{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6613/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6613","id":"gutenberg_6613","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6613","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Folklore -- United States"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n                           MYTHS AND LEGENDS\n                                   OF\n                              OUR OWN LAND\n\n                                   By\n                           Charles M. Skinner\n\n                                Vol. 8.\n\n\n                          ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\nThe Voyager of the Whulge\nTamanous of Tacoma\nThe Devil and the Dalles\nCascades of the Columbia\nThe Death of Umatilla\nHunger Valley\nThe Wrath of Manitou\nThe Spook of Misery Hill\nThe Queen of Death Valley\nBridal Veil Fall\nThe Governor's Right Eye\nThe Prisoner in American Shaft\n\n\n\n\n\nON THE PACIFIC COAST\n\n\n\nTHE VOYAGER OF WHULGE\n\nLike the ancient Greeks, the Siwash of the Northwest invest the unseen\nworld with spiritual intelligence. Every tree has a soul; the forests\nwere peopled with good and evil genii, the latter receiving oblation at\nthe devil-dances, for it was not worth while to appease those already\ngood; and the mountains are the home of tamanouses, or guardian spirits,\nthat sometimes fight together--as, when the spirits of Mount Tacoma\nengaged with those of Mount Hood, fire and melted stone burst from their\npeaks, their bellowing was heard afar, and some of the rocks flung by\nTacoma fell short, blocking the Columbia about the Dalles.\n\nAcross these fantastic reports of older time there come echoes of a later\ninstruction, adapted and blended into native legend so that the point of\ndivision cannot be indicated. Such is that of the mysterious voyager of\nthe Whulge--the Siwash name for the sound that takes the name of Puget\nfrom one of Vancouver's officers. Across this body of water the stranger\ncame in a copper canoe that borrowed the glories of the morning. When he\nhad landed and sent for all the red men, far and near, he addressed to\nthem a doctrine that provoked expressions of contempt--a doctrine of\nlove.\n\nTo fight and steal no more, to give of their goods to men in need, to\nforgive their enemies,--they could not understand such things. He\npromised--this radiant stranger--to those who lived right, eternal life\non seas and hills more fair than these of earth, but they did not heed\nhim. At last, wearying of his talk, they dragged him to a tree and nailed\nhim fast to it, with pegs through his hands and feet, and jeered and\ndanced about him, as they did about their victims in the devil-dance,\nuntil his head fell on his breast and his life went out.\n\nA great storm, with thunderings and earthquakes! They took the body down\nand would have buried it, but, to! it arose to its feet, as the sun burst\nforth, and resumed its preaching. Then they took the voyager's word for\ntruth and never harmed him more, while they grew less warlike as each\nyear went by until, of all Indians, they were most peaceable.\n\n\n\n\nTAMANOUS OF TACOMA\n\nMount Tacoma has always been a place of superstitious regard among the\nSiwash (Sauvage) of the Northwest. In their myths it was the place of\nrefuge for the last man when the Whulge was so swollen after long rain\nthat its waters covered the earth. All other men were drowned. The waves\npursued the one man as he climbed, rising higher and higher until they\ncame to his knees, his waist, his breast. Hope was almost gone, and he\nfelt that the next wave would launch him into the black ocean that raged\nabout him, when one of the tamanouses of the peak, taking pity on him,\nturned his feet to stone. The storm ceased, and the waters fell away. The\nman still stood there, his feet a part of the peak, and he mourned that\nhe could not descend to where the air was balmy and the flowers were\nopening. The Spirit of all Things came and bade him sleep, and, after his\neyes were closed, tore out one of his ribs and changed it to a woman.\nWhen lifted out of the rock the man awoke, and, turning with delight to\nthe woman, he led her to the sea-shore, and there in a forest bower they\nmade their home. There the human race was recreated.\n\nOn the shore of the Whulge in after years lived an Indian miser--rare\npersonage--who dried salmon and jerked the meat that he did not use, and\nsold it to his fellow-men for hiaqua--the wampum of the Pacific tribes.\nThe more of this treasure he got, the more he wanted--even as if it were\ndollars. One day, while hunting on the slopes of Mount Tacoma, he looked\nalong its snow-fields, climbing to the sky, and, instead of doing homage\nto the tamanous, or divinity of the mountain, he only sighed, \"If I could\nonly get more hiaqua!