In the early days, a white family settled on land along a river.
Near them was a small village of Umpqua Indians.
One day, one of the white men killed and brought home a most unusual animal - a snow-white deer.
When an old Indian neighbour saw it, he was very sad.
"The man who killed that animal has a bad heart," he told the white family.
"That deer is the angel of the Great White Spirit."
Then he told them this legend.
A long time ago, an awful illness spread throughout the Umpqua tribe.
Many of the people died.
For many days and nights the people sang the sad death song in their tepees.
At last the medicine men of the tribe decided to do something.
"We will leave our village," they told their people.
"We will go up to the top of the Big Mountains.
There we will be nearer the Great Spirit, and he will hear our prayers and our cries."
So the people took up their tepees and climbed to the top of the Big Mountains.
But the death illness followed them.
It looked as if the whole tribe would die out.
Then Teola, the chief's daughter, fell ill.
All of her people were very sad because they loved her very much.
One dark night they thought that Teola would die.
The men of the tribe were sitting around the fire in front of her tepee and singing the death song, when a strange thing happened.
A deer, white as snow, came out of the dark forest.
Unafraid, it walked across the meadow and then walked round the tepee three times.
Each time it looked in at the dying girl.
The third time, the white deer entered the tepee.
It came close to the girl, kissed her lips, and then walked off into the forest.
Teola got up and walked among her people.
"I am well! I am well!" she called to them.
"The angel of the Great Spirit has kissed away my illness!"
Since that time, my people have never killed a white deer.
