Remarkable as is this fire myth of the tamahnawas bridge, the legend inspired by the peculiarities of northwestern climate is no less beautiful. This climate differs materially, it is well known, from that of eastern America in the same latitude. The Japan Current warms the coast of Oregon and Washington just as the Gulf Stream warms the coast of Ireland. East of the Cascade Mountains, the severe cold of a northern winter is tempered by the "Chinook" winds from the Pacific. A period of freezing weather is shortly followed by the melting of the snow upon the distant mountains; by night the warm Chinook sweeps up the Columbia canyon and across the passes, and in a few hours the mildness of spring covers the land.
"Grant Castle" and Palisades of the Columbia, on north side of the river below The Dalles.
Such a phenomenon inevitably stirred the Indian to an attempt to interpret it. Like the ancients of other races, he personified the winds. The Yakima account of the struggle between the warm winds from the coast and the icy blasts out of the Northeast will bear comparison with the Homeric tale of Ulysses, buffeted by the breezes from the bag given him by the wind-god Aeolus.
COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Five Chinook brothers, said the Yakima tradition, lived on the great river. They caused the warm winds to blow. Five other brothers lived at Walla Walla, the meeting place of the waters. They caused the cold winds. The grandparents of them all lived at Umatilla, home of the wind-blown sands. Always there was war between them. They swept over the country, destroying the forests, covering the rivers with ice, or melting the snows and causing floods. The people suffered much because of their violence.
Cabbage Rock, a huge freak of nature standing in the open plain four miles north of The Dalles. Apparently, the lava core of a small extinct crater.
Then Walla Walla brothers challenged Chinook brothers to wrestle. Speelyei, the coyote god, should judge the contest. He should cut off the heads of those who fell.