The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-10-26
ALI ABOUF THUSbERBIRDs.

ALI .ABOUF THUSBERBIRDs.
 The story of a Hema kabie Indian Super
 stitian-Ths i'in, Cir wth and Career 0
 Remarkable Personaga-Known From
 the Coast to the Great Lakes-who ane
 What kam-.0n, the rhundeFer, is.
 From the Seattle Telegraph.l
 savages the world over are steepet in superstitious myths. traditions, ant in folk lore which is peculiar each t' it's own tribe. clan er gems; but throug; it all there are threads which con meet one tribe or people with another though miles of distance may inter yene. The stories vary in detail i' the telling. bat the main points arc identical. showing eoHeiusively that al some prehistoric time men had means of intercommunlcatlon without tele' graph. ships CT railroads. and that a myth originated by the medicine men or prophets of one tribe or nation would spread far beyond the boundaries of the tribe which first practIsed it.
 There are to-day two remarkable in- stances of this fact. both seml-rellsious, and both originated with the medicine men. The first is the ghost dance. made vaguely familiar by the battle of Wounded Knee four years ago in the Dakota Bad Lands. The other is the myth of the ThunderbIrd, the skam-son of the Haidas. and known from Cape Flattery to Wisconsin by various tribal names.
 The idea of great spirit, as general ly taken by whites to cover the Indian religion Is erroneous, as every noun tain. river, lake or other natural ob- Ject, as well as natural phenomenon Is accredited with being the home Of some particular spirit; In fact the old Greek mythology Is good comparison, and Illustrates the idea exactly. Hence we find the thunder personihed by an immense bird by some tribes, and with others as half bird, half man, or a man who wears a birds skin, but all agree that the parsonage Is off colosal pro- portions, and give 1t the name of Thur derbird. Surroundings modified the form and the features of this mythical being to a great extent and account for the different descriptions of 1t given by different tribes.
 The Twanas believe 1t to be an i'm mense bird which lives on the top of high mountain, and feeds on whales which it kills by lightning. It is here in the form of an eagle with quill feath- CTS sixty fanthoms long in each wing. With them it is good spirit, harmlng no one unless an individual has dis pleased it, then the person is killed by glance from its eye which is the lightning. They believe that it is the god of rain, and also that the image of 1t carved on their implements of war or chase gives the owner strength in fighting and good luck in hunting. Thus 1t is a hunter-warrior-rai god. The Rev. MT. Bells reports carving of the Twana version cut in basaltic boulder near Eniti, Washington, which the In- dians say is the face of the Thunder bird, and they believe that if the rock is shaken or moved in any way it will cause rain.
 Among the Haidas of Queen Char lotte's island it Is believed to be an i'm mense creature, half man, half bird, whose body is shielded from view by heavy clouds, the main difference in the story being in the lightning, which is here personified by the fish instead of described as glance from the eye of the bird covered with feathers, and who is accompanied by the Lightning fish, which he darts at the whales and kills them for food. This Lightning fish is pictured as the Killer whale, which is feared by the Indians, as it attacks them sometimes while voyaging about in their canoes, hence they credit him as companion of the Thunderbird, or Skam-son, as they call 1t. As with the Twanas, the thunder is caused by the Tapping of the wings as the creature flies from Skam-son. This is easily ac- counted for from the fact that the Hai- das are a seagoing nation; a nation of fishermen, who gain their living from the ocean, hence they would naturally associate fish of some kind with any