“Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,Who have faith in God and Nature,Who believe, that in all agesEvery human heart is human,That in even savage bosomsThere are longings, yearnings, strivings,For the good they comprehend not,That the feeble hands and helpless,Groping blindly in the darkness,Touch God’s right hand in that darknessAnd are lifted up and strengthened....”—“Hiawatha.”
“Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,Who have faith in God and Nature,Who believe, that in all agesEvery human heart is human,That in even savage bosomsThere are longings, yearnings, strivings,For the good they comprehend not,That the feeble hands and helpless,Groping blindly in the darkness,Touch God’s right hand in that darknessAnd are lifted up and strengthened....”—“Hiawatha.”
“Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,Who have faith in God and Nature,Who believe, that in all agesEvery human heart is human,That in even savage bosomsThere are longings, yearnings, strivings,For the good they comprehend not,That the feeble hands and helpless,Groping blindly in the darkness,Touch God’s right hand in that darknessAnd are lifted up and strengthened....”—“Hiawatha.”
“Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe, that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings,
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God’s right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened....”
—“Hiawatha.”
The An-ko-me-nums, like most of the Indians of British Columbia, were spirit worshippers. First of all, they believed in a great Chief Spirit, who created all things and was all-wise and all-powerful, and ruled over them for good, but who was not actively concerned for them, and whom they never called upon except in cases of great difficulty or distress.
Then they believed in a multitude of lesser spirits, who were in most cases evilly disposed towards them. These inhabited certain mountains and headlands and rocky, dangerous points, around which the waves raged and tossed their frail canoes, and sometimes upset them. A swirling eddy, a dangerous rapid, a lonely lake in the mountains, a steep precipice where perhaps at some time or other oneof their people had met with disaster and possibly death, was the abode of a “Stlaw-la-kum,” or evil spirit.
They prayed a great deal to the sun, to the moon, to the Great Being who gave them all the fish and food, or to the spirit whom they believed might be responsible for any impending danger. They were often found in the woods praying. Hunters would pray and fast for days in the mountains, bathing themselves and performing certain exercises, in order to be successful hunters. They would pray, while fishing, for a successful catch. And for weeks before going on a war expedition they would fast and pray and bathe and paint themselves in preparation for the undertaking.
Food and drink were often thrown on the fire as an offering to the unknown Divinity, while the ascending smoke bore the prayers of the poor blind worshippers onward to the Great Chief above.
Speaking of this, one of our native preachers says: “My grandmother in the early morning used to kindle a fire as she sat on the river bank. When it was a clear, quiet morning and the smoke would ascend, as it seemed, straight up to the land above, she would say, as she prayed for more food or for protection from sickness or trouble, ‘Now our prayers will be answered.’ But if the wind blew the smoke about, she would say it was no use praying, as such prayers were useless.”
Out on the water, with the tempest threatening, they were accustomed to turn around and whistle and wave their hands to the wind, to keep it away,and when it grew stormy they would pray to the mighty wind. Crossing the Gulf of Georgia on one occasion in a big storm, the old heathen captain and his wife, with whom we voyaged, prayed most appealingly, “Oh, you big storm, don’t you drown us; you are so strong and we are so weak; don’t you make such a rough sea. Why should we go down? We are all dirty, our clothes are dirty, we are very dirty; if you take us down we shall dirty your clear waters, they are so clear and blue. Don’t have us dirty your beautiful waters.”
The south men, as well as the north, would throw out food and even clothes as a sacrifice to appease the storm.
When becalmed on a fair day the conjurer or “windmaker” would volunteer to raise the wind. He would begin by whistling and waving the hand, and then praying to the Spirit of the locality. Should a light breeze spring up they would shout and hurrah because they had brought the wind.
Of their traditions we have not much to say. In common with many other peoples, they had legends of the creation and of the deluge. Their stories of the flood are very local in coloring, and usually gather around a certain mountain peak, the highest in their immediate vicinity. The legend of the thunder bird is one which is repeated in varied forms all up and down the coast. The Nanaimos told how the thunder was made up between two mountains. Between two large rocks, near the shores of a little mountain lake, some great birds which made the thunder had their nest. Then the little thundersall came out, and they with the big thunders clapped their wings; then the roll and roar of the thunder could be heard echoing through the hills.
