Part 1 (1/2)

The Bridge of the Gods

by Frederic Hoed by the steady dee of the Gods,” since its publication twelve years ago, the publishers have decided to issue a new edition beautified with drawings from the pencil of Mr L Maynard Dixon This tale of the Indians of the far West has fairly earned its lasting popularity, not only by the intense interest of the story, but by its faithful delineations of Indian character

In his boyhood Mr Balch enjoyed exceptional opportunities to infor the character and manners of the Indians: he visited theends, saw their gaames, listened to their conversation; he questioned the Indians and the white pioneers, and he read many books for inforends By personal inquiry aested the title of his roreat natural bridge that in early days spanned the Colu to tradition, was destroyed by an earthquake

Before his death the author had the satisfaction of knowing that his as stamped with the approval of the press and the public; his satisfaction would have been more complete could he have foreseen that that approval would be so lasting

JULY 1, 1902

PREFACE

In atte a truthful and realistic picture of the powerful and picturesque Indian tribes that inhabited the Oregon country two centuries ago, the author could not be indifferent to the many serious difficulties inseparable from such an enterprise Of the literary success hich his work has been accoe; but he may without immodesty speak briefly of his preparation for his task, and of the foundation of soends which form the fra been a favorite study with hies he has attempted to describe them, not from an ideal standpoint, but as he knew them in his own boyhood on the Upper Columbia Many of the incidents related in the story have come under his personal observation; others have been told hileaned from old books of Northwestern travel The every-day life of the Indians, their food, their dress, theirtheir houses, of shaping their canoes, their gaends, their subjects of conversation, the sports and pastimes of their children,--all these have been studied at first hand, and with the advantages of familiar and friendly intercourse with these people in their own hoarding their ancestry, and the fragend that have coh every available source of inforon and California have been consulted, old trading-posts visited, and old pioneers and earlyhas been discarded as trivial or insignificant that could aid in the slightest degree in affording an insight into Indian character and custoreat Confederacy of the Wauna, it on” tells us of an alliance of several tribes on the Upper Columbia for mutual protection and defence; and students of Northwestern history will recall the great confederacy that the Yakiainst the whites in the war of 1856, when the Indian tribes were in revolt fronal-fires announcing war against the whites leaped froht, till the line of fire beginning at the wild Okanogan ended a thousandsuch a confederacy as this to be an historical fact, there seeend which tells us that in ancient tie united under the great war-chief Multnoainst their hereditary foes the Shoshones Even this would not be so extensive a confederacy as that which Kamyakin formed a hundred and fifty years later

It e over the Coluend describes The answer is e the e that once spanned the river where the cascades now are, but where at that time the placid current flowed under an arch of stone; that this bridge was _tomanowos_, built by the Gods; that the Great Spirit shook the earth, and the bridge crashed down into the river, for the present obstruction of the cascades

All of the Columbian tribes tell this story, in different versions and in different dialects, but all agreeing upon its essential features as one of the great facts of their past history

”_Ancutta_ (long time back),” say the Tumwater Indians, ”the sal leap Snake Indian he no catch ue at cascades he fall in, daher all way up to Tuet over Then Snake Indian all time catch um plenty”

”My father talk one time,” said an old Klickitat to a pioneer at White Salo liddle boy, him in canoe, his mother paddle, paddle up Colue

Squaw paddle canoe under; all dark under bridge He look up, all like one big roof, shut out sky, no see uood Liddle boy no forget how bridge look”

Local proof also is not wanting In the fall, when the freshets are over and the waters of the Colu out in a s down into the transparent depths can see subht as they stood before the bridge fell in and the river was raised above theht, this forest beneath the river; the waters wash over the broken tree-tops, fish swi the leafless branches: it is desolate, spectre-like, beyond all words Scientificthe credibility of the legend about the bridge are convinced that it is essentially true Believed in by many tribes, attested by the appearance of the locality, and confiration, it is surely entitled to be received as a historic fact

The shi+pwreck of an Oriental vessel on the Oregon coast, which furnishes one of the ether probable historic incident, as explainedof Indian names, in which authorities differ so widely, has been made as accurate as possible; and, as in the name ”Wallulah,”

the oldest and most Indian-like form has been chosen An exception has been made in the case of the modernized and corrupted ”Willainal Indian naless ”Willaeneral use that one is alularity should be noticed: Wauna, the naiven by all the Indians in the story to the Colueneral name for the Columbia, but each tribe had a special name, if any, for it So water,” ”_the_ river,” ”the big salmon water”

What Wauna, the Klickitat nanifies, the author has been unable to learn, even froave him the names They do not know; they say their fathers knew, but it is forgotten now

A rich and splendid treasure of legend and lore has passed aith the old pioneers and the Indians of the earlier generation All thatin this or any other book on the Indians, compared to what has been lost, is like ”a torn leaf from some old romance”

F H B

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, September, 1890

BOOK I