YOUNG CHIEF'S BRIDE

Evening Star, Issue 21722, 17 May 1934, Page 15

YOUNG CHIEF'S BRIDE

PRINCESS OF THE INDIANS CENTURY OF HISTORY Saanich Indians, in British Columbia, Canada, wore lately plunged in mourning as a result of the death of a princess of their tribe. To many white persons who knew and respected her she was known as “ Old Katie.” More than a century has passed since she was born, well-informed natives declare, and during all those decades siic has possessed the confidence and regard of the whites as well as her own people. “Old Katie ” was born on tbo Phaser River about the time that Janies M‘Millan erected the palisades of old Fort Langley, in 1827, the first outpost of white, man’s civilisation on the coast of what is now British Columbia. From this crude beginning she witnessed the unfolding of the history of that province. As an infant in the lodges of her people on thp Fraser, Katie heard stories of the fierce Yncultas from the North, who preyed •on less warlike, tribes, and who even defied the power and might of the white strangers who lived within the log fortress. Those white strangers represented the new law—the law ot peace and of equity. They hart strange weapons of defence, and apparently knew no fear—but they were small in number. Facb year thousands of native braves came to the Fraser River during tbo salmon runs, but the seventeen men who boasted obedience to a white princess in another country far away were undismayed.

WITNESS OF MANY WONDERS. Katie saw the civilisation that the white strangers represented become established. She saw the half-dozen log huts within the enclosure give place to larger habitations. She saw communities rise and forests disappear to construct buildings, larger than any native ceremonial hall. She saw the swift canoe vanish as the accepted mode of transportation, and groat vessels belching smoke churn through the waters faster than the speed of even a Haida war camje. Then there was the coming of strange, fire-eating monsters of iron that screeched as they sped swifter than an arrow along shining rails; and again she saw strange animals called horses come to draw wheeled carts, and marvelled at the manner in which sucli large beasts could be controlled. She saw, too, the horse-drawn vehicles give place to swift-moving, noisy machines that eliminated distance; arid she lived to see man compete in the clouds with the birds in flight. Old Katie, in her century and more of life, had beheld wonders more strange than any necromancer of her race could have imagined at her birth. She had also seen the passing of ageold beliefs in spirit doctors, who held sway through fear, and had accepted Dio teachings of the gentle men dressed in black, who taught n story of divine love. WIFE OF SAANICH CHIEF. Among the Indians who came to the Fraser River in the fishing time was a noble of the proud Saanich people. He saw Katie, a comely girl, and, according to tribal custom, he made overtures to her parents. So Katie, a princess born, became the bride of a young chief, known to the white man as Chid Jim. Stic accompanied him to his home on Saanich Inlet—near where white men had conic and erected another strange log enclosure called Fort Victoria. All these things Katie could recall, and often told her friends of those early days Particularly did she rocol loct an epoch-making event in ISoO. when the Saanich chiefs mot at Deep Cove and solemnly conveyed their aboriginal land rights to the great white chief, James Douglas, who represented the white Queen. She was present, and delighted to tell of the great occasion. Old Katie saw miracles take place. She was privileged to live for more than TOO years, amt in that century she beheld the departure of the glory of her own people and the rise of that of an' alien race. There was tragedy hi what she saw, but there were benefits for her and her people ns well, for no longer do the Indians live in constant dread of midnight assassination, of the violent death in darkness from the knives of the Yncnlta and Haida raiders. Old Katie saw miracles indeed —and now she has been gathered to her fathers.