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He never met a totem while he was young until after he had married. His wife died and the man felt very low and could think of nothing but death. He didn’t care to live any longer and he was wondering how he could get rid of himself. So the next day he went out to the foot of the mountain on the mainland to die. After ten days walking without a meal, he thought it would be better for him to die suffering that way, so he kept on walking, moving along from place to place, from creek to creek, in all lonely places, with no other people near by, nothing but wild animals. After the tenth day he met a man that looked like a real Indian, with his black hair cut square and his body painted red all over. This man stopped George and asked “Are you looking for me?” Auch-quah-laduh, or George Swinomish, thought to himself that he had better find out what kind of a man this was, for he wasn’t looking for a totem. He was looking for death; but anyhow he said “Yes, I am looking for you.” The man told him, “You come along with me and I will show you my playground.” George went along with him. They came to the place where there was nothing but wild trees and wild moss on the ground with a big hole full of water, just like a well, right in the middle of this mossy ground. The man told George that he was also a bear. “My name is Chad-club. I am a powerful animal. I can change my ways into three acts. Now you saw me as a man and now I will change myself into a bear,” and there he was, in his second act, standing as a big Chad-club, a mean-looking animal grinding and showing his teeth to show how mean he really was. “Now I will show you another act that I can do.” The bear jumped right into the water. He was gone for a little while and came out as a sea otter. “This is my third act. I can be a man, I can be a bear and I can be a sea otter whenever I wish.” Well, he came out and danced around his hole just as a bear would dance around singing his tune.
George Swinomish sat around by this playground in this lonely country, listened closely to all that the great animal was teaching him- his war tunes and powerful songs. After that George wanted to know if he dared ask this great animal the question as to whether or not George would live a long time. The great animal told him “You will live until you are very old because I will be right with you.”
That changed George’s mind, for he thought he had better live after all these ten days of hardship which he had passed through looking for a place to die. He changed his mind and was going to live longer, for the great bear told him that he would live for a long, long time, that he was stronger than all other totems and George really thought so at the time. He really believed that he had the strongest totem of any other Indian living.
You can see two acts on the pole, a man and the bear. Had there been room on the pole, the sea otter would be in on the right side of the great bear. After that George thought he had better go home, for he had learned a great totem, Chad-club, and thought that he was going to be one of the great men again. He thought he’d better live and show the people what he had found after his wife died. He is about 75 years old.
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