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Updated: June 3, 2025
"Tradition is so indefinite about their movements subsequent to sailing out of the Inlet that even the ever-romantic and vividly colored imaginations of the Squamish people have never supplied the details of this beautifully childish, yet strangely historical fairy-tale.
"Some day, perhaps next summer, I'll take you there in a sail-boat, and show you the big rock at the south-west of the Point. It is a strange rock; we Indian people call it Homolsom." "What an odd name!" I commented. "Is it a Squamish word? it does not sound to me like one." "It is not altogether Squamish, but half Fraser River language.
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.
"The Squamish say that in a gigantic crevice half way to the crest of Mount Baker may yet be seen the outlines of an enormous canoe, but I have never seen it myself." He ceased speaking with that far-off cadence in his voice with which he always ended a legend, and for a long time we both sat in silence listening to the rains that were still beating against the window. The Sea-Serpent
"Perhaps you will be lucky and bring home chicamin and blankets. The old men say the winter will be cold. Grey geese were going south yesterday, three weeks earlier than last year. I shall stay at home, until the babies are older. Yes, you and the boys go." "Yes," responded the chief. "It would never do for us to miss a great Squamish Potlatch. We must go."
"'It is our father's lodge, they told each other, for their childish hearts were unerring in response to the call of kinship. Hand in hand they approached, and entering the lodge, said the one word, 'Come. "The great Squamish chief outstretched his arms towards them, then towards the laughing river, then towards the mountains. "'Welcome, my sons! he said.
All the men aboard spoke Russian, save two thin, dark, agile sailors, who kept aloof from the crew and conversed in another language. These two came ashore with part of the crew and talked in French with a wandering Hudson's Bay trapper, who often lodged with the Squamish people.
Then, late in the summer, there came one marvellous night, when his father and brother returned from the sockeye salmon fishing, with news that set the entire Indian village talking far into the early morning. A great Squamish chief on the mainland was going to give a Potlatch. He had been preparing for it for weeks.
He looked most incredulous, and I was led to enquire what his own people of the Squamish thought of this discussed problem. "It is no pride to us," he said decidedly; "nor yet is it disgrace of rabbits, but it is a fearsome thing a sign of coming evil to the father, and, worse than that, of coming disaster to the tribe."
He had set foot in the wider world, he had won his name, and now honored it, instead of hating it, as in the old days when his brothers taunted him, for the great Squamish chief, in bidding good-bye to him, had said: "Little Ta-la-pus, remember a name means much to a man. You despised your name, but you have made it great and honorable by your own act, your own courage.
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