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A short story by Mary Hunter Austin |
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The Basket Woman |
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Title: The Basket Woman Author: Mary Hunter Austin [More Titles by Austin] FIRST STORY
The homesteader's son had run out on the trail that led toward the spring, with half a mind to go to it, but ran back again when he saw the Basket Woman coming. He was afraid of her, and ashamed because he was afraid, so he did not tell his mother that he had changed his mind. "There is the mahala coming for the wash," said his mother; "now you will have company at the spring." But Alan only held tighter to a fold of her dress. This was the third time the Indian woman had come to wash for the homesteader's wife; and, though she was slow and quiet and had a pleasant smile, Alan was still afraid of her. All that he had heard of Indians before coming to this country was very frightful, and he did not understand yet that it was not so. Beyond a certain point of hills on clear days he could see smoke rising from the campoodie, and though he knew nothing but his dreams of what went on there, he would not so much as play in that direction. The Basket Woman was the only Indian that he had seen. She would come walking across the mesa with a great cone-shaped carrier basket heaped with brushwood on her shoulders, stooping under it and easing the weight by a buckskin band about her forehead. Sometimes it would be a smaller basket carried in the same fashion, and she would be filling it with bulbs of wild hyacinth or taboose; often she carried a bottle-necked water basket to and from the spring, and always wore a bowl-shaped basket on her head for a hat. Her long hair hung down from under it, and her black eyes glittered beadily below the rim. Alan had a fancy that any moment she might pick him up with a quick toss as if he had been a bit of brushwood, and drop him over her shoulder into the great carrier, and walk away across the mesa with him. So when he saw her that morning coming down the trail from the spring, he hung close by his mother's skirts. "You must not be afraid of her, Alan," said his mother; "she is very kind, and no doubt has had a boy of her own." The Basket Woman showed them her white, even teeth in a smile. "This one very pretty boy," she said; but Alan had made up his mind not to trust her. He was thinking of what the teamster had said when he had driven them up from the railroad station with their belongings the day they came to their new home and found the Basket Woman spying curiously in at the cabin windows. "You wanter watch out how you behaves yourself, sonny," said the teamster, wagging a solemn jaw, "she's likely to pack you away in that basket o' her'n one of these days." And Alan had watched out very carefully indeed. It was not a great while after they came to the foothill claim that the homesteader went over to the campoodie to get an Indian to help at fence building, and Alan went with him, holding fast by his father's hand. They found the Indians living in low, foul huts; their clothes were also dirty, and they sat about on the ground, fat and good-natured. The dogs and children lay sleeping in the sun. It was all very disappointing. "Will they not hurt us, father?" Alan had said at starting. "Oh, no, my boy; you must not get any such notion as that," said the homesteader; "Indians are not at all now what they were once." Alan thought of this as he looked at the campoodie, and pulled at his father's hand. "I do not like Indians the way they are now," he said; and immediately saw that he had made a mistake, for he was standing directly in front of the Basket Woman's hut, and as she suddenly put her head out of the door he thought by the look of her mysterious, bright eyes that she had understood. He did not venture to say anything more, and all the way home kept looking back toward the campoodie to see if anything came of it. "Why do you not eat your supper?" said his mother. "I am afraid the long walk in the hot sun was too much for you." Alan dared not say anything to her of what troubled him, though perhaps it would have been better if he had, for that night the Basket Woman came for him. She did not pick him up and toss him over her shoulder as he expected; but let down the basket, and he stepped into it of his own accord. Alan was surprised to find that he was not so much afraid of her after all. "What will you do with me?" he said. "I will show you Indians as they used to be," said she. Alan could feel the play of her strong shoulders as they went out across the lower mesa and began to climb the hills. "Where do you go?" said the boy. "To Pahrump, the valley of Corn Water. It was there my people were happiest in old days." They went on between the oaks, and smelled the musky sweet smell of the wild grapevines along the water borders. The sagebrush began to fail from the slopes, and buckthorn to grow up tall and thicker; the wind brought them a long sigh from the lowest pines. They came up with the silver firs and passed them, passed the drooping spruces, the wet meadows, and the wood of thimble-cone pines. The air under them had an earthy smell. Presently they came out upon a cleared space very high up where the rocks were sharp and steep. "Why are there no trees here?" asked Alan. "I will tell you about that," said the Basket Woman. "In the old flood time, and that is longer ago than is worth counting, the water came up and covered the land, all but the high tops of mountains. Here then the Indians fled and lived, and with them the animals that escaped from