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Updated: June 21, 2025
It seemed for a moment as if his soft, persuasive accents would win the day, but it was only for a moment; the spell was broken the instant he ceased. Then Snoqualmie spoke. One by one, the great sachems of the Willamettes gave their voices for death. Many of the friendly allies did not give their decision at all, but said to Multnomah, "You speak for us; your word shall be our word."
His head was almost flat, running back from his eyebrows so obliquely that when he stood erect he seemed to have no forehead at all; while the back and lower part of his head showed an enormous development, a development that was all animal. He knew nothing but battle, and was one of the most dreaded warriors of the Willamettes.
Many of our warriors are dead, many are sick, and Multnomah is gone. The Willamettes are weak; it is bitter to the lips to say it, but it is true. Our enemies are strong. All the tribes who were once with us are against us. The passes are kept by many warriors; and could we fight our way through them to another land, the sickness would go with us.
You all talk words, words, words; and the tribes laugh and say, 'The Willamettes have become women and sit in the lodge sewing moccasins and are afraid to fight. Send out the runners. Call the council. Let us find who are our enemies; then let us strike!" The hands of the chief closed involuntarily as if they clutched a weapon, and his voice rang harsh and grating.
"It is the dead people come for him," the Willamettes whispered to one another, as they stood upon the bank, watching the canoe drift farther and farther from them, with the wild play of light and shadow over it. Down the river, like some giant torch that was to light the war-chief along the shadowy ways of death, passed the burning canoe.
It was evident, however, that a spirit of angry discontent was rife among them. The sachems of the Willamettes, advised of everything, were met in council in the soft Oregon spring-tide. They were gathered under the cottonwood trees, not far from the bank of the Columbia.
Mongrel bands from the interior and the coast settled in the valley after the lapse of years; and, mixing with the surviving Willamettes, produced the degenerate race our own pioneers found there at their coming.
His form grew erect; his eyes gleamed with the terrible wrath which the tribes dreaded as they dreaded the wrath of the Great Spirit. "Do you mock Multnomah? Am I not war-chief of the Willamettes? Though you dwell in shadow and your bodies are dust, you are Willamettes, and I am still your chief. Give up your secret!
The inland or prairie tribes of eastern Oregon, coming as they did in contact with tribes whose neighbors bordered on Mexico, had owned horses for perhaps a generation; but the sea-board tribes owned very few, and there were tribes on Puget Sound and at the mouth of the Columbia who had never seen them. Even the Willamettes, sovereign tribe of the confederacy though they were, had but few horses.
The Willamettes hunted on our hunting-grounds and dug the camas on our prairies, so that there was not enough for us; and when winter came, our children cried for food. Then the runners of the Willamettes came to us through the snow, saying, 'Come and join the war-party that goes to fight the Bannocks.
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