Legends of Vancouver, E. Pauline Johnson [new books to read .txt] 📗

steamer, like a huge shuttle, wove in and out among the countless small islands; its long trailing scarf of grey smoke hung heavily along the uncertain shores, casting a shadow over the pearly waters of the Pacific, which swung 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 inviolable fortress of exclusiveness. Yet I knew that my Chinook salutation would be a drawbridge by which I might hope to cross the moat into his castle of silence.

Indian-like, he took his time before continuing 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 island? It rests on the edge of the water, like a grey gull.”

It took my unaccustomed eyes some moments 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 contradiction. “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 formation before us: the rock was a perfect archway, through which we could see the placid Pacific shimmering in the growing colours 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 impatience.

“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, “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 reverence. The women who are mothers⁠—o-ho!⁠—they are the important ones, we say. Warriors, 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 almost 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 questioned. Then, fortunately, he continued without 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 daughter of her own mother.

“But there was a great man, a very great man⁠—a medicine-man, skilful, powerful, influential, 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 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