TACOMA AND THE INDIAN LEGEND OF HAMITCHOU 



bitterness of sorrow by trading in kamas and magic 

 herbs, and had thus acquired a genteel competence. 

 The excellent dame then exhibited with great com- 

 placency her gains, most of which she had put in the 

 portable and secure form of personal ornament, mak- 

 ing herself a resplendent magazine of valuable frippery. 



"Little cared the repentant sage for such things. 

 But he was rejoiced to be again at home and at peace, 

 and near his own early gains of hiaqua and treasure, 

 buried in a place of security. These, however, he 

 no longer over-esteemed and hoarded. He imparted 

 whatever he possessed, material treasures or stores of 

 wisdom and experience, freely to all the land. Every 

 dweller by Whulge came to him for advice how to 

 chase the elk, how to troll or spear the salmon, and 

 how to propitiate Tamanoiis. He became the Great 

 Medicine Man of the siwashes, a benefactor tp his 

 tribe and his race. 



"Within a year after he came down from his long 

 nap on the side of Tacoma, a child, my father, was 

 born to him. The sage lived many years, beloved and 

 revered, and on his deathbed, long before the Boston 

 tilicum or any blanketeers were seen in the regions of 

 Whulge, he told this history to my father, as a lesson 

 and a warning. My father, dying, told it to me. 

 But I, alas ! have no son ; I grow old, and lest this 

 wisdom perish from the earth, and Tamanoiis be again 

 obliged to interpose against avarice, I tell the tale to 

 thee, O Boston tyee. Mayest thou and thy nation 

 not disdain this lesson of an earlier age, but profit by it 

 and be wise." 



So far Hamitchou recounted his legend without the 

 palisades of Fort Nisqually, and motioning, in expres- 

 sive pantomine, at the close, that he was dry with big 

 talk, and would gladly wet his whistle. 



[Chapter VIII, beginning at page 155 of the original 

 publication, is entitled : "Sowee House Loolowcan."] 



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