(Photo courtesy of Washington State Library)

Halloween is always a great time for a scary story, and our second Library jewel for our latest contest definitely qualifies as something spooky.

Found in our rare collections is a book published in 1918 called “Tsoqalem: a weird Indian tale of the Cowichan, a ballad.” The book was written by Lionel Haweis.

This excerpt from the book’s foreword paints a picture of what this monster is about:

“Among the Salish tribes, especially those of the interior, every man and woman had customarily his or her friendly personal spirit or “snam”. The method of acquiring these seems to have been practically the same everywhere. The seeker, like the youth Tsoqalem, went apart into the forest or mountains and undertook a more or less lengthy course of ‘training’ and self-discipline. This course among the Salish continued for a period of from four days to as many years, according to the object the seeker had in view. Prolonged “fasts, repeated bathings and sweatings, such as are referred to in Cantos IV and V, and other exhausting bodily exercises were the usual means adopted for inducing the desired state^-the mystic dreams and visions in which the neophyte met and became mystically related to his “snam.”

“Viewing nature as they did, it is not surprising that the Indians believed in monsters of the kind Mr. Haweis has depicted. These creatures, it was thought, possessed ‘mystery’ powers of various orders, which powers they would sometimes bestow upon those who sought their haunts and found favor in their sight.”