CHAPTER XVI.
A SILENT TRIBE.
It was sunset on the bluffs and valleys of the Columbia. Through the tall,dark pines and firs the red west glowed like the lights in an oriel ormullioned window. The air was voiceless. The Columbia rolled silently inthe shadows with a shimmering of crimson on its deep middle tides. Thelong, brown boats of the salmon-fishers sat motionless on the tide. Amongthe craft of the fishermen glided a long, airy canoe, with swift paddles.It contained an old Umatilla Indian, his daughter, and a young warrior.The party were going to the young chief's funeral.
_Multnomah Falls._]
As the canoe glided on amid the still fishermen of other tribes, theIndian maiden began to sing. It was a strange song, of immortality, and ofspiritual horizons beyond the visible life. The Umatillas have poeticminds. To them white Tacoma with her gushing streams means a mother'sbreast, and the streams themselves, like the Falls of the distantShoshone, were "falling splendors."
She sang in Chinook, and the burden of her song was that horizons willlift forever in the unknown future. The Chinook word _tamala_ means"to-morrow"; and to-morrow, to the Indian mind, was eternal life.
The young warrior joined in the refrain, and the old Indian listened. Thethought of the song was something as follows:
"Aha! it is ever to-morrow, to-morrow-- Tamala, tamala, sing as we row; Lift thine eye to the mount; to the wave give thy sorrow; The river is bright, and the rivulets flow; Tamala, tamala, Ever and ever; The morrows will come and the morrows will go-- Tamala! tamala!
"Happy boat, it is ever to-morrow, to-morrow-- Tamala, whisper the waves as they flow; The crags of the sunset the smiles of light borrow, And soft from the ocean the Chinook winds blow: Tamala, tamala, Ever and ever; The morrows will come and the morrows will go-- Tamala! tamala!
"Aha! the night comes, but the light is to-morrow-- Tamala, tamala, sing as we go; The waves ripple past, like the heart-beats of sorrow, And the oar beats the wave to our song as we row: Tamala, tamala, Ever and ever; The morrows will come and the morrows will go-- Tamala! tamala!
"For ever and ever horizons are lifting-- Tamala, tamala, sing as we row; And life toward the stars of the ocean is drifting, Through death will the morrow all endlessly glow-- Tamala, tamala, Ever and ever; The morrows will come and the morrows will go, Tamala! tamala!"
The paddle dipped in the wave at the word _tamala_, and lifted high tomark the measure of the song, and strew in the warm, soft air the wateryjewels colored by the far fires of the Sound. So the boat swept on, like aspirit bark, and the beautiful word of immortality was echoed from thedarkening bluffs and the primitive pine cathedrals.
The place where the grave had been made was on the borders of the Oregondesert, a wild, open region, walled with tremendous forests, and spreadingout in the red sunset like a sea. It had a scanty vegetation, but a slightrain would sometimes change it into a billowy plain of flowers.
The tribe had begun to assemble about the grave early in the longafternoon. They came one by one, solitary and silent, wrapped in blanketsand ornamented with gray plumes. The warriors came in the same solitaryway and met in silence, and stood in a long row like an army of shadows.Squaws came, leading children by the hand, and seated themselves on thesoft earth in the same stoical silence that had marked the bearing of thebraves.
A circle of lofty firs, some three hundred feet high, threw a slantingshadow over the open grave, the tops gleaming with sunset fire.
Afar, Mount Hood, the dead volcano, lifted its roof of glaciers twelvethousand feet high. Silver ice and black carbon it was now, although inthe long ages gone it had had a history written in flame and smoke andthunder. Tradition says that it sometimes, even now, rumbles and flashesforth in the darkness of night, then sinks into rest again, under itslonely ice palaces so splendid in the sunset, so weird under the moon.
Just as the red disk of the sun sunk down behind this stupendous scenery,a low, guttural sound was uttered by Potlatch Hero, an old Indian brave,and it passed along the line of the shadowy braves. No one moved, but alleyes were turned toward the lodge of the old Umatilla chief.
He was coming--slowly, with measured step; naked, except the decentcovering of a blanket and a heroic ornament of eagle-plumes, and allalone.
The whole tribe had now gathered, and a thousand dusky forms awaited himin the sunset.
There was another guttural sound. Another remarkable life-picture cameinto view. It was the school in a silent procession, following the tallmasks, out of the forest trail on to the glimmering plain, the advent ofthat new civilization before which the forest lords, once the poetic bandsof the old Umatillas, were to disappear. Over all a solitary eagle beatthe luminous air, and flocks of wild geese made their way, like V-letters,toward the Puget Sea.
The school soon joined the dusky company, and the pupils stood withuncovered heads around their Yankee pedagogue. But the old chief cameslowly. After each few steps he would stop, fold his arms, and seem lostin contemplation. These pauses were longer as he drew near the silentcompany.
Except the honks of the pilots of the flocks of wild geese, there was adead silence everywhere. Only eyes moved, and then furtively, toward theadvancing chief.
