I immediately returned to Nanaimo and acquainted the magistrate with the facts. A party of ten special constables were sent down to the river, and the murderers were captured, brought to Nanaimo, given a preliminary hearing, and sent down to Victoria to stand their trial at the next assizes.
Some time after, amid the busy rush of the missionary’s life, this young chief met me at my home in the Nanaimo camp, and said he had been down to the place where they heard the murder had been committed, some forty miles away, and had found their goods, clothing of all kinds, strewn upon the beach, particularly the clothes of a little child belonging to the party. This was the child of a white man from Nanaimo, whose Indian wife was on her way to take the steamer at Victoria to make a visit to her friends in the north. Among the other things he found a bunch of little papers, rolled up and stuck in the fork of a tree. This roll, which he handed to me, I found contained eighty-five dollars in bills.
I took him to the magistrate, to whom he told his story and handed over the bills. The official praised him for his honesty and faithfulness, and as a reward gave him a note of recommendation saying what a good, honest chief he was. This document, signed and sealed with a large red seal and placed in an official envelope, pleased the chief very much.
Some weeks after he was in Victoria and happened to show this paper, of which he was very proud, to a police officer, who at once put him in jail, where he was held as a witness for over two months. During this time his family were left to starve, and nothing was done to help them. Is it any wonder that the Indians were enraged at this high-handed piece of injustice, and that when the young chief finally was released he declared that if all the Indians and whites in the place were murdered he would never again tell anything that he had discovered about the matter.
Speaking of the Indian’s love of “a big paper,” as they called an official certificate, I recall the amusing circumstance of a chief who was given “a paper” by a certain sea captain, which, not being able to read, he supposed was highly complimentary. The Indian went about, proudly showing to everyone a document which stated, “Look out for this fellow; he is the greatest old rascal and biggest thief I have ever met with.”
In those early days, when hundreds and thousands came from the north, it was not an uncommon thing to see a body floating in the harbor. It is the nature of an Indian always to keep in mind an old feud. Where blood has been shed they seek retaliation, and with them it is always “a life for a life.”
An Awful Night.
Tsil-ka-mut, a chief of the old school of the An-ko-me-nums, nephew of Squin-es-ton, a chief of the Nanaimos, was the most influential man in the tribe. Squin-es-ton was recognized as the head, but Tsil-ka-mut, his nephew, led the way in all matters of business or council with other tribes.
This younger chief in his youth was a great heathen, having been trained up in all heathen secrets from a child. He would often go away up the mountains and bathe in the mountain streams, where he said he had communion with the spirits and received power.