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diff --git a/28483.txt b/28483.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a197457 --- /dev/null +++ b/28483.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3622 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Legends of Vancouver, by E. Pauline Johnson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Legends of Vancouver + +Author: E. Pauline Johnson + +Release Date: April 2, 2009 [EBook #28483] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Cover art] + + + + + +[Frontispiece: E. Pauline Johnson] + + + + + +Legends of + +Vancouver + + +By + +E. PAULINE JOHNSON + +(Tekahionwake) + + + +_Eighth Edition_ + +ILLUSTRATED + + + + +Published by + +Saturday Sunset Presses + +Vancouver, B. C. + +1913 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY E. PAULINE JOHNSON + + + + +These legends are printed by courtesy of the "Vancouver Daily +Province," in which journal they first appeared. + + + +Printed by + +SATURDAY SUNSET PRESSES + +Vancouver, B. C. + + + + +Preface + +I have been asked to write a preface to these Legends of Vancouver, +which, in conjunction with the members of the Publication +Sub-committee--Mrs. Lefevre, Mr. L. W. Makovski and Mr. R. W. +Douglas--I have helped to put through the press. But scarcely any +prefatory remarks are necessary. This book may well stand on its own +merits. Still, it may be permissible to record one's glad satisfaction +that a poet has arisen to cast over the shoulders of our grey +mountains, our trail-threaded forests, our tide-swept waters, and the +streets and skyscrapers of our hurrying city, a gracious mantle of +romance. Pauline Johnson has linked the vivid present with the +immemorial past. Vancouver takes on a new aspect as we view it through +her eyes. In the imaginative power that she has brought to these +semi-historical sagas, and in the liquid flow of her rhythmical prose, +she has shown herself to be a literary worker of whom we may well be +proud: she has made a most estimable contribution to purely Canadian +literature. + +BERNARD McEVOY + + + + +Author's Foreword + +These legends (with two or three exceptions) were told to me personally +by my honored friend, the late Chief Joe Capilano, of Vancouver, whom I +had the privilege of first meeting in London in 1906, when he visited +England and was received at Buckingham Palace by their Majesties King +Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. + +To the fact that I was able to greet Chief Capilano in the Chinook +tongue, while we were both many thousands of miles from home, I owe the +friendship and the confidence which he so freely gave me when I came to +reside on the Pacific Coast. These legends he told me from time to +time, just as the mood possessed him, and he frequently remarked that +they had never been revealed to any other English-speaking person save +myself. + +E. PAULINE JOHNSON (Tekahionwake) + + + + +Biographical Notice + +E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) is the youngest child of a family of +four born to the late G. H. M. Johnson (Onwanonsyshon), Head Chief of +the Six Nations Indians, and his wife Emily S. Howells. The latter was +of English parentage, her birthplace being Bristol, but the land of her +adoption Canada. + +Chief Johnson was of the renowned Mohawk tribe, being a scion of one of +the fifty noble families which composed the historical confederation +founded by Hiawatha upwards of four hundred years ago, and known at +that period as the Brotherhood of the Five Nations, but which was +afterwards named the Iroquois by the early French missionaries and +explorers. For their loyalty to the British Crown they were granted +the magnificent lands bordering the Grand River, in the County of +Brant, Ontario, on which the tribes still live. + +It was upon this Reserve, on her father's estate, "Chiefswood," that +Pauline Johnson was born. The loyalty of her ancestors breathes in her +prose, as well as in her poetic writings. + +Her education was neither extensive nor elaborate. It embraced neither +high school nor college. A nursery governess for two years at home, +three years at an Indian day school half a mile from her home, and two +years in the Central School of the city of Brantford, was the extent of +her educational training. But, besides this, she acquired a wide +general knowledge, having been through childhood and early girlhood a +great reader, especially of poetry. Before she was twelve years old +she had read Scott, Longfellow, Byron, Shakespeare, and such books as +Addison's "Spectator," Foster's Essays and Owen Meredith's writings. + +The first periodicals to accept her poems and place them before the +public were "Gems of Poetry," a small magazine published in New York, +and "The Week," established by the late Prof. Goldwin Smith, of +Toronto, the New York "Independent" and Toronto "Saturday Night." +Since then she has contributed to most of the high-grade magazines, +both on this continent and England. + +Her writings having brought her into notice, the next step in Miss +Johnson's career was her appearance on the public platform as a reciter +of her own poems. For this she had natural talent, and in the exercise +of it she soon developed a marked ability, joined with a personal +magnetism, that was destined to make her a favorite with audiences from +the Atlantic to the Pacific. Her friend, Mr. Frank Yeigh, of Toronto, +provided for a series of recitals having that scope, with the object of +enabling her to go to England to arrange for the publication of her +poems. Within two years this aim was accomplished, her book of poems, +"The White Wampum," being published by John Lane, of the Bodley Head. +She took with her numerous letters of introduction, including one from +the Governor-General, the Earl of Aberdeen, and she soon gained both +social and literary standing. Her book was received with much favor, +both by reviewers and the public. After giving many recitals in +fashionable drawing-rooms, she returned to Canada, and made her first +tour to the Pacific Coast, giving recitals at all the cities and towns +en route. Since then she has crossed the Rocky Mountains no fewer than +nineteen times. + +Miss Johnson's pen had not been idle, and in 1903 the Geo. N. Morang +Co., of Toronto, published her second book of poems, entitled "Canadian +Born," which was also well received. + +After a number of recitals, which included Newfoundland and the +Maritime Provinces, she went to England again in 1906 and made her +first appearance in Steinway Hall, under the distinguished patronage of +Lord and Lady Strathcona. In the following year she again visited +London, returning by way of the United States, where she gave many +recitals. After another tour of Canada she decided to give up public +work, to make Vancouver, B. C., her home, and to devote herself to +literary work. + +Only a woman of remarkable powers of endurance could have borne up +under the hardships necessarily encountered in travelling through +North-western Canada in pioneer days as Miss Johnson did; and shortly +after settling down in Vancouver the exposure and hardship she had +endured began to tell on her, and her health completely broke down. +For almost a year she has been an invalid, and as she is unable to +attend to the business herself, a trust has been formed by some of the +leading citizens of her adopted city for the purpose of collecting and +publishing for her benefit her later works. Among these are the +beautiful Indian Legends contained in this volume, which she has been +at great pains to collect, and a series of boys' stories, which have +been exceedingly well received by magazine readers. + +During the sixteen years Miss Johnson was travelling, she had many +varied and interesting experiences. She travelled the old Battleford +trail before the railroad went through, and across the Boundary country +in British Columbia in the romantic days of the early pioneers. Once +she took an eight hundred and fifty mile drive up the Cariboo trail to +the gold fields. She has always been an ardent canoeist, and has run +many strange rivers, crossed many a lonely lake, and camped in many an +unfrequented place. These venturesome trips she made more from her +inherent love of Nature and adventure than from any necessity of her +profession. + + * * * * * + +Miss Pauline Johnson died in Vancouver on March 7, 1913. In accordance +with her last wish her ashes were buried in Stanley Park within sight +and sound of Siwash Rock, where the main driveway round the park, +coming from the English Bay entrance, divides east and west--the +western branch sloping down towards the rock and the eastern going to +the Big Tree. An editorial in the "Vancouver Daily Province" of March +8 said: + +"The keynote of her whole disposition was a generous charity towards +everything and everybody with whom she came in contact. There was no +trouble too great for her to take, no detail too small for her to +neglect when it was a matter of giving happiness to others. She was +one of those great souls who would starve themselves on the trail, work +unwearingly [Transcriber's note: unwearyingly?] for her companions, +cheer them ever onwards through good times and bad, and rejoice with +them when the goal was achieved. She loved life with a passionate +devotion that was almost pathetic in its intensity. In spite of all +her travelling, all her experiences, which were by no means easy, +Pauline Johnson never lost her capacity for getting the best out of +life. She was absolutely natural and simple in her love of happiness. +She disliked artificiality of any kind. The seasons as they came and +went were in themselves a constant source of pleasure to her. She +loved the Pacific coast with its ever-changing colors, the sea and the +deeply gashed mountains. The wind in the great firs and the roaring of +the mountain torrents were music in her ears. With the passing of +winter passed also the soul of Pauline Johnson to the happy hunting +grounds, there to find eternal freedom untrammeled by mortality. To +all who knew her she was the 'best beloved vagabond.' It was always +fine weather and good going on the trail of life when Pauline Johnson +blazed the way." + + + + +Contents + + + Preface + Author's Foreword + Biographical Notice + The Two Sisters + The Siwash Rock + The Recluse + The Lost Salmon Run + The Deep Waters + The Sea-Serpent + The Lost Island + Point Grey + The Tulameen Trail + The Grey Archway + Deadman's Island + A Squamish Legend of Napoleon + The Lure in Stanley Park + Deer Lake + A Royal Mohawk Chief + + + + +List of Illustrations + + +Frontispiece--Portrait + +The Lions (The Two Sisters) + +The Siwash Rock + +Capilano Canyon + +The Capilano River + +Entrance to the Narrows + +Kitsilano Beach + +The Seven Sisters, Stanley Park + + + + +The Two Sisters + +THE LIONS + +You can see them as you look towards the north and the west, where the +dream hills swim into the sky amid their ever-drifting clouds of pearl +and grey. They catch the earliest hint of sunrise, they hold the last +color of sunset. Twin mountains they are, lifting their twin peaks +above the fairest city in all Canada, and known throughout the British +Empire as "The Lions of Vancouver." Sometimes the smoke of forest +fires blurs them until they gleam like opals in a purple atmosphere, +too beautiful for words to paint. Sometimes the slanting rains festoon +scarfs of mist about their crests, and the peaks fade into shadowy +outlines, melting, melting, forever melting into the distances. But +for most days in the year the sun circles the twin glories with a sweep +of gold. The moon washes them with a torrent of silver. Often-times, +when the city is shrouded in rain, the sun yellows their snows to a +deep orange, but through sun and shadow they stand immovable, smiling +westward above the waters of the restless Pacific, eastward above the +superb beauty of the Capilano Canyon. But the Indian tribes do not +know these peaks as "The Lions." Even the Chief, whose feet have so +recently wandered to the Happy Hunting Grounds, never heard the name +given them until I mentioned it to him one dreamy August day, as +together we followed the trail leading to the canyon. He seemed so +surprised at the name that I mentioned the reason it had been applied +to them, asking him if he recalled the Landseer Lions in Trafalgar +Square. Yes, he remembered those splendid sculptures, and his quick +eye saw the resemblance instantly. It appeared to please him, and his +fine face expressed the haunting memories of the far-away roar of Old +London. But the "call of the blood" was stronger, and presently he +referred to the Indian legend of those peaks--a legend that I have +reason to believe is absolutely unknown to thousands of Palefaces who +look upon "The Lions" daily, without the love for them that is in the +Indian heart; without knowledge of the secret of "The Two Sisters." +The legend was intensely fascinating as it left his lips in the quaint +broken English that is never so dulcet as when it slips from an Indian +tongue. His inimitable gestures, strong, graceful, comprehensive, were +like a perfectly chosen frame embracing a delicate painting, and his +brooding eyes were as the light in which the picture hung. "Many +thousands of years ago," he began, "there were no twin peaks like +sentinels guarding the outposts of this sunset coast. They were placed +there long after the first creation, when the Sagalie Tyee moulded the +mountains, and patterned the mighty rivers where the salmon run, +because of His love for His Indian children, and His Wisdom for their +necessities. In those times there were many and mighty Indian tribes +along the Pacific--in the mountain ranges, at the shores and sources of +the great Fraser River. Indian law ruled the land. Indian customs +prevailed. Indian beliefs were regarded. Those were the legend-making +ages when great things occurred to make the traditions we repeat to our +children today. Perhaps the greatest of these traditions is the story +of 'The Two Sisters,' for they are known to us as 'The Chief's +Daughters,' and to them we owe the Great Peace in which we live, and +have lived for many countless moons. There is an ancient custom +amongst the Coast tribes that when our daughters step from childhood +into the great world of womanhood the occasion must be made one of +extreme rejoicing. The being who possesses the possibility of someday +mothering a man child, a warrior, a brave, receives much consideration +in most nations, but to us, the Sunset Tribes, she is honored above all +people. The parents usually give a great potlatch, and a feast that +lasts many days. The entire tribe and the surrounding tribes are +bidden to this festival. More than that, sometimes when a great Tyee +celebrates for his daughter, the tribes from far up the coast, from the +distant north, from inland, from the island, from the Cariboo country, +are gathered as guests to the feast. During these days of rejoicing, +the girl is placed in a high seat, an exalted position, for is she not +marriageable? And does not marriage mean motherhood? And does not +motherhood mean a vaster nation of brave sons and of gentle daughters, +who, in their turn, will give us sons and daughters of their own? + +"But it was many thousands of years ago that a great Tyee had two +daughters that grew to womanhood at the same springtime, when the first +great run of salmon thronged the rivers, and the ollallie bushes were +heavy with blossoms. These two daughters were young, lovable, and oh! +very beautiful. Their father, the great Tyee, prepared to make a feast +such as the Coast had never seen. There were to be days and days of +rejoicing, the people were to come for many leagues, were to bring +gifts to the girls and to receive gifts of great value from the Chief, +and hospitality was to reign as long as pleasuring feet could dance, +and enjoying lips could laugh, and mouths partake of the excellence of +the Chief's fish, game and ollallies. + +[Illustration: THE LIONS (THE TWO SISTERS) + Bishop & Christie, Photo.] + +"The only shadow on the joy of it all was war, for the tribe of the +great Tyee was at war with the Upper Coast Indians, those who lived +north, near what is named by the Paleface as the port of Prince Rupert. +Giant war canoes slipped along the entire coast, war parties paddled up +and down, war songs broke the silences of the nights, hatred, +vengeance, strife, horror festered everywhere like sores on the surface +of the earth. But the great Tyee, after warring for weeks, turned and +laughed at the battle and the bloodshed, for he had been victor in +every encounter, and he could well afford to leave the strife for a +brief week and feast in his daughters' honor, nor permit any mere enemy +to come between him and the traditions of his race and household. So +he turned insultingly deaf ears to their war cries; he ignored with +arrogant indifference their paddle dips that encroached within his own +coast waters, and he prepared, as a great Tyee should, to royally +entertain his tribesmen in honor of his daughters. + +"But seven suns before the great feast, these two maidens came before +him, hand clasped in hand. + +"'Oh! our father,' they said, 'may we speak?' + +"'Speak, my daughters, my girls with the eyes of April, the hearts of +June'" (early spring and early summer would be the more accurate Indian +phrasing). + +"'Some day, Oh! our father, we may mother a man child, who may grow to +be just such a powerful Tyee as you are, and for this honor that may +some day be ours we have come to crave a favor of you--you, Oh! our +father.' + +"'It is your privilege at this celebration to receive any favor your +hearts may wish,' he replied graciously, placing his fingers beneath +their girlish chins. 'The favor is yours before you ask it, my +daughters.' + +"'Will you, for our sakes, invite the great northern hostile tribe--the +tribe you war upon--to this, our feast?' they asked fearlessly. + +"'To a peaceful feast, a feast in the honor of women?' he exclaimed +incredulously. + +"'So we would desire it,' they answered. + +"'And so shall it be,' he declared. 