Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 24, 2025
"Nobody must take me away from you to keep me from being hungry," said gentle Cleeta, hiding her face in her mother's lap. "If I were Chinigchinich," said Payuchi, "I would not let so many people die, just because they needed a little more rain. I would not be that kind of a god." "Hush, my child," said the mother, sternly. "He will hear and punish you. If it is our fate, we must bend to it."
Below them was a wide plain, dotted with clumps of bushes, and scattered over it they could see a great herd of elk, whose broad, shining antlers waved above the grass and bushes upon which they were feeding. "Are those elk too?" asked Cleeta, presently, pointing toward the foothills at their left. "No," replied her sister, "I think those are antelope. I like to see them run.
The Story of the Indians "Run, Cleeta, run, the waves will catch you." Cleeta scudded away, her naked little body shining like polished mahogany.
By the time the party had traveled two miles, Gesnip, with her load, and Cleeta, whose bare brown legs were growing very tired, lagged behind. "O dear," said the elder sister, "we shall surely be too late to go into camp with uncle." Just then a whoop sounded behind them, and a boy of thirteen, dressed in a rabbit-skin shirt, carrying a bow in his hand, came panting up to them.
"I am glad they have a fire," said Cleeta, as she saw the big blaze in the middle of the settlement, "I am so cold." "Take my hand and let's run," said Gesnip, and partly running and partly sliding, they followed the men of the party, who, notwithstanding their heavy loads, were trotting down the steep trail.
"Mother, you left out that the baby was wrapped in a soft purple cloud from the mountains," said Cleeta. "Yes, in a purple cloud of evening, wrapped so he could not move leg or arm, but would grow straight and beautiful," said the mother.
No straw stacks were they, however, but houses, the only kind of homes known in southern California at that time. "It was the Indian settlement where Gesnip, Cleeta, and Payuchi lived, and of which their father, Cuchuma, was chief. The jacals, or wigwams, were made of long willow boughs, driven into the ground closely in a circle, the ends bent over and tied together with deer sinews.
Then, as the sunlight struck full on the boats "Yes, yes, I am sure of it, for one is red, and no on else has a boat of that color; all others are brown." "Mother said he would bring abalone when he came," cried Cleeta, dancing from one foot to the other; "and she said they are better than mussels or anything else for soup." "He will bring fish," said Gesnip, "big shining fish with yellow tails."
Then, as she saw the younger girl shivering as she crouched over the fire, "Cleeta, you need not be cold any longer; your rabbit skin dress is done. Go into the jacal and put it on." Cleeta obeyed with dancing eyes. Gesnip followed her mother to the stream. "Take this," said Macana, handing her an openwork net or bag, "and hold it while I empty in some of the mussels.
The wind and the waves have been too high for us to gather any. Look, Cleeta, look; what are those out on the water? I do believe they are boats." "No," said the little girl; "I see what you mean, but boats never go out so far as that." "Not tule boats," said Gesnip, "but big thick one made out of trees; that is the kind they have at Santa Catalina, the island where uncle lives.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking