First Christian Marriage.
Very interesting to me was the first marriage I performed among this people. It took place in the year 1871, on the Songees reserve, the territory of the noted old King Free-zee, opposite Victoria, in the home of Amos Shee-hats-ton (our first convert in that tribe), which had been used for prayer and class-meetings. The couple had been waiting till I should be ordained, so as to have it in their own language. There were present about twenty of the natives, including their teachers. The weather was warm and the door wide open, and the contracting parties stood with their backs to the door.
As it was the first marriage I had performed, I was a little nervous, and had to keep a close look at the book. Just when I reached the point of asking the bride, “Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband?” I glanced up, and lo! she was just slipping out of the door.
Taking in the situation, and seeing that the crowd were looking very serious, I started up singing, “Shall we gather at the river,” a hymn with which they were familiar.
We had nearly sung it through when she came peeping in at the door, as if she had a lingering desire to have the thing finished up. So I got hold of her hand and drew her towards him, placed her hand in his, laid my hand over them both, and held on until I had finished the ceremony.
With this memory before me I have married many hundreds since, and never failed to place my hand upon theirs, and hold on until the ceremony was completed.
CHAPTER XI.
FOODS, FEASTS AND FOLLIES.
“Those who attempt to reason us out of our follies begin at the wrong end, since the attempt naturally presupposes us capable of reason.”—Goldsmith.
Nature made bounteous provision for the wants of the aboriginal inhabitants of British Columbia. The seas and rivers were teeming with fish—salmon of several kinds, halibut, cod, and sturgeon, and among smaller fish, herring, oolachan, smelts, and trout; the beaches and shallows afforded large sea crabs, clams, cockles, and oysters. The plains, valleys and mountains abounded in wild animals of many kinds—elk, moose, cariboo, deer, mountain sheep and goats, bears of different colors, and numerous smaller fur-bearing creatures. The forests, the sky and the lakes and streams were alive with members of the feathered tribe—swans, geese, ducks of several varieties, and, besides all these, the Indians were not averse to eating eagles and gulls, if necessity demanded.
Besides laying in large stores of dried meats and fish, the natives gathered large quantities of wild berries, of which there were several varieties, and dried them for their winter supplies. There were many other kinds of food, such as the inner bark of the spruce tree, many kinds of roots, wild potatoes, wild onions, wild rice, sea-weed, fish, eggs or spawn, crab apples and nuts.