The Legends of San Francisco | Page 2

a figure.?Sun God came and shone upon it;?Spirit came and blew upon it,?And a Man was thus created.?Sun God made the Moon to guard him,?And she stood before his tepee,?Watching while the Sun was sleeping;?But she loved the Sun and followed?Him into the starry heavens,?Always with her face turned to him.?Still she watched the lonely tepee,?And her heart was touched with pity?For the lonely man within it,?So she made a lovely woman,?Gave her constancy, and sent her?On a moonbeam to his tepee,?As his helpmate and companion.?Man then multiplied, and flourished,?Building villages and lording?Over all the other creatures.
On the sunny eastern margin?Of the Bay of San Francisco,?Grew the village of the Tamals;?Fisher folk they were, and gentle,?Seeking not for wars of conquest;?Fishing in the purple waters?From their boats of bark or rawhide;?Wading in the limpid shallows?Seeking oysters, clams and mussels.?In the course of generations?Piles of shells of many banquets,?With the ashes of their campfires,?Formed a mound upon the bay shore.?Shell Mound Park, the people call it,?And they gather in the shadows?Of the ancient oaks for pleasure,?Roasting clams as in the old days?When the Tamals lived upon it.?Gone are now the limpid shallows;?Gone the oysters and the mussels,?And no more are grassy meadows?Dappled with the spreading oak trees;?For great factories, grim and sordid,?Sprawl in squalid blocks around it,?And the smoke of forge and furnace?Rise from stacks into the heavens.
Paleface men with concave glasses,?Learned in lore of printed pages,?Dig into the mounds and gather?Spear and arrow heads and axes,?Broken weapons and utensils?Made of flint, or bone, or seashell.
To the northward, where great boulders?Lie in tumbled piles and masses,?And a Thousand Oaks are clustered,?And the crags upthrust their fingers?Through the meadows of the uplands,?Was another Indian village,?Ancient stronghold of the Tamals.
In the village on the hillside?Men were hunters, brave and fearless,?Skillful with the bow and arrow,?Artful with the snare and deadfall;?Hunting deer and elk and bison?In the open grassy meadows,?Tracking wolf and mountain lion?To their lairs among the redwoods;?Bearing on their backs the trophies?To their camp when night was falling.
In the village maids and matrons?Dressed the furs and tanned the buckskin,?Dried the venison, and traded?With the Shell Mound folks for salmon,?Mussels, clams and abalones,?Ornaments of bone or seashell,?Weapons chipped from flint or jasper.?From the oaks they gathered acorns,?And beneath the fragrant bay trees?And the heavy blooming buckeyes,?Ground the acorns into flour?To be baked upon the hot-stones.
To this day the smoke of campfires?May be traced in caves, and crannies?Where the overhanging cliffsides?Gives protection from the rainstorms.?If you search among the thickets?Of the low widespreading buckeyes?You will find their ancient mortars?In the bedrock still remaining -?Mortar holes ground deep, and polished?By the toil of many women?Pounding, grinding with a pestle?Fashioned from a stream-worn boulder.
Gone are all those ancient people,?Perished now for many ages.?Many oaks have grown and withered,?Many buckeyes bloomed and faded,?Many tribes have fought and conquered,?Lived for many generations,?Then were driven out by others.?Still the mortar holes will linger?As our monuments forever."
Fainter grew the voice, still fainter,?Sinking almost to a whisper,?With a hesitating quaver,?As the picture came before her?Of her disappearing people.?Then I rose and piled more branches?Of the redwood on the campfire,?And the flames and sparks leaped upward,?Lighting up the mournful forest,?Driving back the eerie shadows.
Long she bowed her head in silence,?Then resumed her rhythmic speaking.?In the village lived a maiden,?Fairest of all comely maidens?Ever born among the Tamals;?Fair of face and pure of spirit,?Kind in thought and quick in service?To the young and old and helpless;?Ever eager for her duty,?Ever singing at her labor.
When she sat beneath the buckeyes?Grinding acorns in the mortar,?Humming birds came sipping honey?From the heavy scented blossoms;?Wild birds came and sang their sweetest?Music as they perched above her;?And the Fairies came to greet her?Dressed as Butterflies, and fluttered?Round her head and whispered secrets -?Secrets not revealed to others.
Little wonder that the Chieftain,?Young and brave and wise in counsel,?Loved the maid and wished to take her?As his wife to rule his people.?But she answered him with sadness,?For she loved the youth, 'Beloved,?This is not the time for lovers,?But for warriors to make ready,?For a danger comes upon us.?God has sent a warning message?By the Fairies, and they whispered?To me as I ground the acorns?In the mortar 'neath the buckeyes.
Rally all your braves around you,?Sieze your strong bows, fill your quivers?With the long flintpointed arrows;?Guard the ridges to the eastward?Ere the foe shall fall upon us.'
To the eastward where Diablo?Rears its peak above the fog banks?Drifting landward from the ocean,?Lived a warlike tribe of people.?Fierce they were, and grim and cruel,?Worshiping the Fire Demon?Who is crouching in the mountain.
From their heights they saw the waters?Of the Bay of San Francisco?Lying crystal-clear and purple.?Then no Sacramento River?Poured its flood of silt into it,?For a range of hills continued,?All unbroken, from Diablo?To the distant smoking mountain?Which is now called Saint Helena.
Long they watched