FOOD FROM THE SEA
The voyagers worked on steadily through the day, and three or four
hours before sundown they landed at Comox Spit, two or three miles
from the village of Comox. All through the day numbers of hair-seals
had been seen diligently fishing in the shoal waters, and often an old
one was accompanied by her tiny young. There were hosts of water-fowl
about the shore,--ducks of several kinds, seagulls, guillemots, and
auks; while along the beach ran oyster catchers, turnstones, and many
other shore birds. All these were picking a fat living there from the
water or from the gravelly beach at the water's edge. The larger fowl
fed on fish and mollusks on the bottom; the lesser ones on the small
crustaceans, which are abundant among the vegetable life near the
beach. At the end of the day the canoe passed through a great multitude
of ducks, which seemed to contain many thousands of birds. Near these
were hundreds of great seagulls, sitting on the sand spits which
project from the islands far out into the water. As the canoe moved
toward these great flocks of ducks, the noise of their rising, the
whistling rush of their wings and the pattering of their feet upon the
water made such a tumult as almost to drown ordinary conversation.
It was low water when they landed, and the boat's cargo had to be
carried a long distance up to the meadow above the beach. After this
had been done, the fire kindled and the tent put up, Charlie called
to them: "Why don't you men try that mud flat for clams? You have
a salmon to do to-night, but that won't last very long, and you had
better try to get some more fresh meat."
Arming themselves with sharpened sticks, they scattered out over the
mud flat, looking carefully for signs of clams, and before long were
hard at work gathering them. Jack had dug clams in the East before, but
this was new business for Hugh; and it was fun for Jack to tell him how
to look for the clams and how to unearth them when found. It took them
but a short time to gather over half a bushel of the bivalves, which
were taken up to the camp and washed off and covered up.
Their dinner of salmon was greatly enjoyed. After dinner Jack and
Fannin, seeing some fish jumping out at the mouth of the river, pushed
off in the canoe and spent some time casting for them. But although
they tried almost all their most attractive flies, they did not get a
single rise, though the fish kept jumping all around them. While still
occupied at this, the sun went down and before long the Indians began
to make an extraordinary disturbance about the camp fire--shouting,
rushing about, stooping down, and then throwing up their hands. When
the two anglers reached the shore and inquired what had caused all the
excitement, Hugh picked up by the wing and held aloft a tiny mottled
owl. The little bird had been hunting about over the flat, and,
attracted by the light of the fire, had flown about it several times;
and the Indians, excited by its near approach, had begun to throw
stones at it. A well-aimed shot by Jimmie had brought down the bird,
which Charlie suggested would do for the next day's dinner.
"We haven't got down quite to eating owls," said Jack, with a laugh.
"Well," said Hugh, "I've eaten owl a number of times, and it's not at
all bad eating, though, of course, it depends a little bit on how
hungry you are. I guess most everything that runs or flies is pretty
good to eat, if one only has appetite enough. I have tried a whole lot
of things, and I put owl down among the things that are real good."
"How did you come to eat owl, Hugh?" asked Jack. "And when was it?"
"It's a good many years ago," said Hugh, "that I started, late in
December, south from the Platte River with Lute North, expecting to
load up a wagon with buffalo meat at once. We didn't take much grub
with us as we meant to be gone only for a few days; and as buffalo had
been plenty in the country to which we were going, we thought we could
soon load the wagon.
"We travelled three days without seeing a head of game, and then
crossed the Republican River and kept on south. In the river bottom
we killed a turkey, but all the four-footed game seemed to have left
the country. After going south two days longer and finding no game,
not even an old bull, we turned back, for provisions were getting low.
