Legends of Vancouver

J.

Legend

V

ancouver

By

E. PAULINE JOHNSON

(Tekanionwake)

Privately Printed

Vancouver, Britisk Columbia
nineteen hundred ana eleven

I//

Preface

I HAVE been asked to write a preface to these
Legends of Vancouver, which, in conjunction
with the members of the Publication Sub-committee
—Mrs. Lefevre, Mr. L. W. Makovski and Mr. R. W.
Douglas— I have helped to put through the press.
But scarcely any prefatory remarks are necessary.
This book may well stand on its own merits. Still,
it may be permissible to record one's glad satisfac-
tion that a poet has arisen to cast over the shoulders
of our grey mountains, our trail-threaded forests,
our tide-swept waters, and the streets and sky-
scrapers of our hurrying city, a gracious mantle of
romance. Pauline Johnson has linked the vivid
present with the immemorial past. Vancouver takes
on a new aspect as we view it through her eyes. In
the imaginative power that she has brought to these
semi-historical sagas, and in the liquid flow of her
rhythmical prose, she has shown herself to be a
literary worker of whom we may well be proud: she
has made a most estimable contribution to purely
Canadian literature.

BERNARD McEVOY

Author's Foreword

HESE legends (with two or three exceptions)
were told to me personally by my honored
friend, the late Chief Joe Capilano, of Vancouver,
whom I had the privilege of first meeting in
London in 1906, when he visited England and was
received at Buckingham Palace by their Majesties
King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

To the fact that I was able to greet Chief Capilano
in the Chinook tongue, while we were both many1
thousands of miles from home, I owe the friendship
and the confidence which he so freely gave me when
I came to reside on the Pacific Coast. These legends
he told me from time to time, just as the mood
possessed him, and he frequently remarked that
they had never been revealed to any other English-
speaking person save myself.

E. PAULINE JOHNSON (Tekahionwake)

These legends are printed by courtesy of the "Vancouver
Daily Province," in which journal they first appeared.

vii

Biographical Notice

e PAULINE JOHNSON (Tekahionwake) is
the youngest child of a family of four
born to the late G. H. M. Johnson (On-
wanonsyshon), Head Chief of the Six Nations
Indians, and his wife Emily S. Howells. The latter
was of English parentage, her birthplace being
Bristol, but the land of her adoption Canada.

Chief Johnson was of the renowned Mohawk
tribe, being a scion of one of the fifty noble families
which composed the historical confederation found-
ed by Hiawatha upwards of four hundred years ago,
and known at that period as the Brotherhood of the
Five Nations, but which was afterwards named the
Iroquois by the early French missionaries and ex-
plorers. For their loyalty to the British Crown
they were granted the magnificent lands bordering
the Grand River, in the County of Brant, Ontario,
on which the tribes still live.

It was upon this Reserve, on her father's estate,
"Chiefswood," that Pauline Johnson was born. The
loyalty of her ancestors breathes in her prose, as
well as in her poetic writings.

Her education was neither extensive nor elabor-
ate. It embraced neither high school nor college.
A nursery governess for two years at home, three
years at an Indian day school half a mile from her
home, and two years in the Central School of the
city of Brantford, was the extent of her educational
training. But, besides this, she acquired a wide
general knowledge, having been through childhood
and early girlhood a great reader, especially of
poetry. Before she was twelve years old she had
read Scott, Longfellow, Byron, Shakespeare, and
such books as Addison's "Spectator," Foster's Es-
says and Owen Meredith's writings.

The first periodicals to accept her poems and place
them before the public were "Gems of Poetry," a
small magazine published in New York, and "The
Week," established by the late Prof. Goldwin Smith,
of Toronto, the New York "Independent" and
Toronto "Saturday Night." Since then she has con-
tributed to most of the high-grade magazines, both
on this continent and England.

Her writings having brought her into notice, the
next step in Miss Johnson's career was her appear-
ance on the public platform as a reciter of her own
poems. For this she had natural talent, and in the
exercise of it she soon developed a marked ability,
joined with a personal magnetism, that was destined
to make her a favorite with audiences from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. Her friend, Mr. Frank
Yeigh, of Toronto, provided for a series of recitals
having that scope, with the object of enabling her to
go to England to arrange for the publication of her

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE

poems. Within two years this aim was accomp-
lished, her book of poems, "The White Wampum,"
being published by John Lane, of the Bodley Head.
She took with her numerous letters of intro-
duction, including one from the Governor-General,
the Earl of Aberdeen, and she soon gained both
social and literary standing. Her book was received
with much favor, both by reviewers and the public.
After giving many recitals in fashionable drawing-
rooms, she returned to Canada, and made her first
tour to the Pacific Coast, giving recitals at all the
cities and towns en route. Since then she has
crossed the Rocky Mountains no fewer than
nineteen times.

Miss Johnson's pen had not been idle, and in 1903
the George Morang Co., of Toronto, published her
second book of poems, entitled "Canadian Born,"
which was also well received.

After a number of recitals, which included New-
foundland and the Maritime Provinces, she went to
England again in 1906 and made her first appearance
in Steinway Hall, under the distinguished patronage
of Lord and Lady Strathcona. In the following year
she again visited London, returning by way of the
United States, where she gave many recitals. After
another tour of Canada she decided to give up public
work, to make Vancouver, B. C., her home, and to
devote herself to literary work.

Only a woman of remarkable powers of endurance
could have borne up under the hardships necessarily
encountered in travelling through North-western
Canada in pioneer days as Miss Johnson did; and
shortly after settling down in Vancouver the ex-
posure and hardship she had endured began to tell
on her, and her health completely broke down.
For almost a year she has been an invalid, and as
she is unable to attend to the business herself, a
trust has been formed by some of the leading citizens
of her adopted city for the purpose of collecting and
publishing for her benefit her later works. Among
these are the beautiful Indian Legends contained in
this volume, which she has been at great pains to
collect, and a series of boys' stories, which have
been exceedingly well received by magazine readers.

During the sixteen years Miss Johnson was tra-
velling, she had many varied and interesting exper-
iences. She travelled the old Battleford trail before
the railroad went through, and across the Boundary
country in British Columbia in the romantic days
of the early pioneers. Once she took an eight hun-
dred and fifty mile drive up the Cariboo trail to the
gold fields. She has always been an ardent canoeist,
and has run many strange rivers, crossed many a
lonely lake, and camped in many an unfrequented
place. These venturesome trips she made more from
her inherent love of Nature and adventure than
from any necessity of her profession.

Contents

Page

Preface ........ y

Author's Foreword - - - - - - vii

Biographical Notice ------ ix

The Two Sisters - - - ... 1

The Siwash Rock i 7

The Recluse 13

The Lost Salmon Run 21

The Deep Waters 27

The Sea-Serpent 33

The Lost Island 39

Point Grey 43

The Tulameen Trail 47

The Grey Archway ------ 53

Deadman's Island ------ 61

A Squamish Legend of Napoleon 67

The Lure in Stanley Park -> - - - 73

Deer Lake 79

A Royal Mohawk Chief 85

The Two Sisters

THE LIONS

OU can see them as you look to-
wards the north and the west,
where the dream hills swim into
the sky amid their ever-drifting
clouds of pearl and grey. They
catch the earliest hint of sunrise, they hold
the last color of sunset. Twin mountains they
are, lifting their twin peaks above the fairest
city in all Canada, and known throughout the
British Empire as "The Lions of Vancouver."
Sometimes the smoke of forest fires blurs
them until they gleam like opals in a purple
atmosphere, too beautiful for words to paint.
Sometimes the slanting rains festoon scarfs
of mist about their crests, and the peaks fade
into shadowy outlines, melting, melting, for-
ever melting into the distances. But for most
days in the year the sun circles the twin
glories with a sweep of gold. The moon
washes them with a torrent of silver. Often-
times, when the city is shrouded in rain, the
sun yellows their snows to a deep orange, but
through sun and shadow they stand immov-
able, smiling westward above the waters of
the restless Pacific, eastward above the superb
beauty of the Capilano Canyon. But the In-
dian tribes do not know these peaks as "The
Lions." Even the Chief, whose feet have so
recently wandered to the Happy Hunting
Grounds, never heard the name given them
until I mentioned it to him one dreamy August
day, as together we followed the trail leading
to the canyon. He seemed so surprised at the
name that I mentioned the reason it had been
applied to them, asking him if he recalled the
Landseer Lions in Trafalgar Square. Yes, he
remembered those splendid sculptures, and his
quick eye saw the resemblance instantly. It
appeared to please him, and his fine face ex-
pressed the haunting memories of the far-
away roar of Old London. But the "call of the
blood" was stronger, and presently he re-
ferred to the Indian legend of those peaks — a

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

legend that I have reason to believe is absolute-
ly unknown to thousands of Palefaces who look
upon "The Lions" daily, without the love for
them that is in the Indian heart; without
knowledge of the secret of "The Two Sisters."
The legend was far more fascinating as it left
his lips in the quaint broken English that is
never so dulcet as when it slips from an
Indian tongue. His inimitable gestures,
strong, graceful, comprehensive, were like a
perfectly chosen frame embracing a delicate
painting, and his brooding eyes were as
the light in which the picture hung.
"Many thousands of years ago," he began,
"there were no twin peaks like sentinels guard-
ing the outposts of this sunset coast. They
were placed there long after the first creation,
when the Sagalie Tyee moulded the moun-
tains, and patterned the mighty rivers where
the salmon run, because of His love for His
Indian children, and His Wisdom for their ne-
cessities. In those times there were many
and mighty Indian tribes along the Pacific —
in the mountain ranges, at the shores and
sources of the great Fraser River. Indian
law ruled the land. Indian customs prevailed.
Indian beliefs were regarded. Those were
the legend-making ages when great things
occurred to make the traditions we repeat to
our children today. Perhaps the greatest of
these traditions is the story of 'The Two
Sisters,' for they are known to us as 'The
Chief's Daughters,' and to them we owe the
Great Peace in which we live, and have lived
for many countless moons. There is an an-
cient custom amongst the Coast tribes that
when our daughters step from childhood into
the great world of womanhood the occa-
sion must be made one of extreme rejoicing.
The being who possesses the possibility of
someday mothering a man child, a warrior, a
brave, receives much consideration in most
nations, but to us, the Sunset Tribes, she is
honored above all people. The parents usual-
ly give a great potlatch, and a feast that lasts
many days. The entire tribe and the sur-
rounding tribes are bidden to this festival.
More than that, sometimes when a great

THE TWO SISTERS

Tyee celebrates for his daughter, the tribes
from far up the coast, from the distant north,
from inland, from the island, from the
Cariboo country, are gathered as guests
to the feast. During these days of rejoic-
ing, the girl is placed in a high seat, an
exalted position, for is she not marriageable?
And does not marriage mean motherhood? And
does not motherhood mean a vaster nation of
brave sons and of gentle daughters, who, in
their turn, will give us sons and daughters of
their own?

"But it was many thousands of years ago
that a great Tyee had two daughters that
grew to womanhood at the same springtime,
when the first great run of salmon thronged
the rivers, and the ollallie bushes were heavy
with blossoms. These two daughters were
young, lovable, and oh! very beautiful. Their
father, the great Tyee, prepared to make a
feast such as the Coast had never seen. There
were to be days and days of rejoicing, the
people were to come for many leagues, were
to bring gifts to the girls and to receive gifts
of great value from the Chief, and hospitality
was to reign as long as pleasuring feet could
dance, and enjoying lips could laugh, and
mouths partake of the excellence of the Chief's
fish, game and ollallies.

"The only shadow on the joy of it all was
war, for the tribe of the great Tyee was at
war with the Upper Coast Indians, those who
lived north, near what is named by the Pale-
face as the port of Prince Rupert. Giant war
canoes slipped along the entire coast, war
parties paddled up and down, war songs broke
the silences of the nights, hatred, vengeance,
strife, horror festered everywhere like sores
on the surface of the earth. But the great
Tyee, after warring for weeks, turned and
laughed at the battle and the bloodshed, for
he had been victor in every encounter, and he
could well afford to leave the strife for a brief
week and feast in his daughters' honor, nor
permit any mere enemy to come between him
and the traditions of his race and household.
So he turned insultingly deaf ears to their war
cries; he ignored with arrogant indifference

.LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

their paddle dips that encroached within his
own coast waters, and he prepared, as a great
Tyee should, to royally entertain his tribesmen
in honor of his daughters.

"But seven suns before the great feast these
two maidens came before him, hand clasped
in hand.

" 'Oh ! our father,' they said, 'may we
speak?'

" 'Speak, my daughters, my girls with the
eyes of April, the hearts of June' " (early
spring and early summer would be the more
accurate Indian phrasing).

" 'Some day, Oh ! our father, we may mother
a man child, who may grow to be just such a
powerful Tyee as you are, and for this honor
that may some day be ours we have come to
crave a favor of you — you, Oh! our father.'

" 'It is your privilege at this celebration to
receive any favor your hearts may wish,' he
replied graciously, placing his fingers beneath
their girlish chins. 'The favor is yours before
you ask it, my daughters.'

" 'Will you, for our sakes, invite the great
northern hostile tribe — the tribe you war
upon — to this, our feast?' they asked fear-
lessly.

" 'To a peaceful feast, a feast in the honor
of women?' he exclaimed incredulously.

" 'So we would desire it,' they answered.

" 'And so shall it be,' he declared. 'I can
deny you nothing this day, and some time you
may bear sons to bless this peace you have
asked, and to bless their mother's sire for
granting it.' Then he turned to all the young
men of the tribe and commanded, 'Build fires
at sunset on all the coast headlands — fires of
welcome. Man your canoes and face the north,
greet the enemy, and tell them that I, the Tyee
of the Capilanos, ask — no, command that they
join me for a great feast in honor of my two
daughters.' And when the northern tribes
got this invitation they flocked down the coast
to this feast of a Great Peace. They brought
their women and their children: they brought
game and fish, gold and white stone beads,
baskets and carven ladles, and wonderful
woven blankets to lay at the feet of their now

THE TWO SISTERS

acknowledged ruler, the great Tyee. And he,
in turn, gave such a potlatch that nothing but
tradition can vie with it. There were long,
glad days of joyousness, long pleasurable
nights of dancing and camp fires, and vast
quantities of food. The war canoes were
emptied of their deadly weapons and filled
with the daily catch of salmon. The hostile
war songs ceased, and in their place were heard
the soft shuffle of dancing feet, the singing
voices of women, the play-games of the chil-
dren of two powerful tribes which had been
until now ancient enemies, for a great and
lasting brotherhood was sealed between
them — their war songs were ended forever.

"Then the Sagalie Tyee smiled on His In-
dian children: 'I will make these young-eyed
maidens immortal,' He said. In the cup of
His hands He lifted the Chief's two daughters
and set them forever in a high place, for they
had borne two offspring — Peace and Brother-
hood— each of which is now a great Tyee
ruling this land.

"And on the mountain crest the Chief's
daughters can be seen wrapped in the suns,
the snows, the stars of all seasons, for they
have stood in this high place for thousands
of years, and will stand for thousands of
years to come, guarding the peace of the
Pacific Coast and the quiet of the Capilano
Canyon."

This is the Indian legend of "The Lions of
Vancouver" as I had it from one who will tell
me no more the traditions of his people.

The Siwash Rock

NIQUE,and so distinct from its sur-
roundings as to suggest rather the
handicraft of man than a whim of
Nature, it looms up at the entrance
to the Narrows, a symmetrical
column of solid grey stone. There are no
similar formations within the range of vision,
or indeed within many a day's paddle up and
down the coast. Amongst all the wonders,
the natural beauties that encircle Vancouver,
the marvels of mountains shaped into crouch-
ing lions and brooding beavers, the yawning
canyons, the stupendous forest firs and cedars,
Siwash Rock stands as distinct, as individual,
as if dropped from another sphere.

I saw it first in the slanting light of a redly
setting August sun; the little tuft of green
shrubbery that crests its summit was black
against the crimson of sea and sky, and its
colossal base of grey stone gleamed like
flaming polished granite.

My old tillicum lifted his paddle blade to
point towards it. "You know the story?" he
asked. I shook my head (experience had
taught me his love of silent replies, his moods
of legend-telling). For a time we paddled
slowly; the rock detached itself from its back-
ground of forest and shore, and it stood forth
like a sentinel — erect, enduring, eternal.

"Do you think it stands straight — like a
man?" he asked.

"Yes, like some noble-spirited, upright war-
rior," I replied.

"It is a man," he said, "and a warrior man,
too; a man who fought for everything that
was noble and upright."

"What do you regard as everything that is
noble and upright, Chief?" I asked, curious as
to his ideas. I shall not forget the reply: it
was but two words — astounding, amazing
words. He said simply:

"Clean fatherhood."

