Legends of Vancouver

Thomas S. Abler is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Waterloo and the author of A Canadian Indian Bibliography, 1960-1970.

In 1861, Pauline Johnson was born on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario.
The daughter of a distinguished Mohawk family, she pursued a literary
and performance career that exploited her Indian identity. In 1906,
while she was in London, England, giving recitals, she met the Squamish
Chief Joe Capilano, who was carrying his people’s political grievances
to the king. When Johnson took up residence in Vancouver in 1909, they
renewed their friendship. Following Capilano’s death in 1910, Johnson
began publication of the “legends” related to her by Capilano. The
legends first appeared in the weekend magazine of the local newspaper.
In 1911, two years before Johnson’s death, 15 of the tales were
published in book form. This reissue contains a useful introduction by
Robin Laurence.

Johnson’s stage career was based upon the Victorian view of the
Indian. Her writing abounds with references to the Indian as a
“fearless hunter” with a “lithe copper-coloured body.” She
discusses with Capilano the strange ideas of “the Palefaces.” Souls
of the dead journey “to the Happy Hunting Grounds.” “[T]hese
stories do not read as Chief Joe Capilano must have originally told
them,” Laurence writes in her introduction. “[N]or do they much
resemble Coast Salish myths and legends ... recorded by anthropologists
and folklorists.” In the final tale, which describes a royal visit to
the Six Nations Reserve, Johnson refers to her paternal ancestors as
“that loyal race of Redskins” and notes that “one of the great
secrets of England’s success with the savage races has been her
consideration, her respect, her almost reverence of native customs,
ceremonies, and potentates.”

Legends of Vancouver includes archival photographs of the region and of
the artist herself.