uoonet] SMOHALLA ON THE COSMOS 721 



dress the skins. Many more men and women grew up, and they lived on the banks 

 of the great river whose waters were lull of salmon. The mountains contained much 

 game and there were buffalo on the plains. There were so many people that the 

 stronger ones sometimes oppressed the weak and drove them from t he best iisheries, 

 which they claimed as their own. They fought and nearly all were killed, and their 

 hones are to he seen in the lulls yet. God was very angry at this and he took away 

 their wings and commanded that the lands and fisheries should be common to all 

 who lived upon them; that they were never to be marked off or divided, but that 

 the people should enjoy the fruits that God planted in the land, and the animals that 

 lived upon it, and the fishes in the water. God said he was the father and the earth 

 was the mother of mankind; that nature was the law; that the animals, and fish, 

 and plants obeyed nature, and that man only was sinful. This is the old law. 



I know all kinds of men. First there were my people (the Indians); God made 

 them first. Then he made a Frenchman [referring to the Canadian voyagers of the 

 Hudson Bay company], and then he made a priest [priests accompanied these expe- 

 ditions of the Hudson Bay company]. A long time after that came Boston men 

 [Americans are thus called iu the Chinook jargon, because the first of our nation 

 came into the Columbia river in 1706 in a ship from Boston], and then King George 

 men [the English]. Later came black men, and last God made a Chinaman with a 

 tail. He is of no account and has to work all the time like a woman. All these are 

 new people. Only the Indians are of the old stock. After awhile, when God is 

 ready, he will drive away all the people except those who have obeyed his laws. 



Those who cut up the lands or sign papers for lands will be defrauded of their 

 rights and will be punished by God's anger. Moses was bad. God did not love him. 

 He sold his people's houses and the graves of their dead. It is a bad word that 

 comes from Washington. It is not a good law that would take my people away from 

 me to make them sin against the laws of God. 



You ask me to plow the ground ! Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's bosom? 

 Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. 



You ask me to dig for stone! Shall I dig under her skin for her bones f Then 

 when I die I can not enter her body to be born again. 



You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men! 

 But how dare I cut off my mother's hair? 



It is a bad law. and my people can not obey it. I want my people to stay with me 

 here. All the dead men will come to life again. Their spirits will come to their 

 bodies again. We must wait here in the homes of our fathers and be ready to meet 

 them in the bosom of our mother. (MaoMurray MS.) 



The idea that the earth is the mother of all created things lies at the 

 base, not only of the Sinohalla religion, but of the theology of the 

 Indian tribes generally and of primitive races all over the •world. This 

 explains Tecumtha's reply to Harrison: "The sun is my father and the 

 earth is my mother. On her bosom I will rest." In the Indian mind 

 the corn, fruits, and edible roots are the gifts which the earth-mother 

 gives freely to her children. Lakes and ponds are her eyes, hills are 

 her breasts, and streams are the milk flowing from her breasts. Earth- 

 quakes and underground noises are signs of her displeasure at the 

 wrongdoing of her children. Especially are the malarial fevers, which 

 often follow extensive disturbance of the surface by excavation or 

 otherwise, held to be direct punishments for the crime of lacerating 

 her bosom. 



Smohallas chief supporter and assistant at the ceremonies was 

 Kotai'aqan, or Coteea'kun, as MacMurray spells it, of the Yakima tribe. 



