What occurred inside the lodge, we could not tell; but were quite touched at seeing Yeomans's son take the flag from his dead sister's grave, and plant it on the beach at high-water mark, as if it were a kind of participation, on the part of the dead girl, in the joy of the occasion.
October 5, 1865.
Flocks of crows hover continually about the Indian villages. The most proverbially suspicious of all birds is here familiar and confiding. The Indian exercises superstitious care over them, but whether from love or fear we could never discover. It is very difficult to find out what an Indian believes. We have sometimes heard that they consider the crows their ancestors. It is a curious fact, that the Indians, in talking, make so much use of the palate,—kl and other guttural sounds occurring so often,—and that the crow, in his deep "caw, caw," uses the same organ. It may be significant of some psychological relationship between them.
III.
Indian Chief Seattle.—Frogs and Indians.—Spring Flowers and Birds.—The Red Tamáhnous.—The little Pend d'Oreille.—Indian Legend.—From Seattle to Fort Colville.—Crossing the Columbia River Bar.—The River and its Surroundings.—Its Former Magnitude.—The Grande Coulée.—Early Explorers, Heceta, Meares, Vancouver, Grey.—Curious Burial-Place.—Chinese Miners.—Umatilla.—Walla Walla.—Sage-Brush and Bunch-Grass.—Flowers in the Desert.—"Stick" Indians.—Klickatats.—Spokane Indian.—Snakes.—Dead Chiefs.—A Kamas-Field.—Basaltic Rocks.
Seattle, Washington Territory,
November 5, 1865.
We saw here a very dignified Indian, old and poor, but with something about him that led us to suspect that he was a chief. We found, upon inquiry, that it was Seattle, the old chief for whom the town was named, and the head of all the tribes on the Sound. He had with him a little brown sprite, that seemed an embodiment of the wind,—such a swift, elastic little creature,—his great-grandson, with no clothes about him, though it was a cold November day. To him, motion seemed as natural as rest.