The Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition.Balch, Frederic Homer
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The Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition.
Balch, Frederic Homer
Indians of North America -- Fiction; Oregon -- Fiction
Below the falls, strong swimmers, leaping into the water, brought the
dead to land. Beneath a pine-tree that grew close by the great
Columbia trail and not far from the falls, the bodies were laid. The
daughter of Multnomah lay in rude state upon a fawn-skin; while at her
feet were extended the brawny forms of the two canoe-men who had died
with her, and who, according to Indian mythology, were to be her
slaves in the Land of the Hereafter. Her face was very lovely, but its
mournfulness remained. Her flute, broken in the shock that had killed
her, was still attached to her belt. The Indians had placed her hand
at her side, resting upon the flute; and they noticed in superstitious
wonder that the cold fingers seemed to half close around it, as if
they would clasp it lovingly, even in death. Indian women knelt beside
her, fanning her face with fragrant boughs of pine. Troop after
troop, returning over the trail to their homes, stopped to hear the
tale, and to gaze at the dead face that was so wonderfully beautiful
yet so sad.
All day long the bands gathered; each stopping, none passing
indifferently by. At length, when evening came and the shadow of the
wood fell long and cool, the burials began. A shallow grave was
scooped at Wallulah's feet for the bodies of the two canoe-men. Then
chiefs--for they only might bury Multnomah's daughter--entombed her in
a cairn; being Upper Columbia Indians, they buried her, after the
manner of their people, under a heap of stone. Rocks and bowlders were
built around and over her body, yet without touching it, until the sad
dead face was shut out from view. And still the stones were piled
above her; higher and higher rose the great rock-heap, till a mighty
cairn marked the last resting-place of Wallulah. And all the time the
women lifted the death-wail, and Snoqualmie stood looking on with
folded arms and sullen baffled brow. At length the work was done. The
wail ceased; the gathering broke up, and the sachems and their bands
rode away, Snoqualmie and his troop departing with them.
Only the roar of the cascades broke the silence, as night fell on the
wild forest and the lonely river. The pine-tree beside the trail
swayed its branches in the wind with a low soft murmur, as if lulling
the sorrow-worn sleeper beneath it into still deeper repose. And she
lay very still in the great cairn,--the sweet and beautiful
dead,--with the grim warriors stretched at her feet, stern guardians
of a slumber never to be broken.
CHAPTER IV.
MULTNOMAH'S DEATH-CANOE.
Gazing alone
To him are wild shadows shown.
Deep under deep unknown.
DANTE ROSSETTI.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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