To the American Indian

by Lucy Thompson

THE ACORN.

Many years ago several families were out camping in the Fall, in the last part of October or November gathering acorns for food. (When the families get all fixed up in their acorn camps all go forth to pick the acorns each day as they drop from the tree, using the large baskets to put them in and carry to camp, in the evening when all have gathered at the camp house and the evening meal is over, all the family men, women and children take their places and commence taking the hulls off so as to get the meat or kernel out. This is done by the teeth and it is wonderful how expert we become at it, and it is seldom a kernel is mashed or bruised. These kernels are nearly always in halves, sometimes in three pieces and once in a great while there will be four pieces, and to find one that is divided into four pieces just as it grew in the shell is not a common occurrence. There is on the inside of the outer shell a very thin skin that covers the kernel or meat of the acorn.) There was a young Indian girl out with her basket picking acorns, and as she went along with her basket picking up acorns she would as often as she could, place some in her mouth and crack the hull and take the kernel out and put it in the basket with the ones that were not hulled. As she was going along she happened to open one where the kernel was in four parts which at once became very amusing to her, so she set her basket down and on taking a look at it she took the outer hull off and made a neat little cradle out of it, then she took the inner skin part and made a nice set of baby clothes, after she did this she took the whole of the kernel and covered with the clothes and placed it in the cradle that she had made of the hull. After all was finished she looked at it and then put it in the hollow of an oak tree and went on picking her acorns until time to go back to the camp house. When it came time for them all to return to their homes she had forgotten what she had done. One day while she was preparing some acorn flour she heard a noise behind her, some one saying mother, mother, and on looking behind her she beheld a little boy and as soon as she saw him she knew that he was formed from the acorn that she had fixed and left in the hollow oak tree. She raised the Sa-quan or pestle in her hand and tried to catch the boy but he ran from her and she followed after him and the race kept up until the boy got to the edge of the ocean, where there was a man in a boat, so the boy jumped into the boat, the man pushed the boat off and together they started out to sea, and had got well out when the girl arrived at the sea-shore, she hurled the stone pestle at them and it fell into the sea and the top of it stuck up and is there to this day.

Any Indian will tell his white brother this story as a true part to their religion, as calmly and seriously as if it was the truth and perhaps some of the lower class really believe it, yet it is only a fairy tale.

This is the rock that sits out in the ocean some eight or ten miles from the land, at the present time from Orick or the mouth of Redwood Creek. This rock the white man calls Redding Rock, the Klamath Indians call it Sa-quan-ow. The true facts concerning this rock are told in a preceding chapter.

THE BLUE JAY.

There was an old mother deer making mush for her family’s breakfast one morning and while she was cooking it she broke her leg and she then allowed the marrow from the bone to run into the mush as she stirred it. This made the mush very palatable and oily. The Blue Jay who happened along at the time, watched the deer cooking the mush and saw her break her leg and mix the marrow fat with the mush and when the mush was cooked the Blue Jay tasted it and found it very delicious. That day when the Blue Jay went home she decided she would make her acorn mush in the same way, so after fixing her mush she broke her leg to get the marrow which she stirred into the mush, but to her great disappointment the substance she took from her leg was not oil but blood and when she saw how bloody it made her mush and which spoiled it, she became very mad for being so simple, so she at once turned upon herself and plucked out all her tail feather and stuck them in the top of her head and ever after the Blue Jay has worn a top-knot of feathers on the head.

THE MOURNFUL COO OF THE DOVE.

The Dove (Ah-row-wee) since the deluge of the world has been considered by the Klamath Indians as the sacred bird. They carry the symbol of the dove in their ceremonial worship in the sacred lodge, and worship the bird as divine. Around this little bird is woven a pathetic tale of why he coos so much and always seems so sorrowful.

Long ago a family of doves made their home and nesting place on a level bench of land, about half a mile up from the Pec-wan village on the north-east side. On this bench-like piece of land on the hill side stood a very large live oak tree and close by the vicinity of this tree is a small spring of water which gushes forth, the rest of the flat being covered with grasses. In a little sheltered cove of this flat the Doves would make their nests and rear their families. When the baby doves grew strong and large enough to fly they would all fly up into the live oak tree. There they would hide among the branches when danger was near and all the families would roost among the branches of the trees every night. At this time there was a handsome young male Dove who announced his intentions of taking a trip up the river to Weitchpec, and while visiting among friends went with shiftless companions who taught him how to play Indian cards, which are made of small sticks and called pair-cauk, and the game wah-choo. The game became so fascinating that he spent the remainder of his time gambling and did not realize that he had left a sick grandmother at home and that she wished him to come back home at once. He was so deeply interested in the game that he did not take any heed of the message and continued to play cards. Later he received a message that his Grandmother was dead, but in the revelry of the game it seemed to him but folly and played on, not heeding the words of the messenger who kept repeating the words that his grandmother was dead until he succeeded in diverting the attention of the youthful gambler. The young gambler looked up sadly from his cards and said, “I will now shuffle the cards again and again, yes, shuffle them again and again. My grandmother is dead, and to let the world know that I mourn her loss deeply, I will coo among the lonesome bushes the mournful coo of a broken heart, the piteous coo of a grief that knows no ending while I live.”

The beautiful moral of this story is to teach and impress upon the minds of the children that they should not drift into shiftless ways, neglecting to respect and cherish their grandmothers and to love them as dearly as their own mothers and even more in respect to old age. Indian mothers repeat the story to their children and mourn as the doves, by repeating the words: Wee-poo-poo, wee-poo-poo-poo-poo, whee-whee-whee-poo-poo. Thus illustrating that they might become very sad and mournful by not being kind and thoughtful to the aged, and making their sunset years bright and cheerful.