Welcome Man, continued
He wasn’t afraid as he drew near to the fire, but he felt somehow numb -- as if walking in a dream. Soon he entered the circle of firelight and came close enough to feel its warmth. Then he realized how cold he had been. His hands and face burned. The warmth quickly seemed to fill his whole body from the inside out and he felt comfortable for the first time in many days. The fire tender welcomed him again and gestured for him to sit down on a log near the shifting flames.
“Drink this thorny club juice. It will nourish your wounds,” said the hooded figure, handing Snowy Owl a stone cup filled with the thick drink he had tasted before during sweathouse ceremonies.
“I am glad that you are here,” said the fire tender. “It is unusual for a seeker to come to my camp this late in the year and this early in the morning.”
“Forgive me if coming now offends you, sir,” said Snowy Owl.
“Your island shines with the joy of the Creator. Since canoeing here each night I watched your fire and longed to see your face. I come to see if you are a shaman of Raven or a friend of Wonderful Doer. Why do you speak in my people’s dialect? I am Muxqueum Snowy Owl of the Kaw-Seth.”
“The white feathers in your hair tell me that you have met my friend snowy owl of the north and that you have taken his name as part of your quest here. I am Tillikum --Tender of the Sacred Fire. The Great Spirit of Wonderful Doer dwells in my chest as he does in yours. Crafty Raven does not dare fly near my camp. I speak in the language that you understand so that one day you may speak the language of heaven to your people.”
“Sir, you know me?” he asked.
“Yes, I know you through and through and have been sent here to instruct you in your quest to free your people and to bring them here and make my island the new home for the new people.”
Snowy Owl took in Tillikum’s stunning words that confirmed his inner thoughts for the last weeks. He knew that somehow he would be the one to free his people from the ghost monsters. Now he could depend on the keeper of the supernatural fire for help. He asked many questions and discussed his plans openly and Tillikum gave him wise advise at each point. They talked long into the night, drinking the thorny club juice and watching the fire burn. Tillikum revealed how if he had courage he could defeat his enemies.
Finally Snowy Owl asked, “Oh, Great Tender of Sacred Fire, how will one man succeed in doing these things?”
“Wonderful Doer who sits high in the Spirit Lodge hears the cries of your grandmothers and knows the pain inflicted by your oppressors. He is sending you to do his work and if you trust in him, he will ensure success in battle. See -- look at these smokeless flames. The sacred fire burns on your behalf. Now, put your hand into the flames and let them consume your body as they do the cedar logs and you will understand the power of the Changer in this place.”
For the first time, Muxqueum Snowy Owl doubted the Fire Tender. Perhaps he is a deceiving spirit and servant of Babakawquit. He remembered the cursing words of Namquaw. He panicked at the thought that he was tricked and out of the corner of his eye looked for the spot where his pack and weapons lay. He imagined running back into the forest.
“Never fear, Muxqueum Snowy Owl, only believe,” said Tillikum reaching out his hand and holding it over the flames.
“Do as I do and live.”
Snowy Owl winched at the sight of Tillikum’s bare hand placed into the fire. It must be a test of courage. Tillikum’s face did not react to the pain. He knew that he could also endure pain for the cause of his people. Slowly he reached out his own hand from his rain tunic and put it near the flames.
“Go on,” said Tillikum.
Then it happened. Snowy Owl pushed his hand and arm into the flames.
Strangely he felt no pain at all -- only warmth that he first felt in his arm began to grow inside his body and spread outward to fill his whole body. The warmth was deep and consuming and made him feel as if he could float away like a bit of ash flies up from a campfire. The warmth, like the fire itself, was supernatural. It was as if all of the warmth that he ever felt was only a reflection by comparison – like a totem pole carver tries to reflect the likeness of an animal.
Our world is looking at a carved figure, he thought and this is looking at the living animal. Now he knew true warmth and looked out of the flames to see true light in the darkness. It was the glory light, the light that made all lights that we see today. No living human had seen glory light or felt glory warmth before Snowy Owl did on that night at the sacred fire on the island mountain.
Just like a log burns away in a fire, he watched Tillikum’s strong arms burn up, then the flame spread to consume all of his body. Tillikum glowed red like a solid ember in the pit. He then became indistinguishable from the flames. In the same way, the arms of Snowy Owl reaching into the fire was consumed and then his whole body also burned up and turned red until the world of water, land and wind faded from his sight and he was lifted up from the camp and the island, rising into the sky world with Tillikum at his side. Just as the glory light that he now saw was the true light of the worlds, so also his own body was transformed into something new and more real than before.
Tillikum took Snowy Owl to the highest place until they came to the door of an immense lodge that glowed white like the moon. It was the Great Spirit lodge. A blaze of light consumed them as they walked into the open door that was shaped like the gaping beak of a white bird. From out of the beak shown a light seven times brighter than the sun.
We do not know exactly what happened next, because the light in that place is too great for anyone to look at for long. But our fathers say that on that night he reached the end of the path of all mysteries and his spirit was changed. Wonderful Doer filled his heart with the fullness of the Great Spirit and said, “Instead of treating you as a slave, I accept you as a son and grant you powers to do exploits on behave of the Creator.”
He could not contain all of the spirit power that he was given and his chest seemed to burst with a love greater than he had ever known until he was made into a new man. He knew that he didn’t deserve to be so loved and empowered. It was the way of the Changer to perfect his creation.
