Story

Myths

Long before the non-Indians came, deep in the remote river canyons, 300 feet below the fir and cedar forest canopy,...

... Cow Creek Umpquas gathered in their semi-subterranean plank and bark covered lodges to pass the long winter rainy season retelling long-told tales about mythological times.

Mythical Indian tales, like the tales of all human groups, explain how the universe came to be; how order arose from disorder; and the origin of the people themselves. Tales such as these served, and still serve, the purpose of establishing and reaffirming individual and group values and attitudes.

A famous Cow Creek Umpqua story is The Mountain with A Hole in the Top . It tells the tale of the extremely violent eruption of Mt. Mazama that formed Crater Lake, in the Cascade mountains on the eastern boundary of the Cow Creek Umpqua's traditional territory.

Crater Lake, shown on Map 4, lies in a huge caldera that formed after the eruption, when Mt. Mazama collapsed. The rim of the caldera is about 35 miles in circumference, the lake is over 1,900 feet deep and the surface of the lake lies at about 6,000 feet above sea level. Present (1997) Tribal Chairman Susan Crispen Shaffer attributes the story to her mother, Ellen Furlong Crispen. According to Chairman Shaffer:

"The stories of our people, usually had a moral and in this story the setting was during the time the animal-people and the man-people spoke together, but an evil person grew up among the man-people who wanted to be the Chief. He wanted to be greater than old man God, himself, who was Chief of the world (the Great Spirit). He caused much trouble and unrest and finally the animal-people were sent away, then the mountain blew high in the sky and filled with beautiful blue water. The spirits of the Evil ones were put in the bottom of the lake. The animal-people came back and then the man-people but they were never to speak with each other again [the complete version is included]. The moral is that greed and lust for power often brings destruction."

A.G. Walling, an historian notes:

"The Indians view Crater Lake and its surroundings as holy ground and approach it with reverence and awe. It is one of the earthly spots made sacred by the presence of the Great Spirit ... In the past, none but medicine men visited it. When one of the tribe felt called upon to become a teacher and healer, he spent several weeks on the shore of the lake in fasting, in communion with the dead, and in prayer to Tamanous. Here he saw visions and dreamed dreams, and when he came down from the mountain, like Moses from Sinai, he was looked up to with reverence as having communed with the Great Spirit and seen the unknown world."