Siah | The Long Ago

The Cascade Range, where it crosses the Columbia River, exhibits enormous cross sections of lava, and at its base are petrified trunks of trees, which have been covered and hidden from view except where the wash of the mighty stream has exposed them. Indians have told me, of their knowledge, that, buried deep under the outpours of basalt, or volcanic tufa, are bones of animals of siah , or the long ago.

Where Gods live.

Where Gods live.

Traditions of the great landslide at the Cascades are many, but vary little in form. According to one account, the mountain tops fell together and formed a kind of arch, under which flowed, until the overhanging rocks finally fell into the stream and made a dam, or gorge. As the rock is columnar Basalt, very friable and easily disintegrated, that was not impossible, and the landscape suggests some such giant avalanche. The submerged trees are plainly visible near this locality. Animal remains I have not seen, but these Salmon-eating Indians have lived on the river’s borders through countless ages, and know every feature in their surroundings by constant association for generations, and naturally ally these facts with their religious theories. (MacMurray MS.)

An excerpt from ‘The Ghost Dance Religion and Wounded Knee’, by James Mooney, Chapter VII, Smohalla and his Doctrine

Thunderbird

Across many North American indigenous cultures, the thunderbird carries many of the same characteristics. It is described as a large bird, capable of creating storms and thundering while it flies. Clouds are pulled together by its wingbeats, the sound of thunder made by its wings clapping, sheet lightning the light flashing from its eyes when it blinks, and individual lightning bolts made by the glowing snakes that it carries around with it. In masks, it is depicted as multi-colored, with two curling horns, and, often, teeth within its beak.

This Thunderbird petroglyph rests at Horsetheif Lake in the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, in Washington.

This Thunderbird petroglyph rests at Horsetheif Lake in the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, in Washington.


Depending on the people telling the story, the thunderbird is either a singular entity or a species. In both cases, it is intelligent, powerful, and wrathful. All agree one should go out of one’s way to keep from getting thunderbirds angry.

Letters from the Ancestors

Written by: James D. Keyser, Indian rock art of the Columbia Plateau

Rock art is one of the most common types of archaeological site in Oregon, occurring from the Portland Basin to Hell’s Canyon and the high desert canyons along the Owyhee River to far southwestern Oregon’s Rogue River drainage.two spirit home Including both pictographs (paintings) and petroglyphs (carvings), the rock art at these sites was created as early as 7,000 years ago until as recently as the late 1800s. Although petroforms—a third type of rock art composed of outlines cut in desert pavement or boulders laid out in the form of animals or humans—are found elsewhere in North America, none has been discovered in Oregon.

Archaeologists have classified Oregon’s rock art into five traditions, that is, spatially broad-based artistic expressions that were created during a defined period of time. The traditions generally follow Oregon’s aboriginal ethnic/cultural boundaries. Thus, the Columbia Plateau Tradition reflects the art of Sahaptian-speaking tribes such as the Tenino, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Klamath-Modoc, while the Great Basin Tradition comprises the art of the Numic-speaking bands of the Northern Paiute. In the river valleys of western Oregon, the few sites that are known represent the Columbia Plateau Tradition and a little-known California rock art expression called the Far Western Pit and Groove Tradition, which is the product of Tututni and Kalapuya artists and probably members of other tribes as well.

Cover to book text is from.

Cover to book text is from.

Biographic rock art is the sole Oregon rock-art tradition that was made by several distinctly different ethnic groups. Occurring primarily in the canyon country of northeastern Oregon, the art was created by Cayuse, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Paiute artists to portray the acquisition of horses and guns and the war honors of important men. This art is known only from the 250-year period between about A.D. 1650 and 1900.

The subject matter of rock art in the Columbia Plateau Tradition is primarily humans, animals, and geometric designs, one of the most common of which is tally marks—a horizontally oriented series of three to more than thirty short, vertical, evenly spaced, finger-painted lines. Despite its limited subject matter, Columbia Plateau art functioned in several ways, including as a commemoration of the acquisition of spirit power during a vision quest and as a shaman’s ritual expression of power.

Yakima Polychrome designs and the closely related imagery of the Columbia River Conventionalized Style of the Northwest Coast Tradition served in healing and mortuary rituals and were used to witness mythic beings and places. Some images of animals and hunters in the Columbia Plateau Tradition were painted and carved as hunting magic. In the Klamath Basin, art in the Columbia Plateau Tradition has several stylistic expressions, but current research suggests that all of them were the exclusive purview of shamans.

