“I am now old. it was before I saw the sun that my ancestors discovered the Wah’-tee -tas, the little ancient people who wore robes woven from rabbit’s hair. They dwelt in the cliff. My people saw a little short fellow, like a person.
Alfred A. Monner (1953), warns of a dangerous whirlpool in the eastern Columbia River Gorge.
marking the rocks as you now see them. He walked from rock to rock, hunting the smooth places. You see some of the paintings high up upon the wall. We do not know how Wah-tee -tas got up there to do the work. We see it there; we know that it is true…Sometimes the people would see the Wah’-tee-tas once or twice a year, see them in the evening dim, or in the morning before the sun, while it was yet a little dark. The Wah’-tee-tas were spirits, but not bad.”
- Tokiaken Twi-wash (Yakama) told L.V. McWhorter this story in 1912