'I can deny you nothing this day, +and some time you may bear sons to bless this peace you have asked, and +to bless their mother's sire for granting it.' Then he turned to all +the young men of the tribe and commanded, 'Build fires at sunset on all +the coast headlands--fires of welcome. Man your canoes and face the +north, greet the enemy, and tell them that I, the Tyee of the +Capilanos, ask--no, command that they join me for a great feast in +honor of my two daughters.' And when the northern tribes got this +invitation they flocked down the coast to this feast of a Great Peace. +They brought their women and their children: they brought game and +fish, gold and white stone beads, baskets and carven ladles, and +wonderful woven blankets to lay at the feet of their now acknowledged +ruler, the great Tyee. And he, in turn, gave such a potlatch that +nothing but tradition can vie with it. There were long, glad days of +joyousness, long pleasurable nights of dancing and camp fires, and vast +quantities of food. The war canoes were emptied of their deadly +weapons and filled with the daily catch of salmon. The hostile war +songs ceased, and in their place were heard the soft shuffle of dancing +feet, the singing voices of women, the play-games of the children of +two powerful tribes which had been until now ancient enemies, for a +great and lasting brotherhood was sealed between them--their war songs +were ended forever. + +"Then the Sagalie Tyee smiled on His Indian children: 'I will make +these young-eyed maidens immortal,' He said. In the cup of His hands +He lifted the Chief's two daughters and set them forever in a high +place, for they had borne two offspring--Peace and Brotherhood--each of +which is now a great Tyee ruling this land. + +"And on the mountain crest the Chief's daughters can be seen wrapped in +the suns, the snows, the stars of all seasons, for they have stood in +this high place for thousands of years, and will stand for thousands of +years to come, guarding the peace of the Pacific Coast and the quiet of +the Capilano Canyon." + + * * * * * + +This is the Indian legend of "The Lions of Vancouver" as I had it from +one who will tell me no more the traditions of his people. + + + + +The Siwash Rock + +Unique, and so distinct from its surroundings as to suggest rather the +handicraft of man than a whim of Nature, it looms up at the entrance to +the Narrows, a symmetrical column of solid grey stone. There are no +similar formations within the range of vision, or indeed within many a +day's paddle up and down the coast. Amongst all the wonders, the +natural beauties that encircle Vancouver, the marvels of mountains +shaped into crouching lions and brooding beavers, the yawning canyons, +the stupendous forest firs and cedars, Siwash Rock stands as distinct, +as individual, as if dropped from another sphere. + +I saw it first in the slanting light of a redly setting August sun; the +little tuft of green shrubbery that crests its summit was black against +the crimson of sea and sky, and its colossal base of grey stone gleamed +like flaming polished granite. + +My old tillicum lifted his paddle blade to point towards it. "You know +the story?" he asked. I shook my head (experience had taught me his +love of silent replies, his moods of legend-telling). For a time we +paddled slowly; the rock detached itself from its background of forest +and shore, and it stood forth like a sentinel--erect, enduring, eternal. + +"Do you think it stands straight--like a man?" he asked. + +"Yes, like some noble-spirited, upright warrior," I replied. + +"It is a man," he said, "and a warrior man, too; a man who fought for +everything that was noble and upright." + +"What do you regard as everything that is noble and upright, Chief?" I +asked, curious as to his ideas. I shall not forget the reply: it was +but two words--astounding, amazing words. He said simply: + +"Clean fatherhood." + +Through my mind raced tumultuous recollections of numberless articles +in yet numberless magazines, all dealing with the recent "fad" of +motherhood, but I had to hear from the lips of a Squamish Indian Chief +the only treatise on the nobility of "clean fatherhood" that I have yet +unearthed. And this treatise has been an Indian legend for centuries; +and lest they forget how all-important those two little words must ever +be, Siwash Rock stands to remind them, set there by the Deity as a +monument to one who kept his own life clean, that cleanliness might be +the heritage of the generations to come. + +It was "thousands of years ago" (all Indian legends begin in extremely +remote times) that a handsome boy chief journeyed in his canoe to the +upper coast for the shy little northern girl whom he brought home as +his wife. Boy though he was, the young chief had proved himself to be +an excellent warrior, a fearless hunter, and an upright, courageous man +among men. His tribe loved him, his enemies respected him, and the +base and mean and cowardly feared him. + +The customs and traditions of his ancestors were a positive religion to +him, the sayings and the advices of the old people were his creed. He +was conservative in every rite and ritual of his race. He fought his +tribal enemies like the savage that he was. He sang his war songs, +danced his war dances, slew his foes, but the little girl-wife from the +north he treated with the deference that he gave his own mother, for +was she not to be the mother of his warrior son? + +The year rolled round, weeks merged into months, winter into spring, +and one glorious summer at daybreak he wakened to her voice calling +him. She stood beside him, smiling. + +"It will be to-day," she said proudly. + +He sprang from his couch of wolf skins and looked out upon the coming +day: the promise of what it would bring him seemed breathing through +all his forest world. He took her very gently by the hand and led her +through the tangle of wilderness down to the water's edge, where the +beauty spot we moderns call Stanley Park bends about Prospect Point. +"I must swim," he told her. + +"I must swim, too," she smiled with the perfect understanding of two +beings who are mated. For to them the old Indian custom was law--the +custom that the parents of a coming child must swim until their flesh +is so clear and clean that a wild animal cannot scent their proximity. +If the wild creatures of the forests have no fear of them, then, and +only then, are they fit to become parents, and to scent a human is in +itself a fearsome thing to all wild creatures. + +So those two plunged into the waters of the Narrows as the grey dawn +slipped up the eastern skies and all the forest awoke to the life of a +new, glad day. Presently he took her ashore, and smilingly she crept +away under the giant trees. "I must be alone," she said, "but come to +me at sunrise: you will not find me alone then." He smiled also, and +plunged back into the sea. He must swim, swim, swim through this hour +when his fatherhood was coming upon him. It was the law that he must +be clean, spotlessly clean, so that when his child looked out upon the +world it would have the chance to live its own life clean. If he did +not swim hour upon hour his child would come to an unclean father. He +must give his child a chance in life; he must not hamper it by his own +uncleanliness at its birth. It was the tribal law--the law of +vicarious purity. + +As he swam joyously to and fro, a canoe bearing four men headed up the +Narrows. These men were giants in stature, and the stroke of their +paddles made huge eddies that boiled like the seething tides. + +"Out from our course!" they cried as his lithe, copper-colored body +arose and fell with his splendid stroke. He laughed at them, giants +though they were, and answered that he could not cease his swimming at +their demand. + +"But you shall cease!" they commanded. "We are the men (agents) of the +Sagalie Tyee (God), and we command you ashore out of our way!" (I find +in all these Coast Indian legends that the Deity is represented by four +men, usually paddling an immense canoe.) + +He ceased swimming, and, lifting his head, defied them. "I shall not +stop, nor yet go ashore," he declared, striking out once more to the +middle of the channel. + +"Do you dare disobey us," they cried--"we, the men of the Sagalie Tyee? +We can turn you into a fish, or a tree, or a stone for this; do you +dare disobey the Great Tyee?" + +"I dare anything for the cleanliness and purity of my coming child. I +dare even the Sagalie Tyee Himself, but my child must be born to a +spotless life." + +The four men were astounded. They consulted together, lighted their +pipes and sat in council. Never had they, the men of the Sagalie Tyee, +been defied before. Now, for the sake of a little unborn child, they +were ignored, disobeyed, almost despised. The lithe young +copper-colored body still disported itself in the cool waters; +superstition held that should their canoe, or even their paddle blades, +touch a human being their marvellous power would be lost. The handsome +young chief swam directly in their course. They dared not run him +down; if so, they would become as other men. While they yet counselled +what to do, there floated from out the forest a faint, strange, +compelling sound. They listened, and the young chief ceased his stroke +as he listened also. The faint sound drifted out across the waters +once more. It was the cry of a little, little child. Then one of the +four men, he that steered the canoe, the strongest and tallest of them +all, arose and, standing erect, stretched out his arms towards the +rising sun and chanted, not a curse on the young chief's disobedience, +but a promise of everlasting days and freedom from death. + +"Because you have defied all things that came in your path we promise +this to you," he chanted; "you have defied what interferes with your +child's chance for a clean life, you have lived as you wish your son to +live, you have defied us when we would have stopped your swimming and +hampered your child's future. You have placed that child's future +before all things, and for this the Sagalie Tyee commands us to make +you forever a pattern for your tribe. You shall never die, but you +shall stand through all the thousands of years to come, where all eyes +can see you. You shall live, live, live as an indestructible monument +to Clean Fatherhood." + +The four men lifted their paddles and the handsome young chief swam +inshore; as his feet touched the line where sea and land met, he was +transformed into stone. + +Then the four men said, "His wife and child must ever be near him; they +shall not die, but live also." And they, too, were turned into stone. +If you penetrate the hollows in the woods near Siwash Rock you will +find a large rock and a smaller one beside it. They are the shy little +bride-wife from the north, with her hour-old baby beside her. And from +the uttermost parts of the world vessels come daily throbbing and +sailing up the Narrows. From far trans-Pacific ports, from the frozen +North, from the lands of the Southern Cross, they pass and repass the +living rock that was there before their hulls were shaped, that will be +there when their very names are forgotten, when their crews and their +captains have taken their long last voyage, when their merchandise has +rotted, and their owners are known no more. But the tall, grey column +of stone will still be there--a monument to one man's fidelity to a +generation yet unborn--and will endure from everlasting to everlasting. + + +[Illustration: Native cradle] + + +[Illustration: THE SIWASH ROCK + Bishop & Christie, Photo.] + + + + +The Recluse + +Journeying toward the upper course of the Capilano River, about a mile +citywards from the dam, you will pass a disused logger's shack. Leave +the trail at this point and strike through the undergrowth for a few +hundred yards to the left, and you will be on the rocky borders of that +purest, most restless river in all Canada. The stream is haunted with +tradition, teeming with a score of romances that vie with its grandeur +and loveliness, and of which its waters are perpetually whispering. +But I learned this legend from one whose voice was as dulcet as the +swirling rapids; but, unlike them, that voice is hushed today, while +the river still sings on--sings on. + +It was singing in very melodious tones through the long August +afternoon two summers ago, while we, the chief, his happy-hearted wife +and bright, young daughter, all lounged amongst the boulders and +watched the lazy clouds drift from peak to peak far above us. It was +one of his inspired days; legends crowded to his lips as a whistle +teases the mouth of a happy boy, his heart was brimming with tales of +the bygones, his eyes were dark with dreams and that strange +mournfulness that always haunted them when he spoke of long-ago +romances. There was not a tree, a boulder, a dash of rapid upon which +his glance fell which he could not link with some ancient poetic +superstition. Then abruptly, in the very midst of his verbal reveries, +he turned and asked me if I were superstitious. Of course I replied +that I was. + +"Do you think some happenings will bring trouble later on--will +foretell evil?" he asked. + +I made some evasive answer, which, however, seemed to satisfy him, for +he plunged into the strange tale of the recluse of the canyon with more +vigor than dreaminess; but first he asked me the question: + +"What do your own tribes, those east of the great mountains, think of +twin children?" + +I shook my head. + +"That is enough," he said before I could reply. "I see, your people do +not like them." + +"Twin children are almost unknown with us," I hastened. "They are +rare, very rare; but it is true we do not welcome them." + +"Why?" he asked abruptly. + +I was a little uncertain about telling him. If I said the wrong thing, +the coming tale might die on his lips before it was born to speech, but +we understood each other so well that I finally ventured the truth: + +"We Iroquois say that twin children are as rabbits," I explained. "The +nation always nicknames the parents 'Tow-wan-da-na-ga.' That is the +Mohawk for rabbit." + +"Is that all?" he asked curiously. + +"That is all. Is it not enough to render twin children unwelcome?" I +questioned. + +He thought awhile, then with evident desire to learn how all races +regarded this occurrence, he said, "You have been much among the +Palefaces, what do they say of twins?" + +"Oh! the Palefaces like them. They are--they are--oh! well, they say +they are very proud of having twins," I stammered. Once again I was +hardly sure of my ground. He looked most incredulous, and I was led to +enquire what his own people of the Squamish thought of this discussed +problem. + +"It is no pride to us," he said decidedly; "nor yet is it disgrace of +rabbits, but it is a fearsome thing--a sign of coming evil to the +father, and, worse than that, of coming disaster to the tribe." + +Then I knew he held in his heart some strange incident that gave +substance to the superstition. "Won't you tell it to me?" I begged. + +He leaned a little backward against a giant boulder, clasping his thin, +brown hands about his knees; his eyes roved up the galloping river, +then swept down the singing waters to where they crowded past the +sudden bend, and during the entire recital of the strange legend his +eyes never left that spot where the stream disappeared in its hurrying +journey to the sea. Without preamble he began: + +"It was a grey morning when they told him of this disaster that had +befallen him. He was a great chief, and he ruled many tribes on the +North Pacific Coast; but what was his greatness now? His young wife +had borne him twins, and was sobbing out her anguish in the little +fir-bark lodge near the tidewater. + +"Beyond the doorway gathered many old men and women--old in years, old +in wisdom, old in the lore and learning of their nations. Some of them +wept, some chanted solemnly the dirge of their lost hopes and +happiness, which would never return because of this calamity; others +discussed in hushed voices this awesome thing, and for hours their +grave council was broken only by the infant cries of the two boy-babies +in the bark lodge, the hopeless sobs of the young mother, the agonized +moans of the stricken chief--their father. + +"'Something dire will happen to the tribe,' said the old men in council. + +"'Something dire will happen to him, my husband,' wept the afflicted +young mother. + +"'Something dire will happen to us all,' echoed the unhappy father. + +"Then an ancient medicine man arose, lifting his arms, outstretching +his palms to hush the lamenting throng. His voice shook with the +weight of many winters, but his eyes were yet keen and mirrored the +clear thought and brain behind them, as the still trout pools in the +Capilano mirror the mountain tops. His words were masterful, his +gestures commanding, his shoulders erect and kindly. His was a +personality and an inspiration that no one dared dispute, and his +judgment was accepted as the words fell slowly, like a doom. + +"'It is the olden law of the Squamish that lest evil befall the tribe +the sire of twin children must go afar and alone into the mountain +fastnesses, there by his isolation and his loneliness to prove himself +stronger than the threatened evil, and thus to beat back the shadow +that would otherwise follow him and all his people. I, therefore, name +for him the length of days that he must spend alone fighting his +invisible enemy. He will know by some great sign in Nature the hour +that the evil is conquered, the hour that his race is saved. He must +leave before this sun sets, taking with him only his strongest bow, his +fleetest arrows, and going up into the mountain wilderness remain there +ten days--alone, alone.' + +"The masterful voice ceased, the tribe wailed their assent, the father +arose speechless, his drawn face revealing great agony over this +seemingly brief banishment. He took leave of his sobbing wife, of the +two tiny souls that were his sons, grasped his favorite bow and arrows, +and faced the forest like a warrior. But at the end of the ten days he +did not return, nor yet ten weeks, nor yet ten months. + +"'He is dead,' wept the mother into the baby ears of her two boys. 'He +could not battle against the evil that threatened; it was stronger than +he--he so strong, so proud, so brave.' + +"'He is dead,' echoed the tribesmen and the tribeswomen. 'Our strong, +brave chief, he is dead.' So they mourned the long year through, but +their chants and their tears but renewed their grief; he did not return +to them. + +"Meanwhile, far up the Capilano the banished chief had built his +solitary home; for who can tell what fatal trick of sound, what current +of air, what faltering note in the voice of the Medicine Man had +deceived his alert Indian ears? But some unhappy fate had led him to +understand that his solitude must be of ten years' duration, not ten +days, and he had accepted the mandate with the heroism of a stoic. For +if he had refused to do so his belief was that although the threatened +disaster would be spared him, the evil would fall upon his tribe. Thus +was one more added to the long list of self-forgetting souls whose +creed has been, 'It is fitting that one should suffer for the people.' +It was the world-old heroism of vicarious sacrifice. + +"With his hunting-knife the banished Squamish chief stripped the bark +from the firs and cedars, building for himself a lodge beside the +Capilano River, where leaping trout and salmon could be speared by +arrow-heads fastened to deftly shaped, long handles. All through the +salmon run he smoked and dried the fish with the care of a housewife. +The mountain sheep and goats, and even huge black and cinnamon bears, +fell before his unerring arrows; the fleet-footed deer never returned +to their haunts from their evening drinking at the edge of the +stream--their wild hearts, their agile bodies were stilled when he took +aim. Smoked hams and saddles hung in rows from the cross poles of his +bark lodge, and the magnificent pelts of animals carpeted his floors, +padded his couch and clothed his body. He tanned the soft doe hides, +making leggings, moccasins and shirts, stitching them together with +deer sinew as he had seen his mother do in the long-ago. He gathered +the juicy salmonberries, their acid a sylvan, healthful change from +meat and fish. Month by month and year by year he sat beside his +lonely camp-fire, waiting for his long term of solitude to end. One +comfort alone was his--he was enduring the disaster, fighting the evil, +that his tribe might go unscathed, that his people be saved from +calamity. Slowly, laboriously the tenth year dawned; day by day it +dragged its long weeks across his waiting heart, for Nature had not yet +given the sign that his long probation was over. + +"Then one hot summer day the Thunder Bird came crashing through the +mountains about him. Up from the arms of the Pacific rolled the storm +cloud, and the Thunder Bird, with its eyes of flashing light, beat its +huge vibrating wings on crag and canyon. + +"Upstream, a tall shaft of granite rears its needle-like length. It is +named 'Thunder Rock,' and wise men of the Paleface people say it is +rich in ore--copper, silver and gold. At the base of this shaft the +Squamish chief crouched when the storm cloud broke and bellowed through +the ranges, and on its summit the Thunder Bird perched, its gigantic +wings threshing the air into booming sounds, into splitting terrors, +like the crash of a giant cedar hurtling down the mountain side. + +"But when the beating of those black pinions ceased and the echo of +their thunder waves died down the depths of the canyon, the Squamish +chief arose as a new man. The shadow on his soul had lifted, the fears +of evil were cowed and conquered. In his brain, his blood, his veins, +his sinews, he felt that the poison of melancholy dwelt no more. He +had redeemed his fault of fathering twin children; he had fulfilled the +demands of the law of his tribe. + +"As he heard the last beat of the Thunder Bird's wings dying slowly, +slowly, faintly, faintly, among the crags, he knew that the bird, too, +was dying, for its soul was leaving its monster black body, and +presently that soul appeared in the sky. He could see it arching +overhead, before it took its long journey to the Happy Hunting Grounds, +for the soul of the Thunder Bird was a radiant half-circle of glorious +color spanning from peak to peak. He lifted his head then, for he knew +it was the sign the ancient Medicine Man had told him to wait for--the +sign that his long banishment was ended. + +"And all these years, down in the tidewater country, the little +brown-faced twins were asking childwise, 'Where is our father? Why +have we no father, like other boys?' To be met only with the +oft-repeated reply, 'Your father is no more. Your father, the great +chief, is dead.' + +"But some strange filial intuition told the boys that their sire would +some day return. Often they voiced this feeling to their mother, but +she would only weep and say that not even the witchcraft of the great +Medicine Man could bring him to them. But when they were ten years old +the two children came to their mother, hand within hand. They were +armed with their little hunting-knives, their salmon spears, their tiny +bows and arrows. + +"'We go to find our father,' they said. + +"'Oh! useless quest,' wailed the mother. + +"'Oh! useless quest,' echoed the tribes-people. + +"But the great Medicine Man said, 'The heart of a child has invisible +eyes, perhaps the child-eyes see him. The heart of a child has +invisible ears, perhaps the child-ears hear him call. Let them go.' +So the little children went forth into the forest; their young feet +flew as though shod with wings, their young hearts pointed to the north +as does the white man's compass. Day after day they journeyed +up-stream, until rounding a sudden bend they beheld a bark lodge with a +thin blue curl of smoke drifting from its roof. + +"'It is our father's lodge,' they told each other, for their childish +hearts were unerring in response to the call of kinship. Hand-in-hand +they approached, and entering the lodge, said the one word, 'Come.' + +"The great Squamish chief outstretched his arms towards them, then +towards the laughing river, then towards the mountains. + +"'Welcome, my sons!' he said. 