Legends of Vancouver · Chapter
The Deep Waters explained
Pauline Johnson recounts the Squamish legend of the Deluge, contrasting it with the Iroquois flood story.
What happens
Pauline Johnson recounts the Squamish legend of the Deluge, contrasting it with the Iroquois flood story. As relentless rain raises the sea, the tribes build a giant canoe and a massive cable to anchor it. When the waters overwhelm the land, all the children are placed in the canoe with a young mother and a brave young man, while the adults sacrifice themselves. After the flood subsides, the canoe is guided to Mount Baker, where the survivors repopulate the earth.
Themes in this chapter
Cultural Preservation and Oral Tradition
The chapter preserves the Squamish Deluge legend through oral storytelling, contrasting it with Iroquois tradition to highlight cultural differences.
Sacrifice and Heroism
The adults sacrifice themselves so that the children, a young mother, and a brave young man may survive, embodying selfless heroism.
Nature and Landscape as Sacred
Mount Baker is described as the 'Mount Ararat of the Pacific Coast peoples,' and the landscape is central to the flood narrative.
Characters to notice
- Pauline Johnson
The narrator who listens to Chief Capilano's legend and contrasts it with Iroquois traditions.
- Chief Capilano
The 'royal old tillicum' who visits during a rainstorm and tells the Squamish story of the Deluge.
- Sagalie Tyee
Mentioned as the one who allowed Chief Capilano's visits; now the cup he used stands empty.
- Unknown Narrator
The Iroquois 'mine own people' perspective is presented through the narrator's voice.
Key passages
“This is the Mount Ararat of the Pacific Coast peoples; for those readers who are familiar with the ways and beliefs and faiths of primitive races will agree that it is difficult to discover anywhere in the world a race that has not some story of the Deluge, which they have chronicled and localized to fit the understanding and the conditions of the nation that composes their own immediate world.”
Mount Baker is the local equivalent of Mount Ararat for Pacific Coast tribes, as nearly every culture has a flood myth adapted to its own environment.
Introduces the universality of flood legends and localizes the Squamish story.
“Let the little children, the young mother, and the bravest and best of our young men live,' was all the farewell those in the canoe heard as the waters reached the summit, and—the canoe floated.”
The doomed crowd's only farewell was a wish for the children, the young mother, and the bravest young man to survive as the waters engulfed them.
Highlights the sacrificial decision to save the next generation.
“The Squamish say that in a gigantic crevice halfway to the crest of Mount Baker may yet be seen the outlines of an enormous canoe, but I have never seen it myself.”
According to Squamish tradition, the shape of the great canoe is still visible in a crevice on Mount Baker, though the narrator has not witnessed it.
Ends the legend with a lingering physical trace of the story in the landscape.