"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."