'And good-bye, my mountains, my +brothers, my crags and my canyons!' And with a child clinging to each +hand he faced once more the country of the tidewater." + + * * * * * + +The legend was ended. + +For a long time he sat in silence. He had removed his gaze from the +bend in the river, around which the two children had come and where the +eyes of the recluse had first rested on them after ten years of +solitude. + +The chief spoke again, "It was here, on this spot we are sitting, that +he built his lodge: here he dwelt those ten years alone, alone." + +I nodded silently. The legend was too beautiful to mar with comments, +and as the twilight fell, we threaded our way through the underbrush, +past the disused logger's camp and into the trail that leads citywards. + + +[Illustration: Decoration] + + +[Illustration: Capilano Canyon. + Bishop & Christie, Photo.] + + + + +The Lost Salmon Run + +Great had been the "run," and the sockeye season was almost over. For +that reason I wondered many times why my old friend, the klootchman, +had failed to make one of the fishing fleet. She was an indefatigable +workwoman, rivalling her husband as an expert catcher, and all the year +through she talked of little else but the coming run. But this +especial season she had not appeared amongst her fellow-kind. The +fleet and the canneries knew nothing of her, and when I enquired of her +tribes-people they would reply without explanation, "She not here this +year." + +But one russet September afternoon I found her. I had idled down the +trail from the swans' basin in Stanley Park to the rim that skirts the +Narrows, and I saw her graceful, high-bowed canoe heading for the beach +that is the favorite landing place of the "tillicums" from the Mission. +Her canoe looked like a dream-craft, for the water was very still, and +everywhere a blue film hung like a fragrant veil, for the peat on Lulu +Island had been smoldering for days and its pungent odors and blue-grey +haze made a dream-world of sea and shore and sky. + +I hurried upshore, hailing her in the Chinook, and as she caught my +voice she lifted her paddle directly above her head in the Indian +signal of greeting. + +As she beached, I greeted her with extended eager hands to assist her +ashore, for the klootchman is getting to be an old woman; albeit she +paddles against tidewater like a boy in his teens. + +"No," she said, as I begged her to come ashore. "I not wait--me. I +just come to fetch Maarda; she been city; she come soon--now." But she +left her "working" attitude and curled like a schoolgirl in the bow of +the canoe, her elbows resting on her paddle which she had flung across +the gunwales. + +"I have missed you, klootchman; you have not been to see me for three +moons, and you have not fished or been at the canneries," I remarked. + +"No," she said. "I stay home this year." Then leaning towards me with +grave import in her manner, her eyes, her voice, she added, "I have a +grandchild, born first week July, so--I stay." + +So this explained her absence. I, of course, offered congratulations +and enquired all about the great event, for this was her first +grandchild, and the little person was of importance. + +"And are you going to make a fisherman of him?" I asked. + +"No, no, not boy-child, it is girl-child," she answered with some +indescribable trick of expression that led me to know she preferred it +so. + +"You are pleased it is a girl?" I questioned in surprise. + +"Very pleased," she replied emphatically. "Very good luck to have girl +for first grandchild. Our tribe not like yours; we want girl children +first; we not always wish boy-child born just for fight. Your people, +they care only for war-path; our tribe more peaceful. Very good sign +first grandchild to be girl. I tell you why: girl-child maybe some +time mother herself; very grand thing to be mother." + +I felt I had caught the secret of her meaning. She was rejoicing that +this little one should some time become one of the mothers of her race. +We chatted over it a little longer and she gave me several playful +"digs" about my own tribe thinking so much less of motherhood than +hers, and so much more of battle and bloodshed. Then we drifted into +talk of the sockeye run and of the hyiu chickimin the Indians would get. + +"Yes, hyiu chickimin," she repeated with a sigh of satisfaction. +"Always; and hyiu muck-a-muck when big salmon run. No more ever come +that bad year when not any fish." + +"When was that?" I asked. + +"Before you born, or I, or"--pointing across the park to the distant +city of Vancouver, that breathed its wealth and beauty across the +September afternoon--"before that place born, before white man came +here--oh! long before." + +Dear old klootchman! I knew by the dusk in her eyes that she was back +in her Land of Legends, and that soon I would be the richer in my hoard +of Indian lore. She sat, still leaning on her paddle; her eyes, +half-closed, rested on the distant outline of the blurred heights +across the Inlet. I shall not further attempt her broken English, for +this is but the shadow of her story, and without her unique personality +the legend is as a flower that lacks both color and fragrance. She +called it "The Lost Salmon Run." + +"The wife of the Great Tyee was but a wisp of a girl, but all the world +was young in those days; even the Fraser River was young and small, not +the mighty water it is today; but the pink salmon crowded its throat +just as they do now, and the tillicums caught and salted and smoked the +fish just as they have done this year, just as they will always do. +But it was yet winter, and the rains were slanting and the fogs +drifting, when the wife of the Great Tyee stood before him and said: + +"'Before the salmon run I shall give to you a great gift. Will you +honor me most if it is the gift of a boy-child or a girl-child?' The +Great Tyee loved the woman. He was stern with his people, hard with +his tribe; he ruled his council fires with a will of stone. His +medicine men said he had no human heart in his body; his warriors said +he had no human blood in his veins. But he clasped this woman's hands, +and his eyes, his lips, his voice, were gentle as her own, as he +replied: + +"'Give to me a girl-child--a little girl-child--that she may grow to be +like you, and, in her turn, give to her husband children.' + +"But when the tribes-people heard of his choice they arose in great +anger. They surrounded him in a deep, indignant circle. 'You are a +slave to the woman,' they declared, 'and now you desire to make +yourself a slave to a woman-baby. We want an heir--a man-child to be +our Great Tyee in years to come. When you are old and weary of tribal +affairs, when you sit wrapped in your blanket in the hot summer +sunshine, because your blood is old and thin, what can a girl-child do +to help either you or us? Who, then, will be our Great Tyee?' + +"He stood in the centre of the menacing circle, his arms folded, his +chin raised, his eyes hard as flint. His voice, cold as stone, replied: + +"'Perhaps she will give you such a man-child, and, if so, the child is +yours; he will belong to you, not to me; he will become the possession +of the people. But if the child is a girl she will belong to me--she +will be mine. You cannot take her from me as you took me from my +mother's side and forced me to forget my aged father in my service to +my tribe; she will belong to me, will be the mother of my +grandchildren, and her husband will be my son.' + +"'You do not care for the good of your tribe. You care only for your +own wishes and desires,' they rebelled. 'Suppose the salmon run is +small, we will have no food; suppose there is no man-child, we will +have no Great Tyee to show us how to get food from other tribes, and we +shall starve.' + +"'Your hearts are black and bloodless,' thundered the Great Tyee, +turning upon them fiercely, 'and your eyes are blinded. Do you wish +the tribe to forget how great is the importance of a child that will +some day be a mother herself, and give to your children and +grandchildren a Great Tyee? Are the people to live, to thrive, to +increase, to become more powerful with no mother-women to bear future +sons and daughters? Your minds are dead, your brains are chilled. +Still, even in your ignorance, you are my people: you and your wishes +must be considered. I call together the great medicine men, the men of +witchcraft, the men of magic. They shall decide the laws which will +follow the bearing of either boy or girl-child. What say you, oh! +mighty men?' + +"Messengers were then sent up and down the coast, sent far up the +Fraser River, and to the valley lands inland for many leagues, +gathering as they journeyed all the men of magic that could be found. +Never were so many medicine men in council before. They built fires +and danced and chanted for many days. They spoke with the gods of the +mountains, with the gods of the sea, then 'the power' of decision came +to them. They were inspired with a choice to lay before the +tribes-people, and the most ancient medicine man in all the coast +region arose and spoke their resolution: + +"'The people of the tribe cannot be allowed to have all things. They +want a boy-child and they want a great salmon run also. They cannot +have both. The Sagalie Tyee has revealed to us, the great men of +magic, that both these things will make the people arrogant and +selfish. They must choose between the two.' + +"'Choose, oh! you ignorant tribes-people,' commanded the Great Tyee. +'The wise men of our coast have said that the girl-child who will some +day bear children of her own, will also bring abundance of salmon at +her birth; but the boy-child brings to you but himself.' + +"'Let the salmon go," shouted the people, 'but give us a future Great +Tyee. Give us the boy-child.' + +"And when the child was born it was a boy. + +"'Evil will fall upon you,' wailed the Great Tyee. 'You have despised +a mother-woman. You will suffer evil and starvation and hunger and +poverty, oh! foolish tribes-people. Did you not know how great a +girl-child is?' + +"That spring, people from a score of tribes came up to the Fraser for +the salmon run. They came great distances--from the mountains, the +lakes, the far-off dry lands, but not one fish entered the vast rivers +of the Pacific Coast. The people had made their choice. They had +forgotten the honor that a mother-child would have brought them. They +were bereft of their food. They were stricken with poverty. Through +the long winter that followed they endured hunger and starvation. +Since then our tribe has always welcomed girl-children--we want no more +lost runs." + +The klootchman lifted her arms from her paddle as she concluded; her +eyes left the irregular outline of the violet mountains. She had come +back to this year of grace--her Legend Land had vanished. + +"So," she added, "you see now, maybe, why I glad my grandchild is girl; +it means big salmon run next year." + +"It is a beautiful story, klootchman," I said, "and I feel a cruel +delight that your men of magic punished the people for their +ill-choice." + +"That because you girl-child yourself," she laughed. + +There was the slightest whisper of a step behind me. I turned to find +Maarda almost at my elbow. The rising tide was unbeaching the canoe, +and as Maarda stepped in and the klootchman slipped astern, it drifted +afloat. + +"Kla-how-ya," nodded the klootchman as she dipped her paddle-blade in +exquisite silence. + +"Kla-how-ya," smiled Maarda. + +"Kla-how-ya, tillicums," I replied, and watched for many moments as +they slipped away into the blurred distance, until the canoe merged +into the violet and grey of the farther shore. + + +[Illustration: Native tool] + + + + +The Deep Waters + +Far over your left shoulder as your boat leaves the Narrows to thread +the beautiful waterways that lead to Vancouver Island, you will see the +summit of Mount Baker robed in its everlasting whiteness and always +reflecting some wonderful glory from the rising sun, the golden +noontide, or the violet and amber sunset. This is the Mount Ararat of +the Pacific Coast peoples; for those readers who are familiar with the +ways and beliefs and faiths of primitive races will agree that it is +difficult to discover anywhere in the world a race that has not some +story of the Deluge, which they have chronicled and localized to fit +the understanding and the conditions of the nation that composes their +own immediate world. + +Amongst the red nations of America I doubt if any two tribes have the +same ideas regarding the Flood. Some of the traditions concerning this +vast whim of Nature are grotesque in the extreme; some are impressive; +some even profound; but of all the stories of the Deluge that I have +been able to collect I know of not a single one that can even begin to +equal in beauty of conception, let alone rival in possible reality and +truth, the Squamish legend of "The Deep Waters." + +I here quote the legend of "mine own people," the Iroquois tribes of +Ontario, regarding the Deluge. I do this to paint the color of +contrast in richer shades, for I am bound to admit that we who pride +ourselves on ancient intellectuality have but a childish tale of the +Flood when compared with the jealously preserved annals of the +Squamish, which savour more of history than tradition. With "mine own +people," animals always play a much more important part and are endowed +with a finer intelligence than humans. I do not find amid my notes a +single tradition of the Iroquois wherein animals do not figure, and our +story of the Deluge rests entirely with the intelligence of sea-going +and river-going creatures. With us, animals in olden times were +greater than man; but it is not so with the Coast Indians, except in +rare instances. + +When a Coast Indian consents to tell you a legend he will, without +variation, begin it with, "It was before the white people came." + +The natural thing for you then to ask is, "But who were here then?" + +He will reply, "Indians, and just the trees, and animals, and fishes, +and a few birds." + +So you are prepared to accept the animal world as intelligent +co-habitants of the Pacific slope, but he will not lead you to think he +regards them as equals, much less superiors. But to revert to "mine +own people": they hold the intelligence of wild animals far above that +of man, for perhaps the one reason that when an animal is sick it +effects its own cure; it knows what grasses and herbs to eat, what to +avoid, while the sick human calls the medicine man, whose wisdom is not +only the result of years of study, but also heredity; consequently any +great natural event, such as the Deluge, has much to do with the wisdom +of the creatures of the forests and the rivers. + +Iroquois tradition tells us that once this earth was entirely submerged +in water, and during this period for many days a busy little muskrat +swam about vainly looking for a foothold of earth wherein to build his +house. In his search he encountered a turtle also leisurely swimming, +so they had speech together, and the muskrat complained of weariness; +he could find no foothold; he was tired of incessant swimming, and +longed for land such as his ancestors enjoyed. The turtle suggested +that the muskrat should dive and endeavor to find earth at the bottom +of the sea. Acting on this advice the muskrat plunged down, then arose +with his two little forepaws grasping some earth he had found beneath +the waters. + +"Place it on my shell and dive again for more," directed the turtle. +The muskrat did so, but when he returned with his paws filled with +earth he discovered the small quantity he had first deposited on the +turtle's shell had doubled in size. The return from the third trip +found the turtle's load again doubled. So the building went on at +double compound increase, and the world grew its continents and its +islands with great rapidity, and now rests on the shell of a turtle. + +If you ask an Iroquois, "And did no men survive this flood?" he will +reply, "Why should men survive? The animals are wiser then men; let +the wisest live." + +How, then, was the earth re-peopled? + +The Iroquois will tell you that the otter was a medicine man; that in +swimming and diving about he found corpses of men and women; he sang +his medicine songs and they came to life, and the otter brought them +fish for food until they were strong enough to provide for themselves. +Then the Iroquois will conclude his tale with, "You know well that the +otter has greater wisdom than a man." + +So much for "mine own people" and our profound respect for the superior +intelligence of our little brothers of the animal world. + +But the Squamish tribe hold other ideas. It was on a February day that +I first listened to this beautiful, humane story of the Deluge. My +royal old tillicum had come to see me through the rains and mists of +late winter days. The gateways of my wigwam always stood open--very +widely open--for his feet to enter, and this especial day he came with +the worst downpour of the season. + +Womanlike, I protested with a thousand contradictions in my voice that +he should venture out to see me on such a day. It was "Oh! Chief, I +am so glad to see you!" and it was "Oh! Chief, why didn't you stay at +home on such a wet day--your poor throat will suffer." But I soon had +quantities of hot tea for him, and the huge cup my own father always +used was his--as long as the Sagalie Tyee allowed his dear feet to +wander my way. The immense cup stands idle and empty now for the +second time. + +Helping him off with his great-coat, I chatted on about the deluge of +rain, and he remarked it was not so very bad, as one could yet walk. + +"Fortunately, yes, for I cannot swim," I told him. + +He laughed, replying, "Well, it is not so bad as when the Great Deep +Waters covered the world." + +Immediately I foresaw the coming legend, so crept into the shell of +monosyllables. + +"No?" I questioned. + +"No," he replied. "For one time there was no land here at all; +everywhere there was just water." + +"I can quite believe it," I remarked caustically. + +He laughed--that irresistible, though silent, David Warfield laugh of +his that always brought a responsive smile from his listeners. Then he +plunged directly into the tradition, with no preface save a +comprehensive sweep of his wonderful hands towards my wide window, +against which the rains were beating. + +"It was after a long, long time of this--this rain. The mountain +streams were swollen, the rivers choked, the sea began to rise--and yet +it rained; for weeks and weeks it rained." He ceased speaking, while +the shadows of centuries gone crept into his eyes. Tales of the misty +past always inspired him. + +"Yes," he continued. "It rained for weeks and weeks, while the +mountain torrents roared thunderingly down, and the sea crept silently +up. The level lands were first to float in sea water, then to +disappear. The slopes were next to slip into the sea. The world was +slowly being flooded. Hurriedly the Indian tribes gathered in one +spot, a place of safety far above the reach of the on-creeping sea. +The spot was the circling shore of Lake Beautiful, up the North Arm. +They held a Great Council and decided at once upon a plan of action. A +giant canoe should be built, and some means contrived to anchor it in +case the waters mounted to the heights. The men undertook the canoe, +the women the anchorage. + +"A giant tree was felled, and day and night the men toiled over its +construction into the most stupendous canoe the world has ever known. +Not an hour, not a moment, but many worked, while the toil-wearied ones +slept, only to awake to renewed toil. Meanwhile the women also worked +at a cable--the largest, the longest, the strongest that Indian hands +and teeth had ever made. Scores of them gathered and prepared the +cedar fibre; scores of them plaited, rolled and seasoned it; scores of +them chewed upon it inch by inch to make it pliable; scores of them +oiled and worked, oiled and worked, oiled and worked it into a +sea-resisting fabric. And still the sea crept up, and up, and up. It +was the last day; hope of life for the tribe, of land for the world, +was doomed. Strong hands, self-sacrificing hands fastened the cable +the women had made--one end to the giant canoe, the other about an +enormous boulder, a vast immovable rock as firm as the foundations of +the world--for might not the canoe with its priceless freight drift +out, far out, to sea, and when the water subsided might not this ship +of safety be leagues and leagues beyond the sight of land on the +storm-driven Pacific? + +"Then with the bravest hearts that ever beat, noble hands lifted every +child of the tribe into this vast canoe; not one single baby was +overlooked. The canoe was stocked with food and fresh water, and +lastly, the ancient men and women of the race selected as guardians to +these children the bravest, most stalwart, handsomest young man of the +tribe, and the mother of the youngest baby in the camp--she was but a +girl of sixteen, her child but two weeks old; but she, too, was brave +and very beautiful. These two were placed, she at the bow of the canoe +to watch, he at the stern to guide, and all the little children crowded +between. + +"And still the sea crept up, and up, and up. At the crest of the +bluffs about Lake Beautiful the doomed tribes crowded. Not a single +person attempted to enter the canoe. There was no wailing, no crying +out for safety. 