Post by blackcrowheart on Jun 13, 2007 14:51:54 GMT -5
Deadman's Island - Chinook
It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight gray-Beneath the drowse of an ending day
And the curve of a golden moon.
It is dark in the Lost Lagoon,
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and -- you,
And gone is the golden moon.
O! lure of the Lost Lagoon-I dream tonight that my paddle blurs The purple
shade where the seaweed stirs-I hear the call of the singing firs In the
hush of the golden moon.
FOR many minutes we stood silently, leaning on the western rail of the
bridge as we watched the sun set across that beautiful little basin of water
known as Coal Harbor. I have always resented that jarring, unattractive
name, for years ago, when I first plied paddle across the gunwale of a light
little canoe that idled above its margin, I named the sheltered little cove
the Lost Lagoon. This was just to please my own fancy, for as that perfect
summer month drifted on, the ever-restless tides left the harbor devoid of
water at my favorite canoeing hour, and my pet idling place was lost for
many days-hence my fancy to call it the Lost Lagoon. But the chief,
Indian-like, immediately adopted the name, at least when he spoke of the
place to me, and as we watched the sun slip behind the rim of firs, he
expressed the wish that his dugout were here instead of lying beached at the
farther side of the park.
"If canoe was here, you and I we paddle close to shores all 'round your Lost
Lagoon: we make track just like half moon. Then we paddle under this bridge,
and go channel between Deadman's Island and park. Then 'round where cannon
speak time at nine o'clock. Then 'cross Inlet to Indian side of Narrows."
I turned to look eastward, following in fancy the course he had sketched;
the waters were still as the footstep of the oncoming twilight, and,
floating in a pool of soft purple, Deadman's Island rested like a large
circle of candle moss. "Have you ever been on it?" he asked as he caught my
gaze centering on the irregular outline of the island pines.
"I have prowled the length and depth of it," I told him. "Climbed over every
rock on its shores, crept under every tangled growth of its interior,
explored its overgrown trails, and more than once nearly got lost in its
very heart." "Yes," he half laughed, "it pretty wild; not much good for
anything." "People seem to think it valuable," I said. "There is a lot of
litigation -- of fighting going on now about it."
"Oh! that the way always," he said as though speaking of a long accepted
fact. "Always fight over that place. Hundreds of years ago they fight about
it; Indian people; they say hundreds of years to come everybody will still
fight -- never be settled what that place is, who it belong to, who has
right to it. No, never settle. Deadman's Island always mean fight for
someone."
"So the Indians fought amongst themselves about it?" I remarked, seemingly
without guile, although my ears tingled for the legend I knew was coming.
"Fought like lynx at close quarters," he answered. "Fought, killed each
other, until the island ran with blood redder than that sunset, and the sea
water about it was stained flame color -- it was then, my people say, that
the scarlet fire-flower was first seen growing along this coast."
"It is a beautiful color -- the fire-flower," I said.
"It should be fine color, for it was born and grew from the hearts of fine
tribes-people-very fine people," he emphasized.
We crossed to the eastern rail of the bridge, and stood watching the deep
shadows that gathered slowly and silently about the island; I have seldom
looked upon anything more peaceful.
The chief sighed. "We have no such men now, no fighters like those men, no
hearts, no courage like theirs. But I tell you the story; you understand it
then. Now all peace; tonight all good Tillicum's; even dead man's spirit
does not fight now, but long time after it happen those spirits fought."
"And the legend?" I ventured.
"Oh! yes," he replied, as if suddenly returning to the present from out a
far country in the realm of time. "Indian people, they call it the 'Legend
of the Island of Dead Men.'
"There was war everywhere. Fierce tribes from the northern coast, savage
tribes from the south all met here and battled and raided, burned and
captured, tortured and killed their enemies. The forests smoked with camp
fires, the Narrows were choked with war canoes, and the Sagalie Tyee -- He
who is a man of peace -- turned His face away from His Indian children.
About this island there was dispute and contention. The medicine men from
the North claimed it as their chanting ground. The medicine men from the
South laid equal claim to it. Each wanted it as the stronghold of their
witchcraft, their magic. Great bands of these medicine men met on the small
space, using every sorcery in their power to drive their opponents away. The
witch doctors of the North made their camp on the northern rim of the
island; those from the South settled along the southern edge, looking
towards what is now the great city of Vancouver. Both factions danced,
chanted, burned their magic powders, built their magic fires, beat their
magic rattles, but neither would give way, yet neither conquered. About
them, on the waters, on the mainland's, raged the warfare of their
respective tribes -- the Sagalie Tyee had forgotten His Indian children.
