Just how long the Indians have had homes or congregated at Alert Bay no one knows, not even they themselves. But as far back as their traditions go, this particular spot on the coast has been a gathering-place focussing all the events of tribal life in peace and war. Time, therefore, has vested Alert Bay with all the importance of a capital and hallowed it to the red men all up and down the coast. Far within the Arctic Circle, away off on the shores of Queen Charlotte Islands, the aboriginals look to Alert for guidance in many things and in ways that are a mystery to us.
Building on established foundations, Alert Bay is now an Indian reservation, with an Indian agent and government school. For upward of a score of years a Church of England, established here with a resident rector, has maintained two boarding-schools—one for Indian boys and the other for Indian girls. But despite all these civilizing influences, there still obtains in the village the mysterious philosophy of life embodied in the community-house without windows, the open wood-fire in the middle of the floor and the hole in the roof for escaping smoke. There still remain the picturesque dugout or kayak, totem poles, big and little; tree burials, potlatches, including wild orgies, and a host of other curious customs that lend colour and weave a motif of weirdness into all the life hereabouts.
A curving beach and a boardwalk above the swishing waves following the bend of the beach, form what might elsewhere be termed “The Avenue of the Totem”. These totems, or “family trees”, the chief attraction of visitors to Alert Bay, are curiosities indeed! British Columbia giant trees sculptured by some old redskin into heraldic insignia of tribe and family, dealing mostly with leviathans that dwarf “our family trees” to nothing by comparison.
Crude? Yes, and no. The writing is a little unformed, perhaps, but the tale itself, one of the most perfect bits of symbol the world contains.
Whales, bears, giant kingfishers, thunderbirds and fish tell the life-history of the primitive ancestor, sitting astride the giant sulphur-bottom, harpoon in hand, with a pictorial accuracy and vim that far exceed the ordinary printed page having to do with early times. It must be remembered, too, that the early Indians did not know how to write in any form but that of carving and colour, so that the men who at different times carved these totems were not only artists of a kind, but historians, limning history—valuable Canadian history—upon the heart of the giant British Columbia cedar, to the end that all ages may read what happened in these parts when the world was young.
As family history, in this peerage of the race, there are doubtless many errors. Details are probably exaggerated to reveal personal prowess to greater advantage. The teeth of the bear are very large, the whale is a perfect giant and rapid in movement as was no whale before or since, so that the forbear who leapt astride the giant back, from the kayak, harpoon in hand, was a veritable master among Indians—a hero of heroes. All of which everyone admits to be legitimate poetic licence in the totem-maker and wisely calculated to whet the edge of the most callous imagination. But although the place of the whale is great and the lure of him, even at this distance in time, well-nigh impossible to resist, since through the length and breadth of him a wicked spirit seems to look at you through the mist, out of very spirited eyes fairly dancing with mischief, still it is the “Thunder-bird” who is the reigning spirit of these totems, swaying the imagination of the tribe far more than the whale, or the bear, who is here depicted holding against his great hairy breast the sacred “copper” emblem of “Chieftaincy” to this day. Even to uninitiated eyes there is a magic weirdness in the very look of the “Thunder-bird”. Its beak resembles somewhat the prows of two kayaks inverted one above the other. The bow of the lower, forming the under half of the beak, is hinged and allowed to drop open on state occasions. At the time of the potlatch, by dint of much writhing and wriggling, the “braves” make their entrance to the house of entertainment through the “Thunder-bird’s” open mouth. It requires but little imagination to see how this beak might be converted into a diabolical trap. Indeed, there is a story common in Alert Bay that at one time a tribe of enemies were invited to “potlatch” and treacherously slain, a man at a time, as they entered the house through the beak, the arrangement being such that no Indian on the outside knew what was happening till he received his death wound. The entire number of guests was thus wiped out.
Standing before the bird, mystery shrouding the crude mechanism, you feel that it was designed for some such coup d’etat as the one cited. It is so simple and so subtle withal. Every time you see an Indian pass it, stolid and reserved, he seems to glance that way with satisfaction, proud that here among his people should be a device that holds the interest of the white man, to the extent of repeated visits, if his stay in the neighbourhood be for long. The times assure us that the treacherous “feast-of-blood” will never be repeated. Yet the potlatch survives and who, even of the Indians, knows if the diabolical spirit of the bird is dead?
It is not altogether the natural scenery that makes the mystery and charm for the visitor to Alert Bay, but rather those unfathomable, sometimes intangible things, which having no articulate voice yet speak with marvellous power to every generation, and I suppose have so spoken since the dawn of time. One day as we were looking the “Thunder-bird” in the eye, trying to read his secret, a group of little Indian boys played nearby with their bows and arrows. Presently another lad came out of a “community house” with his family coffee-pot, which he set up on a post for a target. Soon the twang of the bow-strings and the tinkle of the falling coffee-pot spoke eloquently of the quality of the youngster’s markmanship. Over against the sea-edge of the board-walk a group of men and fat kloochmans (squaws) squatted on logs, watching the tableau and giving a deep, satisfied grunt every time the coffee-pot was shot from its perch. To the Indian—whose ancestors fought the giant sulphur-bottom, single-handed, on his own ground, and invented the Thunder-bird’s wily beak to trap the foe—skill in the use of the bow and arrow even to-day is of far more value than any coffee-pot ever made! At least the Indian mind is not hampered by little things! Marksmanship is still the perfection of acquirements to him. All his training hitherto has been along such lines. It is in his blood. But in these days, he turns his skill to different ends. He is broad and big in his conception of nationality now, where formerly it was the “tribe” that was the biggest concept of his days. To-day the Alert Bay Indian almost reverences the privileges of nationality! The British flag means so big a thing to him that when at death he now consents to be buried in the ground instead of being put far up in one of the giant trees in some old box or trunk much too short for his six feet unless doubled up once or twice, he usually has one and sometimes two or three handsome British flags set up over his grave on a pole or an overhanging tree—a rich bit of colour among the dark green pines. What faith in the flag and in its conquering ability to drive away evil spirits! Day and night, year in and year out, above that lone grave in the mists “the flag is still there”—waving above great painted whales, giant kingfishers, yellow moths and other symbols of name and place.
In keeping with this loyal spirit is “the roll of honour” hanging on the little English church door! An honour roll on which the names of red men and white men commingle! Some of the volunteers have made “the supreme sacrifice” “somewhere in France”, and are now taking their long sleep under the poppies in Flanders; and “the flag is still there,” with its deeper significance for the red man than ever before. For with his life’s blood he has bought the right to add it, a new theme, to his family totem.
A splendid work is being done among the Alert Bay Indians by both the Government and the Church. The Indian agent here is a hardy Ontario Scotsman, who understands the Indian and has won his confidence to a splendid degree. “’Tis true,” he himself assured us, “they still live in the community-house. But I’m not sure,” he added with characteristic Scotch humour, “but what the hole in the roof gives better ventilation than the window in the pretty cottage that’s never opened.”