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

Through my mind raced tumultuous recol-
lections of numberless articles in yet number-
less magazines, all dealing with the recent
"fad" of motherhood, but I had to hear from
the lips of a Squamish Indian Chief the only
treatise on the nobility of "clean fatherhood"
that I have yet unearthed. And this treatise
has been an Indian legend for centuries; and
lest they forget how all-important those two
little words must ever be, Siwash Rock stands
to remind them, set there by the Deity as a
monument to one who kept his own life clean,
that cleanliness might be the heritage of the
generations to come.

It was "thousands of years ago" (all Indian
legends begin in extremely remote times)
that a handsome boy chief journeyed in his
canoe to the upper coast for the shy little
northern girl whom he brought home as his
wife. Boy though he was, the young chief
had proved himself to be an excellent warrior,
a fearless hunter, and an upright, courageous
man among men. His tribe loved him, his
enemies respected him, and the base and mean
and cowardly feared him.

The customs and traditions of his ancestors
were a positive religion to him, the sayings
and the advices of the old people were his
creed. He was conservative in every rite and
ritual of his race. He fought his tribal enemies
like the savage that he was. He sang his war
songs, danced his war dances, slew his foes,
but the little girl-wife from the north he
treated with the deference that he gave his
own mother, for was she not to be the mother
of his warrior son?

The year rolled round, weeks merged into
months, winter into spring, and one glorious
summer at daybreak he wakened to her voice
calling him. She stood beside him, smiling,

"It will be to-day," she said proudly.

He sprang from his couch of wolf skins and
looked out upon the coming day: the promise
of what it would bring him seemed breathing
through all his forest world. He took her
very gently by the hand and led her through
the tangle of wilderness down to the water's
edge, where the beauty spot we moderns call

8

THE SIWASH ROCK

Stanley Park bends about Prospect Point. "I
must swim," he told her.

"I must swim, too," she smiled with the per-
fect understanding of two beings who are
mated. For to them the old Indian custom
was law — the custom that the parents of a
coming child must swim until their flesh is so
clear and clean that a wild animal cannot
scent their proximity. If the wild creatures of
the forests have no fear of them, then, and only
then, are they fit to become parents, and to
scent a human is in itself a fearsome thing to
all wild things.

So those two plunged into the waters
of the Narrows as the grey dawn slipped up
the eastern skies and all the forest awoke to
the life of a new, glad day. Presently he took
her ashore, and smilingly she crept away
under the giant trees. "I must be alone,"
she said, "but come to me at sunrise : you will
not find me alone then." He smiled also, and
plunged back into the sea. He must swim,
swim, swim through this hour when his
fatherhood was coming upon him. It was the
law that he must be clean, spotlessly clean,
so that when his child looked out upon the
world it would have the chance to live its own
life clean. If he did not swim hour upon hour
his child would come to an unclean father.
He must give his child a chance in life; he
must not hamper it by his own uncleanliness
at its birth. It was the tribal law — the law of
vicarious purity.

As he swam joyously to and fro, a canoe
bearing four men headed up the Narrows.
These men were giants in stature, and the
stroke of their paddles made huge eddies that
boiled like the seething tides.

"Out from our course!" they cried as his
lithe, copper-colored body arose and fell with
his splendid stroke. He laughed at them,
giants though they were, and answered that
he could not cease his swimming at their
demand.

"But you shall cease!" they commanded.
"We are the men (agents) of the Sagalie Tyee
(God), and we command you ashore out of
our way!" (I find in all these Coast Indian

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

legends that the Deity is represented by four
men, usually paddling an immense canoe.)

He ceased swimming, and, lifting his head,
defied them. "I shall not stop, nor yet go
ashore," he declared, striking out once more
to the middle of the channel.

"Do you dare disobey us," they cried — "we,
the men of the Sagalie Tyee? We can turn
you into a fish, or a tree, or a stone for this;
do you dare disobey the Great Tyee?"

"I dare anything for the cleanliness and
purity of my coming child. I dare even the
Sagalie Tyee Himself, but my child must be
born to a spotless life."

The four men were astounded. They con-
sulted together, lighted their pipes and sat in
council. Never had they, the men of the
Sagalie Tyee, been defied before. Now, for
the sake of a little unborn child, they were
ignored, disobeyed, almost despised. The
lithe young copper-colored body still dis-
ported itself in the cool waters; superstition
held that should their canoe, or even their
paddle blades, touch a human being their
marvellous power would be lost. The hand-
some young chief swam directly in their
course. They dared not run him down; if so,
they would become as other men. While they
yet counselled what to do, there floated from
out the forest a faint, strange, compelling
sound. They listened, and the young chief
ceased his stroke as he listened also. The
faint sound drifted out across the waters once
more. It was the cry of a little, little child.
Then one of the four men, he that steered the
canoe, the strongest and tallest of them all,
arose and, standing erect, stretched out his
arms towards the rising sun and chanted, not
a curse on the young chief's disobedience, but
a promise of everlasting days and freedom
from death.

"Because you have defied all things that
came in your path we promise this to you,"
he chanted; "you have defied what interferes
with your child's chance for a clean life, you
have lived as you wish your son to live, you
have defied us when we would have stopped
your swimming and hampered your child's

10

THE SIWASH ROCK

future. You have placed that child's future
before all things, and for this the Sagalie Tyee
commands us to make you forever a pattern
for your tribe. You shall never die, but you
shall stand through all the thousands of
years to come, where all eyes can see you.
You shall live, live, live as an indestructible
monument to Clean Fatherhood."

The four men lifted their paddles, and as
the handsome young chief swam inshore, as
his feet touched the line where sea and land
met, he was transformed into stone.

Then the four men said, "His wife and child
must ever be near him ; they shall not die, but
live also," And they, too, were turned into
stone. If you penetrate the hollows in the
woods near Siwash Rock you will find a large
rock and a smaller one beside it. They are
the shy little bride-wife from the north, with
her hour-old baby beside her. And from the
uttermost parts of the world vessels come daily
throbbing and sailing up the Narrows. From
far trans-Pacific ports, from the frozen North,
from the lands of the Southern Cross, they
pass and repass the living rock that was there
before their hulls were shaped, that will be
there when their very names are forgotten,
when their crews and their captains have
taken their long last voyage, when their mer-
chandise has rotted, and their owners are
known no more. But the tall, grey column of
stone will still be there — a monument to one
man's fidelity to a generation yet unborn —
and will endure from everlasting to ever-
lasting.

ii

The Recluse

OURNEYING toward the upper
course of the Capilano River,
about a mile citywards from the
dam, you will pass a disused
logger's shack. Leave the trail
at this point and strike through the under-
growth for a few hundred yards and you will
be on the rocky borders of that purest, most
restless river in all Canada. The stream is
haunted with tradition, teeming with a score
of romances that vie with its grandeur and
loveliness, and of which its waters are perpet-
ually whispering. But I learned this legend
from one whose voice was as dulcet as the
swirling rapids; but, unlike them, that voice
is hushed today, while the river still sings on
— sings on.

It was singing in very melodious tones
through the long August afternoon two sum-
mers ago, while we, the chief, his happy-
hearted wife and bright, young daughter, all
lounged amongst the boulders and watched
the lazy clouds drift from peak to peak far
above us. It was one of his inspired days;
legends crowded to his lips as a whistle teases
the mouth of a happy boy, his heart was
brimming with tales of the bygones, his eyes
were dark with dreams and that strange
mournfulness that always haunted them when
he spoke of long-ago romances. There was
not a tree, a boulder, a dash of rapid upon
which his glance fell that he had not some
ancient superstition to link with it. Then
abruptly, in the very midst of his verbal re-
veries, he turned and asked me if I were sup-
erstitious. Of course I replied that I was.

"Do you think some happenings will bring
trouble later on — will foretell evil?" he asked.
I made some evasive answer, which, how-
ever, seemed to satisfy him, for he plunged
into the strange tale of the recluse of the
canyon with more vigor than dreaminess; but
first he asked me the question:

13

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

"What do your own tribes, those east of
the great mountains, think of twin children?"

I shook my head.

"That is enough," he said before I could
reply. "I see, your people do not like them."

"Twin children are almost unknown with
us," I hastened. "They are rare, very rare;
but it is true we do not welcome them."

"Why?" he asked abruptly.

I was a little uncertain about telling him,
If I said the wrong thing, the coming tale
might die on his lips before it was born to
speech, but we understood each other so well
that I finally ventured the truth:

"We Iroquois say that twin children are as
rabbits," I explained. "The nation always
nicknames the parents 'Tow-wan-da-na-ga.'
That is the Mohawk for rabbit."

"Is that all?" he asked curiously.

"That is all. Is it not enough to render twin
children unwelcome?" I questioned.

He thought awhile, then with evident de-
sire to learn how all races regarded this oc-
currence, he said, "You have been much among
the Palefaces, what do they say of twins?"

"Oh! the Palefaces like them. They are
— they are — oh! well, they say they are
very proud of having twins," I stammered.
Once again I was hardly sure of my ground.
He looked most incredulous, and I was led to
enquire what his own people of the Squamish
thought of this discussed problem.

"It is no pride to us," he said decidedly;
"nor yet is it disgrace of rabbits, but it is a
fearsome thing — a sign of coming evil to the
father, and, worse than that, of coming dis-
aster to the tribe."

Then I knew he held in his heart some
strange incident that gave substance to the
superstition. "Won't you tell it to me?" I
begged.

He leaned a little backward against a giant
boulder, clasping his thin, brown hands about
his knees; his eyes roved up the galloping
river, then swept down the singing waters to
where they crowded past the sudden bend,
and during the entire recital of the strange
legend his eyes never left that spot where

14

THE RECLUSE

the stream disappeared in its hurrying jour-
ney to the sea. Without preamble he began:

"It was a grey morning when they told him
of this disaster that had befallen him. He
was a great chief, and he ruled many tribes
on the North Pacific Coast; but what was his
greatness now? His young wife had borne
him twins, and was sobbing out her anguish
in the little fir-bark lodge near the tidewater.

"Beyond the doorway gathered many old
men and women — old in years, old in wisdom,
old in the lore and learning of their nations.
Some of them wept, some chanted solemnly
the dirge of their lost hopes and happiness,
which would never return because of this
calamity; others discussed in hushed voices
this awesome thing, and for hours their grave
council was broken only by the infant cries
of the two boy-babies in the bark lodge, the
hopeless sobs of the young mother, the agon-
ized moans of the stricken chief — their
father.

" 'Something dire will happen to the tribe,'
said the old men in council.

" 'Something dire will happen to him, my
husband,' wept the afflicted young mother.

" 'Something dire will happen to us all,'
echoed the unhappy father.

"Then an ancient medicine man arose,
lifting his arms, outstretching his palms to
hush the lamenting throng. His voice shook
with the weight of many winters, but his eyes
were yet keen and mirrored the clear thought
and brain behind them, as the still trout pools
in the Capilano mirror the mountain tops.
His words were masterful, his gestures com-
manding, his shoulders erect and kindly. His
was a personality and an inspiration that no
one dared dispute, and his judgment was ac-
cepted as the words fell slowly, like a doom.

" 'It is the olden law of the Squamish that
lest evil befall the tribe the sire of twin
children must go afar and alone into the
mountain fastnesses, there by his isolation and
his loneliness to prove himself stronger than
the threatened evil, and thus to beat back the
shadow that would otherwise follow him and
all his people. I, therefore, name for him the

15

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

length of days that he must spend alone fight-
ing his invisible enemy. He will know by
some great sign in Nature the hour that the
evil is conquered, the hour that his race is
saved. He must leave before this sun sets,
taking with him only his strongest bow, his
fleetest arrows, and going up into the moun-
tain wilderness remain there ten days — alone*
alone.'

"The masterful voice ceased, the tribe
wailed their assent, the father arose speech-
less, his drawn face revealing great agony
over this seemingly brief banishment. He
took leave of his sobbing wife, of the two tiny
souls that were his sons, grasped his favorite
bow and arrows, and faced the forest like a
warrior. But at the end of the ten days he
did not return, nor yet ten weeks, nor yet ten
months.

" 'He is dead,' wept the mother into the
baby ears of her two boys. 'He could not
battle against the evil that threatened; it was
stronger than he — he so strong, so proud, so
brave.'

" 'He is dead,' echoed the tribesmen and the
tribeswomen. 'Our strong, brave chief, he is
dead.' So they mourned the long year
through, but their chants and their tears but
renewed their grief; he did not return to
them.

"Meanwhile, far up the Capilano the ban-
ished chief had built his solitary home; for
who can tell what fatal trick of sound, what
current of air, what faltering note in the voice
of the Medicine Man had deceived his alert
Indian ears? But some unhappy fate had led
him to understand that his solitude must be
of ten years' duration, not ten days, and he
had accepted the mandate with the heroism
of a stoic. For if he had refused to do so his
belief was that although the threatened dis-
aster would be spared him, the evil would fall
upon his tribe. This was one more added to
the long list of self-forgetting souls whose
creed has been, 'It is fitting that one should
suffer for the people.' It was the world-old
heroism of vicarious sacrifice.

"With his hunting-knife the banished

16

THE RECLUSE

Squamish chief stripped the bark from the firs
and cedars, building for himself a lodge be-
side the Capilano River, where leaping trout
and salmon could be speared by arrow-heads
fastened to deftly shaped, long handles. All
through the salmon run he smoked and dried
the fish with the care of a housewife. The
mountain sheep and goats, and even huge
black and cinnamon bears, fell before his un-
erring arrows; the fleet-footed deer never re-
turned to their haunts from their evening
drinking at the edge of the stream — their wild
hearts, their agile bodies were stilled when he
took aim. Smoked hams and saddles hung in
rows from the cross poles of his bark lodge,
and the magnificent pelts of animals carpeted
his floors, padded his couch and clothed his
body. He tanned the soft doe hides, making
leggings, moccasins and shirts, stitching them
together with deer sinew as he had seen his
mother do in the long-ago. He gathered the
juicy salmonberries, their acid flavor being a
gratifying change from meat and fish. Month
by month and year by year he sat beside his
lonely camp-fire, waiting for his long term of
solitude to end. One comfort alone was his —
he was enduring the disaster, fighting the
evil, that his tribe might go unscathed, that
his people be saved from calamity. Slowly,
laboriously the tenth year dawned; day by
day it dragged its long weeks across his wait-
ing heart, for Nature had not yet given the
sign that his long probation was over.

"Then one hot summer day the Thunder
Bird came crashing through the mountains
about him. Up from the arms of the Pacific
rolled the storm cloud, and the Thunder Bird,
with its eyes of flashing light, beat its huge
vibrating wings on crag and canyon.

"Upstream, a tall shaft of granite rears its
needle-like length. It is named 'Thunder
Rock,' and wise men of the Paleface people
say it is rich in ore — copper, silver and gold.
At the base of this shaft the Squamish chief
crouched when the storm cloud broke and
bellowed through the ranges, and on its sum-
mit the Thunder Bird perched, its gigantic

17 c

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

wings threshing the air into booming sounds,
into splitting terrors, like the crash of a giant
cedar hurtling down the mountain side.

"But when the beating of those black pin-
ions ceased and the echo of their thunder
waves died down the depths of the canyon, the
Squamish chief arose as a new man. The
shadow on his soul had lifted, the fears of evil
were cowed and conquered. In his brain, his
blood, his veins, his sinews, he felt that the
poison of melancholy dwelt no more. He had
redeemed his fault of fathering twin children;
he had fulfilled the demands of the law of his
tribe.

"As he heard the last beat of the Thunder
Bird's wings dying slowly, slowly, faintly,
faintly, among the crags, he knew that the
bird, too, was dying, for its soul was leaving
its monster black body, and presently that
soul appeared in the sky. He could see it
arching overhead, before it took its long jour-
ney to the Happy Hunting Grounds, for the soul
of the Thunder Bird was a radiant half-circle
of glorious color spanning from peak to peak.
He lifted his head then, for he knew it was
the sign the ancient Medicine Man had told
him to wait for — the sign that his long banish-
ment was ended.

"And all these years, down in the tidewater
country, the little brown-faced twins were
asking childwise, 'Where is our father? Why
have we no father like other boys?' To be
met only with the oft-repeated reply, 'Your
father is no more. Your father, the great
chief, is dead.'

"But some strange filial intuition told the
boys that their sire would some day return.
Often they voiced this feeling to their mother,
but she would only weep and say that not
even the witchcraft of the great Medicine
Man could bring him to them. But when
they were ten years old the two children came
to their mother, hand within hand. They
were armed with their little hunting-knives,
their salmon spears, their tiny bows and
arrows.

' 'We go to find our father,' they said.

" 'Oh ! useless quest,' wailed the mother.

18

THE RECLUSE

" 'Oh ! useless quest,' echoed the tribes-people.

