Ptarmigan, the Grouse of the ice-fields. Unlike its neighbor, the Mountain Goat, this bird is tame, and may sometimes be caught by hand. In winter its plumage turns from brown to white.
Childish and fantastic as they seem to our wise age, such legends show the Northwestern Indian struggling to interpret the world about him. Like savages everywhere, he peopled the unknown with spirits good and bad, and mingled his conception of a beneficent deity with his ideas of the evil one. Symbolism pervaded his crude but very positive mind. Ever by his side the old Siwash felt the Power that dwelt on Tacoma, protecting and aiding him, or leading him to destruction. Knowing nothing of true worship, his primitive intelligence could imagine God only in things either the most beautiful or the most terrifying; and the more we know the Mountain, the more easily we shall understand why he deemed the majestic peak a factor of his destiny—an infinite force that could, at will, bless or destroy. For to us, too, though we have no illusions as to its supernatural powers, the majestic peak may bring a message. Before me is a letter from an inspiring New England writer, who has well earned the right to appraise life's values. "I saw the great Mountain three years ago," she says; "would that it might ever be my lot to see it again! I love to dream of its glory, and its vast whiteness is a moral force in my life."
Perpetual
And snowy tabernacle of the land,
While purples at thy base this peaceful sea,
And all thy hither slopes in evening bathe,
I hear soft twilight voices calling down
From all thy summits unto prayer and love.
—Francis Brooks: "Mt. Rainier." [Back to content]
The Mountain, seen from Puyallup River, near Tacoma.
