yours; he will belong to you, not to me; he will become the possession
of the people. But if the child is a girl she will belong to me--she
will be mine. You cannot take her from me as you took me from my
mother's side and forced me to forget my aged father in my service to
my tribe; she will belong to me, will be the mother of my
grandchildren, and her husband will be my son.'
"'You do not care for the good of your tribe. You care only for your
own wishes and desires,' they rebelled. 'Suppose the salmon run is
small, we will have no food; suppose there is no man-child, we will
have no Great Tyee to show us how to get food from other tribes, and we
shall starve.'
"'Your hearts are black and bloodless,' thundered the Great Tyee,
turning upon them fiercely, 'and your eyes are blinded. Do you wish
the tribe to forget how great is the importance of a child that will
some day be a mother herself, and give to your children and
grandchildren a Great Tyee? Are the people to live, to thrive, to
increase, to become more powerful with no mother-women to bear future
sons and daughters? Your minds are dead, your brains are chilled.
Still, even in your ignorance, you are my people: you and your wishes
must be considered. I call together the great medicine men, the men of
witchcraft, the men of magic. They shall decide the laws which will
follow the bearing of either boy or girl-child. What say you, oh!
mighty men?'
"Messengers were then sent up and down the coast, sent far up the
Fraser River, and to the valley lands inland for many leagues,
gathering as they journeyed all the men of magic that could be found.
Never were so many medicine men in council before. They built fires
and danced and chanted for many days. They spoke with the gods of the
mountains, with the gods of the sea, then 'the power' of decision came
to them. They were inspired with a choice to lay before the
tribes-people, and the most ancient medicine man in all the coast
region arose and spoke their resolution:
"'The people of the tribe cannot be allowed to have all things. They
want a boy-child and they want a great salmon run also. They cannot
have both. The Sagalie Tyee has revealed to us, the great men of
magic, that both these things will make the people arrogant and
selfish. They must choose between the two.'
"'Choose, oh! you ignorant tribes-people,' commanded the Great Tyee.
'The wise men of our coast have said that the girl-child who will some
day bear children of her own, will also bring abundance of salmon at
her birth; but the boy-child brings to you but himself.'
"'Let the salmon go," shouted the people, 'but give us a future Great
Tyee. Give us the boy-child.'
"And when the child was born it was a boy.
"'Evil will fall upon you,' wailed the Great Tyee. 'You have despised
a mother-woman. You will suffer evil and starvation and hunger and
poverty, oh! foolish tribes-people. Did you not know how great a
girl-child is?'
"That spring, people from a score of tribes came up to the Fraser for
the salmon run. They came great distances--from the mountains, the
lakes, the far-off dry lands, but not one fish entered the vast rivers
of the Pacific Coast. The people had made their choice. They had
forgotten the honor that a mother-child would have brought them. They
were bereft of their food. They were stricken with poverty. Through
the long winter that followed they endured hunger and starvation.
Since then our tribe has always welcomed girl-children--we want no more
lost runs."
The klootchman lifted her arms from her paddle as she concluded; her
eyes left the irregular outline of the violet mountains. She had come
back to this year of grace--her Legend Land had vanished.
"So," she added, "you see now, maybe, why I glad my grandchild is girl;
it means big salmon run next year."
"It is a beautiful story, klootchman," I said, "and I feel a cruel
delight that your men of magic punished the people for their
ill-choice."
"That because you girl-child yourself," she laughed.
There was the slightest whisper of a step behind me. I turned to find
Maarda almost at my elbow. The rising tide was unbeaching the canoe,
and as Maarda stepped in and the klootchman slipped astern, it drifted
afloat.
"Kla-how-ya," nodded the klootchman as she dipped her paddle-blade in
exquisite silence.
"Kla-how-ya," smiled Maarda.
"Kla-how-ya, tillicums," I replied, and watched for many moments as
they slipped away into the blurred distance, until the canoe merged
into the violet and grey of the farther shore.
