Quileute, Hoh, Makah, and Klallam material

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First Nations and Native American stories that could be about Cascadia megathrust earthquakes
compiled by Ruth Ludwin, University of Washington, Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences

From the Diary of James Swan JANUARY 1864, Tuesday 12th

Today took an inventory of Government property for Mr. Webster. Billy Balch came in this evening and gave me a very lucid explanation why the spirits of the dead did not molest me. He says that it is because we have a cellar in the house and a floor over it. But in Indian houses there is nothing but the bare ground or sand. That when any of the Indians are alone in a great house and make a fire and cook, that the mimilos or dead come up through the earth and eat the food and kill the Indian, but he thinks they can't came up through our floors although as he says he would be afraid to try to sleep alone here for there might be some knot hole or crack in the floor through which they could come.

Billy also related an interesting tradition. He says that "ankarty" but not "Irias ankarty" that is at not a very remote period the water flowed from Neah Bay through the Waatch prairie, and Cape Flattery was an Island. That the water receded and left Neah Bay dry for four days and became very warm. It then rose again without any swell or waves and submerged the whole of the cape and in fact the whole country except the mountains back of Clyoquot. As the water rose those who had canoes put their effects into them and floated off with the current which set strong to the north. Some drifted one way and some another and when the waters again resumed their accustomed level a portion of the tribe found themselves beyond Noothu where their descendants now reside and are known by the same name as the Makah or Quinaitchechat.

Many canoes came down in the trees and were destroyed and numerous lives were lost. The same thing happened at Quillehuyte and a portion of that tribe went off either in canoes or by land and found the Chimahcum tribe at Port Townsend.

There is no doubt in my mind of the truth of this tradition. The Waatch prairie shows conclusively that the waters of the ocean once flowed through it. And as this whole country shows marked evidence of volcanic influences there is every reason to believe that there was a gradual depressing and subsequent upheaval of the earth's crust which made the waters to rise and recede as the Indian stated.

The tradition respecting the Chimatcums and Quillehuyte I have often heard before from both these tribes.

From: Gunther, Erna, 1925, "Klallam Folk Tales", University of Washington Publications in Anthropology, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 113-170 Informants cited: Told by Joe Samson of Elwah, interpreted by Vera Ulmer

THE FLOOD

The people that walked all died. Those that had canoes and water and food lived. Some who were in a canoe tied themselves to a treetop when their canoe hit the tree and split. Many died. Some tied themselves to mountains and the highest ones were saved. The flood uprooted all the trees. That is why there are no really large ones left today. All the trees of today grew after the flood.

From: Ella E. Clark, 1953, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest, University of California Press, Berkeley CA. 225 pp.
p. 45

Sam Ulmer, a Klallam who lives near the Strait of Juan de Fuca, learned in childhood a similar story of canoes tied to a mountain during the great flood. The mountaintop broke off, he said, leaving the two points now visible at the ends of a saddle-like ridge in the Olympics. "The canoes floated away and came down, after the flood, to the place where Seattle is now. The people in the canoes became the ancestors of the Indians who used to live around there." From: Myron Eells, 1985, The Indians of Puget Sound; The Notebooks of Myron Eells, edited by George Pierre Castile, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 470 pp.
p. 266

The Clallams, whose country adjoins that of the Twanas, also have a tradition of the flood, but some of them believe that it is not very long 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.

Curtis, Edward S., 1913, The North American Indian, Volume 9., Johnson Reprint Corporation, NYC. pp. 149-150

The Quilliute possess a fragmentary deluge myth, the motive of which is that of the Kwakiutl myth. Taken with the fact that no such story is found in the lore of the Salish tribes, this seems to indicate that it came to the Quilliute from the Makah. According to the tale the people began to notice that when the sun neared the western horizon it passed behind something that extended as far as the eye could reach, like an opaque wall, and the sun was hidden. What this was they did not know. It proved to be a great wall of water coming in from the ocean, and it swept toward the land. The people got into canoes with their possessions, and bound the craft together as if they were making ready to tow them in a long line. The lead line they fastened to the top of a tall tree, just as the earth was being covered with the water. The flood constantly rose, but there was no current. A portion of the line of canoes broke loose from the others, and when the waters began to subside it settled back to the ground at ... (Chimakum). The others, still moored to the tree, came to the ground at the place from which they had started, that is, at the mouth of the Quillayute river. Thus it was that the people were separated into two tribes with one language.

