When becalmed on a fair day the conjurer or “windmaker” would volunteer to raise the wind. He would begin by whistling and waving the hand, and then praying to the Spirit of the locality. Should a light breeze spring up they would shout and hurrah because they had brought the wind.
Of their traditions we have not much to say. In common with many other peoples, they had legends of the creation and of the deluge. Their stories of the flood are very local in coloring, and usually gather around a certain mountain peak, the highest in their immediate vicinity. The legend of the thunder bird is one which is repeated in varied forms all up and down the coast. The Nanaimos told how the thunder was made up between two mountains. Between two large rocks, near the shores of a little mountain lake, some great birds which made the thunder had their nest. Then the little thunders all came out, and they with the big thunders clapped their wings; then the roll and roar of the thunder could be heard echoing through the hills.
Death and Burial.
The An-ko-me-nums believed in a future existence, and placed upon the graves the toys and trinkets of the children, the weapons and belongings of their braves, the canoe or horse of the chief, which they thought would be of service to the former owner in the land to which he had gone.
They buried their dead in various ways. There are evidences that in times long past they put many of them in rocky tombs and hid them from their enemies. During times of war they buried them in large pits, which were covered with ashes, and huge mounds of shells were heaped on the top. At Comox, on Vancouver Island; Musqueam, near Eburne, at the mouth of the Fraser; at Port Hammond, and other places, where these mounds existed and have been opened, human skulls and bones have been found in large numbers.
Fifty years ago they enclosed the bodies of the dead in boxes and placed them upon a scaffold, some ten or twelve feet high, to keep them out of the way of animals. In still later times they placed them on the ground and built little houses over them. To-day they are buried in the earth, after the Christian fashion.
Such fear had they of death that the dead were not kept very long, but were placed in a box and hurried out of the way as soon as possible. They were particularly cruel and indifferent to their old people, even placing them in their boxes before they were quite dead.
I recall the case of a poor old man at Nanaimo who had been sick for some time. I called one day at the house and did not find him on the miserably dirty old cot. I then asked his son, a heathen, a chief, and past middle age himself, where the old man was. “He is in that box,” he replied, at the same time pointing to a native cedar box, about eighteen inches square and two feet deep, made without a nail, and bound with cedar withes.
I went to the box, and opening it I found the poor fellow, where they had placed him, according to custom, crowded in and doubled up, his head between his knees, but still alive. I had him taken out at once, but he died the next day.
Some time ago, on the west coast, a man who had been very sick, and whom they expected to die, was thus buried alive. His legs were broken and his poor body was jammed into a box, and it was put away on an island. A woman picking berries heard the man groan, and with considerable grit for an Indian woman went and opened the box and let him out. He is still living, though as a result of his horrible experience he is compelled to make his way about as best he may on all fours.