\"\n\nSounded a voice in his ear: \"Dare you go to my treasure caves?\"\n\n\"I dare!\" cried the miser.\n\nThe rocks and snows and woods roared back the words so quick in echoes\nthat the noise was like that of a mountain laughing. The wind came up\nagain to whisper the secret in the man's ear, and with an elk-horn for\npick and spade he began the ascent of the peak. Next morning he had\nreached the crater's rim, and, hurrying down the declivity, he passed a\nrock shaped like a salmon, next, one in the form of a kamas-root, and\npresently a third in likeness of an elk's head. \"'Tis a tamanous has\nspoken!\" he exclaimed, as he looked at them.\n\nAt the foot of the elk's head he began to dig. Under the snow he came to\ncrusts of rock that gave a hollow sound, and presently he lifted a scale\nof stone that covered a cavity brimful of shells more beautiful, more\nprecious, more abundant than his wildest hopes had pictured. He plunged\nhis arms among them to the shoulder--he laughed and fondled them, winding\nthe strings of them about his arms and waist and neck and filling his\nhands. Then, heavily burdened, he started homeward.\n\nIn his eagerness to take away his treasure he made no offerings of hiaqua\nstrings to the stone tamanouses in the crater, and hardly had he begun\nthe descent of the mountain's western face before he began to be buffeted\nwith winds. The angry god wrapped himself in a whirling tower of cloud\nand fell upon him, drawing darkness after. Hands seemed to clutch at him\nout of the storm: they tore at his treasure, and, in despair, he cast\naway a cord of it in sacrifice. The storm paused for a moment, and when\nit returned upon him with scream and flash and roar he parted with\nanother. So, going down in the lulls, he reached timber just as the last\nhandful of his wealth was wrenched from his grasp and flung upon the\nwinds. Sick in heart and body, he fell upon a moss-heap, senseless. He\nawoke and arose stiffly, after a time, and resumed his journey.\n\nIn his sleep a change had come to the man. His hair was matted and\nreached to his knees; his joints creaked; his food supply was gone; but\nhe picked kamas bulbs and broke his fast, and the world seemed fresh and\ngood to him. He looked back at Tacoma and admired the splendor of its\nsnows and the beauty of its form, and had never a care for the riches in\nits crater. The wood was strange to him as he descended, but at sunset he\nreached his wigwam, where an aged woman was cooking salmon. Wife and\nhusband recognized each other, though he had been asleep and she\na-sorrowing for years. In his joy to be at home the miser dug up all his\ntreasure that he had secreted and gave of his wealth and wisdom to whoso\nneeded them. Life, love, and nature were enough, he found, and he never\nbraved the tamanous again.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEVIL AND THE DALLES\n\nIn days when volcanoes were playing in the Northwest and the sternly\nbeautiful valley of the Columbia was a hell of ash and lava, the fiend\nmen of the land met at intervals on the heated rocks to guzzle and riot\ntogether. It was at one of these meetings in the third summer after\nTacoma had stopped spouting that the devil urged a lesson from the\ngrowing peace and joy of nature, and prayed the fiend men to desist from\nkilling and eating each other and live in love.\n\nWith a howl of rage at such a proposal they set upon him, tossing their\ntails in such a threatening manner that he deemed it best to be off, and\nas his hoofs clattered over the country his brain was busy in devising an\nescape. Nearing the mountain bulwarks of an inland sea, whose breakers'\nrhythmic roar he heard above the yells of his pursuers, a hope came into\nhis head, and new vigor into his tail, though you might have thought the\nlatter accession was not needed, for his tail was of prodigious length\nand strength. He whirled this limb aloft and beat it on the earth. A\nchasm opened at the stroke, and the devil skipped across to the safe side\nof it.\n\nSafe? No; for the fiend men in advance took the leap and came beside him.\nThe tormented one could thrash any two of them at once, but he was not\nequal to a thousand. He brandished his weapon once more and it fell with\na crash. Earth shook, dust arose in clouds, and a deeper cleft than\nbefore yawned through the valley. Again the fiend men tried to reach him,\nand, though the gap was bigger and many fell into it, hundreds made the\njump and overtook him. He must make one more attempt. The tail revolved\nfor a third time, and with the energy of despair he flailed the ground\nwith it.