The An-ko-me-nums believed in a future existence, and placed upon the graves the toys and trinkets of the children, the weapons and belongings of their braves, the canoe or horse of the chief, which they thought would be of service to the former owner in the land to which he had gone.
They buried their dead in various ways. There are evidences that in times long past they put many of them in rocky tombs and hid them from their enemies. During times of war they buried them in large pits, which were covered with ashes, and huge mounds of shells were heaped on the top. At Comox, on Vancouver Island; Musqueam, near Eburne, at the mouth of the Fraser; at Port Hammond, and other places, where these mounds existed and have been opened, human skulls and bones have been found in large numbers.
Fifty years ago they enclosed the bodies of the dead in boxes and placed them upon a scaffold, some ten or twelve feet high, to keep them out of the way of animals. In still later times they placed them on the ground and built little houses over them. To-day they are buried in the earth, after the Christian fashion.
Such fear had they of death that the dead were not kept very long, but were placed in a box and hurried out of the way as soon as possible. Theywere particularly cruel and indifferent to their old people, even placing them in their boxes before they were quite dead.
I recall the case of a poor old man at Nanaimo who had been sick for some time. I called one day at the house and did not find him on the miserably dirty old cot. I then asked his son, a heathen, a chief, and past middle age himself, where the old man was. “He is in that box,” he replied, at the same time pointing to a native cedar box, about eighteen inches square and two feet deep, made without a nail, and bound with cedar withes.
I went to the box, and opening it I found the poor fellow, where they had placed him, according to custom, crowded in and doubled up, his head between his knees, but still alive. I had him taken out at once, but he died the next day.
Some time ago, on the west coast, a man who had been very sick, and whom they expected to die, was thus buried alive. His legs were broken and his poor body was jammed into a box, and it was put away on an island. A woman picking berries heard the man groan, and with considerable grit for an Indian woman went and opened the box and let him out. He is still living, though as a result of his horrible experience he is compelled to make his way about as best he may on all fours.
Several years ago smallpox raged along the coast and swept off many of the Indians as well as the whites. The city and government at Victoriaappointed certain white grave-diggers to bury the numerous corpses found upon the beach, among the trees, in huts and in canoes.
In many cases the grave-diggers found poor creatures almost, but not altogether, dead; they knew they would be fit for burial soon, and did not care to spend time waiting for the last gasp. It is said they were taking one poor fellow off to the grave, but he objected on the very proper ground that he was not dead yet. He was told to shut up, as he was dead, but too delirious to comprehend the fact. So they carefully placed him under the sod to await the resurrection morn.
The coal company at Nanaimo were building a wharf from a point in the harbor, and paid for the removal of a number of Indian bodies which had been buried near the spot. New graves were dug on a little side hill, and to these the remains were transferred. The holes, however, were quite shallow, owing to the presence of a clay hard-pan underneath. Next day a great outcry was made in the camp, and intense excitement prevailed, for most of the boxes had risen up and had come out of the graves. We went down to discover the cause of the disturbance, and what had seemed to the poor people so strange and uncanny had been caused by the heavy rain of the night before filling the shallow graves and floating out what they contained. It took some time to quiet the fears of the people.
The men who do anything in any way in the digging of the grave or the handling of the body are paid excessively for their services. This may be due, in part, to their horrible fear of the dead.
The Indian mother grieves for her children with the same intensity of feeling that characterizes her white sister. After the burial she will return to the grave in the early morning and weep bitterly. She often continues this for days at a time. She wails and calls up the looks of the little one, its acts and words. She will carry the clothes and playthings to the little grave, and cry and talk away to her lost darling, and pathetically plead for its return.
There is, however, a kind of professionalism about a great deal of their mourning for the dead. When a chief or leading person had passed away women were accustomed to rush into the house from all parts of the village. Perhaps on their way there they might be chatting and laughing about trifles, but as soon as they got near the house where the dead lay, they would commence rubbing their hands down their faces, and really seem to pump up their tears, for before they were fairly seated the tears were flowing, while they wailed and told all the good qualities of the dead.