We crossed the Republican again, but got stuck in the quicksands; and
the wagon sunk so low that the water came into the wagon box and wet
our things, without doing much harm, however, for the sugar was the
only thing that was spoiled. The flour got wet, and left us only about
enough for two or three more loaves of bread. But we had a little piece
of bacon left, so we had enough to carry us through. It took some hours
to get the wagon out; and that afternoon, after leaving the river, we
saw three old bulls feeding on the side of a ridge. At first Lute and
I both intended to go after them; but as there was a better chance of
approaching them if only one man went, and as Lute was a fine shot, I
told him to go ahead, and I waited in the wagon. He took a circuit and
got around the bulls so that the wind was right, then crept up behind
a ridge until he was within a hundred yards, and fired--and the bulls
ran off over the hills. When Lute came back, and I asked him how he
came to miss them, he could give no explanation. 'I had as good a bead
on that bull as I ever had on anything, and yet I missed him clean,' he
said; 'shot clear over him.'
"We camped that night in a wide and deep ravine, and in the morning
when we got up we found that we were covered with snow, which was two
or three feet deep, and which still kept falling. This was certainly
a bad state of things. We lay in camp all day, only leaving it to tie
the horses up to some brush where they could get something to eat. It
stopped snowing that night, and the next morning we started out to try
to kill something, but had no luck. The snow was so deep in the ravine
that we could not travel there, but on the divide the wind had blown it
all off. Lute saw a wolf, but could not get a shot at it. I had seen
nothing. We spent the rest of the evening trying to break a road out to
the divide, and at night we made our last loaf of bread and ate half of
it. It took us all the next day to get out to where the horses could
travel, but we made some little distance, stopping at night and melting
some snow for the horses, and for a cup of coffee apiece. Next morning,
as we were hitching up, I saw a white owl hunting along the edge of the
ravine. The bird alighted about half a mile away, and I took my rifle
and went out to try to kill it. I got to within seventy-five yards of
it, and then it saw me; so I fired, and it did not fly away. When I got
hold of it I found that I had shot high, and that my ball had just cut
the top of its head. Half an inch higher, and I would have missed. We
ate half the owl that morning, and the rest that night. The next night
we crossed the Platte. When within four or five miles of town, just
when we didn't need it, we killed a white-tail deer."
"Well," said Jack, "you must have been pretty hungry when you got it."
"Yes," said Hugh, "but it isn't very hard to go without eating. A man
feels pretty wolfish for the first twenty-four hours, but then he
doesn't get any hungrier. After that he begins to get weak; not very
fast, of course, but he can't do as much as he can when he's well fed.
He can't walk as far or climb as hard. To go without water, though, is
a very different thing. If a man can't drink, he suffers a great deal,
and keeps getting worse all the time."
"Well," said Fannin, "in this country no man need suffer for want of
water. These mountains are covered with it; it is running down them
everywhere. There is usually food too, though sometimes fish and game,
and seaweed and fern roots fail, and then the Indians get hungry. One
thing the Indians eat, which I never saw eaten anywhere before, and
that is the octopus or devil fish, as they're sometimes called. It
isn't bad eating, and the Indians think a great deal of it. They cut
off the arms and boil them, and then when the skin is peeled off, they
are perfectly white, looking almost like stalks of celery. The meat is
tender and quite good, though to tell the truth, it hasn't got much
flavor to it."
"You speak of fern roots, Mr. Fannin," said Jack, "I didn't know that
they were ever eaten."
"Yes," replied Fannin. "They're gathered and roasted in time of
scarcity, and will support life for a time. The Indians here have
quite a variety in the way of vegetable food in dulse, seaweed, and
berries. They dry the berries of different kinds, making them into
cakes when they're nearly dry, and using them as a sort of bread in
winter. There's what is called the soap-berry, which they use as a sort
of flavoring. The berries are dried and pressed into cakes. When they
want to use it, a portion of a cake is broken off, crumbled into fine
pieces and put into a bucket with a little water. Then a woman with
bare arm begins to stir the mixture with her hand, and soon it becomes
frothy. The more she stirs it, the more it foams up; and as the volume
increases, more water is added, until at last the vessel which contains
it, and which may hold several gallons, is full of this foam. Then
the Indians sit about it, and scraping up the foam on their fingers,
draw them between their lips. The taste of the foam is sharply bitter,
something like the inner bark of the red willow. I've always supposed
that these berries possessed some tonic quality like quinine. There are
two or three kinds of seaweed that the Indians eat. One they boil, and
it makes a dish a great deal like what we call 'greens.' The other is
dried, pressed into cakes, and used later in soups. This seaweed seems
to be full of gelatine and thickens the soup. It is still the custom
in the villages which are far from the settlements, for young women
to chew this seaweed fine before cooking it. It's necessary to make
it small before the boiling will soften it. The Indians who live near
the settlement, however, chop up the vegetable with a knife, a pair of
scissors, or a tobacco cutter."
