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Later they took him up to the Temple at Jerusalem to make the offering that all Jewish mothers made, some money, if it was the first boy-child, and a lamb, or a pair of doves.
But it was yet winter, and the rains were slanting and the fogs drifting, when the wife of the Great Tyee stood before him and said: "'Before the salmon-run I shall give to you a great gift. Will you honor me most if it is the gift of a boy-child or a girl-child? The Great Tyee loved the woman. He was stern with his people, hard with his tribe; he ruled his council-fires with a will of stone.
Our tribe not like yours; we want girl children first; we not always wish boy-child born just for fight. Your people, they care only for war-path; our tribe more peaceful. Very good sign first grandchild to be girl. I tell you why: girl-child maybe some time mother herself; very grand thing to be mother." I felt I had caught the secret of her meaning.
'The wise men of our coast have said that the girl-child who will some day bear children of her own will also bring abundance of salmon at her birth; but the boy-child brings to you but himself. "'Let the salmon go, shouted the people, 'but give us a future Great Tyee. Give us the boy-child. "And when the child was born it was a boy. "'Evil will fall upon you, wailed the Great Tyee.
With one of those strange revelations of reality that come to people in life when in solitude they look at their own reflection in a mirror she thought spoke. "It is too late too late for me to be the mother of a boy-child." Then she went and set her alarm-clock to a quarter to seven in the morning.
She saw the girl again, seated by the fire in the Infirmary ward, with that strange division between herself and all living, removed, as it were, to a distance which could not be bridged. Then Jane was no more to be found. There was the boy-child instead, who knew nothing except his desire to be kept alive; who met all reservations and pity by a determination to be fed.
Then she ate a banana; but she felt so weak she could run no longer. She just lay down and died. Then the boy-child looked about for a place to put his sister's body. He looked at the fine branched trees, full of fruit, and saw that each single fruit was an agong, and the leaves, mother-of-pearl. To one of the trees, the boy said, "May I put my sister here?" And the tree said that he might do it.
He had three or four splendid offers to begin his medical career, but he refused them all, smilingly, genially, and to-day he is back there, devoting his life and skill to the tribe of Five Feathers, "best Indian in all the Hudson's Bay country." Sons of Savages Life-Training of the Redskin Boy-child
They spoke with the gods of the mountains, with the gods of the sea, then 'the power' of decision came to them. They were inspired with a choice to lay before the tribes-people, and the most ancient medicine man in all the coast region arose and spoke their resolution: "'The people of the tribe cannot be allowed to have all things. They want a boy-child and they want a great salmon run also.
He raised his arm aloft, and in a moment he was overborne. Even then, as all say, none got sight of his face; but he fought with lowered head, and his black beard flapped like a wounded crow. But suddenly a boy-child ran forward of the bystanders, crying and screaming, "Hurt him not! They are hurting him oh, me! oh, me!"
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