ish word?--it does not
sound to me like one."

"It is not altogether Squamish, but half Fraser River language. The
Point was the dividing line between the grounds and waters of the two
tribes, so they agreed to make the name 'Homolsom' from the two
languages."

I suggested more tea, and, as he sipped it, he told me the legend that
few of the younger Indians know. That he believes the story himself is
beyond question, for many times he admitted having tested the virtues
of this rock, and it had never once failed him. All people that have
to do with water craft are superstitious about some things, and I
freely acknowledge that times innumerable I have "whistled up" a wind
when dead calm threatened, or stuck a jack-knife in the mast, and
afterwards watched with great contentment the idle sail fill, and the
canoe pull out to a light breeze. So, perhaps, I am prejudiced in
favor of this legend of Homolsom Rock, for it strikes a very responsive
chord in that portion of my heart that has always throbbed for the sea.

"You know," began my young tillicum, "that only waters unspoiled by
human hands can be of any benefit. One gains no strength by swimming
in any waters heated or boiled by fires that men build. To grow strong
and wise one must swim in the natural rivers, the mountain torrents,
the sea, just as the Sagalie Tyee made them. Their virtues die when
human beings try to improve them by heating or distilling, or placing
even tea in them, and so--what makes Homolsom Rock so full of 'good
medicine' is that the waters that wash up about it are straight from
the sea, made by the hand of the Great Tyee, and unspoiled by the hand
of man.

"It was not always there, that great rock, drawing its strength and its
wonderful power from the seas, for it, too, was once a Great Tyee, who
ruled a mighty tract of waters. He was god of all the waters that wash
the coast, of the Gulf of Georgia, of Puget Sound, of the Straits of
Juan de Fuca, of the waters that beat against even the west coast of
Vancouver Island, and of all the channels that cut between the
Charlotte Islands. He was Tyee of the West Wind, and his storms and
tempests were so mighty that the Sagalie Tyee Himself could not control
the havoc that he created. He warred upon all fishing craft, he
demolished canoes and sent men to graves in the sea. He uprooted
forests and drove the surf on shore heavy with wreckage of despoiled
trees and with beaten and bruised fi