After this had gone on for some time, someone belonging to the house would hand around a dish or basket containing water. The crying then ceased, and dipping their fingers in the water they bathedfaces and hands, and received the strips of calico or clothes of the deceased, which was their reward for their weeping.
The medicine-man, or witch-doctor, that demon among heathen peoples, held sway among the An-ko-me-nums when I first went to the Coast.
The shaman, or medicine-man, is the representative of the grossest features of paganism. He has wielded, and still wields to some extent, a marvellous influence over the people, because of the supernatural powers which they believe him to possess.
He professes to have acquired his power by long months of retirement in the mountains or beside some lonely lake, where he fasted and prayed and held converse with the spirits and with nature.
Returning, he practises certain magical rites, and by this means is able, so he claims, to heal the sick and raise the dead and look into the future, and even cause the death of many who may oppose his magical powers.
The tyranny of this wretched despot and the awful absurdity of his miserable pretensions, together with his fiendishly bitter opposition to everything that is good, leads him to be feared and hated.
Their method of treating disease was not by means of medicine. It was left to the old women of the tribe really to administer such simple remedies as they might be acquainted with—poultices, lotions, emetics, purgatives, and such-like. The witch-doctorpreyed upon the superstitions of the people, and by his conjurer’s rites deceived and beguiled them.
When called in, in case of sickness, he would shake his rattle and work himself up to a frenzy, scream and howl, and if it was a case of fever he would rattle away for hours. If there was some fixed pain, he would grab hold of the chest or forehead or place where the pain was said to be, and then get down and suck and squeeze and suck away until the blood came through the skin. Then repeatedly spitting the blood into his hands, he would shout for his attendants to rattle harder and sing louder, “It was coming.” Finally he would jump and scream or cheer and say he had got it out, and then proceed to show a piece of shell, glass, pebble, or a nail, which he claimed he had taken from the body, and which was the cause of the trouble.
A cousin of Sallosalton’s, a bright youth who had attended our school, in whom I had become very much interested, was taken very sick with a fever, and the conjurer (witch-doctor) was called in. I visited him, and saw that the old conjurer’s rattling and the additional noise of the people beating time to his rattle or drum and boards, together with the yelling and singing for hours, was only distracting the poor boy and making him very much worse. I went to the town and consulted the only doctor there. He came to see my young friend, and said he felt sure that if the medicine were administered properly, and we could keep the old conjurer away, there was good hope of his recovery. So I told the people that we did not want the conjurer there anymore, and that they must help me to keep the lad quiet. Night after night I sat up in order to administer the medicine and keep the old imposter away, and thus give him the necessary quiet. But I found that secretly during the day, while I was resting, they would call in the conjurer again, as his friends had more faith in him than in our medicine and nursing.
Several days passed before I discovered their doings.But one day I slipped into the house unexpectedly and found the old fellow rattling over him, with a number of his friends keeping time with sticks on a board, to assist the old imposter, as he said, “to get the power.” I rushed in and ordered him to stop and leave. A day or two after I found him again at the same thing, all painted up and nearly naked, and partly stretched out upon the body of the sick man, howling and rattling away. My indignation was aroused, and I said to him, “If you don’t stop you’ll kill that boy. Leave at once! and if you don’t I’ll bundle you out of the house.”
“One day I slipped in and found the old fellow rattling over him.”p. 121
“One day I slipped in and found the old fellow rattling over him.”p. 121
“One day I slipped in and found the old fellow rattling over him.”p. 121
He saw that I was making for him, when he got up and crawled out, saying that he was there by invitation. Of course, the father, mother and friends, who were responsible, were very much disgusted at my action.
I continued my watch by the poor boy for several nights, and had the joy of knowing that he was trusting in Jesus. However, I was suddenly called away to the Fraser River, and, much to my regret, had to leave the sick one. After I left they got theconjurer back, and finished their work, for the boy died soon afterwards.
It is lamentable to behold the superstitious dread of these people of the power of the witch-doctor to do them harm.
