History of California

Chapter II.

The Sto­ry of the In­di­ans

“Run, Clee­ta, run, the waves will catch you.” Clee­ta scud­ded away, her naked lit­tle body shin­ing like pol­ished ma­hogany. She was fleet of foot, but the in­com­ing break­ers from the bo­som of the great Pa­cif­ic ran faster still; and the lit­tle In­di­an girl was caught in its foam­ing wa­ter, rolled over and over, and cast up­on the sandy beach, half choked, yet laugh­ing with the fun of it.

“Fool­ish Clee­ta, you might have been drowned; that was a big wave. What made you go out so far?” said Ges­nip, the el­der sis­ter.

“I found such a lot of mus­sels, great big ones, I wish I could go back and get them,” said the lit­tle one, look­ing anx­ious­ly at the wa­ter.

“The waves are com­ing in high­er and high­er and it is grow­ing late,” said Ges­nip; “be­sides, I have more mus­sels al­ready than you and I can well car­ry. The boys have gone to­ward the riv­er mouth for clams. They will be sure to go home the oth­er way.”

Clee­ta ran to the bas­ket and looked in.

“I should think there were too many for us to car­ry,” she said, as she tried with all her strength to lift it by the car­ry straps. “What will you do with them; throw some back in­to the wa­ter?”

“No, I don’t like to do that,” an­swered her sis­ter, frown­ing, “for it has been so long since we have had any. The wind and the waves have been too high for us to gath­er any. Look, Clee­ta, look; what are those out on the wa­ter? I do be­lieve they are boats.”

“No,” said the lit­tle girl; “I see what you mean, but boats nev­er go out so far as that.”

“Not tule boats,” said Ges­nip, “but big thick one made out of trees; that is the kind they have at San­ta Catali­na, the is­land where un­cle lives. It has been a long time since he came to see us, not since you were four years old, but moth­er is al­ways look­ing for him.”

The chil­dren gazed earnest­ly sea­ward at a fleet of ca­noes which were mak­ing for the shore. “Do you think it is un­cle?” asked Clee­ta.

“Yes,” replied her sis­ter, un­cer­tain­ly, “I think it may be.” Then, as the sun­light struck full on the boats “Yes, yes, I am sure of it, for one is red, and no on else has a boat of that col­or; all oth­ers are brown.”

“Moth­er said he would bring abalone when he came,” cried Clee­ta, danc­ing from one foot to the oth­er; “and she said they are bet­ter than mus­sels or any­thing else for soup.”

“He will bring fish,” said Ges­nip, “big shin­ing fish with yel­low tails.”

“Moth­er said he would bring big blue ones with hard lit­tle seams down their sides,” said Clee­ta.

Mean­time the boats drew near­er. They were of logs hol­lowed out un­til they were fair­ly light, but still seem­ing too clum­sy for safe seago­ing craft. In each were sev­er­al men. One sat in the stern and steered, the oth­ers knelt in pairs, each man help­ing pro­pel the boat by means of a stick some four feet long, more like a pole than a pad­dle, which he worked with great en­er­gy over the gun­wale.

“I am afraid of them,” said Clee­ta, draw­ing close to her sis­ter. “They do not look like the peo­ple I have seen. Their faces are the col­or of the kah-​hoom moth­er weaves in her bas­kets. There are on­ly three like us, and they all have such strange clothes.”

“Do not be afraid,” said Ges­nip. “I see un­cle; he is one of the dark ones like our­selves. The is­land peo­ple have yel­low skins.”

The time was the year 1540, and the peo­ple, the Cal­ifor­ni­ans of that day. The men in the boat were most­ly from the is­land of San­ta Catali­na, and were fair­er, with more reg­ular fea­tures, than the in­hab­itants of the main­land, who in south­ern Cal­ifor­nia were a short, thick-​set race, with thick lips, dark brown skin, coarse black hair, and eyes small and shin­ing like jet-​black beads. They were poor­ly clothed in win­ter; in sum­mer a loin cloth was of­ten all that the men wore, while the chil­dren went naked a large part of the year.

With won­der­ful skill the bad­ly shaped boats were guid­ed safe­ly over the break­ers un­til their bows touched the sand. Then the men leaped out and, half wad­ing, half swim­ming, pulled them from the wa­ter and ran them up on the beach.

The lit­tle girls drew near and stood qui­et­ly by, wait­ing to be spo­ken to. Present­ly the lead­ing man, who was short, dark, and hand­some­ly dressed in a suit of seal­skin or­na­ment­ed with abalone shell, turned to them.

“Who are these lit­tle peo­ple?” he asked, in a kind voice.

“We are the chil­dren of Cuchu­ma and Macana,” replied Ges­nip, work­ing her toes in and out of the soft sand, too shy to look her un­cle in the face.

“Chil­dren of my sis­ter, Sholoc is glad to see you,” said the chief, lay­ing his hand gen­tly on Clee­ta’s head. “Your moth­er, is she well?”

“She is well and look­ing for you these many moons,” said Ges­nip.

