Origin Story Disclaimer: The Salt Spring Archives do not own these stories, we have been given permission by their rightful keepers to share them. They have been passed down from generation to generation and now we carefully share them with you. We do ask that you be respectful with how you read and share them. We hope that you will learn from them. Some stories may contain information that others may deem fabricated or false. They are true to the version that was shared.

Skelechun was a poor man’s son, who died when he was very little, and he was brought up by his grandmother. He was, moreover, a very little boy, with whom no one would play. His head was full of vermin and scabs, and though his grandmother cried much for him, and often took him down to the water and scrubbed him with sand, yet it was of little avail. In course of time he grew up, and said to his grandmother, "Grandmother, I think I witt go away and seek my medicine." So she made him a cloak of bird-skins for a blanket, and he went away and traveled in the mountains. Many days and many nights he traveled, but yet never dreamt of his medicine. One night he lay on the top of a high hilt, and there was a fearful storm of thunder and lightning: it was then that he got his medicine. The lightning-birds took out his eyes, and put in the lightning-serpent’s instead, and every time he opened his eyes he burnt up everything before him. Ah! it was a great medicine! So he came home to his village again, and when the boys jeered at him, and said, "Oh! Ho! Have you got you [sic] medicine?" he just opened his eyes and burnt them up. When he went into his grandmother’s lodge she was glad to see him again, and said, "Open your eyes; let me see your pretty eyes"; but he did not dare, though opening them a little away from her, she saw enough to frighten her, so that she never asked him again. No longer was there want in Skelechun’s lodge. His grandmother became a great lady, and this slave’s son more than a chief. If any one disobeyed him, he had only to open his eyes, and the lightning burnt them up. Chiefs became his slaves, and chiefs' daughters his wives. If they refused, he had only to open his fatal eyes, and there was an end of them. When he went about, seven chiefs paddled him and his grandmother, another carried his platter. and another his paddle or his blanket. Everybody was afraid of him; everybody was his slave. He built a house on the top of Salt Spring Island -a mighty lodge it was, and there daily trains of slaves (once chiefs) toiled up, carrying bear and beaver, salmon and porpoise, gamass and clams-everything good-to this Skelechun the Lightning-eyed. There, with his grandmother, he sat in state, sleeping and eating like any lazy chief, with nothing to do. If a slave offended him, he had only to open one eye, and before he could wink it again, slave lay dead! Who could resist such a power? But Squemet, a Taitka, and his cousin, Clem-clem-alut, said one day, "It is not right that this slave’s son should have all the chiefs' daughters; let us try and kill him." So they made swords of elk-horn, and concealed them in their blankets, when as usual they toiled up the hill with bear and beaver, elk and porpoise loads. His slaves were all standing in a row, chiefs and chiefs' sons. Now Skelechun was afraid to lift up his eyes in case he should destroy them all, so he always looked down, and called Squemet to stir up the fire, but while Squemet was pretending to do so he struck heavily on Skelechun’s bended neck, and Clem-clem-alut helping him, before he could turn his lightning-eyes they killed him. So every chief took his wife and his daughter, and they were (as fairy-stories end) happy for the rest of their days.