722 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.akk.14 



The name refers to a brood of young ducks scattering in alarm. He 

 was the son of Kamai'akan, the great war chief of the Yakima. He 

 also gave 3IacMurray the story of the cosmos, which agrees with that 

 obtained from Smohalla, but is more in detail: 



The world was all water, and Saghalee Tyee was above it. He threw up out of 

 the water at shallow places large quantities of mud, and that made the land. Some 

 was piled so high that it froze hard, and the rains that fell were made into snow 

 and iee. Some of the earth was made hard into rocks, and anyone could see that 

 it had not changed — it was only harder. We have no records of the past; but we 

 have it from our fathers from far back that Saghalee Tyee threw down many of the 

 mountains he had made. It is all as our fathers told us, and we can see that it is 

 true when we are hunting for game or berries in the mountains. I did not see it 

 done. He made trees to grow, and he made a man out of a ball of mud and 

 instructed him in what he should do. When the man grew lonesome, he made a 

 woman as his companion, and taught her to dress skins, and to gather berries, and 

 to make baskets of the bark of roots, which he taught her how to find. 



She was asleep and dreaming of her ignorance of how to please man, and she 

 prayed to Saghalee Tyee to help her. He breathed on her and gave her something 

 that she could not see, or hear, or smell, or touch, and it was preserved in a little 

 basket, and by it all the arts of design and skilled handiwork were imparted to her 

 descendants. 



Notwithstanding all the benefits they enjoyed, there was quarreling among the 

 people, and the earth-mother was angry. The mountains that overhung the river at 

 the ( aseades were thrown down, and dammed the. stream and destroyed the forests 

 and whole tribes, and buried them under the rocks. ( MacMurray MS.) 



In connection with the wonderful little basket. MacMurray states 

 that Kotai'aqan presented him with a very ancient drum-shape basket, 

 about 2i inches in diameter, to give to his wife, in order that she might 

 likewise be inspired. Concerning the catastrophe indicated in the last 

 paragraph, he goes on to say: 



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 cov- 

 ered 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 these 

 outpours of basalt, or volcanic tufa, are bones of animals of siuh, or the long ago. 

 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 the water 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. Ani- 

 mal remains I have not seen, but these salmon-eating Indians have lived on the 

 river's border 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.) 



In an article on "Tin- submerged decs of the Columbia river," in 

 Science of February 18, 1887, the geologist. Major < larence E. I Mitton, 

 also notices the peculiar formation at the Cascades and mentions the 

 Indian tradition of a natural bridge over the river at this point. 



.MacMurray continues: 



Coteeakun went on to say that some day Saghalee Tyee would again overturn the 

 mountains and so expose these, bones, which, haying been preserved through so long 



