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diff --git a/3478.txt b/3478.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7dbf2bc --- /dev/null +++ b/3478.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3591 @@ +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: June 24, 2004 [EBook #3478] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER *** + + + + +Produced by Judy Boss and Andrew Sly + + + + +LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER + +By E. Pauline Johnson +(Tekahionwake) + + + + +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 sky-scrapers 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 George +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. + + + + + +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 + + + + + +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. Oftentimes, 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 to-day. 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 some day 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. + +"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 has 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 lip 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 come 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. + + + + + +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 to-day, while the river, 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 a while, 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 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 salmon-berries, 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. + +"Up-stream, 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, +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. + + + + + +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 work-woman, 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 up-shore, 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 will wait--me. +I just come to fetch Maarda; she been city; she soon come--now." +But she left her "working" attitude and curled like a school-girl 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 may be 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 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 now; 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 the 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 am 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. + + + + + +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 than +men; let the wisest live." + +How, then, was the earth repeopled? + +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. + +Woman-like, 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 tribes, 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 tribes, 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 other's 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 repeopled 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. + + + + + +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 +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). + +"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 +(money), 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. + + + + + +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 grandsires 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 +only 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, O 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 encircled 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." + + + + + +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 south-west 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. + +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 clipt 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 to-night. 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 open 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 "Grey 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." + + + + + +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 to-night 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 sunset across that beautiful little +basin of 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 dug-out 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 footsteps 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.* 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. + +* 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. + + +"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. + +"'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. +To-morrow 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 his 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. + + + + + +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 was 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." + + + + + +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 sea-girt +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, had 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 spearman. 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 the 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. + +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 zwirr 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? + +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 these 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 school-boys. + +On reaching the church, Arthur leapt lightly to the greensward. +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 foot-prints 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 clanship 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 to-day. + +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." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Legends of Vancouver, by E. 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