"After many months, the warriors on both sides weakened. They said the
incantations of the rival medicine men were bewitching them, were making
their hearts like children's, and their arms nerveless as women's. So friend
and foe arose as one man and drove the medicine men from the island, hounded
them down the Inlet, herded them through the Narrows and banished them out
to sea, where they took refuge on one of the outer islands of the gulf. Then
the tribes once more fell upon each other in battle.
"The warrior blood of the North will always conquer. They are the stronger,
bolder, more alert, more keen. The snows and the ice of their country make
swifter pulse than the sleepy suns of the South can awake in a man; their
muscles are of sterner stuff, their endurance greater. Yes, the northern
tribes will always be victors.* But the craft and the strategy of the
southern tribes are hard things to battle against. While those of the North
followed the medicine men farther out to sea to make sure of their
banishment, those from the South returned under cover of night and seized
the women and children and the old, enfeebled men in their enemy's camp,
transported them all to the Island of Dead Men, and there held them as
captives. Their war canoes circled the island like a fortification, through
which drifted the sobs of the imprisoned women, the mutterings of the aged
men, the wail of little children.
"Again and again the men of the North assailed that circle of canoes, and
again and again were repulsed. The air was thick with poisoned arrows, the
water stained with blood. But day by day the circle of southern canoes grew
thinner and thinner; the northern arrows were telling and truer of aim.
Canoes drifted everywhere, empty, or worse still, manned only by dead men.
The pick of the southern warriors had already fallen, when their greatest
Tyee mounted a large rock on the eastern shore. Brave and unmindful of a
thousand weapons aimed at his heart, he uplifted his hand, palm outward --
the signal for conference.
Instantly every northern arrow was lowered, and every northern ear listened
for his words.
"'Oh! men of the upper coast,' he said, 'you are more numerous than we are;
your tribe is larger; your endurance greater. We are growing hungry, we are
growing less in numbers. Our captives -- your women and children and old
men -- have lessened, too, our stores of food. If you refuse our terms we
will yet fight to the finish. Tomorrow we will kill all our captives before
your eyes, for we can feed them no longer, or you can have your wives, your
mothers, your fathers, your children, by giving us for each and every one of
them one of your best and bravest young warriors, who will consent to suffer
death in their stead. Speak! You have your choice.'
"In the northern canoes scores and scores of young warriors leapt to their
feet. The air was filled with glad cries, with exultant shouts. The whole
world seemed to ring with the voices of those young men who called loudly,
with glorious courage:
"'Take me, but give me back my old father.'
"'Take me, but spare to my tribe my little sister.'
"'Take me, but release my wife and boy baby.'
"So the compact was made. Two hundred heroic, magnificent young men paddled
up to the island, broke through the fortifying circle of canoes and stepped
ashore. They flaunted their eagle plumes with the spirit and boldness of
young gods. Their shoulders were erect, their step was firm, their hearts
strong. Into their canoes they crowded the two hundred captives. Once more
their women sobbed, their old men muttered, their children wailed, but those
young copper-colored gods never flinched, never faltered. Their weak and
their feeble were saved. What mattered to them such a little thing as death?
"The released captives were quickly surrounded by their own people, but the
flower of their splendid nation was in the hands of their enemies, those
valorous young men who thought so little of life that they willingly, gladly
laid it down to serve and to save those they loved and cared for. Amongst
them were war-tried warriors who had fought fifty battles, and boys not yet
full grown, who were drawing a bow string for the first time, but their
hearts, their courage, their self-sacrifice were as one.
"Out before a long file of southern warriors they stood. Their chins
uplifted, their eyes defiant, their breasts bared. Each leaned forward and
laid his weapons at his feet, then stood erect, with empty hands, and
laughed forth their challenge to death. A thousand arrows ripped the air,
two hundred gallant northern throats flung forth a death cry exultant,
triumphant as conquering kings -- then two hundred fearless northern hearts
ceased to beat.
"But in the morning the southern tribes found the spot where they fell
peopled with flaming fire-flowers. Dread terror seized upon them. They
abandoned the island, and when night again shrouded them they manned their
canoes and noiselessly slipped through the Narrows, turned their bows
southward and this coast line knew them no more."
"What glorious men," I half whispered as the chief concluded the strange
legend.
"Yes, men!" he echoed. "The white people call it Deadman's Island. That is
their way; but we of the Squamish call it The Island of Dead Men."
The clustering pines and the outlines of the island's margin were now dusky
and indistinct. Peace, peace lay over the waters, and the purple of the
summer twilight had turned to gray, but I knew that in the depths of the
undergrowth on Deadman's Island there blossomed a flower of flaming beauty;
its colors were veiled in the coming nightfall, but somewhere down in the
sanctuary of its petals pulsed the heart's blood of many and valiant men.
Chinook Texts by Franz Boas. [1894] (U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology
Bulletin, no 20.)
It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight gray-Beneath the drowse of an ending day
And the curve of a golden moon.
It is dark in the Lost Lagoon,
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and -- you,
And gone is the golden moon.
O! lure of the Lost Lagoon-I dream tonight that my paddle blurs The purple
shade where the seaweed stirs-I hear the call of the singing firs In the
hush of the golden moon.
FOR many minutes we stood silently, leaning on the western rail of the
bridge as we watched the sun set across that beautiful little basin of water
known as Coal Harbor. I have always resented that jarring, unattractive
name, for years ago, when I first plied paddle across the gunwale of a light
little canoe that idled above its margin, I named the sheltered little cove
the Lost Lagoon. This was just to please my own fancy, for as that perfect
summer month drifted on, the ever-restless tides left the harbor devoid of
water at my favorite canoeing hour, and my pet idling place was lost for
many days-hence my fancy to call it the Lost Lagoon. But the chief,
Indian-like, immediately adopted the name, at least when he spoke of the
place to me, and as we watched the sun slip behind the rim of firs, he
expressed the wish that his dugout were here instead of lying beached at the
farther side of the park.
"If canoe was here, you and I we paddle close to shores all 'round your Lost
Lagoon: we make track just like half moon. Then we paddle under this bridge,
and go channel between Deadman's Island and park. Then 'round where cannon
speak time at nine o'clock. Then 'cross Inlet to Indian side of Narrows."
I turned to look eastward, following in fancy the course he had sketched;
the waters were still as the footstep of the oncoming twilight, and,
floating in a pool of soft purple, Deadman's Island rested like a large
circle of candle moss. "Have you ever been on it?" he asked as he caught my
gaze centering on the irregular outline of the island pines.
"I have prowled the length and depth of it," I told him. "Climbed over every
rock on its shores, crept under every tangled growth of its interior,
explored its overgrown trails, and more than once nearly got lost in its
very heart." "Yes," he half laughed, "it pretty wild; not much good for
anything." "People seem to think it valuable," I said. "There is a lot of
litigation -- of fighting going on now about it."
"Oh! that the way always," he said as though speaking of a long accepted
fact. "Always fight over that place. Hundreds of years ago they fight about
it; Indian people; they say hundreds of years to come everybody will still
fight -- never be settled what that place is, who it belong to, who has
right to it. No, never settle. Deadman's Island always mean fight for
someone."
"So the Indians fought amongst themselves about it?" I remarked, seemingly
without guile, although my ears tingled for the legend I knew was coming.
"Fought like lynx at close quarters," he answered. "Fought, killed each
other, until the island ran with blood redder than that sunset, and the sea
water about it was stained flame color -- it was then, my people say, that
the scarlet fire-flower was first seen growing along this coast."
"It is a beautiful color -- the fire-flower," I said.
"It should be fine color, for it was born and grew from the hearts of fine
tribes-people-very fine people," he emphasized.
We crossed to the eastern rail of the bridge, and stood watching the deep
shadows that gathered slowly and silently about the island; I have seldom
looked upon anything more peaceful.
The chief sighed. "We have no such men now, no fighters like those men, no
hearts, no courage like theirs. But I tell you the story; you understand it
then. Now all peace; tonight all good Tillicum's; even dead man's spirit
does not fight now, but long time after it happen those spirits fought."
"And the legend?" I ventured.
"Oh! yes," he replied, as if suddenly returning to the present from out a
far country in the realm of time. "Indian people, they call it the 'Legend
of the Island of Dead Men.'
"There was war everywhere. Fierce tribes from the northern coast, savage
tribes from the south all met here and battled and raided, burned and
captured, tortured and killed their enemies. The forests smoked with camp
fires, the Narrows were choked with war canoes, and the Sagalie Tyee -- He
who is a man of peace -- turned His face away from His Indian children.
About this island there was dispute and contention. The medicine men from
the North claimed it as their chanting ground. The medicine men from the
South laid equal claim to it. Each wanted it as the stronghold of their
witchcraft, their magic. Great bands of these medicine men met on the small
space, using every sorcery in their power to drive their opponents away. The
witch doctors of the North made their camp on the northern rim of the
island; those from the South settled along the southern edge, looking
towards what is now the great city of Vancouver. Both factions danced,
chanted, burned their magic powders, built their magic fires, beat their
magic rattles, but neither would give way, yet neither conquered. About
them, on the waters, on the mainland's, raged the warfare of their
respective tribes -- the Sagalie Tyee had forgotten His Indian children.
