, tillicums," I replied, and watched for many moments as
they slipped away into the blurred distance, until the canoe merged
into the violet and grey of the farther shore.

[Illustration: Native tool]

The Deep Waters

Far over your left shoulder as your boat leaves the Narrows to thread
the beautiful waterways that lead to Vancouver Island, you will see the
summit of Mount Baker robed in its everlasting whiteness and always
reflecting some wonderful glory from the rising sun, the golden
noontide, or the violet and amber sunset. This is the Mount Ararat of
the Pacific Coast peoples; for those readers who are familiar with the
ways and beliefs and faiths of primitive races will agree that it is
difficult to discover anywhere in the world a race that has not some
story of the Deluge, which they have chronicled and localized to fit
the understanding and the conditions of the nation that composes their
own immediate world.

Amongst the red nations of America I doubt if any two tribes have the
same ideas regarding the Flood. Some of the traditions concerning this
vast whim of Nature are grotesque in the extreme; some are impressive;
some even profound; but of all the stories of the Deluge that I have
been able to collect I know of not a single one that can even begin to
equal in beauty of conception, let alone rival in possible reality and
truth, the Squamish legend of "The Deep Waters."

I here quote the legend of "mine own people," the Iroquois tribes of
Ontario, regarding the Deluge. I do this to paint the color of
contrast in richer shades, for I am bound to admit that we who pride
ourselves on ancient intellectuality have but a childish tale of the
Flood when compared with the jealously preserved annals of the
Squamish, which savour more of history than tradition. With "mine own
people," animals always play a much more important part and are endowed
with a finer intelligence than humans. I do not find amid my notes a
single tradition of the Iroquois wherein animals do not figure, and our
story of the Deluge rests entirely with the intelligence of sea-going
and river-going creatures. With us, animals in olden times were
greater than man; but it is not so with the Coast Indians, except in
rare instances.

When a Coast Indian consents to tell you a legend he will, without
variation, begin it with, "It was before the white people came."

The natural thing for you then to ask is, "But who were here then