"But the great Medicine Man said, "The
heart of a child has invisible eyes, perhaps the
child-eyes see him. The heart of a child has
invisible ears, perhaps the child-ears hear him
call. Let them go.' So the little children
went forth into the forest; their young feet
flew as though shod with wings, their young
hearts pointed to the north as does the white
man's compass. Day after day they journeyed
up-stream, until rounding a sudden bend they
beheld a bark lodge with a thin blue curl of
smoke drifting from its roof.

" 'It is our father's lodge,' they told each
other, for their childish hearts were unerring
in response to the call of kinship. Hand-in-
hand they approached, and entering the lodge,
said the one word, 'Come.'

"The great Squamish chief outstretched his
arms towards them, then towards the laugh-
ing river, then towards the mountains.

" 'Welcome, my sons !' he said. 'And good-
bye, my mountains, my brothers, my crags and
my canyons!' And with a child clinging to
ea/ch hand he faced once more the country of
the tidewater."

The legend was ended.

For a long time he sat in silence. He had
removed his gaze from the bend in the river,
around which the two children had come and
where the eyes of the recluse had first rested
on them after ten years of solitude.

The chief spoke again, "It was here, on this
spot we are sitting, that he built his lodge:
here he dwelt those ten years alone, alone."

I nodded silently. The legend was too
beautiful to mar with comments, and as the
twilight fell, we threaded our way through the
underbrush, past the disused logger's camp
and into the trail that leads citywards.

The Lost Salmon Run

REAT had been the "run," and
the sockeye season was almost
over. For that reason I won-
dered many times why my old
friend, the klootchman, had failed
to make one of the fishing fleet. She
was an indefatigable workwoman, rivalling
her husband as an expert catcher, and all the
year through she talked of little else but the
coming run. But this especial season she had
not appeared amongst her fellow-kind. The
fleet and the canneries knew nothing of her,
and when I enquired of her tribes-people they
would reply without explanation, "She not
here this year."

But one russet September afternoon I found
her. I had idled down the trail from the
swans' basin in Stanley Park to the rim that
skirts the Narrows, and I saw her graceful,
high-bowed canoe heading for the beach that
is the favorite landing place of the "tillicums"
from the Mission. Her canoe looked like a
dream-craft, for the water was very still and
everywhere a blue film hung like a fragrant
veil, for the peat on Lulu Island had been
smoldering for days and its pungent odors and
blue-grey haze made a dream-world of sea and
shore and sky.

I hurried upshore, hailing her in the
Chinook, and as she caught my voice she lifted
her paddle directly above her head in the
Indian signal of greeting.

As she beached, I greeted her with extended
eager hands to assist her ashore, for the
klootchman is getting to be an old woman;
albeit she paddles against tidewater like a boy
in his teens.

"No," she said, as I begged her to come
ashore. "I not wait — me. I just come to
fetch Maarda; she been city; she come soon
— now." But she left her "working" attitude
and curled like a schoolgirl in the bow of the

21

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

canoe, her elbows resting on her paddle which
she had flung across the gunwales.

"I have missed you, klootchman; you have
not been to see me for three moons, and you
have not fished or been at the canneries," I
remarked.

"No," she said. "I stay home this year."
Then leaning towards me with grave import
in her manner, her eyes, her voice, she added.
"I have a grandchild, born first week July, so
—I stay."

So this explained her absence. I, of course,
offered congratulations and enquired all about
the great event, for this was her first grand-
child, and the little person was of importance.

"And are you going to make a fisherman of
him?" I asked.

"No, no, not boy-child, it is girl-child," she
answered with some indescribable trick of ex-
pression that led me to know she preferred
it so.

"You are pleased it is a girl?" I questioned
in surprise.

"Very pleased," she replied emphatically.
"Very good luck to have girl for first grand-
child. Own tribe not like yours; we want
girl children first; we not always wish boy-
child born just for fight. Your people, they
care only for war-path; our tribe more peace-
ful. Very good sign first grandchild to be
girl. I tell you why: girl-child maybe some
time mother herself; very grand thing to be
mother."

I felt I had caught the secret of her mean-
ing. She was rejoicing that this little one
should some time become one of the mothers
of her race. We chatted over it a little longer
and she gave me several playful "digs" about
my own tribe thinking so much less of mother-
hood than hers, and so much more of battle
and bloodshed. Then we drifted into talk of
the sockeye run and of the hyiu chickimin the
Indians would get.

"Yes, hyiu chickimin," she repeated with a
sigh of satisfaction. "Always; and hyiu
muck-a-muck when big salmon run. No more
ever come that bad year when not any fish."

"When was that?" I asked.

22

THE LOST SALMON RUN

"Before you born, or I, or" — pointing
across the park to the distant city of Van-
couver, that breathed its wealth and beauty
across the September afternoon — "before that
place born, before white man came here —
oh! long before."

Dear old klootchman! I knew by the dusk
in her eyes that she was back in her Land of
Legends, and that soon I would be the richer
in my hoard of Indian lore. She sat, still
leaning on her paddle; her eyes, half-closed,
rested on the distant outline of the blurred
heights across the Inlet. I shall not further
attempt her broken English, for this is but the
shadow of her story, and without her unique
personality the legend is as a flower that lacks
both color and fragrance. She called it "The
Lost Salmon Run."

"The wife of the Great Tyee was but a wisp
of a girl, but all the world was young in those
days; even the Fraser River was young and
small, not the mighty water it is now; but
the pink salmon crowded its throat just as
they do now, and the tillicums caught and
salted and smoked the fish just as they have
done this year, just as they will always do.
But it was yet winter, and the rains were
slanting and the fogs drifting, when the wife
of the Great Tyee stood before him and said:

" 'Before the salmon run I shall give to you
a great gift. Will you honor me most if it
is the gift of a boy-child or a girl-child?' The
Great Tyee loved the woman. He was stern
with his people, hard with his tribe; he ruled
his council fires with a will of stone. His
medicine men said he had no human heart in
his body; his warriors said he had no human
blood in his veins. But he clasped this wo-
man's hands, and his eyes, his lips, his voice,
were gentle as her own, as he replied:

" 'Give to me a girl-child — a little girl-
child — that she may grow to be like you, and,
in her turn, give to her husband children.'

"But when the tribes-people heard of his
choice they arose in great anger. They sur-
rounded him in a deep indignant circle. 'You
are a slave to the woman,' they declared, 'and
now you desire to make yourself a slave to a

23

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

woman-baby. We want an heir — a man-child
to be our Great Tyee in years to come. When
you are old and weary of tribal affairs, when
you sit wrapped in your blanket in the hot
summer sunshine, because your blood is old
and thin, what can a girl-child do to help
either you or us? Who, then, will be our
Great Tyee?'

"He stood in the centre of the menacing
circle, his arm folded, his chin raised, his eyes
hard as flint. His voice, cold as stone, replied :

" 'Perhaps she will give you such a man-
child, and, if so, the child is yours; he will
belong to you, not to me; he will become the
possession of the people. But if the child is
a girl she will belong to me — she will be mine.
You cannot take her from me as you took me
from my mother's side and forced me to for-
get my aged father in my service to my tribe ;
she will belong to me, will be the mother of
my grandchildren, and her husband will be
my son.'

" 'You do not care for the good of your
tribe. You care only for your own wishes and
desires,' they rebelled. 'Suppose the salmon
run is small, we will have no food; suppose
there is no man-child, we will have no Great
Tyee to show us how to get food from other
tribes, and we shall starve.'

" 'Your hearts are black and bloodless,'
thundered the Great Tyee, turning upon them
fiercely, 'and your eyes are blinded. Do you
wish the tribe to forget how great is the im-
portance of a child that will some day be a
mother herself, and give to your children and
grandchildren a Great Tyee? Are the people
to live, to thrive, to increase, to become more
powerful with no mother-women to bear
future sons and daughters? Your minds are
dead, your brains are chilled. Still, even in
your ignorance, you are my people: you and
your wishes must be considered. I call to-
gether the great medicine men, the men of
witchcraft, the men of magic. They shall de-
cide the laws which will follow the bearing
of either boy or girl-child. What say you, oh !
mighty men?'

"Messengers were then sent up and down

24

THE LOST SALMON RUN

the coast, sent far up the Fraser River, and
to the valley lands inland for many leagues,
gathering as they journeyed all the men of
magic that could be found. Never were so
many medicine men in council before. They
built fires and danced and chanted for many
days. They spoke with the gods of the moun-
tains, with the gods of the sea, then 'the
power' of decision came to them. They were
inspired with a choice to lay before the tribes-
people, and the most ancient medicine man in
all the coast region arose and spoke their
resolution :

" 'The people of the tribe cannot be allowed
to have all things. They want a boy-child
and they want a great salmon run also. They
cannot have both. The Sagalie Tyee has re-
vealed to us, the great men of magic, that
both these things will make the people arro-
gant and selfish. They must choose between
the two.'

" 'Choose, oh ! you ignorant tribes-people,'
commanded the Great Tyee. 'The wise men
of our coast have said that the girl-child who
will some day bear children of her own will
also bring abundance of salmon at her birth;
but the boy-child brings to you but himself.'

" 'Let the salmon go," shouted the people,
'but give us a future Great Tyee. Give us
the boy-child.'

"And when the child was born it was a boy.

" 'Evil will fall upon you,' wailed the Great
Tyee. 'You have despised a mother-woman.
You will suffer evil and starvation and hunger
and poverty, oh! foolish tribes-people. Did
you not know how great a girl-child is?'

"That spring, people from a score of tribes
came up to the Fraser for the salmon run.
They came great distances — from the moun-
tains, the lakes, the far-off dry lands, but not
one fish entered the vast rivers of the Pacific
Coast. The people had made their choice.
They had forgotten the honor that a mother-
child would have brought them. They were
bereft of their food. They were stricken
with poverty. Through the long win-
ter that followed they endured hunger and
starvation. Since then our tribe has always

25

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

welcomed girl-children — we want no more
lost runs."

The klootchman lifted her arms from her
paddle as she concluded; her eyes left the
irregular outline of the viplet mountains. She
had come back to this year of grace — her
Legend Land had vanished.

"So," she added, "you see now, maybe,
why I glad my grandchild is girl; it means
big salmon run next year."

"It is a beautiful story, klootchman," I said,
"and I feel a cruel delight that your men of
magic punished the people for their ill-
choice."

"That, because you girl-child yourself," she
laughed.

There was the slightest whisper of a step
behind me. I turned to find Maarda almost
at my elbow. The rising tide was unbeaching
the canoe, and as Maarda stepped in and the
klootchman slipped astern it drifted afloat.

"Kla-how-ya," nodded the klootchman as
she dipped her paddle-blade in exquisite
silence.

"Kla-how-ya," smiled Maarda.

"Kla-how-ya, tillicums," I replied, and
watched for many moments as they slipped
away into the blurred distance, until the canoe
merged into the violet and grey of the farther
shore.

26

The Deep Waters

AR over your left shoulder as
your boat leaves the Narrows to
thread the beautiful waterways
that lead to Vancouver Island,
you will see the summit of Mount
Baker robed in its everlasting whiteness and
always reflecting some wonderful glory from
the rising sun, the golden noontide, or the
violet and amber sunset. This is the Mount
Ararat of the Pacific Coast peoples; for those
readers who are familiar with the ways and
beliefs and faiths of primitive races will agree
that it is difficult to discover anywhere in the
world a race that has not some story of the
Deluge, which they have chronicled and local-
ized to fit the understanding and the condi-
tions of the nation that composes their own
immediate world.

Amongst the red nations of America I doubt
if any two tribes have the same ideas regard-
ing the Flood. Some of the traditions con-
cerning this vast whim of Nature are grotesque
in the extreme; some are impressive; some
even profound; but of all the stories of the
Deluge that I have been able to collect I know
of not a single one that can even begin to
equal in beauty of conception, let alone rival
in possible reality and truth, the Squamish
legend of "The Deep Waters."

I here quote the legend of "mine own
people," the Iroquois tribes of Ontario, ^re-
garding the Deluge. I do this to paint the
color of contrast in richer shades, for I am
bound to submit that we who pride ourselves
on ancient intellectuality have but a childish
tale of the Flood when compared with the
jealously preserved annals of the Squamish,
which savour more of history than tradition.
With "mine own people," animals always play
a much more important part and are endowed
with a finer intelligence than humans. I do
not find amid my notes a single tradition of
the Iroquois wherein animals do not figure,

27

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

and our story of the Deluge rests entirely with
the intelligence of sea-going and river-going
creatures. With us, animals in olden times
were greater than man; but it is not so with
the Coast Indians, except in rare instances.

When a Coast Indian consents to tell you a
legend he will, without variation, begin it
with, "It was before the white people came."

The natural thing for you then to ask is,
"But who were here then?"

He will reply, "Indians, and just the trees,
and animals, and fishes, and a few birds."

So you are prepared to accept the animal
world as intelligent co-habitants of the Pacific
slope, but he will not lead you to think he
regards them as equals, much less superiors.
But to revert to "mine own people" : they hold
the intelligence of wild animals far above that
of man, for perhaps the one reason that
when an animal is sick it effects its own cure;
it knows what grasses and herbs to eat, what
to avoid, while the sick human calls the medi-
cine man, whose wisdom is not only the result
of years of study, but also heredity; conse-
quently any great natural event, such as the
Deluge, has much to do with the wisdom of
the creatures of the forests and the rivers.

Iroquois tradition tells us that once this
earth was entirely submerged in water, and
during this period for many days a busy little
muskrat swam about vainly looking for a foot-
hold of earth wherein to build his house. In
his search he encountered a turtle leisurely
swimming about, so they had speech together,
and the muskrat complained of weariness; he
could find no foothold; he was tired of inces-
sant swimming, and longed for land such as
his ancestors enjoyed. The turtle suggested
that the muskrat should dive and endeavor to
find earth at the bottom of the sea. Acting
on this advice the muskrat plunged down, then
arose with his two little forepaws grasping
some earth he had found beneath the waters.

"Place it on my shell and dive again for
more," directed the turtle. The muskrat did
so, but when he returned with his paws filled
with earth he discovered the small quantity
he had first deposited on the turtle's shell had

28

THE DEEP WATERS

doubled in size. The return from the third
trip found the turtle's load again doubled. So
the building went on at double compound in-
crease, and the world grew its continents and
its island with great rapidity, and now rests on
the shell of a turtle.

If you ask an Iroquois, "And did no men
survive this flood?" he will reply, "Why
should men survive? The animals are wiser
then men; let the wisest live."

How, then, was the earth re-peopled?

The Iroquois will tell you that the otter
was a medicine man; that in swimming and
diving about he found corpses of men and
women; he sang his medicine songs and they
came to life, and the otter brought them fish
for food until they were strong enough to pro-
vide for themselves. Then the Iroquois will
conclude his tale with, "You know well that
the otter has greater wisdom than a man."

So much for "mine own people" and our
profound respect for the superior intelligence
of our little brothers of the animal world.

But the Squamish tribe hold other ideas.
It was on a February day that I first listened
to this beautiful, humane story of the Deluge.
My royal old tillicum had come to see me
through the rains and mists of late winter
days. The gateways of my wigwam always
stood open — very widely open — for his feet to
enter, and this especial day he came with the
worst downpour of the season.

Womanlike, I protested with a thousand
contradictions in my voice that he should ven-
ture out to see me on such a day. It was "Oh!
Chief, I am so glad to see you!" and it was
"Oh! Chief, why didn't you stay at home on
such a wet day — your poor throat will suffer."
But I soon had quantities of hot tea for him,
and the huge cup my own father always used
was his — as long as the Sagalie Tyee allowed
his dear feet to wander my way. The im-
mense cup stands idle and empty now for the
second time.

Helping him off with his great-coat, I
chatted on about the deluge of rain, and he

29

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

remarked it was not so very bad, as one could
yet walk.

"Fortunately, yes, for I cannot swim," I
told him.

He laughed, replying, "Well, it is not so
bad as when the Great Deep Waters covered
the world."

Immediately I foresaw the coming legend,
so crept into the shell of monosyllables.

"No?" I questioned.

"No," he replied. "For one time there was
no land here at all ; everywhere there was just
water."

"I can quite believe it," I remarked
caustically.

He laughed — that irresistible, though silent,
David Warfield laugh of his that always
brought a responsive smile from his listeners.
Then he plunged directly into the tradition,
with no preface save a comprehensive sweep
of his wonderful hands towards my wide win-
dow, against which the rains were beating.

"It was after a long, long time of this — this
rain. The mountain streams were swollen,
the rivers choked, the sea began to rise — and
yet it rained; for weeks and weeks it rained."
He ceased speaking, while the shadows of
centuries gone crept into his eyes. Tales of
the misty past always inspired him.

