510 
feathers, which sprouted, and turned to men and women ; and 
the Maidus attribute it to a mighty rushing of the waters 
which came down the Sacramento Valley.* 
The Twanas on Puget’s Sound speak of it, and that only 
good Indians were saved, though there were quite a number 
of them. It occurred because of a great rain, and all the 
country was overflowed. ‘The Indians went in their canoes 
to the highest mountains near them, which is in the Olympic 
range; and, as the waters rose above the top of it, they tied 
their canoes to the tops of the trees on it, so that they should 
not float away. Their ropes were made of the limbs of the 
cedar-trees, Just as they sometimes make them at the present 
time. ‘The waters continued to rise, however, above the tops 
of the trees, until the whole length of their ropes was reached, 
and they supposed that they would be obliged to cut their 
ropes and drift away to some unknown place, when the waters 
began to recede. Some canoes, however, broke from their 
fastenigs, and drifted away to the west, where they say their 
descendants now live, a tribe who speak a language similar 
to that of the Twanas. This, they also say, accounts for the 
present small number of the tribe. In their language, this 
mountain is called by a name which means “ Fastener,” from 
the fact that they fastened their canoes to it at that time. 
They also speak of a pigeon which went out to view the dead, 
I have been told by one Indian that, while this highest moun- 
tain was submerged, another one, which was not far distant 
from it, and which was lower, was not wholly covered. 
The Clallams, whose country adjoins that of the Twanas, 
also have a tradition of a flood, but some of them believe 
that it is not very lone ago, perhaps not more than three 
or four generations’ since. One old man says that his 
grandfather saw the man who was saved from the flood, and 
that he was a Clallam. Their Ararat, too, is a different 
mountain from that of the T'wanas. 
The Lummi Indians, who live very near the northern line 
of Washington Territory, also speak of a flood, and Mount 
Baker is their Ararat. 
The Puyallup Indians, near Tacoma, say that the flood 
overflowed all the country except one high mound near Steila- 
coom, and this mound is called by the Indians “The Old 
Land,” because it was not overflowed. 
“De you see that high mountain over there?” said an old 
* Contributions to N. A. Ethnology, vol. iii. pp. 19, 70, 111, 290, 251, 
290. 
