| “HAVE
you ever sailed around Point Grey?” asked a young
Squamish tillicum of mine who often comes to see me,
to share a cup of tea and a taste of muck-a-muck, that
otherwise I should eat in solitude.
“No,”
I admitted, I had not had that pleasure, for I did not
know the uncertain waters of English Bay sufficiently
well to venture about its headlands in my frail canoe.
“Some day, perhaps next
summer, I’ll take you there in a sail-boat, and
show you the big rock at the 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 Fraser River language. The Point
was the dividing line between the grounds and waters
of the two tribes, so they agreed to make the name ‘Homolsom’
from the two languages.
I suggested more tea, and, as
he sipped it, he told me the legend that few of the
younger Indians know. That he believes the story himself
is beyond question, for many times he admitted having
tested the virtues of this rock, and it had never once
failed him. All people that have to do with water craft
are superstitious about some things, and I freely acknowledge
that times innumerable I have “whistled up”
a wind when dead calm threatened, or stuck a jack-knife
in the mast, and afterwards watched with great contentment
the idle sail fill, and the canoe pull out to a light
breeze. So, perhaps, I am prejudiced in favor of this
legend of Homolsom Rock, for it strikes a very responsive
chord in that portion of my heart that has always throbbed
for the sea.
“You know,” began
my young tillicum, “that only waters unspoiled
by human hands can be of any benefit. One gains no strength
[Page 43] by swimming in any waters
heated or boiled by fires that men build. To grow strong
and wise one must swim in the natural rivers, the mountain
torrents, the sea, just as the Sagalie Tyee made them.
Their virtues die when human beings try to improve them
by heating or distilling, or placing even tea in them,
and so—what makes Homolsom Rock so full of ‘good
medicine’ is that the waters that wash up about
it are straight from the sea, made by the hand of the
Great Tyee, and unspoiled by the hand of man.
“It was not always there,
that great rock, drawing its strength and its wonderful
power from the seas, for it, too, was once a Great Tyee,
who ruled a mighty tract of waters. He was god of all
the waters that wash the coast, of the Gulf of Georgia,
of Puget Sound, of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, of the
waters that beat against even the west coast of Vancouver
Island, and of all the channels that cut between the
Charlotte Islands. He was Tyee of the West Wind, and
his storms and tempests were so mighty that the Sagalie
Tyee Himself could not control the havoc that he created.
He warred upon all fishing craft, he demolished canoes
and sent men to graves in the sea. He uprooted forests
and drove the surf on shore heavy with wreckage of despoiled
trees and with beaten and bruised fish. He did all this
to reveal his powers, for he was cruel and hard of heart,
and he would laugh and defy the Sagalie Tyee, and looking
up to the sky he would call, ‘See how powerful
I am, how mighty, how strong; I am as great as you.’
“It was at this time that
the Sagalie Tyee in the persons of the Four Men came
in the great canoe up over the 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 [Page
44] I shall be Sagalie Tyee in their place
and ruler of all the world.’ So the god of the
West Wind blew forth his tempests. The waves arose mountain
high, the seas lashed and thundered along the shores.
The roar of his mighty breath could be heard wrenching
giant limbs from the forest trees, whistling down the
canyons and dealing death and destruction for leagues
and leagues along the coast. But the canoe containing
the Four Men rode upright through all the heights and
hollows of the seething ocean. 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 stronger than death
itself. As the bow touched the land the Four Men arose
and commanded the West Wind to cease his war cry, and,
mighty though he had been, his voice trembled and sobbed
itself into a gentle breeze, then fell to a whispering
note, then faded into exquisite silence.
“‘Oh, you evil one
with the unkind heart,’ cried the Four Men, ‘you
have been too great a god for even the Sagalie Tyee
to obliterate you forever, but you shall live on, live
now to serve, not to hinder mankind. You shall turn
into stone where you now stand, and you shall rise only
as men wish you to. Your life from this day shall be
for the good of man, for when the fisherman’s
sails are idle and his lodge is leagues away you shall
fill those [Page 45] sails and blow
his craft free, in whatever direction he desires. You
shall stand where you are through all the thousands
upon thousands of years to come, and he who touches
you with his paddle-blade shall have his desire of a
breeze to carry him home.’”
My young tillicum had finished
his tradition, and his great solemn eyes regarded me
half-wistfully.
“I wish you could see
Homolsom Rock,” he said. “For that is he
who was once the Tyee of the West Wind.”
“Were you ever becalmed
around Point Grey?” I asked irrelevantly.
“Often,” he replied.
“But I paddle up to the rock and touch it with
the tip of my paddle-blade, and no matter which way
I want to go the wind will blow free for me, if I wait
a little while.”
“I suppose your people
all do this?” I replied.
“Yes, all of them,”
he answered. “They have done it for hundreds of
years. You see the power in it is just as great now
as at first, for the rock feeds every day on the unspoiled
sea that the Sagalie Tyee made.” [Page
46]
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