\n\nA third ravine was split through the rock, and this time the earth's\ncrust cracked away to the eastward, giving outlet to the sea, which came\npouring through the canon, breaking rocks from mountains and grinding\nthem to powder in its terrific progress. Gasping with fatigue, the\nunhappy one toiled up a hill and surveyed his work with satisfaction, for\nthe flood engulfed the fiend men and they left no member of their race\nbehind them.\n\nWhen they had all been happily smashed or drowned, the devil skipped\nlightly over the channels he had cut and sought his family, though with a\nsubdued expression of countenance, for his tail--his strength and\npride--was bruised and broken beyond repair, and all the little imps that\nhe fathered to the world afterward had little dangling tails like\nmonkeys' instead of megatheriums', and in time these appendages\ndisappeared. But what was the use of them? The fiend men they had fought\nagainst were dead and the rising race they could circumvent by subtler\nmeans. The inland sea drained off. Its bed is now the prairie, and the\nthree strokes of the devil's tail are indelibly recorded in the bed of\nthe Columbia at the Dalles. And the devil never tried to be good again.\n\n\n\n\nCASCADES OF THE COLUMBIA\n\nWhen the Siwash, as the Northwestern Indians called themselves, were few,\nMount Hood was kept by the Spirit of Storms, who when he shook his robe\ncaused rain or snow to fall over the land, while the Fire Spirit flashed\nhis lightnings from Mount Adams. Across the vale between them stretched a\nmighty bridge of stone, joining peak to peak, and on this the Siwash laid\nhis offering of salmon and dressed skins. Here, too, the tribal festivals\nwere kept. The priestess of the arch-Mentonee, who fed the fire on the\ntribal altar \"unimpassioned by a mortal throb\"--had won the love of the\nwild tamanouses of the mountains, but she was careless alike of coaxing\nand threats, and her heart was as marble to them.\n\nJealous of each other, these two spirits fell to fighting, and, appalled\nby the whirl of fire and cloud, of splintering trees and crumbling rocks,\nthe Indians fled in terror toward the lowlands, but she, unhurt and\nundaunted, kept in her place, and still offered praise to the one god.\nYet she was not alone, for watchful in the shadow of a rock stood a\nwarrior who had loved her so long, without the hope of lovers, that he,\ntoo, had outgrown fear. Though she had given him but passing words and\nnever a smile, his own heart was the warmer and the heavier with its\nfreight, and it was his way to be ever watching her in some place where\nshe might not be troubled by the sight of him.\n\nThe war waxed fiercer, and at last the spirits met at the centre of the\narch, and in roar and quake and deluge the great bridge swayed and\ncracked. The young man sprang forward. He seized Mentonee in his arms.\nThere was time for one embrace that cheated death of sorrow. Then, with a\nthunder like a bursting world, the miles of masonry crashed down and\nburied the two forever. The Columbia leaps the ruins of the bridge in the\nrapids that they call the Cascades, and the waters still brawl on, while\nthe sulky tamanouses watch the whitened floods from their mountain-tops,\nknowing that never again will they see so fair a creature as Mentonee.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEATH OF UMATILLA\n\nUmatilla, chief of the Indians at the Cascades of the Columbia, was one\nof the few red men of his time who favored peace with the white settlers\nand lent no countenance to the fierce revels of the \"potlatch.\" In these\n\"feasts of gifts\" the savages, believing themselves to be \"possessed by\nthe spirit,\" lashed themselves into a frenzy that on several occasions\nwas only quieted by the shedding of blood. Black Eagle's Feather--or\nBenjamin, as he was called by the settlers--was the only one of the\nchildren of the old chief who survived a summer of plague, and on this\nboy Umatilla had put all his hopes and affections.\n\nThe lad had formed a great trust in his white teacher, a college-bred man\nfrom the East, who had built a little school-house beside the Columbia\nand was teaching the Indian idea how to shoot something beside white\npeople. This boy and his teacher had hunted together; they had journeyed\nin the same canoe; had tramped over the same trail to the great falls of\nthe Missouri; and at the Giant Spring had seen the Piegans cast in their\ngifts, in the belief that the manitou of the place would deliver them in\nthe hereafter to the sun-god, whom they worshipped. One day Benjamin fell\nill, and the schoolmaster saw that he, too, was to die of the plague. Old\nUmatilla received the news with Indian stoicism, but he went into the\nforest to be alone for a time.\n\nWhen he returned day was breaking and a flock of wild-geese trumpeted\noverhead. The boy heard them, and said, \"Boston tilicum\" (white man),\n\"does the Great Father tell the geese where to go?