The men at once be­gan un­load­ing the boats. The chil­dren watched the pro­cess with great in­ter­est, Abalone in their shells, a dain­ty prized then as well as now, fish, yel­low­tail and boni­to, filled to the brim the large bas­kets which the men slung to their backs, car­ry­ing them by means of a strap over the fore­head. On their heads they placed ol­las, or wa­ter jars, of ser­pen­tine from quar­ries which may be seen in San­ta Catali­na to-​day, the marks of the tools of work­men of, that time still in the rocks.

There were al­so strings of bits of abalone shell which had been punc­tured and then pol­ished, and these Sholoc hung around his neck.

“Un­cle,” ex­claimed Ges­nip, touch­ing one of these strings, “how much mon­ey! You have grown rich at San­ta Catali­na. What will you buy?”

“Buy me a wife, per­haps,” was the re­ply. “I will give two strings for a good wife. Do you know any worth so much?”

“No,” said the girl, stout­ly. “I don’t know any worth two whole strings of abalone. You can get a good wife for much less.”

The men, who had suc­ceed­ed in load­ing the con­tents of the boats on their heads and backs, now marched away, in sin­gle file, cross­ing the heavy sand dunes slow­ly, then mount­ing the range of foothills be­yond. The chil­dren fol­lowed. Ges­nip had her bas­ket bound to her head by a strap round her fore­head; but, though her un­cle had tak­en out part of the con­tents, it was a heavy load for the child.

As they neared the top of the hill, Sholoc, who was ahead, lift­ed his hand and mo­tioned them to stop.

“Hush,” he said soft­ly, “elk.” Swift­ly the men slipped off their loads and with bows in hand each one crept flat on his bel­ly over the hill crest. Ges­nip and Clee­ta peeped through the high grass. Be­low them was a wide plain, dot­ted with clumps of bush­es, and scat­tered over it they could see a great herd of elk, whose broad, shin­ing antlers waved above the grass and bush­es up­on which they were feed­ing.

“Are those elk too?” asked Clee­ta, present­ly, point­ing to­ward the foothills at their left.

“No,” replied her sis­ter, “I think those are an­te­lope. I like to see them run. How fun­ny their tails shake. But watch the men; they are go­ing to shoot.”

As she spoke, four of the hunters, who had crept well up to­ward the game, rose to their feet, hold­ing their bows hor­izon­tal­ly, not per­pen­dic­ular­ly. These weapons, which were made of cedar wood, were about four feet in length, paint­ed at the ends black or dark blue, the mid­dle, which was al­most two inch­es broad, be­ing wrapped with elk sinew. The strings al­so were of sinew. The quiver which each man car­ried at his side was made from the skin of a wild cat or of a coy­ote. A great hunter like Sholoc might make his quiver from the tails of li­ons he had killed. Pro­ject­ing from the quiver were the bright-​feath­ered ends of the ar­rows, which were of reed and were two or three feet long, with points of bone, flint, or ob­sid­ian.

The hunters, know­ing how hard it was to kill large game, had cho­sen their ar­rows care­ful­ly, tak­ing those that had ob­sid­ian points. Al­most at the same mo­ment they let fly their shafts. Three elk leaped in­to the air. One tum­bled over in a som­er­sault which broke one of its antlers, and then lay dead, shot through the heart by Sholoc. An­oth­er took a few leaps, but a sec­ond ar­row brought it to its knees. Then it sank slow­ly over up­on its side; but it struck so fierce­ly at the hunter who ran up to kill it with his horn knife that he drew back and shot it again.

“Where is the third elk?” asked Clee­ta, look­ing around.

“Over there,” said Ges­nip, point­ing across the plain.

“Then they have lost it,” said the child, with dis­ap­point­ment.

“No, I think not. It is wound­ed. I saw the blood on its side,” said the sis­ter. “See, one of the men is fol­low­ing it, and it is half a mile be­hind the herd. I am sure he will get it.”

“This has been a lucky day,” said Ges­nip. “So much food. Our stom­achs will not ache with hunger for a long time.”

“That is be­cause moth­er wove a game bas­ket to Chinig­chinich so he would send food,” said Clee­ta.

By the time the par­ty had trav­eled two miles, Ges­nip, with her load, and Clee­ta, whose bare brown legs were grow­ing very tired, lagged be­hind.

“O dear,” said the el­der sis­ter, “we shall sure­ly be too late to go in­to camp with un­cle.” Just then a whoop sound­ed be­hind them, and a boy of thir­teen, dressed in a rab­bit-​skin shirt, car­ry­ing a bow in his hand, came pant­ing up to them.

“Payuchi,” said Ges­nip, ea­ger­ly, “car­ry my bas­ket for me and I will tell you some good news.”

“No,” replied Payuchi, shak­ing his head, “it is a girl’s place to car­ry the bas­ket.”

“Just this lit­tle way, and it is such good news” urged Ges­nip. “It will, make your heart glad.”

“Very well, then, tell it quick­ly,” said the boy, chang­ing the bas­ket of mus­sels to his own broad back.

“Sholoc has come from San­ta Catali­na with bas­kets of abalone and fish, and with ol­las all speck­led, and strings of mon­ey. He is near the top of the grade now. Up­on hear­ing the good news the lad dart­ed away at a great pace, his sis­ters fol­low­ing as fast as they could. Sholoc and his par­ty had stopped to re­ar­range their loads, so the chil­dren over­took them at the head of the trail lead­ing to their home.