"Well," said Jack, "I guess we'll want to avoid any soup if we stop at
any Indian villages."
"Well," said Fannin, "it might be a good idea to be on the lookout, but
they use this seaweed chiefly in the winter, so I don't think we need
to be alarmed."
Camp was broken early next morning, and a start made soon after
daylight. There was a long day of paddling. Camp was made shortly
before sundown, and soon after supper was eaten all hands went to bed.
Of course, efforts were made to procure fresh meat, but no more salmon
were caught, nor any deer seen, though each day Fannin was lucky enough
to kill a few ducks with a shot-gun.
Each night as the time for camping approached, Mr. Fannin and the
Indians would be on the watch for a good landing-place. This had to be
carefully chosen on account of the danger of scratching the bottom of
the boat or striking it sharply on some rock or pebble, which might
result in accident and cause several days' detention, or possibly even
a serious calamity.
When a landing was made, it was the first duty of the party to unload
the canoe, and then to drag it up on the beach, safe above reach of
the waves. As has been stated, the prow of the canoe was turned away
from the shore, and she was backed toward some place where the sand was
smooth and free from stones, or else where the pebbles were smoothly
spread out, and as nearly as possible of the same size. The approach to
the shore was slow and made carefully, and the paddles of those in the
stern were thrust, handles down, against the beach, to ease the shock
of her touching. Then the steersman leaped overboard, and lifted and
drew the canoe as far up the beach as he could. The others disembarked
and helped to lift her still farther on to the beach. Then her load
was taken out, and carried up above high-water mark. After the whole
load had been transported to the spot selected for the camp, every one,
except the cook, who at once busied himself with preparations for the
meal, returned to the water's edge. The loose boards in the bottom of
the canoe--put there to protect the bottom from the careless dropping
of some heavy article, or from a too heavy footfall--were taken out
and placed on the beach, so as to form a smooth roadway for the canoe
to slide on, and she was then dragged well up above high-water mark.
The Indians went into the forest to cut poles and pins for the tent,
which was soon set up, and the beds made. Before dinner was ready, the
camp was in complete order. Sometimes it happened that no satisfactory
landing-place could be made, and then it was impossible to get the
canoe out of the water on the rocks or the narrow beach where they
were obliged to camp. In such cases the Indians, after they had eaten,
would re-embark, take the canoe out some distance from the shore and
anchor it there, and spend the night in the vessel. Next morning all
the operations of unloading the canoe were reversed. While breakfast
was being cooked the blankets were rolled up, the tent torn down, and
everything but the mess kit and the provision boxes carried down to the
canoe. After breakfast, and while the dishes were being washed, the
canoe was loaded, the last thing put aboard being the mess kit and the
provision boxes.
About noon the next day, upon rounding a point of land, some low houses
were seen in a little bay, and Fannin, after speaking to the Indians,
said to the others: "Here's the village of the Cape Mudge Indians. Had
we not better stop here and see if we can't buy some dried salmon? We
have got to have some provisions, unless you hunters can do better."
When they paddled up to the village they found that it consisted of
large houses made of "shakes," somewhat like the Indian village that
they had seen near Nanaimo. In front of several of the houses stood
poles, from forty to sixty feet high and curiously carved. One such
pole, not yet erected, and in process of being carved, bore on one end
the head of a large bird, which by some stretch of imagination might
be taken for that of an eagle. The Indians seen here, though little
resembling the Indians Jack and Hugh were familiar with on the plains,
were at least clad like Indians, that is to say, in breech-clout
and blanket. Physically they bore little resemblance to the more
symmetrical horse Indians of the plains, for, though their bodies
seemed large and well developed, their legs were small and shrunken.
