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Updated: June 18, 2025
The squaw's answer came from above me, and she repeated and intoned the word so that it seemed part of her dirge. 'Clahowya! Clahowya! Clahowya! Wake tenas papoose. Halo! Halo! The despair of it cut me worse than lashes. Then I heard other voices; a dog barked, and I understood we were skirting the encampment. "After that the noise grew fainter, and in a little while the girl uncovered my face.
For the young women have turned aside from the old paths, nor do the young men longer honor the old totems and the old gods. So these are bad days, Tenas Hee-Hee, and they behold old Muskim go down in sorrow to the grave." "Ai! Ai! It is so!" wailed Neepoosa. "Because of the madness of thy people have my people become mad," Muskim continued.
Weeks and months went by, still the Tenas Tyee would swim daily searching for that heart of greed; and each morning the sunrise glinted on his slender young copper-colored body as he stood with outstretched arms at the tip of Brockton Point, greeting the coming day and then plunging from the summit into the sea.
The woman yielded the child gratefully, saying, "It's not a boy, but a Tenas Klootchman." Maarda could hardly believe her senses. That splendid, sturdy, plump, big baby a Tenas Klootchman! For a moment her heart surged with bitterness. Why had her own little girl been so frail, so flower-like? But with the touch of that warm baby body, the bitterness faded.
Did the woman wish to give the child to her? She dared not ask for it. Suppose Luke "Alaska" wanted it. His wife loved children, though she had four of her own in their home far inland. Then the sick woman spoke: "Your cradle basket and your heart were empty before I came. Will you keep my Tenas Klootchman as your own? to fill them both again?" Maarda promised.
"The woman is like a mouse," those would-be purchasers would say, so "Hoolool" she became, even to her little son, who called her the quaint word as a white child would call its mother a pet name; and she in turn called the little boy "Tenas," which means "Youngness" the young spring, the young day, the young moon and he was all these blessed things to her.
Should Tenas grow to youth, manhood, old age, and have no Totem Pole to point to as a credential of being the honorable son of a long line of honorable sons? Never! She would suffer in silence, like the little grey, hungry Hoolool that scampered across the bare floors of her firwood shack in the chill night hours, but her boy must have his birthright.
Then one loud clamor arose from the crowd. "Tenas Tyee," "Tenas Tyee," they shouted, and Ta-la-pus knew that he had not failed. But the great Squamish chief was beside him. "Tillicums,"* he said, facing the crowd, "this boy has danced no tribal dance learned from his people or his parents. This is his own dance, which he has made to deserve his name.
"Knew his brains was tenas, but didn't suspect he were that weak in the upper story. You're sure he didn't go in till he heerd your gun?" "He'd taken a look and was going away," said Mart. "Now ain't some people jest odd! Now you follow me, and I'll tell you folks what I'd figured he'd been at. Billy Moon he lived in that cabin, yu' see.
"And at his home on the north shore his mother dressed his bed with fresh furs each morning. The seasons drifted by; winter followed summer, summer followed winter. But it was four years before the Tenas Tyee found the centre of the great salt-chuck oluk and plunged his hunting-knife into its evil heart. In its death-agony it writhed through the Narrows, leaving a trail of blackness on the waters.
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