Kingcome Inlet and Wakeman Sound Origin Story
A great big wolf named Galalax’id was placed at U’gwextolis by our creator and out came four wolves, Kawadilikala, Kwalili the younger brother, a younger sister Hayalillegas, and the youngest brother was Na’nolakw. These were the four wolves at the beginning of time. They wanted to see if any other beings like them around so they climbed to the top of the mountain and howled in all four of the directions. And in each direction they didn’t get an answer, however when they howled they got an answer from the xuyalas people that answered back for they had a great wolf as well. So now they knew that there were other people, but the main objective was to find a beautiful place to build and start a tribe. So they traversed the land down the valley. A person was seen by the wolves coming to them and asked Kawadilikala hat is that in your river?”. “K’a’lawe” Kawadilikala said, it looks like worms or snakes in the water. And this man said no “that is dzaxwan, that is what your going to eat, don’t be afraid of this dzaxwan, it will bring you great wealth in the future”. This man had come down from the moon and he talked about all the plants that are good for medicine and the different animals that are good to eat and the animals to stay away from. And so Kawadailikala and his family learned a great deal from this man from the moon. It is this man who brought the eulachans to the river every year.
Now Kawadilikala and Kwalili want to play a game, so Kawadilikala threw up and out of his mouth came blood but also within the blood came the xwi’li the quartz crystal. Now they started to throw it back and forth “makapa”. This was done four times and on the fourth time Kwalili threw it back to his brother Kawadilikala and he missed it. It had smashed against this mountain behind Kawadilikala. For this reason the mountain is called Xwi’la’es today. Kawadilikala was quite upset, so he turned on his younger brother Na’nolakw, tore him apart, threw him up into the air and turned him into eagle down. The wind started to take the eagle down all over the world and he said where ever you land you will rise as people, with your own languages and your not going to understand each other, while doing this he said, “hay, hay, hay, hay”. As the eagle down started to float away. He began to make all the different kind of birds in the valley. He did this to redeem himself, to show his supernatural powers. For there was always a rivalry between older brother younger brother.
Again it was time to move down the valley to look for a beautiful place to live, Kawadilikala turned to his sister Hayalilegas, “your not going to come with us this time” he said. I’m going to build you a house on top of that mountain where you can protect all of us from illness, protect the valley from harm, and keep the negative energy away. This mountains name is Hi’manis. When they climbed the mountain Kawadilikala led the way because there was this big patch of devils club, he didn’t want her to get hurt. So he built a house on top of the mountain and put her there. Now there are two wolves.
Kawadilikala spoke to his brother Kwalili, “you better go your own way and find a place of your own to make a tribe”. So Kwalili took the small valley route at Laxu and ended up at the valley of Wakeman Sound. He liked it, though this valley is smaller, it seemed that it was younger and I am indeed the younger brother. By this time Kawadilikala found a place for himself too. Each night when the brothers went to sleep they had dreams come to them, in the dream someone was showing them how to build the long house structures, what crest to use. This was happening to the brothers at the same time and the same dream.
Contributed by Mikeal Willie