And so there in the brightness of the heavenly lodge, Snowy Owl began to take on the appearance of Tillikum and his face shined with his. He joined in the fellowship of the heavenly lodge and shared a little of the same oneness that unites the Council of Three since before all worlds were made or anyone can imagine. We cannot say how long they spent together because the phases of the moon or the arch of the sun do not show their turnings in that house.
Sometime after his visit to the Great Spirit Lodge, Snowy Owl awoke in the morning and found that he lay face down on the rocky ground of the mountaintop. He felt rested and strong. When he stood up and looked around, he realized that his vision of the sky world was in no way a dream.
Instead, he now understood that the world of land and wind is more like a dream in comparison and that after death those transformed wake up to a better place.
Tillikum was gone and he was alone before the burned out fire pit. He found his pack and took out the thunderbird and prayed as his mother taught him, giving thanks for the visions and supernatural knowledge that he had received. In his pack he carried a clamshell to keep a hot coal for fire starting. He dug into the wide fire pit with a stick and found a red-hot coal and placed it into the shell. He then wrapped it in a small cedar pouch and returned it to his pack.
The camp was empty except for a large spear leaning against the rock wall. The weapon was about as tall as his height and fitted with a perfectly shaped obsidian blade slightly smaller than his hand. Somehow he knew that it was left there for him. He took the spear and his pack and began the journey down the mountain to the beach and Bloodroot Bay. Although he didn’t realize it, if you were to look upon Snowy Owl in the days after his vision quest, you would see that his tunic, hat and beard faintly glowed white like a full moon.
Snowy Owl paddled his canoe back to the secret inner harbor that he had discovered and found a spot facing south to build a lodge for the winter. The days grew shorter and the evening felt foreign and colder every night and he knew that the storms would be coming soon. So, he dug a deep pit in the sandy earth and lined it with cedar bark and drift wood, then made a circular ceiling of sticks and branches and mud. He constructed a smoke hole and a door and made a ladder that reached from the top to the bottom. He lined the floor with strips of sweet smelling cedar bark and a matt of dry grasses. In the center of the pit house he placed carefully selected rocks in a circle for his fire using the coal from the sacred fire as his starter. He quickly learned that the coal did not grow cold and always stayed hot in the shell and the fire burned blue and seemed to warm his body from the inside first.
He caught salmon and rockfish and killed a deer for meat. The game was plentiful and the hunting easy. He boiled a batch of candlefish that he had netted and skimmed off the fat as he was taught. The candlefish fat was good to eat with berries, but also provided oil for his spruce root basket lamp that he lit to see after dark.
Day light was brief and the darkness of night long. As his banishment continued gray day after day, he began to feel lonely and seemed overwhelmed by the new quest given to him. He was to return to Raven’s Harbor and demand that the Kaw-Seth be freed. The more he thought of it, the harder it seemed. He knew that many of his people had long accepted their status as slaves. Many of the children his age had never seen the old village or were not taught the traditional ways.
Why would they risk death by following him in a rebellion against the warrior house? Most of the surviving Kaw-Seth were women and children or braves not trained in the ways of battle. Any mention of freedom or escape meant death by torture and each slave had seen the cruelty inflicted on disobedient slaves. Why would they listen to him when he returns? How could he quiet the scoffers?
His thoughts were caught in a net weighted by heavy sinkers and he became sad and quiet in the long nights before his small fire or dim lamp. Because of the rain, it was hard to keep dry. He almost forgot the words of the now absent Tillikum that the Great Spirit would go before him and ensure success. He tried to remind himself that he was to be a vanquisher of spirits, but the vision of heaven began to seem more like a dream after all. He spent the winter mostly fishing and carving a model totem pole chronicling the high points of his adventure.
On these nights the Snowy Owl Quest Totem Pole model is displayed here on the dancing platform to commemorate the winter ceremonies. At the model’s bottom frame is Raven representing the place of origin from which Muxqueum was banished. Next is Killer Whale representing the pod that saved him from Namquaw’s men. The tail of the whale covers part of the head of Raven. Above the whale was the otter of his sea passage and in his dream. Above that is an image of the white Owl that guided him to the sacred fire. Next is a Thunderbird in the same design as the one in cave of the underworld. At the top of the model pole, riding on the back of Thunderbird, he fashioned a likeness of Tillikum, the Sacred Fire Tender, wearing a ceremonial tribal hat and outstretching his arms in welcome.
As he carved, carefully shaving away ribbons of sweet smelling cedar, and smoothed and polished the final features with a stone, Snowy Owl thought, “One day this totem pole will grace the entrance to the Inner Harbor and welcome my people to their new home.” Looking at the model pleased him.
He spent many days and night when the cold rains fell imagining the return to Raven’s Harbor in the spring. According to his vision in the Spirit lodge he should go directly to the chief’s lodge and demand that the Kaw-Seth slaves and their descendants be permitted to return with him to the ocean if they chose. Although he was cursed by Namquaw never to let his shadow touch Tsonox ground again, somehow he believed the Creator’s powers would protect him and grant him success.
He fashioned strips of cedar into watertight containers as he was taught as a child and used these for cooking. When rocks about half the size of a fist were red hot in his fire, he pulled them out with tongs and dropped them into the cedar containers with water and herbs and what ever meat he cooked. He made a stew of fish heads and clams for dinner and drank the thick broth before falling asleep on warm mats hearing the rain beat against the skunk cabbage roof of his Bloodroot Bay hutch.