“Be­low them was a val­ley dot­ted with live oaks, and along the banks of the stream that ran through it was a thick growth of alders, sycamores, and wil­lows. At the foot of the trail, near the wa­ter, was a clus­ter of what looked like low, round straw stacks. No straw stacks were they, how­ev­er, but hous­es, the on­ly kind of homes known in south­ern Cal­ifor­nia at that time.

“It was the In­di­an set­tle­ment where Ges­nip, Clee­ta, and Payuchi lived, and of which their fa­ther, Cuchu­ma, was chief. The ja­cals, or wig­wams, were made of long wil­low boughs, driv­en in­to the ground close­ly in a cir­cle, the ends bent over and tied to­geth­er with deer sinews. They were cov­ered with a thatch­ing of grass that, when dry, made them look like straw stacks.

“Sholoc stepped to the-​edge of the bluff and gave a long, qua­ver­ing cry which could be heard far in the still evening air. In­stant­ly out of the group of ja­cals came a crowd of men and boys, who gave an­swer­ing cries.”

“I am glad they have a fire,” said Clee­ta, as she saw the big blaze in the mid­dle of the set­tle­ment, “I am so cold.”

“Take my hand and let’s run,” said Ges­nip, and part­ly run­ning and part­ly slid­ing, they fol­lowed the men of the par­ty, who, notwith­stand­ing their heavy loads, were trot­ting down the steep trail.

They were met at the foot of the grade by a crowd which sur­round­ed them, all chat­ter­ing at once. Sholoc told of the elk, and a num­ber of men start­ed off on the run to bring in the big game. As the vis­itors en­tered camp, Macana, a kind-​faced wom­an, bet­ter dressed than most of her tribe, came for­ward. She placed her hand on Sholoc’s shoul­der, her face light­ing up with love and hap­pi­ness.

“You are wel­come, broth­er,” she said.

“The sight of you is good to my eyes, sis­ter,” an an­swered Sholoc. That was all the greet­ing, al­though the two loved each oth­er well. Macana took the bas­ket from Payuchi’s back.

“Come,” she called to Ges­nip, “and help me wash the mus­sels.” Then, as she saw the younger girl shiv­er­ing as she crouched over the fire, “Clee­ta, you need not be cold any longer; your rab­bit skin dress is done. Go in­to the ja­cal and put it on.” Clee­ta obeyed with danc­ing eyes.

Ges­nip fol­lowed her moth­er to the stream.

“Take this,” said Macana, hand­ing her an open­work net or bag, “and hold it while I emp­ty in some of the mus­sels. Now lift them up and down in the wa­ter to wash out the sand. That will do; put them in­to this bas­ket, and I will give you some more.”

Mean­time some of the wom­en had tak­en a dozen or more fish from Sholoc’s bas­kets, and re­mov­ing their en­trails with bone knives, wrapped them in many thick­ness­es of damp grass and laid them in the hot ash­es and coals to bake.

When the mus­sels were all cleaned, Macana emp­tied them in­to a large bas­ket half filled with wa­ter, and threw in a lit­tle acorn meal and a hand­ful of herbs. Then, us­ing two green sticks for tongs, she drew out from among the coals some smooth gray stones which had be­come very hot. Brush­ing these off with a bunch of tules, she lift­ed them by means of a green stick hav­ing a loop in the end which fit­ted round the stones, fling­ing them one by one in­to the bas­ket in which were the mus­sels and wa­ter. Im­me­di­ate­ly the wa­ter, heat­ed by the stones, be­gan to boil, and when the soup was ready, she set the bas­ket down be­side her own ja­cal and called her chil­dren to her. Payuchi, Ges­nip, Clee­ta, and their lit­tle four-​year-​old broth­er, Nakin, gath­ered about the bas­ket, help­ing them­selves with abalone shells, the small holes of which their moth­er had plugged with wood.

“Isn’t fa­ther go­ing to have some first?” asked Payuchi, be­fore they be­gan the meal.

“Not this time; he will eat with Sholoc and the men when the fish are ready,” replied his moth­er.

“This is good soup,” said Ges­nip. “I am glad I worked hard be­fore the wa­ter came up. But, Payuchi, didn’t you and Nopal get any clams?”

“Yes,” said her broth­er, mak­ing a face; he had dipped down where the stones were hottest and the soup thick­est, and had tak­en a mouth­ful that burned him. “Yes, we got some clams, more than I could car­ry; but Nopal was run­ning races with the oth­er boys and would not come, so I left him to bring them. He will lose his fish din­ner if he doesn’t hur­ry.”

“Moth­er,” said Clee­ta, “may we stay up to the fish bake?”

“No,” an­swered her moth­er. “You and Nakin must go to bed, but I will save some for your break­fast. You are tired, Clee­ta.”

“Yes, I am tired,” said the lit­tle girl, lean­ing her head against her moth­er’s shoul­der, “but I am warm in my rab­bit-​skin dress. We all have warm dress­es now. Please tell me a good-​night sto­ry,” she begged. “We have been good and brought in much food.”

“Yes, tell us how the hawk and coy­ote made the sun,” said Ges­nip.

