Place Name - Lions' Gate

[Lisa Peppan]

On Fri, 26 Mar 1999 Peter Cawley <pcawley at ISLAND.NET> writes:

>Is anyone aware of a Chinook Jargon or First Nation place name for the
stretch of >water at the mouth of Burrard Inlet that is now called Lion's
Gate?

Well, now, I *think* I have one answer to the above question.

>From the book _Legends of Vancouver_ by E. Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake;
text copyright E. Pauline Johnson 1911;  (thus the wording is not all
1990s PC)
New Edition Copyright Quarry Press, Inc, 1991;
ISBN 1-55082-024-9 (bound) -- ISBN 1-55082-025-7 (pbk);

and I quote:

FORWARD

These legends (with two or three exceptions) were told to me personally
by my honoured friend, the late Chief Joe Capilano, of Vancouver, whom I
had the privilege of first meeting in London in 1906, when he visited
England and was received at Buckingham Palace by their Majesties King
Edward Vii and Queen Alexandra.

To the fact that I was able to greet Chief Capilano in the Chinook
tongue, while we were both many thousands of miles from home, I owe the
friendship and the confidence which he so freely gave me when I came to
reside on the Pacific coast.  These legends he told me from time to time,
just as the mood possessed him, and he frequently remarked that they had
never been revealed to any other English-speaking person save myself.  --
E. Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake

                 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=The Two Sisters=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You can see them as you look towards the north and the west, where the
dream-hills swim into the sky amid their ever-drifting clouds of pearl
and grey.  They catch the earliest hint of sunrise, they hold the last
colour of sunset.  Twin mountains they are, lifting their peaks above the
fairest city in all Canada, and known throughout the British Empire as
"The Lions of Vancouver."

Sometimes the smoke of forest fires blurs them until they gleam like
opals in a purple atmosphere, too beautiful for words to paint.
Sometimes the slanting rains festoon scarves of mist about their crests,
and the peaks fade into shadowy outlines, melting, melting, forever
melting into the distances.  But for most days in the year the sun
circles the twin glories with a sweep of gold.  The moon washes them with
a torrent of silver.  Oftentimes, when the city is shrouded in rain, the
sun yellows their snows to a deep orange; but through sun and shadow,
they stand immovable, smiling westward above the waters of the restless
Pacific, eastward above the superb beauty of the Capilano Canyon.  But
the Indian tribes do not know these peaks as "The Lions."  Even the chief
whose feet have so recently wandered to the Happy Hunting Grounds never
heard the name given them until I mentioned it to him one dreamy August
day, as together we followed the trail leading to the canyon.  He seemed
so surprised at the name that I mentioned the reason it had been applied
to them, asking him if he recalled the Landseer Lions in Trafalgar
Square.  Yes, he remembered those splendid sculptures, and his quick eye
saw the resemblance instantly.  It appeared to please him, and his fine
face expressed the haunting memories of the far-away roar of Old London.
But the "call of the Blood" was stronger, and presently he referred to
the Indian legend of those peaks -- a legend that I have reason to
believe is absolutely unknown to thousands of Pale-faces who look upon
"The Lions" daily, without the love for them that is in the Indian heart,
without knowledge of the secret of "The Two Sisters."  The legend was
intensely fascinating as it left his lips in the quaint broken English
that is never so dulcet as when it slips from an Indian tongue.  His
inimitable gestures, strong, graceful, comprehensive, were like a
perfectly chosen frame embracing a delicate painting, and his brooding
eyes were as the light in which the picture hung.

"Many thousands of years ago," he began, "there were no twin peaks like
sentinels guarding the outposts of this sunset coast.  They were placed
there long after the first creation, when the Sagalie Tyee moulded the
mountains, and patterned the mighty rivers where the salmon run, because
of His love for His Indian children, and His wisdom for there
necessities.  In those times there were many and mighty Indian tribes
along the Pacific -- in the mountain ranges, at the shores and sources of
the great Fraser River.  Indian Law ruled the land.  Indian customs
prevailed.  Indian beliefs were regarded.  Those were the legend-making
ages when great things occurred to make the traditions we repeat to our
children to-day.  Perhaps the greatest of these traditions is the story
of 'The Two Sisters,' for they are known to us as 'The Chief's
Daughters,' and to them we owe the Great Peace in which we live, and have
lived for many countless moons.

"There is an ancient custom amongst the coast tribes that, when our
daughters step from childhood into the great world of womanhood, the
occasion must be made one of extreme rejoicing.  The being who possesses
the possibility of some day mother a man-child, a warrior, a brave,
receives much consideration in most nations; but to us, the Sunset
tribes, she is honoured above all people.  The parents usually give a
great potlatch, and a feast that lasts many days.  The entire tribe and
the surrounding tribes are bidden to this festival.  More than that,
sometimes when a great Tyee celebrates for his daughter, the tribes from
far up the coast, from the Cariboo country, are gathered as guests to the
feast.  During these days of rejoicing the girl is placed in a high seat,
an exalted position, for is she not marriageable?  And does not marriage
mean motherhood?  And does not motherhood mean a vaster nation of brave
sons and of gentle daughters, who, in their turn, will give us sons and
daughters of their own?