He dreamed of exploring the ocean bottom like a crab or fish, moving effortlessly through clear waters above rocks and past swaying seaweed like a bird flying through the clouds. Friends from childhood visited other dreams, along with his mother and the men of the warrior’s house. Once he dreamed of hunting a bear with the old whalers. More than once he spied the dark eyed girl he met in the dream the night he heard the owl. She always seemed to elude him. He followed her but was never able to draw near enough to speak. Even though he had a reputation as an interpreter of messages from the dream world, he didn’t know what his own dreams meant.
Following the custom of his people, every morning he rose at dawn to bath in the cold waters of a near by pool of the freshwater stream that fed into the harbor. Plunging into the cold water built his discipline and produced spiritual purity. He sang the purity song while wading up to his neck in the icy waters. The chanting over, he immediately ran back to the warm hutch for breakfast of salmon and berries. He prided himself for learning how to make a tea of the thorny club bush that tasted almost like Tillikum’s drink. The tea made him stronger and stronger each day.
On clear days he took his skin boat out of the harbor and into the deep waters around the Lost Island to fish and explore. On one such day he paddled near one of the twin islands he saw from the mountaintop and decided to explore it by foot. The companion island appeared about one forth the size of the larger island. While beaching his canoe and dragging it up above the tide line to ensure a safe return, he suddenly noticed a large hairy animal like a bear move quickly into the brush lining the narrow beach. He grabbed his bow and arrow and stalked toward the movement. A bear hide coat would be an ideal addition to his belongings this winter.
He crawled on hands and feet into the brush to get a better look. When he pulled away some branches, to his amazement he was face to face with a sesquec -- a wild-woman – also crouching as if stalking him. It immediately drew back and when it stood up he could see that the sesquec was taller than a man. It was clearly female. Her whole body from head to feet, including sagging breasts, was covered by long, brown hair. Her face looked like an old woman, except that her nose was like the nose of an elk. She pursed her lips together as if to whistle, looked down and disappeared into the woods.
He remembered stories of the supernatural race of wild hairy people known as the sesquec said to live in the mountains and have the ability to disappear instantly and move invisibly across great distances. Stories said that sesquec had the power to transform themselves into thought and travel anywhere by wishing. As a small child he was warned not to wander too far into the forests around the village or else wild-woman might catch him, put him in her basket mounted on her back and take him to her village for dinner. As he grew older he came to believe that such stories were meant to entertain the children.
Now he saw a sesquec himself. The race of supernatural wild-men and wild-women does exist, he thought – he saw it with his own eyes, although he could not deny that the encounter could be a trick of Setko. Maybe that sesquec is one of the rebellious spirits sent to deceive him.
He walked into a clearing of the island out of sight of the water and saw a lodge with smoke from a fire pit. The smoke looked strangely yellow, instead of white. He had thought that the islands were uninhabited. It was five moons since he had spoken to a person and he was eager to meet whoever lived here. Then he saw three women scraping a deer pelt stretched on a rack under a shelter – two of the women looked about his age or younger.
“Greetings from a neighbor,” called Snowy Owl to the women.
The two younger women immediately bent down to pass through the lodge door, leaving another in a finely woven brown blanket to stand up, wash her hands with water from a basket, then said, “Greetings, neighbor, welcome to winter house.”
They spoke the Salweh trade language of the time.
He approached, as is the custom for a young man visiting a grandmother, with his head down and eyes averted and hands held out in a gesture of respect. In his most respectful voice he explained that he was a quest seeker spending the winter on the big island. He praised her island and camp and the design of her blanket and the finely crafted spear that she held and said that he cannot stay long but must get back to his camp soon. She had him sit down and brought him a few bites of smoked cod to eat. As he chewed the fatty flesh -- that filled his mouth with a strong smoke and fish oil flavor -- he thought that it was strange that the woman was by herself.
“My husband and his brothers caught a big codfish days ago and my daughters smoked the cheeks as a treat to welcome guests,” she said.
“You are the first guest in a long time. Husband says that he saw your camp in the inner harbor. He will be returning from fishing any moment. Then you men folk can talk.”
Muxqueum Snowy Owl had been on the Lost Island for almost half a year and other than Tillicum this was the first person he had spoken to. He found it hard to believe that someone was watching his camp without him knowing. Still it was good to talk to another. He wondered about the two daughters hidden in the lodge.
She explained that she and her family came to the island when the daughters were small girls to escape an enemy who raided their village on the mainland. A shaman told them to sail north-by-north west out to sea to find passage circumventing the treacherous currents and continue three days and nights though the thick fog that hides the lost islands from the rest of the world.
“Kind mother, I see that you devote yourself to making your wilderness home comfortable for your family. I have spent these last moons collecting herbs to stock my lodge with goods. I have pouches of bloodroot, yarrow, sage and thorny club. Maybe your husband would like to give you some of my herbs in exchange for something that your hand has made?”
“What do you want, Muxqueum of the Kaw-Seth?”
“This cod is delicious,” he replied. “But what I truly desire is a blanket or tanned skin to keep me warm when the snow comes.”
“I am sure that we would like to share the work of our hands with you, my boy. We have much smoked fish. But a blanket or skin is costly to make. Do you have other goods for trade?” she asked.
“I am a carver of art,” he said.
Then he added without thinking, “The people of my tribe also come to me to interpret their dreams. If one of your loved ones is troubled by a dream, the Great Spirit may come to me and tell me what fortune or warning is sent to you from the dream world.”
“We have no troubling dreams just now,” said the old woman who seemed to grow excited.
“But, we need a carved effigy to ward away a bear that has been drawing near our camp. I want the bear figure mounted on top of our lodge – as big as my stomach. If you can carve us a fine bear face totem figure, my daughter will give you one of her warm deer skins – tanned as soft as her own skin.”
