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

the sanctuary of its petals pulsed the heart’s blood of many and valiant men. A Squamish Legend of Napoleon

Holding an important place among the majority of curious tales held in veneration by the coast tribes are those of the sea-serpent. The monster appears and reappears with almost monotonous frequency in connection with history, traditions, legends and superstitions; but perhaps the most wonderful part it ever played was in the great drama that held the stage of Europe, and incidentally all the world during the stormy days of the first Napoleon.

Throughout Canada I have never failed to find an amazing knowledge of Napoleon Bonaparte amongst the very old and “uncivilized” Indians. Perhaps they may be unfamiliar with every other historical character from Adam down, but they will all tell you they have heard of the “Great French Fighter,” as they call the wonderful little Corsican.

Whether this knowledge was obtained through the fact that our earliest settlers and pioneers were French, or whether Napoleon’s almost magical fighting career attracted the Indian mind to the exclusion of lesser warriors, I have never yet decided. But the fact remains that the Indians of our generation are not as familiar with Bonaparte’s name as were their fathers and grandfathers, so either the predominance of English-speaking settlers or the thinning of their ancient war-loving blood by modern civilization and peaceful times must, one or the other, account for the younger Indian’s ignorance of the Emperor of the French.

In telling me the legend of “The Lost Talisman,” my good tillicum, the late Chief Capilano, began the story with the almost amazing question, Had I ever heard of Napoleon Bonaparte? It was some moments before I just caught the name, for his English, always quaint and beautiful, was at times a little halting; but when he said, by way of explanation, “You know big fighter, Frenchman. The English they beat him in big battle,” I grasped immediately of whom he spoke.

“What do you know of him?” I asked.

His voice lowered, almost as if he spoke a state secret. “I know how it is that English they beat him.”

I have read many historians on this event, but to hear the Squamish version was a novel and absorbing thing. “Yes?” I said⁠—my usual “leading” word to lure him into channels of tradition.

“Yes,” he affirmed. Then, still in a half-whisper, he proceeded to tell me that it all happened through the agency of a single joint from the vertebra of a sea-serpent.

In telling me the story of Brockton Point and the valiant boy who killed the monster, he dwelt lightly on the fact that all people who approach the vicinity of the creature are palsied, both mentally and physically⁠—bewitched, in fact⁠—so that their bones become disjointed and their brains incapable; but today he elaborated upon this peculiarity until I harked back to the boy of Brockton Point and asked how it was that his body and brain escaped this affliction.

“He was all good, and had no greed,” he replied. “He was proof against all bad things.”

I nodded understandingly, and he proceeded to tell me that all successful Indian fighters and warriors carried somewhere about their person a joint of a sea-serpent’s vertebra; that the medicine-men threw “the power” about them so that they were not personally affected by this little “charm,” but that immediately they approached an enemy the “charm” worked disaster, and victory was assured to the fortunate possessor of the talisman. There was one particularly effective joint that had been treasured and carried by the warriors of a great Squamish family for a century. These warriors had conquered every foe they encountered, until the talisman had become so renowned that the totem-pole of their entire “clan” was remodelled, and the new one crested by the figure of a single joint of a sea-serpent’s vertebra.

About this time stories of Napoleon’s first great achievements drifted across the seas; not across the land⁠—and just here may be a clue to buried Coast-Indian history, which those who are cleverer at research than I can puzzle over. The chief was most emphatic about the source of Indian knowledge of Napoleon.

“I suppose you heard of him from Quebec, through, perhaps, some of the French priests,” I remarked.

“No, no,” he contradicted hurriedly. “Not from East; we hear it from over the Pacific from the place they call Russia.” But who conveyed the news or by what means it came he could not further enlighten me. But a strange thing happened to the Squamish family about this time. There was a large blood connection, but the only male member living was a very old warrior, the hero of many battles and the possessor of the talisman. On his deathbed his women of three generations gathered about him; his wife, his sisters, his daughters, his granddaughters, but not one man, nor yet a boy of his own blood, stood by to speed his departing warrior spirit to the land of peace and plenty.

“The charm cannot rest in the hands of women,” he murmured almost with his last breath. “Women may not war and fight other nations or other tribes; women are for the peaceful lodge and for the leading of little children. They are for holding baby hands, teaching baby feet to walk. No, the charm cannot rest with you, women. I have no brother, no cousin, no son, no grandson, and the charm must not go to a lesser warrior than I. None of our tribe, nor of any tribe on the coast, ever conquered me. The charm must go to one as unconquerable as I have been. When I am dead send it across the great salt chuck, to the victorious ‘Frenchman’; they call him Napoleon Bonaparte.” They were his last words.

The older women wished to bury the charm with him, but the younger women, inspired with the spirit of their generation, were determined to send it overseas. “In the grave it will be dead,” they argued. “Let it still