The Fire War
(Legend Telling How Indians Obtained Fire)
Long time ago Indian, hee's got trouble all the
time; hees got no fire to cook meat and make warm. Suppose you like
to hear how Indian got some fire?
This time, long time ago, animal just same way like man. He talk,
everybody understand. Fur and skin he put on and take off just like
coat. Same way everybody-animals, birds and fish. Well, this time
everybody talk all the time bout fire. He say: This way we make cook
and warm, he's no good. First we put stuff in basket and then all
dance around in ring long time. Everybody make very tired. Don't
feel good to eat. Now this time one day a Grizzly he make big talk
and say: "We got to catch some fire. Make everybody all over come to
this big meeting place and make big talk bout fire.
Then he send some fellows all over tell everybody to come to this
place, and everybody come-Stikiou (Wolf) Shweet-lai (Goat) S'beau
(Fox) and everybody little and big.
Now, this very big meeting. First they talk, best talker for bear,
for elk, for wolf, for everybody, and say: "This way we get cook
meat and keep warm now is no good." Then best talker like lawyer in
white man's court say: "We know where is fire up in the sky by fire
people. You can see all over little fire and big fire-chosad
(Stars). We got to make way to catch this fire. Maybe make war for
fire with fire people. Then all best talkers he say we got to shoot
arrows up there to catch fire. Then all best shooters from bear,
from wolf, from goat, from beaver, from everybody come up on high
place try shoot down fire. Hees try and try, but can't make good
shoot.
This time S'beau (Fox) he start to run around. (You know fox; hee's
all time run round and round all over). Well bye and bye he find
little fellow, Stilpakad (Wren) come drag long bow and arrow. S'beau
think this very funny. He stop and say: "Hello, you; what you little
fellow drag those long bow and arrow for?" Stilpakad says, "To
shoot." S'beau say, "Oh you too small for that long bow." Stilpakad
say, "You can run far away, I can shoot you." So S'beau he run maybe
one, maybe two mile away. Bye and bye long arrow come and shoot him
right through. S'beau bees surprise and run to big meeting place and
say: "You hear; I find best shooter of everybody," and he tells his
story. Everybody he think S'beau hees not talk straight. But he say,
you see this arrow hees shoot me through, I want help to hull out,
and you send policeman with me to see and bring this fellow in. So
plenty policeman go along and S'beua show the way. When they come
and talk to this fellow Stilpakad and tell him to come, he say: "I
can't do this big thing."
This time his grandmother, Kle-atlad, walked to the shooting place.
When Stilpakad get up on high place he say: "You want me, little
fellow, do too much big thing." His grandmother say: "You shoot, I
help you," and she climbed up by his leg and pointed her hand to
place to shoot. Stilpakad raise his bow and arrow four times and
then shoot. Kle-atlad she hit her hands together this way quick,
quick, quick long time, and arrow go up, up, up and Stick fast up by
firepeople. He hang up there. Well now hees got some place to shoot
for; then he make shoot many, many times, one arrow after the other.
This reach clear to ground; then Kle-atlad climb first, and make
sticky place to walk on, then Te-ke-te-katch (Woodpecker) climb up
and make little rough place for other fellow to climb on, then
everybody begin to climb. Sta-ku (the Beaver), he want to make good
work and get fire. He climb fast; bye and bye he come to top and see
fire. He jump off and make big run for fire. Fire people see him and
start to make fight. Beaver, he get hit hard. Fire people think hees
dead, but beaver bees not dead; bees smart fellow. Some fire people
begin to skin beaver. First bees skin one side then when he roll
over to skin other side, beaver make skin stick on again. When he is
pretty near skinned all over, fire people see Te-ke-te-katch and
other fellows come up, they run to make war and leave beaver. Then
beaver he jump up quick, make all his skin stick on, and catch some
fire in his hands, inside fingers, and make quick run for ladder.
Now this time some fellow got plenty trouble down by middle of
ladder, grizzly bear first and black bear behind. Black bear he look
up and see grizzly, and he say: "Gurr urugg, you look bad, you look
bad behind." Grizzly he say: "What is the matter with you; spose you
go before." When black bear get first, grizzly look up and say: "Grou,
Orrff, you look bad, you look bad behind." Now they make bad talk
and start bad trouble and fight and ladder make big brake, and
everybody and everything fall down; everybody come down all over,
fish in water, animals on land, bird in air. Well this fellow, Staku,
hees make big jump and come down in soft place and run to cottonwood
and put fire in dry root. This place Indian find fire.