Columbia River Gorge

Columbia River Gorge

Rock art in the Northwest Coast Tradition is limited in Oregon to a site at Willamette Falls, a few sites in The Dalles-Deschutes region, along the lower Deschutes and John Day Rivers, and in one rock shelter near the head of the North Umpqua River. Images are mainly of fantastic spirit beings, represented either by elaborate faces with grinning, teeth-filled mouths, concentric circle eyes, and exaggerated ears and headdresses or by owls, lizards, snakes, and water monsters. These spirit beings include some named beings such as Swallowing Monster, She Who Watches, Cannibal Woman, and Spedis Owl, but the names and identities of many others are lost in time. Ethnographic sources indicate that these images were made by shamans in their curing and mortuary rituals and to witness mythological happenings.

Far Western Pit and Groove Tradition rock art is found from the southern Willamette Valley near Eugene into the Umpqua and Rogue River drainages, where it occurs as cupules—shallow dimples—and simple geometric forms pecked and ground into streamside boulders. Known as Baby Rocks or Rain Rocks, ethnographic sources indicate that these simple petroglyphs were carved both by shamans accessing and using supernatural power to call the salmon and communicate with the gods and by women who wanted to bear a child.

Vantage, WA.

Vantage, WA.

Great Basin Tradition rock art has both the broadest statewide distribution and the greatest number of Oregon sites. Found across the southeastern third of the state and along the Snake River from Ontario, Oregon, to Clarkston, Washington, Great Basin imagery is dominated by abstract symbols such as circle chains, grids, zigzag lines, nucleated and concentric circles, curvilinear mazes, and dot patterns. Many sites also have cupules pecked into rock surfaces. Stick-figure humans and lizards, deer, and mountain sheep are the primary representational images, but these almost always occur as only a few figures at any one site, even those with hundreds to thousands of geometric designs.

Certainly much Great Basin rock art was made by shamans who were acquiring or using supernatural power, and much of the geometric imagery may have been generated in the artists’ minds by stimuli experienced during a trance. Other Great Basin imagery, however, is likely to have been made in conjunction with subsistence activities during the seasonal round of these high-desert hunter-gatherers and likely had a broader function as part of the rituals associated with subsistence.

‘Graffiti’ of the old ones

“I am now old. it was before I saw the sun that my ancestors discovered the Wah’-tee -tas, the little ancient people who wore robes woven from rabbit’s hair. They dwelt in the cliff. My people saw a little short fellow, like a person.

Alfred A. Monner (1953), warns of a dangerous whirlpool in the eastern Columbia River Gorge. Monner referred to the image as his "water devil."

Alfred A. Monner (1953), warns of a dangerous whirlpool in the eastern Columbia River Gorge.

marking the rocks as you now see them. He walked from rock to rock, hunting the smooth places. You see some of the paintings high up upon the wall. We do not know how Wah-tee -tas got up there to do the work. We see it there; we know that it is true…Sometimes the people would see the Wah’-tee-tas once or twice a year, see them in the evening dim, or in the morning before the sun, while it was yet a little dark. The Wah’-tee-tas were spirits, but not bad.”

- Tokiaken Twi-wash (Yakama) told L.V. McWhorter this story in 1912

The Legend of Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches)

A woman was chief of all who lived in this region. That was a long time before Coyote came up the river and changed things, and the people were not yet real people. After a time Coyote, in his travels came to this place and asked the inhabitants if they were living well or ill. They sent him to their chief who lived up in the rocks, where she could look down on the village and know what was going on.

Coyote climbed up to the house on the rocks and asked, “What kind of living do you give these people? Do you treat them well or are you one of those evil women?”

“I am teaching them to live well and build good houses,” she said.

Edward S. Curtis photo.

Edward S. Curtis photo.

When she expressed her desire to be able to do this forever, he said, “Soon the world will change and women will no longer be chiefs.”

Being the trickster that he was, Coyote changed her into a rock with the command, “You shall stay here and watch over the people and the river forever.”