[Illustration: Native tool]
The Deep Waters
Far over your left shoulder as your boat leaves the Narrows to thread
the beautiful waterways that lead to Vancouver Island, you will see the
summit of Mount Baker robed in its everlasting whiteness and always
reflecting some wonderful glory from the rising sun, the golden
noontide, or the violet and amber sunset. This is the Mount Ararat of
the Pacific Coast peoples; for those readers who are familiar with the
ways and beliefs and faiths of primitive races will agree that it is
difficult to discover anywhere in the world a race that has not some
story of the Deluge, which they have chronicled and localized to fit
the understanding and the conditions of the nation that composes their
own immediate world.
Amongst the red nations of America I doubt if any two tribes have the
same ideas regarding the Flood. Some of the traditions concerning this
vast whim of Nature are grotesque in the extreme; some are impressive;
some even profound; but of all the stories of the Deluge that I have
been able to collect I know of not a single one that can even begin to
equal in beauty of conception, let alone rival in possible reality and
truth, the Squamish legend of "The Deep Waters."
I here quote the legend of "mine own people," the Iroquois tribes of
Ontario, regarding the Deluge. I do this to paint the color of
contrast in richer shades, for I am bound to admit that we who pride
ourselves on ancient intellectuality have but a childish tale of the
Flood when compared with the jealously preserved annals of the
Squamish, which savour more of history than tradition. With "mine own
people," animals always play a much more important part and are endowed
with a finer intelligence than humans. I do not find amid my notes a
single tradition of the Iroquois wherein animals do not figure, and our
story of the Deluge rests entirely with the intelligence of sea-going
and river-going creatures. With us, animals in olden times were
greater than man; but it is not so with the Coast Indians, except in
rare instances.
When a Coast Indian consents to tell you a legend he will, without
variation, begin it with, "It was before the white people came."
The natural thing for you then to ask is, "But who were here then?"
He will reply, "Indians, and just the trees, and animals, and fishes,
and a few birds."
So you are prepared to accept the animal world as intelligent
co-habitants of the Pacific slope, but he will not lead you to think he
regards them as equals, much less superiors. But to revert to "mine
own people": they hold the intelligence of wild animals far above that
of man, for perhaps the one reason that when an animal is sick it
effects its own cure; it knows what grasses and herbs to eat, what to
avoid, while the sick human calls the medicine man, whose wisdom is not
only the result of years of study, but also heredity; consequently any
great natural event, such as the Deluge, has much to do with the wisdom
of the creatures of the forests and the rivers.
Iroquois tradition tells us that once this earth was entirely submerged
in water, and during this period for many days a busy little muskrat
swam about vainly looking for a foothold of earth wherein to build his
house. In his search he encountered a turtle also leisurely swimming,
so they had speech together, and the muskrat complained of weariness;
he could find no foothold; he was tired of incessant swimming, and
longed for land such as his ancestors enjoyed. The turtle suggested
that the muskrat should dive and endeavor to find earth at the bottom
of the sea. Acting on this advice the muskrat plunged down, then arose
with his two little forepaws grasping some earth he had found beneath
the waters.
"Place it on my shell and dive again for more," directed the turtle.
The muskrat did so, but when he returned with his paws filled with
earth he discovered the small quantity he had first deposited on the
turtle's shell had doubled in size. The return from the third trip
found the turtle's load again doubled. So the building went on at
double compound increase, and the world grew its continents and its
islands with great rapidity, and now rests on the shell of a turtle.
If you ask an Iroquois, "And did no men survive this flood?" he will
reply, "Why should men survive? The animals are wiser then men; let
the wisest live."
How, then, was the earth re-peopled?
The Iroquois will tell you that the otter was a medicine man; that in
swimming and diving about he found corpses of men and women; he sang
his medicine songs and they came to life, and the otter brought them
fish for food until they were strong enough to provide for themselves.
Then the Iroquois will conclude his tale with, "You know well that the
otter has greater wisdom than a man."
So much for "mine own people" and our profound respect for the superior
intelligence of our little brothers of the animal world.
But the Squamish tribe hold other ideas. It was on a February day that
I first listened to this beautiful, humane story of the Deluge. My
royal old tillicum had come to see me through the rains and mists of
late winter days. The gateways of my wigwam always stood open--very
widely open--for his feet to enter, and this especial day he came with
the worst downpour of the season.