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then he will tell me, too?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"We shall never go back to the Missouri together. My father--\"\n\n\"We will watch over him.\"\n\n\"That is well.\" And, in a few hours, he had intrusted the guidance of his\nsoul through the world of shadows to the white man's unseen father.\n\nUmatilla sat beside the body through the night, and in the morning he\ncalled his people together. He told them that he was prepared to follow\nhis boy out of the world, but that first he wanted to have their promise\nthat they would no longer war on the whites, but look to them for\nfriendship and guidance. There was some murmuring at this, for the ruder\nfellows were already plotting a descent on the settlers, but Umatilla had\ngiven them great store of goods at the last potlatch, and they\nreluctantly consented. The venerable chief ordered them to make a grave\nfor Benjamin like the white man's, and, when it had been dug, four\nwarriors laid the body of his son within it. Then, standing at the brink,\nthe chief said, \"My heart is growing cold, for it is in the grave there\nwith my son. When I take three steps to the side of him, I, too, shall\ndie. Be good to the white men, as you have said, and bury us both\ntogether. Great Spirit, I come.\" And, sinking to the ground, the old\nman's life ebbed in a breath. They buried him and his son in a single\ngrave, and next day they went to the teacher and asked him to lead and\ninstruct them. And with that year ended all trouble between red and white\nmen along the Columbia.\n\n\n\n\nHUNGER VALLEY\n\nEast of San Francisco is a narrow valley opening to the bay of San Pablo.\nIn spite of its pleasant situation and fruitful possibilities, it had no\ninhabitants until 1820, when Miguel Zamacona and his wife Emilia strayed\ninto it, while on a journey, and, being delighted with its scenery,\ndetermined to make it their home. In playful mockery of its abundance\nthey gave to it the name El Hambre [Hunger] valley.\n\nAfter some weeks of such hardship as comes to a Mexican from work, Miguel\nhad built an adobe cabin and got a garden started, while he caught a fish\nor shot a deer now and then, and they got on pretty well. At last it\nbecame necessary that he should go to Yerba Buena, as San Francisco was\nthen called, for goods. His burros were fat and strong, and there should\nbe no danger. Emilia cried at being left behind, but the garden had to be\ntended, and he was to be back in exactly three weeks. She waited for\ntwenty-two days; then, her anxiety becoming unendurable, she packed an\noutfit on a burro and started on the trail. From time to time she called\nhis name, and \"Miguel!\" echoed sweetly from hills and groves, but there\nwas no other answer, save when an owl would hoot. Rolled in a blanket she\nslept on lupin boughs, but was off at peep of day again,\ncalling--calling--high and clear among the solitudes.\n\nDuring the second day her burro gave a rasping bray, and a hee-haw\nanswered from the bush. It was Miguel's burro. He had come at last!\nLeaping to her feet, in her impatience, she ran to meet him, and found\nhim lying on the earth, staring silently at the sky. All that day she sat\nbeside him, caressing his hand, talking, crying, bathing his face with\nwater from the marsh--the poison marsh--and it was not until sunset that\nshe could bring herself to admit that he was dead--had been dead for at\nleast two days.\n\nShe put the blanket over him, weighted it with stones, and heaped reeds\nupon it; then she started for home. A wandering trader heard her story,\nbut years elapsed before any other settler entered Hunger valley. They\nfound her skeleton then in the weedy garden. The adobe stands tenantless\nin the new village of Martinez, and the people have so often heard that\nthe ghosts of the Zamaconas haunt the place that they have begun to\ndisbelieve it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WRATH OF MANITOU\n\nThe county called Kern, in California, lies mostly in a circular valley,\nand long, long before the evil one had created the pale face it was the\nhome of a nation advanced in arts, who worshipped the Great Spirit in a\nbuilding with a lofty dome. But the bravery and wisdom of one of their\nown people made them forget the Manitou and idolize the man who seemed\nthe most like him. They brought him to the temple and prayed and sang to\nhim, and held their sacred dances there, so angering God that he rent the\nearth and swallowed them. Nothing was seen of this people for years\nafter, but their stone tools were left on neighboring hill-sides. Manitou\neven poured water into the valley, and great creatures sported in the\ninland sea.