Mountain Myths

The Story Of Mt. Rainier's Eruption and Creation
By Sasha



At the beginning of the earth in the times of the first people, there lived a family of Goddesses, who dwelt in a palace in the sky. These were the Sisters, the most powerful beings ever to walk the earth. One day, the leader of the family, a goddess named Raina was sitting on her throne and looking out her window at the earth that she had created: Its crystal clear lakes, rivers, and oceans and its trees, pointing into the sky like toothpicks. Raina decided that the world that she had created was beautiful. It was lacking in just one thing: there was nothing that could come close to meeting the supreme power of the goddesses, and even though she was great friends with her sisters, she enjoyed diversity in her companions.
The next time that the moon completed its cycle, Raina brought up the idea to her sisters. "Sisters, we should by all means create these tall giants that I have a picture of formed so clearly in my head. "We could call them mountains, in memory of one of our late companions, whose name was Mountaina." Unfortunately, as hard to believe as it may seem, they resisted Raina's piercing words, her seemingly bottomless brown eyes and her eloquence, which twisted and morphed her sentences so that they seemed to be dripping out of her mouth in the form of gold, and instead said that they disliked the idea of something being tall and strong enough to reach their domain.
For the first time in millenia there was dissension and argument amongst the sisters. But Raina, always the most stubborn of all the goddesses had it in her power to create mountains, so create mountains she did. As was her want she created the tallest, most majestic mountains that had ever touched the earth and even though they were almost tall enough to reach her domain, they were always forced to bow down in the end.
With great power comes great responsibility, and this Raina did not posses. She teased her sisters about her power, provoking them and often taunting them with jokes about how even their strength could not surpass hers. Finally this became too much for the proud sisters to bear. They called a counsel meeting and gave Raina fair warning. Helena was second in command, and the most beautiful one by far. She had thick black hair and a perfect oval face. She was the leader of this gathering. After along period of suspenseful silence, she began.
"Sister Raina, we used to be a fellowship, bound together forever. "Now, however, you have humiliated us with words suggesting that your power is far more than ours..."
At this point, Helena was cut off by Raina. "Helena, I was not taunting, I was simply saying what is true.
Helena and the others had been watching Raina calmly. Then another of the fellowship spoke, this time it was Shasta, the most fiery and temperamental with brilliantly red hair, and piercing green eyes.
"But that is where you are wrong, dear sister. You are stronger than any one of us, but all together our powers surpass yours twenty fold." At that point, all of the fifteen sisters linked arms, and murmuring some ancient words, they turned their former leader into a mountain, not just any mountain but the ugliest mountain on earth. This may not have been such a sorrowful event for Raina, because mountains were her pride and joy. But she was not a beautiful mountain, like her former creations, and she was set right on the boundary of two great people the people of the Evergreen, and the people of the Beaver, (right between where Oregon and Washington are today, but today Washington-the tribe of the Evergreen- has gained a little more land, so Mt. Rainier is more in Washington). People from both tribes would walk up her sides, seeking food and shelter for their people, and since these were both very proud and powerful tribes, when they met, the the bloodshed would be great. This hurt Raina, for as unpleasant as she may have seemed she still had a tender heart.
When she saw this, she would cry, and her tears would flow in the form of rain, which is why today the mountain is called Rani-er, today. The sisters looked down on Raina, but had no pity for her, because she had wronged them. This angered Raina still more, and one day, she quite literally blew her top, sending pillars of smoke and lava into the sky, where they reached even the sky kingdom, catching her sisters and enveloping them in them in the insides of mountains, which succeeded in turning them into mountains as well. Together, these fifteen sisters made up all of the mountains of the Cascade Range.
Now Raina had to live with her fate, but her sisters had to as well and over time Mt. Rainier grew into a beautiful mountain, that is visited much today.
This is the story of Mt.Rainer's eruption and creation.