'Let the little children, the young mother, and the +bravest and best of our young men live,' was all the farewell those in +the canoe heard as the waters reached the summit, and--the canoe +floated. Last of all to be seen was the top of the tallest tree, +then--all was a world of water. + +"For days and days there was no land--just the rush of swirling, +snarling sea; but the canoe rode safely at anchor, the cable those +scores of dead, faithful women had made held true as the hearts that +beat behind the toil and labor of it all. + +"But one morning at sunrise, far to the south a speck floated on the +breast of the waters; at midday it was larger; at evening it was yet +larger. The moon arose, and in its magic light the man at the stern +saw it was a patch of land. All night he watched it grow, and at +daybreak looked with glad eyes upon the summit of Mount Baker. He cut +the cable, grasped his paddle in his strong, young hands, and steered +for the south. When they landed, the waters were sunken half down the +mountain side. The children were lifted out; the beautiful young +mother, the stalwart young brave, turned to each other, clasped hands, +looked into each others eyes--and smiled. + +"And down in the vast country that lies between Mount Baker and the +Fraser River they made a new camp, built new lodges, where the little +children grew and thrived, and lived and loved, and the earth was +re-peopled by them. + +"The Squamish say that in a gigantic crevice half way to the crest of +Mount Baker may yet be seen the outlines of an enormous canoe, but I +have never seen it myself." + +He ceased speaking with that far-off cadence in his voice with which he +always ended a legend, and for a long time we both sat in silence +listening to the rains that were still beating against the window. + + +[Illustration: Native canoe] + + + + +The Sea-Serpent + +There is one vice that is absolutely unknown to the red man; he was +born without it, and amongst all the deplorable things he has learned +from the white races, this, at least, he has never acquired. That is +the vice of avarice. That the Indian looks upon greed of gain, +miserliness, avariciousness and wealth accumulated above the head of +his poorer neighbor as one of the lowest degradations he can fall to, +is perhaps more aptly illustrated in this legend than anything I could +quote to demonstrate his horror of what he calls "the white man's +unkindness." In a very wide and varied experience with many tribes, I +have yet to find even one instance of avarice, and I have encountered +but one single case of a "stingy Indian," and this man was so marked +amongst his fellows that at mention of his name his tribes-people +jeered and would remark contemptuously that he was like a white +man--hated to share his money and his possessions. All red races are +born Socialists, and most tribes carry out their communistic ideas to +the letter. Amongst the Iroquois it is considered disgraceful to have +food if your neighbor has none. To be a creditable member of the +nation you must divide your possessions with your less fortunate +fellows. I find it much the same amongst the Coast Indians, though +they are less bitter in their hatred of the extremes of wealth and +poverty than are the Eastern tribes. Still, the very fact that they +have preserved this legend, in which they liken avarice to a slimy +sea-serpent, shows the trend of their ideas; shows, too, that an Indian +is an Indian, no matter what his tribe; shows that he cannot or will +not hoard money; shows that his native morals demand that the spirit of +greed must be strangled at all cost. + +The Chief and I had sat long over our luncheon. He had been talking of +his trip to England and of the many curious things he had seen. At +last, in an outburst of enthusiasm, he said: "I saw everything in the +world--everything but a sea-serpent!" + +"But there is no such thing as a sea-serpent," I laughed, "so you must +have really seen everything in the world." + +His face clouded; for a moment he sat in silence; then looking directly +at me said, "Maybe none now, but long ago there was one here--in the +Inlet." + +"How long ago?" I asked. + +"When first the white gold-hunters came," he replied. "Came with +greedy, clutching fingers, greedy eyes, greedy hearts. The white men +fought, murdered, starved, went mad with love of that gold far up the +Fraser River. Tillicums were tillicums no more, brothers were foes, +fathers and sons were enemies. Their love of the gold was a curse." + +"Was it then the sea-serpent was seen?" I asked, perplexed with the +problem of trying to connect the gold-seekers with such a monster. + +"Yes, it was then, but----"--he hesitated, then plunged into the +assertion, "but you will not believe the story if you think there is no +such thing as a sea-serpent." + +"I shall believe whatever you tell me, Chief," I answered; "I am only +too ready to believe. You know I come of a superstitious race, and all +my association with the Palefaces has never yet robbed me of my +birthright to believe strange traditions." + +"You always understand," he said after a pause. + +"It's my heart that understands," I remarked quietly. + +He glanced up quickly, and with one of his all too few radiant smiles, +he laughed. + +"Yes, skookum tum-tum." Then without further hesitation he told the +tradition, which, although not of ancient happening, is held in great +reverence by his tribe. During its recital he sat with folded arms, +leaning on the table, his head and shoulders bending eagerly towards me +as I sat at the opposite side. It was the only time he ever talked to +me when he did not use emphasising gesticulations, but his hands never +once lifted: his wonderful eyes alone gave expression to what he called +"The Legend of the 'Salt-chuck Oluk'" (sea-serpent). + +[Illustration: THE CAPILANO RIVER + Bishop & Christie, Photo.] + +"Yes, it was during the first gold craze, and many of our young men +went as guides to the whites far up the Fraser. When they returned +they brought these tales of greed and murder back with them, and our +old people and our women shook their heads and said evil would come of +it. But all our young men, except one, returned as they went--kind to +the poor, kind to those who were foodless, sharing whatever they had +with their tillicums. But one, by name Shak-shak (The Hawk), came back +with hoards of gold nuggets, chickimin,[1] everything; he was rich like +the white men, and, like them, he kept it. He would count his +chickimin, count his nuggets, gloat over them, toss them in his palms. +He rested his head on them as he slept, he packed them about with him +through the day. He loved them better than food, better than his +tillicums, better than his life. The entire tribe arose. They said +Shak-shak had the disease of greed; that to cure it he must give a +great potlatch, divide his riches with the poorer ones, share them with +the old, the sick, the foodless. But he jeered and laughed and told +them No, and went on loving and gloating over his gold. + +"Then the Sagalie Tyee spoke out of the sky and said, 'Shak-shak, you +have made of yourself a loathsome thing; you will not listen to the cry +of the hungry, to the call of the old and sick; you will not share your +possessions; you have made of yourself an outcast from your tribe and +disobeyed the ancient laws of your people. Now I will make of you a +thing loathed and hated by all men, both white and red. You will have +two heads, for your greed has two mouths to bite. One bites the poor, +and one bites your own evil heart--and the fangs in these mouths are +poison, poison that kills the hungry, and poison that kills your own +manhood. Your evil heart will beat in the very centre of your foul +body, and he that pierces it will kill the disease of greed forever +from amongst his people.' And when the sun arose above the North Arm +the next morning the tribes-people saw a gigantic sea-serpent stretched +across the surface of the waters. One hideous head rested on the +bluffs at Brockton Point, the other rested on a group of rocks just +below Mission, at the western edge of North Vancouver. If you care to +go there some day I will show you the hollow in one great stone where +that head lay. The tribes-people were stunned with horror. They +loathed the creature, they hated it, they feared it. Day after day it +lay there, its monstrous heads lifted out of the waters, its mile-long +body blocking all entrance from the Narrows, all outlet from the North +Arm. The chiefs made council, the medicine men danced and chanted, but +the salt-chuck oluk never moved. It could not move, for it was the +hated totem of what now rules the white man's world--greed and love of +chickimin. No one can ever move the love of chickimin from the white +man's heart, no one can ever make him divide all with the poor. But +after the chiefs and medicine men had done all in their power, and +still the salt-chuck oluk lay across the waters, a handsome boy of +sixteen approached them and reminded them of the words of the Sagalie +Tyee, 'that he that pierced the monster's heart would kill the disease +of greed forever amongst his people.' + +"'Let me try to find this evil heart, oh! great men of my tribe,' he +cried. 'Let me war upon this creature; let me try to rid my people of +this pestilence.' + +"The boy was brave and very beautiful. His tribes-people called him +the Tenas Tyee (Little Chief) and they loved him. Of all his wealth of +fish and furs, of game and hykwa (large shell money) he gave to the +boys who had none; he hunted food for the old people; he tanned skins +and furs for those whose feet were feeble, whose eyes were fading, +whose blood ran thin with age. + +"'Let him go!' cried the tribes-people. 'This unclean monster can only +be overcome by cleanliness, this creature of greed can only be +overthrown by generosity. Let him go!' The chiefs and the medicine +men listened, then consented. 'Go,' they commanded, 'and fight this +thing with your strongest weapons--cleanliness and generosity.' + +"The Tenas Tyee turned to his mother. 'I shall be gone four days,' he +told her, 'and I shall swim all that time. I have tried all my life to +be generous, but the people say I must be clean also to fight this +unclean thing. While I am gone put fresh furs on my bed every day, +even if I am not here to lie on them; if I know my bed, my body and my +heart are all clean I can overcome this serpent.' + +"'Your bed shall have fresh furs every morning,' his mother said simply. + +"The Tenas Tyee then stripped himself and, with no clothing save a +buckskin belt into which he thrust his hunting-knife, he flung his +lithe young body into the sea. But at the end of four days he did not +return. Sometimes his people could see him swimming far out in +mid-channel, endeavoring to find the exact centre of the serpent, where +lay its evil, selfish heart; but on the fifth morning they saw him rise +out of the sea, climb to the summit of Brockton Point and greet the +rising sun with outstretched arms. Weeks and months went by, still the +Tenas Tyee would swim daily searching for that heart of greed; and each +morning the sunrise glinted on his slender young copper-colored body as +he stood with outstretched arms at the tip of Brockton Point, greeting +the coming day and then plunging from the summit into the sea. + +"And at his home on the north shore his mother dressed his bed with +fresh furs each morning. The seasons drifted by, winter followed +summer, summer followed winter. But it was four years before the Tenas +Tyee found the centre of the great salt-chuck oluk and plunged his +hunting-knife into its evil heart. In its death-agony it writhed +through the Narrows, leaving a trail of blackness on the waters. Its +huge body began to shrink, to shrivel; it became dwarfed and withered, +until nothing but the bones of its back remained, and they, +sea-bleached and lifeless, soon sank to the bed of the ocean leagues +off from the rim of land. But as the Tenas Tyee swam homeward and his +clean, young body crossed through the black stain left by the serpent, +the waters became clear and blue and sparkling. He had overcome even +the trail of the salt-chuck oluk. + +"When at last he stood in the doorway of his home he said, 'My mother, +I could not have killed the monster of greed amongst my people had you +not helped me by keeping one place for me at home fresh and clean for +my return.' + +"She looked at him as only mothers look. 'Each day these four years, +fresh furs have I laid for your bed. Sleep now, and rest, oh! my Tenas +Tyee,' she said." + + * * * * * + +The Chief unfolded his arms, and his voice took another tone as he +said, "What do you call that story--a legend?" + +"The white people would call it an allegory," I answered. He shook his +head. + +"No savvy," he smiled. + +I explained as simply as possible, and with his customary alertness he +immediately understood. "That's right," he said. "That's what we say +it means, we Squamish, that greed is evil and not clean, like the +salt-chuck oluk. That it must be stamped out amongst our people, +killed by cleanliness and generosity. The boy that overcame the +serpent was both these things." + +"What became of this splendid boy?" I asked. + +"The Tenas Tyee? Oh! some of our old, old people say they sometimes +see him now, standing on Brockton Point, his bare young arms +outstretched to the rising sun," he replied. + +"Have you ever seen him, Chief?" I questioned. + +"No," he answered simply. But I have never heard such poignant regret +as his wonderful voice crowded into that single word. + + +[1] Money. + + + + +The Lost Island + +"Yes," said my old tillicum, "we Indians have lost many things. We +have lost our lands, our forests, our game, our fish; we have lost our +ancient religion, our ancient dress; some of the younger people have +even lost their fathers' language and the legends and traditions of +their ancestors. We cannot call those old things back to us; they will +never come again. We may travel many days up the mountain trails, and +look in the silent places for them. They are not there. We may paddle +many moons on the sea, but our canoes will never enter the channel that +leads to the yesterdays of the Indian people. These things are lost, +just like 'The Island of the North Arm.' They may be somewhere nearby, +but no one can ever find them." + +"But there are many islands up the North Arm," I asserted. + +"Not the island we Indian people have sought for many tens of summers," +he replied sorrowfully. + +"Was it ever there?" I questioned. + +"Yes, it was there," he said. "My grand-sires and my great-grandsires +saw it; but that was long ago. My father never saw it, though he spent +many days in many years searching, always searching, for it. I am an +old man myself, and I have never seen it, though from my youth I, too, +have searched. Sometimes in the stillness of the nights I have paddled +up in my canoe." Then, lowering his voice: "Twice I have seen its +shadow: high rocky shores, reaching as high as the tree tops on the +mainland, then tall pines and firs on its summit like a king's crown. +As I paddled up the Arm one summer night, long ago, the shadow of these +rocks and firs fell across my canoe, across my face, and across the +waters beyond. I turned rapidly to look. There was no island there, +nothing but a wide stretch of waters on both sides of me, and the moon +almost directly overhead. Don't say it was the shore that shadowed +me," he hastened, catching my thought. "The moon was above me; my +canoe scarce made a shadow on the still waters. No, it was not the +shore." + +"Why do you search for it?" I lamented, thinking of the old dreams in +my own life whose realization I have never attained. + +"There is something on that island that I want. I shall look for it +until I die, for it is there," he affirmed. + +There was a long silence between us after that. I had learned to love +silences when with my old tillicum, for they always led to a legend. +After a time he began voluntarily: + +"It was more than one hundred years ago. This great city of Vancouver +was but the dream of the Sagalie Tyee (God) at that time. The dream +had not yet come to the white man; only one great Indian medicine man +knew that some day a great camp for Palefaces would lie between False +Creek and the Inlet. This dream haunted him; it came to him night and +day--when he was amid his people laughing and feasting, or when he was +alone in the forest chanting his strange songs, beating his hollow +drum, or shaking his wooden witch-rattle to gain more power to cure the +sick and the dying of his tribe. For years this dream followed him. +He grew to be an old, old man, yet always he could hear voices, strong +and loud, as when they first spoke to him in his youth, and they would +say: 'Between the two narrow strips of salt water the white men will +camp--many hundreds of them, many thousands of them. The Indians will +learn their ways, will live as they do, will become as they are. There +will be no more great war dances, no more fights with other powerful +tribes; it will be as if the Indians had lost all bravery, all courage, +all confidence.' He hated the voices, he hated the dream; but all his +power, all his big medicine, could not drive them away. He was the +strongest man on all the North Pacific Coast. He was mighty and very +tall, and his muscles were as those of Leloo, the timber wolf, when he +is strongest to kill his prey. He could go for many days without food; +he could fight the largest mountain lion; he could overthrow the +fiercest grizzly bear; he could paddle against the wildest winds and +ride the highest waves. He could meet his enemies and kill whole +tribes single-handed. His strength, his courage, his power, his +bravery, were those of a giant. He knew no fear; nothing in the sea, +or in the forest, nothing in the earth or the sky, could conquer him. +He was fearless, fearless. Only this haunting dream of the coming +white man's camp he could not drive away; it was the one thing in life +he had tried to kill and failed. It drove him from the feasting, drove +him from the pleasant lodges, the fires, the dancing, the story-telling +of his people in their camp by the water's edge, where the salmon +thronged and the deer came down to drink of the mountain streams. He +left the Indian village, chanting his wild songs as he went. Up +through the mighty forests he climbed, through the trailless deep +mosses and matted vines, up to the summit of what the white men call +Grouse Mountain. For many days he camped there. He ate no food, he +drank no water, but