Mary Austin

“ Chisera, we have had peace now at Sagharawite so many summers that scarcely a man of us besides myself has seen battle; also we are a little outnumbered. Have you thought, Chisera, what will come to Sagharawite if we go out under an untried leader?
The Chisera
What will come will be as the gods determine. What reason have you to think they will favor you more than Simwa?
Padahoon
It is my experience, Chisera, that the gods are inclined to the better man. ”

“ A little to the fore of Simwa's house lies a great heap of blankets, baskets, and camp utensils, displayed to the best advantage, the wedding dower of the Chief's daughter. By her father's house Bright Water is being dressed for bridal by her young companions. They braid her hair, paint her face, tie her moccasins, and arrange her beads over the robe of white doeskin; they laugh as they work and are happily important as is the custom of bridesmaids. The older women are winnowing grain and grinding at the metate. ”

“ Bright Water
Bear? What have I not borne? Have I complained when I dig roots? Have I quivered [Pg 139] when I was mocked? Has there been any sign of shame on my face for all the scorne on theirs? Have I said, “Give me children,” when the nursing mothers pitied me? Oh, I have borne, I have borne; but this I cannot bear.
Simwa
What is now so hard?
Bright Water
To know that you and I know the truth and that you will see the tribe wiped out before you will admit it. ”

“ The Castacs have filled up our springs and driven our deer. They have stalked our hunters in the hills. (Grunts.) Aye, but we have given the stalkers arrows of ours to keep. (Grunts of satisfaction.) Shall we go after our arrows, men of Sagharawite, or shall we wait until our “brothers” of Castac come and stroke us? I am not so old as Padahoon, nor so wise, but, by the Bear that fathered us, were I war leader for the space of one moon, there would be no more men of Castac to trouble our harvest.
Young Men
Simwa! Simwa! The Arrow-Maker!
Old Men
Padahoon! ”

“ Simwa grasps a war weapon, a stone tied in a crotched stick, from the heap of wedding gifts, and smites Padahoon to the earth, standing threateningly over him. The others stiffen into tense attitudes, drawing their blankets tighter, their eyes burning bright. ”

“ Seegooche, the Chiefs wife, is old and full of dignity. Tiawa is old and sharp, but Wacoba is a comfortable, comely matron, who wears a blanket modestly yet to conceal charms not past their prime. Seegooche and Tiawa wear basket caps, but Wacoba has a bandeau of bright beads about her hair. They show signs of agitation, instantly subdued at sight of the men. ”

“ The girls hover about the dancers, and as at certain points in the dance the Young Men attempt to cast their blankets about the heads of the girls, they duck and squeal. Finally, amid much laughter, each dancer captures a girl, rubbing his cheek against hers, the Indian equivalent of a kiss. With great merriment the crowd moves off in the direction of the mesa, disclosing Padahoon and the Chisera, who have come up unobserved. ”

“ The Chisera is simply the Genius, one of those singular and powerful characters whom we are still, with all our learning, unable to account for without falling back on the primitive conception of gift as arising from direct communication with the gods. That she becomes a Medicine Woman is due to the circumstance of being born into a time which fails to discriminate very clearly as to just which of the inexplicable things lie within the control of her particular gift. ”

“ Wacoba
But you will bring a blessing on the battle? Oh, Chisera, they do not tell us women, but we hear it whispered about the camp that the men of Castac are five and twenty, and even with the youths who go to their first battle we cannot make a score of ours. It is the Friend of the Soul of Man must make good our numbers.
The Chisera
Even now I go to prepare strong medicine.
Wacoba
Come away, then, and leave the Chisera to her work. (Going.) [Pg 27]
Seegooche
May the gods befriend you. If we have your blessing, we care little for another's curse. (Going.)
The Chisera
Stay. ”

“ The Old Men keep up a crooning accompaniment; from time to time the Fighting Men join [Pg 61] the singing and exhibit a growing excitement as the dance progresses. At intervals, one and another of them, leaps to his feet and joins the dance. At the last, the Chisera, whirling rapidly, falls to the ground. Instantly the rattles are stopped, and the people wait in suspense the word of the gods. The women are seen to steal up through the toyon bushes. The Chisera lifts herself slowly on one elbow, as if waking from a drugged sleep. She stretches out her hand for the sacred sticks. ”

