Mass was celebrated there in the presence of 150 Indians. The people were very friendly and the women led the white men by the hand into their houses. The diary continues: “These people go dressed in the skins of seals; the women are modest but thievish. The Indians received us with embraces and brought water in some very well-made jars, and in others like flasks, that were highly varnished on the outside. They have acorns and some very large skins, with long wool, apparently of bears, which serve them for blankets.”
The travelers found here an idol, “in the manner of the devil, without a head, but with two horns, a dog at the feet, and many children painted around it.” The Indians readily gave up this idol and accepted the cross in its stead.
St. Catherine, patroness of this island, was one of the most notable female martyrs of the Roman Catholic church. We are told that she was of royal blood, being the daughter of a half-brother of Constantine the Great. She was converted to Christianity, and became noted for her unusual sanctity. She was both beautiful and intellectual, and possessed the gift of eloquence in such a high degree that she was able to confound fifty of the most learned men appointed by Maximin to dispute matters of religion with her. The same Maximin, enraged by her refusal of his offers of love, ordered that she be tortured “by wheels flying in different directions, to tear her to pieces. When they had bound her to these, an angel came and consumed the wheels in fire, and the fragments flew around and killed the executioners and 3000 people. Maximin finally caused her to be beheaded, when angels came and bore her body to the top of Mt. Sinai. In the eighth century a monastery was built over her burial place.”—(Stories of the Saints.) Santa Catalina is the patroness of education, science, philosophy, eloquence, and of all colleges, and her island has good reason to be satisfied with the name chosen by Vizcaíno.
LAS ÁNIMAS BENDITAS
Of Las Ánimas (the souls), which lay between San Gabriel and the country of the Amajaba (Mojave) Indians, we find the story in Fray Joaquín Pasqual Nuez’s diary of the expedition made in 1819 by Lieutenant Gabriel Moraga, to punish the marauding Amajabas, who had murdered a number of Christian natives. This name was also used as the title of a land grant just south of Gilroy.
The Moraga party arrived at a point “about a league and a half from Our Lady of Guadalupe of Guapiabit. We found the place where the Amajabas killed four Christians of this mission (San Gabriel), three from San Fernando, and some gentiles (unbaptized Indians). We found the skeletons and skulls roasted, and, at about a gun-shot from there we pitched camp. The next day, after mass, we caused the bones to be carried in procession, the cross in front, Padre Nuez chanting funeral services, to the spot where they had been burned. There we erected a cross, at the foot of which we caused the bones to be buried in a deep hole, and then we blessed the sepulchre. We named the spot Las Ánimas Benditas (The Blessed Souls).” May they rest in peace!
SAN GABRIEL
San Gabriel, the quaint little town lying nine miles east of Los Ángeles, is the site of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel (St. Gabriel Archangel), founded September 8, 1771, by Padres Cambón and Somera. This mission was placed in a fertile, well-wooded spot, in the midst of a large Indian population, who, under the instruction of the padres, became experts in many arts, such as sewing, weaving, soap-making, cobbling, etc. Their flocks and herds increased to such an extent that they covered the country for many miles around.