Snowy Owl promised to begin the bear effigy in the Tsonox design as soon as he returned home, then added, “When I pulled ashore just now, I saw something hairy like a bear down near the beach. But, it seemed to stand upright like man and had a strange face,” he said.
“Yes, that old she bear often stands to sniff the wind,” said the old woman. She is almost like a tame dog and refuses to be shooed away. Bear is our totem, so we are forbidden to harm it. My daughters are afraid to walk alone.”
“Maybe that is what it was,” he said wondering how what he saw could possible be a bear. It had very long, brown hair covering its whole body and walked upright. That was not a bear.
“I will work quickly and paint the effigy red and yellow to show the bear spirit who is master,” said Snowy Owl rising up to depart. The old woman gestured for him to wait, then bent down through the door to the lodge. He heard giggling inside, then she returned with a leather pouch decorated with a white and red beads in a lightening bolt design and stuffed with something inside a large, folded green leaf.
“Here, take this sweet cod as a down payment for our bear carving,” she said, handing the pouch to him.
“Thank you kind mother,” he said holding the pouch as if it were a treasure.
“I will return with the carving when the new moon shows his face in the sky world.” He heard the old woman’s voice and the daughter’s laughter as he walked back to the beach.
On his way paddling home he noticed the sky turning pale white until a black cloud appeared and spread over the peak of the mountain, spilling down in his direction like pouring water from a basket. He paddled faster and grew sweaty from the exertion. Then a light snow began to fall, dusting his hat and shoulders and obscuring his view. The snow fell harder and his beard began to freeze. His spirit turned white with each breath. He was used to exposure to cold from his training in the pool each morning, but not being able to see very far troubled him.
The inlet to Bloodroot Bay was just around the next turn, when he saw the floor of the skin boat had water in it. He stopped to use the cedar bark bail to dip the offending water out. The sea became choppy and he rocked sharply back and forth, awkwardly bailing the water. He continued to paddle, only to see more water seep in. He had never had such a bad leak in the canoe before, even through the ocean crossing.
Covered with snow, wet and freezing, Snowy Owl took almost three times as long to return than he had anticipated. His moccasins were soaked with water. He wished that he had that soft deerskin now. The sun had set and the falling snow made it hard to see where to beach the leaky skin boat. Once ashore he whisked off the icy water from his hair and ran up the snow covered beach and hillside to the hutch, looking forward to the warmth of the fire pit and some food.
He opened the door and climbed the ladder down to the secure interior where he immediately placed some dry twigs and pinecones on the fire coals. Soon he had a nice fire blazing and enough hot rocks to make some thorny club tea. He ate more of the smoked cod that the old woman gave him and savored how good it tasted. He reached for his box of dried blueberries and when he pulled off the lid, he found that a mouse had chewed through a corner and eaten most of it.
No mice had bothered him in the hutch before. He removed those blueberries that were spoiled and dumped them on the fire, eating the handful that was left. It was the last of his blueberries for the winter. The burning blueberries filled the room with a wonderful smell. He set a mouse snare then lay down, pulling his warm blanket over his head. Before falling asleep he noticed that the room and all of Bloodroot Bay was unusually quiet.
That night he dreamed that a mouse was running away from a raven, but the bird landed on it and pinned it down with a foot and began pecking out its eyes, then gulped down the body and slurped the tail into its beak. The bird turned his black eyes to the heavens and called out a raven’s call. He also dreamed of a hairy face starring at him through the bushes.
The next few days he devoted himself to carving the bear effigy. He found an ideal piece of cedar wood and used his axe to cut away larger unwanted parts and began shaving and detailing with his carving tool. The face was taking shape when his obsidian blade broke in half. It was a disaster. Now he couldn’t possibly finish the figure before the new moon. His other knives were inadequate for woodcarving. Where would he get another blade in the middle of winter? Then he remembered that the floor of the cave was covered with pieces of shinny black rocks that looked like obsidian and he vowed to make the journey up the side of the mountain to search the cave for a new blade.
He made snowshoes because the snow reached his knees in some places. It was very cold, but was not raining or snowing on the day that he paced his bag with the sacred fire start in the clam shell and strapped his bow and arrows to his back and held Tillicum’s spear as a walking staff to keep his balance on the icy paths. He brought food and candlefish fat for the cedar basket lamp and his warmest clothing and hat for the four day hike up the side of the mountain. This time he knew the way, but the snow slowed his progress. Each night he built a fire, collecting broken treetops fallen from the winter winds for fuel. The end of the fourth day, he climbed the final ledge and saw the cave entrance, just as he had remembered it only now white and silent, coated with ice and snow.
He bent down and crawled into the cave and immediately noticed the warmth radiating from the floor. He rested for a moment in the warmth and admired the art on the cave walls once again. He set up his bed on the dry mats still there as before and lit his candlefish fat lamp. The lamplight flickered and illuminated the images of the thunderbird, bear and salmon. He studied the bear design and decided to make the effigy in this style to match the bear spirit of these islands.
As he ate fern roots and strips of sun-cured venison, he realized that it was mid winter. Back home in Raven’s Harbor the people would be celebrating the winter feasts and telling the ancient stories. He thought of the seafood stew with abalone and shrimp, the salmon and blueberry cakes and the music and dancing. So, Muxqueam Snowy Owl began singing the long ago songs taught to him by his mother.
