An astute ethnographer, in all of his work Swan eschewed stereotypes that failed to note the diversity of the Native peoples. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to address the prejudices of white readers. For example, he refutes the view expressed by frustrated missionaries, that West Coast Indians were immune to religious thinking. In The Northwest Coast Swan asserted: most Indians, when interrogated by whites, refuse to discuss their beliefs. The relationship between an individual and his spirit guardian is complexly personal, and not easily put into words. However, anyone who bothers to look and listen will discover in daily practice a deeply-rooted spirituality. To Swan, the Makah openly shared the details of their daily lives: how to prepare whale meat, or make red paint from saliva and salmon roe; as well as more weighty matters: courtship rituals and burial ceremonies, and even their most sacred precepts.
Swan also acknowledged the increasing pressures of white settlement. Like the majority of whites at that time, he believed that the Indians of the Northwest coast must assimilate or die. To the Smithsonian’s Spencer Baird, who published The Indians of Cape Flattery and later paid for his expeditions to Alaska and the Queen Charlotte Islands, Swan wrote, “The time is not distant when these tribes will pass away, and future generations who may feel an interest in the history of these people will wonder why we have been so negligent.” Swan made it his mission to document a world in flux, so that the know-how and wisdom would endure.
His Makah friends believed that by writing these things down, Swan was dabbling in a dark sorcery that could only do them harm. Maybe they were right. While his journals did explain the customs of the Makah and other Natives of the Pacific Northwest, his work did little to mitigate the threat to their land and their lives, and may have even encouraged white settlement of the Pacific Northwest.
All said and done, I cannot help but admire the unusual determination of this nineteenth-century journal writer to explore without prejudice a distinct, and often opposing, worldview.
From the Journal of James G. Swan.
Tamanowas of the S’Klallam Indians returning on canoe to Port Townsend beach, May 1, 1859. Image courtesy of the Franz R. and Kathryn M. Stenzelcollection of western American art, Yale Collection of Western Americana, BeinekeRare Book and Manuscript Library.
Photograph of James G. Swan and Johnny Kit Elswha, 1890. American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Images. Photo courtesy of the University ofWashington. Special Collections Division.
Indian implements used among the Makah at Cape Flattery. October 18, 1859. Image courtesy of the Franz R. and Kathryn M. Stenzel Collection ofWestern American Art. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Bookand Manuscript Library.
Interior of a Makah Lodge, Neah Bay 1859. Image courtesy of the Franz R. and Kathryn M. Stenzel Collection of Western American Art. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
29
What is Happiness?
c. 1890
The old post office, now Swan’s two-story, white-clapboard house on Adams Street, with its office on the first floor, answered all of his needs both public and private. To the left of the entry, a totem, thirty feet high, capped off with a seabird, a type of gull. Larus occidentalis served as a fit symbol for Swan in those days, who, after a lifetime of exploration had become more or less contented to survey life from on high while preening his wings.
Once a week, on the appointed day, as I entered his lair, Swan, with one eyebrow cocked to greet me, leaned back in his swiveling captain’s chair. The eccentric explorer, now past seventy, had not lost his vivacious curiosity.
The office spilled over with so much treasure, both natural and handcrafted, a visitor found it hard to sit down. Stacked up on shelves, on top of tall cabinets, climbing the walls, Swan’s sacred objects: inky sketches of a dogfish, a whale, and a thunderbird; carved masks; a small bow with an areola of arrows; a twisted cedar headdress. Hanging on the wall at eye level behind his big desk: a polished pair of mountain goat horns. On top of his desk: toothy seashells in a line; a sculpted figure, part man and part frog; a ten-inch welcome pole fashioned out of argillite from the Slatechuck Quarry on Graham Island in the Queen Charlottes. Draped over the back of his chair, a Tlingit Chilkat blanket skillfully created with a distinct design on either side.