Wah’ -tee -tas: Dwarfs of Cascadia

XVIII. Wah’-tee -tas

Wah’ -tee -tas was a word that Louis Mann used in 1916, when he was describing to L.V. McWhorter the: “’ancient people’, also interpreted ‘animal people’. They are described as dwarfs, not exceeding two feet in height. They were seen only during the evening twilight or in the early dawn of the morning. Death invariably followed on the heels of those who beheld the Wah’ -tee -tas, except as Talismanic, as in the case of children set forth in the (oral histories). Of course an adult can commune with his or her tahmahnawis (spirit power) with beneficial results. It is claimed that Chief We-yal-lup Wy-ya-cika obtained much of his power as a medicine man from friendly Wah’ -tee -tas. I do know that the Chief told me before he died that he could explain to me the meaning of all the Puh-tuh num, (meaning ‘pictured’ or ‘marked’) and that he would sometime do so. But unfortunately death claimed him before this was done. We-Yal-lup also had power from the great horned chief of the Wah’ k-puch, (poison-snake) which he saw in Teiton Canyon. Schop-tash and Puh-tuh num, of the preceding story, refer to the same pictographs, or rock-paintings, to be found on great cliff in the Naches Gap near Yakama. It will be noticed that there is a slight difference in interpretation, but there should be no confusion connected with the rendition of the two appellations”

Yakama Indian Tokiaken Twi-wash told L.V. McWhorter this story in 1912. “I am now old. it was before I saw the sun that my ancestors discovered the Wah’-tee -tas, the little ancient people who wore robes woven from rabbit’s hair. They dwelt in the cliff. My people saw a little short fellow, like a person. marking the rocks as you now see them. He walked from rock to rock, hunting the smooth places. You see some of the paintings high up upon the wall. We do not know how Wah-tee -tas got up there to do the work. We see it there; we know that it is true…
Sometimes the people would see the Wah’-tee-tas once or twice a year, see them in the evening dim, or in the morning before the sun, while it was yet a little dark. The Wah’-tee-tas were spirits, but not bad.”

Chief Sluskin and an Indian named Holite gave this account to McWhorter in September, 1917. “No one knows how old the Schop-tash are, nor what they mean… It was after the flood that Man came. It was then that the Schop-tash was painted. The Schop-tash was the law for the Yakamas. They came in the night and painted the hands. Then the other paintings were made, were finished completely. These were often repainted, made bright during the night. But after white man came, this ceased. No more painting was done. The people who made the Schop-tash were small, small but full grown. No one knew where they lived. They might be seen standing on top the cliff, seen after the sun had gone down, or before it was up in the morning. But anyone seeing them died soon afterwards. No one wanted to see them. It brought death.”

“The little Wah’-tee-tas watched over the paintings, the markings, and never let them grow dim. It is too bad that white man destroyed the Puh-tuh-num. It was the law of my people, painted there on the rocks by the Wah’-tee-tas, the Ancient People.”… “I, [L.V. McWhorter] asked an old Indian there who knows these pictures who made them. He answered that they were made by some other people before the Indians came.”

XIX. Te-chum’ mah

L.V. McWhorter wrote: “The Te-chum’ mah, or ground people, are diminutive, invisible dwarfs, inhabiting the more heavily-timbered peaks and summit ranges of the Cascade Mountains, especially around Lake Keechelas … Also, up in the timbered region of the Wenas waterhead, there is a small lake known to the Yakamas as Wat-tum wat-tum, “Lake-lake,” where the Te-chum’ mah also reside … They also known to reside around Fish Lake … Their abode is the cavity of an upturned tree .”

A Chehalis-Yakama Indian gave this account of the Te-chum’ mah to L.V. McWhorter:

“Sometimes I hear these little people as I travel in the night. They are small. You cannot see them if you look. One time I saw them in a dream, saw them just as if I were awake. But I was not awake. I was asleep. I saw them asleep. They look nice, about this high [ eighteen inches]. They look like big people, only they were small. I heard them talking. They are afraid of strangers. When they saw anybody coming, they said to each other, ‘Doctor [medicine man] coming!’ They ran and hid somewhere. When out in the woods at night, when anywhere in a lonely place, you hear them whistling like birds. You better not answer them, better not try to follow them. If you do, they make you crazy. you do not know where you are going. you run! you run! you run! You run until you die. You will not look where you go. You do not stop for anything. Maybe you fall from high rocks and die. Maybe you get lost and are never found. Do not pay attention to them. They cannot hurt you. They call like one kind of bird at night. They call like this, “W-w-wh-hah! W-w-wh-hah!”

“You have heard them. Once called close to me in the dark. I was scared! My head felt just like baked! I did not answer! I would not follow that call. I did not want to go crazy; I did not want to die. I kept going, kept traveling to get away from that place.”