\n\nBut, ere long, he repented his anger, and, in a fit of impatience at what\nhe had done, he threw up quantities of earth that smoked with heat, and\nthus created the Sierra Nevada, while he broke away the hills at the foot\nof the lake, and the waters drained into the sea at the Golden Gate. This\nagain made dry land of the valley, and, opening the earth once more, he\nreleased the captive tribe. The imprisoned people had not forgotten their\narts nor their boldness; they made the place blossom again; they\nconquered other tribes, and Manitou declared them his chosen ones, from\nwhom alone he would accept sacrifice. But their chief became so ambitious\nthat he wanted to supplant the Manitou in the worship of the people, and\nfinally, in a lunacy of self-conceit, he challenged the god to single\ncombat.\n\nUnder pretence of accepting the challenge, the Great Spirit set the\noffenders to wander through the desert until they reached a valley in the\nSierras, opposite Tehachapi, where he caused them to be exterminated by a\nhorde of savages from the Mojave desert. Then, in a fit of disgust at\nrefractory humanity, he evoked a whirlwind and stripped away every living\nthing from the country of the savages, declaring that it should be empty\nof human beings from that time forward. And it was so.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPOOK OF MISERY HILL\n\nTom Bowers, who mined on Misery Hill, near Pike City, California, never\nhad a partner, and he never took kindly to the rough crowd about the\nplace. One day he was missing. They traced his steps through the snow\nfrom his cabin to the brink of a great slope where he had been\nprospecting, but there they vanished, for a landslide had blotted them\nout. His body was exhumed far below and decently buried, yet it was said\nthat it was so often seen walking about the mouth of his old shaft that\nother men avoided the spot.\n\nThriftless Jim Brandon, in a spasm of industry, began work on the\nabandoned mine, and for a while he made it pay, for he got money and\nsquared accounts with his creditors; but after a time it appeared that\nsomebody else was working on the claim, for every morning he found that\nthe sluice had been tampered with and the water turned on. He searched\nfor the trespasser in vain, and told \"the boys\" that if they called that\njoking it had grown tiresome.\n\nOne night he loaded his rifle, and, from a convenient nook, he watched\nfor the intruder. The tamaracks crooned in the wind, the Yuba mumbled in\nthe canon, the Sierras lay in a line of white against the stars. As he\ncrept along to a point of better vantage he came to a tree with something\ntacked on it--something that shone in the dark like a match. In its own\nlight he read, \"Notice! I, Thomas Bowers, claim this ground for placer\nmining.\" Raising his hand to tear off the paper, he was amazed to feel a\nthrill pass through it, and his arm fell palsied at his side. But the\nnotice was gone.\n\nNow came the sound of water flowing, and, as he angrily caught his gun\nand turned toward the sluice, the letters shone again in phosphorescence\non the tree. There was the sound of a pick in the gravel now, and,\ncrawling stealthily towards the sluice, he saw, at work there, Tom\nBowers--dead, lank, his head and face covered with white hair, his eyes\nglowing from black sockets. Half unconsciously Jim brought his rifle to\nhis shoulder and fired. A yell followed the report, then the dead man\ncame running at him like the wind, with pick and shovel in either hand.\n\nAway went Brandon, and the spectre followed, up hill, in and out of\nwoods, over ditches, through scrub, on toward Pike City. The miners were\ncelebrating a new find with liberal potations and a dance in the saloon\nwhen, high above the crash of boots, the shouted jokes, the laughter, and\nthe clink of glasses, came a sound of falling, a scream-then silence.\nThey hurried into the road. There lay Brandon's rifle, and a pick and\nshovel with \"T. B.\" cut in the handles. Jim returned no more, and the\nsluice is running every night on Misery Hill.\n\n\n\n\nTHE QUEEN OF DEATH VALLEY\n\nIn the southern part of California, near the Arizona line, is the famous\nDeath Valley--a tract of arid, alkaline plain hemmed in by steep\nmountains and lying below the level of the sea. For years it was believed\nthat no human being could cross that desert and live, for horses sink to\ntheir knees in drifts of soda dust; there is no water, though the\ntraveller requires much drink; and the heat is terrific. Animals that die\nin the neighborhood mummify, but do not decay, and it is surmised that\nthe remains of many a thoughtless or ignorant prospector lie bleached in\nthe plain. On the east side of Dead Mountain are points of whitened rock\nthat at a distance look like sheeted figures, and these, the Indians say,\nare the ghosts of their brethren.