“Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe, that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings,
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God’s right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened....”
--“_Hiawatha._”
The An-ko-me-nums, like most of the Indians of British Columbia, were
spirit worshippers. First of all, they believed in a great Chief
Spirit, who created all things and was all-wise and all-powerful, and
ruled over them for good, but who was not actively concerned for them,
and whom they never called upon except in cases of great difficulty or
distress.
Then they believed in a multitude of lesser spirits, who were in
most cases evilly disposed towards them. These inhabited certain
mountains and headlands and rocky, dangerous points, around which the
waves raged and tossed their frail canoes, and sometimes upset them.
A swirling eddy, a dangerous rapid, a lonely lake in the mountains,
a steep precipice where perhaps at some time or other one of their
people had met with disaster and possibly death, was the abode of a
“Stlaw-la-kum,” or evil spirit.
They prayed a great deal to the sun, to the moon, to the Great Being
who gave them all the fish and food, or to the spirit whom they
believed might be responsible for any impending danger. They were often
found in the woods praying. Hunters would pray and fast for days in
the mountains, bathing themselves and performing certain exercises, in
order to be successful hunters. They would pray, while fishing, for a
successful catch. And for weeks before going on a war expedition they
would fast and pray and bathe and paint themselves in preparation for
the undertaking.
Food and drink were often thrown on the fire as an offering to the
unknown Divinity, while the ascending smoke bore the prayers of the
poor blind worshippers onward to the Great Chief above.
Speaking of this, one of our native preachers says: “My grandmother in
the early morning used to kindle a fire as she sat on the river bank.
When it was a clear, quiet morning and the smoke would ascend, as it
seemed, straight up to the land above, she would say, as she prayed for
more food or for protection from sickness or trouble, ‘Now our prayers
will be answered.’ But if the wind blew the smoke about, she would say
it was no use praying, as such prayers were useless.”
Out on the water, with the tempest threatening, they were accustomed
to turn around and whistle and wave their hands to the wind, to keep
it away, and when it grew stormy they would pray to the mighty wind.
Crossing the Gulf of Georgia on one occasion in a big storm, the
old heathen captain and his wife, with whom we voyaged, prayed most
appealingly, “Oh, you big storm, don’t you drown us; you are so strong
and we are so weak; don’t you make such a rough sea. Why should we go
down? We are all dirty, our clothes are dirty, we are very dirty; if
you take us down we shall dirty your clear waters, they are so clear
and blue. Don’t have us dirty your beautiful waters.”
The south men, as well as the north, would throw out food and even
clothes as a sacrifice to appease the storm.
When becalmed on a fair day the conjurer or “windmaker” would volunteer
to raise the wind. He would begin by whistling and waving the hand,
and then praying to the Spirit of the locality. Should a light breeze
spring up they would shout and hurrah because they had brought the wind.
Of their traditions we have not much to say. In common with many
other peoples, they had legends of the creation and of the deluge.
Their stories of the flood are very local in coloring, and usually
gather around a certain mountain peak, the highest in their immediate
vicinity. The legend of the thunder bird is one which is repeated in
varied forms all up and down the coast. The Nanaimos told how the
thunder was made up between two mountains. Between two large rocks,
near the shores of a little mountain lake, some great birds which made
the thunder had their nest. Then the little thunders all came out, and
they with the big thunders clapped their wings; then the roll and roar
of the thunder could be heard echoing through the hills.
DEATH AND BURIAL.
The An-ko-me-nums believed in a future existence, and placed upon
the graves the toys and trinkets of the children, the weapons and
belongings of their braves, the canoe or horse of the chief, which they
thought would be of service to the former owner in the land to which he
had gone.
They buried their dead in various ways. There are evidences that in
times long past they put many of them in rocky tombs and hid them from
their enemies. During times of war they buried them in large pits,
which were covered with ashes, and huge mounds of shells were heaped
on the top. At Comox, on Vancouver Island; Musqueam, near Eburne, at
the mouth of the Fraser; at Port Hammond, and other places, where these
mounds existed and have been opened, human skulls and bones have been
found in large numbers.