Then he made up his own songs based on his vision and the secrets that Tillikum told him in the Spirit Lodge and at the sacred fire pit – now only a morning’s walk away. The sound of his singing filled the cave and echoed as before.
On these nights we still dance the echoing cave songs of Muxqueum, the first Snowy Owl of our people.
Next Chapter
“Drink this thorny club juice. It will nourish your wounds,” said the hooded figure, handing Snowy Owl a stone cup filled with the thick drink he had tasted before during sweathouse ceremonies.
“I am glad that you are here,” said the fire tender. “It is unusual for a seeker to come to my camp this late in the year and this early in the morning.”
“Forgive me if coming now offends you, sir,” said Snowy Owl.
“Your island shines with the joy of the Creator. Since canoeing here each night I watched your fire and longed to see your face. I come to see if you are a shaman of Raven or a friend of Wonderful Doer. Why do you speak in my people’s dialect? I am Muxqueum Snowy Owl of the Kaw-Seth.”
“The white feathers in your hair tell me that you have met my friend snowy owl of the north and that you have taken his name as part of your quest here. I am Tillikum --Tender of the Sacred Fire. The Great Spirit of Wonderful Doer dwells in my chest as he does in yours. Crafty Raven does not dare fly near my camp. I speak in the language that you understand so that one day you may speak the language of heaven to your people.”
“Sir, you know me?” he asked.
“Yes, I know you through and through and have been sent here to instruct you in your quest to free your people and to bring them here and make my island the new home for the new people.”
Snowy Owl took in Tillikum’s stunning words that confirmed his inner thoughts for the last weeks. He knew that somehow he would be the one to free his people from the ghost monsters. Now he could depend on the keeper of the supernatural fire for help. He asked many questions and discussed his plans openly and Tillikum gave him wise advise at each point. They talked long into the night, drinking the thorny club juice and watching the fire burn. Tillikum revealed how if he had courage he could defeat his enemies.
Finally Snowy Owl asked, “Oh, Great Tender of Sacred Fire, how will one man succeed in doing these things?”
“Wonderful Doer who sits high in the Spirit Lodge hears the cries of your grandmothers and knows the pain inflicted by your oppressors. He is sending you to do his work and if you trust in him, he will ensure success in battle. See -- look at these smokeless flames. The sacred fire burns on your behalf. Now, put your hand into the flames and let them consume your body as they do the cedar logs and you will understand the power of the Changer in this place.”
For the first time, Muxqueum Snowy Owl doubted the Fire Tender. Perhaps he is a deceiving spirit and servant of Babakawquit. He remembered the cursing words of Namquaw. He panicked at the thought that he was tricked and out of the corner of his eye looked for the spot where his pack and weapons lay. He imagined running back into the forest.
“Never fear, Muxqueum Snowy Owl, only believe,” said Tillikum reaching out his hand and holding it over the flames.
“Do as I do and live.”
Snowy Owl winched at the sight of Tillikum’s bare hand placed into the fire. It must be a test of courage. Tillikum’s face did not react to the pain. He knew that he could also endure pain for the cause of his people. Slowly he reached out his own hand from his rain tunic and put it near the flames.
“Go on,” said Tillikum.
Then it happened. Snowy Owl pushed his hand and arm into the flames.
Strangely he felt no pain at all -- only warmth that he first felt in his arm began to grow inside his body and spread outward to fill his whole body. The warmth was deep and consuming and made him feel as if he could float away like a bit of ash flies up from a campfire. The warmth, like the fire itself, was supernatural. It was as if all of the warmth that he ever felt was only a reflection by comparison – like a totem pole carver tries to reflect the likeness of an animal.
Our world is looking at a carved figure, he thought and this is looking at the living animal. Now he knew true warmth and looked out of the flames to see true light in the darkness. It was the glory light, the light that made all lights that we see today. No living human had seen glory light or felt glory warmth before Snowy Owl did on that night at the sacred fire on the island mountain.
Just like a log burns away in a fire, he watched Tillikum’s strong arms burn up, then the flame spread to consume all of his body. Tillikum glowed red like a solid ember in the pit. He then became indistinguishable from the flames. In the same way, the arms of Snowy Owl reaching into the fire was consumed and then his whole body also burned up and turned red until the world of water, land and wind faded from his sight and he was lifted up from the camp and the island, rising into the sky world with Tillikum at his side. Just as the glory light that he now saw was the true light of the worlds, so also his own body was transformed into something new and more real than before.
Tillikum took Snowy Owl to the highest place until they came to the door of an immense lodge that glowed white like the moon. It was the Great Spirit lodge. A blaze of light consumed them as they walked into the open door that was shaped like the gaping beak of a white bird. From out of the beak shown a light seven times brighter than the sun.
We do not know exactly what happened next, because the light in that place is too great for anyone to look at for long. But our fathers say that on that night he reached the end of the path of all mysteries and his spirit was changed. Wonderful Doer filled his heart with the fullness of the Great Spirit and said, “Instead of treating you as a slave, I accept you as a son and grant you powers to do exploits on behave of the Creator.”
He could not contain all of the spirit power that he was given and his chest seemed to burst with a love greater than he had ever known until he was made into a new man. He knew that he didn’t deserve to be so loved and empowered. It was the way of the Changer to perfect his creation.
And so there in the brightness of the heavenly lodge, Snowy Owl began to take on the appearance of Tillikum and his face shined with his. He joined in the fellowship of the heavenly lodge and shared a little of the same oneness that unites the Council of Three since before all worlds were made or anyone can imagine. We cannot say how long they spent together because the phases of the moon or the arch of the sun do not show their turnings in that house.
