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Updated: June 21, 2025
Word came to us that the tribes were angry and had spoken bitter things against the Willamettes; yes, that they longed for the confederacy to be broken and the old days to come again when tribe was divided against tribe and the Shoshones and Spokanes trampled upon you all. But Multnomah trusted his allies; for had they not smoked the peace-pipe with him and gone with him on the war-trail?
One of the petty tribes of eastern Oregon had recently risen up against the Willamette supremacy; and after a short but bloody struggle, the insurrection had been put down and the rebels almost exterminated by the victorious Willamettes.
Again his glance swept the circle of chiefs as if summoning them to follow him, then, with weak and staggering footsteps, he left the grove; and it was as if the last hope of the Willamettes went with him. The dense atmosphere of smoke soon shut his form from view. Silence fell on the council. The hearts of the Indians were dead within them.
When the last late-entering chief had taken his place, Multnomah rose and began to speak, using the royal language; for like the Cayuses and several other tribes of the Northwest, the Willamettes had two languages, the common, for every-day use, and the royal, spoken only by the chiefs in council.
Even now the bands of our enemies may be descending the mountains, and the tomahawk may smite what the disease has spared. What is to be done? What say the wise chiefs of the Willamettes? Multnomah's seat is empty: shall we choose another war-chief?" A pale and ghastly chief rose to reply. It was evident that he was in the last extremity of disease.
The Pestilence sits in Multnomah's place, and you will all wither in his hot and poisonous breath. Break up your council. Go to your lodges. The sun of the Willamettes is set, and the night is upon us. Our wars are done; our glory is ended. We are but a tale that old men tell around the camp-fire, a handful of red dust gathered from mimaluse island, dust that once was man.
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.
Perhaps no custom of the northwestern Indians was more sombre than this, the covering of the culprit's eyes from the time of his sentence till his death. Never again were those eyes to behold the sun. Then, and not till then, did Multnomah turn his gaze on the malcontents, who stood, desperate but hesitating, hemmed in by the Willamettes and the Cayuses.
The Willamettes were polygamists, each brave having as many wives as he was able to buy; and Cecil was in a lodge where the brother of the head man of that lodge brought home his second wife. At the entrance of the second wife, all gay in Indian finery, the first did not manifest the sisterly spirit proper for the occasion.
The bright look died out of her face. "You say those words so often," she replied sorrowfully, "and I try to obey, but cannot. War is terrible to me." His countenance grew harsher, his hand ceased to stroke her hair. "And has Multnomah, chief of the Willamettes and war-chief of the Wauna, lived to hear his daughter say that war is terrible to her? Have you nothing of your father in you?
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