She had a dress made of duck skins, sewed together with the sinews of a seal, with needles made of bone—an eye drilled through. This dress the priests sent to Rome.
The demijohn in which she carried water was made out of rushes and stopped with asphaltum. She was making one of these water bottles. She heated small round stones in the fire and put them in the asphaltum, and then lined the bottle, making it tight. She had no matches, of course, nor even a tinder-box, but started fire by rubbing two sticks together.
She said her child was eaten up by wolves. None of the Indians understood her dialect; finally one woman was found who could talk to her a little, who had been raised on the same island. The woman was found in 1853. She seemed happy and contented, and would go round to different houses and dance the Indian dances. She was a great curiosity; twenty or thirty would go along with her. Many who were sailing by would stop just to see her.
The other hunters had noticed small human tracks, but never could see any one. At last several men were scattered all over the island, and Charlie Brown was the first to discover her. He thought at first it was only a black crow sitting on a whalebone. I give his version, as his language is far more picturesque and vivid than my paraphrase would be. He says:
"She had built a brush fence about two feet high to break the wind. The sun was coming in her face. She was skinning a seal. The dog when he noticed me he began to growl. I thought if she should run. I stepped right round her, and she bowed as if she knew me before, and when the Indians came up they all kneeled down, and when she saw there was some of her color, she held out some of her food and offered all some.
"I took her by the shoulder, and I said, 'Varmoose,' and she understood at once. I took everything she had, and she took a big seal head in basket. We all had something to carry. Then she had a little brand of fire, and she took that away and wobbled along with a strange kind of a step like until we came to a watering-place about fifty feet down the bank, and they all went down there and she went too, and she sat down there and we watched to see what she would do, and she washed herself over; her hair was all rotting away, a kind of bleached by the sun, and we got to the vessel and she kneeled down, and we had a stove right on deck and she crawled to the stove and we gave her a piece of biscuit and she ate like a good fellow. It came on to blow; old man Nidever had some bed-ticking. I made her a dress, and gave her a man's shirt. She was tickled to death. If I was where she was she would hold up her dress and point that I made it."
He was asked how she happened to be left, repeated Nidever's story, and added: "She found they were all gone, and commenced to hollo. No answer, and hunted round and saw the tracks and found they went to lower part of the island. When she got there found the vessel going away, and she called, 'Mancyavina,' but it never came. She put her head on the ground and laid on the ground and cried, and they never came.
"The priest here had all the Indians in Santa Barbara and Santa Inez to see if they understood her. They could understand some words, but not all. She got baptized, and they made her a Christian and everything. A steamer came up from below; the captain offered to take her up and show her, but old man Nidever would not agree. She died; they gave her green corn and melons, and they were too much for her. She made knives of bone and wood, and had pointed nails for catching fish. She had ropes nicely twisted with sinews, twisted as true as any rope-maker could make, and had bottles made of grass, and dishes of wood with handles; she put the feathers next her skin to keep warm."
I will only add that wild dogs were numerous, and she tamed them for friends. The priests called her Juana Maria, and I think the name of the island should be changed in her honor. I doubt if Santa Barbara herself could have done as well under similar circumstances.