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Day and night I kept the fire burning; day and night I danced the tomanowos dance around the flames, or leaped through them, singing the song that brings the Spee-ough, till at last the life went from my limbs and my head grew sick and everything was a whirl of fire. Then I knew that the power was on me, and I fell, and all grew black. "I dreamed a dream.
"It has come at last, as the wise men of old said it would. The end is at hand; the Willamettes pass like a shadow from the earth. The Great Spirit has forsaken us, our tomanowos has failed us. But my own heart fails me not, and my own arm is strong. Like a war-chief will I meet that which is to come.
There was a wild dignity in his mien; and he wore the robe of furs, though soiled and torn, that only the richest chiefs were able to wear. Such was Tohomish, or Pine Voice, chief of the Santiam tribe of the Willamettes, the most eloquent orator and potent medicine or tomanowos man in the confederacy.
But the name and nature of his tomanowos was the one secret that must go with him to the grave. If it was told, the charm was lost and the tomanowos deserted him. Tohomish's tomanowos was the Bridge and the foreknowledge of its fall: a black secret that had darkened his whole life, and imparted the strange and mournful mystery to his eloquence.
Multnomah knows that his own heart is strong and will not fail him, come what may; and that is all he cares to know. If you told me, the tomanowos would be angry, and drain your spirit from you and cast you aside as the serpent casts its skin.
Be it bird or beast, dream or mystic revelation, it was his totem or tomanowos, and gave him strength, cunning, or swiftness, sometimes knowledge of the future, imparting to him its own characteristics. But what it was, its name or nature, was the one secret that must go with him to his grave. Woe unto him if he told the name of his totem.
Dreams and omens I can tell, but the secret of the bridge is the secret of the Great Spirit; and I cannot tell it lest he become angry and take from me my power of moving men with burning words." "The secret of the Great Spirit! What black thing is it you are hiding and covering up with words? Bring it forth into the light, that I may see it." "No, it is my tomanowos.
That was their tomanowos." But whenever the white listener asked about this superstition of the bridge and the legend connected with it, the Indian would at once become uncommunicative, and say, "You can't understand," or more frequently, "I don't know."
One of them planted himself in the trail directly in front of Cecil, and did not offer to let him go on, but stood sullenly blocking the way. Cecil touched the warrior's arm and bade him stand aside. For an instant it seemed that he would refuse, but his superstitious respect for the white tomanowos overcame his obstinacy, and he stepped unwillingly back.
They referred to that strongest and most powerful of all the strange beliefs of the Oregon savages, the spirit possession or devil worship of the tomanowos. As soon as an Oregon Indian was old enough to aspire to a place among the braves, he was sent into the hills alone.
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