CHAPTER VIII
THE COAST INDIANS AND THEIR WAYS
Two days later the party was once more in Victoria. The sail from NewWestminster to Victoria had been very delightful. After the swift rundown the Fraser River, between high walls of evergreen with theirbackgrounds of distant gray mountains, the boat passed out on thebroad waters of the Gulf of Georgia. In every direction, save to thewest, the view was of mountains backed by mountains; and above andbeyond them all was Mount Baker, raising its sharp white cone towardthe heavens. To the south were the deep waters of the Gulf, dancingand sparkling in the sunlight, and dotted by thousands of islands.Beyond, and over them all, was seen the mainland of the United States,with ranges of snow-clad mountains, above and beyond which one wouldsometimes catch a glimpse of majestic Ranier. After the mouth of theriver had been left, Fannin called his companions' attention to aninteresting point.
"I want you to watch the water from now on, and notice before long whenthe boat leaves the current of the river and enters the waters of theGulf. You see the river is constantly carrying down a lot of mud andsilt which must be mighty fine; for, instead of sinking, it runs awayout here into the Gulf before it disappears; and before long you willsee a change in the color of the water where we leave the muddy currentof the Fraser and pass into the clean waters of the Gulf."
Jack and Hugh were on the lookout for this, and finally the point wasreached where the turbid and clear waters met.
Hugh said: "Why, that's just the way the two streams look where theMissouri runs into the Mississippi. The Mississippi is black and clear;and the Missouri, of course, is yellow and muddy. You can see the lineplain always there."
"Yes," said Jack, "and I have heard father talk about two streams inFrance, I think, where you see the same thing. One of them is theRhone, but the name of the other I have forgotten."
A little later the steamer plunged in among the islands. The channelfollowed was difficult on account of the strong tides that wereconstantly rushing backward and forward through the narrow passage.Careful piloting is needed here, for at certain stages of the tide itis difficult even for a strong steamer to stem it; and if the vessel isnot kept straight she may be whirled around, and that may be the lastof her. The sail was a succession of surprises. On many of the islandswere settlers; but with, often, only a house or two in sight. Passingaround a point, Indians could be seen fishing in the troubled waters orcamping upon the shore. There were birds in great multitudes; and not afew sailing craft were seen passing here and there on errands of theirown.
After their two or three days of hard physical effort and life in camp,the dinner at the Driard House tasted very good. The next morning theystarted out to study the matter of transportation to the North.
Mr. MacTavish and Fannin both said that if a small steamer or launchcould be hired it would enable them to go a great deal farther, andsee things much more easily, at only a slight added expense. Somedays, therefore, were spent in searching the wharves of the town andin excursions to other places in trying to secure what they wanted,but without success. There were several small launches, exactlysuited to their purposes, but all these had been engaged for the salmonfishing on the Fraser. The run of fish was likely to begin in a shorttime. That year it was expected to be very heavy, and all the cannerieswere making great preparations for the catch. There seemed no way toget steam transportation. Failing this, the next best thing was to takea canoe and proceed by that slow means of conveyance as far north astime would permit. Fannin, whose experience made him a good judge ofwhat should be done, recommended that they take the steamer to Nanaimo,distant from Victoria about seventy miles. Near that town there wasan Indian village, where canoes and help could be had, and from wherea start could be made. When this plan had been discussed and agreedon, it remained only to get together a mess kit, hire a cook, and takethe steamer. A whole day was spent in this work. The cook engagedwas a Virginian, known as "Arizona Charley," a man whose wanderings,including almost all of the United States, had at last brought him toVictoria. He proved an excellent man, faithful and willing; and--unlikemost cooks--unusually good-natured. As soon as he was engaged the partytransported their blankets, arms, and mess kit to the wharf; and earlythe next morning they were ploughing the Gulf toward the north.
HERE THEY WEAR WHITE MEN'S CLOTHES, INCLUDING SHOES AND HATS--_Page 93_]
On this voyage, although so short, Jack saw much that was new to him.As the vessel moved out from the wharf he was leaning on the rail withFannin, looking down on the passengers who occupied the lower deck."It's hard for me to believe, Mr. Fannin," he said, "that these areIndians; they do not look much more like the Indians of the plains andthe mountains than a Chinaman does. There the men all wear robes orblankets. Here they all wear white men's clothes, including shoes andhats. They seem civilized, quite as much as the Italian laborers thatwe are beginning to see so many of in the East."
