CHAPTER XI.
SANTA BARBARA.
"Saints will aid if men will call,
For the blue sky bends o'er all."
Sweet sixteen and an "awful dad." Santa Barbara and Dioscurus. Such a cruel story, and so varied in version that the student of sacred legend gets decidedly puzzled. The fair-haired daughter was advised secretly by Origen, who sent a pupil disguised as a physician to instruct her in the Christian faith. She insisted on putting three windows instead of two into the bathroom of the tower to which her father sent her, either to prevent her from marrying or to imprison her until she would wed one of the many gay young suitors. These three windows showed her belief in the Trinity, which she could not have learned from Origen, as among Christians he was regarded as heretical, and his followers were Unitarians and Universalists combined, adding the cheerful theory of the "second opportunity" and that all punishment from sin would have an end, yet clinging to the old pagan mythology and believing that sun, moon, stars, and the ocean all had souls—a "Neo-Platonist."
Refusing to recant, Barbara was arraigned and condemned to death. Her energetic paternal evidently had heard the maxim, "If you want anything done, do it yourself." His heavy blows fell soft as feathers. She seemed in sweet slumber. So he drew his sword, cut off her head, and was instantly killed by lightning from Heaven. Thus ends the history of two "Early Fathers."
But sweet St. Barbara will never be forgotten. She is the patroness of artillery soldiers, and protects from lightning and sudden death. In the many pictures where she appears she carries a feather, or the martyr's sword and palm, or a book; and the three windows are often seen. She is the only Santa who bears the cup and wafer.
The appreciative Spaniards honored her memory by bestowing her pretty name on the choicest spot of the coast, a belt of land seventy miles long and thirty-five wide, from Point Concepcion to Buena Ventura. No one can dare to doubt this tragic tale, for Barbara's head may still be seen preserved as a relic in the temple of All Saints at Rome. I do not want to be too severe in my estimate of the Roman noble, Dioscurus. An old lady who never spoke ill of any one, when called upon to say something good of the devil, said, "We might all imitate his persistence;" and this impulsive demon was certainly a creature who, if he had an unpleasant duty confronting him, attended to it himself.
The first navigator who landed on the coast of Santa Barbara, or on one of the four islands, was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, in 1542. He is buried on San Miguel (pronounced Magell). The Indians (and the entire Indian population at that time amounted to 22,000) were exceedingly glad to welcome the strangers, much better behaved than those found at San Diego, who stripped the clothing from those too ill to defend themselves. Perhaps a reason for this superiority may be found in the fact that these tribes were entirely naked, and had no desire for any conventional covering. They serenaded their new friends so loudly that sleep or rest was impossible, and offered their most delicious food and free use of canoes. They ate seeds, fruit, fish, locusts; hunted rabbit, hare, and deer; dried the meat of the latter on trees; placed acorns in a sieve basket, rinsed and boiled them. As every race is unhappy without an intoxicating drink and something to chew or smoke, they extracted a bitter beverage from a certain seed, and used a root in place of tobacco.
These Channel Indians let their hair grow so long that they could make braids and fasten them round the face with stone rings. The visitors spoke of the "Island of the Bearded People." They had substantial brush huts, supported by pillars bearing inscriptions supposed to allude to their religion, and they enjoyed dancing to the music of bone flutes. For gifts, they most desired red calico and chocolate.
Cabrillo's men found a primitive temple on one of the islands, and in it an unknown god or idol. One of the eight original tribes had a form of worship strongly resembling a Turkish bath. The men sat round a hot fire until drenched in perspiration; then plunged into a pool of cold water. The women were not permitted to be devout in this "cleanliness next to godliness" manner. It was a luxury and prerogative the noble braves wanted entirely for themselves. (We see something similar in our own progressive, enlightened churches, where women are expected to provide and pack clothing for missionary boxes, attend unfailingly on the stated means of grace, visit and nurse the sick and poor members, deny themselves for charity, listen reverently to stupid discourses on the unknown, delivered with profound certainty that approaches omniscience, but are not allowed to "speak out in meetin'," or to have the honor of being represented by women delegates at denominational conventions, or clubs and councils. They are to lead heavenward, but earthly pleasures and honors are strictly "reserved"! About the same, isn't it?)