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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 superstitions; 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 Bonaparte 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 warriors, 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 Talisman, my good tillicum, the late Chief
Capilano, began the story with the almost amazing question,
Had I ever heard of Napoleon Bonaparte? It was some
moments before I just caught the name, for his English,
always [Page 67] quaint and beautiful,
was at times a little halting; but when he said by way
of explanation, “You know big fighter, Frenchman.
The English 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—bewitched, in fact—so that
their bones become disjointed and their brains incapable;
but today 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 replied. “He was proof
against all bad things.”
I nodded understandingly, and
he proceeded 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 immediately 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 encountered,
until the talisman had become so renowned that the totem
pole of their entire “clan” was remodelled,
and the new one [Page 68] 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 talisman. 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 ‘Frenchman’; 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 [Page
69] 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
greatness 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
Hudson’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, urging 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 promised 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
contortions 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 [Page 70] Frenchmen
stood erect and strong and vital—the
Squamish talisman had already overcome 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 movements 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 beautifully 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 historical 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 telling me the oddest mixture of history and
superstition, 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 [Page 71]
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.” [Page
72]
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