sat and sang his medicine songs through the dark +hours and through the day. Before him--far beneath his feet--lay the +narrow strip of land between the two salt waters. Then the Sagalie +Tyee gave him the power to see far into the future. He looked across a +hundred years, just as he looked across what you call the Inlet, and he +saw mighty lodges built close together, hundreds and thousands of them; +lodges of stone and wood, and long straight trails to divide them. He +saw these trails thronging with Palefaces; he heard the sound of the +white man's paddle-dip on the waters, for it is not silent like the +Indian's; he saw the white man's trading posts, saw the fishing nets, +heard his speech. Then the vision faded as gradually as it came. The +narrow strip of land was his own forest once more. + +"'I am old,' he called, in his sorrow and his trouble for his people. +'I am old, oh, Sagalie Tyee! Soon I shall die and go to the Happy +Hunting Grounds of my fathers. Let not my strength die with me. Keep +living for all time my courage, my bravery, my fearlessness. Keep them +for my people that they may be strong enough to endure the white man's +rule. Keep my strength living for them; hide it so that the Paleface +may never find or see it.' + +"Then he came down from the summit of Grouse Mountain. Still chanting +his medicine songs he entered his canoe, and paddled through the colors +of the setting sun far up the North Arm. When night fell he came to an +island with misty shores of great grey rock; on its summit tall pines +and firs circled like a king's crown. As he neared it he felt all his +strength, his courage, his fearlessness, leaving him; he could see +these things drift from him on to the island. They were as the clouds +that rest on the mountains, grey-white and half transparent. Weak as a +woman he paddled back to the Indian village; he told them to go and +search for 'The Island,' where they would find all his courage, his +fearlessness and his strength, living, living forever. He slept then, +but--in the morning he did not awake. Since then our young men and our +old have searched for 'The Island.' It is there somewhere, up some +lost channel, but we cannot find it. When we do, we will get back all +the courage and bravery we had before the white man came, for the great +medicine man said those things never die--they live for one's children +and grandchildren." + +His voice ceased. My whole heart went out to him in his longing for +the lost island. I thought of all the splendid courage I knew him to +possess, so made answer: "But you say that the shadow of this island +has fallen upon you; is it not so, tillicum?" + +"Yes," he said half mournfully. "But only the shadow." + + +[Illustration: Native cradle?] + + + + +Point Grey + +"Have you ever sailed around Point Grey?" asked a young Squamish +tillicum of mine who often comes to see me, to share a cup of tea and a +taste of muck-a-muck, that otherwise I should eat in solitude. + +"No," I admitted, I had not had that pleasure, for I did not know the +uncertain waters of English Bay sufficiently well to venture about its +headlands in my frail canoe. + +"Some day, perhaps next summer, I'll take you there in a sail-boat, and +show you the big rock at the southwest of the Point. It is a strange +rock; we Indian people call it Homolsom." + +"What an odd name," I commented. "Is it a Squamish word?--it does not +sound to me like one." + +"It is not altogether Squamish, but half Fraser River language. The +Point was the dividing line between the grounds and waters of the two +tribes, so they agreed to make the name 'Homolsom' from the two +languages." + +I suggested more tea, and, as he sipped it, he told me the legend that +few of the younger Indians know. That he believes the story himself is +beyond question, for many times he admitted having tested the virtues +of this rock, and it had never once failed him. All people that have +to do with water craft are superstitious about some things, and I +freely acknowledge that times innumerable I have "whistled up" a wind +when dead calm threatened, or stuck a jack-knife in the mast, and +afterwards watched with great contentment the idle sail fill, and the +canoe pull out to a light breeze. So, perhaps, I am prejudiced in +favor of this legend of Homolsom Rock, for it strikes a very responsive +chord in that portion of my heart that has always throbbed for the sea. + +"You know," began my young tillicum, "that only waters unspoiled by +human hands can be of any benefit. One gains no strength by swimming +in any waters heated or boiled by fires that men build. To grow strong +and wise one must swim in the natural rivers, the mountain torrents, +the sea, just as the Sagalie Tyee made them. Their virtues die when +human beings try to improve them by heating or distilling, or placing +even tea in them, and so--what makes Homolsom Rock so full of 'good +medicine' is that the waters that wash up about it are straight from +the sea, made by the hand of the Great Tyee, and unspoiled by the hand +of man. + +"It was not always there, that great rock, drawing its strength and its +wonderful power from the seas, for it, too, was once a Great Tyee, who +ruled a mighty tract of waters. He was god of all the waters that wash +the coast, of the Gulf of Georgia, of Puget Sound, of the Straits of +Juan de Fuca, of the waters that beat against even the west coast of +Vancouver Island, and of all the channels that cut between the +Charlotte Islands. He was Tyee of the West Wind, and his storms and +tempests were so mighty that the Sagalie Tyee Himself could not control +the havoc that he created. He warred upon all fishing craft, he +demolished canoes and sent men to graves in the sea. He uprooted +forests and drove the surf on shore heavy with wreckage of despoiled +trees and with beaten and bruised fish. He did all this to reveal his +powers, for he was cruel and hard of heart, and he would laugh and defy +the Sagalie Tyee, and looking up to the sky he would call, 'See how +powerful I am, how mighty, how strong; I am as great as you.' + +"It was at this time that the Sagalie Tyee in the persons of the Four +Men came in the great canoe up over the rim of the Pacific, in that age +thousands of years ago when they turned the evil into stone, and the +kindly into trees. + +"'Now,' said the god of the West Wind, 'I can show how great I am. I +shall blow a tempest that these men may not land on my coast. They +shall not ride my seas and sounds and channels in safety. I shall +wreck them and send their bodies into the great deeps, and I shall be +Sagalie Tyee in their place and ruler of all the world.' So the god of +the West Wind blew forth his tempests. The waves arose mountain high, +the seas lashed and thundered along the shores. The roar of his mighty +breath could be heard wrenching giant limbs from the forest trees, +whistling down the canyons and dealing death and destruction for +leagues and leagues along the coast. But the canoe containing the Four +Men rode upright through all the heights and hollows of the seething +ocean. No curling crest or sullen depth could wreck that magic craft, +for the hearts it bore were filled with kindness for the human race, +and kindness cannot die. + +"It was all rock and dense forest, and unpeopled; only wild animals and +sea birds sought the shelter it provided from the terrors of the West +Wind; but he drove them out in sullen anger, and made on this strip of +land his last stand against the Four Men. The Paleface calls the place +Point Grey, but the Indians yet speak of it as 'The Battle Ground of +the West Wind.' All his mighty forces he now brought to bear against +the oncoming canoe; he swept great hurricanes about the stony ledges; +he caused the sea to beat and swirl in tempestuous fury along its +narrow fastnesses, but the canoe came nearer and nearer, invincible as +those shores, and stronger than death itself. As the bow touched the +land the Four Men arose and commanded the West Wind to cease his war +cry, and, mighty though he had been, his voice trembled and sobbed +itself into a gentle breeze, then fell to a whispering note, then faded +into exquisite silence. + +"'Oh, you evil one with the unkind heart,' cried the Four Men, 'you +have been too great a god for even the Sagalie Tyee to obliterate you +forever, but you shall live on, live now to serve, not to hinder +mankind. You shall turn into stone where you now stand, and you shall +rise only as men wish you to. Your life from this day shall be for the +good of man, for when the fisherman's sails are idle and his lodge is +leagues away you shall fill those sails and blow his craft free, in +whatever direction he desires. You shall stand where you are through +all the thousands upon thousands of years to come, and he who touches +you with his paddle-blade shall have his desire of a breeze to carry +him home.'" + +My young tillicum had finished his tradition, and his great solemn eyes +regarded me half-wistfully. + +"I wish you could see Homolsom Rock," he said. "For that is he who was +once the Tyee of the West Wind." + +"Were you ever becalmed around Point Grey?" I asked irrelevantly. + +"Often," he replied. "But I paddle up to the rock and touch it with +the tip of my paddle-blade, and no matter which way I want to go the +wind will blow free for me, if I wait a little while." + +"I suppose your people all do this?" I replied. + +"Yes, all of them," he answered. "They have done it for hundreds of +years. You see the power in it is just as great now as at first, for +the rock feeds every day on the unspoiled sea that the Sagalie Tyee +made." + + + + +The Tulameen Trail + +Did you ever "holiday" through the valley lands of the Dry Belt? Ever +spend days and days in a swinging, swaying coach, behind a +four-in-hand, when "Curly" or "Nicola Ned" held the ribbons, and tooled +his knowing little leaders and wheelers down those horrifying mountain +trails that wind like russet skeins of cobweb through the heights and +depths of the Okanagan, the Nicola and the Similkameen countries? If +so, you have listened to the call of the Skookum Chuck, as the Chinook +speakers call the rollicking, tumbling streams that sing their way +through the canyons with a music so dulcet, so insistent, that for many +moons the echo of it lingers in your listening ears, and you will, +through all the years to come, hear the voices of those mountain rivers +calling you to return. + +But the most haunting of all the melodies is the warbling laughter of +the Tulameen; its delicate note is far more powerful, more far-reaching +than the throaty thunders of Niagara. That is why the Indians of the +Nicola country still cling to their old-time story that the Tulameen +carries the spirit of a young girl enmeshed in the wonders of its +winding course; a spirit that can never free itself from the canyons, +to rise above the heights and follow its fellows to the Happy Hunting +Grounds, but which is contented to entwine its laughter, its sobs, its +lonely whispers, its still lonelier call for companionship, with the +wild music of the waters that sing forever beneath the western stars. + +As your horses plod up and up the almost perpendicular trail that leads +out of the Nicola Valley to the summit, a paradise of beauty outspreads +at your feet; the color is indescribable in words, the atmosphere +thrills you. Youth and the pulse of rioting blood are yours again, +until, as you near the heights, you become strangely calmed by the +voiceless silence of it all, a silence so holy that it seems the whole +world about you is swinging its censer before an altar in some dim +remote cathedral! The choir voices of the Tulameen are yet very far +away across the summit, but the heights of the Nicola are the silent +prayer that holds the human soul before the first great chords swell +down from the organ loft. In this first long climb up miles and miles +of trail, even the staccato of the drivers' long black-snake whip is +hushed. He lets his animals pick their own sure-footed way, but once +across the summit he gathers the reins in his steely fingers, gives a +low, quick whistle, the whiplash curls about the ears of the leaders +and the plunge down the dip of the mountain begins. Every foot of the +way is done at a gallop. The coach rocks and swings as it dashes +through a trail rough-hewn from the heart of the forest; at times the +angles are so abrupt that you cannot see the heads of the leaders as +they swing around the grey crags that almost scrape the tires on the +left, while within a foot of the rim of the trail the right wheels +whirl along the edge of a yawning canyon. The rhythm of the +hoof-beats, the recurrent low whistle and crack of the whiplash, the +occasional rattle of pebbles showering down to the depths, loosened by +rioting wheels, have broken the sacred silence. Yet above all those +nearby sounds there seems to be an indistinct murmur, which grows +sweeter, more musical, as you gain the base of the mountains, where it +rises above all harsher notes. It is the voice of the restless +Tulameen as it dances and laughs through the rocky throat of the +canyon, three hundred feet below. Then, following the song, comes a +glimpse of the river itself--white garmented in the film of its +countless rapids, its showers of waterfalls. It is as beautiful to +look at as to listen to, and it is here, where the trail winds about +and above it for leagues, that the Indians say it caught the spirit of +the maiden that is still interlaced in its loveliness. + +It was in one of the terrible battles that raged between the valley +tribes before the white man's footprints were seen along these trails. +None can now tell the cause of this warfare, but the supposition is +that it was merely for tribal supremacy--that primeval instinct that +assails the savage in both man and beast, that drives the hill men to +bloodshed and the leaders of buffalo herds to conflict. It is the +greed to rule; the one barbarous instinct that civilization has never +yet been able to eradicate from armed nations. This war of the tribes +of the valley lands was of years in duration; men fought and women +mourned, and children wept, as all have done since time began. It +seemed an unequal battle, for the old experienced war-tried chief and +his two astute sons were pitted against a single young Tulameen brave. +Both factors had their loyal followers, both were indomitable as to +courage and bravery, both were determined and ambitious, both were +skilled fighters. + +[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE NARROWS, VANCOUVER, B.C. + Bishop & Christie, Photo.] + +But on the older man's side were experience and two other wary, +strategic brains to help him, while on the younger was but the +advantage of splendid youth and unconquerable persistence. But at +every pitched battle, at every skirmish, at every single-handed +conflict the younger man gained little by little, the older man lost +step by step. The experience of age was gradually but inevitably +giving way to the strength and enthusiasm of youth. Then one day they +met face to face and alone--the old war-scarred chief, the young +battle-inspired brave. It was an unequal combat, and at the close of a +brief but violent struggle the younger had brought the older to his +knees. Standing over him with up-poised knife the Tulameen brave +laughed sneeringly, and said: + +"Would you, my enemy, have this victory as your own? If so, I give it +to you; but in return for my submission I demand of you--your daughter." + +For an instant the old chief looked in wonderment at his conqueror; he +thought of his daughter only as a child who played about the forest +trails or sat obediently beside her mother in the lodge, stitching her +little moccasins or weaving her little baskets. + +"My daughter!" he answered sternly. "My daughter--who is barely out of +her own cradle basket--give her to you, whose hands, are blood-dyed +with the killing of a score of my tribe? You ask for this thing?" + +"I do not ask it," replied the young brave. "I demand it; I have seen +the girl and I shall have her." + +The old chief sprang to his feet and spat out his refusal. "Keep your +victory, and I keep my girl-child," though he knew he was not only +defying his enemy, but defying death as well. + +The Tulameen laughed lightly, easily. "I shall not kill the sire of my +wife," he taunted. "One more battle must we have, but your girl-child +will come to me." + +Then he took his victorious way up the trail, while the old chief +walked with slow and springless step down into the canyon. + +The next morning the chief's daughter was loitering along the heights, +listening to the singing river, and sometimes leaning over the +precipice to watch its curling eddies and dancing waterfalls. Suddenly +she heard a slight rustle, as though some passing bird's wing had dipt +the air. Then at her feet there fell a slender, delicately shaped +arrow. It fell with spent force, and her Indian woodcraft told her it +had been shot to her, not at her. She started like a wild animal. +Then her quick eye caught the outline of a handsome, erect figure that +stood on the heights across the river. She did not know him as her +father's enemy. She only saw him to be young, stalwart and of +extraordinary, manly beauty. The spirit of youth and of a certain +savage coquetry awoke within her. Quickly she fitted one of her own +dainty arrows to the bow string and sent it winging across the narrow +canyon; it fell, spent, at his feet, and he knew she had shot it to +him, not at him. + +Next morning, woman-like, she crept noiselessly to the brink of the +heights. Would she see him again--that handsome brave? Would he speed +another arrow to her? She had not yet emerged from the tangle of +forest before it fell, its faint-winged flight heralding its coming. +Near the feathered end was tied a tassel of beautiful ermine tails. +She took from her wrist a string of shell beads, fastened it to one of +her little arrows and winged it across the canyon, as yesterday. + +The following morning before leaving the lodge she fastened the tassel +of ermine tails in her straight, black hair. Would he see them? But +no arrow fell at her feet that day, but a dearer message was there on +the brink of the precipice. He himself awaited her coming--he who had +never left her thoughts since that first arrow came to her from his +bow-string. His eyes burned with warm fires, as she approached, but +his lips said simply: "I have crossed the Tulameen River." Together +they stood, side by side, and looked down at the depths before them, +watching in silence the little torrent rollicking and roystering over +its boulders and crags. + +"That is my country," he said, looking across the river. "This is the +country of your father, and of your brothers; they are my enemies. I +return to my own shore tonight. Will you come with me?" + +She looked up into his handsome young face. So this was her father's +foe--the dreaded Tulameen! + +"Will you come?" he repeated. + +"I will come," she whispered. + +It was in the dark of the moon and through the kindly night he led her +far up the rocky shores to the narrow belt of quiet waters, where they +crossed in silence into his own country. A week, a month, a long +golden summer, slipped by, but the insulted old chief and his enraged +sons failed to find her. + +Then one morning as the lovers walked together on the heights above the +far upper reaches of the river, even the ever-watchful eyes of the +Tulameen failed to detect the lurking enemy. Across the narrow canyon +crouched and crept the two outwitted brothers of the girl-wife at his +side; their arrows were on their bow-strings, their hearts on fire with +hatred and vengeance. Like two evil-winged birds of prey those arrows +sped across the laughing river, but before they found their mark in the +breast of the victorious Tulameen the girl had unconsciously stepped +before him. With a little sigh, she slipped into his arms, her +brothers' arrows buried into her soft, brown flesh. + +It was many a moon before his avenging hand succeeded in slaying the +old chief and those two hated sons of his. But when this was finally +done the handsome young Tulameen left his people, his tribe, his +country, and went into the far north. "For," he said, as he sang his +farewell war song, "my heart lies dead in the Tulameen River." + + * * * * * + +But the spirit of his girl-wife still sings through the canyon, its +song blending with the music of that sweetest-voiced river in all the +great valleys of the Dry Belt. That is why this laughter, the sobbing +murmur of the beautiful Tulameen will haunt for evermore the ear that +has once listened to its song. + + + + +The Grey Archway + +The steamer, like a huge shuttle, wove in and out among the countless +small islands; its long trailing scarf of grey smoke hung heavily along +the uncertain shores, casting a shadow over the pearly waters of the +Pacific, which swung lazily from rock to rock in indescribable beauty. + +After dinner I wandered astern with the traveller's ever-present hope +of seeing the beauties of a typical Northern sunset, and by some happy +chance I placed my deck stool near an old tillicum, who was leaning on +the rail, his pipe between his thin curved lips, his brown hands +clasped idly, his sombre eyes looking far out to sea, as though they +searched the future--or was it that they were seeing the past? + +"Kla-how-ya, tillicum!" I greeted. + +He glanced round, and half smiled. + +"Kla-how-ya, tillicum!" he replied, with the warmth of friendliness I +have always met with among the Pacific tribes. + +I drew my deck stool nearer to him, and he acknowledged the action with +another half smile, but did not stir from his entrenchment, remaining +as if hedged about with an inviolable fortress of exclusiveness. Yet I +knew that my Chinook salutation would be a drawbridge by which I might +hope to cross the moat into his castle of silence. + +Indian-like, he took his time before continuing the acquaintance. Then +he began in most excellent English: + +"You do not know these Northern waters?" + +I shook my head. + +After many moments he leaned forward, looking along the curve of the +deck, up the channels and narrows we were threading, to a broad strip +of waters off the port bow. Then he pointed with that peculiar, +thoroughly Indian gesture of the palm uppermost. + +"Do you see it--over there? The small island? It rests on the edge of +the water, like a grey gull." + +It took my unaccustomed eyes some moments to discern it; then all at +once I caught its outline, veiled in the mists of distance--grey, +cobwebby, dreamy. + +"Yes," I replied, "I see it now. You will tell me of it--tillicum?" + +He gave a swift glance at my dark skin, then nodded. "You are one of +us," he said, with evidently no thought of a possible contradiction. +"And you will understand, or I should not tell you. You will not smile +at the story, for you are one of us." + +"I am one of you, and I shall understand," I answered. + +It was a full half-hour before we neared the island, yet neither of us +spoke during that time; then, as the "grey gull" shaped itself into +rock and tree and crag, I noticed in the very centre a stupendous pile +of stone lifting itself skyward, without fissure or cleft; but a +peculiar haziness about the base made me peer narrowly to catch the +perfect outline. + +"It is the 'Grey Archway,'" he explained, simply. + +Only then did I grasp the singular formation before us; the rock was a +perfect archway, through which we could see the placid Pacific +shimmering in the growing colors of the coming sunset at the opposite +rim of the island. + +"What a remarkable whim of Nature!" I exclaimed, but his brown hand was +laid in a contradictory grasp on my arm, and he snatched up my comment +almost with impatience. + +"No, it was not Nature," he said. "That is the reason I say you will +understand--you are one of us--you will know what I tell you is true. +The Great Tyee did not make that archway, it was--"here his voice +lowered--"it was magic, red man's medicine and magic--you savvy?" + +"Yes," I said. "Tell me, for I--savvy." + +"Long time ago," he began, stumbling into a half-broken English +language, because, I think, of the atmosphere and environment, "long +before you were born, or your father, or grandfather, or even his +father, this strange thing happened. It is a story for women to hear, +to remember. Women are the future mothers of the tribe, and we of the +Pacific Coast hold such in high regard, in great reverence. The women +who are mothers--o-ho!--they are the important ones, we say. Warriors, +fighters, brave men, fearless daughters, owe their qualities to these +mothers--eh, is it not always so?" + +I nodded silently. The island was swinging nearer to us, the "Grey +Archway" loomed almost above us, the mysticism crowded close, it +enveloped me, caressed me, appealed to me. + +"And?" I hinted. + +"And," he proceeded, "this 'Grey Archway' is a story of mothers, of +magic, of witchcraft, of warriors, of--love." + +An Indian rarely uses the word "love," and when he does it expresses +every quality, every attribute, every intensity, emotion and passion +embraced in those four little letters. Surely this was an exceptional +story I was to hear. + +I did not answer, only looked across the pulsing waters toward the +"Grey Archway," which the sinking sun was touching with soft pastels, +tints one could give no name to, beauties impossible to describe. + +"You have not heard of Yaada?" he questioned. Then fortunately he +continued without waiting for a reply. He well knew that I had never +heard of Yaada, so why not begin without preliminary to tell me of +her?--so-- + +"Yaada was the loveliest daughter of the Haida tribe. Young braves +from all the islands, from the mainland, from the upper Skeena country +came, hoping to carry her to their far-off lodges, but they always +returned alone. She was the most desired of all the island maidens, +beautiful, brave, modest, the daughter of her own mother. + +"But there was a great man, a very great man--a medicine man, skilful, +powerful, influential, old, deplorably old, and very, very rich; he +said, 'Yaada shall be my wife.' And there was a young fisherman, +handsome, loyal, boyish, poor, oh! very poor, and gloriously young, and +he, too, said, 'Yaada shall be my wife.' + +"But Yaada's mother sat apart and thought and dreamed, as mothers will. +She said to herself, 'The great medicine man has power, has vast +riches, and wonderful magic, why not give her to him? But Ulka has the +boy's heart, the boy's beauty, he is very brave, very strong; why not +give her to him?' + +"But the laws of the great Haida tribe prevailed. Its wise men said, +'Give the girl to the greatest man, give her to the most powerful, the +richest. The man of magic must have his choice.' + +"But at this the mother's heart grew as wax in the summer sunshine--it +is a strange quality that mothers' hearts are made of! 'Give her to +the best man--the man her heart holds highest,' said this Haida mother. + +"Then Yaada spoke: 'I am the daughter of my tribe; I would judge of men +by their excellence. He who proves most worthy I shall marry; it is +not riches that make a good husband; it is not beauty that makes a good +father for one's children. Let me and my tribe see some proof of the +excellence of these two men--then, only, shall I choose who is to be +the father of my children. Let us have a trial of their skill; let +them show me how evil or how beautiful is the inside of their hearts. +Let each of them throw a stone with some intent, some purpose in their +hearts. He who makes the noblest mark may call me wife.' + +"'Alas! Alas!' wailed the Haida mother. 'This casting of stones does +not show worth. It but shows prowess.' + +"'But I have implored the Sagalie Tyee of my father, and of his fathers +before him, to help me to judge between them by this means,' said the +girl. 'So they must cast the stones. In this way only shall I see +their innermost hearts.' + +"The medicine man never looked so old as at that moment; so hopelessly +old, so wrinkled, so palsied: he was no mate for Yaada. Ulka never +looked so god-like in his young beauty, so gloriously young, so +courageous. The girl, looking at him, loved him--almost was she +placing her hand in his, but the spirit of her forefathers halted her. +She had spoken the word--she must abide by it. 'Throw!' she commanded. + +"Into his shrivelled fingers the great medicine man took a small, round +stone, chanting strange words of magic all the while; his greedy eyes +were on the girl, his greedy thoughts about her. + +"Into his strong, young fingers Ulka took a smooth, flat stone; his +handsome eyes were lowered in boyish modesty, his thoughts were +worshipping her. The great medicine man cast his missile first; it +swept through the air like a shaft of lightning, striking the great +rock with a force that shattered it. At the touch of that stone the +'Grey Archway' opened and has remained opened to this day. + +"'Oh, wonderful power and magic!' clamored the entire tribe. 'The very +rocks do his bidding.' + +"But Yaada stood with eyes that burned in agony. Ulka could never +command such magic--she knew it. But at her side Ulka was standing +erect, tall, slender and beautiful, but just as he cast his missile the +evil voice of the old medicine man began a still more evil incantation. +He fixed his poisonous eyes on the younger man, eyes with hideous magic +in their depths--ill-omened and enchanted with 'bad medicine.' The +stone left Ulka's fingers; for a second it flew forth in a straight +line, then as the evil voice of the old man grew louder in its +incantations the stone curved. Magic had waylaid the strong arm of the +young brave. The stone poised an instant above the forehead of Yaada's +mother, then dropped with the weight of many mountains, and the last +long sleep fell upon her. + +"'Slayer of my mother!' stormed the girl, her suffering eyes fixed upon +the medicine man. 'Oh, I now see your black heart through your black +magic. Through, good magic you cut the 'Great Archway,' but your evil +magic you used upon young Ulka. I saw your wicked eyes upon him; I +heard your wicked incantations; I know your wicked heart. You used +your heartless magic in hope of winning me--in hope of making him an +outcast of the tribe. You cared not for my sorrowing heart, my +motherless life to come.' Then, turning to the tribe, she demanded: +'Who of you saw his evil eyes fixed on Ulka? Who of you heard his evil +song?' + +"'I,' and 'I,' and 'I,' came voice after voice. + +"'The very air is poisoned that we breathe about him,' they shouted. +'The young man is blameless, his heart is as the sun, but the man who +has used his evil magic has a heart black and cold as the hours before +the dawn.' + +"Then Yaada's voice arose in a strange, sweet, sorrowful chant: + + My feet shall walk no more upon this island, + With its great, Grey Archway. + My mother sleeps forever on this island, + With its great, Grey Archway. + My heart would break without her on this island, + With its great, Grey Archway. + + My life was of her life upon this island, + With its great, Grey Archway. + My mother's soul has wandered from this island, + With its great, Grey Archway. + My feet must follow hers beyond this island, + With its great, Grey Archway. + + +"As Yaada chanted and wailed her farewell, she moved slowly towards the +edge of the cliff. On its brink she hovered a moment with outstretched +arms, as a sea gull poises on its weight--then she called: + +"'Ulka, my Ulka! Your hand is innocent of wrong; it was the evil magic +of your rival that slew my mother. I must go to her; even you cannot +keep me here; will you stay, or come with me? Oh! my Ulka!' + +"The slender, gloriously young boy sprang toward her; their hands +closed one within the other; for a second they poised on the brink of +the rocks, radiant as stars; then together they plunged into the sea." + + * * * * * + +The legend was ended. Long ago we had passed the island with its "Grey +Archway"; it was melting into the twilight, far astern. + +As I brooded over this strange tale of a daughter's devotion, I watched +the sea and sky for something that would give me a clue to the +inevitable sequel that the tillicum, like all his race, was surely +withholding until the opportune moment. + +Something flashed through the darkening waters not a stone's throw from +the steamer. I leaned forward, watching it intently. Two silvery fish +were making a succession of little leaps and plunges along the surface +of the sea, their bodies catching the last tints of sunset, like +flashing jewels. I looked at the tillicum quickly. He was watching +me--a world of anxiety in his half-mournful eyes. + +"And those two silvery fish?" I questioned. + +He smiled. The anxious look vanished. "I was right," he said; "you do +know us and our ways, for you are one of us. Yes, those fish are seen +only in these waters; there are never but two of them. They are Yaada +and her mate, seeking for the soul of the Haida woman--her mother." + + +[Illustration: Native art] + + + + +Deadman's Island + + It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon, + And we two dreaming the dusk away, + Beneath the drift of a twilight grey-- + Beneath the drowse of an ending day. + And the curve of a golden moon. + + It is dark in the Lost Lagoon. + And gone are the depths of haunting blue, + The grouping gulls, and the old canoe, + The singing firs, and the dusk and--you, + And gone is the golden moon. + + O! lure of the Lost Lagoon-- + I dream tonight that my paddle blurs + The purple shade where the seaweed stirs-- + I hear the call of the singing firs + In the hush of the golden moon. + + +For many minutes we stood silently, leaning on the western rail of the +bridge as we watched the sun set across that beautiful little water +known as Coal Harbor. I have always resented that jarring, +unattractive name, for years ago, when I first plied paddle across the +gunwale of a light little canoe, and idled about its margin, I named +the sheltered little cove the Lost Lagoon. This was just to please my +own fancy, for as that perfect summer month drifted on, the +ever-restless tides left the harbor devoid of water at my favorite +canoeing hour, and my pet idling place was lost for many days--hence my +fancy to call it the Lost Lagoon. But the chief, Indian-like, +immediately adopted the name, at least when he spoke of the place to +me, and as we watched the sun slip behind the rim of firs, he expressed +the wish that his dugout were here instead of lying beached at the +farther side of the park. + +"If canoe was here, you and I we paddle close to shores all 'round your +Lost Lagoon: we make track just like half moon. Then we paddle under +this bridge, and go channel between Deadman's Island and park. Then +'round where cannon speak time at nine o'clock. Then 'cross Inlet to +Indian side of Narrows." + +I turned to look eastward, following in fancy the course he had +sketched; the waters were still as the footstep of the oncoming +twilight, and, floating in a pool of soft purple, Deadman's Island +rested like a large circle of candle moss. + +"Have you ever been on it?" he asked as he caught my gaze centering on +the irregular outline of the island pines. + +"I have prowled the length and depth of it," I told him. "Climbed over +every rock on its shores, crept under every tangled growth of its +interior, explored its overgrown trails, and more than once nearly got +lost in its very heart." + +"Yes," he half laughed, "it pretty wild; not much good for anything." + +"People seem to think it valuable," I said. "There is a lot of +litigation--of fighting going on now about it." + +"Oh! that the way always," he said as though speaking of a long +accepted fact. "Always fight over that place. Hundreds of years ago +they fight about it; Indian people; they say hundreds of years to come +everybody will still fight--never be settled what that place is, who it +belong to, who has right to it. No, never settle. Deadman's Island +always mean fight for someone." + +"So the Indians fought amongst themselves about it?" I remarked, +seemingly without guile, although my ears tingled for the legend I knew +was coming. + +"Fought like lynx at close quarters," he answered. "Fought, killed +each other, until the island ran with blood redder than that sunset, +and the sea water about it was stained flame color--it was then, my +people say, that the scarlet fire-flower was first seen growing along +this coast." + +"It is a beautiful color--the fire-flower," I said. + +"It should be fine color, for it was born and grew from the hearts of +fine tribes-people--very fine people," he emphasized. + +We crossed to the eastern rail of the bridge, and stood watching the +deep shadows that gathered slowly and silently about the island; I have +seldom looked upon anything more peaceful. + +The chief sighed. "We have no such men now, no fighters like those +men, no hearts, no courage like theirs. But I tell you the story; you +understand it then. Now all peace; to-night all good tillicums; even +dead man's spirit does not fight now, but long time after it happen +those spirits fought." + +"And the legend?" I ventured. + +"Oh! yes," he replied, as if suddenly returning to the present from out +a far country in the realm of time. "Indian people, they call it the +'Legend of the Island of Dead Men.' + +"There was war everywhere. Fierce tribes from the northern coast, +savage tribes from the south, all met here and battled and raided, +burned and captured, tortured and killed their enemies. The forests +smoked with camp fires, the Narrows were choked with war canoes, and +the Sagalie Tyee--He who is a man of peace--turned His face away from +His Indian children. About this island there was dispute and +contention. The medicine men from the North claimed it as their +chanting ground. The medicine men from the South laid equal claim to +it. Each wanted it as the stronghold of their witchcraft, their magic. +Great bands of these medicine men met on the small space, using every +sorcery in their power to drive their opponents away. The witch +doctors of the North made their camp on the northern rim of the island; +those from the South settled along the southern edge, looking towards +what is now the great city of Vancouver. Both factions danced, +chanted, burned their magic powders, built their magic fires, beat +their magic rattles, but neither would give way, yet neither conquered. +About them, on the waters, on the mainlands, raged the warfare of their +respective tribes--the Sagalie Tyee had forgotten His Indian children. + +"After many months, the warriors on both sides weakened. They said the +incantations of the rival medicine men were bewitching them, were +making their hearts like children's, and their arms nerveless as +women's. So friend and foe arose as one man and drove the medicine men +from the island, hounded them down the Inlet, herded them through the +Narrows and banished them out to sea, where they took refuge on one of +the outer islands of the gulf. Then the tribes once more fell upon +each other in battle. + +"The warrior blood of the North will always conquer. They are the +stronger, bolder, more alert, more keen. The snows and the ice of +their country make swifter pulse than the sleepy suns of the South can +awake in a man; their muscles are of sterner stuff, their endurance +greater. Yes, the northern tribes will always be victors.