the flood. There were trees growing then over all the high places, but because the waters were long on the earth the Indians were obliged to cut them down for firewood. Also they killed all the large animals for food, but the small ones hid in the rocks. After that the waters went down; trees and grass began to grow over all the earth, but never any more on the tops of high mountains. They had all been burned off. You can see that it is so." From the top of the mountain Alan could see all the hills on the other side shouldering and peering down toward the happy valley of Corn Water. "Here," said the Basket Woman, "my people came of old time in the growing season of the year; they planted corn, and the streams came down from the hills and watered it. Now we, too, will go down." They went by a winding trail, steep and stony. The pines stood up around and locked them closely in. "I see smoke arising," said Alan, "blue smoke above the pines." "It is the smoke of their hearth fires," said the Basket Woman, and they went down and down. "I hear a sound of singing," said the boy. "It is the women singing and grinding at the quern," she said, and her feet went faster. "I hear laughter," he said again, "it mixes with the running of the water." "It is the maidens washing their knee-long hair. They kneel by the water and stoop down, they dip in the running water and shake out bright drops in the sun." "There is a pleasant smell," said Alan. "It is pine nuts roasting in the cones," said the Basket Woman; "so it was of old time." They came out of the cleft of the hills in a pleasant place by singing water. "There you will see the rows of wickiups," said the Basket Woman, "with the doors all opening eastward to the sun. Let us sit here and see what we shall see." The women sat by the wickiups weaving baskets of willow and stems of fern. They made patterns of bright feathers and strung wampum about the rims. Some sewed with sinew and needles of cactus thorn on deerskin white and fine; others winnowed the corn. They stood up tossing it in baskets like grains of gold, and the wind carried away the chaff. All this time the young girls were laughing as they dried their hair in the sun. They bound it with flowers and gay strings of beads, and made their cheeks bright with red earth. The children romped and shouted about the camp, and ran bare-legged in the stream. "Do they do nothing but play?" said Alan. "You shall see," said the Basket Woman. Away up the mountain sounded a faint halloo. In a moment all the camp was bustle and delight. The children clapped their hands; they left off playing and began to drag up brushwood for the fires. The women put away their weaving and brought out the cooking pots; they heard the men returning from the hunt. The young men brought deer upon their shoulders; one had grouse and one held up a great basket of trout. The women made the meat ready for cooking. Some of them took meal and made cakes for baking in the ashes. The men rested in the glow of the fires, feathering arrows and restringing their bows. "That is well," said the Basket Woman, "to make ready for to-morrow's meat before to-day's is eaten." "How happy they are!" said the boy. "They will be happier when they have eaten," said she. After supper the Indians gathered together for singing and dancing. The old men told tales one after the other, and the children thought each one was the best. Between the tales the Indians all sang together, or one sang a new song that he had made. There was one of them who did better than all. He had streaked his body with colored earth and had a band of eagle feathers in his hair. In his hand was a rattle of wild sheep's horn and small stones; he kept time with it as he leapt and sang in the light of the fire. He sang of old wars, sang of the deer that was killed, sang of the dove and the young grass that grew on the mountain; and the people were well pleased, for when the heart is in the singing it does not matter much what the song is about. The men beat their hands together to keep time to his dancing, and the earth under his feet was stamped to a fine dust. "He is one that has found the wolf's song," said the Basket Woman. "What is that?" asked Alan. "It is an old tale of my people," said she. "Once there was a man who could not make any songs, so he got no praise from the tribe, and it troubled him much. Then, as he was gathering taboose by the river, a wolf went by, and the wolf said to him, 'What will you have me to give you for your taboose?' Then said the man, 'I will have you to give me a song.' "'That will I gladly,' said the wolf. So the wolf taught him, and that night he sang the wolf's song in the presence of all the people, and it made their hearts to burn within them. Then the man fell down as if he were dead, for the pure joy of singing, and when deep sleep was upon him the wolf came in the night and stole his song away. Neither the man nor any one who had heard it remembered it any more. So we say when a man sings as no other sang before him, 'He has the wolf's song.' It is a good saying. Now we must go, for the children are all asleep by their mothers, and the day comes soon," said the Basket Woman. "Shall we come again?" said Alan. "And will it all be as it is now?" "My people come often to the valley of Corn Water," said she, "but it is never as it is now except in dreams. Now we must go quickly." Far up the trail they saw a grayness in the eastern sky where the day was about to come in. "Hark," said the Basket Woman, "they will sing together the coyote song. It is so that they sing it when the coyote goes home from his hunting, and the morning is near.