“Very well,” said the moth­er, “on­ly you must be quite still.”

“It was in the be­gin­ning of all things, and a bowl of dark­ness, black­er than the pitch lin­ing of our wa­ter bas­ket, cov­ered the earth. Man, when he would go abroad, fell against man, against trees, against wild an­imals, even against Lol­lah, the bear, who would, in turn, hug the un­hap­py one to death. Birds fly­ing in the air came to­geth­er and fell strug­gling to the earth. All was con­fu­sion.”

“Once the hawk, by chance, flew in the face of the coy­ote. In­stead of fight­ing about it as naughty chil­dren might, they, like peo­ple of good man­ners, apol­ogized many times. Then they talked over the un­hap­py state of things and de­ter­mined to rem­edy the evil. The coy­ote first gath­ered a great heap of dried tules, rolled them to­geth­er in­to a ball, and gave them to the hawk, with some pieces of flint. The hawk, tak­ing them in his talons, flew straight up in­to the sky, where he struck fire with his flints, lit the ball of reeds, and left it there whirling along with a bright yel­low light, as it con­tin­ues to whirl to-​day; for it, chil­dren, is our sun, ruler of the day.”

“The hawk next flew back for an­oth­er ball to rule the night, but the coy­ote had no tule gath­ered, and the hawk hur­ried him so that some damp stems were mixed in. The hawk flew with this ball in­to the sky and set it afire but be­cause of the green tules it burned with on­ly a dim light; and this, chil­dren, is our moon, ruler of the night.”

“That is a fine sto­ry,” said Payuchi. “I am glad I did not live when there was no light.”

“Tell us how the coy­ote danced with the star,” said Ges­nip.

“No,” replied the moth­er, “an­oth­er time we shall see. Now I shall sing to coax sleep to tired eyes, and the lit­tle ones will go to bed.” And this was what she sang: “Pah-​high-​nui-​veve, veve, veve, shumeh, veve, veve, veve, shumeh, Pah-​high-​nui-​veve,” and so on, re­peat­ing these words over and over un­til Clee­ta and Nakin were sound asleep. Then she laid them on their tule mats, which were spread on the floor of the ja­cal, where ba­by Na­hal, close wrapped in his co­coon-​shaped cra­dle, had been a long time sleep­ing.

“Moth­er,” said Ges­nip, com­ing in­to the ja­cal, “they have brought in the elk. Don’t you want some­thing from them?”

“Yes,” replied Macana, “I will go and see about it. I want one of the skins to make your fa­ther a warm hunt­ing dress.”

The In­di­ans who had gone af­ter the elk had skinned and cut them up where they lay, as they were so large that the bur­den had to be dis­tribut­ed among a num­ber of car­ri­ers. Macana found Sholoc busy por­tion­ing out parts of the elk. As he had a fine seal-​skin suit him­self, he glad­ly gave her the skin of the deer which he had shot.

“Isn’t that a big one?” said Payuchi. “It will make fa­ther a fine hunt­ing suit, it is so thick.” Ges­nip was load­ed down with some of the best cuts of the meat to take to her fa­ther’s ja­cal. Cuchu­ma him­self be­gan re­mov­ing the ten­dons from the legs, to cure for bow­strings, and to wrap a new bow he was go­ing to make.

“Here, Nopal,” said Sholoc to his old­est nephew, a lad of fif­teen, “I will give you a piece of the antler and you can grind it down and make your­self a hunt­ing knife. It is time you ceased to play and be­came a hunter. I had killed much game when I was your age.”

“Will you give me some of the brains that I may fin­ish tan­ning a deer­skin? I have been wait­ing to fin­ish it un­til I could get some brains, but it has been a long time since any one has brought in big game,” said Macana.

“Yes,” an­swered Sholoc, “you shall have them. Payuchi, hand me my elk-​horn ax so that I can split open the head, and you can take the brains to the ja­cal.” Soon not a piece of meat, a bit of skin, ten­don, or bone, was left. All was put to use by these peo­ple of the for­est. And now the feast was ready. The wom­en had roast­ed many pieces of elk’s meat over the coals. The fish had been tak­en from un­der the hot ash­es, the half burned grass re­moved from around them, and the fish bro­ken in­to pieces and put in flat bas­kets shaped like plat­ters. There were al­so pieces of elk meat and cakes of acorn meal baked on hot stones.

As was the cus­tom with the In­di­ans, the men were served first. Payuchi watched anx­ious­ly as his fa­ther and the oth­er men took large help­ings from the bas­kets.

“Do you think there will be enough for us to have any?” he asked Ges­nip. “I am so hun­gry and they are eat­ing so much. If I were a man, I should re­mem­ber about the wom­en and chil­dren.”

“No; you wouldn’t if you were a man; men nev­er do,” an­swered Ges­nip. “But you need not wor­ry, there is plen­ty. Moth­er said there would be some left for break­fast.”

“Wait for that till I get through,” said Payuchi, laugh­ing. Af­ter all had eat­en a hearty meal, more than for many weeks they had been able to have at any one time, the tired wom­en each gath­ered her chil­dren to­geth­er and took them to her own ja­cal, leav­ing the men sit­ting around the camp fire. Payuchi, who tum­bled to sleep as soon as his head touched his sleep­ing mat, was wak­ened by some one pulling his rab­bit-​skin coat, which he wore nights as well as days.

