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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 localized
to fit the understanding and the conditions 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 regarding the Flood. Some of the
traditions concerning 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, regarding
the Deluge. I do this to paint the color of contrast
in richer shades, for I am bound to admit 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, [Page
27] 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
medicine man, whose wisdom is not only the result of
years of study, but also heredity; consequently 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 foothold 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 incessant 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
[Page 28] doubled in size. The return
from the third trip found the turtle’s load again
doubled. So the building went on at double compound
increase, and the world grew its continents and its
islands 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
than 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 provide 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.
Woman like, I protested with
a thousand contradictions in my voice that he should
venture 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 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 immense 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 [Page
29] 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 window, 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 oncreeping
sea. The spot was the circling shore of Lake Beautiful,
up the North Arm. They held a Great Council 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 [Page
30] known. Not an hour, not a moment, but many
worked, while the toil-wearied ones slept, only to awake
to renewed toil. Meanwhile 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 immovable
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 guardians 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, [Page
31] 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 other’s 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. [Page 32]
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