"Yes," he continued. "It rained for weeks
and weeks, while the mountain torrents roared
thunderingly down, and the sea crept silently
up. The level lands were first to float in sea
water, then to disappear. The slopes were
next to slip into the sea. The world was
slowly being flooded. Hurriedly the Indian
tribes gathered in one spot, a place of safety
far above the reach of the on-creeping sea. The
spot was the circling shore of Lake Beautiful,
up the North Arm. They held a Great Coun-
cil and decided at once upon a plan of action.
A giant canoe should be built, and some means
contrived to anchor it in case the waters
mounted to the heights. The men undertook
the canoe, the women the anchorage.

"A giant tree was felled, and day and night
the men toiled over its construction into the
most stupendous canoe the world has ever

30

THE DEEP WATERS

known. Not an hour, not a moment, but
many worked, while the toil-wearied ones
slept, only to awake to renewed toil. Mean-
while the women also worked at a cable — the
largest, the longest, the strongest that Indian
hands and teeth had ever made. Scores of
them gathered and prepared the cedar fibre;
scores of them plaited, rolled and seasoned it;
scores of them chewed upon it inch by inch
to make it pliable; scores of them oiled and
worked, oiled and worked, oiled and worked
it into a sea-resisting fabric. And still the
sea crept up, and up, and up. It was the last
day; hope of life for the tribe, of land for the
world, was doomed. Strong hands, self-
sacrificing hands fastened the cable the women
had made — one end to the giant canoe, the
other about an enormous boulder, a vast im-
movable rock as firm as the foundations of
the world — for might not the canoe with its
priceless freight drift out, far out, to sea, and
when the water subsided might not this ship
of safety be leagues and leagues beyond the
sight of land on the storm-driven Pacific?

"Then with the bravest hearts that ever
beat, noble hands lifted every child of the
tribe into this vast canoe; not one single baby
was overlooked. The canoe was stocked with
food and fresh water, and lastly, the ancient
men and women of the race selected as guar-
dians to these children the bravest, most
stalwart, handsomest young man of the tribe,
and the mother of the youngest baby in the
camp — she was but a girl of sixteen, her child
but two weeks old ; but she, too, was brave and
very beautiful. These two were placed, she at
the bow of the canoe to watch, he at the stern
to guide, and all the little children crowded
between.

"And still the sea crept up, and up, and up.
At the crest of the bluffs about Lake
Beautiful the doomed tribes crowded. Not a
single person attempted to enter the canoe.
There was no wailing, no crying out for
safety. 'Let the little children, the young
mother, and the bravest and best of our young
men live,' was all the farewell those in the
canoe heard as the waters reached the summit,

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

and — the canoe floated. Last of all to be seen
was the top of the tallest tree, then — all was a
world of water.

"For days and days there was no land — just
the rush of swirling, snarling sea; but the
canoe rode safely at anchor, the cable those
scores of dead, faithful women had made held
true as the hearts that beat behind the toil
and labor of it all.

"But one morning at sunrise, far to the
south a speck floated on the breast of the
waters; at midday it was larger; at evening
it was yet larger. The moon arose, and in its
magic light the man at the stern saw it was
a patch of land. All night he watched it
grow, and at daybreak looked with glad eyes
upon the summit of Mount Baker. He cut
the cable, grasped his paddle in his strong,
young hands, and steered for the south. When
they landed, the waters were sunken half down
the mountain side. The children were lifted
out; the beautiful young mother, the stalwart
young brave, turned to each other, clasped
hands, looked into each others eyes — and
smiled.

"And down in the vast country that lies
between Mount Baker and the Fraser River
they made a new camp, built new lodges,
where the little children grew and thrived,
and lived and loved, and the earth was re-
peopled by them.

"The Squamish say that in a gigantic
crevice half way to the crest of Mount Baker
may yet be seen the outlines of an enormous
canoe, but I have never seen it myself."

He ceased speaking with that far-off cadence
in his voice with which he always ended a
legend, and for a long time we both sat in
silence listening to the rains that were still
beating against the window.

The Sea-Serpent

|HERE is one vice that is absolutely
unknown to the red man; he was
born without it, and amongst all
the deplorable things he has
learned from the white races, this,
at least, he has never acquired. That is the
vice of avarice. That the Indian looks upon
greed of gain, miserliness, avariciousness and
wealth accumulated above the head of his
poorer neighbor as one of the lowest degrada-
tions he can fall to is perhaps more aptly illus-
trated in this legend than anything I could
quote to demonstrate his horror of what he
calls "the white man's unkindness." In a very
wide and varied experience with many tribes,
I have yet to find even one instance of
avarice, and I have encountered but one
single case of a "stingy Indian," and this man
was so marked amongst his fellows that at
mention of his name his tribes-people jeered
and would remark contemptuously that he was
like a white man — hated to share his money
and his possessions. All red races are born
Socialists, and most tribes carry out their
communistic ideas to the letter. Amongst the
Iroquois it is considered disgraceful to have
food if your neighbor has none. To be a
creditable member of the nation you must
divide your possessions with your less for-
tunate fellows. I find it much the same
amongst the Coast Indians, though they are
less bitter in their hatred of the extremes of
wealth and poverty than are the Eastern
tribes. Still, the very fact that they have pre-
served this legend, in which they liken avarice
to a slimy sea-serpent, shows the trend of their
ideas ; shows, too, that an Indian is an Indian,
no matter what his tribe ; shows that he cannot
or will not hoard money ; shows that his native
morals demand that the spirit of greed must
be strangled at all cost.

33 E

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

The Chief and I had sat long over our
luncheon. He had been talking of his trip to
England and of the many curious things he
had seen. At last, in an outburst of enthu-
siasm, he said : "I saw everything in the world
— everything but a sea-serpent!"

"But there is no such thing as a sea-ser-
pent," I laughed, "so you must have really
seen everything in the world."

His face clouded; for a moment he sat in
silence; then looking directly at me said,
"Maybe none now, but long ago there was
one here — in the Inlet."

"How long ago?" I asked.

"When first the white gold-hunters came,"
he replied. "Came with greedy, clutching
fingers, greedy eyes, greedy hearts. The white
men fought, murdered, starved, went mad
with love of that gold far up the Fraser River.
Tillicums were tillicums no more, brothers
were foes, fathers and sons were enemies.
Their love of the gold was a curse."

"Was it then the sea-serpent was seen?" I
asked, perplexed with the problem of trying
to connect the gold-seekers with such a
monster.

"Yes, it was then, but " — he hesitated,

then plunged into the assertion, "but you will
not believe the story if you think there is no
such thing as a sea-serpent."

"I shall believe whatever you tell me,
Chief," I answered; "I am only too ready to
believe. You know I come of a superstitious
race, and all my association with the Palefaces
has never yet robbed me of my birthright to
believe strange traditions."

"You always understand," he said after a
pause.

"It's my heart that understands," I remark-
ed quietly.

He glanced up quickly, and with one of his
all too few radiant smiles, he laughed.

"Yes, skookum turn-turn." Then without
further hesitation he told the tradition, which,
although not of ancient happening, is held in
great reverence by his tribe. During its re-
cital he sat with folded arms, leaning on the
table, his head and shoulders bending eagerly

34

THE SEA-SERPENT

towards me as I sat at the opposite side. It
was the only time he ever talked to me when
he did not use emphasising gesticulations, but
his hands never once lifted : his wonderful eyes
alone gave expression to what he called "The
Legend of the 'Salt-chuck Oluk' " (sea-
serpent).

"Yes, it was during the first gold craze, and
many of our young men went as guides to
the whites far up the Eraser. When they re-
turned they brought these tales of greed and
murder back with them, and our old people
and our women shook their heads and said
evil would come of it. But all our young men,
except one, returned as they went — kind to
the poor, kind to those who were foodless,
sharing whatever they had with their tilli-
cums. But one, by name Shak-shak (The
Hawk), came back with hoards of gold nug-
gets, chickimin,* everything; he was rich like
the white men, and, like them, he kept it. He
would count his chickimin, count his nuggets,
gloat over them, toss them in his palms. He
rested his head on them as he slept, he packed
them about with him through the day. He
loved them better than food, better than his
tillicums, better than his life. The entire tribe
arose. They said Shak-shak had the disease
of greed; that to cure it he must give a great
potlatch, divide his riches with the poorer
ones, share them with the old, the sick, the
foodless. But he jeered and laughed and told
them No, and went on loving and gloating
over his gold.

"Then the Sagalie Tyee spoke out of the
sky and said, 'Shak-shak, you have made of
yourself a loathsome thing ; you will not listen
to the cry of the hungry, to the call of the old
and sick; you will not share your possessions;
you have made of yourself an outcast from
your tribe and disobeyed the ancient laws of
your people. Now I will make of you a thing
loathed and hated by all men, both white and
red. You will have two heads, for your greed
has two mouths to bite. One bites the poor,
and one bites your own evil heart — and the
fangs in these mouths are poison, poison that

*Money.

35

kills the hungry, and poison that kills your
own manhood. Your evil heart will beat in
the very centre of your foul body, and he that
pierces it will kill the disease of greed forever
from amongst his people.' And when the sun
arose above the North Arm the next morning
the tribes-people saw a gigantic sea-serpent
stretched across the surface of the waters. One
hideous head rested on the bluffs at Brockton
Point, the other rested on a group of rocks
just below Mission, at the western edge of
North Vancouver. If you care to go there
some day I will show you the hollow in one
great stone where that head lay. The tribes-
people were stunned with horror. They
loathed the creature, they hated it, they feared
it. Day after day it lay there, its monstrous
heads lifted out of the waters, its mile-long
body blocking all entrance from the Narrows,
all outlet from the North Arm. The chiefs
made council, the medicine men danced and
chanted, but the salt-chuck oluk never moved.
It could not move, for it was the hated totem
of what now rules the white man's world —
greed and love of chickimin. No one can ever
move the love of chickimin from the white
man's heart, no one can ever make him divide
all with the poor. But after the chiefs and
medicine men had done all in their power, and
still the salt-chuck oluk lay across the waters,
a handsome boy of sixteen approached them
and reminded them of the words of the
Sagalie Tyee, 'that he that pierced the mon-
ster's heart would kill the disease of greed
forever amongst his people.'

" 'Let me try to find this evil heart, oh !
great men of my tribe,' he cried. 'Let me war
upon this creature ; let me try to rid my people
of this pestilence.'

"The boy was brave and very beautiful. His
tribes-people called him the Tenas Tyee
(Little Chief) and they loved him. Of all
his wealth of fish and furs, of game and
hykwa (large shell money) he gave to the
boys who had none; he hunted food for the
old people; he tanned skins and furs for those
whose feet were feeble, whose eyes were fad-
ing, whose blood ran thin with age.

36

THE SEA-SERPENT

" 'Let him go!' cried the tribes-people. 'This
unclean monster can only be overcome by
cleanliness, this creature of greed can only
be overthrown by generosity. Let him go!'
The chiefs and the medicine men listened, then
consented. 'Go,' they commanded, 'and fight
this thing with your strongest weapons —
cleanliness and generosity.'

"The Tenas Tyee turned to his mother. 'I
shall be gone four days,' he told her, 'and I
shall swim all that time. I have tried all my
life to be generous, but the people say I must
be clean also to fight this unclean thing. While
I am gone put fresh furs on my bed every
day, even if I am not here to lie on them; if I
know my bed, my body and my heart are all
clean I can overcome this serpent.'

" 'Your bed shall have fresh furs every
morning,' his mother said simply.

"The Tenas Tyee then stripped himself and,
with no clothing save a buckskin belt into
which he thrust his hunting-knife, he flung
his lithe young body into the sea. But at the
end of four days he did not return. Some-
times his people could see him swimming far
out in mid-channel, endeavoring to find the
exact centre of the serpent, where lay its evil,
selfish heart; but on the fifth morning they
saw him rise out of the sea, climb to the sum-
mit of Brockton Point and greet the rising
sun with outstretched arms. Weeks and
months went by, still the Tenas Tyee would
swim daily searching for that heart of greed;
and each morning the sunrise glinted on his
slender young copper-colored body as he stood
with outstretched arms at the tip of Brockton
Point, greeting the coming day and then
plunging from the summit into the sea.

"And at his home on the north shore his
mother dressed his bed with fresh furs each
morning. The seasons drifted by, winter
followed summer, summer followed winter.
But it was four years before the Tenas Tyee
found the centre of the great salt-chuck oluk
and plunged his hunting-knife into its evil
heart. In its death-agony it writhed through
the Narrows, leaving a trail of blackness on
the waters. Its huge body began to shrink, to

37

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

shrivel ; it became dwarfed and withered, until
nothing but the bones of its back remained,
and they, sea-bleached and lifeless, soon sank
to the bed of the ocean leagues off from the
rim of land. But as the Tenas Tyee swam
homeward and his clean, young body crossed
through the black stain left by the serpent,
the waters became clear and blue and spark-
ling. He had overcome even the trail of the
salt-chuck oluk.

"When at last he stood in the doorway of
his home he said, 'My mother, I could not
have killed the monster of greed amongst my
people had you not helped me by keeping one
place for me at home fresh and clean for my
return.'

"She looked at him as only mothers look.
'Each day these four years, fresh furs have I
laid for your bed. Sleep now, and rest, oh ! my

Tenas Tyee,' she said."

*******

The Chief unfolded his arms, and his voice
took another tone as he said, "What do you
call that story — a legend?"

"The white people would call it an alle-
gory," I answered. He shook his head.

"No savvy," he smiled.

I explained as simply as possible, and with
his customary alertness he immediately un-
derstood. "That's right," he said. "That's
what we say it means, we Squamish, that
greed is evil and not clean, like the salt-chuck
oluk. That it must be stamped out amongst
our people, killed by cleanliness and generos-
ity. The boy that overcame the serpent was
both these things."

"What became of this splendid boy?", I
asked.

"The Tenas Tyee? Oh! some of our old,
old people say they sometimes see him now,
standing on Brockton Point, his bare young
arms outstretched to the rising sun," he re-
plied.

"Have you ever seen him, Chief?" I
questioned.

"No," he answered simply. But I have
never heard such poignant regret as his won-
derful voice crowded into that single word.

38

The Lost Island

ES," said my old tillicum, "we
Indians have lost many things.
We have lost our lands, our
forests, our game, our fish; we
have lost our ancient religion,
our ancient dress; some of the younger people
have even lost their fathers' language and the
legends and traditions of their ancestors. We
cannot call those old things back to us; they
will never come again. We may travel many
days up the mountain trails, and look in the
silent places for them. They are not there.
We may paddle many moons on the sea, but
our canoes will never enter the channel that
leads to the yesterdays of the Indian people.
These things are lost, just like 'The Island of
the North Arm.' They may be somewhere
nearby, but no one can ever find them."

"But there are many islands up the North
Arm," I asserted.

"Not the island we Indian people have
sought for many tens of summers," he replied
sorrowfully.

"Was it ever there?" I questioned.

"Yes, it was there," he said. "My grand-
sires and my great-grandsires saw it; but that
was long ago. My father never saw it, though
he spent many days in many years searching,
always searching, for it. I am an old man
myself, and I have never seen it, though from
my youth I, too, have searched. Sometimes
in the stillness of the nights I have paddled
up in my canoe." Then, lowering his voice:
"Twice I have seen its shadow: high rocky
shores, reaching as high as the tree tops on
the mainland, then tall pines and firs on its
summit like a king's crown. As I paddled up
the Arm one summer night, long ago, the
shadow of these rocks and firs fell across my
canoe, across my face, and across the waters
beyond. I turned rapidly to look. There was
no island there, nothing but a wide stretch of
waters on both sides of me, and the moon

39

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

almost directly overhead. Don't say it was
the shore that shadowed me," he hastened,
catching my thought. "The moon was above
me; my canoe scarce made a shadow on the
still waters. No, it was not the shore."

"Why do you search for it?" I lamented,
thinking of the old dreams in my own life
whose realization I have never attained.

"There is something on that island that I
want. I shall look for it until I die, for it is
there," he affirmed.

There was a long silence between us after
that. I had learned to love silences when with
my old tillicum, for they always led to a
legend. After a time he began voluntarily:

"It was more than one hundred years ago.
This great city of Vancouver was but the
dream of the Sagalie Tyee (God) at that time.
The dream had not yet come to the white man ;
only one great Indian medicine man knew
that some day a great camp for Palefaces
would lie between False Creek and the Inlet.
This dream haunted him ; it came to him night
and day — when he was amid his people
laughing and feasting, or when he was alone
in the forest chanting his strange songs, beat-
ing his hollow drum, or shaking his wooden
witch-rattle to gain more power to cure the
sick and the dying of his tribe. For years this
dream followed him. He grew to be an old, old
man, yet always he could hear voices, strong
and loud, as when they first spoke to him in
his youth, and they would say: 'Between the
two narrow strips of salt water the white men
will camp — many hundreds of them, many
thousands of them. The Indians will learn
their ways, will live as they do, will become
as they are. There will be no more great war
dances, no more fights with other powerful
tribes; it will be as if the Indians had lost all
bravery, all courage, all confidence.' He hated
the voices, he hated the dream; but all his
power, all his big medicine, could not drive
them away. He was the strongest man on all
the North Pacific Coast. He was mighty and
very tall, and his muscles were as those of
Leloo, the timber wolf, when he is strongest
to kill his prey. He could go for many days

40

THE LOST ISLAND

without food ; he could fight the largest moun-
tain lion; he could overthrow the fiercest
grizzly bear; he could paddle against the
wildest winds and ride the highest waves.
He could meet his enemies and kill whole
tribes single-handed. His strength, his cour-
age, his power, his bravery, were those of a
giant. He knew no fear; nothing in the sea,
or in the forest, nothing in the earth or the
sky, could conquer him. He was fearless, fear-
less. Only this haunting dream of the coming
white man's camp he could not drive away; it
was the one thing in life he had tried to kill
and failed. It drove him from the feasting,
drove him from the pleasant lodges, the fires,
the dancing, the story-telling of his people in
their camp by the water's edge, where the
salmon thronged and the deer came down to
drink of the mountain streams. He left the
Indian village, chanting his wild songs as he
went. Up through the mighty forests he
climbed, through the trailless deep mosses and
matted vines, up to the summit of what the
white men call Grouse Mountain. For many
days he camped there. He ate no food, he
drank no water, but sat and sang his medicine
songs through the dark hours and through
the day. Before him — far beneath his feet —
lay the narrow strip of land between the two
salt waters. Then the Sagalie Tyee gave him
the power to see far into the future. He
looked across a hundred years, just as he
looked across what you call the Inlet, and he
saw mighty lodges built close together, hun-
dreds and thousands of them; lodges of stone
and wood, and long straight trails to divide
them. He saw these trails thronging with
Palefaces; he heard the sound of the white
man's paddle-dip on the waters, for it is not
silent like the Indian's ; he saw the white man's
trading posts, saw the fishing nets, heard his
speech. Then the vision faded as gradually
as it came. The narrow strip of land was his
own forest once more.

" 'I am old,' he called, in his sorrow and his
trouble for his people. 'I am old, oh, Sagalie
Tyee! Soon I shall die and go to the Happy
Hunting Grounds of my fathers. Let not my

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

strength die with me. Keep living for all time
my courage, my bravery, my fearlessness.
Keep them for my people that they may be
strong enough to endure the white man's rule.
Keep my strength living for them; hide it so
that the Paleface may never find or see it.'

"Then he came down from the summit of
Grouse Mountain. Still chanting his medicine
songs he entered his canoe, and paddled
through the colors of the setting sun far up
the North Arm. When night fell he came to
an island with misty shores of great grey
rock; on its summit tall pines and firs circled
like a king's crown. As he neared it he felt
all his strength, his courage, his fearlessness,
leaving him; he could see these things drift
from him on to the island. They were as the
clouds that rest on the mountains, grey-white
and half transparent. Weak as a woman he
paddled back to the Indian village; he told
them to go and search for 'The Island,' where
they would find all his courage, his fearless-
ness and his strength, living, living forever.
He slept then, but — in the morning he did not
awake. Since then our young men and our
old have searched for 'The Island.' It is there
somewhere, up some lost channel, but we can-
not find it. When we do, we will get back
all the courage and bravery we had before the
white man came, for the great medicine man
said those things never die — they live for one's
children and grandchildren."

His voice ceased. My whole heart went out
to him in his longing for the lost island. I
thought of all the splendid courage I knew
him to possess, so made answer: "But you
say that the shadow of this island has fallen
upon you; is it not so, tillicum?"

"Yes," he said half mournfully. "But only
the shadow."

42

Point Grey

AVE 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 plea-
sure, 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 southwest 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
Eraser 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 him-
self is beyond question, for many times he ad-
mitted having tested the virtues of this rock,
and it had never once failed him. All people
that have to do with water craft are supersti-
tious about some things, and I freely acknow-
ledge that times innumerable I have "whistled
up" a wind when dead calm threatened, or
stuck a jack-knife in the mast, and afterwards
watched witn 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

43

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

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 Sag-
alie 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 Vancou-
ver Island, and of all the channels that cut be-
tween 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 de-
spoiled 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 look-
ing 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 river 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

44

POINT GREY

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 de-
struction 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 its
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 strong-
er 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

45

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

sails and blow his craft free, in whatever direc-
tion 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 tradi-
tion, 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."

46

The Tulameen Trail

ID you ever "holiday" through the
valley lands of the Dry Belt?
Ever spend days and days in a
swinging, swaying coach, behind
a four-in-hand, when "Curly" or
"Nicola Ned" held the ribbons, and tooled his
knowing little leaders and wheelers down
those horrifying mountain trails that wind like
russet skeins of cobweb through the heights
and depths of the Okanagan, the Nicola and
the Similkameen countries? If so, you have
listened to the call of the Skookum Chuck, as
the Chinook speakers call the rollicking,
tumbling streams that sing their way through
the canyons with a music so dulcet, so insis-
tent, that for many moons the echo of it ling-
ers in your listening ears, and you will,
through all the years to come, hear the voices
of those mountain rivers calling you to return.
But the most haunting of all the melodies
is the warbling laughter of the Tulameen; its
delicate note is far more powerful, more far-
reaching than the throaty thunders of Niagara.
That is why the Indians of the Nicola
country still cling to their old-time story that
the Tulameen carries the spirit of a young girl
enmeshed in the wonders of its winding
course; a spirit that can never free itself from
the canyons, to rise above the heights and fol-
low its fellows to the Happy Hunting
Grounds, but which is contented to entwine
its laughter, its sobs, its lonely whispers, its
still lonelier call for companionship, with the
wild music of the waters that sing forever be-
neath the western stars.

As your horses plod up and up the almost
perpendicular trail that leads out of the Nicola
Valley to the summit, a paradise of beauty
outspreads at your feet; the color is indescrib-
able in words, the atmosphere thrills you.
Youth and the pulse of rioting blood are yours
again, until, as you near the heights, you be-
come strangely calmed by the voiceless silence

47

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

of it all, a silence so holy that it seems the
whole world about you is swinging its censer
before an altar in some dim remote cathedral!
The choir voices of the Tulameen are yet very
far away across the summit, but the heights
of the Nicola are the silent prayer that holds
the human soul before the first great chords
swell down from the organ loft. In this first
long climb up miles and miles of trail, even
the staccato of the drivers' long black-snake
whip is hushed. He lets his animals pick their
own sure-footed way, but once across the
summit he gathers the reins in his steely fin-
gers, gives a low, quick whistle, the whiplash
curls about the ears of the leaders and the
plunge down the dip of the mountain begins.
Every foot of the way is done at a gallop.
The coach rocks and swings as it dashes
through a trail rough-hewn from the heart of
the forest; at times the angles are so abrupt
that you cannot see the heads of the leaders
as they swing around the grey crags that al-
most scrape the tires on the left, while within
a foot of the rim of the trail the right wheels
whirl along the edge of a yawning canyon.
The rhymes of the hoof-beats, the recurrent
low whistle and crack of the whiplash, the
occasional rattle of pebbles showering down
to the depths, loosened by rioting wheels,
have broken the sacred silence. Yet above
all those nearby sounds there seems to be an
indistinct murmur, which grows sweeter,
more musical, as you gain the base of the
mountains, where it rises above all harsher
notes. It is the voice of the restless Tulameen
as it dances and laughs through the rocky
throat of the canyon, three hundred feet be-
low. Then, following the song, comes a
glimpse of the river itself — white garmented
in the film of its countless rapids, its showers
of waterfalls. It is as beautiful to look at as
to listen to, and it is here, where the trail
winds about and above it for leagues, that the
Indians say it caught the spirit of the maiden
that is still interlaced in its loveliness.

It was in one of the terrible battles that
raged between the valley tribes before the
white man's footprints were seen along these

48

THE TULAMEEN TRAIL

trails. None can now tell the cause of this
warfare, but the supposition is that it was
merely for tribal supremacy — that primeval
instinct that assails the savage in both man
and beast, that drives the hill men to blood-
shed and the leaders of buffalo herds to con-
flict. It is the greed to rule; the one bar-
barous instinct that civilization has never yet
been able to eradicate from armed nations.
This war of the tribes of the valley lands was
of years in duration; men fought and women
mourned, and children wept, as all have done
since time began. It seemed an unequal
battle, for the old experienced war-tried chief
and his two astute sons were pitted against a
single young Tulameen brave. Both factors
had their loyal followers, both were indom-
itable as to courage and bravery, both were
determined and ambitious, both were skilled
fighters.

But on the older man's side were experience
and two other wary, strategic brains to help
him, while on the younger was but the ad-
vantage of splendid youth and unconquerable
persistence. But at every pitched battle, at
every skirmish, at every single-handed con-
flict the younger man gained little by little,
the older man lost step by step. The expe-
rience of age was gradually but inevitably giv-
ing way to the strength and enthusiasm of
youth. Then one day they met face to face
and alone — the old war-scarred chief, the
young battle-inspired brave. It was an un-
equal combat, and at the close of a brief but
violent struggle the younger had brought the
older to his knees. Standing over him with
up-poised knife the Tulameen brave laughed
sneeringly, and said:

"Would you, my enemy, have this victory
as your own? If so, I give it to you; but in
return for my submission I demand of you —
your daughter."

For an instant the old chief looked in won-
derment at his conqueror; he thought of his
daughter only as a child who played about the
forest trails or sat obediently beside her
mother in the lodge, stitching her little moc-
casins or weaving her little baskets.

49 o

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

"My daughter!" he answered sternly. "My
daughter — who is barely out of her own cradle
basket — give her to you, whose hands are
blood-dyed with the killing of a score of my
tribe? You ask for this thing?"

"I do not ask it," replied the young brave.
"I demand it; I have seen the girl and I shall
have her."

The old chief sprang to his feet and spat
out his refusal. "Keep your victory, and I
keep my girl-child," though he knew he was
not only defying his enemy, but defying death
as well.

The Tulameen laughed lightly, easily. "I
shall not kill the sire of my wife," he taunted.
"One more battle must we have, but your
girl-child will come to me."

Then he took his victorious way up the
trail, while the old chief walked with slow and
springless step down into the canyon.

The next morning the chief's daughter was
loitering along the heights, listening to the
singing river, and sometimes leaning over the
precipice to watch its curling eddies and
dancing waterfalls. Suddenly she heard a
slight rustle, as though some passing bird's
wing had dipt the air. Then at her feet there
fell a slender, delicately shaped arrow. It fell
with spent force, and her Indian woodcraft
told her it had been shot to her, not at her.
She started like a wild animal. Then her
quick eye caught the outline of a handsome,
erect figure that stood on the heights across
the river. She did not know him as her
father's enemy. She only saw him to be
young, stalwart and of extraordinary, manly
beauty. The spirit of youth and of a certain
savage coquetry awoke within her. Quickly
she fitted one of her own dainty arrows to
the bow string and sent it winging across the
narrow canyon; it fell, spent, at his feet, and
he knew she had shot it to him, not at him.

Next morning, woman-like, she crept noise-
lessly to the brink of the heights. Would she
see him again — that handsome brave? Would
he speed another arrow to her? She had not
yet emerged from the tangle of forest before
it fell, its faint-winged flight heralding its

50

THE TULAMEEN TRAIL

coming. Near the feathered end was tied a
tassel of beautiful ermine tails. She took from
her wrist a string of shell beads, fastened it to
one of her little arrows and winged it across
the canyon, as yesterday.

The following morning before leaving the
lodge she fastened the tassel of ermine tails in
her straight, black hair. Would he see them?
But no arrow fell at her feet that day, but a
dearer message was there on the brink of the
precipice. He himself awaited her coming —
he who had never left her thoughts since that
first arrow came to her from his bow-string.
His eyes burned with warm fires, as she ap-
prpached, but his lips said simply: "I have
crossed the Tulameen River." Together they
stood, side by side, and looked down at the
depths before them, watching in silence the
little torrent rollicking and roystering over its
boulders and crags.

"That is my country," he said, looking
across the river. "This is the country of your
father, and of your brothers; they are my
enemies. I return to my own shore tonight.
Will you come with me?"

She looked up into his handsome young face.
So this was her father's foe — the dreaded
Tulameen !

"Will you come?" he repeated.

"I will come," she whispered.

It was in the dark of the moon and through
the kindly night he led her far up the rocky
shores to the narrow belt of quiet waters,
where they crossed in silence into his own
country. A week, a month, a long golden
summer, slipped by, but the insulted old chief
and his enraged sons failed to find her.

Then one morning as the lovers walked to-
gether on the heights above the far upper
reaches of the river, even the ever-watchful
eyes of the Tulameen failed to detect the lurk-
ing enemy. Across the narrow canyon
crouched and crept the two outwitted broth-
ers of the girl-wife at his side; their arrows
were on their bow-strings, their hearts on fire
with hatred and vengeance. Like two evil-
winged birds of prey those arrows sped across
the laughing river, but before they found their

51

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

mark in the breast of the victorious Tulameen
the girl had unconsciously stepped before him.
With a little sigh, she slipped into his arms,
her brothers' arrows buried into her soft,
brown flesh.

It was many a moon before his avenging
hand succeeded in slaying the old chief and
those two hated sons of his. But when this
was finally done the handsome young Tula-
meen left his people, his tribe, his country, and
went into the far north. "For," he said, as
he sang his farewell war song, "my heart lies

dead in the Tulameen River."

* * * * *

But the spirit of his girl-wife still sings
through the canyon, its song blending with
the music of that sweetest-voiced river in all
the great valleys of the Dry Belt. That is
why this laughter, the sobbing murmur of the
beautiful Tulameen will haunt for evermore
the ear that has once listened to its song.

The Grey Archway

| HE steamer, like a huge shuttle,
wove in and out among the count-
less small islands; its long trailing
scarf of grey smoke hung heavily
along the uncertain shores, cast-
ing a shadow over the pearly waters of the
Pacific, which sung lazily from rock to rock
in indescribable beauty.

After dinner I wandered astern with the
traveller's ever-present hope of seeing the
beauties of a typical Northern sunset, and by
some happy chance I placed my deck stool
near an old tillicum, who was leaning on the
rail, his pipe between his thin curved lips, his
brown hands clasped idly, his sombre eyes
looking far out to sea, as though they searched
the future — or was it that they were seeing
the past?

"Kla-how-ya, tillicum!" I greeted.

He glanced round, and half smiled.

"Kla-how-ya, tillicum!" he replied, with the
warmth of friendliness I have always met with
among the Pacific tribes.

I drew my deck stool nearer to him, and he
acknowledged the action with another half
smile, but did not stir from his entrenchment,
remaining as if hedged about with an inviol-
able fortress of exclusiveness. Yet I knew
that my Chinook salutation would be a draw-
bridge by which I might hope to cross the
moat into his castle of silence.

Indian-like, he took his time before continu-
ing the acquaintance. Then he began in most
excellent English:

"You do not know these Northern waters?"

I shook my head.

After many moments he leaned forward,
looking along the curve of the deck, up the
channels and narrows we were threading, to
a broad strip of waters off the port bow. Then
he pointed, with that peculiar, thoroughly
Indian gesture of the palm, uppermost.

"Do you see it — over there? The small

53

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

island? It rests on the edge of the water, like
a grey gull."

It took my unaccustomed eyes some mom-
ents to discern it ; then all at once I caught its
outline, veiled in the mists of distance — grey,
cobwebby, dreamy.

"Yes," I replied, "I see it now. You will
tell me of it— tillicum?"

He gave a swift glance at my dark skin,
then nodded. "You are one of us," he said,
with evidently no thought of a possible con-
tradiction. "And you will understand, or I
should not tell you. You will not smile at the
story, for you are one of us."

"I am one of you, and I shall understand,"
I answered.

It was a full half-hour before we neared the
island, yet neither of us spoke during that
time; then, as the "grey gull" shaped itself
into rock and tree and crag, I noticed in the
very centre a stupendous pile of stone lifting
itself skyward, without fissure or cleft; but a
peculiar haziness about the base made me
peer narrowly to catch the perfect outline.

"It is the 'Grey Archway,' " he explained,
simply.

Only then did I grasp the singular forma-
tion before us; the rock was a perfect arch-
way, through which we could see the placid
Pacific shimmering in the growing colors of
the coming sunset at the opposite rim of the
island.

"What a remarkable whim of Nature!" I
exclaimed, but his brown hand was laid in a
contradictory grasp on my arm, and he
snatched up my comment almost with im-
patience.

"No, it was not Nature," he said. "That is
the reason I say you will understand — you
are one of us — you will know what I tell you
is true. The Great Tyee did not make that
archway, it was — " here his voice lowered —
"it was magic, red man's medicine and magic
— you savvy?"