Womanlike, I protested with a thousand contradictions in my voice that
he should venture out to see me on such a day. It was "Oh! Chief, I
am so glad to see you!" and it was "Oh! Chief, why didn't you stay at
home on such a wet day--your poor throat will suffer." But I soon had
quantities of hot tea for him, and the huge cup my own father always
used was his--as long as the Sagalie Tyee allowed his dear feet to
wander my way. The immense cup stands idle and empty now for the
second time.
Helping him off with his great-coat, I chatted on about the deluge of
rain, and he remarked it was not so very bad, as one could yet walk.
"Fortunately, yes, for I cannot swim," I told him.
He laughed, replying, "Well, it is not so bad as when the Great Deep
Waters covered the world."
Immediately I foresaw the coming legend, so crept into the shell of
monosyllables.
"No?" I questioned.
"No," he replied. "For one time there was no land here at all;
everywhere there was just water."
"I can quite believe it," I remarked caustically.
He laughed--that irresistible, though silent, David Warfield laugh of
his that always brought a responsive smile from his listeners. Then he
plunged directly into the tradition, with no preface save a
comprehensive sweep of his wonderful hands towards my wide window,
against which the rains were beating.
"It was after a long, long time of this--this rain. The mountain
streams were swollen, the rivers choked, the sea began to rise--and yet
it rained; for weeks and weeks it rained." He ceased speaking, while
the shadows of centuries gone crept into his eyes. Tales of the misty
past always inspired him.
"Yes," he continued. "It rained for weeks and weeks, while the
mountain torrents roared thunderingly down, and the sea crept silently
up. The level lands were first to float in sea water, then to
disappear. The slopes were next to slip into the sea. The world was
slowly being flooded. Hurriedly the Indian tribes gathered in one
spot, a place of safety far above the reach of the on-creeping sea.
The spot was the circling shore of Lake Beautiful, up the North Arm.
They held a Great Council and decided at once upon a plan of action. A
giant canoe should be built, and some means contrived to anchor it in
case the waters mounted to the heights. The men undertook the canoe,
the women the anchorage.
"A giant tree was felled, and day and night the men toiled over its
construction into the most stupendous canoe the world has ever known.
Not an hour, not a moment, but many worked, while the toil-wearied ones
slept, only to awake to renewed toil. Meanwhile the women also worked
at a cable--the largest, the longest, the strongest that Indian hands
and teeth had ever made. Scores of them gathered and prepared the
cedar fibre; scores of them plaited, rolled and seasoned it; scores of
them chewed upon it inch by inch to make it pliable; scores of them
oiled and worked, oiled and worked, oiled and worked it into a
sea-resisting fabric. And still the sea crept up, and up, and up. It
was the last day; hope of life for the tribe, of land for the world,
was doomed. Strong hands, self-sacrificing hands fastened the cable
the women had made--one end to the giant canoe, the other about an
enormous boulder, a vast immovable rock as firm as the foundations of
the world--for might not the canoe with its priceless freight drift
out, far out, to sea, and when the water subsided might not this ship
of safety be leagues and leagues beyond the sight of land on the
storm-driven Pacific?
"Then with the bravest hearts that ever beat, noble hands lifted every
child of the tribe into this vast canoe; not one single baby was
overlooked. The canoe was stocked with food and fresh water, and
lastly, the ancient men and women of the race selected as guardians to
these children the bravest, most stalwart, handsomest young man of the
tribe, and the mother of the youngest baby in the camp--she was but a
girl of sixteen, her child but two weeks old; but she, too, was brave
and very beautiful. These two were placed, she at the bow of the canoe
to watch, he at the stern to guide, and all the little children crowded
between.
"And still the sea crept up, and up, and up. At the crest of the
bluffs about Lake Beautiful the doomed tribes crowded. Not a single
person attempted to enter the canoe. There was no wailing, no crying
out for safety. 'Let the little children, the young mother, and the
bravest and best of our young men live,' was all the farewell those in
the canoe heard as the waters reached the summit, and--the canoe
floated. Last of all to be seen was the top of the tallest tree,
then--all was a world of water.
"For days and days there was no land--just the rush of swirling,
snarling sea; but the canoe rode safely at anchor, the cable those
scores of dead, faithful women had made held true as the hearts that
beat behind the toil and labor of it all.