\n\nIn the heart of this desert is said to be the ruin of a pueblo, or\nvillage, though the shape and size of it suggest that it was made for a\nfew persons rather than for a tribe or family. Long ago, the tale runs,\nthis place of horrors was a fair and fertile kingdom, ruled by a\nbeautiful but capricious queen. She ordered her subjects to build her a\nmansion that should surpass those of her neighbors, the Aztecs, and they\nworked for years to make one worthy of her, dragging the stones and\ntimbers for miles. Fearing lest age, accident, or illness should forbid\nher to see the ending of her dream, she ordered so many of her subjects\nto assist that her tribe was reduced to practical slavery.\n\nIn her haste and heartlessness she commanded her own daughter to join the\nbearers of burdens, and when the toilers flagged in step in the noonday\nheat she strode among them and lashed their naked backs. As royalty was\nsacred, they did not complain, but when she struck her daughter the girl\nturned, threw down her load of stone, and solemnly cursed her mother and\nher kingdom; then, overcome by heat and weariness, she sank to the earth\nand died. Vain the regrets and lamentations of the queen. The sun came\nout with blinding heat and light, vegetation withered, animals\ndisappeared, streams and wells dried up, and at last the wretched woman\ngave up her life on a bed of fever, with no hand to soothe her dying\nmoments, for her people, too, were dead. The palace, half-completed,\nstands in the midst of this desolation, and sometimes it seems to lift\ninto view of those at a distance in the shifting mirage that plays along\nthe horizon.\n\n\n\n\nBRIDAL VEIL FALL\n\nThe vast ravine of Yo Semite (Grizzly Bear), formed by tearing apart the\nsolid Sierras, is graced by many water-falls raining down the mile-high\ncliffs. The one called Bridal Veil has this tale attached to it.\nCenturies ago, in the shelter of this valley, lived Tutokanula and his\ntribe--a good hunter, he, a thoughtful saver of crops and game for\nwinter, a wise chief, trusted and loved by his people. While hunting, one\nday, the tutelary spirit of the valley--the lovely Tisayac--revealed\nherself to him, and from that moment he knew no peace, nor did he care\nfor the well-being of his people; for she was not as they were: her skin\nwas white, her hair was golden, and her eyes like heaven; her speech was\nas a thrush-song and led him to her, but when he opened his arms she rose\nlighter than any bird and vanished in the sky.\n\nLacking his direction Yo Semite became a desert, and when Tisayac\nreturned she wept to see the corn lands grown with bushes and bears\nrooting where the huts had been. On a mighty dome of rock she knelt and\nbegged the Great Spirit to restore its virtue to the land. He did so,\nfor, stooping from the sky, he spread new life of green on all the valley\nfloor, and smiting the mountains he broke a channel for the pent-up\nmeltings of the snows, and the water ran and leaped far down, pooling in\na lake below and flowing off to gladden other land. The birds returned,\nthe flowers sprang up, corn swayed in the breeze, and the people, coming\nback, gave the name of Tisayac to South Dome, where she had knelt.\n\nThen came the chief home again, and, hearing that the spirit had\nappeared, was smitten with love more strong than ever. Climbing to the\ncrest of a rock that spires three thousand feet above the valley, he\ncarved his likeness there with his hunting-knife, so that his memory\nmight live among his tribe. As he sat, tired with his work, at the foot\nof the Bridal Veil, he saw, with a rainbow arching around her, the form\nof Tisayac shining from the water. She smiled on him and beckoned. His\nquest was at an end. With a cry of joy he sprang into the fall and\ndisappeared with Tisayac. Two rainbows quivered on the falling water, and\nthe sun went down.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GOVERNOR'S RIGHT EYE\n\nOld Governor Hermenegildo Salvatierra, of Presidio, California, sported\nonly one eye--the left--because the other had been shot out by an Indian\narrow. With his sound one he was gazing into the fire, on a windy\nafternoon in the rainy season, when a chunky man in a sou'wester\nwas-ushered into his presence, and after announcing that he was no other\nthan Captain Peleg Scudder, of the schooner General Court, from Salem, he\nwas made welcome in a manner quite out of proportion in its warmth to the\nimportance that such a disclosure would have for the every-day citizen.\n\nHe was hailed with wassail and even with wine. The joy of the commandant\nwas so great that at the third bowl he sang a love ballad, in a voice\nsomewhat cracked, and got on the table to teach the Yankee how to dance\nthe cachuca. The law forbade any extended stay of Americans in Spanish\nwaters, and the General Court took herself off that very night--for this,\nmind you, was in 1797, when the Spaniard ruled the farther coast.