The cluttered office was scarcely large enough for two, let alone three. Swan’s professional quarters proved even more awkward on the days when his other assistant, Johnny Kit Elswa, turned up. Elswa, a Native Haida tribesman, rented a room in Port Townsend, was a painter and jeweler. He was also one of the first Native artists to transfer the bold, mythic creatures that appear on totems, hats, and carved boxes to paper and canvas in red and black ink, thus helping to establish the region’s characteristic art style.
About six years previously, Johnny Kit Elswa accompanied Swan on a collecting mission in the remote Queen Charlotte Islands. At the age of sixty-five, Swan, with his guide, embarked upon his most ambitious and risky expedition. To persuade Spencer Baird from the Smithsonian to finance the trip, Swan wrote, “I know the importance of making these collections—and writing the Indian memoirs now, while we are among them and can get reliable facts—The time is not distant, when these tribes will pass away.”
Baird hired Swan, who hired Kit Elswa.
Fifty years before the journey, in the weather-torn archipelago known to locals as Haida Gwaii, a population of six thousand had been reduced by illness to fewer than a thousand. Swan described the township of Masset as “sixty-five houses old and new nearly all of them with carved column or pillar in front, covered with heraldic devices . . .” He also took notes on the local flora, collected tools and art, and netted a specimen or two for the U.S. Fish Commission, which he kept alive in a copper tank. Finally, after a series of mishaps Swan met Chief Edinso, still energetic at seventy. The chief introduced Swan to his nephew Charley, a carver.
Swan, the enraptured collector, was captivated with Edinso’s nephew’s work. “Two beautiful canes nearly finished, each representing a serpent twined around the stick which was a crab apple sapling—on top of one was a clenched fist. He asks $10 each.”
I picked up Swan’s walking stick. “What a marvel.”
That afternoon, as I took notes for the catalogue, on the other side of the desk Kit labeled a series of sketches, first in English, then in Haida, thus: Raven (Hooyeh); Whale (Koone); Cirrus Clouds (Tekul). With his tweed jacket specially tailored for his broad shoulders and barrel chest, his deep-set eyes, and wide scowling smile, Kit overwhelmed me, just a bit. He looked up from the portfolio and nodded. “It’s the work of Edinso, nephew of the old Haida chief. Collectors call him Edenshaw.”
He rummaged through a cigar box until he found an etched silver bracelet. “Here’s one by Edinso. Note the split thunderbird design, with the two curved beaks nodding off in opposite directions. Two sets of round eyes gaze into the future and the past at the same time. Simple yet profound. The genius of Edinso.”
He held it out to me. “Put it on.”
He fastened the bracelet around my wrist. Was it the artistic design, or the brush of his fingers, that murdered my heart with a lightning bolt?
Stunned, I removed the bracelet.
Kit wrapped it in a square of flannel and replaced it in its cigar box.
Over time Johnny Kit Elswa introduced me to the work of two-dozen Native artists. He showed me how each tribe or band had developed its own style, distinct and bold. He patiently explained how the various designs communicated a fundamental belief, practice, or myth. His black hair and eyes, his fiery spark and dry humor, made me think of George.
Each day I spent in the office I tried my hardest to impress him with a quick mind. Yet I knew nothing. To Kit Elswa I remained a ridiculous girl, less than half his age, who kept asking the same nervous questions.
One afternoon, right after he summarily dispatched Kit on an errand, Swan inquired, “Millie, is something the matter? Either you t
alk too loud, or say not a word. You overfill the teacup, then set it aside until it grows cold. You stare at me in an intense, searching manner, simultaneously ignoring everything I say. It’s irritating as hell. Tell me, what’s the matter? Or should I just beat you about the head with my walking stick?”
“The matter? Nothing. Except—well—it’s that I’m just so happy to be alive.”
“Don’t be a ninny.”
Truly, I wanted to tell him. But how could I confess my passion for the Haida artist without humiliating myself more? In a scholarly tone I inquired, “Judge Swan, can an Indian and a white marry?”
