TSAGAGLALAL: She Who Watches James D. KeyserWe know that Nixlu'idix and other year-round villages at The Dalles were trading centers which attracted people from throughout the Columbia Plateau--and even farther away. Traders came here in ocean-going canoes from southern Alaska, and northern California, and horsemen came from the Mandan Villages in North Dakota. Trade flourished and tons of salmon and other goods changed hands in the trade fairs that attracted thousands of people each year. But why the emphasis on death? These people's own histories and the accounts of early explorers provide some clues. During the 100 years before Lewis and Clark, the whiteman's diseases preceded them here. Measles, whooping cough, smallpox, turberculosis, diptheria, and other diseases raged across North America in advance of the 3 European settlers. Missouri River Village tribes suffered six major epidemics between A.D. 1725 and A.D. 1802. Similar plagues swept before the Spanish in California and the Russian colonists on the Alaskan coast. These epidemics killed hundreds of thousands of Indians who had no native immunity to the foreign diseases. Populations crowded into close contact in the unsanitary conditions of large communal villages such as those at The Dalles would have been especially susceptible. Long distance travelers would have brought infections from many different sources, and left them to flare in the populations of these towns. Such horrendous plagues, which started with no apparent reason and were almost impossible to survive, wiped out as much as 90% of the Wishram population originally living in the Long Narrows. It is said that the wailing of the mourners could be heard constantly throughout the area. Today, thousands of cremation burials along the lower Columbia River attest to the severity of these epidemics for all the tribes in this region. Among the Wishram, curing was the provenience of shamans. Disease was caused by evil spirits who invaded a person's body. Shamans cured by driving out the evil with stronger spirits. Put yourself in the place of a Wishram shaman and imagine for a moment how helpless you must have felt in the face of unknown diseases which responded to none of your traditional cures. We know that Tsagaglalal was one response to these dread diseases, for in 1957 an old Wishram vomen shaman told an interviewing archaeologist. "Tsagaglalal is for death. . .People grin like that when they're sick. . .when people look at you like that, you get sick.” Given these unexplainable ‘plagues, and nue is easy to understand why these people had a fascination with dying and developed a special death cult guardian spirit. On the cliffs above their ancient villages, Tsagaglalal still watches--mute testimony to the agony of a vanished cultureTSAGAGLALAL (She Who Watches) Carved at four sites on the lower Columbia River is a striking, petroglyph face with a mouth stretched wide in an exaggerated grin. One carving wears a woman's basket hat, another has earrings. ‘Two of these grinning faces overlook the cometories of Nixiuiix, an early historic Indian village in the Long Narrows just above The Dalles, Oregon. The largest of these faces was named Tsagaglalal - She Who Watches - by the Wishram indians who lived there. images carved in bone, stone, and antler have been recovered near The Dalles, as burial offerings. Found associated with trade items of copper and iron, these images are securely dated to the Historic Period between 1700 and 1840, just before and during the first entry of white men into the Pagific Northwest. We know that Nixluidix and other year-round villages at The Dalles were trading centers which attracted people from throughout the Columbia Plateau, and even farther away. Traders came here in ocean-going canoes from southem Alaska, and northern California, while horsemen came from the ‘Mandan Villages in North Dakota. Trade flourished and tons of salmon and other goods changed hands in the trade fairs that attracted thousands of people each year. ‘The strong association between Tsagaglalal, cremations, and cemeteries suggests that this figure represents a death cult guardian spirit - but why? Why here, and why at this time? Why the emphasis on death? These people's own histories and the accounts of early explorers provide some clues. During the 100 years before Lewis and Clark, the whiteman's diseases preceded them here. Measles, whooping cough, smallpox, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and other diseases raged across North America in advance of the European settlers. Missouri River Village tribes suffered six major epidemics between 1725 and 1802. Similar plagues swept before the Spanish in California and the Russian colonies on the Alaskan coast. ‘These epidemics killed hundreds of thousands of Indians who had no native immunity to the foreign diseases. Populations crowded into close contact in the unsanitary conditions of large communal villages such as those at The Dalles would have been especially susceptible. Long distance travelers would have brought infections from many different sources, and left them to flare in the populations of these towns. Such horrendous plagues, which started with no apparent reason and were almost impossible to survive, wiped out as much as 90% of the Wishram population originally living in the Long Narrows. It is said that the wailing of the moumers could be heard constantly throughout the area. Today, thousands of cremation burials along the lower Columbia River attest to the severity of these epidemics for all the tribes in this region, ‘Among the Wishram, curing was the provenience of shamans. Disease was caused by evil spirits who invaded a person's body. Shamans cured by driving out the evil with stronger spirits. Put yourself in the place of a Wishram shaman and imagine for a moment how helpless you must have felt in the face of unknown diseases which responded to none of your traditional cures. ‘We know that Tsagaglalal was one response to these dread diseases, for in 1957 an Old Wishram ‘woman shaman told an interviewing archaeologist: “Tsagaglalal is for death. . .People grin like that when they're sick. . .When people look at you like that, you got sick.” Given these unexplained plagues, and the terrible constant presence of death, itis easy to understand why these people had a fascination with dying ‘and developed a special death cult guardian spirit. On the ciffs above their ancient villages, Tsagaglalal still watches - mute testimony to the agony of a vanished cult