\n\nNext day Salvatierra appeared before his astonished people with a right\neye. The priests attached to the fort gave a special service of praise,\nand told the miracle to the red men of their neighborhood as an\nillustration of the effect of goodness, prayer, and faith. People came\nfrom far and near that they might go to church and see this marvel for\nthemselves. But, alas, for the governor's repute for piety! It soon began\nto be whispered around that the new eye was an evil one; that it read the\ndeepest thoughts of men with its inflexible, cold stare; that under its\ninfluence some of the fathers had been betrayed into confessing things\nthat the commandant had never supposed a clergyman to be guilty of. The\npeople feared that eye, and ascribed such rogueries to the old man as had\nbeen entirely foreign to his nature hitherto.\n\nThis common fear and suspicion reacted, inevitably, and Salvatierra\nbegan, unconsciously, to exhibit some of the traits that his subjects\nsaid he possessed. He changed slowly from the indulgent parent to the\nstern and exacting law-giver. He did not know, however, what the people\nhad been saying about him, and never suspected that his eye was likely to\nget him into trouble.\n\nIt was a warm night and he had gone to bed with his windows open--windows\nthat opened from his garden, and were level, at the bottom, with the\nfloor. A shadowy form stole along the gravel path and entered one of\nthese windows. It was that of a mission Indian. He had gathered from the\ntalk of the faithful that it would be a service to the deity as well as\nto men to destroy the power of that evil eye. He came beside the bed and\nlooked attentively at the governor, sleeping there in the light of a\ncandle. Then he howled with fright--howled so loudly that the old man\nsprang to his feet--for while the left eye had been fast asleep the evil\none was broad awake and looking at him with a ghostly glare.\n\nIn another second the commandant was at the window whirling his trusty\nToledo about his head, lopping ears and noses from the red renegades who\nhad followed in the track of the first. In the scrimmage he received\nanother jab in the right eye with a fist. When day dawned it was\ndiscovered, with joy, that the evil eye was darkened--and forever. The\npeople trusted him once more. Finding that he was no longer an object of\ndread, his voice became kinder, his manner more gentle. A heavy and\nunusual rain, that had been falling, passed off that very day, so that\nthe destruction from flood, which had been prophesied at the missions,\nwas stayed, and the clergy sang \"Te Deum\" in the church. The old\ncommandant never, to his dying day, had the heart to confess that the\nevil eye was only a glass one.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRISONER IN AMERICAN SHAFT\n\nAn Indian seldom forgets an injury or omits to revenge it, be it a real\nor a fancied one. A young native of the New Almaden district, in\nCalifornia, fell in love with a girl of the same race, and supposed that\nhe was prospering in his suit, for he was ardent and the girl was,\nseemingly, not averse to him; but suddenly she became cold, avoided him,\nand answered his greetings, if they met, in single words. He affected to\ncare not greatly for this change, but he took no rest until he had\ndiscovered the cause of it. Her parents had conceived a dislike to him\nthat later events proved to be well founded, and had ordered or persuaded\nher to deny his suit.\n\nHis retaliation was prompt and Indian-like. He killed the father and\nmother at the first opportunity, seized the girl when she was at a\ndistance from the village, and carried her to the deserted quicksilver\nmine near Spanish Camp. In a tunnel that branched from American Shaft he\nhad fashioned a rude cell of stone and wood, and into that he forced and\nfastened her. He had stocked it with water and provisions, and for some\nweeks he held the wretched girl a captive in total darkness, visiting her\nwhenever he felt moved to do so until, his passion sated, he resolved to\nleave the country.\n\nAs an act of partial atonement for the wrong he had done, he hung a\nleather coat at the mouth of the tunnel, on which, in picture writing, he\nindicated the whereabouts of the girl. Search parties had been out from\nthe time of her disappearance, and one of them chanced on this clue and\nrescued her as she was on the point of death. The savage who had exacted\nso brutal and excessive a revenge fled afar, and his whereabouts were\nnever known.","title":"Myths and Legends of Our Own Land \u2014 Volume 08 : on the Pacific Slope","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":5905}