During my stay at Nanaimo a bright, intelligent young man, about nineteen years of age, by the name of Charlie, attended our school. I missed him for some days, and on inquiry learned that he was sick. I made my way to the old heathen house where he lived, and there found him lying on a wretched cot, covered with his old dirty blanket.
I said, “Charlie, what’s the matter?”
“I am sick, sir,” he replied.
I felt his pulse, made general inquiry, but could discover very little the matter with him. Giving him some medicine, I told him to “have a strong heart,” as he would soon be well.
Two or three days afterwards, on a beautiful sunny spring morning, I visited him again, and found he was still lying in the same place. I got him up and out of the old house into the sunlight, but he seemed to grow worse rather than better.
Finally I said to him one day, “Charlie, what’s the matter with you? You are not sick!”
“Oh, you cannot understand my sickness,” he replied.
“Where are you sick? What is the matter?” I continued.
“Oh,” he said, looking very serious, “white man don’t understand my sickness.”
“Tell me where your sickness is?” I urged.
Pulling down his dirty blanket, and putting his hand upon his stomach he said, “It is here. An old conjurer has made me sick. He has blown something into my inside.”
“Oh, nonsense, Charlie!” said I. “It is no such thing. No man has power to do that.”
But he shook his head and replied, “Oh, I told you, you don’t understand my sick. The Indian has power, and he is using it on me, and I shall die.”
Day by day I visited the poor boy and tried in every way to get him to arouse himself and to go out with the rest of the boys. But no, he lay there and sickened, and in about six weeks he died.
I do not believe anything was the matter, except his superstitious fear that the old witch-doctor had put his spell upon him and was killing him.
If there is a class that deserves severe treatment among the Indians it is these miserable reprobates, who still are busy preying upon the credulity of the people and working incalculable mischief.
At the present time there are several of these imposters among the bands in the Lower Fraser Valley. They have been for years a nuisance, the priests of paganism and the prophets of evil.
Their miserable pretensions we have ignored, and have left them out, as far as possible, in our social gatherings among the people.
Several years ago invitations to the wedding of two of our young people were sent to many of the Indians of the community, these witch doctors alone being purposely left out.
This enraged them so much that they announced that they would kill three persons who were at the gathering before a year was gone.
Shortly after one of the little pupils at the Institute, who had been ill for some time, died, and they immediately claimed credit for the child’s death. A little later a woman who attended was taken sick and also died, and according to the statements of the conjurers she was victim number two.
During the following summer a number of our Indians, as usual, went down to the salmon fishing at the mouth of the river, among whom was a middle-aged chief, one of our most intelligent Indians, and, we considered, one of our truest Christians.
Typhoid was epidemic that year at Steveston, and this chief was taken down with the fever.
Dr. Large, our energetic and successful medical missionary at Bella Bella, was then at the Fraser River for the summer season, and visited and gave the chief medical attention. He appeared to improve under treatment and bade fair speedily to recover, but in an unexplainable manner to the medical man the recovery was delayed. He found, on inquiry, that the chief was not taking the medicine prescribed, and had said that he did not think he would ever get well. When pressed for his reasons, he confessed the belief that he was the third victim ofthe witch-doctors’ rage, and that he could not live. The missionary reasoned with him, pleaded with him, prayed with him, but without avail, and finally the poor fellow died, the victim of his own superstitious fears, upon which the conjurers had worked all too successfully.
We were grieved beyond measure that such a noble life had been thus cut short, and that the power of superstition and ignorance was still so manifest.
This power of the medicine-man is coupled with the Indian’s belief in witchcraft. No heathen Indian ever dies a natural death, for every sickness or accident is due, according to their superstitious view, to the evil eye or malign spell of someone who is evilly disposed towards them. When calamity or sickness comes they immediately apply to the witch-doctor to perform his incantations and discover the witch. Sometimes it is an old woman of the tribe, whose term of life is now necessarily short; sometimes it is a slave or a bright girl or boy, and sometimes a whole family are pointed out as the “guilty ones” and doomed to death. The atrocities committed by the natives, moved by this dreadful superstition, are numberless and in many cases too dreadful to relate. How fervently we pray that the enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit may penetrate the gloom of heathen darkness and forever drive out all the nameless horrors which belong to paganism.