"But it was many thousands of years ago that a great Tyee had two
daughters that grew to womanhood at the same springtime, when the first
great run of salmon thronged the rivers, and the ollallie bushes were
heavy with blossoms.  These two daughters were young, lovable and oh!
very beautiful.  Their father, the great Tyee, prepared to make a feast
such as the Coast had never seen.  There were to be days and days of
rejoicing, the people were to come from many leagues, were to bring gifts
to the girls and to receive gifts of great value from the chief, and
hospitality was to reign as long as pleasuring feet could dance, and
enjoying lips could laugh, and mouths partake of the excellence of the
chief's fish, game, and ollallies.

"The only shadow on the joy of it all was war, for the tribe of the great
Tyee was at war with the Upper Coast Indians, those who lived north, near
what is named by he Pale-face as the port of Prince Rupert.  Giant
war-canoes slipped along the entire coast, war-parties paddled up and
down, war-songs broke the silences of the nights, hatred, vengeance,
strife, horror festered everywhere like sores on the surface of the
earth.  But the great Tyee, after warring for weeks, turned and laughed
at the battled and the bloodshed, for he had been victor in every
encounter, and he could well afford to leave the strife for a brief week
and feast in his daughters' honour, not permit any mere enemy to come
between him and the traditions of his race and household.  So he turned
insultingly deaf ears to their war-cries; he ignored with arrogant
indifference their paddle-dips that encroached within his own coast
water; and he prepared, as a great Tyee should, to royally entertain his
tribesmen in honour of his daughters.

"But seven suns before the great feast, these two maidens came before
him, hand clasped in hand.

"'Oh! our father, ' they said, 'may we speak?'

"'Speak, my daughters, my girls with the eyes of April, the hearts of
June''" (early spring and early summer would be the more accurate Indian
Phrasing).

"'Some day, oh! our father, we may mother a man-child, who may grow to be
just such a powerful Tyee as you are, and for this honour that may some
day be ours we have come to crave a favour of you -- you, Oh! our
father.'

"'It is your privilege at this celebration to receive any favour your
hearts may wish,' he replied graciously, placing his fingers beneath
their girlish chins.  'This favour is yours before you ask it, my
daughters'

"'Will you, for our sakes, invite the great northern hostile tribe -- the
tribe you war upon -- to this, our feast?' they asked fearlessly.

"'To a peaceful feast, a feast in the honour of women?' he exclaimed
incredulously.

"'So we desire it,' they answered.
"'And so shall it be,' he declared.  'I can deny you nothing this day,
and some time you may bear sons to bless this peace you have asked, and
to bless their mother's sire for granting it.'  Then he turned to all the
young men of the tribe and commanded: 'Build fires at sunset on all the
coast headlands -- fires of welcome.  Man your canoes and face the north,
greet the enemy, and tell them that I, the Tyee of the Capilanos, ask
--no, command-- that they join me for a great feast in honour of my two
daughters.'

"And when the northern tribe got this invitation they flocked down the
coast to this feast of a Great Peace.  They brought their women and their
children; they brought game and fish, gold and white stone beads, baskets
and carven ladles, and wonderful woven blankets to lay at the feet of
their now acknowledged ruler, the great Tyee.  And he, in turn, gave such
a potlatch that nothing but tradition can vie with it.  There were long,
glad days of joyousness, long, pleasurable nights of dancing and
camp-fires, and vast quantities of food.  The war-canoes were emptied of
their deadly weapons and filled with the daily catch of salmon.  The
hostile war-songs ceased, and in their place was heard the soft shuffle
of dancing feet, the singing voiced of women, the play-games of the
children of two powerful tribes which had been until now ancient enemies,
for a great and lasting brotherhood was sealed between them -- their
war-songs were ended for ever.

"The the Sagalie Tyee smiled on His Indian children: 'I will make these
young-eyed maidens immortal,' He said.  in the cup of His hands He lifted
the chief's two daughters and set them for ever in a high place, for they
had borne two offspring -- Peace and Brotherhood -- each of which is now
a great Tyee ruling this land.

"And on the mountain crest the chief's daughters can be seen wrapped in
the suns, the snows, the stars of all seasons, for they have stood in
this high place for thousands of years, and will be standing for
thousands of years to come, guarding the peace of the Pacific Coast and
the quiet of the Capilano Canyon."

This is the Indian legend of "The Lions of Vancouver" as I had it from
one who will tell me no more the traditions of his people.




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