From "Some Additional Myths of the Hoh and Quileute Indians", Albert B. Reagan, Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, Vol. XI, 1934, pp. 17-37. Informants were Hal George, Luke Hobucket, Harold Johnson, Klakishkee, Bucket Mason, Elon Mason, M.B. Penn, Mrs. Jimmie Howe, Frank Bennett, Klekabuck, Kikabuthlup, Dixon Payne, Weberhard Jones, Arthur Howeattle, Eli Ward, Jack Ward, Beatrice Pullen, Mark Williams, and Carl Black and his wife, Sally Black.

A STORY OF THE FLOOD

In the beginning Kwattee created the animals of the earth. Then by the union of some of these animals with a star which fell from heaven, came the first human beings. And from these sprang the various races of men.

Years came and went and all was good. Then Chief Thunderbird attempted to destroy all the good whales of the ocean. Kwattee then interfered, and a terrible drawn battle was fought between him and Thunderbird.

Enraged, that bird caused the waters of the great deep to rise. For four days the sea continued to rise. It rose till it covered the very tops of the mountains.

Again Kwattee joined his adversary in battle, and while the conflict was in progress, the waters receded. This engagement, too, was a drawn battle, and following it the waters again rose. The water of the Pacific flowed through what is now the swamp and prairie westward from Neah Bay on the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Pacific, making an island of Cape Flattery.

Again Kwattee and Thunderbird engaged in terrible conflict, and again the waters suddenly receded, leaving Neah Bay, the Strait of Fuca, and Puget Sound perfectly dry. For four days the water ebbed out, and numerous sea monsters and whales were left on dry land.

The battle was again indecisive. Then without any waves or breakers the waters again rose till they had submerged the whole country. Then Kwattee killed Chief Thunderbird. The waters were then four days receding. And since then there has been no great floods on the earth. Also each time that the waters rose, the people took to their canoes and floated off as the winds and currents wafted them, as there was neither sun nor land to guide them. Many canoes also came down in trees and were destroyed, and numerous lives were lost. And the survivors were scattered over the whole earth. One segregation of the Quileutes found themselves at Hoh, another at Chemakum (near the present Port Townsend), and a third succeeded in returning to their own home here on the Pacific.

A HOH VERSION OF THE THUNDERBIRD MYTH

This whale was a monster destroyer of the whales that furnished oil to the children of men. It slaughtered the oil producing whales till none could be obtained for meat and oil. What were the people to do? There was no oil to drink and dip their bread and dried berries in. What were they to do! Were they to starve!

Thunderbird saw their plight and soared from her nest in yonder dark hole in the mountains. She soared far out over the placid waters and there poised herself high up in the air and waited for the "killer" to come to the surface of the water as it chased its fleeing prey. It came and as quick as a flash, the powerful bird darted and seized it in her flinty talons. Then above the watery surface she lifted it and with great effort soared away toward the land areas.

Passing beyond the oceans with her ponderous load, she, tiring, was compelled to alight and rest her wings; and each and every time the bulky beast was allowed to reach solid land there was a terrible battle; for it was powerful and fought for its life with terrible energy. In addition, each time they fought in desperate encounter, they tore all the trees up by the roots and since that time no trees have grown upon these places to this day; they have been prairies ever since. Furthermore, the great thunderbird finally carried the weighty animal to its nest in the lofty mountains, and there was the final and terrible contest fought. Here in this death struggle, they uprooted all the trees for many miles around the nest and also pulled the rocks down the great Hoh valley. Since then there has been no timber on the up-country; and the heap of debris they pulled down that valley is known as the bench; (the last terminal moraine of the Olympic glacier). Thunderbird, however, finally triumphed. It killed the beast and tore its great and mighty body to pieces; and, then, finding that it was not good to eat, it hurled the pieces from its nest in all directions, where the respective pieces turned to stone under the curse of the enraged bird. You can see them there now. They are the projecting points and rocky ridges of that high region. Before that time that section was practically level. Now you know what a broken-up rocky place it is.

