The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-27

In the form of wood, but on exposure
10 air became as hard as iron. On the
END of one of them was series OF
markings which to all appearance were
ak marks made in cutting the billet
from some larger piece. This billet
was petrifed when found. 1t would be
rash to attempt to form any conclusion
Whatever from this piece of fossil wood.
, put this much is evident. namely. that
within comparatively recent times.
geolog1cally speaking, there have been
great changes in the surface geology
OF this coast. OF this the proof is
abundant, and the changes suggest
glacial action. In brief, the geological
! conditions of the coast corroborate the
Indian legends of the occurrence of. "a
great winter" not so very long ago. as
| biologists reckon time.
On this point l may add that a very
well-educated Norwegian, who has
| spent about six years in close inter-
course with the coast Indians. told me
that all their legends refer to the great
winter, and that many of the totem
poles, many of the family names and
all the religious dances and ceremonies
are commemorative of that period of
dire calamity I asked a very tntelli-
| gent young American, who is familiar
with the NEUROLOGICAL lore of the Wash
ington Indians,g if any of the tribes had
preserved tradition of % great win
ter. and his answer was. "All of them
have" The preservation of such a ira.
dition by race of men who inhabit
a country where often the whole twelve.
months pass without snow and with
very little frost is remarkable and
seems to possess the value of an his
torical record. ~
The Bella Coda Indians above re-
ferred to tell that before the great win
ter came a bird with a single eye from
which flashed forth the fiercest of
| flames sat upon the mountains and de-
stroyed all living creatures except such
as were able to find shelter in caves
This great bird appears in the legends
of so many Indian tribes west of the
Mississippi, being usually known as
the thunder bird, that = may be re-
garded as a typical feature of aborigi-
nal American mythology. Most of the
explanations of the thunder bird myth
| regard it as an attempt to explain the
thunder, or at the most. as a personif-
cation of that phenomenon. While this
may be accepted as an adaptation of
the original myth there seems reason
to believe it's origin to be in the catas-
trophe which ushered in 1.-The great
winter.
Thus we find the Indians of the
Olympic peninsula preserving the ira
,dition of a huge and shapeless mon
ster known as Seatco, who brought
desolation and sorrow upon the people
of that once happy land. Year after
year the tribes had been accustomed
to gather for long holiday in val
ley more beautiful than any other. But
and festivities were at their height
Seatco came, and with him desolation
and death. Then followed the great
winter. May not this monster. whose
description recalls Virgils description
of the Cyclops, "Infame, ingens. cui
lumen ademptum, have been the same
as the bird with the eye of fire of whom
the Bella Coolas tell? And may not
both be Identical with the awful being
who the Quatsino Indians say drove
all living creatures, the animals on the
land, the birds of the air and the fish
Of the sea into holes and caverns in his
terrible wrath because they would not
deliver I'D his truant son?
THE GREAT BEAVER MYTH.
Let us now for moment take
| glance across the continent to the Mic
Mac and Milicete Indians of New
Brunswick These preserve the legend
| of the great beaver who is said to have
| damned up all the rivers and destroyed
| all the corn fields Then winter came
with untold suffering for the people.
| At length Glooscap, the deliverer, pulled
| down the dams which the beaver had
| erected and drove the monster away.
| but not until the latter had torn the
| mountains asunder in his impotent
rage. Here again we have the monster
/ and the terrible winter.
| 1t is hardly worth while to speculate
| as to the nature of this monster. Ig-
| natius Donnelly's theory that it was a
| comet is ingenious, but seems open to
| insurmountable objections. With our
| present information we are hardly war
| ranted in going further than to suggest
| that the monster is simply a personifi-
| cation of some cataclysm. some awful
period of earthquake and tempest which
| fell upon mankind uncounted centuries
| ago. That such a catastrophe did be-
| fall the ancestors of the Indians of the
| Pacific Northwest seems to be the in
| evitable conclusion from these legends.
| This catastrophe involved the over
| throw of a prosperous and happy peo-
| pie and was followed by long period
| of cold which ended in partial
restoration of the primeval conditions
| of comfort.
| 1t is the story of Eden over again-an
| era of happiness terminated by the
| wrath of the Deity and the Punishment
| of the race to region where II was
| necessary to go in clad skins by rea-
son. we may well believe, not of shame.
| but of cold. 1t is the golden age of
| the Greek and Roman poets. 1t is the
| far-off time of universal happiness OF
| which the mythology of India and
| China speaks
| The Northwest myths are cruder than
/ those of Europe and Asia. Our Indians
| had no poet like the writer's OF Genesis
| and Job to hand their myths down In
| language whose simple beauty makes
| them among the gems OF literature
| they had no Hesiod or Homer to gather
| up the fragmentary tales of the past
/ and weave them into fabric that snail
| endure as long as literature itself; no
| Saemund to preserve for us weird
| series Of Alaskan Sagas; no Tennyson
| to colIate their folk lore and transform
| them into the idyls of the thunder bird
| Their myths are simply quarry
| dressed" so to speak. Their harsh
1 lines have not been fooled down. They
| are not so pretty in literary sense as
! those of the old world, but it is posi-
/ Bile that they may be much truer to
| nature and fact. There has certainly
| been no process of emasculation prac-
| ticed upon them. so as to make them
| conform to a more recent philosophy
| or be inoffensive to a modern school of
| religious thought.
| Queer Controversy.
| New York Evening Post.