Fifty years ago they enclosed the bodies of the dead in boxes and
placed them upon a scaffold, some ten or twelve feet high, to keep them
out of the way of animals. In still later times they placed them on the
ground and built little houses over them. To-day they are buried in the
earth, after the Christian fashion.
Such fear had they of death that the dead were not kept very long, but
were placed in a box and hurried out of the way as soon as possible.
They were particularly cruel and indifferent to their old people, even
placing them in their boxes before they were quite dead.
I recall the case of a poor old man at Nanaimo who had been sick for
some time. I called one day at the house and did not find him on the
miserably dirty old cot. I then asked his son, a heathen, a chief, and
past middle age himself, where the old man was. “He is in that box,”
he replied, at the same time pointing to a native cedar box, about
eighteen inches square and two feet deep, made without a nail, and
bound with cedar withes.
I went to the box, and opening it I found the poor fellow, where they
had placed him, according to custom, crowded in and doubled up, his
head between his knees, but still alive. I had him taken out at once,
but he died the next day.
Some time ago, on the west coast, a man who had been very sick, and
whom they expected to die, was thus buried alive. His legs were
broken and his poor body was jammed into a box, and it was put away
on an island. A woman picking berries heard the man groan, and with
considerable grit for an Indian woman went and opened the box and
let him out. He is still living, though as a result of his horrible
experience he is compelled to make his way about as best he may on all
fours.
DID NOT KNOW HE WAS DEAD.
Several years ago smallpox raged along the coast and swept off many of
the Indians as well as the whites. The city and government at Victoria
appointed certain white grave-diggers to bury the numerous corpses
found upon the beach, among the trees, in huts and in canoes.
In many cases the grave-diggers found poor creatures almost, but not
altogether, dead; they knew they would be fit for burial soon, and did
not care to spend time waiting for the last gasp. It is said they were
taking one poor fellow off to the grave, but he objected on the very
proper ground that he was not dead yet. He was told to shut up, as he
was dead, but too delirious to comprehend the fact. So they carefully
placed him under the sod to await the resurrection morn.
RISING FROM THE GRAVE.
The coal company at Nanaimo were building a wharf from a point in the
harbor, and paid for the removal of a number of Indian bodies which had
been buried near the spot. New graves were dug on a little side hill,
and to these the remains were transferred. The holes, however, were
quite shallow, owing to the presence of a clay hard-pan underneath.
Next day a great outcry was made in the camp, and intense excitement
prevailed, for most of the boxes had risen up and had come out of the
graves. We went down to discover the cause of the disturbance, and what
had seemed to the poor people so strange and uncanny had been caused
by the heavy rain of the night before filling the shallow graves and
floating out what they contained. It took some time to quiet the fears
of the people.
The men who do anything in any way in the digging of the grave or the
handling of the body are paid excessively for their services. This may
be due, in part, to their horrible fear of the dead.
MOURNING FOR THE DEAD.
The Indian mother grieves for her children with the same intensity
of feeling that characterizes her white sister. After the burial she
will return to the grave in the early morning and weep bitterly. She
often continues this for days at a time. She wails and calls up the
looks of the little one, its acts and words. She will carry the clothes
and playthings to the little grave, and cry and talk away to her lost
darling, and pathetically plead for its return.
There is, however, a kind of professionalism about a great deal of
their mourning for the dead. When a chief or leading person had passed
away women were accustomed to rush into the house from all parts of
the village. Perhaps on their way there they might be chatting and
laughing about trifles, but as soon as they got near the house where
the dead lay, they would commence rubbing their hands down their faces,
and really seem to pump up their tears, for before they were fairly
seated the tears were flowing, while they wailed and told all the good
qualities of the dead.
After this had gone on for some time, someone belonging to the house
would hand around a dish or basket containing water. The crying then
ceased, and dipping their fingers in the water they bathed faces and
hands, and received the strips of calico or clothes of the deceased,
which was their reward for their weeping.
THE WITCH-DOCTOR.
The medicine-man, or witch-doctor, that demon among heathen peoples,
held sway among the An-ko-me-nums when I first went to the Coast.
