One night in the council lodge at Akalan, the small blaze in the centre reveals Wixi and about a dozen of the old men looking unusually stern and solemn. The pipe is passing around the circle and the War Chief—the youngest man present, barring Wixi—is stating the purpose of the meeting.
“For many winters,” he is saying, his eyes averted to the roof, “for many winters we have all been troubled about the future of our tribe. We have not known what to do. The white man has come to the land. We thought first he was Wasaka, and later that he was Chakalli. But he is instead a powerful enemy. He has done us no harm. That is good. He is killing our enemies, the Longhairs beyond the Mutsun waters to the South. That is good, too. He has taken away some of our neighbors, the Miwok. And that also is good. But some day, when the clouds float high in the sky, he will discover the way into the Mutsun waters and then why should he not kill and enslave us also?”
There is a nodding of grave heads all around and some exchange of furtive glances, in part directed toward Wixi, who is seated alone opposite the main group of elders.
“In these circumstances,” the speaker continues, this time looking sharply in the direction of a very old man central in the group, “in these circumstances some of us have thought it well to have Kakari, our Peace Chief, tell us the ancient story of our people, so that together we may judge from past experience what is best for the future.”
Every one present, including Wixi, nods his head, and the word is taken up slowly and deliberately by the feeble old man, Kakari, the Peace Chief.
“The story of the Mutsunes,” the old man begins, “is long. It would take many nights to tell it all. I shall tell only two or three things that happened and which will show us what the ‘Great Ones Above’ expect us to do.”
“Yes, yes, what they expect us to do,” echo the hearers.
“Long ago,” the old man continues, “when the Mutsun people first came to this water, they were poor. They came on foot from the far North. They had no boats and they had no bow and arrow. Wasaka had brought them fire and they had the digging-stick. That was all. Our people first went to live at Old-Old Akalan. At that time the place was not an island, it was a part of our own long Mutsun hill that shelters us here on the west. And while they lived there Chakalli came. He came from the ‘Great Ones Above’ and he brought with him the boat and the bow and arrow and the pipe and many other things. These he gave to the Mutsunes and he showed them also how they were to be used. But later, Coyote came along and told them how to make different ones and to use them differently. That made Chakalli angry and he struck at Old-Old Akalan with his digging-stick, the lightning, and, missing the village, knocked a big piece out of the hill beside it. This shook the ground and when the piece, struck off the hill, fell into the Mutsun water, over where it runs out to the big sea, the Mutsun water came up high and ran through the hole made in our hill, and Old-Old Akalan became an island. The piece knocked out of the hill also became an island, Mutsun Island, where our young men rest and wait for the tide when they go out to the big sea after abalones. Then Chakalli went away, but he did not go back to the ‘Great Ones Above,’ for every now and then the earth shakes and we know that somebody else has disobeyed instructions.”
Here old Kakari paused. It was becoming plain to Wixi why the meeting had been called. But there was more for him to hear.
“After Chakalli went away,” went on Kakari, “the Mutsun people had to move. The beach around the small island was not large enough to give them the clams they needed. Moreover, the driftwood for the fire would not lodge near the village as before. It all went through the new channel made by Chakalli, and across to where now live our neighbors the Earth People at Kawina. Some of it came up here. Therefore the Peace Chief of that day—Walen was his name—advised the people to move across to Kawina, but he himself remained with the ‘Old People’ at Old-Old Akalan (i. e., he died), and with him were left all the things that Chakalli had brought. To-morrow we shall sail over to Old-Old Akalan to see them.