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Page 13 text:
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The Chains of “Los Sepulcros” By HOMER THOMAS (First Award) O LD Joe Castaneda rolled a thin cigarette, using a corn husk in place of the familiar brown papers, for Joe, let it be understood, was a Californiano of the old stock, and as such observed many of the customs of the days of the great rancherias. Joe was old; many years had passed since he was a little, brown boy on the great Rancheria de Blucher; many were the changes in the country around the present town of Sebastopol. And Joe knew all the legends and stories of every spot in So¬ noma county; and there are many and of many kinds. For had not Joe lived here all his life, and had not his father and his father’s father lived not fifteen miles from Sebastopol before the Gringo stole all the land! Joe and I were the best of friends. All of the friends of Joe’s youth had died long years before and, with my knowledge of his own beloved Spanish, found a place in his lonely, old heart. And so Joe told me many things as we sat on one of the knolls gazing at the sleeping St. Helena. As Joe lit his cigarette he started to talk. This is what he told me in his Spanish idiom and I tell it to you in En glish: “Long ago when my father was a little boy there came from the south a white man to our valley and with him came the Black Veil of Trouble to hover over the hills and valleys of Blucher. “The white man was welcomed as we welcomed all in those days. The rancheria was his, and he was entertained royally by my father’s father. But this Gringo, the first in our valley, was very strange. Always did he dig and search for trinkets and bits of work done by the Indios. ‘Corios’ did he call them, and always, as I say, did he search. The vaqueros gave him of their help and soon he had many wonderful and beautiful things, and all for friendship did the vaqueros give them to him. Rings, bracelets, head straps, knives and arrow tips of flint were given him. But he asked for more. Ay, Dios mio! You are not knowing what that impious one asked ! It was for a burial chain of the jefes of the Indios! 9
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Page 14 text:
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What a demon to ask us to desecrate the graves of the holy dead! You see we did not comprehend the Gringo then as I do now and know that to them nothing was sacred. Sangre de Christo! How they stole and killed when they came!” Old Joe sat silent, moodily gazing out over the valley that had been the kingdom of his fathers, now divided into small apple orchards. I did not interrupt his thoughts, but sat silent also, waiting for him to continue. “You may never have been told about those burial chains. All the jefes had them but the ‘jefes mayores’ or great chiefs had chains of old gold, richly fashioned by the best workers of the gold that the Indios had. When a jefe died these chains were bound around his body tightly and carefully. Why? I will say and you will laugh. But I believe—for I know, and I—I do not laugh, senor. Those chains were bound around the dead bodies of the jefes tightly and carefully, as soon as possible after those jefes died, to keep his sins from leaving his body with his soul. Thus his soul was white and pure for his God to pass judgment upon. It sounds strange, does it not? Si, but, amigo mio, there were many strange things in Califor¬ nia before the Gringo came, and only a few ‘viejos’ like myself know. “Well, this Gringo; he said that he must have one chain from the grave of one of the jefes. All the vaqueros and jefes say ‘No!’ It would leave the dead jefe without the guardian chains to hold his sins from blackening his soul. But still he asked Juan and Pedro and Felipe and Indalecio and all the vaqueros where to find the place of ‘Los Sepulcros’, but each vaquero frowned hard and with eyes black from anger answer¬ ed ‘ No sabemos nada! ’ Jhen what did that devil Gringo do? He makes love to La Palomita! Ah! La Palomita was known far and wide as the fairest nina north of the big bay! Beautiful and kind she was, and every man was mad for the love of her, for one glance from her black eyes. La Palomita was a queen. But she was a woman, and women listen to the stranger from a new land. And the Gringo talks and sends glances of fire at those black eyes; and La Palomita—well, she was a woman and he made her love him above all men. ,.r T ¥ t was a11 the Gh ' in go wanted. La Palomita was a Cahformana and her love was as a fire within her, not cold 10
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