USA > Oregon > The Oregon native son, 1900-1901 > Part 23
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With sinking hopes Ka-na-witze thought of the wedding feast, and his heart stood still, for a while refusing to beat. The nuptial hour was near at hand, but to wed the dusky maid was beyond his strength and purpose. Neither would dissimulation long avail him, for food, raiment and tender nurs- ing his new-found love must have. At last, with a supreme effort of mind, and with many doubts, he half-way led. and half-way conveyed her on his shoulder to Greenville Point, where the Indians awaited his arrival before proceeding to sea in chase of a monster whale now sporting a mile or more off shore. and brought her to the chief, there told his tale of love and sought releasement from inferred vow to marry his daughter.
Kon-i-te-ma heard it all as in a dream, fell sick at heart, and went forth to a projecting rock at the turning of the tide and looked down at the boiling, seething water below, and prayed the Great Spirit to forgive her contemplated deed. But the sacred seal-maid, appearing beiore her, forbid her further proceed. and clambering up and on the rock, in sooth- ing tone spoke to her: "Fair maid." she said, "disappointment is woman's lot through life, and suffering for others is the greatest jewel of true womanhood. There is no balm to heal your crushed and bleeding heart, but there is content- ment in duty. The forecast of the future shows immeasurable griefs and miseries resulting from inter-marriages of differ- ent races and colors .. The legend runs,
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'that a lineage of demi-gods, white in color, shall come amongst your nation, and the great sun of their arrival and inter-marriage shall mark the advent of
are brave and skilfull with the arrow, the harpoon, and the spear, and proudly march to battle in war-paint and bedeck- ed with feathers, will become dwarfed
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"Beautifying herself by the aid of Nature's mirrors."
incurable disease and decay among your offspring. The descendants of those who now multiply like leaves of the forest and
and shriveled with disease, will become the taunt of the white men, will grow fewer and fewer until they will be no
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A TALE OF THE OLYMPICS.
more in the accustomed haunts of the Quinaults.' The Great Spirit ,in taking your promised husband from you has saved you from the perpetration of a great wrong against your people. But linger no longer here. Even now Ka- na-witze is pleading his cause before the chief, your father. He will be sentenced to burn at the stake at sunrise, and the young white maid is threatened to be- come the wanton slave of Wakitup, who now succeeds to the chieftainship. But you must accomplish their escape. To- night, an hour before moonrise, I will hypnotize the braves guarding them and, though it tears asunder the cords of your heart, upon which true and requit- ed love would play like the winds on an Aolean harp, and the fevered heat of your blood threaten to consummate the destruction of your body, if you would ever look upon the face of the Great Spirit over there in dreamland, go quick- ly to your father's dwelling and be con- vinced, and then to the "medicine-man" and invoke for them his aid and protec- tion. Tell him the sacred seal-maid is to lead their flight, and if he disobeys her injunctions his dreams shall come to naught, and the Great Spirit shall raise up another, with more spirit power and wisdom than he, to take his place."
Thus spoke the seal-maid, and van- ished beneath the waters. Then Kon-i- te-ma no longer contemplated self-de- struction, but picking her footsteps down the cliff she quickly padled her birch ca- noe across the stream, and with the swift- ness of a deer, ran to the wigwam of her father, where a council of warriors was being held. Through an opening of an elk-skin robe at the door Ka-na-witze was seen bound to a stake and the grief- stricken white maid by his side. As she looked upon him, her father rose and ad- dressed him before the council:
"For many snows you have been amongst us and I have treated you as a son. The seal-maid preserved your life and led your enemies, the Quilliutes, into our hands. The "medicine-man" slept and communed with the Great Spirit, and in his vision the tribe's "to-tem," the
white-tipped eagle, spread his protecting wings above your head. By his com- mand you were adopted into our tribe, and the hand of my daughter, Kon-i-te- ma, promised you. She has now reached the years when the young men of the tribe are looking on her with longing eyes. The neriditary chief has demand- ed your life and her hand, and the coun- cil is divided. The medicine-man" has always defended you, pleading the will of the Tomanowis. Come, speak! Will you take my daughter and become my adopted son and, when the Great Chief over there in the sunshine behind the clouds of life has closed my eyes in the last sleep, follow me as chief of the tribe?