That is not all. Killer whale had a son, called Subbus. So after thunderbird had killed the parent whale, it set out to capture and destroy this beast also.

This young monster was much smaller than its father, smaller on account of its not being fully developed. Nevertheless, it was more agile and wary. Consequently it took days and days of hovering over the sea before the bird of the upper sky could drop down upon it and seize it in its talons. But the unfortunate day came to it also, as it had to the parent, "killer." It was chasing a school of sperm whales and was just in the act of making an onslaught on the largest fellow of the school when there was a rustling noise and then before it could dive to the lower depths of the watery ways, it felt itself being lifted into the air, as at the same time it felt the excruciating pain caused by the huge claws of the bird being sunk deep into its body. It fought, but it was no match for its adversary.

High into the air the bird carried it over the land, finally dropping it to the land surface at Beaver prairie. Then at this place there was another great battle. Subbus was at length killed and his body torn to pieces; Moreover, its huge body damned the original channel of the Soleduck river and caused it to make the big bend to the southwestward at that place. And the huge pieces of blubber, now stone, cover the ground in the direction of its longitudinal extension. (This is a lateral moraine of the Selkirk-Mt. Baker glacier that crosses the region here--Reagan.) You can see the line of rock (boulder train) there at any time.

My father (father of the medicine man who related this story to the writer) also told me that following the killing of this destroyer of the food-animals of mankind, there was a great storm and hail and flashes of lightning in the darkened, blackened sky and a great and crashing "thunder-noise" everywhere. He further stated that there were also a shaking, jumping up and trembling of the earth beneath, and a rolling up of the great waters.

From: Reagan, Albert, and L.V.W. Walters, 1933, "Tales from the Hoh and Quileute", Journal of American Folklore, V. XLVI, pp. 297-346. THUNDERBIRD
(Neah bay Indians believe that the lightning is caused by two monstrous feathered snakes which dart out from under Thunderbird's breast when he flies forth in anger.)

When it is stormy weather the thunderbird flies through the skies. He is of monstrous size. When he opens and shut his eyes, he makes the lightning. The flapping of his wings makes the thunder and the great winds. Thunderbird keeps his meat in a dark hole under the glacier at the foot of the Olympic glacial field. This is his home. When he moves about in there, he makes the noise there under the ice.

HUNTERS FIND THE THUNDERBIRD
(Told by Frank Bennett. A Hoh myth A. B. R.)

Some men were hunting on the Hoh mountains. They found a hole in the side of the mountain. They said, "This is thunderbird's home. This is a supernatural place." Whenever they walked close to the hole they approached his place. He did not want any person to come near his house. He caused ice to come out of the door of his house. Whenever people came near there, he rolled ice down the mountain side while he made the thunder noise. The ice would roll until it came to the level place where the rocks are. There it broke into a million pieces, and rattled as it rolled farther down the valley. Everyone was afraid of Thunderbird and of the thunder noise. No one would sleep near that place over night.

THUNDERBIRD CAPTURES A WHALE
(Told By Luke Hobucket.)

Thunderbird lives in the sky. He makes the lightning by his rapid flight through the air. He makes the big noise by the flapping of his wings. He eats whale for food. One time Thunderbird got a big whale in his talons and carried him to Beaver Prairie and ate him there. The whale fought very hard before he was killed. Thunderbird and Whale fought so hard that they pulled up the trees there by their roots. And no trees have ever grown in that place to this day.

