Emily Pauline Johnson the mother of Canadian poetry
Although it isn’t celebrated, Canada is a country with an amazing poetic tradition. Whenever I find myself homesick I read poetry, and in particular, there is one poet that I always find myself returning to. Emily Pauline Johnson, also known as Tekahionwake, a Mohawk Princess who wrote several books in high Victorian style at the start of the 1900s.
Today she has been more or less been forgotten. During her life she was perhaps the most famous poetess in Canada, and her funeral procession in Vancouver was the largest to have ever taken place at that time. Sadly the years following her death would see the establishment of the residential school system and a general attempt to destroy Native culture and history across Canada, which undoubtedly did much to erase the immense influence she held during her life. Surprisingly is that there has been no concerted effort to revive her legacy.
In any case, she deserves to be remembered. Her music was written in a meter which lends itself well to music, and it’s no coincidence that many of her works have been turned into choral pieces. I’ve selected several of her poems that I especially enjoy, and I hope you enjoy them too.
The Song my Paddle Sings
This is a beautiful song written a rhythm that evokes the feeling of rocking gently on a canoe, paddling lazily down one of Canada’s many rivers. As the current picks up and the reader encounters rapids… well, The Song my Paddle Sings is the best example I’ve ever seen of how the musicality of a poem compliments the narration.
West wind, blow from your prairie nest, Blow from the mountains, blow from the west The sail is idle, the sailor too; O! wind of the west, we wait for you. Blow, blow! I have wooed you so, But never a favour you bestow. You rock your cradle the hills between, But scorn to notice my white lateen.
I stow the sail, unship the mast: I wooed you long but my wooing’s past; My paddle will lull you into rest. O! drowsy wind of the drowsy west, Sleep, sleep, By your mountain steep, Or down where the prairie grasses sweep! Now fold in slumber your laggard wings, For soft is the song my paddle sings.
August is laughing across the sky, Laughing while paddle, canoe and I, Drift, drift, Where the hills uplift On either side of the current swift.
The river rolls in its rocky bed; My paddle is plying its way ahead; Dip, dip, While the waters flip In foam as over their breast we slip.
And oh, the river runs swifter now; The eddies circle about my bow. Swirl, swirl! How the ripples curl In many a dangerous pool awhirl!
And forward far the rapids roar, Fretting their margin for evermore. Dash, dash, With a mighty crash, They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash.
Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe! The reckless waves you must plunge into. Reel, reel. On your trembling keel, But never a fear my craft will feel.
We’ve raced the rapid, we’re far ahead! The river slips through its silent bed. Sway, sway, As the bubbles spray And fall in tinkling tunes away.
Ojistoh
Many of Emily Pauline Johnson’s poems evoke her Mohawk lineage, her father was a nobleman who married a white English woman, and she would often dress in native style while performing poems as part of her stagecraft. During the American war of independence, the Iroquois League of which the Mohawk formed an important faction allied with the British, while other tribes such as the Huron allied with the Yankees. Emily Pauline Johnson’s father was one of many Iroquois who resettled in Canada after the war, and this poem reflects that historical conflict and also the struggle to persevere in the face of kidnapping and oppression.
I am Ojistoh, I am she, the wife Of him whose name breathes bravery and life And courage to the tribe that calls him chief. I am Ojistoh, his white star, and he Is land, and lake, and sky—and soul to me.
Ah! but they hated him, those Huron braves, Him who had flung their warriors into graves, Him who had crushed them underneath his heel, Whose arm was iron, and whose heart was steel To all—save me, Ojistoh, chosen wife Of my great Mohawk, white star of his life.
Ah! but they hated him, and councilled long With subtle witchcraft how to work him wrong; How to avenge their dead, and strike him where His pride was highest, and his fame most fair. Their hearts grew weak as women at his name: They dared no war-path since my Mohawk came With ashen bow, and flinten arrow-head To pierce their craven bodies; but their dead Must be avenged. Avenged? They dared not walk In day and meet his deadly tomahawk; They dared not face his fearless scalping knife; So—Niyoh!—then they thought of me, his wife.
O! evil, evil face of them they sent With evil Huron speech: “Would I consent To take of wealth? be queen of all their tribe? Have wampum ermine?” Back I flung the bribe Into their teeth, and said, “While I have life Know this—Ojistoh is the Mohawk’s wife.”
Wah! how we struggled! But their arms were strong. They flung me on their pony’s back, with thong Round ankle, wrist, and shoulder. Then upleapt The one I hated most: his eye he swept Over my misery, and sneering said, “Thus, fair Ojistoh, we avenge our dead.”
And we two rode, rode as a sea wind-chased, I, bound with buckskin to his hated waist, He, sneering, laughing, jeering, while he lashed The horse to foam, as on and on we dashed. Plunging through creek and river, bush and trail, On, on we galloped like a northern gale. At last, his distant Huron fires aflame We saw, and nearer, nearer still we came.
