and industries, trade and commerce, buying and selling hold sway. In
those days the moccasined foot awoke no echo in the forest trails.
Primitive weapons, arms, implements, and utensils were the only means
of the Indians' food-getting. His livelihood depended upon his own
personal prowess, his skill in woodcraft and water lore. And, as this
is a story of an elk-bone spear, the reader must first be in sympathy
with the fact that this rude instrument, most deftly fashioned, was of
priceless value to the first Capilano, to whom it had come through
three generations of ancestors, all of whom had been experienced
hunters and dexterous fishermen.
Capilano himself was without a rival as a spearsman. He knew the moods
of the Fraser River, the habits of its thronging tenants, as no other
man has ever known them before or since. He knew every isle and inlet
along the coast, every boulder, the sand-bars, the still pools, the
temper of the tides. He knew the spawning grounds, the secret streams
that fed the larger rivers, the outlets of rock-bound lakes, the turns
and tricks of swirling rapids. He knew the haunts of bird and beast
and fish and fowl, and was master of the arts and artifice that man
must use when matching his brain against the eluding wiles of the
untamed creatures of the wilderness.
Once only did his cunning fail him, once only did Nature baffle him
with her mysterious fabric of waterways and land lures. It was when he
was led to the mouth of the unknown river, which has evaded discovery
through all the centuries, but which--so say the Indians--still sings
on its way through some buried channel that leads from the lake to the
sea.
He had been sealing along the shores of what is now known as Point
Grey. His canoe had gradually crept inland, skirting up the coast to
the mouth of False Creek. Here he encountered a very king of seals, a
colossal creature that gladdened the hunter's eyes as game worthy of
his skill. For this particular prize he would cast the elk-bone spear.
It had never failed his sire, his grandsire, his great-grandsire. He
knew it would not fail him now. A long, pliable, cedar-fibre rope lay
in his canoe. Many expert fingers had woven and plaited that rope, had
beaten and oiled it until it was soft and flexible as a serpent. This
he attached to the spearhead, and with deft, unerring aim cast it at
the king seal. The weapon struck home. The gigantic creature
shuddered and, with a cry like a hurt child, it plunged down into the
sea. With the rapidity and strength of a giant fish it scudded inland
with the rising tide, while Capilano paid out the rope its entire
length, and, as it stretched taut, felt the canoe leap forward,
propelled by the mighty strength of the creature which lashed the
waters into whirlpools, as though it was possessed with the power and
properties of a whale.
[Illustration: THE SEVEN SISTERS, STANLEY PARK. Bishop & Christie,
Photo.]
Up the stretch of False Creek the man and monster drove their course,
where a century hence great city bridges were to over-arch the waters.
They strove and struggled each for the mastery, neither of them
weakened, neither of them faltered--the one dragging, the other
driving. In the end it was to be a matching of brute and human wits,
not forces. As they neared the point where now Main Street bridge
flings its shadow across the waters, the brute leaped high into the
air, then plunged headlong into the depths. The impact ripped the rope
from Capilano's hands. It rattled across the gunwale. He stood
staring at the spot where it had disappeared--the brute had been
victorious. At low tide the Indian made search. No trace of his game,
of his precious elk-bone spear, of his cedar-fibre rope, could be
found. With the loss of the latter he firmly believed his luck as a
hunter would be gone. So he patrolled the mouth of False Creek for
many moons. His graceful, high-bowed canoe rarely touched other
waters, but the seal king had disappeared. Often he thought long
strands of drifting sea grasses were his lost cedar-fibre rope. With
other spears, with other cedar-fibres, with paddle blade and cunning
traps he dislodged the weeds from their moorings, but they slipped
their slimy lengths through his eager hands: his best spear with its
attendant coil was gone.
The following year he was sealing again off the coast of Point Grey,
and one night after sunset he observed the red reflection from the
west, which seemed to transfer itself to the eastern skies. Far into
the night dashes of flaming scarlet pulsed far beyond the head of False
Creek. The color rose and fell like a beckoning hand, and,
Indian-like, he immediately attached some portentous meaning to the
unusual sight. That it was some omen he never doubted, so he paddled
inland, beached his canoe, and took the trail towards the little group
of lakes that crowd themselves into the area that lies between the
present cities of Vancouver and New Westminster. But long before he
reached the shores of Deer Lake he discovered that the beckoning hand
was in reality flame. The little body of water was surrounded by
forest fires. One avenue alone stood open. It was a group of giant
trees that as yet the flames had not reached. As he neared the point
he saw a great moving mass of living things leaving the lake and
hurrying northward through this one egress. He stood, listening,
intently watching with alert eyes; the swirr of myriads of little
travelling feet caught his quick ear--the moving mass was an immense
colony of beaver. Thousands upon thousands of them. Scores of baby
beavers staggered along, following their mothers; scores of older
beavers that had felled trees and built dams through many seasons; a
countless army of trekking fur bearers, all under the generalship of a
wise old leader, who, as king of the colony, advanced some few yards
ahead of his battalions. Out of the waters through the forest towards
the country to the north they journeyed. Wandering hunters said they
saw them cross Burrard Inlet at the Second Narrows, heading inland as
they reached the farther shore. But where that mighty army of royal
little Canadians set up their new colony, no man knows. Not even the
astuteness of the first Capilano ever discovered their destination.