"Yes," said Fannin, "they've changed greatly since I came into thecountry, and changed for the better. They're a pretty important elementnowadays in the laboring population of the country; and for certainkinds of labor they are well fitted. They make good deck-hands,longshoremen, and fishermen; and many of them work in the lumber millsand canneries. They're very strong and are able to carry loads that awhite man couldn't stagger under. Many of them work regularly and layup money."
"I should think from what I have seen, and am seeing, that theirnatural way of getting around is in canoes. They must be skilfulcanoemen, aren't they?" asked Jack. "A day or two ago I saw some littlechildren not more than three or four years old, paddling with the olderpeople, and apparently doing it not in fun, but really to help."
"Well," said Fannin, "they learn to paddle before they learn to walk.I suppose it's because they see their parents do it. It's been myexperience that the games of most children imitate the serious pursuitsof their parents."
"I'm sure that's so," said Hugh. "Among the Indians I've seen it, Ireckon, a thousand times. The little boys pretend to hunt, just astheir fathers do; and the little girls pretend to pack wood and water,just like their mothers. I've seen a woman trudging down the creek witha back-load of wood that you'd think would break a horse's back; andfollowing her would be a little girl hardly big enough to walk, havingher rope over her back, and tied up in it a bundle of twigs. She walkedalong, imitating the gait of her mother, and when she got to the lodgethrew down her load just as she saw her mother throw down hers."
"Well, anyhow," said Fannin, "you can see that these children, doingthis sort of work from babyhood until they're grown up, would get tobe mighty skilful at it; and you can understand how they can work atit, just as you and Hugh here can get on your horses in the morning andride until dark; while, if I did that, in the first place, I'd haveto be tied on the horse; and in the second place, I would not be ableto walk for a week afterward. But there's no mistake about it, theseSiwashes are good watermen."
"That's a word I've heard three or four times, Mr. Fannin," said Jack,"and I'd like you to tell me what it is--what it means--Siwash."
"Well, it means an Indian," said Fannin. "It's a Chinook jargon word,and yet it don't exactly mean an Indian either. It means a male Indian.An Indian woman is a klootchman."
"Klootchman!" said Jack. "That sounds Dutch."
"Well," said Fannin, "I don't know what language it is. You know thisChinook jargon is a language made up of words taken from many tongues.It's called Chinook; but I don't feel sure that the words in it aremostly from the Chinook language. I guess Siwash, for example, is aFrench word--probably it was originally _sauvage_, meaning savage.There are lots of French words in the Chinook jargon, though I can'tthink of them at the present moment. One of them, though, is _lecou_,meaning neck; and another is _lahache_, an axe. These are plain enough;but a good many of the words are taken from different Indian languages,and are just hitched together without any grammar at all. It's a sortof a trade language; a good deal, I expect, l
ike the pigeon Englishthat the coast Chinese are said to use in communicating with white men."
"I suppose," said Jack, "that the Siwashes are mainly fishermen, arethey not? About all I've seen have been on the water paddling aroundin their canoes, and whenever we've seen them doing anything, exceptpaddling, they have been fishing."
"Yes," said Fannin, "you're right about that; they are fishermen, orat least they derive the most of their subsistence from the water.Of course they depend chiefly upon the salmon, which they eat fresh,and dry for winter food; for the salmon are here only in summer. TheIndians do some land hunting. They kill a good many deer, and somemountain goats, but their chief dependence for food is the salt-waterfish. When the salmon begin to run in June or July, and before theyhave got into the fresh water streams, the Indians catch them innumbers with a trolling spoon. Of course the Indians do considerablewater hunting; that is to say, they kill seals, and porpoises, and nowand then a whale; but what they depend on is fishing."
"It means," said Jack, "that to these Indians the salmon are what thebuffalo is to the Indians of the plains."
"Yes," said Fannin, "that's about it," and Hugh added: "The canoe hereis about the same as the horse back where we live."
"Just about," agreed Fannin.
"Well," said Hugh, "that's all mighty curious, and I'm mighty glad I'vecome out here to see it all. I never thought about it much before, butI always had an idea that all Indians were about the same as those Iknew most about; and that they lived about the same sort of lives. Ofcourse I can see now just what a fool notion that was to have, but Idid not see it then."
"But, Mr. Fannin," said Jack, "these Indians must have a lot of money.They are all provided with ordinary clothing, which they must buy; andthey're pretty well fixed apparently, with everything that they need.Where do they get this money? Do all of them work, and get so much aday?"
