. _ _‘ _ 3.
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. . __ _‘_ .

THE SIWASH ROCK

swim, swim through this hour when his
fatherhood was coming upon him. It was the
law that he must be clean, spotlessly clean,
so that when his child looked out upon the
world it would have the chance to live its own
life clean. If he did not swim hour upon hour
his child would come to an unclean father.
He must give his child a chance in life; he
must not hamper it by his own uncleanliness
at its birth. It was the tribal law—the law of
vicarious purity.

As he swam joyously to and fro, a canoe
bearing four men headed up the Narrows.
These men were giants in stature, and the
stroke of their paddles made huge eddies that
boiled like the seething tides.

“Out from our course 1” they cried as his
lithe, copper-colored body arose and fell with
his splendid stroke. He laughed at them,
giants though they were, and answered that
he could not cease his swimming at their
demand.

“But you shall cease!” they commanded.
“We are the men (agents) of the Sagalie Tyee
(God), and we command you ashore out of
our way 1” (I find in all these Coast Indian
legends that the Deity is represented by four
men, usually paddling an immense canoe.)

He ceased swimming, and, lifting his head,
defied them. “I shall not stop, nor yet go

I3