“Hmm.” He gave me a long look. “A theoretical inquiry, I suppose. Let’s see. The government used to support the practice. Now they discourage it. If one can find a Justice of the Peace, or a priest to do the deed, well, why not?”
“What I mean is, will they be happy?”
“Define happiness.”
“Safety. Permanence. Something to rely on.”
“Ha.” Swan was in one of his dazzled melancholy moods. “No place is safe. Nothing is permanent. I left my wife in New England. Many years later, she died. I still miss her. My black-haired boy, and my girl, a towhead. Yet I tossed it all away. Why? To see the northern lights shimmer on top of the ocean. To feel the grit of a live oyster between my teeth. To aim a rotten apple at the butt-end of a rampaging she-bear. To pass the night arm-in-arm with a tree in a killing rain. Why did I abandon a life that was permanent, safe? I had my reasons, which I can no longer remember. Still, I don’t regret it.”
He went on. “What about Carl and Annie? To me, the two best people in the world. Do they fit? Are they unfit? To love themselves, and love one another, in this plaguey lifetime? How should I know? Why should anyone listen to me?”
For a man of no opinions, he had an endless amount to say. “Notice my exceptional assistant Johnny Kit Elswa. Never mind, you already have. Johnny reminds me of a man, a Makah named Jimmy Swell. Without the friendships of these two men, I would not exist. Permanence and safety? If I had stayed in Boston I might have achieved contentment. But happiness? Never.”
“Who is Jimmy Swell? I’ve never heard you talk about him.”
Swan dropped a cube of sugar into his cup of black tea. “He was from Neah Bay, the place they call the Beginning of the World. In Qwiqwidicciat, the Makah tongue, he was called Wha-laltl Asabuy. The most talented fellow I have ever met, he could fight, farm, hunt, navigate by the stars, and pluck a whale. His greatest gift: memory. If he had lived, he would have become one of the great men of our time.
“Our friendship was an honor. I wanted to express my gratitude. In a tablet of red clay I carved the words ‘Ha hake to ak,’ which in Makah translates to the creature who illuminates the earth and the ocean with his lightning. The esteem I felt for Jimmy Swell inspired a masterpiece, however, I never got the chance to give it to him. Just two days after I completed it the S’Klallam murdered Swell. Six months later, eighty painted Makah warriors in twelve canoes landed on the beach where Swell had been killed and decapitated two hapless S’Klallam who were out hunting seals. I suppose, justice was served.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Certainly I do. However, as I said before, it doesn’t matter what I believe.”
I tugged on a silver fish flashing on my earlobe. “What about the killing spree on the Dungeness spit? After several months of hard labor, the culprits went home. Were they punished too harshly, or not enough? Was justice served?”
Swan shrugged. “The S’Klallam paid up. The Tsimshian accepted the blood money. Justice? It depends on your point of view.”
He sighed. “One thing I do know. Lame Jack, the instigator, was no Jimmy Swell. His own people referred to Lame Jack as ‘Nu-mah,’ the Corrupted One. He served the whites and sold his own people. For that the settlers paid him well. The tribes were ill, starving. Warriors watched their wives and children perish. Perhaps those men followed Lame Jack’s war cry because they had no one else. Jimmy Swell had been murdered; Leschi, executed by white justice. The so-called chiefs, hereditary leaders with skill, wealth, and honor, were all dead.”
Trembling, I cleared away the tea things.
When I returned, Swan had pulled on his greatcoat. Anticipating a dinner invitation, he offered to walk me home. I handed him his walking stick. Of all the magic objects in his collections, this was the one he cherished most.
“Alive or dead, Edinso outranks them all. A Western philosopher once said that two figures can’t occupy the same space at the same time. Edinso exposed the shallowness of that idea. In a nutshell, that’s his contribution.”
So, that was it. The two-dimensional designs and three-dimensional sculptures of Edenshaw and other Coast Salish artists depict humans and animals as they change shape, defying physical barriers.