“Payuchi,” said a voice, “wake up.”

“I have not been asleep,” an­swered the boy, stout­ly, as he rubbed his eyes to get them open. “What do you want, Nopal?” for he saw his broth­er speak­ing to him.

“Hush, do not wak­en moth­er,” said Nopal, speak­ing very soft­ly. “I know that the men will make an of­fer­ing to Chinig­chinich. I am go­ing to watch them. We are old enough, at least I am. Do you want to come?”

A star shone in at the top of the ja­cal, and Payuchi gazed up at it, blink­ing, while he pulled his thoughts to­geth­er.

“They will pun­ish us if they find us out,” said he at length.

“But we won’t let them find us out, stupid one,” replied his broth­er, im­pa­tient­ly.

“What if Chinig­chinich should be an­gry with us? He does not like to have chil­dren in the cer­emo­ny of the of­fer­ing,” said Payuchi.

“I will give him my hum­ming-​bird skin, and you shall give him your moun­tain quail head; then he will be pleased with us,” an­swered Nopal.

“All right,” said the boy; “I do not like very well to part with that quail head, but per­haps it is a good thing to do.”

Creep­ing soft­ly from the ja­cal, the boys crouched in the shade of a wil­low bush and watched the men by the camp fire.

“They are stand­ing up. They are just go­ing,” said Payuchi, “and ev­ery one has some­thing in his hand. Fa­ther has two bows; I won­der why.”

“I think he is go­ing to make an of­fer­ing of the new bow to Chinig­chinich,” an­swered Nopal. “I thought he was go­ing to keep it and give me his old one,” he added, with some dis­ap­point­ment.

“What are they of­fer­ing for?” asked the young broth­er.

“For rain,” said Nopal. “See, they are go­ing now.” In sin­gle file the men walked swift­ly away, step­ping so soft­ly that not a twig cracked.

Af­ter a lit­tle the boys fol­lowed, slip­ping from bush to bush that they might not be dis­cov­ered. They had walked about a mile, when they came to thick­er woods with big­ger trees and saw a light ahead of them. Nopal laid his hand on his broth­er to stop him. Peep­ing through a scrub-​oak bush, they looked down in­to a lit­tle glade arched over with great live oaks. In the mid­dle of the open­ing they saw, by the light of a low fire, a small cone-​shaped hut. Be­side it stood a gi­gan­tic fig­ure paint­ed and adorned with shells, feath­ers, rat­tlesnake skins, and neck­laces of bone.

“Come back,” whis­pered Payuchi, his teeth chat­ter­ing with fear. “It is Chinig­chinich him­self; he will see us, and we shall die.”

“No,” an­swered Nopal, “it is on­ly Ni­hie, the medicine man. He looks so tall be­cause of his head­dress. It is made of frame­work of dried tules cov­ered with feath­ers and fish blad­ders. I saw it one day in his ja­cal, and it is as tall as I am. That ja­cal be­side him is the van­quech [tem­ple], and I think there is some­thing aw­ful there. You see if there isn’t. Hush, now! Squat down. Here they come.”

In a pro­ces­sion the men came in­to the open­ing, and, stalk­ing solemn­ly by, each cast down at the door of the tem­ple an of­fer­ing of some ob­ject which he prized. Cuchu­ma gave a bone knife which he great­ly val­ued, and a hand­some new bow. Sholoc gave a speck­led green stone ol­la from San­ta Catali­na and a small string of mon­ey; but these were chiefs’ of­fer­ings. The oth­er gifts were sim­pler–shells, acorn meal, bas­kets, birds’ skins, but al­ways some­thing for which the own­er cared.

At last the medicine man, sat­is­fied with the things of­fered which be­came his own when the cer­emo­ny was over, stooped and drew forth the sa­cred em­blem from the tem­ple. It was not even an idol, on­ly a fetich com­posed of a sack made from the skin of a coy­ote, the head care­ful­ly pre­served and stuffed, while the body was dressed smooth of hair and adorned with hang­ing shells and tufts of birds’ feath­ers. A bun­dle of ar­rows pro­trud­ed from the open mouth, giv­ing it a fierce ap­pear­ance. While Ni­hie held it up, the men cir­cled round once again, this time more rapid­ly, and as they passed the medicine man, each gave a spring in­to the air, shoot­ing an ar­row up­ward with all his force. When the last man had dis­ap­peared un­der the trees, Ni­hie re­placed the skin in the tem­ple, put out the fire, and, singing a kind of chant, he led the men back to their ja­cals. The boys stood up. Payuchi shiv­ered and drew a long breath.

“We must get away now; Ni­hie will be back soon to get the of­fer­ings,” said Nopal.

“But first we must of­fer our gifts, or Chinig­chinich will be an­gry,” said Payuchi.

“Come on, then,” said the broth­er; so, steal­ing soft­ly down the hill­side, the boys cast their of­fer­ings on the pile in front of the hut and ran away, tak­ing a round­about path home, that they might not meet the medicine man re­turn­ing.