"But one morning at sunrise, far to the south a speck floated on the
breast of the waters; at midday it was larger; at evening it was yet
larger. The moon arose, and in its magic light the man at the stern
saw it was a patch of land. All night he watched it grow, and at
daybreak looked with glad eyes upon the summit of Mount Baker. He cut
the cable, grasped his paddle in his strong, young hands, and steered
for the south. When they landed, the waters were sunken half down the
mountain side. The children were lifted out; the beautiful young
mother, the stalwart young brave, turned to each other, clasped hands,
looked into each others eyes--and smiled.
"And down in the vast country that lies between Mount Baker and the
Fraser River they made a new camp, built new lodges, where the little
children grew and thrived, and lived and loved, and the earth was
re-peopled by them.
"The Squamish say that in a gigantic crevice half way to the crest of
Mount Baker may yet be seen the outlines of an enormous canoe, but I
have never seen it myself."
He ceased speaking with that far-off cadence in his voice with which he
always ended a legend, and for a long time we both sat in silence
listening to the rains that were still beating against the window.
[Illustration: Native canoe]
The Sea-Serpent
There is one vice that is absolutely unknown to the red man; he was
born without it, and amongst all the deplorable things he has learned
from the white races, this, at least, he has never acquired. That is
the vice of avarice. That the Indian looks upon greed of gain,
miserliness, avariciousness and wealth accumulated above the head of
his poorer neighbor as one of the lowest degradations he can fall to,
is perhaps more aptly illustrated in this legend than anything I could
quote to demonstrate his horror of what he calls "the white man's
unkindness." In a very wide and varied experience with many tribes, I
have yet to find even one instance of avarice, and I have encountered
but one single case of a "stingy Indian," and this man was so marked
amongst his fellows that at mention of his name his tribes-people
jeered and would remark contemptuously that he was like a white
man--hated to share his money and his possessions. All red races are
born Socialists, and most tribes carry out their communistic ideas to
the letter. Amongst the Iroquois it is considered disgraceful to have
food if your neighbor has none. To be a creditable member of the
nation you must divide your possessions with your less fortunate
fellows. I find it much the same amongst the Coast Indians, though
they are less bitter in their hatred of the extremes of wealth and
poverty than are the Eastern tribes. Still, the very fact that they
have preserved this legend, in which they liken avarice to a slimy
sea-serpent, shows the trend of their ideas; shows, too, that an Indian
is an Indian, no matter what his tribe; shows that he cannot or will
not hoard money; shows that his native morals demand that the spirit of
greed must be strangled at all cost.
The Chief and I had sat long over our luncheon. He had been talking of
his trip to England and of the many curious things he had seen. At
last, in an outburst of enthusiasm, he said: "I saw everything in the
world--everything but a sea-serpent!"
"But there is no such thing as a sea-serpent," I laughed, "so you must
have really seen everything in the world."
His face clouded; for a moment he sat in silence; then looking directly
at me said, "Maybe none now, but long ago there was one here--in the
Inlet."
"How long ago?" I asked.
"When first the white gold-hunters came," he replied. "Came with
greedy, clutching fingers, greedy eyes, greedy hearts. The white men
fought, murdered, starved, went mad with love of that gold far up the
Fraser River. Tillicums were tillicums no more, brothers were foes,
fathers and sons were enemies. Their love of the gold was a curse."
"Was it then the sea-serpent was seen?" I asked, perplexed with the
problem of trying to connect the gold-seekers with such a monster.
"Yes, it was then, but----"--he hesitated, then plunged into the
assertion, "but you will not believe the story if you think there is no
such thing as a sea-serpent."
"I shall believe whatever you tell me, Chief," I answered; "I am only
too ready to believe. You know I come of a superstitious race, and all
my association with the Palefaces has never yet robbed me of my
birthright to believe strange traditions."
"You always understand," he said after a pause.
"It's my heart that understands," I remarked quietly.
He glanced up quickly, and with one of his all too few radiant smiles,
he laughed.
"Yes, skookum tum-tum." Then without further hesitation he told the
tradition, which, although not of ancient happening, is held in great
reverence by his tribe. During its recital he sat with folded arms,
leaning on the table, his head and shoulders bending eagerly towards me
as I sat at the opposite side. It was the only time he ever talked to
me when he did not use emphasising gesticulations, but his hands never
once lifted: his wonderful eyes alone gave expression to what he called
"The Legend of the 'Salt-chuck Oluk'" (sea-serpent).
