said that Gray's
"History of Oregon" tells us of an alliance of several tribes on the
Upper Columbia for mutual protection and defence; and students of
Northwestern history will recall the great confederacy that the Yakima
war-chief Kamyakin formed against the whites in the war of 1856, when
the Indian tribes were in revolt from the British Possessions to the
California line. Signal-fires announcing war against the whites leaped
from hill to hill, flashing out in the night, till the line of fire
beginning at the wild Okanogan ended a thousand miles south, on the
foot-hills of Mount Shasta. Knowing such a confederacy as this to be
an historical fact, there seems nothing improbable in that part of the
legend which tells us that in ancient times the Indian tribes on
either side of the Cascade Range united under the great war-chief
Multnomah against their hereditary foes the Shoshones. Even this would
not be so extensive a confederacy as that which Kamyakin formed a
hundred and fifty years later.

It may be asked if there was ever a great natural bridge over the
Columbia,--a "Bridge of the Gods," such as the legend describes. The
answer is emphatically, "Yes." Everywhere along the mid-Columbia the
Indians tell of a great bridge that once spanned the river where the
cascades now are, but where at that time the placid current flowed
under an arch of stone; that this bridge was _tomanowos_, built by the
gods; that the Great Spirit shook the earth, and the bridge crashed
down into the river, forming the present obstruction of the cascades.
All of the Columbian tribes tell this story, in different versions and
in different dialects, but all agreeing upon its essential features as
one of the great facts of their past history.

"_Ancutta_ (long time back)," say the Tumwater Indians, "the salmon he
no pass Tumwater falls. It too much big leap. Snake Indian he no catch
um fish above falls. By and by great _tomanowos_ bridge at cascades he
fall in, dam up water, make river higher all way up to Tumwater; then
salmon he get over. Then Snake Indian all time catch um plenty."

"My father talk one time," said an old Klickitat to a pioneer at White
Salmon, Washington; "long time ago liddle boy, him in canoe, his
mother paddle, paddle up Columbia, then come to _tomanowos_ bridge.
Squaw paddle canoe under; all dark under bridge. He look up, all like
one big roof, shut out sky, no see um sun. Indian afraid, paddle
quick, get past soon, no