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Updated: May 25, 2025
Sholoc became a great hunter, then chief of the people of Santa Catalina, where he became a great fisherman also." The children looked grave. "Do you think such bad seasons can ever come again?" asked Gesnip. "Who can tell?" replied the mother, with a sigh. "Last year was very bad and there is little rain yet this year. That is why the men offered gifts to Chinigchinich last night."
"Mother," asked Gesnip, as she finished her breakfast, "when am I to begin to braid mats for the new jacal?" "Soon," replied Macana. "This morning you and Payuchi must gather the tule. Have a large pile when I come home."
She was fleet of foot, but the incoming breakers from the bosom of the great Pacific ran faster still; and the little Indian girl was caught in its foaming water, rolled over and over, and cast upon the sandy beach, half choked, yet laughing with the fun of it. "Foolish Cleeta, you might have been drowned; that was a big wave. What made you go out so far?" said Gesnip, the elder sister.
"Thank you, mother," said Gesnip. "If Titas's mother had made a black diamond basket, maybe the snake would not have bitten her." "While you work tell us how the first baby basket was made," begged Cleeta. The mother nodded; and as she wound and pressed closely the moist chippa, and the cactus needle flew in and out with the creamy kah-hoom or the black tsuwish, she told the story.
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.
Taking a handful of grasshoppers, Macana put them into the hollow in the larger stone, and with the smaller stone rubbed them to a coarse powder. This powder she put into a small basket which Gesnip brought her. "I am glad we caught the grasshoppers. They taste better than acorn meal mush," said Payuchi. "How many grasshoppers there are in the fall," said Gesnip, "and so many rabbits, too."
As they neared the top of the hill, Sholoc, who was ahead, lifted his hand and motioned them to stop. "Hush," he said softly, "elk." Swiftly the men slipped off their loads and with bows in hand each one crept flat on his belly over the hill crest. Gesnip and Cleeta peeped through the high grass.
"It will make father a fine hunting suit, it is so thick." Gesnip was loaded down with some of the best cuts of the meat to take to her father's jacal. Cuchuma himself began removing the tendons from the legs, to cure for bowstrings, and to wrap a new bow he was going to make.
They come, uncle said, so many no one can count them, and the ones behind push against those in front until they are all crowded against the wall, and then the Klamath men catch them with spears and nets until there is food enough for all, and many fish to dry." "I should like to see that. What else did he tell you?" asked Gesnip.
Payuchi, Gesnip, Cleeta, and their little four-year-old brother, Nakin, gathered about the basket, helping themselves with abalone shells, the small holes of which their mother had plugged with wood. "Isn't father going to have some first?" asked Payuchi, before they began the meal. "Not this time; he will eat with Sholoc and the men when the fish are ready," replied his mother.
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