History of California. Helen Elliott Bandini
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