The rain had ceased and the sun had swept aside the veil of mist
disclosing a glorious panorama of sea and sky. We stepped into our
canoe and turned its nose northward.
The sun was setting in a riot of gorgeous colors as we rounded Pinnoch
Island and saw the thriving little city of Ketchikan stretching for
miles along the waterfront. “Ketch-kaw” the Indians named it, meaning
wedged in between two mountains. The harbor was crowded with ships.
Great concrete buildings rose against the sky. One by one lights began
to flash out from pretty homes crowding hillside and waterfront and
were reflected in the waters of Tongass Narrows. As lovely a scene as
any famed Venice can boast.
Then the Story Teller broke the long silence.
“It was here that the Thlingets fought and conquered the Tsimpseans. It
ended the war that began so long ago that no one can remember. One,
two, perhaps three hundred years ago.
“Before that time the Thlingets and the Tsimpseans were brothers. They
visited and feasted and danced together. So it happened that two
Thlinget princes looked with favor upon a fair Tsimpsean maiden. They
quarreled. Their blood relations took up the quarrel. There were angry
looks and loud words and much fighting. In one of these fights one of
the Thlinget princes was killed.
“Then the Thlingets hated the Tsimpseans with a fierce hatred because
one of their maidens had brought this evil upon them. In those days the
Indian believed in an eye for an eye, a life for a life. So they fell
upon the Tsimpseans and slew one of the sons of their chief. Then for
many, many moons they made war upon each other.
“The Thlingets made a big camp at Ketch-kah. They built three great log
forts. One was where Chief Johnson’s lodge now stands.
“The Thlingets called the Tsimpseans Klah-neets (sand fleas) because
they would pop up and shoot at them, then disappear in the sand and
underbrush, or would steal into their camp and carry off their young
men and maidens and make slaves of them. They came noiselessly and were
gone, leaving no footprints.
“The Tsimpseans had one small cannon. They had gotten it from the
Hudson Bay Company, far to the southward, in exchange for furs. While
their enemies slept, they carried the cannon to the top of the hill and
fired on the fort. Then a terrible battle was fought. The Thlingets
seized their war clubs and fell upon the Tsimpseans with such fury that
almost all of them were either killed or taken prisoner. Then the
Tsimpsean tribe laid down their war clubs and again lived in peace with
the Thlingets.
“But,” said the Story Teller, “my people were still at war with a
Thlinget clan that made their camp at Sheet-kah. It started longer,
much longer ago than the war with the Tsimpseans. They fought with bows
and arrows and with clubs made of bone.
“This was the way the big fight started. Every year my people would
take plenty salmon over to Pinnock Island and hang it there to dry for
their winter food.
“The Sheet-kah Indians had fine big canoes. They made them of rotten
spruce logs, which they hollowed out with sharp stones. Some of them
held thirty or forty people. In them they would paddle as far south as
Dixon’s Entrance fishing and trading. Once they landed on Pinnock
Island and carried off all the salmon they found there.
“That winter was long and cold and there was very little food. The old
and many young children died. Then the hearts of my people grew hot
with anger. There was a big fight and Chief Nah-goot was killed by
Schook-klatch, chief of the Sheet-kah tribe. Then they fight, fight,
all the time fight until Captain Cook came. He was the first Pale Face
my people had ever seen. Soon the Red Men began trading furs for guns
with which to fight each other.
“But at last the great white chief in Washington sent his soldiers to
tell the Red Men that they must live in peace with each other. There
must be no more fighting.
“Now,” said the Store Teller proudly, “my people live like their white
brothers. Our children go to school. We have fine big fishing boats.
Our lodges are like the white men’s lodges.
“There,” pointing to where half a mile away a long pier extended far
out from the little village of Saxman, “I hope some day to see an
Indian village like the white men’s villages, where my people will be
able to do all that my white brothers do. Its harbor will be crowded
with fishing boats. There shall be canneries and sawmills so our
children need not seek work in the villages of the white men. The
Indian will no longer be a child. He will be a man.
“But,” the Story Teller ended sadly, “the young look not with the eyes
of the old. I dream, but my dreams may not come true.”