Ka-na-witze made signs that he would not speak unless they released his bonds. Obeying an order of the chief, attending braves sprung up, and his hands were quickly loosened, and thus he spoke:
"My chief, my father: True, for five great suns I have lived with your people. I was thrown amongst you when a lad, but already I had made two voyages across the sea, and on returning was to have commond of a ship. From the cradle I was betrothed to the white maid. For many moons I have been the com- panion of your daughter-I have loved and cherished her as a little sister, I have protected her from harm, and have work- ed to strew her path through life with roses. Yet I never gave her kiss of love, never taught her to look upon me as other than a brother. But, as it seemed that I was forever parted from my early- affianced wife, I would have married her. But the Great Spirit interfered, and in her rescue prohibited the contemplated wedding. We cannot leave you if we would. Therefore, if you cannot endure me and my promised bride amongst you, lead us forth and let us die in each oth- er's arms."
The "medicine-man" now sought his tepee and invoked the aid of "Tomanow- is." When the coals of the prophetic herbs in his medicinal urn grew bright. his eyes were opened and he, too, saw eyes were opened and he, too, saw, down the lapse of time, wreck, decima-
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TIMOTHY A. RIGGS. A Pioneer of 1846.
JAMES K. KELLY. A Pioneer of 1851.
RUFUS MALLORY. A Pioneer of 185S.
GEORGE L. WOODS. A Pioneer of 1847.
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A TALE OF THE OLYMPICS.
tion and final extermination of his peo- ple from the cause asigned. Again he sought the chief's wigwam and unfolded to him the future; but the chief's pride was greatly touched and he would no longer listen, but ordered more braves to the watch, and sentenced the prison- - ers to be executed when the first rays of morning sun should reach his wigwam. Sorely troubled, the dreamer started once more to his tepee, and in the trail he met Kon-i-te-ma, and they planned together how the white couple should be saved from their threatened doom. As they spoke the seal-maid joined their council and told him to gather certain herbs and smoke them in his pipe before the braves who guarded the prisoners, and all present would be overcome with deep slumber. To Kon-i-te-ma: "When all are under the influence of the power- ful narcotic, proceed to the wigwam and apply to the eyes of the prisoners, and the dreamer, the liquid from this elk's horn, and when they had shaken off their drowsiness, release the bonds of the prisoners and conduct them, with the dreamer, to the canoe which you will find moored at the trail crossing of the river; place paddles in their hands and direct their course up the river toward the lake, and when the flooding tide has caried your canoe around the point, ob- scuring it from view, and the rising moon has cleared the forest tops, and, through the fleecy clouds, silvers the crests of the rippling incoming waters, I wil lovertake you and be your guide."
The dreamer did as he was command- ed, and they all slept-the braves, the prisoners and the dreamer. Then Kon- i-te-ma rubbed the eyes of the dreamer and of the prisoners with the liquid fur- nished her by the, seal-maid, and their eyes were opened and their intellects be- came bright and active. Then she cut the thongs that bound the prisoners and beckoned them away, and led them by the trail, past the sleeping chief's house, to a little inlet where a canoe was secure- lv tethered, obscured from view amongst the flags and water-lilies. And when the swells of the incoming tide commenced
to break with a rilling laugh on the smooth pebbles of the beach, they left their safe mooring, and with Ka-na- witze in the bow, and the dreamer in the stern, to paddle and steer, they worked with all their power up the stream. In the body of the canoe, upon rugs made of the softened skins of the otter, both sea and land, sat Kon-i-te-ma, holding the hands of the white maid; and, while her heart was breaking with unrequited love, she prayed their safe deliverance.
At the point designated they were overtaken by their promised guide, and then a dense cloud settled down and overhung the river. But the seal-maid glided ahead, now and then striking with her tail a little whiripocl of phosphor- escent light in the water, which, like a will-o'-the-wisp, flitting to and fro before them, guided them on their way. Just as they reached the point where the swift-running waters of the mountain stream lost themselves with those of the bay at its mouth, the shriek of the white- tipped eagle, left behind at watch, ap- prised them that the village was awaken- ed and pursuit begun. Then the fog lifted before them, as if to favor their escape, and redoubled in density behind.
As the first grey streaks of morning lit the eastern sky they commenced the ascent of the river, ever following in the wake of the seal-maid, who safely guid- ed them past the destructive rocks that, like "Scilla and Carybidis," beset them on every side.
