ON THE PACIFIC COAST



THE VOYAGER OF WHULGE

Like the ancient Greeks, the Siwash of the Northwest invest the unseen
world with spiritual intelligence. Every tree has a soul; the forests
were peopled with good and evil genii, the latter receiving oblation at
the devil-dances, for it was not worth while to appease those already
good; and the mountains are the home of tamanouses, or guardian spirits,
that sometimes fight together--as, when the spirits of Mount Tacoma
engaged with those of Mount Hood, fire and melted stone burst from their
peaks, their bellowing was heard afar, and some of the rocks flung by
Tacoma fell short, blocking the Columbia about the Dalles.

Across these fantastic reports of older time there come echoes of a later
instruction, adapted and blended into native legend so that the point of
division cannot be indicated. Such is that of the mysterious voyager of
the Whulge--the Siwash name for the sound that takes the name of Puget
from one of Vancouver's officers. Across this body of water the stranger
came in a copper canoe that borrowed the glories of the morning. When he
had landed and sent for all the red men, far and near, he addressed to
them a doctrine that provoked expressions of contempt--a doctrine of
love.