MOUNT RAINIER 



name it. Of all wampum, the most precious is Hiaqua. 

 Hiaqua comes from the far north. It is a small, per- 

 forated shell, not unlike a very opaque quill toothpick, 

 tapering from the middle, and cut square at both ends. 

 We string it in many strands, and hang it around the 

 neck of one we love, namely, each man his own neck. 

 We also buy with it what our hearts desire. He who 

 has most hiaqua is best and wisest and happiest of all 

 the northern Haida and of all the people of Whulge. 

 The mountain horsemen value it ; and braves of the 

 terrible Blackfeet have been known, in the good old 

 days, to come over and offer a horse or a wife for a 

 bunch of fifty hiaqua. 



"Now, once upon a time there dwelt where this 

 fort of Nisqually now stands a wise old man of the 

 Squallyamish. He was a great fisherman and a great 

 hunter ; and the wiser he grew, much the wiser he 

 thought himself. When he had grown very wise, he 

 used to stay apart from every other siwash. Compan- 

 ionable salmon-boilings round a common pot had no 

 charms for him. 'Feasting was wasteful/ he said, 

 'and revellers would come to want/ And when they 

 verified his prophecy, and were full of hunger and empty 

 of salmon, he came out of his hermitage, and had salmon 

 to sell. 



" Hiaqua was the pay he always demanded ; and 

 as he was a very wise old man, and knew all the tide- 

 ways of Whulge, and all the enticing ripples and placid 

 spots of repose in every river where fish might dash 

 or delay, he was sure to have salmon when others 

 wanted, and thus bagged largely of its precious equiva- 

 lent, hiaqua. 



"Not only a mighty fisher was the sage, but a mighty 

 hunter, and elk, the greatest animal of the woods, 

 was the game he loved. Well had he studied every 

 trail where elk leave the print of their hoofs, and 

 where, tossing their heads, they bend the tender twigs. 

 Well had he searched through the broad forest, and 



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