"Mother, mother," he cried, "what is that?" "It is only the coyotes," said she; "they always howl about this time of night. It is nothing; go to sleep again." "But I am afraid." "They cannot hurt you," said his mother; "it is only the little gray beasts that you see trotting about the mesa of afternoons; hear them now." "I am afraid," said Alan. "Then you must come in my bed," said she; and in a few minutes he was fast asleep again.
SECOND STORY
"Why, no, child," she said, "I do not think that I do. I think they are much better off as they are now." Alan, however, was not to be convinced. The next time he saw the Basket Woman he was even troubled about it. The homesteader had taken his family to the town for a day, and the first thing Alan saw when he got down from the wagon was the Basket Woman. She was sitting in a corner of the sidewalk with a group of other mahalas, with her blanket drawn over her shoulders, looking out upon the town, and her eyes were dull and strange. A stream of people went by them in the street, and minded them no more than the dogs they stepped over, sprawling at the doors of the stores. Some of the Indian women had children with them, but they neither shouted nor ran as they had done in the camp of Corn Water; they sat quietly by their mothers, and Alan noticed how worn and poor were the clothes of all of them, and how wishful all the eyes. He could not get his mind off them because he could not get them out of his sight for very long at a time. It was a very small town, and as he went with his mother in and about the stores he would be coming face to face with the mahalas every little while, and the Basket Woman's eyes were always sad. His mother, when she had finished her shopping, gave him a silver dime and told him that he might spend it as he wished. As soon as Alan had turned the corner on that errand there was the Basket Woman with her chin upon her knees and her blanket drawn over her shoulders. Alan stopped a moment in front of her; he would have liked to say something comforting, but found himself still afraid. Her eyes looked on beyond him, blurred and dim; he supposed she must be thinking of the happy valley, and grew so very sorry for her that, as he could not get the courage to speak, he threw his dime into her lap and ran as fast as he could away. It seemed to him as he ran that she called to him, but he could not be sure. That night, almost as soon as he had touched the pillow, she came and stood beside him without motion or sound, and let down the basket from her back. "Do we go to Corn Water?" asked Alan as he stepped into it. "To my people of old time," said the Basket Woman, "so that you need not be so much sorry." Then they went out by the mesa trail, where the sage showed duskily under a thin rim of moon. It seemed to Alan that they went slowly, almost heavily. When they came to the parting of the ways, she let down the basket to rest. A rabbit popped, startled, out of the brush, and scurried into the dark; its white tail, like a signal, showed the way it went. "What was that?" asked Alan. "Only little Tavwots, whom we scared out of his nest. Lean forward," she said, "and I will tell you a tale about him." So the boy leaned his head against the Basket Woman's long black hair, and heard the story of Little Tavwots and How He Caught the Sun in a Snare. "It was long ago," said the Basket Woman. "Tavwots was the largest of all four-footed things, and a mighty hunter. He would get up as soon as it was day and go to his hunting, but always before him was the track of a great foot on the trail; and this troubled him, for his pride was as big as his body and greater than his fame. "'Who is this?' cried Tavwots, 'that goes with so great a stride before me to the hunting? Does he think to put me to shame?' "'T'-sst!' said his mother, 'there is none greater than thee.' "'Nevertheless,' said Tavwots, 'there are the footprints in the trail.' The next morning he got up earlier, but there were always the great footprints and the long stride before him. "'Now I will set me a trap for this impudent fellow,' said Tavwots, for he was very cunning. So he made a snare of his bowstring and set it in the trail overnight, and in the morning when he went to look, behold, he had caught the sun in his snare. All that quarter of the earth was beginning to smoke with the heat of it. "'Is it you?' cried Tavwots, 'who made the tracks in my trail?' "'It is I,' said the sun. 