"After many months, the warriors on both sides weakened. They said the
incantations of the rival medicine men were bewitching them, were making
their hearts like children's, and their arms nerveless as women's. So friend
and foe arose as one man and drove the medicine men from the island, hounded
them down the Inlet, herded them through the Narrows and banished them out
to sea, where they took refuge on one of the outer islands of the gulf. Then
the tribes once more fell upon each other in battle.
"The warrior blood of the North will always conquer. They are the stronger,
bolder, more alert, more keen. The snows and the ice of their country make
swifter pulse than the sleepy suns of the South can awake in a man; their
muscles are of sterner stuff, their endurance greater. Yes, the northern
tribes will always be victors.* But the craft and the strategy of the
southern tribes are hard things to battle against. While those of the North
followed the medicine men farther out to sea to make sure of their
banishment, those from the South returned under cover of night and seized
the women and children and the old, enfeebled men in their enemy's camp,
transported them all to the Island of Dead Men, and there held them as
captives. Their war canoes circled the island like a fortification, through
which drifted the sobs of the imprisoned women, the mutterings of the aged
men, the wail of little children.
"Again and again the men of the North assailed that circle of canoes, and
again and again were repulsed. The air was thick with poisoned arrows, the
water stained with blood. But day by day the circle of southern canoes grew
thinner and thinner; the northern arrows were telling and truer of aim.
Canoes drifted everywhere, empty, or worse still, manned only by dead men.
The pick of the southern warriors had already fallen, when their greatest
Tyee mounted a large rock on the eastern shore. Brave and unmindful of a
thousand weapons aimed at his heart, he uplifted his hand, palm outward --
the signal for conference.
Instantly every northern arrow was lowered, and every northern ear listened
for his words.
"'Oh! men of the upper coast,' he said, 'you are more numerous than we are;
your tribe is larger; your endurance greater. We are growing hungry, we are
growing less in numbers. Our captives -- your women and children and old
men -- have lessened, too, our stores of food. If you refuse our terms we
will yet fight to the finish. Tomorrow we will kill all our captives before
your eyes, for we can feed them no longer, or you can have your wives, your
mothers, your fathers, your children, by giving us for each and every one of
them one of your best and bravest young warriors, who will consent to suffer
death in their stead. Speak! You have your choice.'
"In the northern canoes scores and scores of young warriors leapt to their
feet. The air was filled with glad cries, with exultant shouts. The whole
world seemed to ring with the voices of those young men who called loudly,
with glorious courage:
"'Take me, but give me back my old father.'
"'Take me, but spare to my tribe my little sister.'
"'Take me, but release my wife and boy baby.'
"So the compact was made. Two hundred heroic, magnificent young men paddled
up to the island, broke through the fortifying circle of canoes and stepped
ashore. They flaunted their eagle plumes with the spirit and boldness of
young gods. Their shoulders were erect, their step was firm, their hearts
strong. Into their canoes they crowded the two hundred captives. Once more
their women sobbed, their old men muttered, their children wailed, but those
young copper-colored gods never flinched, never faltered. Their weak and
their feeble were saved. What mattered to them such a little thing as death?
"The released captives were quickly surrounded by their own people, but the
flower of their splendid nation was in the hands of their enemies, those
valorous young men who thought so little of life that they willingly, gladly
laid it down to serve and to save those they loved and cared for. Amongst
them were war-tried warriors who had fought fifty battles, and boys not yet
full grown, who were drawing a bow string for the first time, but their
hearts, their courage, their self-sacrifice were as one.
"Out before a long file of southern warriors they stood. Their chins
uplifted, their eyes defiant, their breasts bared. Each leaned forward and
laid his weapons at his feet, then stood erect, with empty hands, and
laughed forth their challenge to death. A thousand arrows ripped the air,
two hundred gallant northern throats flung forth a death cry exultant,
triumphant as conquering kings -- then two hundred fearless northern hearts
ceased to beat.
"But in the morning the southern tribes found the spot where they fell
peopled with flaming fire-flowers. Dread terror seized upon them. They
abandoned the island, and when night again shrouded them they manned their
canoes and noiselessly slipped through the Narrows, turned their bows
southward and this coast line knew them no more."
"What glorious men," I half whispered as the chief concluded the strange
legend.
"Yes, men!" he echoed. "The white people call it Deadman's Island. That is
their way; but we of the Squamish call it The Island of Dead Men."
The clustering pines and the outlines of the island's margin were now dusky
and indistinct. Peace, peace lay over the waters, and the purple of the
summer twilight had turned to gray, but I knew that in the depths of the
undergrowth on Deadman's Island there blossomed a flower of flaming beauty;
its colors were veiled in the coming nightfall, but somewhere down in the
sanctuary of its petals pulsed the heart's blood of many and valiant men.
Chinook Texts by Franz Boas. [1894] (U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology
Bulletin, no 20.)