Suddenly a new idea occurred to me. If two objects can occupy the same space, can one mind grasp two realities? For the first time I realized how Swan had journeyed. This ship chandler who had left proper society to explore the wilderness dwelt in two worlds at once.
Nothing ever came of my childish infatuation with Kit Elswa. Several months later he disappeared, never to be seen again, not by Swan despite his relentless inquiries, or anyone else in Port Townsend. Perhaps he died, or returned to Haida Gwaii.
Once in a while I still think of him.
Katy, Makah Slave Girl
c. 1865
In the winter of 1865, while collecting for The Indians of Cape Flattery, Swan, in his late forties, hired a Makah slave girl named Katy to cook for him and clean his cabin.
When she died from fever, Swan buried her on the beach just above his schoolhouse. Later, when her grave was disturbed, by a dog, or a skunk, Swan covered it with a plank.
In his journal, Swan reported: “ . . . as she was a slave I wished to show the Indians that we considered slaves as good as free persons . . .”
Might there be another reason; a bond between the two outside of what his social class and the broader white society condoned?
Friendship?
Love?
30
Alexander’s Castle
c. 1890
Heart, we will forget him,
You and I, tonight!
You must forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
As I maneuvered the dust cloth, Edith reclined on the sitting-room couch, declaiming a stanza, with a sigh so deep I turned around to look at her. The dark circles around her luminescent eyes made them brighter still. On her pale cheeks, two livid spots.
I went to her. “Edith, are you feeling ill?”
She coughed. “What I want to know is, will I live long enough to know what it feels like?”
“What?”
“To love and be loved.”
I removed the book from her mealy grip. “The Reverend loves you, and Christopher, and mother up in heaven. I love you, too, even if I am paid to say so.” Though I say it ten times more often than I’m actually paid, I refrained from adding.
A volume by Emily Dickinson. Her poetry, and for that matter all Romantic verse, for under-stimulated girls like us was like whetted knives to schoolboys.
Edith flushed.
“And you, Millie, aren’t you curious? What it’s like to be kissed?”
Two years older than me, she could only assume that I knew even less. Little did she suspect, though she was the beauty, I was the expert. What if she knew about my clandestine encounter with George underneath the eye of the lighthouse? How would she react?
How does one describe it? Like the sun when it blisters your lower lip? Like, sweat on your lids? An itch you can’t scratch? Running headlong, you stop short at the precipice, sigh with relief, and then leap into the abyss. Out of the corner of your eye, you glimpse a color that no one has ever seen before. Love. I could talk about it, but not in a way that made sense.
While Edith and I fantasized in verse, the men dreamt of do
llars and cents. While Edith and I darned their wool socks, embroidered her trousseau, baked bread, and wondered aloud about love, the Reverend and his son occupied themselves with weightier matters: God and real estate in Port Townsend where land values were rising sharply. Chris engineered a trip—the only outing he ever suggested—to assess the opportunity for speculation along the proposed rail line.
Our versifying in prose was interrupted by a knock on the kitchen door. Without bothering to remove my apron I hastened to open it. Dripping from rain, only partially sheltered by the kitchen porch roof, a tattered boy with muddy hands held out a folded paper. I took it, fished out a nickel from the jar, and sent him away. On the front, penned in a precise hand: Millie.
In two years in Port Townsend, I had not received one letter, and exactly one visitor: Swan. Neither Carl nor Annie had a penchant for letter writing, Swan rationalized. What’s more, Carl, on market days, had all he could do to complete the journey and the return in a day. Probably my father believed any contact between us would undermine my opportunity to succeed in Port Townsend.
Then, what was this? Most likely, bad news. My fingers shook as I pried it open. An accident or sickness. Worse?
“Millie, what is it?” Edith called out to me from the parlor.
I replied, “A half dozen eggs. The delivery boy was late. No tip for delinquents. In the future he will know to deliver the order before noon.”
I don’t know why I lied.
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