Only one thing was certain. Deer Lake knew them no more.
After their passing, the Indian retraced their trail to the water's
edge. In the red glare of the encircling fires he saw what he at first
thought was some dead and dethroned king beaver on the shore. A huge
carcass lay half in, half out, of the lake. Approaching it he saw the
wasted body of a giant seal. There could never be two seals of that
marvellous size. His intuition now grasped the meaning of the omen of
the beckoning flame that had called him from the far coasts of Point
Grey. He stooped above his dead conqueror and found, embedded in its
decaying flesh, the elk-bone spear of his forefathers, and trailing
away at the water's rim was a long flexible cedar-fibre rope.
As he extracted this treasured heirloom he felt the "power," that men
of magic possess, creep up his sinewy arms. It entered his heart, his
blood, his brain. For a long time he sat and chanted songs that only
great medicine men may sing, and, as the hours drifted by, the heat of
the forest fires subsided, the flames diminished into smouldering
blackness. At daybreak the forest fire was dead, but its beckoning
fingers had served their purpose. The magic elk-bone spear had come
back to its own.
Until the day of his death the first Capilano searched for the unknown
river up which the seal travelled from False Creek to Deer Lake, but
its channel is a secret that even Indian eyes have not seen.
But although those of the Squamish tribe tell and believe that the
river still sings through its hidden trail that leads from Deer Lake to
the sea, its course is as unknown, its channel is as hopelessly lost as
the brave little army of beavers that a century ago marshalled their
forces and travelled up into the great lone north.
A Royal Mohawk Chief
How many Canadians are aware that in Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught,
and only surviving son of Queen Victoria, who has been appointed to
represent King George V. in Canada, they undoubtedly have what many
wish for--one bearing an ancient Canadian title as Governor-General of
all the Dominion? It would be difficult to find a man more Canadian
than any one of the fifty chiefs who compose the parliament of the
ancient Iroquois nation, that loyal race of Redskins that has fought
for the British crown against all of the enemies thereof, adhering to
the British flag through the wars against both the French and the
colonists.
Arthur Duke of Connaught is the only living white man who to-day has an
undisputed right to the title of "Chief of the Six Nations Indians"
(known collectively as the Iroquois). He possesses the privilege of
sitting in their councils, of casting his vote on all matters relative
to the governing of the tribes, the disposal of reservation lands, the
appropriation of both the principal and interest of the more than half
a million dollars these tribes hold in Government bonds at Ottawa,
accumulated from the sales of their lands. In short, were every drop
of blood in his royal veins red, instead of blue, he could not be more
fully qualified as an Indian chief than he now is, not even were his
title one of the fifty hereditary ones whose illustrious names composed
the Iroquois confederacy before the Paleface ever set foot in America.
It was on the occasion of his first visit to Canada in 1869, when he
was little more than a boy, that Prince Arthur received, upon his
arrival at Quebec, an address of welcome from his Royal mother's
"Indian Children" on the Grand River Reserve, in Brant county, Ontario.
In addition to this welcome they had a request to make of him: would he
accept the title of Chief and visit their reserve to give them the
opportunity of conferring it?
One of the great secrets of England's success with savage races has
been her consideration, her respect, her almost reverence of native
customs, ceremonies and potentates. She wishes her own customs and
kings to be honored, so she freely accords like honor to her subjects,
it matters not whether they be white, black or red.
Young Arthur was delighted--royal lads are pretty much like all other
boys; the unique ceremony would be a break in the endless round of
state receptions, banquets and addresses. So he accepted the Red
Indians' compliment, knowing well that it was the loftiest honor those
people could confer upon a white man.
It was the morning of October first when the royal train steamed into
the little city of Brantford, where carriages awaited to take the
Prince and his suite to the "Old Mohawk Church," in the vicinity of
which the ceremony was to take place. As the Prince's especial escort,
Onwanonsyshon, head chief of the Mohawks, rode on a jet-black pony
beside the carriage. The chief was garmented in full native costume--a
buckskin suit, beaded moccasins, headband of owl's and eagle's
feathers, and ornaments hammered from coin silver that literally
covered his coat and leggings. About his shoulders was flung a scarlet
blanket, consisting of the identical broadcloth from which the British
army tunics are made; this he "hunched" with his shoulders from time to
time in true Indian fashion. As they drove along, the Prince chatted
boyishly with his Mohawk escort, and once leaned forward to pat the
black pony on its shining neck and speak admiringly of it. It was a
warm autumn day: the roads were dry and dusty, and, after a mile or so,
the boy-prince brought from beneath the carriage seat a basket of
grapes. With his handkerchief he flicked the dust from them, handed a
bunch to the chief and took one himself. An odd spectacle to be
traversing a country road: an English prince and an Indian chief,
riding amicably side-by-side, enjoying a banquet of grapes like two
schoolboys.
