"From whence doth this union arise
That hatred is conquered by love?
It fastens our souls in such ties
As distance and time can't remove."
The October moon came up larger and larger night by night. It stood on the verge of the horizon now in the late afternoon, as if to see the resplendent setting of the sun. One wandered along the cool roads at the parting of day between the red sun in the west and the golden moon in the east, and felt in the light of the two worlds the melancholy change in the atmospheres of the year. The old volcanoes glistened, for a wintry crust was widening over their long-dead ovens. Mount Saint Helens, as the far range which led up to the relic of the ancient lava-floods that is now known by that name was called by the settlers, was wonderfully beautiful in the twilights of the sun and moon. Mount Hood was a celestial glory, and the shadows of the year softened the glimmering glories of the Columbia. The boatman's call echoed long and far, and the crack of the flint-lock gun leaped in its reverberations from hill to hill as though the air was a succession of hollow chambers. Water-fowl filled the streams and drifted through the air, and the forests seemed filled with young and beautiful animals full of happy life.
CHAPTER XIV
THE POTLATCH.
A potlatch among the tribes of the Northwest means a feast at which some wealthy Indian gives away to his own people or to a friendly tribe all that he has. For this generosity he becomes a councilor or wise man, or judge, an attendant on the chief in public affairs, and is held in especial honor during the rest of his life.
To attain this honor of chief man or councilor, many an ambitious young Indian labors for years to amass wampum, blankets, and canoes. The feast at which he exchanges these for political honors is very dramatic and picturesque. It is usually held at the time of the full moon, and lasts for several days and nights. One of the principal features is the Tamanous, or Spirit-dance, which takes place at night amid blazing torches and deafening drums.
A chief rarely gives a Potlatch; he has no need of honors. But Umatilla desired to close his long and beneficent chieftainship with a gift-feast. He loved his people, and there seemed to him something noble in giving away all his private possessions to them, and trusting the care of his old age to their hearts. His chief men had done this, and had gained by it an influence which neither power nor riches can attain. This supreme influence over the hearts of his people he desired to possess. The gift-feast was held to be the noblest service that an Indian could render his race.
At the great Potlatch he would not only give away his private goods, but would take leave of the chieftainship which he had held for half a century. It was his cherished desire to see Benjamin made chief. His heart had gone into the young heart of the boy, and he longed to see The Light of the Eagle's Plume, sitting in his place amid the councilors of the nation and so beginning a new history of the ancient people.