Klee Wyck - Emily Carr [40]
When it was almost dark I went back to the wagon.
THE HOUSE of Aleck’s father was the last one at the other end of the new village. It was one great room like a hall, and was built of new logs. It had seven windows and two doors; all the windows were propped open with blue castor-oil bottles.
I was surprised to find that the old man who had trudged behind our wagon was Chief Douse—Aleck’s father.
Mrs. Douse was more important than Mr. Douse; she was a chieftainess in her own right, and had great dignity. Neither of them spoke to me that night. Aleck showed me where to put my bed on the verandah and I hung the fly over it. I ate a dry scrap of food and turned into my blankets. I had no netting, and the mosquitoes tormented me.
My heart said into the thick dark, “Why did I come?”
And the dark answered, “You know.”
IN THE MORNING the hero-man came to me and said, “My mother-in-law wishes to speak with you. She does not know English words so she will talk through my tongue.”
I stood before the tall, cold woman. She folded her arms across her body and her eyes searched my face. They were as expressive as if she were saying the words herself instead of using the hero’s tongue.
“My mother-in-law wishes to know why you have come to our village.”
“I want to make some pictures of the totem poles.”
“What do you want our totem poles for?”
“Because they are beautiful. They are getting old now, and your people make very few new ones. The young people do not value the poles as the old ones did. By and by there will be no more poles. I want to make pictures of them, so that your young people as well as the white people will see how fine your totem poles used to be.”
Mrs. Douse listened when the young man told her this. Her eyes raked my face to see if I was talking “straight.” Then she waved her hand towards the village.
“Go along,” she said through the interpreter, “and I shall see.” She was neither friendly nor angry. Perhaps I was going to be turned out of this place that had been so difficult to get into.
The air was hot and heavy. I turned towards the old village with the pup Ginger Pop at my heels. Suddenly there was a roar of yelpings, and I saw my little dog putting half a dozen big ones to rout down the village street. Their tails were flat, their tongues lolled and they yelped. The Douses all rushed out of their house to see what the noise was about, and we laughed together so hard that the strain, which before had been between us, broke.
THE SUN enriched the old poles grandly. They were carved elaborately and with great sincerity. Several times the figure of a woman that held a child was represented. The babies had faces like wise little old men. The mothers expressed all womanhood—the big wooden hands holding the child were so full of tenderness they had to be distorted enormously in order to contain it all. Womanhood was strong in Kitwancool. Perhaps, after all, Mrs. Douse might let me stay.
I sat in front of a totem mother and began to draw—so full of her strange, wild beauty that I did not notice the storm that was coming, till the totem poles went black, flashed vividly white and then went black again. Bang upon bang, came the claps of thunder. The hills on one side tossed it to the hills on the other; sheets of rain washed over me. I was beside a grave down on the green flat; some of the pickets of its fence were gone, so I crawled through on to the grave with Ginger Pop in my arms to shelter under its roof. Stinging nettles grew on top of the grave with mosquitoes hiding under their leaves. While I was beating down the nettles with my easel, it struck the head of a big wooden bear squatted on the grave. He startled me. He was painted red. As I sat down upon him my foot hit something that made a hollow rattling noise. It was