Klee Wyck - Emily Carr [38]
Indians do not hinder the progress of their dead by embalming or tight coffining. When the spirit has gone they give the body back to the earth. The earth welcomes the body— coaxes new life and beauty from it, hurries over what men shudder at. Lovely tender herbage bursts from the graves, swiftly, exulting over corruption.
Opening the gate I entered and walked among the graves. Pushing aside the wild roses, bramble blossoms and scarlet honeysuckle which hugged the crude wooden crosses, I read the lettering on them—
SACRED OF KATIE—IPOO
SAM BOYAN HE DIDE—IPOO
RIP JULIE YECTON—IPOO
JOSEPH’S ROSIE DI—IPOO
Even these scant words were an innovation—white men’s ways—in the old days totem signs would have told you who lay there. The Indian tongue had no written words. In place of the crosses the things belonging to the dead would have been heaped on the grave: all his dear treasures, clothes, pots and pans, bracelets—so that everyone might see what life had given to him in things of his own.
“IPOO” was common to almost every grave. I wrote the four-lettered word on a piece of paper and took it to a woman in the village.
“What does this mean? It is on the graves.”
“Mean die time.”
“Die time?”
“Uh huh. Tell when he die.”
“But all the graves ‘tell’ the same.”
“Uh huh. Four this kind,” (she pointed separately to each of the four letters, IPOO) “tell now time.”
“But everybody did not die at the same time. Some died long ago and some die now?”
“Uh huh. Maybe some year just one man die—one baby. Maybe influenza come—he come two time—one time long far, one time close. He make lots, lots Injun die.”
“But, if it means the time people died, why do they put ‘IPOO’ on the old graves as well as on the new?”
Difficult English thoughts furrowed her still forehead. Hard English words came from her slow tongue in abrupt jerks. Her brown finger touched the I and the P. “He know,” she said, “he tell it. This one and this one (pointing to the two O’s)—small—he no matter. He change every year. Just this one and this matter (pointing again to I and P). He tell it.”
Time was marked by centuries in this cemetery. Years—little years—what are they? As insignificant as the fact that reversing the figure nine turns it into the letter P.
KITWANCOOL
When the Indians told me about the Kitwancool totem poles, I said:
“How can I get to Kitwancool?”
“Dunno,” the Indians replied.
White men told me about the Kitwancool poles too, but when I told them I wanted to go there, they advised me—”Keep out.” But the thought of those old Kitwancool poles pulled at me. I was at Kitwangak, twenty or so miles from Kitwancool.
Then a halfbreed at Kitwangak said to me, “The young son of the Kitwancool chief is going in tomorrow with a load of lumber. I asked if he would take you; he will.”
“How can I get out again?”
“The boy is coming back to Kitwangak after two days.”
The chief’s son Aleck was shy, but he spoke good English. He said I was to be at the Hudson’s Bay store at eight the next morning.
I bought enough food and mosquito oil to last me two days; then I sat in front of the Hudson’s Bay store from eight to eleven o’clock, waiting. I saw Aleck drive past to load his lumber. The wagon had four wheels and a long pole. He tied the lumber to the pole and a sack of oats to the lumber; I was to sit on the oats. Rigged up in front somehow was a place for the driver—no real seat, just a couple of coal-oil boxes bound to some boards. Three men sat on the two boxes. The road was terrible. When we bumped, the man on the down-side of the boxes fell off.
A sturdy old man trudged behind the wagon. Sometimes he rode a bit on the end of the long pole, which tossed him up and down like a see-saw. The old man carried a gun and walked most of the way.
The noon sun burnt fiercely on our heads. The oatsack gave no support to my back, and my feet dangled. I had to clutch the