“We must hur­ry to get in the ja­cal be­fore fa­ther,” said Nopal, sud­den­ly. “I didn’t think of that. Run, Payuchi, run faster.” But they were in time af­ter all, and were stretched out on their mats some min­utes be­fore their fa­ther and Sholoc came in.

Macana’s first du­ty in the morn­ing was to at­tend to the ba­by, whose wide-​open black eyes gave the on­ly sign that it was awake. She un­fas­tened it from the bas­ket and un­wrapped it, rub­bing the lit­tle body over with its morn­ing bath of grease un­til the firm skin shone as if var­nished. When it had nursed and was com­fort­able, she put the lit­tle one back in its cra­dle bas­ket, which she leaned up against the side of the hut, where the lit­tle pris­on­er might see all that was go­ing on.

In­stead of the usu­al break­fast of acorn meal mush, the chil­dren had a plen­ti­ful meal of fish which their moth­er had saved from the feast of the night be­fore.

“I didn’t think any one could catch so many fish as un­cle brought last night,” said Clee­ta, as she helped her­self to a piece of yel­low­tail.

“Yes, they do, though,” said Payuchi. “Last night, af­ter sup­per, un­cle told the men some fine sto­ries. I think he has been in places which none of our peo­ple have ev­er seen.

“He told us that once he jour­neyed many moons to­ward the land of snow and ice un­til he came to the coun­try of the Kla­math tribe, where he stayed a long time. He said that when they fish they drive posts made of young trees in­to the bot­tom of the riv­er and then weave wil­low boughs in and out un­til there is a wall of posts and boughs clear across the stream. Then the big red fish come up from the great wa­ter in­to the riv­er. They come, un­cle said, so many no one can count them, and the ones be­hind push against those in front un­til they are all crowd­ed against the wall, and then the Kla­math men catch them with spears and nets un­til there is food enough for all, and many fish to dry.”

“I should like to see that. What else did he tell you?” asked Ges­nip.

“He said he vis­it­ed one place where the great salt wa­ter comes in­to the land and is so big it takes many days to jour­ney round it. Here the peo­ple eat fish, clams, and mus­sels in­stead of acorns and roots. On the shore they have their feast­ing ground where they go to eat and dance and tell big sto­ries, and; some­times to make an of­fer­ing. So many peo­ple go there, un­cle said, that the shells they have left make a hill, a hill just of shells that is many steps high. From the top of it one may look over the wa­ter, which is so long no eye can see the end of it.”

“What else did you hear?” asked Ges­nip.

“Noth­ing more, for moth­er called me,” replied her broth­er. “I should like to hear more of those sto­ries, though.”

“Moth­er,” asked Ges­nip, as she fin­ished her break­fast, “when am I to be­gin to braid mats for the new ja­cal?”

“Soon,” replied Macana. “This morn­ing you and Payuchi must gath­er the tule. Have a large pile when I come home.” So say­ing, the moth­er strapped the ba­by on her back and, ac­com­pa­nied by the younger chil­dren, went out with oth­er wom­en of the tribe to gath­er the white acorns from the oaks on the high­lands pear the moun­tains.

The De­cem­ber wind, from the snow-​capped peaks, chilled and cut with its icy breath their scant­ily clothed bod­ies, but for hours they worked pick­ing up the scat­tered nuts. The labors of an In­di­an moth­er ceased on­ly while she slept.

“Come, Payuchi,” said Ges­nip, “let us go down to the riv­er and get tules.”

“All right,” replied the boy, read­ily. “Sholoc is go­ing down too. He is go­ing to show the men how to make log ca­noes like his in­stead of the tule ca­noes our peo­ple use. But I like the tule ca­noes, be­cause I can use my feet for pad­dles.” When they reached the riv­er, which was re­al­ly a la­goon or arm of the sea, the chil­dren stopped to watch the men at work. A large log, washed down from the moun­tains by some flood, lay on the bank. It was good hard wood, and the chil­dren saw that it was smok­ing in three places.

“This is go­ing to make two ca­noes, but nei­ther one will be so big, as un­cle’s,” said Payuchi.

“How can it make two ca­noes if they burn it up?” asked his sis­ter.

“You are stupid, Ges­nip,” said her broth­er. “Don’t you see they are burn­ing it to sep­arate it in­to two parts? Then they will burn each log in­to the shape of a boat, fin­ish­ing it up with ax­es of bone or horn. Un­cle told me how they did it.”

“Why have they put the green bark on the top of the log?”

“I think it is to keep it from burn­ing along the edge; don’t you see? And then there are wider pieces to pro­tect it at the ends. See how they watch the fire and beat it out in one place and then in an­oth­er.”

“Why does it burn so fast?” asked Ges­nip.

“Be­cause they have daubed it with pitch. Can’t you smell it?” said the boy, sniff­ing.

“Yes, I can smell it,” replied his sis­ter. “But come now and help me gath­er tules. Fa­ther is go­ing to burn down our house and build a new one for win­ter, and I must make a tule rug for each one of you for beds in the new home. It will take a great many tule stems.”

“It is cold to wade,” said Payuchi, step­ping in­to the wa­ter at the edge of the riv­er.

“Yes,” an­swered Ges­nip, “I don’t like to gath­er tules in win­ter.”

The chil­dren pulled up the long rough stems one by one un­til they had a large pile.

