wickiup, they all sat on their couches and chanted together, relates a soldier (N. B. Ball, in Captain Walker's Company) who listened to it one morning with a thrill of strange and superstitious awe, as he lay close on his face on the brow of an overlooking hill, waiting for the daylight to reveal the nick in the sights of his rifle, preparatory to a charge on the village.1

This scene is both an illustration and comment, in a just consideration of the Indian people.

1 S. Powers.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE ANCESTRAL CAVERN.

It is affirmed by David Cusick that his people originated from a cavern in the Northwest, whence they migrated east and south, traversing the Lake Country to the seacoast, and thence going southward. A tradition is found among the extreme Northern and Southern Indians which agrees with this statement. Together with this statement, it is reiterated, in councilspeech and in wigwam-legend, that their people came out of this ground, and that this country was given them by the Great Spirit. The Deluge is said to have occurred when the red men resided in the Northwest, where one of their number took refuge upon a high mountain until the water abated. The constant agreement in a similar tradition is sufficient proof of its truth, -metaphoric or literal, when found among a widely distributed race, whose tribal diversity led naturally to dissimilarity of language, and variations in their records.

Where, then, was the precise locality in the Northwest which was the cradle of the Indian? Remembering that metaphor is the natural form of speech of this aboriginal people, it may be concluded that the Cavern might have been simply a country walled in by the mountains, whence proceeded the emigration, like a pent river within mountain fortresses, thrusting the rocky bluffs apart, seeking freedom in wider domain and enlarged

resources.

This mountain-bound northern country, our maps tell us, is the nape of the backbone of the continent, the high vertebra of the rocky range whence flows the Columbia River, and in which towers the mighty, storm-fleeced Mt. Hood. Of this river and mountain a tourist says:

The rare beauty and majesty are developed by the passage of the Columbia River through the great Andean range of Northwestern America. River and rock have striven together, wrestling in close and doubtful embrace, - sometimes one gaining in ascendency, again the other; but finally the subtler and more seductive element worrying its rival out, and gaining the western sunshine, broken and scarred and foaming with hot sweat, but proudly victorious, and forcing the withdrawing arms of its opponent to hold up eternal monuments of its triumph. Its course may be traced into the heart of the Northwestern interior, through the Cascade Mountains, back into the great basin between them and the Rocky Mountains; and then, by its main branches, stretching up north, and winding out through all British Columbia, and south and east into Idaho, and over into the bowels of the Rocky Mountains, touching with its fingers all the vast area north of the great desert basin and west of the Rocky Mountains. Its length is estimated to be from twelve hundred to two thousand miles; its width, in some parts, a mile and a half. High basaltic rocks rise on either side, on approaching the Cascade Mountains; huge bowlders, thrown off in the convulsion of water with mountain, lie lower down the valley, or stand out in the stream, one so large, rising in a rough egg-shape some thousand feet into the air, as to become a conspicuous and memorable element in the landscape. During five miles of the cascades, the river makes a descent of forty feet, half of it in one mile, but it takes the form of rough and rocky rapids, and not of one distinct, measurable fall. Through the moun

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tains the waters narrow and run swift and harsh; the rocks grow higher and sharper, and their architecture, by fire and water, assumes noble and massive forms. The dark, basaltic stones lie along in even layers, seamed, as in walls of human structure; then they change to upright form, and run up in well-rounded columns, one after another, one above the other. Often there is rich similitude to ruined castles of the Rhine; more frequently fashions and forms too massive, too majestic, too unique, for human ambition and art to aspire to. Where clear rock retires, and sloping sides invite, verdure springs strong, and forests, as thick and high as in the valleys, fill the landscapes. A distinguishing feature of this majestic beauty-apart from it, yet bounding it, shadowing it, yet enkindling it with highest majesty and beauty — is Mt. Hood, the great snow-peak of Oregon. Lying off twenty or thirty miles south of the river, in its passage through the mountains, it towers high above all its fellows, and is seen now through their gorges, and again at the end of apparently long plains, leading up to it from the river.1.

Such is the beauty of this northern world, overlooked by one of the grandest peaks of the range, and watered by the noblest river of the extreme West. Is it not reasonable to suppose that a people, observant of all natural beauty and advantage, should keep in memory by tradition and story such a home, however far apart they had strayed? Nor does it seem strange that tales were often told, in winter nights by the wigwam fire, of some primeval golden age, when peace and plenty blessed the Indians, as it is recalled that the valley of the Columbia appears to be the region best calculated to be a nursery of a primeval people, the Lenni-Lenape, or Adam (red man). The means of subsistence are excelled

1 Bowles's "New West."

in no other equal area of country, there being in this region, as enumerated by Mr. Morgan, the elk, bear, deer, mountain-sheep, rabbit, and beaver, with water and land fowls of different species, together with fruits and berries. The ká-mast root, from which the savages prepare bread, the bread-plant, the cayusc, a species of edible moss, and finally inexhaustible salmon-fishery and supply of shellfish-which more than aught else gives pre-eminence to this region-furnish a superabundance of subsistence, which would develop a surplus of population from age to age; and thus, by necessity, the Columbia Valley would become the starting-point of migrations. Nor should it be forgotten that the mean temperature for the year ranges only from 50° to 52° in this valley, rendering necessary, as the same author suggests, less clothing and food. Thus, therefore, it may be safely affirmed that all necessary evidence that of history, of universal tradition, and the fact of natural advantage points to some solution of the question, Whence came the red man? Not alone those tribes of red men in the North, but those of the South, and finally of both the south and west continents.

It is one of the arguments used to establish the fact of oneness of race, north and south, that the sign-language of the Hunter Indians is the incipient form out of. which sprang the picture-writing of the Aztecs, and ultimately the still higher ideographs upon the Copan monuments. In the pages of this volume the multiplicity of forms of symbols used in picture-writing by the North American Indians has been illustrated. Their similarity to South American symbols is seen in the constant appearance of the square, circle, and cross, as shown upon the façades of the most ancient ruins of