"Yes," I said. "Tell me, for I— savvy."

"Long time ago," he began, stumbling into
a half-broken English language, because, I
think, of the atmosphere and environment,

54

THE GREY ARCHWAY

"long before you were born, or your father,
or grandfather, or even his father, this strange
thing happened. It is a story for women to
hear, to remember. Women are the future
mothers of the tribe, and we of the Pacific
Coast hold such in high regard, in great rever-
ence. The women who are mothers — o-ho! —
they are the important ones we say. War-
riors, fighters, brave men, fearless daughters,
owe their qualities to these mothers — eh, is it
not always so?"

I nodded silently. The island was swinging
nearer to us, the "Grey Archway" loomed al-
most above us, the mysticism crowded close, it
enveloped me, caressed me, appealed to me.

"And?" I hinted.

"And," he proceeded, "this 'Grey Archway'
is a story of mothers, of magic, of witchcraft,
of warriors, of — love."

An Indian rarely uses the word "love," and
when he does it expresses every quality, every
attribute, every intensity, emotion and passion
embraced in those four little letters. Surely
this was an exceptional story I was to hear.

I did not answer, only looked across the
pulsing waters toward the "Grey Archway,"
which the sinking sun was touching with soft
pastels, tints one could give no name to,
beauties impossible to describe.

"You have not heard of Yaada?" he ques-
tioned. Then fortunately he continued with-
out waiting for a reply. He well knew that I
had never heard of Yaada, so why not begin
without preliminary to tell me of her? — so —

"Yaada was the loveliest daughter of the
Haida tribe. Young braves from all the islands,
from the mainland, from the upper Skeena
country came, hoping to carry her to their far-
off lodges, but they always returned alone.
She was the most desired of all the island
maidens, beautiful, brave, modest, the daugh-
ter of her own mother.

"But there was a great man, a very great
man — a medicine man, skilful, powerful, in-
fluential, old, deplorably old, and very, very
rich; he said, 'Yaada shall be my wife.' And
there was a young fisherman, handsome, loyal,
boyish, poor, oh! very poor, and gloriously

55

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

young, and he, too, said, 'Yaada shall be my
wife.'

"But Yaada's mother sat apart and thought
and dreamed, as mothers will. She said to
herself, 'The great medicine man has power,
has vast riches, and wonderful magic, why
not give her to him? But Ulka has the boy's
heart, the boy's beauty, he is very brave, very
strong; why not give her to him?'

"But the laws of the great Haida tribe pre-
vailed. Its wise men said, 'Give the girl to
the greatest man, give her to the most power-
ful, the richest. The man of magic must have
his choice.'

"But at this the mother's heart grew as
wax in the summer sunshine — it is a strange
quality that mothers' hearts are made of!
'Give her to the best man — the man her heart
holds highest,' said this Haida mother.

"Then Yaada spoke: 'I am the daughter
of my tribe; I would judge of men by their
excellence. He who proves most worthy I
shall marry; it is not riches that make a good
husband; it is not beauty that makes a good
father for one's children. Let me and my tribe
see some proof of the excellence of these two
men — then, only, shall I choose who is to be
the father of my children. Let us have a trial
of their skill; let them show me how evil or
how beautiful is the inside of their hearts.
Let each of them throw a stone with some
intent, some purpose in their hearts. He who
makes the noblest mark may call me wife.'

"'Alas! Alas!' wailed the Haida mother.
'This casting of stones does not show worth.
It but shows prowess.'

" 'But I have implored the Sagalie Tyee
of my father, and of his fathers before him,
to help me to judge between them by this
means,' said the girl. 'So they must cast the
stones. In this way only shall I see their
innermost hearts.'

"The medicine man never looked so old as
at that moment ; so hopelessly old, so wrinkled,
so palsied: he was no mate for Yaada. Ulka
never looked so god-like in his young beauty,
so gloriously young, so courageous. The girl,
looking at him, loved him — almost was she

56

THE GREY ARCHWAY

placing her hand in his, but the spirit of her
forefathers halted her. She had spoken the
word — she must abide by it. 'Throw!' she
commanded.

"Into his shrivelled fingers the great medi-
cine man took a small, round stone, chanting
strange words of magic all the while; his
greedy eyes were on the girl, his greedy
thoughts about her.

"Into his strong, young fingers Ulka took a
smooth, flat stone; his handsome eyes were
lowered in boyish modesty, his thoughts were
worshipping her. The great medicine man
cast his missile first; it swept through the air
like a shaft of lightning, striking the great
rock with a force that shattered it. At the
touch of that stone the 'Grey Archway' opened
and has remained opened to this day.

" 'Oh, wonderful power and magic !' clam-
ored the entire tribe. 'The very rocks do his
bidding.'

"But Yaada stood with eyes that burned in
agony. Ulka could never command such
magic — she knew it. But at her side Ulka was
standing erect, tall, slender and beautiful, but
just as he cast his missile the evil voice of the
old medicine man began a still more evil in-
cantation. He fixed his poisonous eyes on the
younger man, eyes with hideous magic in their
depths — ill-omened and enchanted with 'bad
medicine.' The stone left Ulka's fingers;
for a second it flew forth in a straight line,
then as the evil voice of the old man grew
louder in its incantations the stone curved.
Magic had waylaid the strong arm of the
young brave. The stone poised an instant
above the forehead of Yaada's mother, then
dropped with the weight of many mountains,
and the last long sleep fell upon her.

" 'Slayer of my mother !' stormed the girl,
her suffering eyes fixed upon the medicine
man. 'Oh, I now see your black heart through
your black magic. Through good magic you
cut the 'Great Archway,' but your evil magic
you used upon young Ulka. I saw your
wicked eyes upon him; I heard your
wicked incantations; I know your wicked
heart. You used your heartless magic in

57 H

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

hope of winning me — in hope of making
him an outcast of the tribe. You cared not for
my sorrowing heart, my motherless life to
come.' Then, turning to the tribe, she de-
manded : 'Who of you saw his evil eyes fixed
on Ulka? Who of you heard his evil song?'

" 'I,' and 'I,' and 'I,' came voice after voice.

" 'The very air is poisoned that we breathe
about him,' they shouted. 'The young man
is blameless, his heart is as the sun, but the
man who has used his evil magic has a heart
black and cold as the hours before the dawn.'

"Then Yaada's voice arose in a strange,
sweet, sorrowful chant:

My feet shall walk no more upon this island,

With its great, Grey Archway.
My mother sleeps forever on this island,

With its great, Grey Archway.
My heart would break without her on this island,

With its great, Grey Archway.

My life was of her life upon this island,

With its great, Grey Archway.
My mother's soul has wandered from this island,

With its great, Grey Archway.
My feet must follow hers beyond this island,

With its great, Grey Archway.

"As Yaada chanted and wailed her fare-
well, she moved slowly towards the edge of
the cliff. On its brink she hovered a moment
with outstretched arms, as a sea gull poises
on its weight — then she called:

" 'Ulka, my Ulka ! Your hand is innocent
of wrong; it was the evil magic of your rival
that slew my mother. I must go to her; even
you cannot keep me here; will you stay, or
come with me? Oh! my Ulka!'

"The slender, gloriously young boy sprang
toward her; their hands closed one within the
other; for a second they poised on the brink
of the rocks, radiant as stars; then together

they plunged into the sea."

*******

The legend was ended. Long ago we had
passed the island with its "Grey Archway" ; it
was melting into the twilight, far astern.

As I brooded over this strange tale of a
daughter's devotion, I watched the sea and
sky for something that would give me a clue

58

THE GREY ARCHWAY

to the inevitable sequel that the tillicum, like
all his race, was surely withholding until the
opportune moment.

Something flashed through the darkening
waters not a stone's throw from the steamer.
I leaned forward, watching it intently. Two
silvery fish were making a succession of little
leaps and plunges along the surface of the sea,
their bodies catching the last tints of sunset,
like flashing jewels. I looked at the tillicum
quickly. He was watching me — a world of
anxiety in his half-mournful eyes.

"And those two silvery fish?" I questioned.

He smiled. The anxious look vanished. "I
was right," he said; "you do know us and our
ways, for you are one of us. Yes, those fish
are seen only in these waters; there are never
but two of them. They are Yaada and her
mate, seeking for the soul of the Haida woman
— her mother."

59

Deadman's Island

It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight grey —
Beneath the drowse of an ending day
And the curve of a golden moon.

It is dark in the Lost Lagoon.
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and — you,
And gone is the golden moon.

O! lure of the Lost Lagoon —

I dream tonight that my paddle blurs

The purple shade where the seaweed stirs —

I hear the call of the singing firs

In the hush of the golden moon.

OR many minutes we stood silent-
ly, leaning on the western rail of
the bridge as we watched the
sun set across that beautiful little
basin of water known as Coal
Harbor. I have always resented that jarring,
unattractive name, for years ago, when I first
plied paddle across the gunwale of a light
little canoe that idled about its margin, I
named the sheltered little cove the Lost La-
goon. This was just to please my own fancy,
for as that perfect summer month drifted on,
the ever-restless tides left the harbor devoid
of water at my favorite canoeing hour, and
my pet idling place was lost for many days —
hence my fancy to call it the Lost Lagoon.
But the chief, Indian-like, immediately adopt-
ed the name, at least when he spoke of the
place to me, and as we watched the sun slip
behind the rim of firs, he expressed the wish
that his dugout were here instead of lying
beached at the farther side of the park.

"If canoe was here, you and I we paddle
close to shores all 'round your Lost Lagoon:
we make track just like half moon. Then we
paddle under this bridge, and go channel be-
tween Deadman's Island and park. Then

61

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

'round where cannon speak time at nine
o'clock. Then 'cross Inlet to Indian side of
Narrows."

I turned to look eastward, following in
fancy the course he had sketched; the waters
were still as the footstep of the oncoming twi-
light, and, floating in a pool of soft purple,
Deadman's Island rested like a large circle of
candle moss.

"Have you ever been on it?" he asked as
he caught my gaze centering on the irregular
outline of the island pines.

"I have prowled the length and depth of it,"
I told him. "Climbed over every rock on its
shores, crept under every tangled growth of
its interior, explored its overgrown trails, and
more than once nearly got lost in its very
heart."

"Yes," he half laughed, "it pretty wild; not
much good for anything."

"People seem to think it valuable," I said.
"There is a lot of litigation — of fighting going
on now about it."

"Oh! that the way always," he said as
though speaking of a long accepted fact. "Al-
ways fight over that place. Hundreds of
years ago they fight about it; Indian people;
they say hundreds of years to come everybody
will still fight — never be settled what that
place is, who it belong to, who has right to it.
No, never settle. Deadman's Island always
mean fight for someone."

"So the Indians fought amongst themselves
about it?" I remarked, seemingly without
guile, although my ears tingled for the legend
I knew was coming.

"Fought like lynx at close quarters," he
answered. "Fought, killed each other, until
the island ran with blood redder than that
sunset, and the sea water about it was stained
flame color — it was then, my people say, that
the scarlet fire-flower was first seen growing
along this coast."

"It is a beautiful color— the fire-flower," I
said.

"It should be fine color, for it was born and
grew from the hearts of fine tribes-people —
very fine people," he emphasized.

62

DEADMAN'S ISLAND

We crossed to the eastern rail of the bridge,
and stood watching the deep shadows that
gathered slowly and silently about the island;
I have seldom looked upon anything more
peaceful.

The chief sighed. "We have no such men
now, no fighters like those men, no hearts, no
:ourage like theirs. But I tell you the story;
you understand it then. Now all peace; to-
night all good tillicums ; even dead man's spirit
does not fight now, but long time after it
happen those spirits fought."

"And the legend?" I ventured.

"Oh ! yes," he replied, as if suddenly return-
ing to the present from out a far country in
the realm of time. "Indian people, they call
it the 'Legend of the Island of Dead Men.'

"There was war everywhere. Fierce tribes
from the northern coast, savage tribes from
the south all met here and battled and raided,
burned and captured, tortured and killed their
enemies. The forests smoked with camp fires,
the Narrows were choked with war canoes,
and the Sagalie Tyee — He who is a man of
peace — turned His face away from His Indian
children. About this island there was dispute
and contention. The medicine men from the
North claimed it as their chanting ground.
The medicine men from the South laid equal
claim to it. Each wanted it as the stronghold
of their witchcraft, their magic. Great bands
of these medicine men met on the small space,
using every sorcery in their power to drive
their opponents away. The witch doctors of
the North made their camp on the northern
rim of the island ; those from the South settled
along the southern edge, looking towards
what is now the great city of Vancouver.
Both factions danced, chanted, burned their
magic powders, built their magic fires, beat
their magic rattles, but neither would give
way, yet neither conquered. About them, on
the waters, on the mainlands, raged the war-
fare of their respective tribes — the Sagalie
Tyee had forgotten His Indian children.

"After many months, the warriors on both
sides weakened. They said the incantations
of the rival medicine men were bewitching

63

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

them, were making their hearts like children's,
and their arms nerveless as women's. So
friend and foe arose as one man and drove the
medicine men from the island, hounded them
down the Inlet, herded them through the Nar-
rows and banished them out to sea, where
they took refuge on one of the outer islands
of the gulf. Then the tribes once more fell
upon each other in battle.

"The warrior blood of the North will always
conquer. They are the stronger, bolder, more
alert, more keen. The snows and the ice of
their country make swifter pulse than the
sleepy suns of the South can awake in a man ;
their muscles are of sterner stuff, their endur-
ance greater. Yes, the northern tribes will al-
ways be victors.* But the craft and the strategy
of the southern tribes are hard things to battle
against. While those of the North followed
the medicine men farther out to sea to make
sure of their banishment, those from the South
returned under cover of night and seized the
women and children and the old, enfeebled
men in their enemy's camp, transported them
all to the Island of Dead Men, and there held
them as captives. Their war canoes circled
the island like a fortification, through which
drifted the sobs of the imprisoned women, the
mutterings of the aged men, the wail of little
children.

"Again and again the men of the North
assailed that circle of canoes, and again and
again were repulsed. The air was thick with
poisoned arrows, the water stained with blood.
But day by day the circle of southern canoes
grew thinner and thinner ; the northern arrows
were telling and truer of aim. Canoes drifted
everywhere, empty, or worse still, manned
only by dead men. The pick of the southern
warriors had already fallen, when their great-
est Tyee mounted a large rock on the eastern
shore. Brave and unmindful of a thousand
weapons aimed at his heart, he uplifted his

*Note. — It would almost seem that the chief knew that won-
derful poem of "The Khan's," "The Men of the Northern Zone,"
wherein he says:

If ever a Northman lost a throne

Did the conqueror come from the South?

Nay, the North shall ever be free . . . etc.

64

DEADMAN'S ISLAND

hand, palm outward — the signal for confer-
ence. Instantly every northern arrow was
lowered, and every northern ear listened for
his words.

" 'Oh! men of the upper coast,' he said, 'you
are more numerous than we are; your tribe
is larger; your endurance greater. We are
growing hungry, we are growing less in num-
bers. Our captives — your women and children
and old men — have lessened, too, our stores of
food. If you refuse our terms we will yet
fight to the finish. Tomorrow we will kill all
our captives before your eyes, for we can feed
them no longer, or you can have your wives,
your mothers, your fathers, your children, by
giving us for each and every one of them one
of your best and bravest young warriors, who
will consent to suffer death in their stead.
Speak! You have your choice.'

"In the northern canoes scores and scores
of young warriors leapt to their feet. The air
was filled with glad cries, with exultant
shouts. The whole world seemed to ring with
the voices of those young men who called
loudly, with glorious courage:

" 'Take me, but give me back my old father.'

" 'Take me, but spare to my tribe my little
sister.'

" 'Take me, but release my wife and boy-
baby.'

"So the compact was made. Two hundred
heroic, magnificent young men paddled up to
the island, broke through the fortifying circle
of canoes and stepped ashore. They flaunted
their eagle plumes with the spirit and boldness
of young gods. Their shoulders were erect, their
step was firm, their hearts strong. Into their
canoes they crowded the two hundred captives.
Once more their women sobbed, their old
men muttered, their children wailed, but those
young copper-colored gods never flinched,
never faltered. Their weak and their feeble
were saved. What mattered to them such a
little thing as death?

"The released captives were quickly sur-
rounded by their own people, but the flower
of their splendid nation was in the hands of
their enemies, those valorous young men who

65

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

thought so little of life that they willingly,
gladly laid it down to serve and to save those
they loved and cared for. Amongst them were
war-tried warriors who had fought fifty
battles, and boys not yet full grown, who were
drawing a bow string for the first time, but
their hearts, their courage, their self-sacrifice
were as one.

