full-faced.
Then she thought of her children, ever to be unborn, and she walked over
to Keesh and said, “I am ready.”
THE DEATH OF LIGOUN
(First published in Children of the Frost, 1902)
Blood for blood, rank for rank. —Thlinket Code
“HEAR now the death of Ligoun—”
The speaker ceased, or rather suspended utterance, and gazed upon me
with an eye of understanding. I held the bottle between our eyes and the
fire, indicated with my thumb the depth of the draught, and shoved it over
to him; for was he not Palitlum, the Drinker? Many tales had he told me,
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and long had I waited for this scriptless scribe to speak of the things
concerning Ligoun; for he, of all men living, knew these things best.
He tilted back his head with a grunt that slid swiftly into a gurgle, and the
shadow of a man’s torso, monstrous beneath a huge inverted bottle,
wavered and danced on the frown of the cliff at our backs. Palitlum
released his lips from the glass with a caressing suck and glanced
regretfully up into the ghostly vault of the sky where played the wan white
light of the summer borealis.
“It be strange,” he said; “cold like water and hot like fire. To the drinker it
giveth strength, and from the drinker it taketh away strength. It maketh old
men young, and young men old. To the man who is weary it leadeth him
to get up and go onward, and to the man unweary it burdeneth him into
sleep. My brother was possessed of the heart of a rabbit, yet did he drink
of it, and forthwith slay four of his enemies. My father was like a great
wolf, showing his teeth to all men, yet did he drink of it and was shot
through the back, running swiftly away. It be most strange.”
“It is ‘Three Star,’ and a better than what they poison their lies with down
there,” I answered, sweeping my hand, as it were, over the yawning chasm
of blackness and down to where the beach fires glinted far below—tiny
jets of flame which gave proportion and reality to the night.
Palitlum sighed and shook his head. “Wherefore I am here with thee.”
And here he embraced the bottle and me in a look which told more
eloquently than speech of his shameless thirst.
“Nay,” I said, snuggling the bottle in between my knees. “Speak now of
Ligoun. Of the ‘Three Star’ we will hold speech hereafter.”
“There be plenty, and I am not wearied,” he pleaded brazenly. “But the
feel of it on my lips, and I will speak great words of Ligoun and his last
days.”
“From the drinker it taketh away strength,” I mocked, ”and to the man
unweary it burdeneth him into sleep.”
“Thou art wise,” he rejoined, without anger and pridelessly. “Like all of
thy brothers, thou art wise. Waking or sleeping, the ‘Three Star’ be with
thee, yet never have I known thee to drink overlong or overmuch. And the
while you gather to you the gold that hides in our mountains and the fish
that swim in our seas; and Palitlum, and the brothers of Palitlum, dig the
gold for thee and net the fish, and are glad to be made glad when out of
thy wisdom thou deemest it fit that the ‘Three Star’ should wet our lips.”
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“I was minded to hear of Ligoun,” I said impatiently. “The night grows
short, and we have a sore journey to-morrow.”
I yawned and made as though to rise, but Palitlum betrayed a quick
anxiety, and with abruptness began:—
“It was Ligoun’s desire, in his old age, that peace should be among the
tribes. As a young man he had been first of the fighting men and chief
over the war-chiefs of the Islands and the Passes. All his days had been
full of fighting. More marks he boasted of bone and lead and iron than any
other man. Three wives he had, and for each wife two sons; and the sons,
eldest born and last and all, died by his side in battle. Restless as the baldface,
he ranged wide and far—north to Unalaska and the Shallow Sea;
south to the Queen Charlottes, ay, even did he go with the Kakes, it is told,
to far Puget Sound, and slay thy brothers in their sheltered houses.
“But, as I say, in his old age he looked for peace among the tribes. Not that
he was become afraid, or overfond of the corner by the fire and the wellfilled
pot. For he slew with the shrewdness and blood-hunger of the
fiercest, drew in his belly to famine with the youngest, and with the
stoutest faced the bitter seas and stinging trail. But because of his many
deeds, and in punishment, a warship carried him away, even to thy
country, O Hair-Face and Boston Man; and the years were many ere he
came back, and I was grown to something more than a boy and something
less than a young man. And Ligoun, being childless in his old age, made
much of me, and grown wise, gave me of his wisdom.
“‘It be good to fight, O Palitlum,’ said he. Nay, O Hair-Face, for I was
unknown as Palitlum in those days, being called Olo, the Ever- Hungry.
The drink was to come after. ‘It be good to fight,’ spake Ligoun, ‘but it be
foolish. In the Boston Man Country, as I saw with mine eyes, they are not
given to fighting one with another, and they be strong. Wherefore, of their
strength, they come against us of the Islands and Passes, and we are as
camp smoke and sea mist before them. Wherefore I say it be good to fight,
most good, but it be likewise foolish.’
“And because of this, though first always of the fighting men, Ligoun’s
voice was loudest, ever, for peace. And when he was very old, being
greatest of chiefs and richest of men, he gave a potlatch. Never was there
such a potlatch. Five hundred canoes were lined against the river bank,
and in each canoe there came not less than ten of men and women. Eight
tribes were there; from the first and oldest man to the last and youngest
babe were they there. And then there were men from far-distant tribes,
great travellers and seekers who had heard of the potlatch of Ligoun. And
for the length of seven days they filled their bellies with his meat and
drink. Eight thousand blankets did he give to them, as I well know, for
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85
who but I kept the tally and apportioned according to degree and rank?
And in the end Ligoun was a poor man; but his name was on all men’s
lips, and other chiefs gritted their teeth in envy that he should be so great.
“And so, because there was weight to his words, he counselled peace; and
he journeyed to every potlatch and feast and tribal gathering that he might
counsel peace. And so it came that we journeyed together, Ligoun and I, to
the great feast given by Niblack, who was chief over the river Indians of
the Skoot, which is not far from the Stickeen. This was in the last days,
and Ligoun was very old and very close to death. He coughed of cold
weather and camp smoke, and often the red blood ran from out his mouth
till we looked for him to die.
“‘Nay,’ he said once at such time; ‘it were better that I should die when the
blood leaps to the knife, and there is a clash of steel and smell of powder,
and men crying aloud what of the cold iron and quick lead.’ So, it be plain,
O Hair-Face, that his heart was yet strong for battle.
“It is very far from the Chilcat to the Skoot, and we were many days in the
canoes. And the while the men bent to the paddles, I sat at the feet of
Ligoun and received the Law. Of small need for me to say the Law, O
Hair-Face, for it be known to me that in this thou art well skilled. Yet do I
speak of the Law of blood for blood, and rank for rank. Also did Ligoun
go deeper into the matter, saying:—
“‘But know this, O Olo, that there be little honor in the killing of a man
less than thee. Kill always the man who is greater, and thy honor shall be
according to his greatness. But if, of two men, thou killest the lesser, then
is shame shine, for which the very squaws will lift their lips at thee. As I
say, peace be good; but remember, O Olo, if kill thou must, that thou
killest by the Law.’
“It is a way of the Thlinket-folk,” Palitlum vouchsafed half apologetically.