_The old chief stood stoical and silent._]
He reached the grave at last by these slow movements, and stepped upon theearth that had been thrown out of it, and folded his arms in view ofall. A golden star, like a lamp in the windows of heaven, hung over MountHood in the fading splendors of the twilight, and the great chief bent hiseye upon it.
Suddenly the air was rent by a wail, and a rattle of shells and drums. Thebody of Benjamin was being brought out of the lodge. It was borne on abier made of poles, and covered with boughs of pine and fir and redmountain phlox. It was wrapped in a blanket, and strewn with odorousferns. Four young braves bore it, besmeared with war-paint. They werefollowed by musicians, who beat their drums, and rattled shell instrumentsat irregular times, as they advanced. They came to the grave, lifted thebody on its blanket from the bier of evergreens and flowers, and slowlylowered it. The old chief stood stoical and silent, his eye fixed on thestar in the darkening shadows.
The face of Benjamin was noble and beautiful in its death-sleep. Over itwere two black eagle's plumes. The deep black hair lay loosely about thehigh, bronze forehead; there was an expression of benevolence in thecompressed lips, and the helpless hands seemed like a picture as they laycrossed on each other.
As soon as the body was laid in the earth, the old chief bent his face onthe people. The mysterious dimness of death was in his features. His eyesgleamed, and his bronze lips were turning pale.
"My nation, listen; 'tis my last voice. I am a Umatilla. In my youth thebirds in the free lakes of the air were not more free. I spoke, and youobeyed. I have but one more command to give. Will you obey me?
"You bow, and I am glad.
"Listen!
"My fathers were men of war. They rolled the battle-drums. I taught mywarriors to play the pipes of peace, and sixty years have they played themunder the great moons of the maize-fields. We were happy. I was happy.
"I had seven sons. The white man's plague came; the shadow fell on six ofthem, and they went away with the storm-birds. They entered the new canoe,and sailed beyond us on the sea of life. They came back no more at thesunrisings and sun settings, at the leaf-gatherings of the spring, or theleaf-fallings of the autumn. They are beyond.
"One son was left me--Benjamin. He was no common youth; the high spiritswere with him, and he came to be like them, and he has gone to them now. Iloved him. He was my eyes; he was my ears; he was my heart. When I saw hiseyes in death, my eyes were dead; when he could hear me call his name nolonger, my ears lost their hearing; when his young heart ceased to beat,my own heart was dead. All that I
am lies in that grave, beside my deadboy.
"My nation, you have always obeyed me. I have but one more command tomake. Will you obey me?
"You bow again. My life-blood is growing cold. I am about to go down intothat grave.
"One step! The clouds fly and darken, and you will see them return again,but not I.
"Two steps! Farewell, sun and light of day. I shall see thee again, butnot as now.
"Three steps! Downward to the grave I descend to meet thee, my own dearboy. Adieu, my people. Adieu, hearts of faith. Farewell, ye birds of theair, ye mighty forests, ye sun of night, and ye marches of stars. I amdying.
"Two steps more I will take. There he lies before me in the unfoldedearth, the life of my life, the heart of my heart.
"You have promised to obey me. I repeat it--you have promised to obey me.You have always done so. You must do so now. My hands are cold, my feetare cold, and my heart beats very slow. Three steps more, and I shall laymyself on the body of my boy. Hear, then, my last command; you havepromised to obey it like brave men.
"When I have taken my last three steps of life, and laid down beside theuncovered bed of earth beside my boy, fill up the grave forever; my breathwill be gone; Umatilla will be no more. You must obey.
"One step--look! There is fire on the mountain under the curtains of thenight. Look, the peak flashes; it is on fire.--O Spirit of All, I come!One step more! Farewell, earth. Warriors, fill the grave! The blackeagle's plumes will now rest forever."
There was deep silence, broken only by the sobs of the little school. Awarrior moved and passed round the grave, and uttered the word "Dead!" Thebraves followed him, and the whole tribe like shadows. "Dead!" "Dead!"passed from mouth to mouth. Then a warrior threw a handful of earth intothe grave of the father and son. The braves followed his example, then allthe tribe.
As they were so doing, like phantoms in the dim light, Mount SaintHelens[D] blazed again--one volcanic flash, then another; then all wasdarkness, and the moon arose in a broad sea of light like a spectral sun.
The grave was filled at last. Then they brought the Cayuse pony ofBenjamin toward the grave, and a young brave raised the hatchet to killit, that it might bear the dead boy into the unknown land.
There was a cry! It came from Gretchen. The girl rushed forward and stoodbefore the hatchet. The pony seemed to know her, and he put his head overher shoulder.
"Spare him!" she said. "Benjamin gave him to me--the soul of Benjaminwould wish it so."
"Let the girl have her way," said the old warriors.
The moon now moved free in the dark-blue sky, and sky, forest, and plainwere a silver sea. The Indians began to move away like shadows, one byone, silent and slow. Gretchen was the last to go. She followed theschool, leading the pony, her soul filled with that consciousness of a newlife that had so wonderfully come to her. Her way in life now seemedclear: she must teach the Umatillas.
She left the pony in a grassy clearing, on the trail that led to her home,and hurried toward the cabin to describe all the events of the day to herfoster-mother.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote D: See Notes.]