Sometime after his visit to the Great Spirit Lodge, Snowy Owl awoke in the morning and found that he lay face down on the rocky ground of the mountaintop. He felt rested and strong. When he stood up and looked around, he realized that his vision of the sky world was in no way a dream.
Instead, he now understood that the world of land and wind is more like a dream in comparison and that after death those transformed wake up to a better place.
Tillikum was gone and he was alone before the burned out fire pit. He found his pack and took out the thunderbird and prayed as his mother taught him, giving thanks for the visions and supernatural knowledge that he had received. In his pack he carried a clamshell to keep a hot coal for fire starting. He dug into the wide fire pit with a stick and found a red-hot coal and placed it into the shell. He then wrapped it in a small cedar pouch and returned it to his pack.
The camp was empty except for a large spear leaning against the rock wall. The weapon was about as tall as his height and fitted with a perfectly shaped obsidian blade slightly smaller than his hand. Somehow he knew that it was left there for him. He took the spear and his pack and began the journey down the mountain to the beach and Bloodroot Bay. Although he didn’t realize it, if you were to look upon Snowy Owl in the days after his vision quest, you would see that his tunic, hat and beard faintly glowed white like a full moon.
Snowy Owl paddled his canoe back to the secret inner harbor that he had discovered and found a spot facing south to build a lodge for the winter. The days grew shorter and the evening felt foreign and colder every night and he knew that the storms would be coming soon. So, he dug a deep pit in the sandy earth and lined it with cedar bark and drift wood, then made a circular ceiling of sticks and branches and mud. He constructed a smoke hole and a door and made a ladder that reached from the top to the bottom. He lined the floor with strips of sweet smelling cedar bark and a matt of dry grasses. In the center of the pit house he placed carefully selected rocks in a circle for his fire using the coal from the sacred fire as his starter. He quickly learned that the coal did not grow cold and always stayed hot in the shell and the fire burned blue and seemed to warm his body from the inside first.
He caught salmon and rockfish and killed a deer for meat. The game was plentiful and the hunting easy. He boiled a batch of candlefish that he had netted and skimmed off the fat as he was taught. The candlefish fat was good to eat with berries, but also provided oil for his spruce root basket lamp that he lit to see after dark.
Day light was brief and the darkness of night long. As his banishment continued gray day after day, he began to feel lonely and seemed overwhelmed by the new quest given to him. He was to return to Raven’s Harbor and demand that the Kaw-Seth be freed. The more he thought of it, the harder it seemed. He knew that many of his people had long accepted their status as slaves. Many of the children his age had never seen the old village or were not taught the traditional ways.
Why would they risk death by following him in a rebellion against the warrior house? Most of the surviving Kaw-Seth were women and children or braves not trained in the ways of battle. Any mention of freedom or escape meant death by torture and each slave had seen the cruelty inflicted on disobedient slaves. Why would they listen to him when he returns? How could he quiet the scoffers?
His thoughts were caught in a net weighted by heavy sinkers and he became sad and quiet in the long nights before his small fire or dim lamp. Because of the rain, it was hard to keep dry. He almost forgot the words of the now absent Tillikum that the Great Spirit would go before him and ensure success. He tried to remind himself that he was to be a vanquisher of spirits, but the vision of heaven began to seem more like a dream after all. He spent the winter mostly fishing and carving a model totem pole chronicling the high points of his adventure.
On these nights the Snowy Owl Quest Totem Pole model is displayed here on the dancing platform to commemorate the winter ceremonies. At the model’s bottom frame is Raven representing the place of origin from which Muxqueum was banished. Next is Killer Whale representing the pod that saved him from Namquaw’s men. The tail of the whale covers part of the head of Raven. Above the whale was the otter of his sea passage and in his dream. Above that is an image of the white Owl that guided him to the sacred fire. Next is a Thunderbird in the same design as the one in cave of the underworld. At the top of the model pole, riding on the back of Thunderbird, he fashioned a likeness of Tillikum, the Sacred Fire Tender, wearing a ceremonial tribal hat and outstretching his arms in welcome.
As he carved, carefully shaving away ribbons of sweet smelling cedar, and smoothed and polished the final features with a stone, Snowy Owl thought, “One day this totem pole will grace the entrance to the Inner Harbor and welcome my people to their new home.” Looking at the model pleased him.
He spent many days and night when the cold rains fell imagining the return to Raven’s Harbor in the spring. According to his vision in the Spirit lodge he should go directly to the chief’s lodge and demand that the Kaw-Seth slaves and their descendants be permitted to return with him to the ocean if they chose. Although he was cursed by Namquaw never to let his shadow touch Tsonox ground again, somehow he believed the Creator’s powers would protect him and grant him success.
He fashioned strips of cedar into watertight containers as he was taught as a child and used these for cooking. When rocks about half the size of a fist were red hot in his fire, he pulled them out with tongs and dropped them into the cedar containers with water and herbs and what ever meat he cooked. He made a stew of fish heads and clams for dinner and drank the thick broth before falling asleep on warm mats hearing the rain beat against the skunk cabbage roof of his Bloodroot Bay hutch.
He dreamed of exploring the ocean bottom like a crab or fish, moving effortlessly through clear waters above rocks and past swaying seaweed like a bird flying through the clouds. Friends from childhood visited other dreams, along with his mother and the men of the warrior’s house. Once he dreamed of hunting a bear with the old whalers. More than once he spied the dark eyed girl he met in the dream the night he heard the owl. She always seemed to elude him. He followed her but was never able to draw near enough to speak. Even though he had a reputation as an interpreter of messages from the dream world, he didn’t know what his own dreams meant.