The Great Medicine
Meeting
After years of training from boyhood up the Indian youth at the
age of 18 or 20 went out to seek his guiding spirit or tamanois. He
would go into the hills and fast for three or more days, when he
would be bodily clean and in the proper state of mind and body for
the tamanois to enter. The youth might wish for skill in hunting,
shrewdness and luck in gambling, protection against fire, death from
knife wounds etc., but the greatest was to be either big man in
councils or good tamanois doctor.
With some tribes the youth seeking his tamanois might dive in a
lake. Closing his eyes and staying under water a long time tamanois
would come and show him like a picture his fortune in life,
sometimes pointing out herds of elk, deer, bear and other animals if
his tamanois would make him a good
hunter.
With other tribes he would stay until his tamanois would come. If
this fortune was the gift of healing he would get a song that was
magic. It so happened about three generations ago. A young man on
the Chu-gualitch (the Skagit) became possessed with a powerful
spirit of healing. People all over found out about him and his good
tamanois. One day he sent out a call for a Speego-dilolh, a meeting
similar to the Sque-que or Potlatch, except that its main purpose
was to heal the sick, gain new recruits for the good tamanois and so
strengthen the faith of the weak.
Runners carried the summons up the Skagit, the Sauk and the Suiattle,
down the Skagit to he lowland around Sedro. With the returning
runners came the people in the canoes carrying food, mats and poles
for camps, even fire wood. For days they came until the riverbank
for a quarter mile was one unbroken row of canoes. Some brought Cha-hwadi,
the little magic stick, a wand about two feet long, used in the
medicine dance. It was sometimes used to beat time to the singing,
also during the dance held with both hands straight out in front.
During the singing these sticks would quiver and shake, leading its
bearer into the circle of dancers. If doubters and scoffers were
present they would be given a wand, and if upon feeling its magic
they believed, all was well; but if they still doubted, the wand
would pull its victim out of doors to a pond or river where there
was muddy bottom. Head first he would dive with the stick in his
hands, later to be found stuck in the mud and drowned. Sometimes the
doubter would jump right into a fire and be burned to death.
Another stick that was used in the Speego-dilolh was the Tusted, a
slender pole about 10 or 12 feet long, made of split fir or cedar.
On the top end slightly bigger was a tassle of finely shredded cedar
bark. If the doctor, or the man possessed of strong healing tamanois
had a good tamanois song, he could make these poles vibrate with it,
and its bearer would dance with vigor and the spirit-power would
drive all bad tamanois away and spread strength and healing to the
whole assembly. At this Speego-dilolh on the Chu-gwalitch the young
man who had called it together was possessed by a tamanois who knew
where could be found the magic saplings from which the Sko-deelitch
could be made. This was the hoop made of a sapling of vinemaple or
other pliable wood, about 4 or 5 feet long. This was bent into a
hoop, the ends crossed, leaving handles about 8 inches long to hold
it by. Around the hoop on the outside was a fringe of fine, fuzzy
cedar bark tied on with goat hair twine.
The young man selected six men to go in search of the young trees.
He did not know where they grew, but his tamanois aid, and they
would be known to the searchers by their unnatural twisting and
swaying motion when seen. The men hunted for hours and hours without
success. But there were two small boys also out hunting; one of them
heard a strange noise in the brush down a hillside. He warily
approached the noise and saw a clump of vine maples twisting
together like a rope, and swaying violently from side to side. He
yelled and called to the searchers to come, saying that he had found
the magic saplings. It took them some time to come. Meanwhile he
called the other little boy and they grabbed the little trees,
trying to hold them, but they were flung around by the trees and
nearly exhausted when the men arrived. The knives were brought out
and while two men held each little sapling, the third would try to
cut it down. All the knives were nearly used up before the three of
them were cut down. Next they cut off the tops. Then, two men to
each stick, they were carried down hill to the camp, the sticks
continually exerting their magic. Upon entering the canoe the men
discovered that they did not have to paddle or pole; they held up
the sticks and the canoe slid swiftly through the water, straight
for the encampment and went half a canoe length on shore before it
stopped. The sticks were made into hoops and performed wonders under
the direction of the tamanois of healing.
