The Indians of Vancouver Island 293 



cavaliers to John Vancouver in 1792 than the Indian tradition of 

 it : — " The foreigners began to cultivate the ground, and to erect 

 a stockade and fort, when one day a ship came with papers for the 

 head man, who was observed to cry, and all the white men became 

 sad. The next day they began moving their goods to the ship." 



It is very hard to get at any notions of their religion. They 

 believe in a great spirit called Quateaht (whose type under other 

 names is found all over the American continent : the general reader 

 knows him best as "Hiawatha" of the Ojibiways), who taught 

 men all things, who parcelled out the tribes, and then went off to 

 his home in the happy land. They worship the sun and the moon. 

 Like the old Teutons, they regard the moon as the husband and the 

 sun as his wife ; hence their prayers are generally addressed to this 

 superior deity. Even Quateaht, great as he is, is an inferior deity 

 to the moon, who "looks down upon the earth in answer to 

 prayer, and as seeing everybody." " When working at the settle- 

 ment at Alberni in gangs by moonHght, individuals have been 

 observed to look up to the moon, blow a breath, and utter quickly 

 the word, Teech ! teech ! — ' health' or ' life.' Teech ! teech ! — 

 Life ! life ! That is the great wish of those people's hearts — even 

 such a miserable life as theirs seems to the civilized observer.'' 

 " Teech ! teech ! " is their common and almost constant prayer. 

 Unless Quateaht be ranked as such, it is said that they have no 

 knowledge of a Supreme Being, but they have many good and bad 

 spirits ; but Quateaht seems to preside over the beautiful country 

 where good men {according to the Indian standard) go when they 

 die. Everything there is beautiful and abundant. There a con- 

 tinual calm prevails, and the canoes float lightly on the sleeping 

 waters ; frost does not bind the rivers, and the snow never spreads 

 its white blanket over the ground. In this pleasant country, where 

 there is continual sunshine and warmth and gladness, it is believed 

 that the high chiefs and tliose natives who have been slain in battle 

 on the earth find their repose, the chiefs living in a large house as 

 the guests of Quateaht, and the slain in battle living by themselves 

 in another house. No Indians of a common degree go to the land 

 of Quateaht ; like Odin, he drives away the pauper and the bonds- 

 man from the door of Valhalla ! Their own account of their 

 religion is a little dreamy, and the learned doctors of Algic the- 

 ology differ widely. Once all the Indians were in animals, and when 

 they die a transmigration of souls into birds and other animals — 

 particularly owls — takes place. The writer has been implored by an 