Once, when hotly pursued, they came to a jam of logs across the stream, which threatened to bar their progress. and the star of hope seemed to have de- serted them. Log upon log was piled heavenward for more than forty feet. They turned about, unmindful of their guide, and would have given up in de- spair, but an angry lashing of the water again called their attention to her, niak- ing her way through sheets of water between the logs, like channels in the floes in the polar seas, towards a streak of shining light beneath a giant log which seemed but the thickness of a tree leaf. Then the seal-maid disappeared,
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and they were seemingly caught in a snare, and left to sure annihilation. Suddenly, however, there came a tug- ging at the canoe from underneath, which drew it downward and forced it violently ahead. Now destruction by drowning appeared inevitably staring them in the face. Preservation from present danger made them inflect their heads to the bottom of the canoe, and then in safety, while they held their breath, it was hurried through beneath a tree and into a long extension of
gested, and broke in a thousand cascades between the rocks, and then, in one mad leap, poured in a water-fall, down a pad- dle's length or more. But here the es- caping boatmen took to poles and drove the canoe, hard after the seal-maid into the brakes where seemed no water for the watercresses, but where the chan- nel led them in a gradual ascent past the threatening rocks and waterfall. This channel the pursuers were ignorant of, and were hindered many moments, prec- ious to the occupants in the canoe ahead,
"Goes forth to the overhanging cliff to propitiate the Great Spirit."
smooth waters above. The pursuers, when they found their intended victims not within the promised trap, raised a yell that reverberated up the gulches leading out from the stream for many miles away. Without relaxation, how- ever, they lifted their canoe across the jam and into the stream above it, and with redoubled efforts drove her on in hot pursuit. They now thought to over- take the fleeing canoe a short distance above, where the stream was much con-
in dragging their dug-outs round the ob- stacles to their passage. Two nights and a day, without relaxation, they push- ed ahead. The second morning when the sun, still hidden by the hills, had painted the heaven's above with a mil- lion brilliant, shooting rays, and the sun- dogs sported in the eastern sky, the stream widened out into a beautiful lake whose banks were studded with giant trees of spruce and fir, extending for many miles beyond.
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A TALE OF THE OLYMPICS.
All gazed in admiration at the mag- nificent scenery. The outlines of the mountain shadows cast upon the waters from the burning sun behind, and the re- flected images, beneath the water, of the trees along the lake, made it seem that nature had reversed herself, so grandly . beautiful was her mirrored work. But when the blazing monitor arose from the snow-peaked horizon, the enchantment seemed to dissolve, and the minds again descended to their present danger. Looking around they discovered the seal- maid had disappeared. Then, steering to a fallen log that measured half its length upon the lake, the dreamer took Kon-i-te-ma by the hand and stepping ashore with her, addressed Ka-na-witze:
"My white son, here will we wait the coming of our people, and attempt to turn them back from their wild design. Here at the beginning of this beautiful body of water, that of itself speaks of enchantment, I draw a dividing line. Go you and people the land above this lake and beyond the snows, but come not again among our tribe." Kon-i-te-ma,. with the sweetness of forlorn content- ment, spoke to the white maid, saying: "Sister, go: I give my love to you. I would have climbed beyond my sphere in life, but I smother my heart's desire. I cannot marry where I love, therefore no other man shall call me wife. The Great Spirit has promised a reward for my sacrifice. In sweet remembrance I will hold my stricken love in the happy life beyond the Great Sleep. If I save my people from their threatened fate, a tranquil happiness within view of the face of the Great Father shall be my lot. Farewell forever my sweet lady, and --- my only love.
The white couple took a course for the sugar loaf peak which stands in the mid- dle of the valley above the lake, and their canoe was but a little speck upon the water, away over in the distance, when the pursuers came to where Kon-i- tema and the dreamer waited. The In- dians say that the white couple were lost, and their spirits still inhabit the giant sentinels of the Olympic Mountains, Mt.
Olympus and Mt. Constantine; and, when the sun, sinking in the west, shoots his beams upon their crests, the spirits of Ka-na-witze and his spouse, dressed in bridal garments which in glistening whiteness rival the icy :nows of winter thereabouts, are plainly visible.
When the pursuers came upon the dreamer, he stood with Kon-i-te-ma by his side as in a trance, and raised his hand heavenwards forbidding them to go farther in pursuit. "The lake," he said, "is fatal to our people. Stay within the confines of the valley bordering on the river below, and you shall multiply and remain a great nation."
But they were obdurate and would not listen ,and the chief coming up, or- dered the dreamer and Kon-i-te-ma bound and placed in his canoe. "The dreamer is false and shall die," he ex- claimed in wrath, "and my undutiful daughter shall marry a eunuch slave from the Clatsops."