THUNDERBIRD FIGHTS MIMLOS-WHALE
(Told by Luke Hobucket. Mr. Hobucket said that Thunderbird represented good and that Mimlos-whale represented evil.)

Many times they fought thus. Each time thunderbird caught Mimlos-whale there was a terrible battle, and all the trees in that place were uprooted. At last Mimlos-whale escaped to the deep ocean, and Thunderbird gave up the fight. That is why the killer whale still lives in the ocean today. In those places where Thunderbird and Mimlos-whale fought, to this day, no trees grow. Those places are the prairies on the Olympic Peninsula today.

THUNDERBIRD TURNS PEOPLE TO STONE (Told by Luke Hobucket)

The man sent word to all the Quileute people living at the mouth of the river. "Come up! We will cut up Whale. He is so large that thunderbird cannot carry him further." All the beach and river Indians came at once to the prairie. There were from three to six people in each whaling canoe. They came to cut up the whale. When they reached that place, Whale was lying there dead in the lower part of the prairie. It was just as that man had said. The people began to measure off the parts each wanted. One family took the saddle. Another family took the head. In this fashion they divided the whole whale. By evening they had it all cut in pieces. All over the ground, pieces of blubber were piled. It was evening. The people were hungry. They cooked some of the whale meat and ate it. It tasted all right. It was good to eat.

It got dark and the clouds overhead became very black. Thunderbird was coming back. He was very angry because the people had stolen his food. Lightning flashed from his eyes. It began to rain a little, not so much at first. Then the rain changed to hail. The hail was larger than a man's fist. It killed and mangled all the people there on the prairie Thunderbird was very angry with those people, because they had taken the whale. After the storm all those people were turned into stone. All the meat and blubber that they had piled there was turned into stone. Thus a ridge was made of great rock blocks from one end of the prairie to the other. The ridge is still there today. Even Whale's ribs and his great head may still be seen.

THUNDERBIRD CAUSES A FLOOD

Thunderbird was very angry one time. He caused the ocean to rise. When the water began to cover things, the Quieute got into their boats. The waters rose for four days. They rose until the very tops of the mountains were covered with water. The Quileute in their boats sailed wherever the wind currents carried them. Thay had no way to direct themselves. There was no sun. There was no land. For four days the water receded. But now the people were much scattered. When they reached land, some of the people were at Hoh; so they lived there from that time on. Others landed at Chemakum and stayed there. Only a few succeeded in finding their way back to Quileute. From: E.Y. Arima, Louis Clamhouse, Joshua Edgar, Charles Jones, and John Thomas, Barkley Sound Southeast, 1989, Between Ports Alberni and Renfrew: Notes on West Coast Peoples, Canadian Museum of Civilization, pp. 207, 230, 231, 264, & 265

Preface: These West Coast notes were gathered from 1964 on as "salvage" or "urgent" ethnology, under the auspices of the Canadian Museum of Civilization during the 1960's and subsequently of National Historic Parks and Sites, from Bamfield, Nitinat, Clo-oose and Port Renfrew. They were assembled in 1975-1976, omitting the Bamfield traditions by Chief Louie, into an earlier ms., "Notes on the Southern West Coast native world: peoples, place names, environment, and selected economic pursuits", in which form they already were useful to West Coast studies (e.g., Turner et al. 1983). In the 1980's the work was expanded for Parks, Environment Canada, as "West Coast native peoples of the Pacific Rim National Park region" to help encourage inclusion of ethnological and historical aspects in a Parks study of Pacific Rim's native dimension, an archaeological survey conducted by James Haggarty assisted notably by Richard Inglis and Denis St. Claire. The prime native contributors are duly recognized as co-authors: Louis Clamhouse who provides the Ho:؛i:^دath traditions; Joshua Edgar (Ch�ili^د, f. Ch�ila:qetid) for Ditidaht historical and geographical data; Charles Jones (Kwi:la:tso:t), source for the Pacheedaht and more; John Thomas (Cha:xwi:yittx), for Ditidaht and Makah, also transcriber-translator.� Native names given are just their recent ones; all are leading hereditary chiefs.