“I think we have enough,” said Payuchi, af­ter they had been work­ing about two hours.

“Yes, I think so too,” said his sis­ter. “My back aches, my hands are sore, and my feet are so cold.” Payuchi brought some wild grapevine with which he tied the tule in­to two bun­dles, fas­ten­ing the larg­er up­on his sis­ter’s back; for with his peo­ple the wom­en and girls were the bur­den bear­ers, and a grown In­di­an would not do any work that his wife could pos­si­bly do for him.

Af­ter they had trav­eled a lit­tle way on the home­ward path, Ges­nip stopped.

“Don’t go so fast, Payuchi,” she begged. “This bun­dle is so large it near­ly tum­bles me over.”

“Just hur­ry a lit­tle un­til we get to the foot of the hill yon­der where Nopal and the oth­er big boys are play­ing, and you can rest while I watch the game,” an­swered her broth­er. Ges­nip strug­gled on, bend­ing un­der the weight and size of her awk­ward bur­den un­til, with a sigh of re­lief, she seat­ed her­self on a stone to rest while Payuchi, throw­ing his bun­dle on the ground, stood up to watch the boys.

“See, Nopal is It,” he said. Nopal, com­ing for­ward, stooped low and rolled a hoop along the ground, which the boys had pound­ed smooth and hard for the game.

As the hoop rolled an­oth­er boy stepped for­ward and tried to throw a stick through it, but failed. Then all the play­ers point­ed their fin­gers at him and grunt­ed in scorn. Again Nopal rolled the hoop, and this time the boy threw through the ring, and all the boys, and Payuchi too, gave whoops of de­light.

The chil­dren watched the game un­til Ges­nip said that they must go on, for their moth­er would be home and want them. When they re­turned, Macana was warm­ing her­self by the fire where the men were sit­ting.

“See our tule; is it not a great deal?” asked the chil­dren, show­ing their bun­dles.

“Yes, but not enough,” replied their moth­er. “You will have to go out an­oth­er day.”

The wom­en, who had been work­ing all the morn­ing gath­er­ing acorns, now squat­ted near the fire and be­gan grind­ing up the nuts which had been al­ready dried.

“Ges­nip,” called her moth­er, “bring me the grind­ing stones.” The girl went to the ja­cal and brought two stones, one a heavy bowlder with a hol­low in its top, which had been made part­ly by stone ax­es, but more by use; the oth­er stone fit­ted in­to this hol­low.

“Now bring me the bas­ket of roast­ed grasshop­pers,” said the moth­er. Tak­ing a hand­ful of grasshop­pers, Macana put them in­to the hol­low in the larg­er stone, and with the small­er stone rubbed them to a coarse pow­der. This pow­der she put in­to a small bas­ket which Ges­nip brought her.

“I am glad we caught the grasshop­pers. They taste bet­ter than acorn meal mush,” said Payuchi.

“How many grasshop­pers there are in the fall,” said Ges­nip, “and so many rab­bits, too.”

“We had such a good time at the rab­bit drive,” said Payuchi.

“And such a big feast af­ter­wards, near­ly as good as last night,” said Ges­nip.

“Tell me about the rab­bit drive,” said Clee­ta, squat­ting down be­side the chil­dren in front of the fire.

“It was in the big wash up the riv­er to­ward the moun­tains,” be­gan Payuchi. “You have seen the rab­bits run­ning to hide in a bunch of grass and cac­tus when you go with moth­er to the moun­tains for acorns, haven’t you?”

Clee­ta nod­ded. “Not this win­ter, though. We saw on­ly two to-​day,” she said.

“That is be­cause of the drive,” said her broth­er. “It was in the af­ter­noon, with the wind blow­ing from the ocean, and all the men who could shoot best with bow and ar­row, or throw the spear well, stood on the oth­er side of the wash.”

“Fa­ther was there,” said Clee­ta.

“Yes, and many oth­ers,” said Payuchi. “Then some of the men and all of us boys got green branch­es of trees and came down on this side of the wash. Nopal start­ed the fire. It burned along in the grass slow­ly at first, and when it came too near the ja­cals on one side or the woods on the oth­er, we would beat it out with the branch­es, but soon it ran be­fore the wind in­to the cac­tus and bunch grass. The rab­bits were fright­ened out and ran from the fire as fast as they could, and in a few min­utes they were right at the feet of fa­ther and the oth­er hunters. They killed forty be­fore the smoke made them run too.”

“My dress was made of their skin,” said the lit­tle girl, smooth­ing her gown lov­ing­ly. “It keeps me so warm.”

“Did the fire burn long?” asked Ges­nip.

“No, we beat it out, or it would have gone up the wash in­to the live oaks; then we boys should have been well pun­ished for our care­less­ness.”

Here their moth­er called to them.

“Payuchi,” she said, “put away this bas­ket of grasshop­per meal. And, Ges­nip, go to the ja­cal and find me the coils for bas­ket weav­ing.”

“What shall I bring?” asked Ges­nip.

“The large bun­dle of chip­pa that is soak­ing in a bas­ket, and the big coil of yel­low kah-​hoom and the lit­tle one of black tsuwish which are hang­ing up, and bring me my nee­dle and bone awl.”