They started again in pursuit, but a storm coming up they were driven to the shore, where Mt. Elizabeth stands as a sleepless guard over the lake. For many days they were weather bound and could neither pursue nor return, and then the Great Spirit frowned upon them, and they were all stricken with dread disease and fell in death like autumn leaves. At last in sore distress they re- leased the dreamer, and in their sorrow- ful extremity sought his advice. He answered: "Return from hence, for hereafter no redmen can live around the waters of this lake. Come here and trap and fish and shoot the deer and elk when you will, but those who atempt to make their homes on the banks of its fatal waters shall die with this terri- ble scourge. | The "Tomanowis" has spoken."
They returned to the village in the lowlands of the river bank near the beach. Kon-i-te-ma, stricken with the plague, escaping from her keepers, wan- dered out one night, and sat upon a rock o'erlooking the sea. In her fevered delirium she imagined the sacred seals were calling her and leaped out into the
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boiling, breaking waters and was never seen afterwards. Now, when the storm howls along the coast no In- dian will approach this point of rocks, for the moaning and wailing of the winds around the point they believe to be the voice of Kon-i-te-ma, and, while reticent on the subject before strangers, they tell anyone who gains their confl- dence, that sickness and dread unmas- terful disease amongst them dates from the death of the old chief's daughter; and they will continue to degenerate un- til ehr spirit comes back to them in the flesh.
the disappearance of the old chief's daughter, and they will continue to de- generate until her spirit comes back to them in the flesh. Then they will reciver their former greatness. With the death of Kon-i-te-ma the sacred seals forever left the waters of the Quinault, and the ocean bordering on the land of this once prosperous Indian tribe.
Even now, whe nth eremnants of the tribe assemble at the agency, on the oc- casion of a "cultus potlach" or a "medi- cine dance," when the early autumn sea tells but a hushed story to the glistening agate beach, in the quietness of the small hours of after midnight, just as the sil- very moon, before dipping beneath the ocean horizon, casts her last cold rays, like huge search lights, on the headlands of the coast ,the dreamer, accompanied by a brave, goes forth to the overhang- ing cliff and drops the choicest morsels of whale skin and dried elk into the waters. This is done to propitiate the wrath of the Great Spirit, so he will re- call the sacred seals to their former haunts on the rocks that dot the shores. For a legend runs that Kon-i-te-ma was saved from drowning by the seals and borne away to other shores, and with their return will reappear the lost prin- cess of their tribe.
H. D. CHAPMAN.
The first recorded date where a white man placed his foot upon the soil of the Pacific Northwest is given as July 14, 1775. The same date also marks the time when the first white man is known to have met his death at the hands of the Indians.
These incidents come to the pages of history from accounts of the voyages made by Spanish navigators. In the the year mentioned the ship Santiago, in command of Capt. Bruno Heceta, and Sonora, in command of Lieut. Bodega Quadra, were sailing up the coast, and upon arriving at a point now called Point Greenville, concluded to land. Capt. Heceta went on shore with a priest and a few others, for the purpose of set- ting up a cross. He met but a few In- dians and returned safely to his vessel. Lieut. Quadra sent Pedro Santa Ana, his boatswain, and six seamen on shore for · a supply of fresh water. They had hardly reached land before they were at-
tacked by the natives and five of the party were killed by them, the remain- ing two lost their lives by drowning while endeavoring to swim to the vessel.
The first murder perpetrated by the Indians living south of the Columbia's mouth, was committed in what was named Murderer's Harbor, now believed to have been Tillamook bay. The Lady Washington, under command of Capt. Robert Gray, who afterwards discovered the Columbia river, ran his vessel into the bay, when some of the crew went on shore. Among those going was the cap- tain's servant, a Spanish lad from the Cape Verde Islands, named Marcos Lo- pez. The Indians stole his cutlass, and in trying to recover it he was killed by them. This occurred August 16, 1792.
It is said that a consignment of Ore- gon eggs shipped to California in 1849, on the General Lane, sold at the Sacra- mento markets at ȘI each.
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A TOUR OF THE WORLD.
JOHN J. VALENTINE, PRESIDENT OF WELLS-FARGO & CO., WRITES HIS FRIEND, AARON STEIN, OF SAN FRANCISCO, AN ACCOUNT OF HIS TRAVELS.