[Illustration: THE CAPILANO RIVER
Bishop & Christie, Photo.]
"Yes, it was during the first gold craze, and many of our young men
went as guides to the whites far up the Fraser. When they returned
they brought these tales of greed and murder back with them, and our
old people and our women shook their heads and said evil would come of
it. But all our young men, except one, returned as they went--kind to
the poor, kind to those who were foodless, sharing whatever they had
with their tillicums. But one, by name Shak-shak (The Hawk), came back
with hoards of gold nuggets, chickimin,[1] everything; he was rich like
the white men, and, like them, he kept it. He would count his
chickimin, count his nuggets, gloat over them, toss them in his palms.
He rested his head on them as he slept, he packed them about with him
through the day. He loved them better than food, better than his
tillicums, better than his life. The entire tribe arose. They said
Shak-shak had the disease of greed; that to cure it he must give a
great potlatch, divide his riches with the poorer ones, share them with
the old, the sick, the foodless. But he jeered and laughed and told
them No, and went on loving and gloating over his gold.
"Then the Sagalie Tyee spoke out of the sky and said, 'Shak-shak, you
have made of yourself a loathsome thing; you will not listen to the cry
of the hungry, to the call of the old and sick; you will not share your
possessions; you have made of yourself an outcast from your tribe and
disobeyed the ancient laws of your people. Now I will make of you a
thing loathed and hated by all men, both white and red. You will have
two heads, for your greed has two mouths to bite. One bites the poor,
and one bites your own evil heart--and the fangs in these mouths are
poison, poison that kills the hungry, and poison that kills your own
manhood. Your evil heart will beat in the very centre of your foul
body, and he that pierces it will kill the disease of greed forever
from amongst his people.' And when the sun arose above the North Arm
the next morning the tribes-people saw a gigantic sea-serpent stretched
across the surface of the waters. One hideous head rested on the
bluffs at Brockton Point, the other rested on a group of rocks just
below Mission, at the western edge of North Vancouver. If you care to
go there some day I will show you the hollow in one great stone where
that head lay. The tribes-people were stunned with horror. They
loathed the creature, they hated it, they feared it. Day after day it
lay there, its monstrous heads lifted out of the waters, its mile-long
body blocking all entrance from the Narrows, all outlet from the North
Arm. The chiefs made council, the medicine men danced and chanted, but
the salt-chuck oluk never moved. It could not move, for it was the
hated totem of what now rules the white man's world--greed and love of
chickimin. No one can ever move the love of chickimin from the white
man's heart, no one can ever make him divide all with the poor. But
after the chiefs and medicine men had done all in their power, and
still the salt-chuck oluk lay across the waters, a handsome boy of
sixteen approached them and reminded them of the words of the Sagalie
Tyee, 'that he that pierced the monster's heart would kill the disease
of greed forever amongst his people.'
"'Let me try to find this evil heart, oh! great men of my tribe,' he
cried. 'Let me war upon this creature; let me try to rid my people of
this pestilence.'
"The boy was brave and very beautiful. His tribes-people called him
the Tenas Tyee (Little Chief) and they loved him. Of all his wealth of
fish and furs, of game and hykwa (large shell money) he gave to the
boys who had none; he hunted food for the old people; he tanned skins
and furs for those whose feet were feeble, whose eyes were fading,
whose blood ran thin with age.
"'Let him go!' cried the tribes-people. 'This unclean monster can only
be overcome by cleanliness, this creature of greed can only be
overthrown by generosity. Let him go!' The chiefs and the medicine
men listened, then consented. 'Go,' they commanded, 'and fight this
thing with your strongest weapons--cleanliness and generosity.'
"The Tenas Tyee turned to his mother. 'I shall be gone four days,' he
told her, 'and I shall swim all that time. I have tried all my life to
be generous, but the people say I must be clean also to fight this
unclean thing. While I am gone put fresh furs on my bed every day,
even if I am not here to lie on them; if I know my bed, my body and my
heart are all clean I can overcome this serpent.'
"'Your bed shall have fresh furs every morning,' his mother said simply.