“Do you want the coil of mil­lay?”

“No, I shall need no red to-​day.”

Squat­ted on the ground, where she could feel the warmth of the fire on her back, but where the heat could not dry her bas­ket ma­te­ri­als, Macana be­gan her work. Tak­ing a drip­ping chip­pa, or wil­low bough, from the bas­ket where it had been soak­ing, she dried it on leaves and wound it tight­ly in a close coil the size of her thumb­nail, then spat­ted it to­geth­er un­til it seemed no longer a cord, but a sol­id piece of wood. Thus she made the base of her bas­ket; then, thread­ing her nee­dle, which was but a horny cac­tus stem set in a head of hard­ened pitch, she stitched in and out over the up­per and un­der the low­er lay­er, draw­ing her thread firm­ly each time. The thread was the creamy, satin-​like kah-​hoom. Round and round she coiled the chip­pa, the butt of one piece over­lap­ping the tip of an­oth­er, while with her nee­dle she cov­ered all with the smooth­ly drawn kah-​hoom. Af­ter a time she laid the kah-​hoom aside for a stitch or two of the black root of the tule, called tsuwish.

The chil­dren had watched the start­ing of the bas­ket, then had be­gun a game of match, with white and black peb­bles. Af­ter a time Ges­nip, look­ing up from her play, ex­claimed, as she saw the black di­amond pat­tern the weaver was mak­ing:–

“Moth­er, why are you weav­ing a rat­tlesnake bas­ket?”

“I am mak­ing it to please Chinig­chinich that he may smile up­on me and guard you, chil­dren, and Cuchu­ma from the bite of the rat­tlesnake. There are so many of them here this year, and I fear for you.”

“Thank you, moth­er,” said Ges­nip. “If Titas’s moth­er had made a black di­amond bas­ket, maybe the snake would not have bit­ten her.”

“I think Chinig­chinich does smile up­on you,” said Payuchi, “for when we were so hun­gry in the month of roots [Oc­to­ber] you wove him the hunt­ing bas­ket with the pat­tern of deer’s antlers, trimmed with quail feath­ers, and see how much food we have had: first the rab­bits, then the grasshop­pers, and now the fish and elk.”

“While you work tell us how the first ba­by bas­ket was made,” begged Clee­ta. The moth­er nod­ded; and as she wound and pressed close­ly the moist chip­pa, and the cac­tus nee­dle flew in and out with the creamy kah-​hoom or the black tsuwish, she told the sto­ry.

“When the moth­er of all made the bas­ket for the first man child, she used a rain­bow for the wood of the back of the bas­ket, with stars wo­ven in each side, and straight light­ning down the mid­dle in front. Sun­beams shin­ing on a far-​away rain storm formed the fringe in front, where we use strips of buck­skin, and the car­ry straps were bright­est sun­beams.”

“Moth­er, you left out that the ba­by was wrapped in a soft pur­ple cloud from the moun­tains,” said Clee­ta.

“Yes, in a pur­ple cloud of evening, wrapped so he could not move leg or arm, but would grow straight and beau­ti­ful,” said the moth­er.

For a long while the chil­dren watched in si­lence the pa­tient fin­gers at their work; then Ges­nip asked, “Is it true, moth­er, that when you were a lit­tle child your fa­ther and moth­er and many of your tribe died of hunger?”

“It is true,” replied Macana, sad­ly, “but who told you?”

“Old Co­topac­nic, but I thought it was one of his dreams. Why were you all so hun­gry?” asked the girl.

“Be­cause the rain failed for three sea­sons. Af­ter a time there was no grass, no acorns, the rab­bits and deer died or wan­dered away, the streams dried up so there were no fish, the ground be­came so dry that there were no more grubs or worms of any kind, no grasshop­pers. There was noth­ing to eat but roots. Near­ly all our tribe died, and many oth­er peo­ple, too.”

“How did you live?” asked Payuchi.

“My aunt had mar­ried a chief whose home was in a rich val­ley in the moun­tains where it is al­ways green. She came down to see my moth­er, and when she found how hard it was to get food for us all, she took me by the hand and tum­bled Sholoc who was small­er than lit­tle Nakin, in­to her great seed bas­ket and took us off to the moun­tains un­til times should grow bet­ter; but the rains did not come un­til it was too late. I stayed with her un­til I mar­ried your fa­ther. Sholoc be­came a great hunter, then chief of the peo­ple of San­ta Catali­na, where he be­came a great fish­er­man al­so.”

The chil­dren looked grave.

“Do you think such bad sea­sons can ev­er come again?” asked Ges­nip.

“Who can tell?” replied the moth­er, with a sigh. “Last year was very bad and there is lit­tle rain yet this year. That is why the men of­fered gifts to Chinig­chinich last night.”

“No­body must take me away from you to keep me from be­ing hun­gry,” said gen­tle Clee­ta, hid­ing her face in her moth­er’s lap.

“If I were Chinig­chinich,” said Payuchi, “I would not let so many peo­ple die, just be­cause they need­ed a lit­tle more rain. I would not be that kind of a god.”

“Hush, my child,” said the moth­er, stern­ly. “He will hear and pun­ish you. If it is our fate, we must bend to it.”