This was a great Speego-dilolh and is spoken of to this day by many
tribes. The young man lived long and was often sought in sickness
and trouble.
This was told by an old man who was one of the boys who found the
magic saplings.
The Street-Athls
All over Skagit and parts of Whatcom and Snohomish counties, the
Indians used at times to be greatly worried about a mysterious tribe
of wild Indians, who lived way up in the mountains back of Mt.
Baker. Nobody had ever seen their homes. They traveled all over the
country by night and lived by thievery. They knew everything about
the other tribes. Those who offered resistance to them they would
pester and harass at every opportunity. Many Indians were very
careful when traveling at night for fear of the Steet-athls.
Their tracks were sometimes seen in the snow. One way of finding out
if they frequented a certain locality was to set up a stick in a
fresh mound of dirt. If the stick was knocked down and no tracks
found in the dirt, the Steet-athls had surely been there. If the
sticks were undisturbed the place was safe.
The Steet-athls talked and signaled to each other like the lithe
birds, whistling and chirping. One Indian said to me that he had
heard them around and wishing to avoid trouble he called out: My
roothouse door is open, my smokehouse door is open, you can come and
help yourself. They helped themselves to a little and left. Since
then he has never been bothered.
The Chugualitch (proper name for Skagit, especially the county from
the junction of the Sauk and on down to Sedro ; Skagit is a place
near Coupville) were on bad terms with them, and many a time some
member of the tribe has suddenly disappeared never to return.
A party of hunters once saw a Steet-athl sitting on a rock in a
little mountain stream way up Ruby creek. When he saw the hunters he
jumped up and ran away up the mountain and disappeared in a hole.
The Steet-athls are now getting weak, soon they will all be dead and
gone.
Tsahlbilt
Tsahlbilt, the stronghouse keeper, was a respected
man-big, strong and wise. All the Indians between Kee-kee-alos (the
delta of the Skagit) Chigos (the highlands of Camano), Quadsak (the
lowlands around Stanwood), Splaidid (Warm Beach) and the Upper
Stoluckquamislr, knew him. He had good medicine to keep raiders
away. At the junction of a slough with the river, just east of the
present town of Stanwood, was built the stronghouse-big logs for
walls and long, thick slabs for roof. Around the house was a deep
trench with a lot of sharp pointed stakes in the bottom. Over this
trench was laid a network of sticks, on top of the sticks a layer of
turf-a fine trap for an attacking enemy, but easy of access for one
who knew the right place to step. In this house was kept blankets,
fine baskets, hiaqua, etc., and Tsahlbilt was its keeper. It
sometimes happened that Sklalams and King George Indians came in big
raiding parties to capture slaves and take what they could of
valuables. Highly priced were goat hair blankets. Once a party of
fine strange men attacked the stronghouse; three fell in the pit and
the two others had to retreat, and went wailing down the river in
their canoe. The keeper pulled the others out of the trench and
threw them into the river. They floated down stream and were never
seen again. In those days there was an abundance of fish, fowl and
game, and although there were great numbers of Indians it was seldom
that anyone went hungry. After Tsahlbilt retired from his job, he
built himself a home near a slough at the point of the hill near
Spliadid, where he lived to be a very old man. He always wore his
hair long; for clothes he used the skins of ducks, sewed together
with the down inside, sometimes as a long coat with short sleeves,
sometimes as hurt-legged trousers, using a blanket as coat.
For fish he set traps, generally a row of stakes across a slough or
stream with pockets out of which the fish could not escape. For
ducks he strung strong nets of cedar root twine across the slough
below a row of stakes. The ducks would dive and come up under these
nets and get caught in the meshes. Muskrats he shot with bow and
arrow. With an abundance of berries in the nearby hills, clams in
the beach and some edible roots Tsahlbilt lived well.
Then came the white man with his guns and scared the game away with
its big noise, also took the land. Tsahlbilt didn't charge, he was
thoroughly Indian.
Stillaguamish
Mythology
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reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place.
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ndian Stories and Legends of the Stillaguamish
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