36
U niversity
of
O regon M o nthly
nomah, the grand old "chief of the Willamettes. This man had
been chief for many years a n d tq his great leadership the Willam-
ettes owed all of their success in their battle.
Down at the mouth of the Willamette river, at the junction
between it and the Columbia, is a little island called Sauvies Island,
but in the days of the Indian supremacy it'Jbpre the name of Wap
atoo Island? Here was the meeting place, of the Willamettes. ’''^ri
der the shade of the great cottonwood, trees which grow upon it,
the Indians held their warcbuncils. It was here that the fate of a
tribe was decided and many a captive heard with grim determination
the* words that would soon sent} him into 'eternity. These men
knew how to die, and, even when the flames of the stake enveloped
them, they gave no sign of the terrible torture they suffered-
Wapatoo Island still exists. The great cottonwood trees are
there but the Indians are gone. Death has called them to their last
resting place. The hand’ of the white man has changed this island
into- farms,. Civilization has taken from it its former glpry.
This story is fold by the surviving Indians of today.. There
was a great natural bridge across the Columbia where th.e Cascade
locks now are. This bridge was the good luck omen of the Indians.
As long as the bridge of the Gods stood, the Willamettes would be
victorious in all their battles, but if the bridge should fall, their
fate would soon follow. As the story goes on, Mt. Plood was an
active volcano in those days. It was in a state of constant eruption
and the Indians called it the great mountain of fire. One day as
Mt. Hood was in eruption there followed a terrible earthquake and
the bridge of the Gods fell. The doom of the Willamettes had
come, AtreadyHhe great war chiefs of the tribes were singing their
death songs and disease5' and pestilence fell upon the tribes. Slowly
but surely they began to die and the‘doleful songs of de^li mu§ie
resounded throughout their camps. At last old Multnomah, their
greatest war chief, Tell ill and in a few days died.
■J ' blow the tribes of. the Puget Sound heard of the calamity of the
WilfametfesJ and. their war bands eagerly swooped down on this
dying’race? Stubbornly the Willamettes fought but in their weak
ened’state' they were no match for their foes who easily'overcame
them, " At last the supremacy*which they had held so long was lost
to them.
T ar up the Columbia River is Mhnaloose Island, the great