'Come now and set me free before the whole earth is afire.' Then Tavwots saw what he had to do, so he drew his knife and ran to cut the bowstring. But the heat was so great that he ran back before he had done it, and was melted down to one half his size. Then the smoke of the burning earth began to curl up against the sky. "'Come again, Tavwots,' cried the sun. So he ran again and ran back, and the third time he ran he cut the bowstring, and the sun was set free from the snare. But by that time Tavwots was melted down to as small as he is now, and so he remains. Still you may see by the print of his feet as he leaps in the trail how great his stride was when he caught the sun in his snare. "So it is always," said the Basket Woman, "that which is large grows less, and my people, which were great, have dwindled away." After that she became quiet, and they went on over the mountain. Because he was beginning to be acquainted with it, the way seemed shorter to Alan than before. They passed over the high barren ridges, and he began to look for the camp at Corn Water. "I see no smoke," said Alan. "It would bring down their enemies like buzzards on carrion," said the Basket Woman. "There is no sound of singing nor of laughter," said the boy. "Who laughs in the time of war?" said she. "Is there war?" asked Alan. "Long and bitter," said the Basket Woman. "Let us go softly and come upon them unawares." So they went, light of foot, among the pines until they saw the wickiups opening eastward to the sun, but many of them stood ruined and awry. There were only the very old and the children in the camp, and these did not run and play. They stole about like mice in the meadow sod, and if so much as a twig snapped in the forest, they huddled motionless as young quail. The women worked in the growing corn; they dug roots on the hill slope and caught grasshoppers for food. One made a noose of her long black hair plucked out, and snared the bright lizards that ran among the rocks. It seemed to Alan that the Indians looked wishful and thinner than they should; but such food as they found was all put by. "Why do they do this?" asked the boy. "That the men who go to war may not go fasting," said the Basket Woman. "Look, now we shall have news of them." A young man came noiselessly out of the wood, and it was he who had sung the new song on the night of feasting and dancing. He had eagle feathers in his hair, but they were draggled; there was beadwork on his leggings, but it was torn with thorns; there was paint on his face and his body, but it was smeared over red, and as he came into the camp he broke his bow across his knee. "It is a token of defeat," said the Basket Woman; "the others will come soon." But some came feebly because of wounds, and it seemed the women looked for some who might never come. They cast up their arms and cried with a terrible wailing sound that rose and shuddered among the pines. "Be still," said the young man; "would you bring our enemies down upon us with your screeching?" Then the women threw themselves quietly in the dust, and rocked to and fro with sobbing; their stillness was more bitter than their crying. Suddenly out of the wood came a storm of arrows, a rush of strange, painted braves, and the din of fighting. "Shut your eyes," said the Basket Woman, "it is not good for you to see." Alan hid his face in the Basket Woman's dress, and heard the noise of fighting rage and die away. When he ventured to look again on the ruined huts and the trampled harvest, there were few left in the camp of Corn Water, and they had enough to do to find food for their poor bodies. They winnowed the creek with basket-work weirs for every finger-long troutling that came down in it, and tore the bark off the pine trees to get at the grubs underneath. "Why do they not go out and kill deer as before?" asked Alan. "Their enemies lurk in the wood and drive away the game," said the Basket Woman. "Why do they not go to another place?" "Where shall they go, when their foes watch every pass?" said she. It seemed to Alan that many days and nights passed while they watched by the camp; and the days were all sorrowful, and always, as before, the best meat was set aside for the strongest. "Why is this so?" asked the boy. "Because," said the Basket Woman, "those who are strong must stay so to care for the rest. It is the way of my people. You see that the others do not complain." And it was so that the feeble ones tottered silently about the camp or sat still a long time in one place with their heads upon their knees. "How will it end?" asked Alan. "They must go away at last," said she, "though the cords of their hearts are fastened here. But there is no seed corn, and the winter is close at