The Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition.Balch, Frederic Homer
General
The Bridge of the Gods: A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition.
Balch, Frederic Homer
Indians of North America -- Fiction; Oregon -- Fiction
Earnestly did he pray that morning, kneeling in his lodge beside his
couch of furs, that God would be with and help him. And as he prayed,
warm and glowing was the love and tenderness that filled his heart.
When the day was a little more advanced, he entered upon his work. The
camp was astir with life; nearly all had finished their morning meal,
and the various employments and diversions of the day were begun. Each
tribe or band had pitched its lodges apart, though not far from the
others. It was not so much an encampment as a group of many
encampments, and the whole made up a scattered town of huts and
wigwams.
A precarious and uncertain quiet had succeeded the agitation of the
day before. Multnomah's energy had awed the malcontents into temporary
submission, and the different bands were mingling freely with one
another; though here and there a chief or warrior looked on
contemptuously, standing moodily apart, wrapped in his blanket. Now
and then when a Willamette passed a group who were talking and
gesticulating animatedly they would become silent all at once till the
representative of the dreaded race was out of hearing, when a storm of
indignant gutterals would burst forth; but there were no other
indications of hostility.
Groups were strolling from place to place observing curiously the
habits and customs of other tribes; the common Willamette tongue,
precursor of the more modern Chinook jargon, furnishing a means of
intercourse. Everywhere Cecil found talk, barter, diversion. It was a
rude caricature of civilization, the picture of society in its
infancy, the rough dramatization of that phase through which every
race passes in its evolution from barbarism.
At one place, a hunter from the interior was bartering furs for
_hiagua_ shells to a native of the sea-coast. At another, a brave
skilled in wood-work had his stock of bows and arrows spread out
before him, and an admiring crowd were standing around looking on. But
the taciturn brave sat coolly polishing and staining his arrows as if
he were totally unconscious of spectators, until the magical word
"buy" was mentioned, when he at once awoke to life and drove a bargain
in bow and quiver _versus_ dried berries and "ickters" that would have
done credit to a Yankee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account