"No," said Fannin, "not by a jugful. Some of them work, and workpretty steadily; a good many work, and after they have been at it for aweek or a month, they get tired of it, throw up their jobs and go offin their canoes. They do considerable trading with the whites, however.They gather a great deal of oil, and this is one of the main articlesof trade. You saw over on Burrard Inlet a whole lot of dog-fish. Well,the Indians catch lots of these, and take the liver and throw thecarcase overboard. The liver is full of oil, which brings a pretty fairprice. They also kill lots of porpoises, and porpoise oil is salable.Then, they make a great many baskets; mighty good ones too, they seemto be. Some of them are water-tight, perfectly good for cooking, or forwater buckets. They also make mats, both of reeds and of the bark ofthe cedar, and these are useful and sell well."
"Well," said Jack, "how do they live? We've seen some tents on thebeaches, but I suppose that in the winter time they must have somethingmore substantial to live in than these tents."
"Yes," said Fannin, "of course they do. Though you must not think thatthe winters here are like the winters we have back East. It's prettywarm here, and we have little or no snow until you get back in amongthe mountains. The Siwashes along the coast live in wooden houses.We'll see a lot of them before long, and then you'll know that theyare better than I can tell you. They are made of big planks split offthe cedar, and roofed with the same. All around the house, near tothe walls, a platform is built, on which the people sit and sleep.In the middle of the house the ground is bare; and it is there thatthe fire is built for cooking and for warmth. There may be a numberof families living in one of these houses, each family having itssleeping place--its room you might call it--but all of them cooking atand sitting about the common fire. The roof planks do not quite cometogether at the peak of the house and the smoke of the fire goes outthrough the hole. Sometimes the roof beams and the posts which hold upthe roof in front and behind are carved and painted.
"Close to some of the houses stand tall carved poles, called totempoles. One may be carved with a representation of a bear, a beaver, afrog, and an eagle, each animal resting on the head of the one carvedbelow it on the pole. They are queer things to see, and if you will bepatient for a few days we'll see them; and maybe we'll get some Indiansto explain them to us. They have something to do with the familyhistory, and some people say that each of these animals that is carvedon the pole represents an ancestor or ancestors of the man before whosehouse the pole stands."
"Well," said Jack, "I'd like to see them. But from what you say, andfrom what I have seen, the Indians must be mighty good carvers. Thecanoes that we've seen had queer figures on them, and Mr. MacTavish hadsome beautiful pieces of carving in black slate that he said came fromQueen Charlotte Islands; but I've forgotten what Indians carved them."
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Fannin, "that is Haida work. All the Indians northfrom Victoria are good at carving. Of course the animals and figuresthat they represent do not agree with our ideas of how these thingsshould be represented. Most of the figures are grotesque, but they showfine workmanship; and if you give any of these Indians a model to copyhe will follow it very closely. Up in the North they will hammer abracelet or a spoon for you from a silver dollar; and they will put onit pretty much any design that you may give them."
CLOSE TO SOME OF THE HOUSES STAND TALL CARVED POLES, CALLED TOTEM POLES--_Page 98_]
"I see," said Jack, "that all their canoes are carved in front; and theprows remind one a little bit of the pictures of the old Viking ships;and then, again, of the still older boats that the Romans had,only, of course, they were all rowed with oars, while the Indians usepaddles."
"Yes," said Fannin, "these canoes that we have here are not like anythat I know of anywhere else in the world. They're all made out ofa single stick of wood and are of all sizes. There's one up at theBella-Bella village, north of here, that's said to be the biggest boaton the coast. It's one of the old war canoes, is eighty feet long,and so deep that a man standing in it can't be seen by one standingon the ground by its side. Such a canoe as that could only be made inthe country where the white cedar grows, a wood that is light, easilyworked and very durable. It's one of our biggest trees and sometimesgrows to a height of three hundred feet, and runs up to ten, eleven, ortwelve feet thick at the butt."
"Well," said Jack, "with a tree of size to work on I can easily see howa canoe even as big as the one you speak of might be made; but what anawful long time it must take to whittle it out! I should think that thegeneration that began such a boat could not hope to see it finished."
"Well," said Fannin, "it's not quite as bad as that, but it is slowwork; and that is not surprising when you think that they have notools to work with except the most primitive ones. After the cedarstick has been felled, and it has been found that no harm came toit in its fall, they go to work and shape the stick as well as theycan with their axes, and then hollow it out by fire. In other words,they build a fire on the top and allow it to burn just so far in anydirection, and so deep. After they have used the fire as far as theycan to advantage, they take a little chipping tool, made of a bladeof steel attached to a wooden handle, and chip the wood off in littleflakes or slivers, reducing the whole to a proper thickness, say aninch or an inch and a half for a canoe thirty feet long. They have nomodels, and the eye is their only guide in shaping the canoes; but thelines are always correct, and as graceful as could be made by the mostexpert boat-builder. When they have shaped the canoe, its gunwales areslightly sprung apart so as to give some flare to the sides, and areheld in position by narrow braces of timber stretching across the canoeand sewed to it by cedar twigs. They steam these twigs in the hot ashesso that they become pliable, and can be easily used for this sewing."