hand." Then there began to be a tang of frost in the air, and the people gathered up their household goods, and, though there was not much of them, they staggered and bent under the burden as they went up out of the once happy valley to another home. The women let down their long hair and smeared ashes upon it; they threw up their lean arms and wailed long and mournfully as they passed among the pines. Alan began to tremble with crying, and felt the Basket Woman patting him on the shoulder. Her voice sounded to him like the voice of his mother telling him to go to sleep again, for there was nothing for him to be troubled about. After he grew quieter, the Indian woman lifted him up. "We must be going," she said, "it is not good for us to be here." Alan wished as they went up over the mountain that she would help him with talk toward forgetting what he had seen, but the long hair fell over her face and she would not talk. He shivered in the basket, and the night felt colder and full of fearsome noises. "What is that?" he whispered, as a falling star trailed all across the dark. "It is the coyote people that brought the fire to my people," said the Basket Woman. Alan hoped she would tell him a tale about it, but she would not. They went on down the mountain until they came to the borders of the long-leaved pines. Alan heard the sough of the wind in the needles, and it seemed as if it called. "What is that?" he whispered. "It is Hí-no-no, the wind, mourning for his brother, the pine tree," but she would not tell him that tale, either. She went faster and faster, and Alan felt the stir of her shoulders under him. He listened to the wind, and it grew fierce and louder until he heard the house beams creak, for he was awake in his own bed. A strong wind drove gustily across the mesa and laid hold of the corners of the roof. The next morning the homesteader said that he must go to the campoodie and Alan might go with him. Alan was quite pleased, and said to his mother while she was getting him ready, "Do you know, I think Indians are a great deal better off as they are now." "Why, yes," said his mother, smiling, "I think so, too."
Vocabulary of Indian Names and Words
HINONO (h[)i]-n[)o]-n[)o]). A legendary Indian hero. MAHALA (m[.a]-h[:a]'l[)a]). An Indian woman, perhaps a corruption from the Spanish mujer, woman. MESA (m[=a]'sä). A table-land, or plateau with a steeply sloping side or sides. MESQUITE (m[)e]s-k[=e]t'). A thorny desert shrub, bearing edible pods, like the locust tree, which are ground into meal for food. NA'[:Y]ANG-WIT'E. An Indian gambling game. OPPAPAGO (op-p[)a]-p[=a]'g[=o]). A mountain peak near Mt. Whitney. The name signifies "The Weeper," in reference to the streams that run down from it continually like tears. PAHRUMP (p[.a]h-r[)u]mp'). From the Indian words pah, water, and rump, corn, "corn-water," i. e. a place where there is water enough to grow corn. PAIUTES (p[=i]'[=u]t). The name of a large tribe of Indians inhabiting middle California and Nevada. The name is derived from the Indian word pah, water, and is used to distinguish this tribe from the related tribe of Utes, who lived in the desert away from running water. PENSTEMON (p[)e]ni-st[=e]'m[)o]n). A wild flower common to the lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. PHARANAGAT (ph[)a]-r[)a]n-[)a]-g[)a]t'). An Indian name of a place. The meaning is uncertain. PIÑON (p[.=e]-ny[=o]n'). The Spanish name for the one-leaved, nut pine. PIPSISEWA (p[)i]p-s[)u]s'[=e]-w[.a]). A wild flower common to the lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. QUERN (kw[^u]rn). A primitive mill for grinding corn. It consists of two circular stones, the upper being turned by hand. SHOSHONE (sh[.=o]-sh[=o]'n[.=e]). An Indian tribe split in two by the Pintes, and living north and south of them. In this book the southern division only is referred to. TABOOSE (t[.a]-b[)oo]s'). Small tubercles of the joint grass; they appear on the joints of the roots early in spring, and are an important item of food to the Indians. TAVWOTS (t[)a]v-w[)o]ts'). The rabbit. TINNEMAHA (tin-ny-m[.a]-hä'). A legendary Indian hero.
TULARE (t[=oo]-lä're). A marshy place overgrown with the bulrushes known as tule. VAQUERO (vä-k[=a]'r[=o]). The Spanish word for cowboy (from vaca, a cow). WABAN (w[)a]-b[)a]n'). An Indian name of a place. The meaning is uncertain. WICKIUP (w[)i]k'[)i]-[)u]p). An Indian hut of brush, or reeds. It is often pieced out with blankets and tin cans. WINNEDUMAH (win-ny-d[=u]'m[)a]h). A legendary Indian hero. [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |