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

was during the first gold craze, and many of our young men went as guides to the whites far up the Fraser. When they returned they brought these tales of greed and murder back with them, and our old people and our women shook their heads and said evil would come of it. But all our young men, except one, returned as they went⁠—kind to the poor, kind to those who were foodless, sharing whatever they had with their tillicums. But one, by name Shak-shak,5 came back with hoards of gold nuggets, chickimin,6 everything; he was rich like the white men, and, like them, he kept it. He would count his chickimin, count his nuggets, gloat over them, toss them in his palms. He rested his head on them as he slept, he packed them about with him through the day. He loved them better than food, better than his tillicums, better than his life. The entire tribe arose. They said Shak-shak had the disease of greed; that to cure it he must give a great potlatch, divide his riches with the poorer ones, share them with the old, the sick, the foodless. But he jeered and laughed and told them No, and went on loving and gloating over his gold.

“Then the Sagalie Tyee spoke out of the sky and said, ‘Shak-shak, you have made of yourself a loathsome thing; you will not listen to the cry of the hungry, to the call of the old and sick; you will not share your possessions; you have made of yourself an outcast from your tribe and disobeyed the ancient laws of your people. Now I will make of you a thing loathed and hated by all men, both white and red. You will have two heads, for your greed has two mouths to bite. One bites the poor, and one bites your own evil heart; and the fangs in these mouths are poison⁠—poison that kills the hungry, and poison that kills your own manhood. Your evil heart will beat in the very centre of your foul body, and he that pierces it will kill the disease of greed forever from amongst his people.’ And when the sun arose above the North Arm the next morning the tribespeople saw a gigantic sea-serpent stretched across the surface of the waters. One hideous head rested on the bluffs at Brockton Point, the other rested on a group of rocks just below Mission, at the western edge of North Vancouver. If you care to go there some day I will show you the hollow in one great stone where that head lay. The tribespeople were stunned with horror. They loathed the creature, they hated it, they feared it. Day after day it lay there, its monstrous heads lifted out of the waters, its mile-long body blocking all entrance from the Narrows, all outlet from the North Arm. The chiefs made council, the medicine-men danced and chanted, but the salt-chuck oluk never moved. It could not move, for it was the hated totem of what now rules the white man’s world⁠—greed and love of chickimin. No one can ever move the love of chickimin from the white man’s heart, no one can ever make him divide all with the poor. But after the chiefs and medicine-men had done all in their power, and still the salt-chuck oluk lay across the waters, a handsome boy of sixteen approached them and reminded them of the words of the Sagalie Tyee, ‘that he that pierced the monster’s heart would kill the disease of greed forever amongst his people.’

“ ‘Let me try to find this evil heart, oh! great men of my tribe,’ he cried. ‘Let me war upon this creature; let me try to rid my people of this pestilence.’

“The boy was brave and very beautiful. His tribespeople called him the Tenas Tyee7 and they loved him. Of all his wealth of fish and furs, of game and hykwa8 he gave to the boys who had none; he hunted food for the old people; he tanned skins and furs for those whose feet were feeble, whose eyes were fading, whose blood ran thin with age.

“ ‘Let him go!’ cried the tribespeople. ‘This unclean monster can only be overcome by cleanliness, this creature of greed can only be overthrown by generosity. Let him go!’ The chiefs and the medicine-men listened, then consented. ‘Go,’ they commanded, ‘and fight this thing with your strongest weapons⁠—cleanliness and generosity.’

“The Tenas Tyee turned to his mother. ‘I shall be gone four days,’ he told her, ‘and I shall swim all that time. I have tried all my life to be generous, but the people say I must be clean also to fight this unclean thing. While I am gone put fresh furs on my bed every day, even if I am not here to lie on them; if I know my bed, my body and my heart are all clean I can overcome this serpent.’

“ ‘Your bed shall have fresh furs every morning,’ his mother said simply.

“The Tenas Tyee then stripped himself, and, with no clothing save a buckskin belt into which he thrust his hunting-knife, he flung his lithe young body into the sea. But at the end of four days he did not return. Sometimes his people could see him swimming far out in mid-channel, endeavouring to find the exact centre of the serpent, where lay its evil, selfish heart; but on the fifth morning they saw him rise out of the sea, climb to the summit of Brockton Point, and greet the rising sun with outstretched arms. Weeks and months went by, still the Tenas Tyee would swim daily searching for that heart of greed; and each morning the sunrise glinted on his slender young copper-coloured body as he stood with outstretched arms at the