Condors are a part of the natural history of Oregon, dating before Lewis and Clark explored the Northwest. Condor bones at least 9,000 years old have been unearthed by archeologists in Oregon Indian middens and the condor is a common design motif in the traditional art of tribes such as the Wasco Indians, whose traditional homelands are along the Columbia River from The Dalles to Cascade Locks. Known as the Thunderbird in many stories, the California condor was a helper to the native people of the Pacific Northwest.

The Thunderbird is used in one form or another by most northwest tribes. It was believed, that it brought storms, rain, lighting, and thunder to the people. While each tribe interpreted it a little differently, it was used in art and decorations as a way to protect individuals and tribes from evil spirits.

The Thunderbird was usually a friend to humans, a benevolent spirit being seen as the source of wisdom. The Kwakiutl said the Thunderbird taught them how to build houses.

• The Wasco tribe along the Columbia River has always revered condors, believing them capable of protecting humans against natural disasters such as storms. They used to raise chicks in the villages to adulthood, and used their feathers in ceremony. They also have designs representing them on their basketry.
  
  
• Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie, tribes in northwestern Oregon and southwestern Washington also tell stories of the condor as the immense Thunderbird. In one story, a hero attaining power has a Thunderbird helper bring a whale, an animal never seen by his people before. He uses it for a potlatch and becomes a great chief.
  
  
• The Quileute tribe in Northwest Washington, relate stories of how the Thunderbird provided their tribe with a whale in a time of drought. The whale brought life to the village and the Thunderbird was hailed as a savior.
  
  
• Many bands in the northwest and other parts of the country believe Thunderbird makes lightning by opening and closing its eyes, and creates storms with its wings. Also, some northwest tribes believe the Thunderbird lives in caves near the Olympic Mountains and doesn't let humans near its home.
  
  
• The Chehalis and Chinook Indians have a story about the Thunderbird saying it originated out of a little whale. A man who had caught the whale cut it with a knife and it transformed into Thunderbird. The Thunderbird then flew up and covered the sun, making thunderous flaps with its wings and lightening flashes with its eyes. The Thunderbird also was said to live at the top of Saddleback Mountain, near the Columbia River where it laid a nest if eggs. A giantess followed Thunderbird, broke and ate the eggs and from these eggs mankind was produced.
  
  
• The same bands also believed that possessing any part of this bird would be advantageous, a feather or bone would bring good fortune. There is also a Thunderbird performance said to have originated with the Nittinat Indians and spread to bands in the Puget Sound and further north. The ceremony includes hooting like owls, howling like wolves, painting body parts and faces black, cutting arms and legs to make scars, pounding drums to represent thunder, flashing torches to represent lightning and whistling to represent wind.
  
  
• Other Northwest Indians like the Kwakiutl, saw Thunderbird as a great hunter of whales. It was said to hold two lightning snakes in its talons and throw them down on surfacing whales. The snakes would bite the whale and Thunderbird would pick it up and carry it back to its mountain home to eat. Thunderbird was the personification of ìchief.î
  The definition of Thunderbird according to the Nehalem and Tillamook Indians is that the Thunderbird is chief among the Tillamook super-naturals. It was believed to be dangerous but also a great source of power to those who survive an encounter with him and was hospitable in his own household.
  
  
• One Tillamook story tells of a fisherman who is caught up by Thunderbird who is more of a huge human-like figure than a bird. Thunderbird takes the man to his home where his equally giant wife lives. Thunderbird fed the man whale meat. Thunderbird and his wife enjoy the company of the human and eventually take the man back to his village.
  
  
• The Kathlamet Chinooksí describing their first encounter with non-Indians even had reference to Thunderbird. The first ship anchored in the Columbia, must have fired a cannon to awe or frighten them, which was seen as lightning flashing from the spirit birdies eyes, and the thunder from his beating wings, which spread smoke carrying the seeds of pestilence and death.
  
  
  

  
  Links to pages about the “Thunderbird” including information about myths and art.

  
  www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/thunderbird.html www.geophys.washington.edu/SEIS/PNSN/HIST_CAT/STORIES/story.html
  www.snowwowl.com/rlthunderbird.htm
  www.geocities.com/Thunderbird.htm

  References
  Bagley, Clarence B. Indian Myths of the Northwest. Lowman and Hanford Company, Seattle, Washington 1972.
  Manlin, Edward. Northwest Coast Indian Painting: House Fronts and Interior Screens. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon 1999.
  Nehalem Tillamook Tales. Told by Clara Pearson, recorded by Elizabeth Jacobs, and edited by Melville Jacobs.
  Ruby, Robert H. and Brown, John A. The Chinook Indians: Traders of the Lower Columbia River. University of Oklahoma Press, 1976.
  Stewart, Hilary. Looking at Indian Art of the Northwest Coast. Douglas and McIntyre, Vancouver, B.C., 1979.