Richmond High School - Shield Yearbook (Richmond, CA)

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RICHMOND RODEO The superstitious savages feared the wrath of the Great Spirit. Every night at sunset the medicine men climbed the neighbor- ing hill, hoping to see the sun sink in crimson fire. Then would he know the flood was over, but the sign was always withhe!d. This evening, however, it was not raining. There seemed more hope. To-night when the medicine man came hurrying into the village from the direction of the sea, all ceased work and went to meet him. They crowded around him while he talked ex- citedly, and pointed seaward; then the entire village trailed after him along the way he had come. When the ocean came into view, all stopped and stared in wonder. Out from the re- ceding mist loomed the spars of a great sailing vessel, like some spirit of the storm. She swung slowly around before the wind, where she had come to anchor, fearing to venture nearer land in the fog. As the Indians gazed, round-eyed, a small boat left the ship’s side and came rapidly through the surf to the shore. As the boat grounded, the Indians crowded up to the landing place. One of the three white men in it stepped ashore, and with much talk and many signs endavored to inform the curious Indians that his ship was in great need of provisions, and he had come to trade. He held up gleaming new weapons, and glittering trinkets. The Indians pressed closer. His talk meant less to them than the cackling of the waterfowl they hunted on the lake. Suddenly the old priest forced his way through the crowd. With the distorted face of a maniac, wildly waving his hands, he called on the warriors to sieze the paleface. An exclamation ran through the crowd. Several braves nearest the man fell upon him and bore him to the ground, tied him hand and foot, and carried him off to the village. The two men in the boat pushed off in mad haste and were some distance out before the Indians, excited over the captive, noticed them and 22

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RICHMOND RODEO THE GOLDEN GATE =xy Q and fro, up and down the hill, from the old tepees to |) the new, toiled the squaws, their ragged skin garments flapping in the wind, their coarse, black hair blowing about their faces. Those straining up the hill, even though pappooses in cradles swung at their backs and children toddled behind, carried bundles of household goods, but those coming down were empty handed. The women worked rapidly, for the overcast sky and rising wind warned them that the storm had ceased only for a short time after all the long days of incessant rain. Already the water was among the old huts and the food must be moved to higher ground to escape the flood. The village stood on the eastern slope of the low range of hills that bordered the ocean. These hills formed the lake by obstructing the large river which entered from the northeast. Under normal conditions this lake stretched far to the north and south, but now it had left its usual sandy shores far behind and its waves drenched the green grass and spring flowers on the hillsides, up which the water still gradually crept, although the level of the lake was far above that of the ocean. Just back of the village was the lowest pass in the range, and already a great stream of muddy water overflowed through it and was cutting a channel to the sea. Evidently the storm reached far back in the mountains where the river had its source, for leaves, branches, and trees that grow only in the mountains, swirled along on the yellow flood. The oldest Indian in the village never had known such a storm. Everything was drenched. The old huts of thatched tules and brushwood were soaked through. The scrawny ponies became mired even in grazing in the rain soaked grass. Game had vanished, save only those birds which inhabit the water. 21

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RICHMOND RODEO sent a shower of whistling arrows at them, which fell with harmless splashes into the water. Among the Indians was one who had understood the white man, but he had not dared to speak. He was a captive, and like the squaws, had no voice in council. His name was Kee- wah, and his people lived far to the northward. He had grown up on the banks of a northern river. There one summer even- ing a white man wandered out of the gloomy forest, delirious with fever. Keewah took him into his tepee and nursed him back to health, learning his language in the meantime. When the white man regained his strength, Keewah guided him on his southward journey. After many days’ travel their evening camp was raided by a band of Indians who carried Keewah to the village where he was held captive, the white man, how- ever, escaping. And now Keewah sat alone in his hut, with no squaw to relieve his lonesomeness, while in the other huts the talkative squaws discussed the wonderful trinkets, the ship, and the flood, and outside in a solemn circle the old men sat around the struggling council fire and the medicine man wildly harangued them. The Great Spirit was angry, he told them. He had sent the flood. He steadfastly withheld the sign of fair weather. He had driven away the game. He had sent the Spirit Ship out of the mist with the palefaces to tempt them with evil gifts. They must not heed the gifts, nor welcome the palefaces to their tepees, for beyond the sea they dwelt in countless numbers. If the redmen should admit them surely the Great Spirit would no longer keep them out. The lake would tear down its barrier and open a gateway for them in from the sea. They had cap- tured this paleface. They must now sacrifice him over the council fire, to show the Great Spirit that they would keep the palefaces from their land with a steady hand. And even as the captive’s flesh shriveled in the fire and his blood dried wp, so 23