On reaching the church, Arthur leapt lightly to the green sward. For a
moment he stood, rigid, gazing before him at his future brother-chiefs.
His escort had given him a faint idea of what he was to see, but he
certainly never expected to be completely surrounded by three hundred
full-blooded Iroquois braves and warriors, such as now encircled him on
every side. Every Indian was in war paint and feathers, some stripped
to the waist, their copper-colored skins brilliant with paints, dyes
and "patterns"; all carried tomahawks, scalping-knives, and bows and
arrows. Every red throat gave a tremendous war-whoop as he alighted,
which was repeated again and again, as for that half moment he stood
silent, a slim boyish figure, clad in light grey tweeds--a singular
contrast to the stalwarts in gorgeous costumes who crowded about him.
His young face paled to ashy whiteness, then with true British grit he
extended his right hand and raised his black "billy-cock" hat with his
left. At the same time he took one step forward. Then the war cries
broke forth anew, deafening, savage, terrible cries, as one by one the
entire three hundred filed past, the Prince shaking hands with each
one, and removing his glove to do so. This strange reception over,
Onwanonsyshon rode up, and, flinging his scarlet blanket on the grass,
dismounted, and asked the Prince to stand on it.
Then stepped forward an ancient chief, father of Onwanonsyshon, and
Speaker of the Council. He was old in inherited and personal loyalty
to the British crown. He had fought under Sir Isaac Brock at Queenston
Heights in 1812, while yet a mere boy, and upon him was laid the honor
of making his Queen's son a chief. Taking Arthur by the hand this
venerable warrior walked slowly to and fro across the blanket, chanting
as he went the strange, wild formula of induction. From time to time
he was interrupted by loud expressions of approval and assent from the
vast throng of encircling braves, but apart from this no sound was
heard but the low, weird monotone of a ritual older than the white
man's footprints in North America.
It is necessary that a chief of each of the three "clans" of the
Mohawks shall assist in this ceremony. The veteran chief, who sang the
formula, was of the Bear clan. His son, Onwanonsyshon, was of the Wolf
(the clan-ship descends through the mother's side of the family). Then
one other chief, of the Turtle clan, and in whose veins coursed the
blood of the historic Brant, now stepped to the edge of the scarlet
blanket. The chant ended, these two young chiefs received the Prince
into the Mohawk tribe, conferring upon him the name of "Kavakoudge,"
which means "the sun flying from East to West under the guidance of the
Great Spirit."
Onwanonsyshon then took from his waist a brilliant deep-red sash,
heavily embroidered with beads, porcupine quills and dyed moose hair,
placing it over the Prince's left shoulder and knotting it beneath his
right arm. The ceremony was ended. The Constitution that Hiawatha had
founded centuries ago, a Constitution wherein fifty chiefs, no more, no
less, should form the parliament of the "Six Nations," had been
shattered and broken, because this race of loyal red men desired to do
honor to a slender young boy-prince, who now bears the fifty-first
title of the Iroquois.
Many white men have received from these same people honorary titles,
but none has been bestowed through the ancient ritual, with the
imperative members of the three clans assisting, save that borne by
Arthur of Connaught.
After the ceremony the Prince entered the church to autograph his name
in the ancient Bible, which, with a silver Holy Communion service, a
bell, two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, and a bronze
British coat-of-arms, had been presented to the Mohawks by Queen Anne.
He inscribed "Arthur" just below the "Albert Edward," which, as Prince
of Wales, the late king wrote when he visited Canada in 1860.
When he returned to England, Chief Kavakoudge sent his portrait,
together with one of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, to be
placed in the Council House of the "Six Nations," where they decorate
the walls today.
As I write, I glance up to see, in a corner of my room, a draping
scarlet blanket, made of British army broadcloth, for the chief who
rode the jet-black pony so long ago was the writer's father. He was
not here to wear it when Arthur of Connaught again set foot on Canadian
shores.
Many of these facts I have culled from a paper that lies on my desk; it
is yellowing with age, and bears the date, "Toronto, October 2, 1869,"
and on the margin is written in a clear, half-boyish hand,
"Onwanonsyshon, with kind regards from your brother-chief, Arthur."
[Illustration: Native tools]
End of Project Gutenberg's Legends of Vancouver, by E. Pauline Johnson