| JOURNEYING
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 undergrowth
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 perpetually 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 summers 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 reveries, he turned and asked me if I were
superstitious. 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, however, 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: [Page 13]
“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 a while, then with
evident desire to learn how all races regarded this
occurrence, 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 disaster
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 [Page 14] the stream disappeared
in its hurrying journey 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 agonized 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 commanding,
his shoulders erect and kindly. His was a personality
and an inspiration that no one dared dispute, and his
judgment was accepted 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 [Page 15] length of days that
he must spend alone fighting 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 mountain wilderness remain there ten days—alone,
alone.’
“The masterful voice ceased,
the tribe wailed their assent, the father arose speechless,
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 banished 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 disaster 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 [Page 16] Squamish chief
stripped the bark from the firs and cedars, building
for himself a lodge beside 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
unerring arrows; the fleet-footed deer never returned
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 waiting 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 summit the Thunder Bird perched,
its gigantic [Page 17] 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 pinions 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 journey 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 banishment 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. [Page 18]
“‘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
laughing 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 each 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. [Page 19]
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