The Tsunami At

؛Anaqtl�a or "Pachena Bay"

This story is about the first Anaqt or "Pachena Bay" people. style="mso-spacerun: yes">� It is said that they were a big band at the time of him whose name was Hayoqwis^دis, �Ten-On-Head-On-Beach.�� He was the Chief; he was of the Pachena Bay tribe; he owned the Pachena Bay country.� Their village site was Loht�a; they of Loht�a lived there.� I think they numbered over a hundred persons.� They were members of the Pachena Bay tribe.�

Now it was he who did so, it is said, he who was the First Chief of the Ki:x^دin^دath.� He performed a ceremonial woman purchase according to the native marriage prcedure.� He went to he whose name was Hayoqwis^دis.� They got in marriage the elder daughter.

The Ohiaht chief had four sons.� The woman buying party set out Ki:x^دin.� They were made to go through several topa:ti tests.� One was broad jumping.� If they jumped four fathoms they would get the girl.� They were doing so on the rocky shore of� Loht�a.� They were jumping uphill.� They were a big tribe.� Those ways were big.

The woman buying party was successful.� They got the girl for one of their number jumped the required four fathoms.� He, the younger brother, jumped the four fathoms, but in doing so he landed on his face against the cliff, broke his head, and died.� The jumping game topa:ti belonged to him who was Chief, Ten-On-Head-On-Beach.� His country extended to Tlosa:yo:^دat and reached the point of Loht�a:.� There is now no one left alive due to what this land does at times.� They had practically no way or time to try to save themselves.� I think it was at nighttime that the land shook.� It was a sandy beach, it is said, Ma:lts�a:s extending to Cha:hsow�a.� Its name was Ts�a:ts�axwach�a^دaqolh, �Place-On-Rocky-Shore-For-Spearing�.� It is now called Ka:nop�al, �Carrying-Person-On-back�.� It was floating, it is said, consisting only of sand, a house right up against the hill out of the woods, its name Satsnit, �Place-Of-Many-Tyee-Salmon�.� It was a place of many tyee salmon when they came to land from the sea.� They were at Loht�a:, and they simply had no time to get hold of canoes, no time to get awake.� They sank at once, were all drowned; not one survived.� Only his elder daughter went to Ki:x^دin as a bride from whom my former grandfather was decended.�

This is it now, the Ohiahts of today.� Their Chiefs are big.� This is their very own history, thus the land became theirs.� Now when the Ohiahts were all gone into hiding, Chief N�a:si:smis, �Carrying-Day-Along-Beach�, of Kildonan [Ho:choqtlis^دath], it is said, went on war raids and killed off the band of Ts�axq�o:^دis, killed off the band of�� Tl�a:ni:wa^دa, and conquered as far as Tsosayi:^دat.� Because of that it is said that my grandfather�s domain reached Tsosayi:^دat.� This was brought about by the Pachena Bay Chief, brought as dowry for his elder daughter to my grandfather�s ancestor before the big earthquake, before the big flood.� By that my grandfather�s land reached Tsosayi:^دat, along with all chiefly rights, songs, topa:tis.� Many are now today descended from that.� Only my grandfather survived who now has many descendants.� It is them now who are descendants from the first Pachena Bay people.� It is said no one ever knew what happened.� I think a big wave smashed into the beach.� The Pachena bay people were lost.� Their food was whale meat.� That is why they were living there.� Nothing was known about what happened and what became of them.� But they on their part who lived at�� Ma:lts�a:s, �House-Up-Against-Hill�, the wave did not reach because they were on high ground.� Right against a cliff were the houses on high ground� at M�a:lsit, �Coldwater Pool�.� Because of that they came out alive.� They did not drift out to sea along with the others.�

Everything then drifted away; everything was lost and gone.� To the Chiefs of old this land was very great in their sight because they ate the drift whale that drifted on the shores of their land, also drift sea lion and everything that drifted onto their land.�� ^��