Legends of Vancouver by E. Pauline Johnson (the best books of all time .txt) 📕

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 repeopled?

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.

Womanlike, 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 at 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 greatcoat, I chatted on about the deluge of rain, and he 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 seawater, 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 on-creeping 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 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 tribes, 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 tribes, 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