XX. Pah-ho-ho-klah

The Tenino Indians (also called the Warm Springs Sahaptin), occupied a portion of the south bank of the Columbia River in North Central Oregon and the lower watershed of its southern affluents. They spoke of the Pah-ho-ho-Klah, the “ground people” or “people of the ground”, who are described in similar terms as the Te-chum-mah. This tale was told to L.V. McWhorter by Ah-nah-chu Pick-wah-pah (“Behind the Rock”), and intelligent young man of the warm springs tribe, gave McWhorter his experience with the Pah-ho-ho-klah: “calling”, “signaling” or “answering”. No date cited.

“Hunting in Oregon, I got lost in the fog and rain. I killed one deer. I did not get crazy! I did not run like wild. I thought to stay where I was when the fog came up, wait until all cleared away again. I do this when I find I’m lost. It is not good to travel when lost. You might get killed. Their are high rocks where you fall and die. I got under a big tree, a heavy topped tree. With plenty of dry wood, I built a fire out from the tree; I took a place between the fire and tree. I was close against tree, a safe place. I roasted meat from the deer and ate.”

“Not long after this I heard calling, calling like birds in the trees about my camp. It was getting dark! Other voices like birds answered farther away. I knew the birds were not there. It was the Pah-ho-ho-klah , the little people of the mountains. I was scared! I did not answer them! I sat still! I did not move, did not make any noise. If I answered the calls, I would go crazy, be lost five days and nights. It would rain and be foggy five days and nights. I sat against the tree in the firelight, holding my gun. I watched just like a soldier! I did not sleep all day. I kept the fire burning, watching everywhere. The sun traveled behind the clouds; no light was in the woods.”

“Night came, dark, plenty of fog, wet rain. I must sleep! I made a big fire to light up all around the camp. I lay down, my feet to the fire and my head close against the tree. I slept long. I did not know how good I slept; then I awoke. There! I looked good! I looked sharp! Only a short distance from me, in the light of the fire, I saw him! I saw Pah-ho-ho-klah! He was sitting down, had an arrow! Yes! He was biting that arrow, sighting it with his eye! He was making the arrow straight.”

“I looked at him fixing his arrow. I saw him good. He had on buckskin clothes, a shirt filled with holes, a summer-shirt. I can make that shirt. He had a band of cedar band this wide (two fingers), tied around his head. His hair was braided like mine, hung to the middle of his breast, maybe a little shorter. I saw above his left shoulder the feather-ends of about ten arrows and a bow, all in a case on his back. The Pah-ho-ho-klah was an Indian all right, the same color as me. He was straightening arrows with his teeth, biting out crooked places. I was not scared now. I lay still. I was lots sleepy. I went to sleep again.”

“The next morning it was getting light; I heard the same voices! They went farther, farther away! After calling five times out in the woods, then they quit. The Pah-ho-ho-klah Chief had called his people from that place. The rain had now quit; the fog was thin, waving like wind. The sun came up, shining warm. I went up on a hill, looked everywhere. I knew that country; I knew where I was. I carried the deer, traveled to camp about three hours. I was safe! I am telling you this tonight.”

XXI. Babies and Babyfeet

Baby Rock, in Lane county Oregon, “is on the southwest shoulder of Heckletooth Mountain, above the track of the Southern Pacific Company just southeast of Oakridge. It was named by the Indians. Mrs. Line a Flock gave the compiler an unusual legend about the name. Indians who slept near the rock were believed to have been bitten by some animals that left the footprints of a baby. The wounds were fatal. Finally two Indians determined to exterminate these peculiar animals, and hiding in the rocks above, they surprised the visitors, jumping down on them with blankets in such a way that they could not escape. The animals were twisted in blankets and burned up. Indian Charli Tufti would never go near this rock. (Tufti Mt. is just south of Baby Rock) Mrs. Flock’s grandfather, Fred Warner, was of the opinion that the peculiar animals were porcupines, which make tracks not unlike a small baby. Indians asserted that the baby tracks remained about the rock for many years, hence the name.” Babyfoot Creek, and the Babyfoot Lake botanical Area, in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, Curry County OR, appears to have the same sort of Indian legend behind it.

“Between Mount Adams and Mount Rainier are many small lakes, in a region where Indians used to go late in the summer for huckleberries and game. In these dark, deep lakes surrounded by tall trees, the Indians believed, lived spirits that had control of the rain…Some of the lakes in that region were said to have strange animals living in them…At night, when all was dark and quiet, the spirits would come out and gather food on the shores. In some of the lakes were the spirits of little children who had lived in the days of the ancient people. Their cries sometimes broke the silence of the nighttime. The next morning the prints of their little naked feet were found in the wet sand along the margin of the lake.