Following the custom of his people, every morning he rose at dawn to bath in the cold waters of a near by pool of the freshwater stream that fed into the harbor. Plunging into the cold water built his discipline and produced spiritual purity. He sang the purity song while wading up to his neck in the icy waters. The chanting over, he immediately ran back to the warm hutch for breakfast of salmon and berries. He prided himself for learning how to make a tea of the thorny club bush that tasted almost like Tillikum’s drink. The tea made him stronger and stronger each day.
On clear days he took his skin boat out of the harbor and into the deep waters around the Lost Island to fish and explore. On one such day he paddled near one of the twin islands he saw from the mountaintop and decided to explore it by foot. The companion island appeared about one forth the size of the larger island. While beaching his canoe and dragging it up above the tide line to ensure a safe return, he suddenly noticed a large hairy animal like a bear move quickly into the brush lining the narrow beach. He grabbed his bow and arrow and stalked toward the movement. A bear hide coat would be an ideal addition to his belongings this winter.
He crawled on hands and feet into the brush to get a better look. When he pulled away some branches, to his amazement he was face to face with a sesquec -- a wild-woman – also crouching as if stalking him. It immediately drew back and when it stood up he could see that the sesquec was taller than a man. It was clearly female. Her whole body from head to feet, including sagging breasts, was covered by long, brown hair. Her face looked like an old woman, except that her nose was like the nose of an elk. She pursed her lips together as if to whistle, looked down and disappeared into the woods.
He remembered stories of the supernatural race of wild hairy people known as the sesquec said to live in the mountains and have the ability to disappear instantly and move invisibly across great distances. Stories said that sesquec had the power to transform themselves into thought and travel anywhere by wishing. As a small child he was warned not to wander too far into the forests around the village or else wild-woman might catch him, put him in her basket mounted on her back and take him to her village for dinner. As he grew older he came to believe that such stories were meant to entertain the children.
Now he saw a sesquec himself. The race of supernatural wild-men and wild-women does exist, he thought – he saw it with his own eyes, although he could not deny that the encounter could be a trick of Setko. Maybe that sesquec is one of the rebellious spirits sent to deceive him.
He walked into a clearing of the island out of sight of the water and saw a lodge with smoke from a fire pit. The smoke looked strangely yellow, instead of white. He had thought that the islands were uninhabited. It was five moons since he had spoken to a person and he was eager to meet whoever lived here. Then he saw three women scraping a deer pelt stretched on a rack under a shelter – two of the women looked about his age or younger.
“Greetings from a neighbor,” called Snowy Owl to the women.
The two younger women immediately bent down to pass through the lodge door, leaving another in a finely woven brown blanket to stand up, wash her hands with water from a basket, then said, “Greetings, neighbor, welcome to winter house.”
They spoke the Salweh trade language of the time.
He approached, as is the custom for a young man visiting a grandmother, with his head down and eyes averted and hands held out in a gesture of respect. In his most respectful voice he explained that he was a quest seeker spending the winter on the big island. He praised her island and camp and the design of her blanket and the finely crafted spear that she held and said that he cannot stay long but must get back to his camp soon. She had him sit down and brought him a few bites of smoked cod to eat. As he chewed the fatty flesh -- that filled his mouth with a strong smoke and fish oil flavor -- he thought that it was strange that the woman was by herself.
“My husband and his brothers caught a big codfish days ago and my daughters smoked the cheeks as a treat to welcome guests,” she said.
“You are the first guest in a long time. Husband says that he saw your camp in the inner harbor. He will be returning from fishing any moment. Then you men folk can talk.”
Muxqueum Snowy Owl had been on the Lost Island for almost half a year and other than Tillicum this was the first person he had spoken to. He found it hard to believe that someone was watching his camp without him knowing. Still it was good to talk to another. He wondered about the two daughters hidden in the lodge.
She explained that she and her family came to the island when the daughters were small girls to escape an enemy who raided their village on the mainland. A shaman told them to sail north-by-north west out to sea to find passage circumventing the treacherous currents and continue three days and nights though the thick fog that hides the lost islands from the rest of the world.
“Kind mother, I see that you devote yourself to making your wilderness home comfortable for your family. I have spent these last moons collecting herbs to stock my lodge with goods. I have pouches of bloodroot, yarrow, sage and thorny club. Maybe your husband would like to give you some of my herbs in exchange for something that your hand has made?”
“What do you want, Muxqueum of the Kaw-Seth?”
“This cod is delicious,” he replied. “But what I truly desire is a blanket or tanned skin to keep me warm when the snow comes.”
“I am sure that we would like to share the work of our hands with you, my boy. We have much smoked fish. But a blanket or skin is costly to make. Do you have other goods for trade?” she asked.
“I am a carver of art,” he said.
Then he added without thinking, “The people of my tribe also come to me to interpret their dreams. If one of your loved ones is troubled by a dream, the Great Spirit may come to me and tell me what fortune or warning is sent to you from the dream world.”
“We have no troubling dreams just now,” said the old woman who seemed to grow excited.
“But, we need a carved effigy to ward away a bear that has been drawing near our camp. I want the bear figure mounted on top of our lodge – as big as my stomach. If you can carve us a fine bear face totem figure, my daughter will give you one of her warm deer skins – tanned as soft as her own skin.”