[1] But the +craft and the strategy of the southern tribes are hard things to battle +against. While those of the North followed the medicine men farther +out to sea to make sure of their banishment, those from the South +returned under cover of night and seized the women and children and the +old, enfeebled men in their enemy's camp, transported them all to the +Island of Dead Men, and there held them as captives. Their war canoes +circled the island like a fortification, through which drifted the sobs +of the imprisoned women, the mutterings of the aged men, the wail of +little children. + +"Again and again the men of the North assailed that circle of canoes, +and again and again were repulsed. The air was thick with poisoned +arrows, the water stained with blood. But day by day the circle of +southern canoes grew thinner and thinner; the northern arrows were +telling, and truer of aim. Canoes drifted everywhere, empty, or worse +still, manned only by dead men. The pick of the southern warriors had +already fallen, when their greatest Tyee mounted a large rock on the +eastern shore. Brave and unmindful of a thousand weapons aimed at his +heart, he uplifted his hand, palm outward--the signal for conference. +Instantly every northern arrow was lowered, and every northern ear +listened for his words. + +[Illustration: KITSILANO BEACH, VANCOUVER, B.C. Bishop & Christie, +Photo.] + +"'Oh! men of the upper coast,' he said, 'you are more numerous than we +are; your tribe is larger; your endurance greater. We are growing +hungry, we are growing less in numbers. Our captives--your women and +children and old men--have lessened, too, our stores of food. If you +refuse our terms we will yet fight to the finish. Tomorrow we will +kill all our captives before your eyes, for we can feed them no longer, +or you can have your wives, your mothers, your fathers, your children, +by giving us for each and every one of them one of your best and +bravest young warriors, who will consent to suffer death in their +stead. Speak! You have your choice.' + +"In the northern canoes scores and scores of young warriors leapt to +their feet. The air was filled with glad cries, with exultant shouts. +The whole world seemed to ring with the voices of those young men who +called loudly, with glorious courage: + +"'Take me, but give me back my old father.' + +"'Take me, but spare to my tribe my little sister.' + +"'Take me, but release my wife and boy-baby.' + +"So the compact was made. Two hundred heroic, magnificent young men +paddled up to the island, broke through the fortifying circle of canoes +and stepped ashore. They flaunted their eagle plumes with the spirit +and boldness of young gods. Their shoulders were erect, their step was +firm, their hearts strong. Into their canoes they crowded the two +hundred captives. Once more their women sobbed, their old men +muttered, their children wailed, but those young copper-colored gods +never flinched, never faltered. Their weak and their feeble were +saved. What mattered to them such a little thing as death? + +"The released captives were quickly surrounded by their own people, but +the flower of their splendid nation was in the hands of their enemies, +those valorous young men who thought so little of life that they +willingly, gladly laid it down to serve and to save those they loved +and cared for. Amongst them were war-tried warriors who had fought +fifty battles, and boys not yet full grown, who were drawing a bow +string for the first time, but their hearts, their courage, their +self-sacrifice were as one. + +"Out before a long file of southern warriors they stood. Their chins +uplifted, their eyes defiant, their breasts bared. Each leaned forward +and laid his weapons at his feet, then stood erect, with empty hands, +and laughed forth their challenge to death. A thousand arrows ripped +the air, two hundred gallant northern throats flung forth a death cry +exultant, triumphant as conquering kings--then two hundred fearless +northern hearts ceased to beat. + +"But in the morning the southern tribes found the spot where they fell +peopled with flaming fire-flowers. Dread terror seized upon them. +They abandoned the island, and when night again shrouded them they +manned their canoes and noiselessly slipped through the Narrows, turned +their bows southward and this coast line knew them no more." + +"What glorious men," I half whispered as the chief concluded the +strange legend. + +"Yes, men!" he echoed. "The white people call it Deadman's Island. +That is their way; but we of the Squamish call it The Island of Dead +Men." + +The clustering pines and the outlines of the island's margin were now +dusky and indistinct. Peace, peace lay over the waters, and the purple +of the summer twilight had turned to grey, but I knew that in the +depths of the undergrowth on Deadman's Island there blossomed a flower +of flaming beauty; its colors were veiled in the coming nightfall, but +somewhere down in the sanctuary of its petals pulsed the heart's blood +of many and valiant men. + + +[1] Note.--It would almost seem that the chief knew that wonderful poem +of "The Khan's," "The Men of the Northern Zone," wherein he says: + + If ever a Northman lost a throne + Did the conqueror come from the South? + Nay, the North shall ever be free ... etc. + + +[Illustration: Gold panning pan, pick, shovel] + + + + +A Squamish Legend of Napoleon + +Holding an important place among the majority of curious tales held in +veneration by the coast tribes are those of the sea-serpent. The +monster appears and reappears with almost monotonous frequency in +connection with history, traditions, legends and superstitions; but +perhaps the most wonderful part it ever played was in the great drama +that held the stage of Europe, and incidentally all the world during +the stormy days of the first Napoleon. + +Throughout Canada I have never failed to find an amazing knowledge of +Napoleon Bonaparte amongst the very old and "uncivilized" Indians. +Perhaps they may be unfamiliar with every other historical character +from Adam down, but they will all tell you they have heard of the +"Great French Fighter," as they call the wonderful little Corsican. + +Whether this knowledge was obtained through the fact that our earliest +settlers and pioneers were French, or whether Napoleon's almost magical +fighting career attracted the Indian mind to the exclusion of lesser +warriors, I have never yet decided. But the fact remains that the +Indians of our generation are not as familiar with Bonaparte's name as +were their fathers and grandfathers, so either the predominance of +English-speaking settlers or the thinning of their ancient war-loving +blood by modern civilization and peaceful times, must one or the other +account for the younger Indian's ignorance of the Emperor of the French. + +In telling me the legend of The Lost Talisman, my good tillicum, the +late Chief Capilano, began the story with the almost amazing question, +Had I ever heard of Napoleon Bonaparte? It was some moments before I +just caught the name, for his English, always quaint and beautiful, was +at times a little halting; but when he said by way of explanation, "You +know big fighter, Frenchman. The English they beat him in big battle," +I grasped immediately of whom he spoke. + +"What do you know of him?" I asked. + +His voice lowered, almost as if he spoke a state secret. "I know how +it is that English they beat him." + +I have read many historians on this event, but to hear the Squamish +version was a novel and absorbing thing. "Yes?" I said--my usual +"leading" word to lure him into channels of tradition. + +"Yes," he affirmed. Then, still in a half whisper, he proceeded to +tell me that it all happened through the agency of a single joint from +the vertebra of a sea-serpent. + +In telling me the story of Brockton Point and the valiant boy who +killed the monster, he dwelt lightly on the fact that all people who +approach the vicinity of the creature are palsied, both mentally and +physically--bewitched, in fact--so that their bones become disjointed +and their brains incapable; but to-day he elaborated upon this +peculiarity until I harked back to the boy of Brockton Point and asked +how it was that his body and brain escaped this affliction. + +"He was all good, and had no greed," he replied. "He proof against all +bad things." + +I nodded understandingly, and he proceeded to tell me that all +successful Indian fighters and warriors carried somewhere about their +person a joint of a sea-serpent's vertebra, that the medicine men threw +"the power" about them so that they were not personally affected by +this little "charm," but that immediately they approached an enemy the +"charm" worked disaster, and victory was assured to the fortunate +possessor of the talisman. There was one particularly effective joint +that had been treasured and carried by the warriors of a great Squamish +family for a century. These warriors had conquered every foe they +encountered, until the talisman had become so renowned that the totem +pole of their entire "clan" was remodelled, and the new one crested by +the figure of a single joint of a sea-serpent's vertebra. + +About this time stories of Napoleon's first great achievements drifted +across the seas; not across the land--and just here may be a clue to +buried coast-Indian history, which those who are cleverer at research +than I, can puzzle over. The chief was most emphatic about the source +of Indian knowledge of Napoleon. + +"I suppose you heard of him from Quebec, through, perhaps, some of the +French priests," I remarked. + +"No, no," he contradicted hurriedly. "Not from East; we hear it from +over the Pacific, from the place they call Russia." But who conveyed +the news or by what means it came he could not further enlighten me. +But a strange thing happened to the Squamish family about this time. +There was a large blood connection, but the only male member living was +a very old warrior, the hero of many battles, and the possessor of the +talisman. On his death-bed his women of three generations gathered +about him; his wife, his sisters, his daughters, his granddaughters, +but not one man, nor yet a boy of his own blood stood by to speed his +departing warrior spirit to the land of peace and plenty. + +"The charm cannot rest in the hands of women," he murmured almost with +his last breath. "Women may not war and fight other nations or other +tribes; women are for the peaceful lodge and for the leading of little +children. They are for holding baby hands, teaching baby feet to walk. +No, the charm cannot rest with you, women. I have no brother, no +cousin, no son, no grandson, and the charm must not go to a lesser +warrior than I. None of our tribe, nor of any tribe on the coast, ever +conquered me. The charm must go to one as unconquerable as I have +been. When I am dead send it across the great salt chuck, to the +victorious 'Frenchman'; they call him Napoleon Bonaparte." They were +his last words. + +The older women wished to bury the charm with him, but the younger +women, inspired with the spirit of their generation, were determined to +send it over seas. "In the grave it will be dead," they argued. "Let +it still live on. Let it help some other fighter to greatness and +victory." + +As if to confirm their decision, the next day a small sealing vessel +anchored in the Inlet. All the men aboard spoke Russian, save two +thin, dark, agile sailors, who kept aloof from the crew and conversed +in another language. These two came ashore with part of the crew and +talked in French with a wandering Hudson's Bay trapper, who often +lodged with the Squamish people. Thus the women, who yet mourned over +their dead warrior, knew these two strangers to be from the land where +the great "Frenchman" was fighting against the world. + +Here I interrupted the chief. "How came the Frenchmen in a Russian +sealer?" I asked. + +"Captives," he replied. "Almost slaves, and hated by their captors, as +the majority always hate the few. So the women drew those two +Frenchmen apart from the rest and told them the story of the bone of +the sea-serpent, urging them to carry it back to their own country and +give it to the great 'Frenchman' who was as courageous and as brave as +their dead leader. + +"The Frenchmen hesitated; the talisman might affect them, they said; +might jangle their own brains, so that on their return to Russia they +would not have the sagacity to plan an escape to their own country; +might disjoint their bodies, so that their feet and hands would be +useless, and they would become as weak as children. But the women +assured them that the charm only worked its magical powers over a man's +enemies, that the ancient medicine men had 'bewitched' it with this +quality. So the Frenchmen took it and promised that if it were in the +power of man they would convey it to 'the Emperor.' + +"As the crew boarded the sealer, the women watching from the shore +observed strange contortions seize many of the men; some fell on the +deck; some crouched, shaking as with palsy; some writhed for a moment, +then fell limp and seemingly boneless; only the two Frenchmen stood +erect and strong and vital--the Squamish talisman had already overcome +their foes. As the little sealer set sail up the gulf she was +commanded by a crew of two Frenchmen--men who had entered these waters +as captives, who were leaving them as conquerors. The palsied Russians +were worse than useless, and what became of them the chief could not +state; presumably they were flung overboard, and by some trick of a +kindly fate the Frenchmen at last reached the coast of France. + +"Tradition is so indefinite about their movements subsequent to sailing +out of the Inlet, that even the ever-romantic and vividly colored +imaginations of the Squamish people have never supplied the details of +this beautifully childish, yet strangely historical fairy tale. But +the voices of the trumpets of war, the beat of drums throughout Europe +heralded back to the wilds of the Pacific Coast forests the +intelligence that the great Squamish 'charm' eventually reached the +person of Napoleon; that from this time onward his career was one vast +victory, that he won battle after battle, conquered nation after +nation, and but for the direst calamity that could befall a warrior +would eventually have been master of the world." + +"What was this calamity, Chief?" I asked, amazed at his knowledge of +the great historical soldier and strategist. + +The chief's voice again lowered to a whisper--his face was almost rigid +with intentness as he replied: + +"He lost the Squamish charm--lost it just before one great fight with +the English people." + +I looked at him curiously; he had been telling me the oddest mixture of +history and superstition, of intelligence and ignorance, the most +whimsically absurd, yet impressive, tale I ever heard from Indian lips. + +"What was the name of the great fight--did you ever hear it?" I asked, +wondering how much he knew of events which took place at the other side +of the world a century agone. + +"Yes," he said, carefully, thoughtfully; "I hear the name sometime in +London when I there. Railroad station there--same name." + +"Was it Waterloo?" I asked. + +He nodded quickly, without a shadow of hesitation. "That the one," he +replied; "that's it, Waterloo." + + +[Illustration: Native bowl] + + + + +The Lure in Stanley Park + +There is a well-known trail in Stanley Park that leads to what I always +love to call the "Cathedral Trees"--that group of some half-dozen +forest giants that arch overhead with such superb loftiness. But in +all the world there is no cathedral whose marble or onyx columns can +vie with those straight, clean, brown tree-boles that teem with the sap +and blood of life. There is no fresco that can rival the delicacy of +lace-work they have festooned between you and the far skies. No tiles, +no mosaic or inlaid marbles, are as fascinating as the bare, russet, +fragrant floor outspreading about their feet. They are the acme of +Nature's architecture, and in building them she has outrivalled all her +erstwhile conceptions. She will never originate a more faultless +design, never erect a more perfect edifice. But the divinely moulded +trees and the man-made cathedral have one exquisite characteristic in +common. It is the atmosphere of holiness. Most of us have better +impulses after viewing a stately cathedral, and none of us can stand +amid that majestic forest group without experiencing some elevating +thoughts, some refinement of our coarser nature. Perhaps those who +read this little legend will never again look at those cathedral trees +without thinking of the glorious souls they contain, for according to +the Coast Indians they do harbor human souls, and the world is better +because they once had the speech and the hearts of mighty men. + +My tillicum did not use the word "lure" in telling me this legend. +There is no equivalent for the word in the Chinook tongue, but the +gestures of his voiceful hands so expressed the quality of something +between magnetism and charm that I have selected this word "lure" as +best fitting what he wished to convey. Some few yards beyond the +cathedral trees, an overgrown disused trail turns into the dense +wilderness to the right. Only Indian eyes could discern that trail, +and the Indians do not willingly go to that part of the park to the +right of the great group. Nothing in this, nor yet the next world +would tempt a Coast Indian into the compact centres of the wild +portions of the park, for therein, concealed cunningly, is the "lure" +they all believe in. There is not a tribe in the entire district that +does not know of this strange legend. You will hear the tale from +those that gather at Eagle Harbor for the fishing, from the Fraser +River tribes, from the Squamish at the Narrows, from the Mission, from +up the Inlet, even from the tribes at North Bend, but no one will +volunteer to be your guide, for having once come within the "aura" of +the lure it is a human impossibility to leave it. Your will-power is +dwarfed, your intelligence blighted, your feet will refuse to lead you +out by a straight trail, you will circle, circle for evermore about +this magnet, for if death kindly comes to your aid your immortal spirit +will go on in that endless circling that will bar it from entering the +Happy Hunting Grounds. + +And, like the cathedral trees, the lure once lived, a human soul, but +in this instance it was a soul depraved, not sanctified. The Indian +belief is very beautiful concerning the results of good and evil in the +human body. The Sagalie Tyee (God) has His own way of immortalizing +each. People who are wilfully evil, who have no kindness in their +hearts, who are bloodthirsty, cruel, vengeful, unsympathetic, the +Sagalie Tyee turns to solid stone that will harbor no growth, even that +of moss or lichen, for these stones contain no moisture, just as their +wicked hearts lacked the milk of human kindness. The one famed +exception, wherein a good man was transformed into stone, was in the +instance of Siwash Rock, but as the Indian tells you of it he smiles +with gratification as he calls your attention to the tiny tree cresting +that imperial monument. He says the tree was always there to show the +nations that the good in this man's heart kept on growing even when his +body had ceased to be. On the other hand the Sagalie Tyee transforms +the kindly people, the humane, sympathetic, charitable, loving people +into trees, so that after death they may go on forever benefiting all +mankind; they may yield fruit, give shade and shelter, afford unending +service to the living, by their usefulness as building material and as +firewood. Their saps and gums, their fibres, their leaves, their +blossoms, enrich, nourish and sustain the human form; no evil is +produced by trees--all, all is goodness, is hearty, is helpfulness and +growth. They give refuge to the birds, they give music to the winds, +and from them are carved the bows and arrows, the canoes and paddles, +bowls, spoons and baskets. Their service to mankind is priceless; the +Indian that tells you this tale will enumerate all these attributes and +virtues of the trees. No wonder the Sagalie Tyee chose them to be the +abode of souls good and great. + +But the lure in Stanley Park is that most dreaded of all things, an +evil soul. It is embodied in a bare, white stone, which is shunned by +moss and vine and lichen, but over which are splashed innumerable +jet-black spots that have eaten into the surface like an acid. + +This condemned soul once animated the body of a witch-woman, who went +up and down the coast, over seas and far inland, casting her evil eye +on innocent people, and bringing them untold evils and diseases. About +her person she carried the renowned "Bad Medicine" that every Indian +believes in--medicine that weakened the arm of the warrior in battle, +that caused deformities, that poisoned minds and characters, that +engendered madness, that bred plagues and epidemics; in short, that was +the seed of every evil that could befall mankind. This witch-woman +herself was immune from death; generations were born and grew to old +age, and died, and other generations arose in their stead, but the +witch-woman went about, her heart set against her kind; her acts were +evil, her purposes wicked, she broke hearts and bodies, and souls; she +gloried in tears, and revelled in unhappiness, and sent them broadcast +wherever she wandered. And in His high heaven the Sagalie Tyee wept +with sorrow for His afflicted human children. He dared not let her +die, for her spirit would still go on with its evil doing. In mighty +anger He gave command to His Four Men (always representing the Deity) +that they should turn this witch-woman into a stone and enchain her +spirit in its centre, that the curse of her might be lifted from the +unhappy race. + +So the Four Men entered their giant canoe, and headed, as was their +custom, up the Narrows. As they neared what is now known as Prospect +Point they heard from the heights above them a laugh, and looking up +they beheld the witch-woman jeering defiantly at them. They landed +and, scaling the rocks, pursued her as she danced away, eluding them +like a will-o'-the-wisp as she called out to them sneeringly: + +"Care for yourselves, oh! men of the Sagalie Tyee, or I shall blight +you with my evil eye. Care for yourselves and do not follow me." On +and