The shaman, or medicine-man, is the representative of the grossest
features of paganism. He has wielded, and still wields to some extent,
a marvellous influence over the people, because of the supernatural
powers which they believe him to possess.
He professes to have acquired his power by long months of retirement in
the mountains or beside some lonely lake, where he fasted and prayed
and held converse with the spirits and with nature.
Returning, he practises certain magical rites, and by this means is
able, so he claims, to heal the sick and raise the dead and look into
the future, and even cause the death of many who may oppose his magical
powers.
The tyranny of this wretched despot and the awful absurdity of his
miserable pretensions, together with his fiendishly bitter opposition
to everything that is good, leads him to be feared and hated.
Their method of treating disease was not by means of medicine. It
was left to the old women of the tribe really to administer such
simple remedies as they might be acquainted with--poultices, lotions,
emetics, purgatives, and such-like. The witch-doctor preyed upon the
superstitions of the people, and by his conjurer’s rites deceived and
beguiled them.
When called in, in case of sickness, he would shake his rattle and work
himself up to a frenzy, scream and howl, and if it was a case of fever
he would rattle away for hours. If there was some fixed pain, he would
grab hold of the chest or forehead or place where the pain was said
to be, and then get down and suck and squeeze and suck away until the
blood came through the skin. Then repeatedly spitting the blood into
his hands, he would shout for his attendants to rattle harder and sing
louder, “It was coming.” Finally he would jump and scream or cheer
and say he had got it out, and then proceed to show a piece of shell,
glass, pebble, or a nail, which he claimed he had taken from the body,
and which was the cause of the trouble.
A cousin of Sallosalton’s, a bright youth who had attended our school,
in whom I had become very much interested, was taken very sick with a
fever, and the conjurer (witch-doctor) was called in. I visited him,
and saw that the old conjurer’s rattling and the additional noise of
the people beating time to his rattle or drum and boards, together with
the yelling and singing for hours, was only distracting the poor boy
and making him very much worse. I went to the town and consulted the
only doctor there. He came to see my young friend, and said he felt
sure that if the medicine were administered properly, and we could keep
the old conjurer away, there was good hope of his recovery. So I told
the people that we did not want the conjurer there any more, and that
they must help me to keep the lad quiet. Night after night I sat up in
order to administer the medicine and keep the old imposter away, and
thus give him the necessary quiet. But I found that secretly during the
day, while I was resting, they would call in the conjurer again, as his
friends had more faith in him than in our medicine and nursing.
Several days passed before I discovered their doings. But one day I
slipped into the house unexpectedly and found the old fellow rattling
over him, with a number of his friends keeping time with sticks on a
board, to assist the old imposter, as he said, “to get the power.”
I rushed in and ordered him to stop and leave. A day or two after I
found him again at the same thing, all painted up and nearly naked,
and partly stretched out upon the body of the sick man, howling and
rattling away. My indignation was aroused, and I said to him, “If you
don’t stop you’ll kill that boy. Leave at once! and if you don’t I’ll
bundle you out of the house.”
[Illustration: “One day I slipped in and found the old fellow rattling
over him.” _p. 121_]
He saw that I was making for him, when he got up and crawled out,
saying that he was there by invitation. Of course, the father, mother
and friends, who were responsible, were very much disgusted at my
action.
I continued my watch by the poor boy for several nights, and had the
joy of knowing that he was trusting in Jesus. However, I was suddenly
called away to the Fraser River, and, much to my regret, had to leave
the sick one. After I left they got the conjurer back, and finished
their work, for the boy died soon afterwards.
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND MY SICK.”
It is lamentable to behold the superstitious dread of these people of
the power of the witch-doctor to do them harm.
During my stay at Nanaimo a bright, intelligent young man, about
nineteen years of age, by the name of Charlie, attended our school. I
missed him for some days, and on inquiry learned that he was sick. I
made my way to the old heathen house where he lived, and there found
him lying on a wretched cot, covered with his old dirty blanket.
I said, “Charlie, what’s the matter?”
“I am sick, sir,” he replied.
