The centre figure in the pictographic painting is a wolf grotesquely
drawn. Within her body four young wolves are seen. Above the wolf is
a killer whale surmounted by a second picture of the Thunder Bird,
and in the left top corner of the pictograph is seen the face of
a young klootsmah or Indian girl. How strangely are her features
pictured. With upturned hands she gazes in a blank unvarying
stare. She holds the key to this old tale which the great scroll
perpetuates. One time this Indian maiden, daughter of a chief of
great renown, with her two sisters left their home on Village Island.
They went in search of yellow cedar bark which grew in quantity upon
the mountain top above the village, of Toquaht. The cedar bark is
highly prized, and when the sap ascends in May to feed the new born
green, the bark is loose and easily removed, and when the klootsmah
cuts the bark through to the sap half round the tree and pulls with
all her strength, it comes in strips from off the tree till the first
branch is reached, and then it breaks and falls obedient at her dark
feet. The klootsmah rolls it up and puts it in the basket on her
back, and when she reaches home she splits the bark, and pounds it
between stones, with water softening it, and after long and tedious
work the fibres being separated, she cleanses them and weaves them
into cloaks, and then with true artistic taste, trims them with
pretty fur.
[Illustration: THE BARK GIVES WAY AND COMES IN STRIPS FROM
OFF THE TREES]
The daughters of the Village Island chief took with them food to last
for three whole suns. They started early, for many miles of paddling
lay between them and the Toquaht shore. At length they reached the
beach, and hiding their canoe beneath a giant spruce, they followed
where a little trail beckoned them on and up the mountain side. For
hours they climbed, wending their way through lonely, silent woods,
the twittering wren the only life they saw or heard. At times they
lost the trail, as it was overgrown with fern and berry bush. But
once the leading klootsmah stopped and signed to her companions to
keep still. Halting, they waited while she pointed to the root fangs
of a cedar tree, where well within the hollow butt a western timber
wolf had made her lair. Gone was the mother, perhaps in quest of deer
with which to feed her four young pups who calmly slept within that
sheltered cave, awaiting her return.
The Indians are a superstitious race, and one of the old fetishes was
this: that if by chance they could secure the young of a wolf from
which to take some precious inner part, to rub upon the outer side of
their canoes, it gave great luck in whaling, and thus it came to pass
that when the klootsmuk found the she wolf's lair, they formed the
plan of taking to their brother the four wolf pups, in order that he
might become the chief of all whale hunters. Cautiously they placed
them in the baskets on their backs and then retraced their steps. In
time they reached the beach, and entered their canoe, when just as
they pushed off, with giant springs and angry howl leapt the great
mother wolf from the woods, but the klootsmuk were safe with their
strange prizes, and soon their canoe cut gleefully through the waves,
while their songs were wafted landward by the western breeze.
Upon an isle not far from home they hid the young wolf pups. This
done, they squatted on the shore, and thought how best they might
inform their brother of their lucky find. They were puzzled as to how
this might be managed without awakening jealousies among the other
members of the tribe, and they were fearful to face their father's
wrath who surely would expect their craft well laden with the cedar
bark. They reasoned long and then decided on a stratagem. One of the
three would cut her foot with a mussel shell, and mark her tunic with
the blood, and tell the story, that when they landed on the Toquaht
shore an open mussel shell had cut her foot, therefore they could not
go for cedar bark. They carried out this plan, and paddled slowly to
Ho-moh-ah. The people saw them come, and wondered much what evil had
befallen them, but when they saw the blood upon the kutsack of the
youngest girl and saw her bound up foot, they guessed the trouble.
Before the sun had set, the brother had been told of the wolf pups,
and secretly that night he had taken from them the precious parts,
and when he went hunting, he rubbed the medicine on his canoe, and
had such wondrous luck he soon became the chief of all whale hunters.
Such is the story told by that weird painting, which could be seen
some years ago adorning the dark walls of the great potlatch house
of Shewish, Seshaht chief on Ho-moh-ah but better known as Village
Island, Barkley Sound.
[Illustration: HALIBUT HOOK AND CLUB FOR STUNNING FISH]