Snowy Owl promised to begin the bear effigy in the Tsonox design as soon as he returned home, then added, “When I pulled ashore just now, I saw something hairy like a bear down near the beach. But, it seemed to stand upright like man and had a strange face,” he said.
“Yes, that old she bear often stands to sniff the wind,” said the old woman. She is almost like a tame dog and refuses to be shooed away. Bear is our totem, so we are forbidden to harm it. My daughters are afraid to walk alone.”
“Maybe that is what it was,” he said wondering how what he saw could possible be a bear. It had very long, brown hair covering its whole body and walked upright. That was not a bear.
“I will work quickly and paint the effigy red and yellow to show the bear spirit who is master,” said Snowy Owl rising up to depart. The old woman gestured for him to wait, then bent down through the door to the lodge. He heard giggling inside, then she returned with a leather pouch decorated with a white and red beads in a lightening bolt design and stuffed with something inside a large, folded green leaf.
“Here, take this sweet cod as a down payment for our bear carving,” she said, handing the pouch to him.
“Thank you kind mother,” he said holding the pouch as if it were a treasure.
“I will return with the carving when the new moon shows his face in the sky world.” He heard the old woman’s voice and the daughter’s laughter as he walked back to the beach.
On his way paddling home he noticed the sky turning pale white until a black cloud appeared and spread over the peak of the mountain, spilling down in his direction like pouring water from a basket. He paddled faster and grew sweaty from the exertion. Then a light snow began to fall, dusting his hat and shoulders and obscuring his view. The snow fell harder and his beard began to freeze. His spirit turned white with each breath. He was used to exposure to cold from his training in the pool each morning, but not being able to see very far troubled him.
The inlet to Bloodroot Bay was just around the next turn, when he saw the floor of the skin boat had water in it. He stopped to use the cedar bark bail to dip the offending water out. The sea became choppy and he rocked sharply back and forth, awkwardly bailing the water. He continued to paddle, only to see more water seep in. He had never had such a bad leak in the canoe before, even through the ocean crossing.
Covered with snow, wet and freezing, Snowy Owl took almost three times as long to return than he had anticipated. His moccasins were soaked with water. He wished that he had that soft deerskin now. The sun had set and the falling snow made it hard to see where to beach the leaky skin boat. Once ashore he whisked off the icy water from his hair and ran up the snow covered beach and hillside to the hutch, looking forward to the warmth of the fire pit and some food.
He opened the door and climbed the ladder down to the secure interior where he immediately placed some dry twigs and pinecones on the fire coals. Soon he had a nice fire blazing and enough hot rocks to make some thorny club tea. He ate more of the smoked cod that the old woman gave him and savored how good it tasted. He reached for his box of dried blueberries and when he pulled off the lid, he found that a mouse had chewed through a corner and eaten most of it.
No mice had bothered him in the hutch before. He removed those blueberries that were spoiled and dumped them on the fire, eating the handful that was left. It was the last of his blueberries for the winter. The burning blueberries filled the room with a wonderful smell. He set a mouse snare then lay down, pulling his warm blanket over his head. Before falling asleep he noticed that the room and all of Bloodroot Bay was unusually quiet.
That night he dreamed that a mouse was running away from a raven, but the bird landed on it and pinned it down with a foot and began pecking out its eyes, then gulped down the body and slurped the tail into its beak. The bird turned his black eyes to the heavens and called out a raven’s call. He also dreamed of a hairy face starring at him through the bushes.
The next few days he devoted himself to carving the bear effigy. He found an ideal piece of cedar wood and used his axe to cut away larger unwanted parts and began shaving and detailing with his carving tool. The face was taking shape when his obsidian blade broke in half. It was a disaster. Now he couldn’t possibly finish the figure before the new moon. His other knives were inadequate for woodcarving. Where would he get another blade in the middle of winter? Then he remembered that the floor of the cave was covered with pieces of shinny black rocks that looked like obsidian and he vowed to make the journey up the side of the mountain to search the cave for a new blade.
He made snowshoes because the snow reached his knees in some places. It was very cold, but was not raining or snowing on the day that he paced his bag with the sacred fire start in the clam shell and strapped his bow and arrows to his back and held Tillicum’s spear as a walking staff to keep his balance on the icy paths. He brought food and candlefish fat for the cedar basket lamp and his warmest clothing and hat for the four day hike up the side of the mountain. This time he knew the way, but the snow slowed his progress. Each night he built a fire, collecting broken treetops fallen from the winter winds for fuel. The end of the fourth day, he climbed the final ledge and saw the cave entrance, just as he had remembered it only now white and silent, coated with ice and snow.
He bent down and crawled into the cave and immediately noticed the warmth radiating from the floor. He rested for a moment in the warmth and admired the art on the cave walls once again. He set up his bed on the dry mats still there as before and lit his candlefish fat lamp. The lamplight flickered and illuminated the images of the thunderbird, bear and salmon. He studied the bear design and decided to make the effigy in this style to match the bear spirit of these islands.
As he ate fern roots and strips of sun-cured venison, he realized that it was mid winter. Back home in Raven’s Harbor the people would be celebrating the winter feasts and telling the ancient stories. He thought of the seafood stew with abalone and shrimp, the salmon and blueberry cakes and the music and dancing. So, Muxqueam Snowy Owl began singing the long ago songs taught to him by his mother.
Then he made up his own songs based on his vision and the secrets that Tillikum told him in the Spirit Lodge and at the sacred fire pit – now only a morning’s walk away. The sound of his singing filled the cave and echoed as before.
On these nights we still dance the echoing cave songs of Muxqueum, the first Snowy Owl of our people.
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