en. About this island there was dispute and
contention. The medicine men from the North claimed it as their
chanting ground. The medicine men from the South laid equal claim to
it. Each wanted it as the stronghold of their witchcraft, their magic.
Great bands of these medicine men met on the small space, using every
sorcery in their power to drive their opponents away. The witch
doctors of the North made their camp on the northern rim of the island;
those from the South settled along the southern edge, looking towards
what is now the great city of Vancouver. Both factions danced,
chanted, burned their magic powders, built their magic fires, beat
their magic rattles, but neither would give way, yet neither conquered.
About them, on the waters, on the mainlands, raged the warfare of their
respective tribes--the Sagalie Tyee had forgotten His Indian children.

"After many months, the warriors on both sides weakened. They said the
incantations of the rival medicine men were bewitching them, were
making their hearts like children's, and their arms nerveless as
women's. So friend and foe arose as one man and drove the medicine men
from the island, hounded them down the Inlet, herded them through the
Narrows and banished them out to sea, where they took refuge on one of
the outer islands of the gulf. Then the tribes once more fell upon
each other in battle.

"The warrior blood of the North will always conquer. They are the
stronger, bolder, more alert, more keen. The snows and the ice of
their country make swifter pulse than the sleepy suns of the South can
awake in a man; their muscles are of sterner stuff, their endurance
greater. Yes, the northern tribes will always be victors.[1] But the
craft and the strategy of the southern tribes are hard things to battle
against. While those of the North followed the medicine men farther
out to sea to make sure of their banishment, those from the South
returned under cover of night and seized the women and children and the
old, enfeebled men in their enemy's camp, transported them all to the
Island of Dead Men, and there held them as captives. Their war canoes
circled the island like a fortification, through which drifted the sobs
of the imprisoned women, the mutterings of the aged men, the wail of
little children.

"Again and again the men of the North assailed that circle of canoes,
and again and again were repulsed. The air was thick with poisoned
arrows, the wate