The party's stay here was short, but they succeeded in purchasing a
few salmon and then pushed off again. Just outside of the village was
a burial place of considerable size, in which were many small houses.
The bodies of the dead were deposited in the small board houses, though
those of poorer people were said to be placed in old canoes, which were
then covered with boards. In front or at the side of each house stood
a number of small poles, ten or twelve feet high, which indicated the
number of potlatches or great feasts that the dead man had given, each
pole standing for a potlatch. Fastened to stouter and larger poles were
small profiles of canoes carved out of thin boards, which showed how
many canoes the dead man had given away during his life. Over some of
the houses stood large crosses, eight or ten feet high and covered with
white cloth.
"You see," said Fannin, "a good many Indians along the coast here are
supposed to be Christians, though it is pretty hard to tell just how
much the Indians understand of what the missionaries tell them, and
just how far their lives are influenced by their teachings. No matter
how good Christians these Indians who are buried here may have been,
every one of them has been fitted out by his relations with a canoe
for use in the land of the future, for they can conceive of no country
where there is no water, nor of any means of getting about except in a
canoe."
That night after dinner as they were seated about the fire, Hugh and
Fannin pulling at their pipes, Charlie smoking a cigarette, and the
Indians--who that night slept aboard the canoe--singing one of their
plaintive songs, Jack asked Mr. Fannin to explain the meaning of the
word "potlatch," which he had used earlier during the day.
"Well," said Fannin, "potlatch is a word of the Chinook jargon, and
means to give, or a gift, according to the connection in which it is
used. As we've been paddling along you've heard the Indians say,
'Potlatch tsook,' which means 'give water.' In other words, they want
a drink. The great ambition of every Indian in this country is to get
property in such quantity that he can give a big feast, call all the
people together, sometimes one village, sometimes all the villages of
the tribe, and then hand around presents to everybody. It is in this
way, according to their estimation, that they become chiefs or men of
importance. Wealth, in fact, seems to constitute a standard of rank
among them, and the man who gives away the most is the biggest chief.
Later, he receives the reward of his generosity, for at subsequent
potlatches, given by other people, he receives a gift proportionate
to the amount of his own potlatch. When, therefore, an Indian has
accumulated money enough, he is likely to buy a great lot of food,
crackers, tea, sugar, molasses, and flour, as well as calico and
blankets. Then he proceeds to invite all his friends, up and down the
coast, to a potlatch. The feast consists mainly of boiled deer meat and
salmon and oolichan oil, with the other food I have just mentioned.
Every guest has all the crackers he can eat. Perhaps there is a small
canoe full of molasses. Each guest receives so many yards of calico,
a part of the blankets are distributed among the visitors, and the
remainder are scrambled for among the young men, the donor perhaps
getting on top of a house and throwing the blankets down into the crowd
below. The feasting and the giving may last for a week; and when the
affair is over the guests go their several ways, leaving the giver of
the potlatch a poor man. When the next potlatch takes place, however,
he recovers a portion of his wealth, and after a few more have been
given, he is better off than ever. Sometimes at these feasts canoes are
given away, and even guns and ammunition; and the greater the gift,
the more is due the giver when those who have received gifts from him
themselves give potlatches."
"Well," said Jack, "that's a queer custom and a queer way of thinking.
It seems, in certain ways, though, a good deal like the orders that
were given in the Bible, to take all you have and give it to the poor.
But I suppose as a matter of fact, instead of giving it to the poor,
these men who give these potlatches try to give to the rich instead, so
that they may receive their gifts back again."
"Well," said Hugh, "you will find among Indians everywhere, that one
making a gift to another, or a contribution for any purpose, expects to
receive it back again. If a man should die before he had paid back the
gift, his relations are required to make it up."
"I guess Indians are alike everywhere," said Fannin. "Queer people,
queer people."
"Well," said Hugh, "that's just exactly what the Indians say about us:
'the white people are queer.'"