I, bound behind him in the captive’s place, Scarcely could see the outline of his face. I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back: “Loose thou my hands,” I said. “This pace let slack. Forget we now that thou and I are foes. I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close; I like the courage of thine eye and brow; I like thee better than my Mohawk now.”
He cut the cords; we ceased our maddened haste. I wound my arms about his tawny waist; My hand crept up the buckskin of his belt; His knife hilt in my burning palm I felt; One hand caressed his cheek, the other drew The weapon softly—“I love you, love you,” I whispered, “love you as my life.” And—buried in his back his scalping knife.
Ha! how I rode, rode as a sea wind-chased, Mad with sudden freedom, mad with haste, Back to my Mohawk and my home, I lashed That horse to foam, as on and on I dashed. Plunging thro’ creek and river, bush and trail, On, on I galloped like a northern gale. And then my distant Mohawk’s fires aflame I saw, as nearer, nearer still I came, My hands all wet, stained with a life’s red dye, But pure my soul, pure as those stars on high— “My Mohawk’s pure white star, Ojistoh, still am I.”
A Squamish Legend of Napoleon
This is not a poem but a short story, taken from her book “Legends of Vancouver”. It’s a very funny little story, and I can confirm that Napoleon Bonaparte is still as beloved a figure today in British Columbia as he was back then.
Holding an important place among the majority of curious tales held in veneration by the coast tribes are those of the sea-serpent. The monster appears and reappears with almost monotonous frequency in connection with history, traditions, legends and superstitions; but perhaps the most wonderful part it ever played was in the great drama that held the stage of Europe, and incidentally all the world during the stormy days of the first Napoleon.
Throughout Canada I have never failed to find an amazing knowledge of Napoleon Bonaparte amongst the very old and “uncivilized” Indians. Perhaps they may be unfamiliar with every other historical character from Adam down, but they will all tell you they have heard of the “Great French Fighter,” as they call the wonderful little Corsican.
Whether this knowledge was obtained through the fact that our earliest settlers and pioneers were French, or whether Napoleon’s almost magical fighting career attracted the Indian mind to the exclusion of lesser warriors, I have never yet decided. But the fact remains that the Indians of our generation are not as familiar with Bonaparte’s name as were their fathers and grandfathers, so either the predominance of English-speaking settlers or the thinning of their ancient war-loving blood by modern civilization and peaceful times, must one or the other account for the younger Indian’s ignorance of the Emperor of the French.
In telling me the legend of The Lost Talisman, my good tillicum, the late Chief Capilano, began the story with the almost amazing question, Had I ever heard of Napoleon Bonaparte? It was some moments before I just caught the name, for his English, always quaint and beautiful, was at times a little halting; but when he said by way of explanation, “You know big fighter, Frenchman. The English they beat him in big battle,” I grasped immediately of whom he spoke.
“What do you know of him?” I asked.
His voice lowered, almost as if he spoke a state secret. “I know how it is that English they beat him.”
I have read many historians on this event, but to hear the Squamish version was a novel and absorbing thing. “Yes?” I said—my usual “leading” word to lure him into channels of tradition.
“Yes,” he affirmed. Then, still in a half whisper, he proceeded to tell me that it all happened through the agency of a single joint from the vertebra of a sea-serpent.
In telling me the story of Brockton Point and the valiant boy who killed the monster, he dwelt lightly on the fact that all people who approach the vicinity of the creature are palsied, both mentally and physically—bewitched, in fact—so that their bones become disjointed and their brains incapable; but to-day he elaborated upon this peculiarity until I harked back to the boy of Brockton Point and asked how it was that his body and brain escaped this affliction.
“He was all good, and had no greed,” he replied. “He proof against all bad things.”
I nodded understandingly, and he proceeded to tell me that all successful Indian fighters and warriors carried somewhere about their person a joint of a sea-serpent’s vertebra, that the medicine men threw “the power” about them so that they were not personally affected by this little “charm,” but that immediately they approached an enemy the “charm” worked disaster, and victory was assured to the fortunate possessor of the talisman. There was one particularly effective joint that had been treasured and carried by the warriors of a great Squamish family for a century. These warriors had conquered every foe they encountered, until the talisman had become so renowned that the totem pole of their entire “clan” was remodelled, and the new one crested by the figure of a single joint of a sea-serpent’s vertebra.
About this time stories of Napoleon’s first great achievements drifted across the seas; not across the land—and just here may be a clue to buried coast-Indian history, which those who are cleverer at research than I, can puzzle over. The chief was most emphatic about the source of Indian knowledge of Napoleon.
“I suppose you heard of him from Quebec, through, perhaps, some of the French priests,” I remarked.