"This cedar must be as useful to these Indians as buffalo hides are tothe plains' Indians," said Jack. "You pointed out to me some mats madeof cedar bark, some hats and some rope, all of the same material. Nowyou tell me that the canoes are made of cedar and sewed together withcedar twigs."
"Yes," replied Fannin, "the cedar does a great deal for these people. Itold you, too, that they built their hou
ses of it."
"There are two different types of canoes on this coast," he continued,"one belonging to the South and having a square stern and a bottom thatis almost flat, and the Northern canoe, which has a round bottom and anoverhanging stern. The big canoe that I told you about at Bella-Bellais a Northern canoe. In old times these big canoes were used by theNorthern Indians on their war journeys against their enemies to theSouth. They would come down, perhaps seventy or eighty men in a canoe,attack a village, plunder it, capture a lot of the people for slaves,and then take to their canoes again, paddling back to their homes.These Northern Indians were great hands to go off on war parties. Theywere a good deal more warlike than these people down here."
"This cedar that you talk about," asked Hugh. "Is there much of it tobe had? I haven't seen anything yet that looked like the cedar that wesee back East."
"No," said Fannin, "what you're thinking of is the red cedar, in someof its forms, I guess--the juniper. This is the white cedar, andlooks as much as anything like a small tree that folks use for hedgesback East, and call arbor vitae; only I never saw any of those arborvitaes grow anything near as big as the smallest of these cedars here.Like the Eastern cedar, however, this white cedar is very durable. Iremember seeing in the woods once a fallen log, on which was growing aDouglas fir two and a half feet in diameter. The seed of the fir hadfallen on the log and sprouted, and, as the fir grew, it sent down itsroots to the ground on either side of the cedar log, so that at last itstraddled it. The fir was about two and a half feet in diameter, andso it had been growing there a great many years, but the fallen cedarlog was to all appearance as sound as if it had not been lying therea year. The cedar log was covered with moss and most of its limbs hadrotted off, but when I scraped away the moss and sounded the stick andcut into it, I could not see that it was at all decayed."
"Well, Mr. Fannin," asked Jack, "how do they mend these canoes whenthey break them? Of course they must be running onto the bars and ontothe rocks all the time, and if a hole is punched in a solid woodenbottom like this it's hard to mend it again."
"That's true," said Fannin, "and they don't mean to let the canoegrate on rocks or get rubbed on the gravel beach if they can helpit. Notwithstanding its durability, cedar wood splits very easily.Therefore the Indians take the greatest care of their canoes, notbringing them up on the shore where they are likely to be worn orrubbed, but always anchoring them out in deep water; or else, ifthey bring them to shore, lifting them out of the water and slidingthem along the bottom planks--that almost every canoe has two pairof--above the reach of the tide. Although it is so durable, the cedarwood splits on the smallest provocation; and once or twice I have seena canoe that touched roughly on the rocks, or was carelessly knockedagainst the beach, split in two and the two halves fall apart. Ofcourse in such a case it was pretty hard work to mend the canoe."
"I should say it would be," remarked Jack, "and I don't know how theywould do it."
"I'll tell you. They carry the loads up on the high ground to dry, andthen they take the canoe, fit the two pieces together until no lightcan be seen through the crack, and then they sew them together withcedar twigs and plaster the crack over with gum. I've seen a vesselmended in that way, make a long cruise, but I confess I should not wantto make a very long journey in a boat patched up like that."
"I don't think I would either," said Jack. "I shouldn't think it wouldbe very safe."
"Mr. Fannin," said Jack, after a pause, "I suppose when we get startedwe'll have to paddle all the way?"
"Yes," said Fannin, "you're likely to. Of course, if the wind is fairthese canoes can sail. There's almost always a chock in the bottom wellforward in which a mast can be stepped, and when the wind is fair asail is put up or a blanket is used. That helps along amazingly."
"I'm glad that you've told me all this, for now when I talk with peopleup here on the coast they'll see that I know a little something and amnot purely a pilgrim."
Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe Page 10
