman of Astoria, Oregon, my brother, and author of a history of Oregon, has given me the results of his research among the Clatsops and other tribes on the lower Columbia.

Another most excellent authority was Mr. Silas Smith, now deceased, whose mother was an Indian, the daughter of old Chief Cobiway, the chief of the Clatsops at the time of the Lewis and Clarke Expedition.

The fine story of the rearing of the three great mountains came from an old Klickitat Indian named Wyanoshot, with whom I was well acquainted when a boy.

The Klickitat stories came mainly to me from Dr. G. P. Kuykendall, now of Pomeroy, Wash., formerly physician on the Yakima Reservation, and he had them directly from Indians. I have gathered much interesting infor

mation from several intelligent Indians that I have known, Henry Sicade of Puyallup and "Charley Pitt" of the Warm Springs Agency being the chief ones. Hon. E. L. Smith, of Hood River, Oregon, is one of the most intelligent students of Indian life. Lee Morehouse of Pendleton, Oregon, has become famous as a photographer of Indian life and is one of the best authorities.

E. S. Curtis, of Seattle, is a photographer of Indian life and has perhaps the finest collection of such matter in existence.

One curious feature of these Indian myths may be noted as the habit of making "continuing" stories of them. That is, at their tepee fires, the Indians will vie with each other in taking up some already familiar tale and adding to it. Thus the stories become modified, and those of one tribe reappear in mangled and curious forms in others. The Indian that can best entertain his hearers at these "Gleeman bouts" of imagination is esteemed the best fellow, and hence they draw heavily on the imagination, which, in spite of a reputation for taciturnity and stoicism, is tremendously developed among the Indians.

It may be understood that the term Oregon Indians applies to the tribes of the original Oregon territory, which included Oregon, Washington and Idaho, with part of Montana.

There is much that is interesting, romantic and pathetic, as well as sometimes repulsive, in the history and characteristics of the native races of the Columbia valley. Despoiled of their ancestral domain, deprived of their inherited methods of livelihood, rudely flung into a hopeless competition with a civilization which they could neither comprehend nor acquire, these poor people illustrate that unavailing human struggle with fate, which is and perhaps always will be one of the unsolved problems of a universe ruled, as we are taught to believe, by a beneficent and all-powerful

Creator. With so much to excite pity, the Indians have usually excited only hatred and repulsion in the minds of their white neighbors. Their peculiar ideas, instead of being sympathetically drawn from them, have been ruthlessly and unappreciatively crushed by the superior knowledge and arrogance of the white race. It is therefore not an easy matter to elicit information from the Indians on the peculiar fancies of their mythology and legends. By reason of these conditions there has been little true scientific study of Indian myths. Moreover, on account of the reticent and taciturn nature of the Indians, even sympathetic questioners will rarely get any full narration. And yet again the common myths of the Indians have become more or less mixed with the preconceptions of such white men as have heard and related them. Hence it is not an easy matter at the present time to relate these Indian tales in their native purity. In the series of stories which we shall undertake to give, while endeavoring to preserve them in their native form, we are obliged to confess that there is a certain element of white men's ideas interwoven with those of the Indians.

In order to present the clearest possible view of this curious and fascinating subject we shall treat it in four natural divisions. The first of these will be the myths relating to the supposed superior powers and to the spiritual nature of men; the second will deal with myths of the creation of the Indian tribes and their acquisition of fire and other agencies of life; the third will consist of those stories that account for the peculiar and beautiful features of some portions of the country; in the fourth division we shall speak of Indian myths of the hereafter and their ideas of joys and punishments in another life. Some of our tales will be found to belong to more than one of these natural divisions, as fire myths and creation myths frequently involve the effort to account for the physical features of the country.

First, then, what can we tell of the Indian Panthaion and their conception of their own unseen life? To begin with, it may be said that the Indians have multitudes of their gods, rank upon rank and order upon order, to a degree which reminds us almost of Hindoo or Egyptian mythology. There is nothing perhaps so remarkable as the differences among different peoples, except their resemblances. But the differences are superficial while the resemblances are fundamental. Hence we find that the Indian, ideas of the gods are after all very much like those of other people in all their essential peculiarities. The Oregon Indians have more or less distinctly the idea of one great deity, who orders the universe and never commits himself to the sight of human creatures. This great supreme deity is commonly known as Sáhale, or Sochlah, very often with the word Tyee, meaning chief, attached. Many of the Indians however use the word. Nekáhnie, or sometimes Kahnie, to signify this supreme deity. They think of him as dwelling in the heavens or in the mists and clouds of the lofty mountains.

While thus having a monotheistic idea to a certain extent, the Indians, like most other people, are polytheists in their belief in a multitude of lesser divinities, by which they suppose that they are constantly surrounded and which very often appear to them. In this respect their ideas are very similar to those of Greeks or Hindoos or our own Teutonic ancestors. These lesser deities, moreover, are of both beneficent and evil character. Generally speaking the useful and attractive animals and birds are the personifications of the good divinities, while the forces of nature, storm and thunder and cold, represent the malevolent gods. There is a perpetual struggle between these two classes of deities for control of the Indians, and hence the poor subjects of the controversy are in almost constant solicitude as to whether the good or the bad will get them.