“No, no,” he contradicted hurriedly. “Not from East; we hear it from over the Pacific, from the place they call Russia.” But who conveyed the news or by what means it came he could not further enlighten me. But a strange thing happened to the Squamish family about this time. There was a large blood connection, but the only male member living was a very old warrior, the hero of many battles, and the possessor of the talisman. On his death-bed his women of three generations gathered about him; his wife, his sisters, his daughters, his granddaughters, but not one man, nor yet a boy of his own blood stood by to speed his departing warrior spirit to the land of peace and plenty.
“The charm cannot rest in the hands of women,” he murmured almost with his last breath. “Women may not war and fight other nations or other tribes; women are for the peaceful lodge and for the leading of little children. They are for holding baby hands, teaching baby feet to walk. No, the charm cannot rest with you, women. I have no brother, no cousin, no son, no grandson, and the charm must not go to a lesser warrior than I. None of our tribe, nor of any tribe on the coast, ever conquered me. The charm must go to one as unconquerable as I have been. When I am dead send it across the great salt chuck, to the victorious ‘Frenchman’; they call him Napoleon Bonaparte.” They were his last words.
The older women wished to bury the charm with him, but the younger women, inspired with the spirit of their generation, were determined to send it over seas. “In the grave it will be dead,” they argued. “Let it still live on. Let it help some other fighter to greatness and victory.”
As if to confirm their decision, the next day a small sealing vessel anchored in the Inlet. All the men aboard spoke Russian, save two thin, dark, agile sailors, who kept aloof from the crew and conversed in another language. These two came ashore with part of the crew and talked in French with a wandering Hudson’s Bay trapper, who often lodged with the Squamish people. Thus the women, who yet mourned over their dead warrior, knew these two strangers to be from the land where the great “Frenchman” was fighting against the world.
Here I interrupted the chief. “How came the Frenchmen in a Russian sealer?” I asked.
“Captives,” he replied. “Almost slaves, and hated by their captors, as the majority always hate the few. So the women drew those two Frenchmen apart from the rest and told them the story of the bone of the sea-serpent, urging them to carry it back to their own country and give it to the great ‘Frenchman’ who was as courageous and as brave as their dead leader.
“The Frenchmen hesitated; the talisman might affect them, they said; might jangle their own brains, so that on their return to Russia they would not have the sagacity to plan an escape to their own country; might disjoint their bodies, so that their feet and hands would be useless, and they would become as weak as children. But the women assured them that the charm only worked its magical powers over a man’s enemies, that the ancient medicine men had ‘bewitched’ it with this quality. So the Frenchmen took it and promised that if it were in the power of man they would convey it to ‘the Emperor.’
“As the crew boarded the sealer, the women watching from the shore observed strange contortions seize many of the men; some fell on the deck; some crouched, shaking as with palsy; some writhed for a moment, then fell limp and seemingly boneless; only the two Frenchmen stood erect and strong and vital—the Squamish talisman had already overcome their foes. As the little sealer set sail up the gulf she was commanded by a crew of two Frenchmen—men who had entered these waters as captives, who were leaving them as conquerors. The palsied Russians were worse than useless, and what became of them the chief could not state; presumably they were flung overboard, and by some trick of a kindly fate the Frenchmen at last reached the coast of France.
“Tradition is so indefinite about their movements subsequent to sailing out of the Inlet, that even the ever-romantic and vividly colored imaginations of the Squamish people have never supplied the details of this beautifully childish, yet strangely historical fairy tale. But the voices of the trumpets of war, the beat of drums throughout Europe heralded back to the wilds of the Pacific Coast forests the intelligence that the great Squamish ‘charm’ eventually reached the person of Napoleon; that from this time onward his career was one vast victory, that he won battle after battle, conquered nation after nation, and but for the direst calamity that could befall a warrior would eventually have been master of the world.”
“What was this calamity, Chief?” I asked, amazed at his knowledge of the great historical soldier and strategist.
The chief’s voice again lowered to a whisper—his face was almost rigid with intentness as he replied:
“He lost the Squamish charm—lost it just before one great fight with the English people.”
I looked at him curiously; he had been telling me the oddest mixture of history and superstition, of intelligence and ignorance, the most whimsically absurd, yet impressive, tale I ever heard from Indian lips.
“What was the name of the great fight—did you ever hear it?” I asked, wondering how much he knew of events which took place at the other side of the world a century agone.
“Yes,” he said, carefully, thoughtfully; “I hear the name sometime in London when I there. Railroad station there—same name.”
He nodded quickly, without a shadow of hesitation. “That the one,” he replied; “that’s it, Waterloo.”
“Was it Waterloo?” I asked.
All of Emily Pauline Johnsons works can be found of Project Gutenberg. The two poems above were taken from her collection “The White Wampum”, while the story was taken from “Legends of Vancouver”. Both books are excellent and short enough to be read in an afternoon.