on she danced through the thickest of the wilderness, on and on +they followed until they reached the very heart of the seagirt neck of +land we know as Stanley Park. Then the tallest, the mightiest of the +Four Men, lifted his hand and cried out: "Oh! woman of the stony heart, +be stone for evermore, and bear forever a black stain for each one of +your evil deeds." And as he spoke the witch-woman was transformed into +this stone that tradition says is in the centre of the park. Such is +the legend of the Lure. Whether or not this stone is really in +existence--who knows? One thing is positive, however, no Indian will +ever help to discover it. + +Three different Indians have told me that fifteen or eighteen years ago +two tourists--a man and a woman--were lost in Stanley Park. When found +a week later, the man was dead, the woman mad, and each of my +informants firmly believed they had, in their wanderings, encountered +"the stone" and were compelled to circle around it, because of its +powerful lure. + +But this wild tale fortunately has a most beautiful conclusion. The +Four Men, fearing that the evil heart imprisoned in the stone would +still work destruction, said: "At the end of the trail we must place so +good and great a thing that it will be mightier, stronger, more +powerful than this evil." So they chose from the nations the +kindliest, most benevolent men, men whose hearts were filled with the +love of their fellow-beings, and transformed these merciful souls into +the stately group of "Cathedral Trees." + +How well the purpose of the Sagalie Tyee has wrought its effect through +time! The good has predominated as He planned it to, for is not the +stone hidden in some unknown part of the park where eyes do not see it +and feet do not follow--and do not the thousands who come to us from +the uttermost parts of the world seek that wondrous beauty spot, and +stand awed by the majestic silence, the almost holiness of that group +of giants? + +More than any other legend that the Indians about Vancouver have told +me does this tale reveal the love of the Coast native for kindness, and +his hatred of cruelty. If these tribes really have ever been a warlike +race I cannot think they pride themselves much on the occupation. If +you talk with any of them and they mention some man they particularly +like or admire, their first qualification of him is: "He's a kind man." +They never say he is brave, or rich, or successful, or even strong, +that characteristic so loved by the red man. To these Coast tribes if +a man is "kind" he is everything. And almost without exception their +legends deal with rewards for tenderness and self-abnegation, and +personal and mental cleanliness. + +Call them fairy tales if you wish to, they all have a reasonableness +that must have originated in some mighty mind, and better than that, +they all tell of the Indian's faith in the survival of the best +impulses of the human heart, and the ultimate extinction of the worst. + +In talking with my many good tillicums, I find this witch-woman legend +is the most universally known and thoroughly believed in of all +traditions they have honored me by revealing to me. + + + + +Deer Lake + +Few white men ventured inland, a century ago, in the days of the first +Chief Capilano, when the spoils of the mighty Fraser River poured into +copper-colored hands, but did not find their way to the remotest +corners of the earth, as in our times, when the gold from its sources, +the salmon from its mouth, the timber from its shores are world-known +riches. + +The fisherman's craft, the hunter's cunning were plied where now cities +and industries, trade and commerce, buying and selling hold sway. In +those days the moccasined foot awoke no echo in the forest trails. +Primitive weapons, arms, implements, and utensils were the only means +of the Indians' food-getting. His livelihood depended upon his own +personal prowess, his skill in woodcraft and water lore. And, as this +is a story of an elk-bone spear, the reader must first be in sympathy +with the fact that this rude instrument, most deftly fashioned, was of +priceless value to the first Capilano, to whom it had come through +three generations of ancestors, all of whom had been experienced +hunters and dexterous fishermen. + +Capilano himself was without a rival as a spearsman. He knew the moods +of the Fraser River, the habits of its thronging tenants, as no other +man has ever known them before or since. He knew every isle and inlet +along the coast, every boulder, the sand-bars, the still pools, the +temper of the tides. He knew the spawning grounds, the secret streams +that fed the larger rivers, the outlets of rock-bound lakes, the turns +and tricks of swirling rapids. He knew the haunts of bird and beast +and fish and fowl, and was master of the arts and artifice that man +must use when matching his brain against the eluding wiles of the +untamed creatures of the wilderness. + +Once only did his cunning fail him, once only did Nature baffle him +with her mysterious fabric of waterways and land lures. It was when he +was led to the mouth of the unknown river, which has evaded discovery +through all the centuries, but which--so say the Indians--still sings +on its way through some buried channel that leads from the lake to the +sea. + +He had been sealing along the shores of what is now known as Point +Grey. His canoe had gradually crept inland, skirting up the coast to +the mouth of False Creek. Here he encountered a very king of seals, a +colossal creature that gladdened the hunter's eyes as game worthy of +his skill. For this particular prize he would cast the elk-bone spear. +It had never failed his sire, his grandsire, his great-grandsire. He +knew it would not fail him now. A long, pliable, cedar-fibre rope lay +in his canoe. Many expert fingers had woven and plaited that rope, had +beaten and oiled it until it was soft and flexible as a serpent. This +he attached to the spearhead, and with deft, unerring aim cast it at +the king seal. The weapon struck home. The gigantic creature +shuddered and, with a cry like a hurt child, it plunged down into the +sea. With the rapidity and strength of a giant fish it scudded inland +with the rising tide, while Capilano paid out the rope its entire +length, and, as it stretched taut, felt the canoe leap forward, +propelled by the mighty strength of the creature which lashed the +waters into whirlpools, as though it was possessed with the power and +properties of a whale. + +[Illustration: THE SEVEN SISTERS, STANLEY PARK. Bishop & Christie, +Photo.] + +Up the stretch of False Creek the man and monster drove their course, +where a century hence great city bridges were to over-arch the waters. +They strove and struggled each for the mastery, neither of them +weakened, neither of them faltered--the one dragging, the other +driving. In the end it was to be a matching of brute and human wits, +not forces. As they neared the point where now Main Street bridge +flings its shadow across the waters, the brute leaped high into the +air, then plunged headlong into the depths. The impact ripped the rope +from Capilano's hands. It rattled across the gunwale. He stood +staring at the spot where it had disappeared--the brute had been +victorious. At low tide the Indian made search. No trace of his game, +of his precious elk-bone spear, of his cedar-fibre rope, could be +found. With the loss of the latter he firmly believed his luck as a +hunter would be gone. So he patrolled the mouth of False Creek for +many moons. His graceful, high-bowed canoe rarely touched other +waters, but the seal king had disappeared. Often he thought long +strands of drifting sea grasses were his lost cedar-fibre rope. With +other spears, with other cedar-fibres, with paddle blade and cunning +traps he dislodged the weeds from their moorings, but they slipped +their slimy lengths through his eager hands: his best spear with its +attendant coil was gone. + +The following year he was sealing again off the coast of Point Grey, +and one night after sunset he observed the red reflection from the +west, which seemed to transfer itself to the eastern skies. Far into +the night dashes of flaming scarlet pulsed far beyond the head of False +Creek. The color rose and fell like a beckoning hand, and, +Indian-like, he immediately attached some portentous meaning to the +unusual sight. That it was some omen he never doubted, so he paddled +inland, beached his canoe, and took the trail towards the little group +of lakes that crowd themselves into the area that lies between the +present cities of Vancouver and New Westminster. But long before he +reached the shores of Deer Lake he discovered that the beckoning hand +was in reality flame. The little body of water was surrounded by +forest fires. One avenue alone stood open. It was a group of giant +trees that as yet the flames had not reached. As he neared the point +he saw a great moving mass of living things leaving the lake and +hurrying northward through this one egress. He stood, listening, +intently watching with alert eyes; the swirr of myriads of little +travelling feet caught his quick ear--the moving mass was an immense +colony of beaver. Thousands upon thousands of them. Scores of baby +beavers staggered along, following their mothers; scores of older +beavers that had felled trees and built dams through many seasons; a +countless army of trekking fur bearers, all under the generalship of a +wise old leader, who, as king of the colony, advanced some few yards +ahead of his battalions. Out of the waters through the forest towards +the country to the north they journeyed. Wandering hunters said they +saw them cross Burrard Inlet at the Second Narrows, heading inland as +they reached the farther shore. But where that mighty army of royal +little Canadians set up their new colony, no man knows. Not even the +astuteness of the first Capilano ever discovered their destination. +Only one thing was certain. Deer Lake knew them no more. + +After their passing, the Indian retraced their trail to the water's +edge. In the red glare of the encircling fires he saw what he at first +thought was some dead and dethroned king beaver on the shore. A huge +carcass lay half in, half out, of the lake. Approaching it he saw the +wasted body of a giant seal. There could never be two seals of that +marvellous size. His intuition now grasped the meaning of the omen of +the beckoning flame that had called him from the far coasts of Point +Grey. He stooped above his dead conqueror and found, embedded in its +decaying flesh, the elk-bone spear of his forefathers, and trailing +away at the water's rim was a long flexible cedar-fibre rope. + +As he extracted this treasured heirloom he felt the "power," that men +of magic possess, creep up his sinewy arms. It entered his heart, his +blood, his brain. For a long time he sat and chanted songs that only +great medicine men may sing, and, as the hours drifted by, the heat of +the forest fires subsided, the flames diminished into smouldering +blackness. At daybreak the forest fire was dead, but its beckoning +fingers had served their purpose. The magic elk-bone spear had come +back to its own. + +Until the day of his death the first Capilano searched for the unknown +river up which the seal travelled from False Creek to Deer Lake, but +its channel is a secret that even Indian eyes have not seen. + +But although those of the Squamish tribe tell and believe that the +river still sings through its hidden trail that leads from Deer Lake to +the sea, its course is as unknown, its channel is as hopelessly lost as +the brave little army of beavers that a century ago marshalled their +forces and travelled up into the great lone north. + + + + +A Royal Mohawk Chief + +How many Canadians are aware that in Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, +and only surviving son of Queen Victoria, who has been appointed to +represent King George V. in Canada, they undoubtedly have what many +wish for--one bearing an ancient Canadian title as Governor-General of +all the Dominion? It would be difficult to find a man more Canadian +than any one of the fifty chiefs who compose the parliament of the +ancient Iroquois nation, that loyal race of Redskins that has fought +for the British crown against all of the enemies thereof, adhering to +the British flag through the wars against both the French and the +colonists. + +Arthur Duke of Connaught is the only living white man who to-day has an +undisputed right to the title of "Chief of the Six Nations Indians" +(known collectively as the Iroquois). He possesses the privilege of +sitting in their councils, of casting his vote on all matters relative +to the governing of the tribes, the disposal of reservation lands, the +appropriation of both the principal and interest of the more than half +a million dollars these tribes hold in Government bonds at Ottawa, +accumulated from the sales of their lands. In short, were every drop +of blood in his royal veins red, instead of blue, he could not be more +fully qualified as an Indian chief than he now is, not even were his +title one of the fifty hereditary ones whose illustrious names composed +the Iroquois confederacy before the Paleface ever set foot in America. + +It was on the occasion of his first visit to Canada in 1869, when he +was little more than a boy, that Prince Arthur received, upon his +arrival at Quebec, an address of welcome from his Royal mother's +"Indian Children" on the Grand River Reserve, in Brant county, Ontario. +In addition to this welcome they had a request to make of him: would he +accept the title of Chief and visit their reserve to give them the +opportunity of conferring it? + +One of the great secrets of England's success with savage races has +been her consideration, her respect, her almost reverence of native +customs, ceremonies and potentates. She wishes her own customs and +kings to be honored, so she freely accords like honor to her subjects, +it matters not whether they be white, black or red. + +Young Arthur was delighted--royal lads are pretty much like all other +boys; the unique ceremony would be a break in the endless round of +state receptions, banquets and addresses. So he accepted the Red +Indians' compliment, knowing well that it was the loftiest honor those +people could confer upon a white man. + +It was the morning of October first when the royal train steamed into +the little city of Brantford, where carriages awaited to take the +Prince and his suite to the "Old Mohawk Church," in the vicinity of +which the ceremony was to take place. As the Prince's especial escort, +Onwanonsyshon, head chief of the Mohawks, rode on a jet-black pony +beside the carriage. The chief was garmented in full native costume--a +buckskin suit, beaded moccasins, headband of owl's and eagle's +feathers, and ornaments hammered from coin silver that literally +covered his coat and leggings. About his shoulders was flung a scarlet +blanket, consisting of the identical broadcloth from which the British +army tunics are made; this he "hunched" with his shoulders from time to +time in true Indian fashion. As they drove along, the Prince chatted +boyishly with his Mohawk escort, and once leaned forward to pat the +black pony on its shining neck and speak admiringly of it. It was a +warm autumn day: the roads were dry and dusty, and, after a mile or so, +the boy-prince brought from beneath the carriage seat a basket of +grapes. With his handkerchief he flicked the dust from them, handed a +bunch to the chief and took one himself. An odd spectacle to be +traversing a country road: an English prince and an Indian chief, +riding amicably side-by-side, enjoying a banquet of grapes like two +schoolboys. + +On reaching the church, Arthur leapt lightly to the green sward. For a +moment he stood, rigid, gazing before him at his future brother-chiefs. +His escort had given him a faint idea of what he was to see, but he +certainly never expected to be completely surrounded by three hundred +full-blooded Iroquois braves and warriors, such as now encircled him on +every side. Every Indian was in war paint and feathers, some stripped +to the waist, their copper-colored skins brilliant with paints, dyes +and "patterns"; all carried tomahawks, scalping-knives, and bows and +arrows. Every red throat gave a tremendous war-whoop as he alighted, +which was repeated again and again, as for that half moment he stood +silent, a slim boyish figure, clad in light grey tweeds--a singular +contrast to the stalwarts in gorgeous costumes who crowded about him. +His young face paled to ashy whiteness, then with true British grit he +extended his right hand and raised his black "billy-cock" hat with his +left. At the same time he took one step forward. Then the war cries +broke forth anew, deafening, savage, terrible cries, as one by one the +entire three hundred filed past, the Prince shaking hands with each +one, and removing his glove to do so. This strange reception over, +Onwanonsyshon rode up, and, flinging his scarlet blanket on the grass, +dismounted, and asked the Prince to stand on it. + +Then stepped forward an ancient chief, father of Onwanonsyshon, and +Speaker of the Council. He was old in inherited and personal loyalty +to the British crown. He had fought under Sir Isaac Brock at Queenston +Heights in 1812, while yet a mere boy, and upon him was laid the honor +of making his Queen's son a chief. Taking Arthur by the hand this +venerable warrior walked slowly to and fro across the blanket, chanting +as he went the strange, wild formula of induction. From time to time +he was interrupted by loud expressions of approval and assent from the +vast throng of encircling braves, but apart from this no sound was +heard but the low, weird monotone of a ritual older than the white +man's footprints in North America. + +It is necessary that a chief of each of the three "clans" of the +Mohawks shall assist in this ceremony. The veteran chief, who sang the +formula, was of the Bear clan. His son, Onwanonsyshon, was of the Wolf +(the clan-ship descends through the mother's side of the family). Then +one other chief, of the Turtle clan, and in whose veins coursed the +blood of the historic Brant, now stepped to the edge of the scarlet +blanket. The chant ended, these two young chiefs received the Prince +into the Mohawk tribe, conferring upon him the name of "Kavakoudge," +which means "the sun flying from East to West under the guidance of the +Great Spirit." + +Onwanonsyshon then took from his waist a brilliant deep-red sash, +heavily embroidered with beads, porcupine quills and dyed moose hair, +placing it over the Prince's left shoulder and knotting it beneath his +right arm. The ceremony was ended. The Constitution that Hiawatha had +founded centuries ago, a Constitution wherein fifty chiefs, no more, no +less, should form the parliament of the "Six Nations," had been +shattered and broken, because this race of loyal red men desired to do +honor to a slender young boy-prince, who now bears the fifty-first +title of the Iroquois. + +Many white men have received from these same people honorary titles, +but none has been bestowed through the ancient ritual, with the +imperative members of the three clans assisting, save that borne by +Arthur of Connaught. + +After the ceremony the Prince entered the church to autograph his name +in the ancient Bible, which, with a silver Holy Communion service, a +bell, two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, and a bronze +British coat-of-arms, had been presented to the Mohawks by Queen Anne. +He inscribed "Arthur" just below the "Albert Edward," which, as Prince +of Wales, the late king wrote when he visited Canada in 1860. + +When he returned to England, Chief Kavakoudge sent his portrait, +together with one of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, to be +placed in the Council House of the "Six Nations," where they decorate +the walls today. + +As I write, I glance up to see, in a corner of my room, a draping +scarlet blanket, made of British army broadcloth, for the chief who +rode the jet-black pony so long ago was the writer's father. He was +not here to wear it when Arthur of Connaught again set foot on Canadian +shores. + +Many of these facts I have culled from a paper that lies on my desk; it +is yellowing with age, and bears the date, "Toronto, October 2, 1869," +and on the margin is written in a clear, half-boyish hand, +"Onwanonsyshon, with kind regards from your brother-chief, Arthur." + + +[Illustration: Native tools] + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Legends of Vancouver, by E. 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