"Out before a long file of southern warriors
they stood. Their chins uplifted, their eyes
defiant, their breasts bared. Each leaned for-
ward and laid his weapons at his feet, then
stood erect, with empty hands, and laughed
forth their challenge to death. A thousand
arrows ripped the air, two hundred gallant
northern throats flung forth a death cry exul-
tant, triumphant as conquering kings — then
two hundred fearless northern hearts ceased
to beat.

"But in the morning the southern tribes
found the spot where they fell peopled with
flaming fire-flowers. Dread terror seized upon
them. They abandoned the island, and when
night again shrouded them they manned their
canoes and noiselessly slipped through the
Narrows, turned their bows southward and
this coast line knew them no more."

"What glorious men," I half whispered as
the chief concluded the strange legend.

"Yes, men!" he echoed. "The white people
call it Deadman's Island. That is their way;
but we of the Squamish call it The Island of
Dead Men."

The clustering pines and the outlines of the
island's margin were now dusky and indistinct.
Peace, peace lay over the waters, and the
purple of the summer twilight had turned to
grey, but I knew that in the depths of the
undergrowth on Deadman's Island there blos-
somed a flower of flaming beauty ; its colors
were veiled in the coming nightfall, but some-
where down in the sanctuary of its petals
pulsed the heart's blood of many and valiant
men.

66

A Squamish Legend of
Napoleon

OLDING an important place among
the majority of curious tales held
in veneration by the coast tribes
are those of the sea-serpent. The
monster appears and reappears with
almost monotonous frequency in connection
with history, traditions, legends and supersti-
tions; but perhaps the most wonderful part it
ever played was in the great drama that held
the stage of Europe, and incidentally all the
world during the stormy days of the first
Napoleon.

Throughout Canada I have never failed to
find an amazing knowledge of Napoleon Bona-
parte amongst the very old and "uncivilized"
Indians. Perhaps they may be unfamiliar with
every other historical character from Adam
down, but they will all tell you they have
heard of the "Great French Fighter," as they
call the wonderful little Corsican.

Whether this knowledge was obtained
through the fact that our earliest settlers and
pioneers were French, or whether Napoleon's
almost magical fighting career attracted the
Indian mind to the exclusion of lesser war-
riors, I have never yet decided. But the fact
remains that the Indians of our generation are
not as familiar with Bonaparte's name as were
their fathers and grandfathers, so either the
predominance of English-speaking settlers or
the thinning of their ancient war-loving blood
by modern civilization and peaceful times,
must one or the other account for the younger
Indian's ignorance of the Emperor of the
French.

In telling me the legend of The Lost Talis-
man, my good tillicum, the late Chief Capilano,
began the story with the almost amazing
question, Had I ever heard of Napoleon Bona-
parte? It was some moments before I just
caught the name, for his . English, always

67

3

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

quaint and beautiful, was at times a little halt-
ing; but when he said by way of explanation,
"You know big fighter, Frenchman. The Eng-
lish they beat him in big battle," I grasped
immediately of whom he spoke.

"What do you know of him?" I asked.

His voice lowered, almost as if he spoke a
state secret. "I know how it is that English
they beat him."

I have read many historians on this event,
but to hear the Squamish version was a novel
and absorbing thing. "Yes?" I said — my usual
"leading" word to lure him into channels of
tradition.

"Yes," he affirmed. Then, still in a half
whisper, he proceeded to tell me that it all
happened through the agency of a single joint
from the vertebra of a sea-serpent.

"In telling me the story of Brockton Point
and the valiant boy who killed the monster, he
dwelt lightly on the fact that all people who
approach the vicinity of the creature are
palsied, both mentally and physically — be-
witched, in fact — so that their bones become
disjointed and their brains incapable; but to-
day he elaborated upon this peculiarity until
I harked back to the boy of Brockton Point
and asked how it was that his body and brain
escaped this affliction.

"He was all good, and had no greed," he re-
plied. "He proof against all bad things."

I nodded understandingly, and he pro-
ceeded to tell me that all successful Indian
fighters and warriors carried somewhere about
their person a joint of a sea-serpent's vertebra,
that the medicine men threw "the power"
about them so that they were not personally
affected by this little "charm," but that imme-
diately they approached an enemy the "charm"
worked disaster, and victory was assured the
fortunate possessor of the talisman. There
was one particularly effective joint that had
been treasured and carried by the warriors of
a great Squamish family for a century. These
warriors had conquered every foe they en-
countered, until the talisman had become so
renowned that the totem pole of their entire
"clan" was remodelled, and the new one

68

A SQUAMISH LEGEND OF NAPOLEON

crested by the figure of a single joint of a sea-
serpent's vertebra.

About this time stories of Napoleon's first
great achievements drifted across the seas ; not
across the land — and just here may be a clue
to buried coast-Indian history, which those
who are cleverer at research than I, can puzzle
over. The chief was most emphatic about the
source of Indian knowledge of Napoleon.

"I suppose you heard of him from Quebec,
through, perhaps, some of the French priests,"
I remarked.

"No, no," he contradicted hurriedly. "Not
from East; we hear it from over the Pacific,
from the place they call Russia." But who
conveyed the news or by what means it came
he could not further enlighten me. But a
strange thing happened to the Squamish
family about this time. There was a large
blood connection, but the only male member
living was a very old warrior, the hero of
many battles, and the possessor of the talis-
man. On his death-bed his women of three
generations gathered about him; his wife, his
sisters, his daughters, his granddaughters, but
not one man, nor yet a boy of his own blood
stood by to speed his departing warrior spirit
to the land of peace and plenty.

"The charm cannot rest in the hands of
women," he murmured almost with his last
breath. "Women may not war and fight other
nations or other tribes; women are for the
peaceful lodge and for the leading of little
children. They are for holding baby hands,
teaching baby feet to walk. No, the charm
cannot rest with you, women. I have no
brother, no cousin, no son, no grandson, and
the charm must not go to a lesser warrior
than I. None of our tribe, nor of any tribe on
the coast, ever conquered me. The charm
must go to one as unconquerable as I have
been. When I am dead send it across the
great salt chuck, to the victorious 'French-
man'; they call him Napoleon Bonaparte."
They were his last words.

The older women wished to bury the charm
with him, but the younger women, inspired
with the spirit of their generation, were

69

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

determined to send it over seas. "In the grave
it will be dead," they argued. "Let it still live
on. Let it help some other fighter to great-
ness and victory."

As if to confirm their decision, the next day
a small sealing vessel anchored in the Inlet.
All the men aboard spoke Russian, save two
thin, dark, agile sailors, who kept aloof from
the crew and conversed in another language.
These two came ashore with part of the crew
and talked in French with a wandering Hud-
son's Bay trapper, who often lodged with the
Squamish people. Thus the women, who yet
mourned over their dead warrior, knew these
two strangers to be from the land where the
great "Frenchman" was fighting against the
world.

Here I interrupted the chief. "How came
the Frenchmen in a Russian sealer?" I asked.

"Captives," he replied. "Almost slaves, and
hated by their captors, as the majority always
hate the few. So the women drew those two
Frenchmen apart from the rest and told them
the story of the bone of the sea-serpent, urg-
ing them to carry it back to their own country
and give it to the great 'Frenchman' who was
as courageous and as brave as their dead
leader.

"The Frenchmen hesitated; the talisman
might affect them, they said; might jangle
their own brains, so that on their return to
Russia they would not have the sagacity to
plan an escape to their own country; might
disjoint their bodies, so that their feet and
hands would be useless, and they would become
as weak as children. But the women assured
them that the charm only worked its magical
powers over a man's enemies, that the ancient
medicine men had 'bewitched' it with this
quality. So the Frenchmen took it and pro-
mised that if it were in the power of man they
would convey it to 'the Emperor.'

"As the crew boarded the sealer, the women
watching from the shore observed strange con-
tortions seize many of the men; some fell on
the deck; some crouched, shaking as with
palsy; some writhed for a moment, then fell
limp and seemingly boneless; only the two

70

A SQUAMISH LEGEND OF NAPOLEON

Frenchmen stood erect and strong and vital
— the Squamish talisman had already over-
come their foes. As the little sealer set sail
up the gulf she was commanded by a crew of
two Frenchmen — men who had entered these
waters as captives, who were leaving them as
conquerors. The palsied Russians were worse
than useless, and what became of them the
chief could not state; presumably they were
flung overboard, and by some trick of a kindly
fate the Frenchmen at last reached the coast
of France.

"Tradition is so indefinite about their move-
ments subsequent to sailing out of the Inlet,
that even the ever-romantic and vividly
colored imaginations of the Squamish people
have never supplied the details of this beauti-
fully childish, yet strangely historical fairy
tale. But the voices of the trumpets of war,
the beat of drums throughout Europe heralded
back to the wilds of the Pacific Coast forests
the intelligence that the great Squamish
'charm' eventually reached the person of
Napoleon; that from this time onward his
career was one vast victory, that he won battle
after battle, conquered nation after nation, and
but for the direst calamity that could befall a
warrior would eventually have been master of
the world."

"What was this calamity, Chief?" I asked,
amazed at his knowledge of the great histor-
ical soldier and strategist.

The chief's voice again lowered to a whisper
— his face was almost rigid with intentness as
he replied:

"He lost the Squamish charm — lost it just
before one great fight with the English
people."

I looked at him curiously; he had been tell-
ing me the oddest mixture of history and sup-
erstition, of intelligence and ignorance, the
most whimsically absurd, yet impressive, tale
I ever heard from Indian lips.

"What was the name of the great fight —
did you ever hear it?" I asked, wondering how
much he knew of events which took place at
the other side of the world a century agone.

"Yes," he said, carefully, thoughtfully; "I

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

hear the name sometime in London when I
there. Railroad station there — same name."

"Was it Waterloo?" I asked.

He nodded quickly, without a shadow of
hesitation. "That the one," he replied ; "that's
it, Waterloo."

72

The Lure in Stanley Park

| HERE is a well-known trail in
Stanley Park that leads to what
I always love to call the "Cath-
edral Trees" — that group of some
half-dozen forest giants that arch
overhead with such superb loftiness. But in
all the world there is no cathedral whose
marble or onyx columns can vie with those
straight, clean, brown cedar boles that teem
with the sap and blood of life. There is no
fresco that can rival the delicacy of lace-work
they have festooned between you and the far
skies. No tiles, no mosaic or inlaid marbles,
are as fascinating as the bare, russet, fragrant
floor outspreading about their feet. They are
the acme of Nature's architecture, and in
building them she has outrivalled all her erst-
while conceptions. She will never originate a
more faultless design, never erect a more per-
fect edifice. But the divinely moulded cedars
and the man-made cathedral have one ex-
quisite characteristic in common. It is the
atmosphere of holiness. Most of us have
better impulses after viewing a stately cath-
edral, and none of us can stand amid that
majestic group of cedars without experiencing
some elevating thoughts, some refinement of
our coarser nature. Perhaps those who read
this little legend will never again stand amid
those cathedral trees without thinking of the
glorious souls they contain, for according to
the Coast Indians they do harbor human souls,
and the world is better because they once had
the speech and the hearts of mighty men.

My tillicum did not use the word "lure" in
telling me this legend. There is no equivalent
for the word in the Chinook tongue, but the
gestures of his voiceful hands so expressed
the quality of something between magnetism
and charm that I have selected this word
"lure" as best fitting what he wished to con-
vey. Some few yards beyond the cathedral
trees, an overgrown disused trail turns into the

73

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

dense wilderness to the right. Only Indian
eyes could discern that trail, and the Indians
do not willingly go to that part of the park to
the right of the cedar group. Nothing in this,
nor yet the next world would tempt a Coast
Indian into the compact centres of the wild
portions of the park, for therein, concealed
cunningly, is the "lure" they all believe in.
There is not a tribe in the entire district that
does not know of this strange legend. You
will hear the tale from those that gather at
Eagle Harbor for the fishing, from the Fraser
River tribes, from the Squamish at the Nar-
rows, from the Mission, from up the Inlet,
even from the tribes at North Bend, but no
one will volunteer to be your guide, for having
once come within the "aura" of the lure it is
a human impossibility to leave it. Your will-
power is dwarfed, your intelligence blighted,
your feet will refuse to lead you out by a
straight trail, you will circle, circle for ever-
more about this magnet, for if death kindly
conies to your aid your immortal spirit
will go on in that endless circling that will
bar it from entering the Happy Hunting
Grounds.

And, like the cathedral trees, the lure once
lived, a human soul, but in this instance it
was a soul depraved, not sanctified. The In-
dian belief is very beautiful concerning the
results of good and evil in the human body.
The Sagalie Tyee (God) has His own way of
immortalizing each. People who are wilfully
evil, who have no kindness in their hearts,
who are bloodthirsty, cruel, vengeful, unsym-
pathetic, the Sagalie Tyee turns to solid stone
that will harbor no growth, even that of moss
or lichen, for these stones contain no moisture,
just as their wicked hearts lacked the milk of
human kindness. The one famed exception,
wherein a good man was transformed into
stone, was in the instance of Siwash Rock,
but as the Indian tells you of it he smiles with
gratification as he calls your attention to the
tiny tree cresting that imperial monument. He
says the tree was always there to show the
nations that the good in this man's heart kept
on growing even when his body had ceased

74

THE LURE IN STANLEY PARK

to be. On the other hand the Sagalie Tyee
transforms the kindly people, the humane,
sympathetic, charitable-loving people into
trees, so that after death they may go on for-
ever benefiting all mankind; they may yield
fruit, give shade and shelter, afford unending
service to the living, by their usefulness as
building material and as firewood. Their saps
and gums, their fibres, their leaves, their blos-
soms, enrich, nourish and sustain the human
form; no evil is produced by trees — all, all is
goodness, is hearty, is helpfulness and growth.
They give refuge to the birds, they give music
to the winds, and from them are carved the
bows and arrows, the canoes and paddles,
bowls, spoons and baskets. Their service to
mankind is priceless ; the Indian that tells you
this tale will enumerate all these attributes
and virtues of these trees. No wonder the
Sagalie Tyee chose them to be the abode of
souls good and great.

But the lure in Stanley Park is that most
dreaded of all things, an evil soul. It is em-
bodied in a bare, white stone, which is shunned
by moss and vine and lichen, but over which
are splashed innumerable jet-black spots that
have eaten into the surface like an acid.

This condemned soul once animated the
body of a witch-woman, who went up and
down the coast, over seas and far inland, cast-
ing her evil eye on innocent people, and bring-
ing them untold evils and diseases. About
her person she carried the renowned "Bad
Medicine" that every Indian believes in —
medicine that weakened the arm of the war-
rior in battle, that caused deformities, that
poisoned minds and characters, that engen-
dered madness, that bred plagues and epi-
demics; in short, that was the seed of every
evil that could befall mankind. This witch-
woman herself was \immune from death; gen-
erations were born and grew to old age, and
died, and other generations arose in their
stead, but the witch-woman went about, her
heart set against her kind; her acts were evil,
her purposes wicked, she broke hearts and
bodies and souls; she gloried in tears, and
revelled in unhappiness, and sent them

75

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

broadcast wherever she wandered. And in his
high heaven the Sagalie Tyee wept with
sorrow for his afflicted human children. He
dared not let her die, for her spirit would still
go on with its evil doing. In mighty anger
he gave command to his Four Men (always
representing the Deity) that they should turn
this witch-woman into a stone and enchain her
spirit in its centre, that the curse of her might
be lifted from the unhappy race.

So the Four Men entered their giant canoe,
and headed, as was their custom, up the Nar-
rows. As they neared what is now known as
Prospect Point they heard from the heights
above them a laugh, and looking up they be-
held the witch-woman jeering defiantly at
them. They landed and, scaling the rocks,
pursued her as she danced away, eluding them
like a will-o'-the-wisp as she called out to them
sneeringly :

"Care for yourselves, oh! men of the Sag-
alie Tyee, or I shall blight you with my evil
eye. Care for yourselves and do not follow
me." On and on she danced through the
thickest of the wilderness, on and on they fol-
lowed until they reached the very heart of
the seagirt neck of land we know as Stanley
Park. Then the tallest, the mightiest of the
Four Men, lifted his hand and cried out : "Oh !
woman of the stony heart, be stone for ever-
more, and bear forever a black stain for each
one of your evil deeds." And as he spoke the
witch-woman was transformed into this stone
that tradition says is in the centre of the park.

Such is the legend of the Lure, whether or
not this stone is really in existence — who
knows? One thing is positive, however, no
Indian will ever help to discover it.

Three different Indians have told me that
fifteen or eighteen years ago two tourists — a
man and a woman — were lost in Stanley Park.
When found a week later, the man was dead,
the woman mad, and each of my informants
firmly believed they had, in their wanderings,
encountered "the stone" and were compelled
to circle around it, because of its powerful lure.

