History of California | Page 8

them?"
"Yes," replied Macana, "I will go and see about it. I want one of the skins to make your father a warm hunting dress."
The Indians who had gone after the elk had skinned and cut them up where they lay, as they were so large that the burden had to be distributed among a number of carriers. Macana found Sholoc busy portioning out parts of the elk. As he had a fine seal-skin suit himself, he gladly gave her the skin of the deer which he had shot.
"Isn't that a big one?" said Payuchi. "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.
"Here, Nopal," said Sholoc to his oldest nephew, a lad of fifteen, "I will give you a piece of the antler and you can grind it down and make yourself a hunting knife. It is time you ceased to play and became a hunter. I had killed much game when I was your age."
"Will you give me some of the brains that I may finish tanning a deerskin? I have been waiting to finish it until I could get some brains, but it has been a long time since any one has brought in big game," said Macana.
"Yes," answered Sholoc, "you shall have them. Payuchi, hand me my elk-horn ax so that I can split open the head, and you can take the brains to the jacal." Soon not a piece of meat, a bit of skin, tendon, or bone, was left. All was put to use by these people of the forest. And now the feast was ready. The women had roasted many pieces of elk's meat over the coals. The fish had been taken from under the hot ashes, the half burned grass removed from around them, and the fish broken into pieces and put in flat baskets shaped like platters. There were also pieces of elk meat and cakes of acorn meal baked on hot stones.
As was the custom with the Indians, the men were served first. Payuchi watched anxiously as his father and the other men took large helpings from the baskets.
"Do you think there will be enough for us to have any?" he asked Gesnip. "I am so hungry and they are eating so much. If I were a man, I should remember about the women and children."
"No; you wouldn't if you were a man; men never do," answered Gesnip. "But you need not worry, there is plenty. Mother said there would be some left for breakfast."
"Wait for that till I get through," said Payuchi, laughing. After all had eaten a hearty meal, more than for many weeks they had been able to have at any one time, the tired women each gathered her children together and took them to her own jacal, leaving the men sitting around the camp fire. Payuchi, who tumbled to sleep as soon as his head touched his sleeping mat, was wakened by some one pulling his rabbit-skin coat, which he wore nights as well as days.
"Payuchi," said a voice, "wake up."
"I have not been asleep," answered the boy, stoutly, as he rubbed his eyes to get them open. "What do you want, Nopal?" for he saw his brother speaking to him.
"Hush, do not waken mother," said Nopal, speaking very softly. "I know that the men will make an offering to Chinigchinich. I am going to watch them. We are old enough, at least I am. Do you want to come?"
A star shone in at the top of the jacal, and Payuchi gazed up at it, blinking, while he pulled his thoughts together.
"They will punish us if they find us out," said he at length.
"But we won't let them find us out, stupid one," replied his brother, impatiently.
"What if Chinigchinich should be angry with us? He does not like to have children in the ceremony of the offering," said Payuchi.
"I will give him my humming-bird skin, and you shall give him your mountain quail head; then he will be pleased with us," answered Nopal.
"All right," said the boy; "I do not like very well to part with that quail head, but perhaps it is a good thing to do."
Creeping softly from the jacal, the boys crouched in the shade of a willow bush and watched the men by the camp fire.
"They are standing up. They are just going," said Payuchi, "and every one has something in his hand. Father has two bows; I wonder why."
"I think he is going to make an offering of the new bow to Chinigchinich," answered Nopal. "I