The east side of Mt. Adams (12,307) at the top has many caves where many eagles breed and live. Near the north side of the mountain is Fish Lake. Between the two is a section of large broken up rocks.

XXII. The Dwarf Mountain People

This is an Umatilla Indian story of the Dwarf Mountain People who live in the Blue Mountains, told to L.V. McWhorter by an unknown Indian at an unknown date: The Umatillas lived by the mouth of the Umatilla river, where it joins the Columbia, due east of the Teninos.

“Three brothers Cee-wal-tis-cou-cou, Tem-mot-Cio-soota-cots, and We-yow Yets-chit-con, were hunting in the Blue Mountains where there was snow. Cee-wal-tis-cou-cou, a tribal warrior and whose widow and daughter are still living (1927), was riding alone. he saw fresh deer track and proceeded to follow it. Then he noticed a moccasin track which appeared following the deer, not larger than that of a baby’s footprint. he could not understand but though, “Maybe he is also tracking the deer”.

“After a time, looking a short distance ahead, he saw an old man, an old man not larger than a papoose, dressed in a spotted fawn-skin, standing on a log. He had a bow and arrows in a fawn-skin case. Riding up close, Cee-wal-tis-cou-cou saw that the little fellow was very old, face wrinkled, eyes set deep in the head. he thought to take IT home with him. he spoke, but there was no answer. he then motioned for IT to get on the horse behind him. IT held out a very oldish-looking hand, and when grasped by Cee-wal-tis-cou-cou, leaped to the seat on the horse. Cee-wal-tis-cou-cou gathered IT close and secure in the folds of his blanket, held fast as does the mother riding with her baby so wrapped behind her.”

“Riding thus, Cee-wal-tis-cou-cou met his two brothers. They all counseled and thought to take IT home with them, to see what IT would do, what would come of IT, letting people see the little old man. They rode on and, although it was daylight and the sun was shining, soon they missed IT from the blanket held fast and close by Cee-wal-tis-cou-cou. None knew when IT disappeared, or how gone. Nothing was seen of the little old man. Nobody knew where these people live but suppose it is in caves in the rocks. They may have fire. No one knows.”

“If you are lost in the woods, and hear a calling, do not answer. It is the Little People , and they will take you wrong. It is dangerous to answer unknown callings when in the mountain forests.”

The Makah Indians of the Straight of Juan De Fuca tell a story about the cause of the northern lights.

“The northern lights come from the fires of a tribe of dwarf Indians who live many moons’ journey to the north. These dwarfs are no taller than half the length of a canoe paddle. They live on the ice, and they eat seals and whales. Although they are small, they are so strong and hardy that they can dive into cold water and catch whales with their hands. Then they boil out the blubber in fires built on the ice. The lights we sometimes see, are from the fires of those little people boiling whale blubber. The dwarfs are evil spirits, or skookums, and so we dare not speak their names”.

‘Thomas C. Pitka related his finding of many strange bare footprints of a child 7-9 years (old?) around the Green Point Upper Reservoir, SW of Hood River Or. The tracks were about 6” long, and he thought it odd that there were no other tracks about.’

‘Bud Darcor asked Ray Crowe if he wanted to “hear something strange?” It was way back in 1944 he said, and he was spending the weekend deer hunting with a younger brother near the Bly Mountain Lookout, OR., where he had a friend that worked, and had invited them up. As they were looking over the forest from the lookout tower, there appeared a bright ball that flew towards a nearby tableland. It looked like the bright ball landed on east end mountain about two miles away. The next day he and his brother hiked over to the site and were surprised to find next to a water hole, in a small clearing by the edge of a creek, a burnt patch. It was about 30 feet across, he said.

Still scratching their heads, they were hiking back to the L.O. when they had a weird feeling… then they saw “baby” footprints in the pumice dust of the road. The footprints crossed the road and went up the roadcut bank, and “sat down”. The butt print was about 6 inches across he said, and the prints were about 4 1/2 inches long. We put a board across the footprints to preserve them, and went to talk to the local Forest Service boss, and another government guy. The government guy suggested that a monkey had fallen out of an airplane, while the F.S. fellow said, “we didn’t see nothin’, and don’t know nothin’.”