The Basket Woman: A Book of Indian Tales for Children

by Mary Austin

The cattleman called to him one of the Indians who could speak a little English.

"Tell her," he said, "that I wish her to care for the child. His name is Walter. Tell her that she is to come to my house for everything he needs, and for every month that he keeps fat and well she shall have a fat steer from my herd." So it was agreed.

As soon as Walter was old enough he came to sleep at his father's house, but the Indian woman, whom he called Ebia, came every day to tend him. Her son was his brother, and Walter learned to speak Paiute before he learned English. The two boys were always together, but as yet the little Indian had no name. It is not the custom among Paiutes to give names to those who have not done anything worth naming.

"But I have a name," said Walter, "and so shall he. I will call him Joe. That is my father's name, and it is a good name, too."

When Mr. Baker was away with the cattle Walter slept at the campoodie, and Joe's mother made him a buckskin shirt. At that time he was so brown with the sun and the wind that only by his eyes could you tell that he was white; he was also very happy. But as this is to be the story of how Joe came to the wearing of a woman's dress, I cannot tell you all the plays they had, how they went on their first hunting, nor what they found in the creek of Tres Pinos.

The beginning of the whole affair of Mahala Joe must be laid to the arrow-maker. The arrow-maker had a stiff knee from a wound in a long-gone battle, and for that reason he sat in the shade of his wickiup, and chipped arrow points from flakes of obsidian that the young men brought him from Togobah, fitting them to shafts of reeds from the river marsh. He used to coax the boys to wade in the brown water and cut the reeds, for the dampness made his knee ache. They drove bargains with him for arrows for their own hunting, or for the sake of the stories he could tell. For an armful of reeds he would make three arrows, and for a double armful he would tell tales. These were mostly of great huntings and old wars, but when it was winter, and no snakes in the long grass to overhear, he would tell Wonder-stories. The boys would lie with their toes in the warm ashes, and the arrow-maker would begin.

"You can see," said the arrow-maker, "on the top of Waban the tall boulder looking on the valleys east and west. That is the very boundary between the Paiute country and Shoshone land. The boulder is a hundred times taller than the tallest man, and thicker through than six horses standing nose to tail; the shadow of it falls all down the slope. At mornings it falls toward the Paiute peoples, and evenings it falls on Shoshone land. Now on this side of the valley, beginning at the campoodie, you will see a row of pine trees standing all upstream one behind another. See, the long branches grow on the side toward the hill; and some may tell you it is because of the way the wind blows, but I say it is because they reach out in a hurry to get up the mountain. Now I will tell you how these things came about.

"Very long ago all the Paiutes of this valley were ruled by two brothers, a chief and a medicine man, Winnedumah and Tinnemaha. They were both very wise, and one of them never did anything without the other. They taught the tribes not to war upon each other, but to stand fast as brothers, and so they brought peace into the land. At that time there were no white people heard of, and game was plenty. The young honored the old, and nothing was as it is now."

When the arrow-maker came to this point, the boys fidgeted with their toes, and made believe to steal the old man's arrows to distract his attention. They did not care to hear about the falling off of the Paiutes; they wished to have the tale. Then the arrow-maker would hurry on to the time when there arose a war between the Paiutes and the Shoshones. Then Winnedumah put on his war bonnet, and Tinnemaha made medicine. Word went around among the braves that if they stood together man to man as brothers, then they should have this war.

"And so they might," said the arrow-maker, "but at last their hearts turned to water. The tribes came together on the top of Waban. Yes; where the boulder now stands, for that is the boundary of our lands, for no brave would fight off his own ground for fear of the other's medicine. So they fought. The eagles heard the twang of the bowstring, and swung down from White Mountain. The vul-tures smelled the smell of battle, and came in from Shoshone land. Their wings were dark like a cloud, and underneath the arrows flew like hail. The Paiutes were the better bowmen, and they caught the Shoshone arrows where they struck in the earth and shot them back again. Then the Shoshones were ashamed, and about the time of the sun going down they called upon their medicine men, and one let fly a magic arrow,—for none other would touch him,—and it struck in the throat of Tinnemaha.