But this wild tale fortunately has a most
beautiful conclusion. The Four Men, fearing

76

THE LURE IN STANLEY PARK

that the evil heart imprisoned in the stone
would still work destruction, said: "At the
end of the trail we must place so good and
great a thing that it will be mightier, stronger,
more powerful than this evil." So they chose
from the nations the kindliest, most benevo-
lent men, men whose hearts were filled with
the love of their fellow-beings, and trans-
formed these merciful souls into the stately
group of "Cathedral Trees."

How well the purpose of the Sagalie Tyee
has wrought its effect through time! The
good has predominated as He planned it to,
for is not the stone hidden in some unknown
part of the park where eyes do not see it and
feet do not follow — and do not the thousands
who come to us from the nethermost parts of
the world seek that wondrous beauty spot, and
stand awed by the majestic silence, the almost
holiness of that group of giant cedars?

More than any other legend that the Indians
about Vancouver have told me does this tale
reveal the love of the Coast native for kindness,
and his hatred of cruelty. If these tribes really
have ever been a warlike race I cannot think
they pride themselves much on the occupa-
tion. If you talk with any of them and they
mention some man they particularly like or
admire, their first qualification of him is : "He's
a kind man." They never say he is brave, or
rich, or successful, or even strong, that char-
acteristic so loved by the red man. To these
Coast tribes if a man is "kind" he is every-
thing. And almost without exception their
legends deal with rewards for tenderness and
self-abnegation, and personal and mental
cleanliness.

Call them fairy tales if you wish to, they all
have a reasonableness that must have origin-
ated in some mighty mind, and better than
that, they all tell of the Indian's faith in the
survival of the best impulses of the human
heart, and the ultimate extinction of the worst.

In talking with my many good tillicums, I
find this witch-woman legend is the most uni-
versally known and thoroughly believed in of
all traditions they have honored me by reveal-
ing to me.

77

Deer Lake

EW white men ventured inland,
a century ago, in the days of
the first Chief Capilano, when
the spoils of the mighty Eraser
River poured into copper-colored
hands, but did not find their way to the
remotest corners of the earth, as in our times,
when the gold from its sources, the salmon
from its mouth, the timber from its shores are
world-known riches.

The fisherman's craft, the hunter's cunning
were plied where now cities and industries,
trade and commerce, buying and selling hold
sway. In those days the moccasined foot
awoke no echo in the forest trails. Primitive
weapons, arms, implements, and utensils were
the only means of the Indians' food-getting.
His livelihood depended upon his own personal
prowess, his skill in woodcraft and water lore.
And, as this is a story of an elk-bone spear,
the reader must first be in sympathy with the
fact that this rude instrument, deftly fash-
ioned, was of priceless value to the first
Capilano, to whom it had come through three
generations of ancestors, all of whom had
been experienced hunters and dexterous
fishermen.

Capilano himself was without a rival as a
spearsman. He knew the moods of the Eraser
River, the habits of its thronging tenants, as
no other man has ever known them before or
since. He knew every isle and inlet along the
coast, every boulder, the sand-bars, the still
pools, the temper of the tides. He knew the
spawning grounds, the secret streams that fed
the larger rivers, the outlets of rock-bound
lakes, the turns and tricks of swirling rapids.
He knew the haunts of bird and beast and
fish and fowl, and was master of the arts and
artifice that man must use when matching his
brain against the eluding wiles of the untamed
creatures of the wilderness.

Once only did his cunning fail him, once

79

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

only did Nature baffle him with her myster-
ious fabric of waterways and land lures. It
was when he was led to the mouth of the un-
known river, which has evaded discovery
through all the centuries, but which — so say
the Indians — still sings on its way through
some buried channel that leads from the lake
to the sea.

He had been sealing along the shores of
what is now known as Point Grey. His canoe
had gradually crept inland, skirting up the
coast to the mouth of False Creek. Here he
encountered a very king of seals, a colossal
creature that gladdened the hunter's eyes as
game worthy of his skill. For this particular
prize he would cast the elk-bone spear. It had
never failed his sire, his grandsire, his great-
grandsire. He knew it would not fail him
now. A long, pliable, cedar-fibre rope lay in
his canoe. Many expert fingers had woven
and plaited that rope, had beaten and oiled it
until it was soft and flexible as a serpent. This
he attached to the spearhead, and with deft,
unerring aim cast it at the king seal. The
weapon struck home. The gigantic creature
shuddered and, with a cry like a hurt child, it
plunged down into the sea. With the rapidity
and strength of a giant fish it scudded inland
with the rising tide, while Capilano paid out
the rope its entire length, and, as it stretched
taut, felt the canoe leap forward, propelled by
the mighty strength of the creature which
lashed the waters into whirlpools, as though
it was possessed with the power and pro-
perties of a whale.

Up the stretch of False Creek the man and
monster drove their course, where a century
hence great city bridges were to over-arch the
waters. They strove and struggled each for
the mastery, neither of them weakened, neither
of them faltered — the one dragging, the other
driving. In the end it was to be a matching
of brute and human wits, not forces. As they
neared the point where now Main Street
bridge flings its shadow across the waters, the
brute leaped high into the air, then plunged
headlong into the depths. The impact ripped
the rope from Capilano's hands. It rattled

80

DEER LAKE

across the gunwale. He stood staring at the
spot where it had disappeared — the brute had
been victorious. At low tide the Indian made
search. No trace of his game, of his precious
elk-bone spear, of his cedar-fibre rope, could
be found. With the loss of the latter he firmly
believed his luck as a hunter would be gone.
So he patrolled the mouth of False Creek for
many moons. His graceful, high-bowed
canoe rarely touched other waters, but the seal
king had disappeared. Often he thought long
strands of drifting sea grasses were his lost
cedar-fibre rope. With other spears, with
other cedar-fibres, with paddle blade and cun-
ning traps he dislodged the weeds from their
moorings, but they slipped their slimy lengths
through his eager hands: his best spear with
its attendant coil was gone.

The following year he was sealing again off
the coast of Point Grey, and one night after
sunset he observed the red reflection from the
west, which seemed to transfer itself to the
eastern skies. Far into the night dashes of
flaming scarlet pulsed far beyond the head of
False Creek. The color rose and fell like a
beckoning hand, and, Indian-like, he imme-
diately attached some portentous meaning to
the unusual sight. That it was some omen
he never doubted, so he paddled inland,
beached his canoe, and took the trail towards
the little group of lakes that crowd themselves
into the area that lies between the present
cities of Vancouver and New Westminster.
But long before he reached the shores of Deer
Lake he discovered that the beckoning hand
was in reality flame. The little body of water
was surrounded by forest fires. One avenue
alone stood open. It was a group of giant
trees that as yet the flames had not reached.
As he neared the point he saw a great moving
mass of living things leaving the lake and
hurrying northward through this one egress.
He stood, listening, intently watching with
alert eyes ; the swirr of myriads of little travel-
ling feet caught his quick ear — the moving
mass was an immense colony of beaver.
Thousands upon thousands of them. Scores
of baby beavers staggered along, following

81

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

their mothers ; scores of older beavers that had
felled trees and built dams through many sea-
sons ; a countless army of trekking fur beavers,
all under the generalship of a wise old leader,
who, as king of the colony, advanced some
few yards ahead of his battalions. Out of the
waters through the forest towards the country
to the north they journeyed. Wandering
hunters said they saw them cross Burrard
Inlet at the Second Narrows, heading inland
as they reached the farther shore. But where
that mighty army of royal little Canadians
set up their new colony, no man knows. Not
even the astuteness of the first Capilano ever
discovered their destination. Only one thing
was certain, Deer Lake knew them no more.

After their passing, the Indian retraced
their trail to the water's edge. In the red
glare of the encircling fires he saw what he
at first thought was some dead and dethroned
king beaver on the shore. A huge carcass lay
half in, half out, of the lake. Approaching it
he saw the wasted body of a giant seal. There
could never be two seals of that marvellous
size. His intuition now grasped the meaning of
the omen of the beckoning flame that had
called him from the far coasts of Point Grey.
He stooped above his dead conqueror and
found, embedded in its decaying flesh, the elk-
bone spear of his forefathers, and trailing
away at the water's rim was a long flexible
cedar-fibre rope.

As he extracted this treasured heirloom he
felt the "power," that men of magic possess,
creep up his sinewy arms. It entered his
heart, his blood, his brain. For a long time
he sat and chanted songs that only great
medicine men may sing, and, as the hours
drifted by, the heat of the forest fires subsided,
the flames diminished into smouldering black-
ness. At daybreak the forest fire was dead,
but its beckoning fingers had served their pur-
pose. The magic elk-bone spear had come
back to its own.

Until the day of his death the first Capilano
searched for the unknown river up which the
seal travelled from False Creek to Deer Lake,

82

DEER LAKE

but its channel is a secret that even Indian
eyes have not seen.

But although those of the Squamish tribe
tell and believe that the river still sings
through its hidden trail that leads from Deer
Lake to the sea, its course is as unknown, its
channel is as hopelessly lost as the brave little
army of beavers that a century ago mar-
shalled their forces and travelled up into the
great lone north.

A Royal Mohawk Chief

OW many Canadians are aware
that in Prince Arthur, Duke of
Connaught, and only surviving
son of Queen Victoria, who has
been appointed to represent King
George V in Canada, they undoubtedly
have what many wish for — one bearing an
ancient Canadian title as Governor-General of
all the Dominion? It would be difficult to
find a man more Canadian than any one of
the fifty chiefs who compose the parliament
of the ancient Iroquois nation, that royal race
of Redskins that has fought for the British
crown against all of the enemies thereof, ad-
hering to the British flag through the wars
against both the French and the colonists.

Arthur Duke of Connaught is the only liv-
ing white man who to-day has an undisputed
right to the title of "Chief of the Six Nations
Indians" (known collectively as the Iroquois).
He possesses the privilege of sitting in their
councils, of casting his vote on all matters
relative to the governing of the tribes, the
disposal of reservation lands, the appropria-
tion of both the principal and interest of the
more than half a million dollars these tribes
hold in Government bonds at Ottawa, accum-
ulated from the sales of their lands. In short,
were every drop of blood in his royal veins
red, instead of blue, he could not be more fully
qualified as an Indian chief than he now is,
not even were his title one of the fifty heredi-
tary ones whose illustrious names composed
the Iroquois confederacy before the Paleface
ever set foot in America.

It was on the occasion of his first visit to
Canada in 1869, when he was little more than
a boy, that Prince Arthur received, upon his
arrival at Quebec, an address of welcome
from his Royal mother's "Indian Children"
on the Grand River Reserve, in Brant county,
Ontario. In addition to this welcome they
had a request to make of him: would he

85

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

accept the title of Chief and visit their
reserve to give them the opportunity of con-
ferring it?

One of the great secrets of England's suc-
cess with savage races has been her consid-
eration, her respect, her almost reverence of
native customs, ceremonies and potentates.
She wishes her own customs and kings to be
honored, so she freely accords like honor to
her subjects, it matters not whether they be
white, black or red.

Young Arthur was delighted — royal lads
are pretty much like all other boys; the
unique ceremony would be a break in the end-
less round of state receptions, banquets and
addresses. So he accepted the Red Indians'
compliment, knowing well that it was the
loftiest honor those people could confer upon
a white man.

It was the morning of October first when the
royal train steamed into the little city of Brant-
ford, where carriages awaited to take the Prince
and his suite to the "Old Mohawk Church,"
in the vicinity of which the ceremony was
to take place. As the Prince's especial escort,
Onwanonsyshon, head chief of the Mohawks,
rode on a jet-black pony beside the carriage.
The chief was garmented in full native cos-
tume— a buckskin suit, beaded moccasins,
headband of owl's and eagle's feathers, and
ornaments hammered from coin silver that
literally covered his coat and leggings. About
his shoulders was flung a scarlet blanket,
consisting of the identical broadcloth from
which the British army tunics are made; this
he "hunched" with his shoulders from time to
time in true Indian fashion. As they drove
along, the Prince chatted boyishly with his
Mohawk escort, and once leaned forward to
pat the black pony on its shining neck and
speak admiringly of it. It was a warm
autumn day: the roads were dry and dusty,
and, after a mile or so, the boy-prince brought
from beneath the carriage seat a basket of
grapes. With his handkerchief he flicked the
dust from them, handed a bunch to the
chief and took one himself. An odd spectacle
to be traversing a country road: an English

86

A ROYAL MOHAWK CHIEF

prince and an Indian chief, riding amicably
side-by-side, enjoying a banquet of grapes
like two schoolboys.

On reaching the church, Arthur leapt
lightly to the green sward. For a moment
he stood, rigid, gazing before him at his future
brother-chiefs. His escort had given him a
faint idea of what he was to see, but he cer-
tainly never expected to be completely sur-
rounded by three hundred full-blooded Iro-
quois braves and warriors, such as now
encircled him on every side. Every Indian
was in war paint and feathers, some stripped
to the waist, their copper-colored skins bril-
liant with paints, dyes and "patterns"; all
carried tomahawks, scalping-knives, and bows
and arrows. Every red throat gave a tremen-
dous war-whoop as he alighted, which was
repeated again and again, as for that half
moment he stood silent, a slim boyish figure,
clad in light grey tweeds — a singular contrast
to the stalwarts in gorgeous costumes who
crowded about him. His young face paled to
ashy whiteness, then with true British grit
he extended his right hand and raised his
black "billy-cock" hat with his left. At the
same time he took one step forward. Then
the war cries broke forth anew, deafening,
savage, terrible cries, as one by one the entire
three hundred filed past, the Prince shaking
hands with each one, and removing his glove
to do so. This strange reception over,
Onwanonsyshon rode up, and, flinging his
scarlet blanket on the grass, dismounted,
and asked the Prince to stand on it.

Then stepped forward an ancient chief,
father of Onwanonsyshon, and Speaker of the
Council. He was old in inherited and personal
loyalty to the British crown. He had fought
under Sir Isaac Brock at Queenston Heights
in 1812, while yet a mere boy, and upon him
was laid the honor of making his Queen's son
a chief. Taking Arthur by the hand this ven-
erable warrior walked slowly to and fro across
the blanket, chanting as he went the strange,
wild formula of induction. From time to time
he was interrupted by loud expressions of
approval and assent from the vast throng of

8?

LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

encircling braves, but apart from this no
sound was heard but the low, weird monotone
of a ritual older than the white man's foot-
prints in North America.

It is necessary that a chief of each of the
three "clans" of the Mohawks shall assist in
this ceremony. The veteran chief, who sang
the formula, was of the Bear clan. His son,
Onwanonsyshon, was of the Wolf (the clan-
ship descends through the mother's side of
the family). Then one other chief, of the
Turtle clan, and in whose veins coursed the
blood of the historic Brant, now stepped to
the edge of the scarlet blanket. The chant
ended, these two young chiefs received the
Prince into the Mohawk tribe, conferring
upon him the name of "Kavakoudge," which
means "the sun flying from East to West
under the guidance of the Great Spirit."

Onwanonsyshon then took from his waist a
brilliant deep-red sash, heavily embroidered
with beads, porcupine quills and dyed moose
hair, placing it over the Prince's left shoulder
and knotting it beneath his right arm. The
ceremony was ended. The Constitution that
Hiawatha had founded centuries ago, a Consti-
tution wherein fifty chiefs, no more, no less,
should form the parliament of the "Six
Nations," had been shattered and broken, be-
cause this race of loyal red men desired to do
honor to a slender young boy-prince, who now
bears the fifty-first title of the Iroquois.

Many white men have received from these
same people honorary titles, but none has
been bestowed through the ancient ritual,
with the imperative members of the three
clans assisting, save that borne by Arthur of
Connaught.

After the ceremony the Prince entered the
church to autograph his name in the ancient
Bible, which, with a silver Holy Communion
service, a bell, two tablets inscribed with the
Ten Commandments, and a bronze British
coat-of-arms, had been presented to the
Mohawks by Queen Anne. He inscribed
"Arthur" just below the "Albert Edward,"
which, as Prince of Wales, the late king wrote
when he visited Canada in 1860.

88

A ROYAL MOHAWK CHIEF

When he returned to England, Chief Kava-
koudge sent his portrait, together with one of
Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, to be
placed in the Council House of the "Six Na-
tions," where they decorate the walls today.

As I write, I glance up to see, in a corner of
my room, a draping scarlet blanket, made
of British army broadcloth, for the chief who
rode the jet-black pony so long ago was the
writer's father. He was not here to wear it
when Arthur of Connaught again set foot on
Canadian shores.

Many of these facts I have culled from a
paper that lies on my desk; it is yellowing
with age, and bears the date, "Toronto,
October 2, 1869," and on the margin is written
in a clear, half-boyish hand, "Onwanonsyshon,
with kind regards from your brother-chief,
Arthur."

89

SATURDAY SUNSET PRESSES LIMITED
VANCOUVER. •. C

r\

PS Johnson, Etoily Pauline
84.69 Legends of Vancouver
03U
1911

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