I felt his pulse, made general inquiry, but could discover very little
the matter with him. Giving him some medicine, I told him to “have a
strong heart,” as he would soon be well.
Two or three days afterwards, on a beautiful sunny spring morning, I
visited him again, and found he was still lying in the same place. I
got him up and out of the old house into the sunlight, but he seemed to
grow worse rather than better.
Finally I said to him one day, “Charlie, what’s the matter with you?
You are not sick!”
“Oh, you cannot understand my sickness,” he replied.
“Where are you sick? What is the matter?” I continued.
“Oh,” he said, looking very serious, “white man don’t understand my
sickness.”
“Tell me where your sickness is?” I urged.
Pulling down his dirty blanket, and putting his hand upon his stomach
he said, “It is here. An old conjurer has made me sick. He has blown
something into my inside.”
“Oh, nonsense, Charlie!” said I. “It is no such thing. No man has power
to do that.”
But he shook his head and replied, “Oh, I told you, you don’t
understand my sick. The Indian has power, and he is using it on me, and
I shall die.”
Day by day I visited the poor boy and tried in every way to get him to
arouse himself and to go out with the rest of the boys. But no, he lay
there and sickened, and in about six weeks he died.
I do not believe anything was the matter, except his superstitious fear
that the old witch-doctor had put his spell upon him and was killing
him.
RETALIATION FOR A SUPPOSED INSULT.
If there is a class that deserves severe treatment among the Indians
it is these miserable reprobates, who still are busy preying upon the
credulity of the people and working incalculable mischief.
At the present time there are several of these imposters among the
bands in the Lower Fraser Valley. They have been for years a nuisance,
the priests of paganism and the prophets of evil.
Their miserable pretensions we have ignored, and have left them out, as
far as possible, in our social gatherings among the people.
Several years ago invitations to the wedding of two of our young people
were sent to many of the Indians of the community, these witch doctors
alone being purposely left out.
This enraged them so much that they announced that they would kill
three persons who were at the gathering before a year was gone.
Shortly after one of the little pupils at the Institute, who had been
ill for some time, died, and they immediately claimed credit for the
child’s death. A little later a woman who attended was taken sick and
also died, and according to the statements of the conjurers she was
victim number two.
During the following summer a number of our Indians, as usual, went
down to the salmon fishing at the mouth of the river, among whom was
a middle-aged chief, one of our most intelligent Indians, and, we
considered, one of our truest Christians.
Typhoid was epidemic that year at Steveston, and this chief was taken
down with the fever.
Dr. Large, our energetic and successful medical missionary at Bella
Bella, was then at the Fraser River for the summer season, and visited
and gave the chief medical attention. He appeared to improve under
treatment and bade fair speedily to recover, but in an unexplainable
manner to the medical man the recovery was delayed. He found, on
inquiry, that the chief was not taking the medicine prescribed, and
had said that he did not think he would ever get well. When pressed
for his reasons, he confessed the belief that he was the third
victim of the witch-doctors’ rage, and that he could not live. The
missionary reasoned with him, pleaded with him, prayed with him, but
without avail, and finally the poor fellow died, the victim of his
own superstitious fears, upon which the conjurers had worked all too
successfully.
We were grieved beyond measure that such a noble life had been thus cut
short, and that the power of superstition and ignorance was still so
manifest.
This power of the medicine-man is coupled with the Indian’s belief in
witchcraft. No heathen Indian ever dies a natural death, for every
sickness or accident is due, according to their superstitious view,
to the evil eye or malign spell of someone who is evilly disposed
towards them. When calamity or sickness comes they immediately apply to
the witch-doctor to perform his incantations and discover the witch.
Sometimes it is an old woman of the tribe, whose term of life is now
necessarily short; sometimes it is a slave or a bright girl or boy,
and sometimes a whole family are pointed out as the “guilty ones” and
doomed to death. The atrocities committed by the natives, moved by this
dreadful superstition, are numberless and in many cases too dreadful to
relate. How fervently we pray that the enlightening influence of the
Holy Spirit may penetrate the gloom of heathen darkness and forever
drive out all the nameless horrors which belong to paganism.