Part 13 (1/2)

A great Squamish chief on the mainland was going to give a Potlatch. He had been preparing for it for weeks. He had enjoyed a very fortunate fis.h.i.+ng season, was a generous-hearted man, and was prepared to spend ten thousand dollars* in gifts and entertainment for his friends and all the poor of the various neighboring tribes.

[*Fact. This amount has frequently been given away.]

Chief Mowitch and all his family were invited, and great rejoicing and antic.i.p.ation were enjoyed over their salmon suppers that night.

”You and the boys go,” said his wife. ”Perhaps you will be lucky and bring home chicamin and blankets. The old men say the winter will be cold. Grey geese were going south yesterday, three weeks earlier than last year. Yes, we will need blankets when the ollalies (berries) are ripe in October. I shall stay at home, until the babies are older.

Yes, you and the boys go.”

”Yes,” responded the chief. ”It would never do for us to miss a great Squamish Potlatch. We must go.”

Then the elder son, Chet-woot, spoke joyously:

”And, mama,* we may bring back great riches, and even if the cold does come while we are away, our little brother, Ta-la-pus, will care for you and the babies. He'll carry water and bring all the wood for your warmth.”

[*The Chinook for father and mother is ”papa” and ”mama”, adopted from the English language.]

The father looked smilingly at Ta-la-pus, but the boy's eyes, great and dark, and hungry for the far mainland, for the great feasts he had heard so much of, were fastened in begging, pleading seriousness on his father's face. Suddenly a whim seized the old chief's fancy.

”Ta-la-pus,” he said, ”you look as if you would like to go, too. Do you want to take part in the Potlatch?”

Instantly Chet-woot objected. ”Papa, he could never go, he's too young.

They may ask him to dance for them. He can't dance. Then perhaps they would never ask us.”

The chief scowled. He was ruler in his own lodge, and allowed no interference from anyone.

”Besides,” continued Chet-woot, ”there would be no one to fetch wood for mama and the babies.”

”Yes, there would be someone,” said the chief, his eyes snapping fiercely. ”_You_ would be here to help your mama.”

”I?” exclaimed the young man. ”But how can I, when I shall be at the Potlatch? I go to _all_ the Potlatches.”

”So much more reason that you stay home this once and care for your mama and baby sisters, and you _shall_ stay. Lapool and little Ta-la-pus will go with me. It is time the boy saw something of the other tribes. Yes, I'll take Lapool and Ta-la-pus, and there is no change to my word when it is once spoken.”

Chet-woot sat like one stunned, but an Indian son knows better than to argue with his father. But the great, dark eyes of little Ta-la-pus glowed like embers of fire, his young heart leaped joyously. At last, at last, he was to set foot in the country of his dreams--the far, blue, mountain-circled mainland.

All that week his mother worked day and night on a fine new native costume for him to wear on the great occasion. There were trousers of buckskin fringed down each side, a s.h.i.+rt of buckskin, beaded and beautified by sh.e.l.l ornaments, a necklace of the bones of a rare fish, strung together like little beads on deer sinew, earrings of pink and green pearl from the inner part of the sh.e.l.ls of a bivalve, neat moccasins, and solid silver, carven bracelets.

She was working on a headdress consisting of a single red fox-tail and eagle feathers, when he came and stood beside her.

”Mama,” he said, ”there is a prairie wolf skin you cover the babies with while they sleep. Would you let me have it this once, if they would not be cold without it?”

”They will never be cold,” she smiled, ”for I can use an extra blanket over them. I only use it because I started to when you were the only baby I had, and it was your name, so I covered you with it at night.”

”And I want to cover myself with it now,” he explained, ”its head as my headdress, its front paws about my neck, its thick fur and tail trailing behind me as I dance.”

”So you are going to dance, my little Ta-la-pus?” she answered proudly.

”But how is that, when you do not yet know our great tribal dances?”

”I have made one of my own, and a song, too,” he said, shyly.