(Published by Special Permission of Mr. Valentine.)
Warsaw, Nov. 27, 1899.
DEAR UNCLE AARON:
After practically five days' stay in St. Petersburg we continued on to Moscow, twelve hours distant, and, in round fig- ures, 400 miles to the southeast. The railroad connecting these two cities was built between 1848-'51 by Ross Wynans, of Baltimore, and he is reputed to have made a colossal fortune out of the con- tract. The line, perfectly straight, is through a country that in some re- spects resembles "the bad lands of Da- kota," though more timbered, and in others the turf or peat lands of Southern Denmark and Northern Germany; and yet allowing for these natural disadvan- tages, I was surprised to find that no ap- preciable improvements in the condi- tions of living have made themselves manifest along this line of road in the fifty years since its construction. The peasant villages to be seen enroute are mere aggregations of log hovels, and those removed from it are said to present even a more shabby appearance. When winter comes, the occupants of these huts are not merely the peasant with his wife and children, but sometimes the cow, pig, chickens, etc., are also shelter- ed inside, and from all one sees and hears there is no doubt in my mind that the conditon of these peasants is more squalid today than any that prevailed amongst the African slaves in the United States before they were freed from bond- age by President Lincoln. I am inform- ed that these peasants hire out for sixty roubles ($30) per season; which, apply- ing as it does to the whole year, brings them only $2.50 earnings per month; yet in the days of slavery a colored wo-
man would earn double that amount in additon to her board and clothing; while a colored man would earn three times as much-board and cloth- ing likewise included. Even in the Gulf States I have never seen a reg- ular "plantation quarters" for slave labor more bare and primitive than the log huts which constitute the Russian peasant villages met with along the route between St. Petersburg, Moscow, and elsewhere.
Moscow, the railroad center of Russia in Europe, claims a population of 1,100,- 000. By reference to the atlas it will be seen that railroads diverge from this point in every direction. To the north- west runs the line to St. Petersburg and Finland, connecting with steamers for down the Gulf of Finland and up the Gulf of Bothnia, and on the south side of the Gulf of Finland with railroads to Courland and Seeland, and again by steamer thence across the Baltic; to the southwest by rail to Warsaw, Germany, and Austria; and south to the Caucasus and to Odessa, Batum, and other ports on the Black Sea; while almost due east- ward extends the great Trans-Siberian road, of which some 3,000 miles are in operation-possibly more-as it is said trains are nine days enroute to the pres- ent eastern terminus. It must be borne in mind, however, that trains in Russia are not run as fast as in the United States. The ultimate termini of this Trans-Siberian Railway are to be Vladi- vostock, on the southeastern extremity of Siberia, and Port Arthur, on the Gulf of Pechili, China, recently acquired by lease-both facing the Pacific ocean, but
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separated from it by the Japan Sea, and the Yellow Sea, respectively.
Moscow is situated on the Moskva River, the waters of which empty into the Volga, and it in turn discharges into the Caspian Sea. The city is said to be built on seven hills; and while these are not very conspicuous elevations they serve to relieve it from the dead-level monotony which characterizes St. Pet- ersburg. Little is to be said of the city architecturally. It has a somewhat rambling appearance, and its general sit- uation reminds me more of Chihuahua, Mexico, than of any other locality I can now call to mind, though it has no such background of hills. Many of its houses partake of Southern characteris- tics, resembling those of Mexican cities -having a driveway entrance from the street to an inner court or patio, in which are located servants' quarters, stables, etc.
The social atmosphere as apprehend- ed by tourists is less marked by official- ism than in St. Petersburg, and I infer there is more of neighborly intimacy between the masses of the population than exists in that city.
Nearly in the centre of Moscow, cc- cupying one of its hills, is located what is known as the Kremlin, and as the chief historic interest of the city-if not of Russia-centres in the Kremlin, I will be a little more specific in describing it. The Kremlin of Moscow was begun originally by the construction of a little building-a monastery, called "St. Savior in the Wood." Around this modest structure grew up in time a regal set- tlement, justifying the tradition that the Kremlin dates back nearly a thousand years. Certainly it is that it has been a fortress for hundreds of years-that it was captured by the Poles and wrested from them by the Tartars, and from them was retaken by the Russians. It is somewhat triangular in shape, and the total length of its surrounding walls is nearly two miles. It is situated on the highest of the seven little hills within the limits of the city. protected on one side by the Moskva River, and on the other
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