“ Tavwots
Every trail is watched. Not so much as a weasel can go in and out from Toorape and they not know it.
Padahoon
With so many watchers, then, they cannot have much of a fighting force at any point. In an hour it will be dark; we shall go down by Deer Leap with the women and children, and stay not for fighting, but, fleeing for our lives, break through to their villages—
Choco
But if they move on us to-night? If the vultures have already betrayed us—even now they may be within earshot?
Tavwots
If they come up with us before we reach Deer Leap it is to run into the wolf's mouth. ”

“ Pamaquash
But the luck of Simwa is more than three times that of Tecuya.
Padahoon
The fortunes of Simwa! What are they but the accidents of time and weather. A landslip on the trail, a rainstorm that wetted their bowstrings and left ours dry. The damp has slacked your wits, Rain Wind, that you are not able to distinguish between the Arrow-Maker and his luck.
Chief
The witness of the gods in his favor.
Padahoon
The gods are not always so attentive. ”

“ Love you have given, and sorrow you have [Pg 149] got. Shame and defeat are your children. So it is always when power falls upon women. The word has passed in Council, Chisera; will you repair this damage, or will you die for it?
The Chisera
(As her eye travels the circle of the camp.) I do not find the taste of life so sweet that I should turn it twice upon my tongue; but— (Her gaze halts on Simwa, and all the attention of the camp seems to hang a moment in suspense as Simwa ignores her.) Do I die, then?
Padahoon
Let Simwa die! ”

“ Seegooche, has your meal fermented? Or has your baby the colic again, Wacoba?
Seegooche
We have a gift for you, Chisera.
(The women draw near timidly, each, as she speaks, placing her basket at the Chisera's feet, and retire.)
The Chisera
(Looking at the gifts, without touching them.) The venison is fat and tender; Seegooche, [Pg 18] there is no one grinds meal so smoothly as you. The honey is indeed acceptable.
(After a pause, during which the medicine woman looks keenly at them.)
Tiawa
We do not come for ourselves, Chisera, but from the tribeswomen. ”

“ Long and anxiously you shall look in the trail when he is late from the hunt, and the men shall mock him that he could not keep the blessing he had got. (Bright Water turns despairingly and sinks on the ground, holding her mother by the knees and sobbing bitterly. All the Indians draw away from Simwa, leaving him standing, discomfited, in the middle of the camp. All look with awe and dread at the Chisera. She produces a small medicine stick from under her blanket and twirls it with menace. Going.) ”

“ The Chisera
That Simwa does not believe in charms and scoffs at the gods.
Simwa
That was true (recovering) —once. But now that I am become the most notable arrow-maker in Sagharawite—
The Chisera
Now—now you do not scoff at the Chisera?
Simwa
(Embarrassed.) But it is not always well [Pg 40] for a man to say what he thinks. If I were to tell in the campody whence my good fortune is, would not Padahoon do me some mischief for it?
The Chisera
But, Simwa, am I never to come to you as other women to the wickiups of their husbands? ”

“ The Council
(One after another.) Death. Death. Death or good medicine. It is the law.
Chief
(To Padahoon.) Bid her come.
Padahoon
(At the hut.) Chisera, come to Council!
The Chisera
(Issuing, wrapped in her blanket.) Who sends for me?
Chief
Death is hot upon our trail. Stay him with your spells.
Men and Women
Good medicine, Chisera, good medicine!
The Chisera
Have you not a war leader—
(She stops, noticing the bonnet on Padahoon—looks from him to Simwa.)
Padahoon
Who invites your blessing, Chisera! ”

“ Seegooche
(Thinking she has gained a point.) It is indeed as you said; he makes no more arrows, and his luck in the hunt is gone from him. And the men mock him. A war leader should not be mocked, Chisera. ”

“ Great powers have been given you to turn the favor of the gods as a willow is turned in the wind. How is it you have not turned them when your people are in war and bad fortune? We are driven as hunted rabbits to hide in holes in the rocks, and our fighting men are outnumbered; even now we do not know if there be one left alive of them—Our tribe shall be as a forgotten tale unless you intercede for us.
The Chisera
(Over her shoulder.) What? Is it possible Simwa cannot bring this affair to pass without the gods?
Seegooche ”

“ That she accepts the interpretation of her preëminence which common opinion provides for her, does not alter the fact that she is no more or less than just the gifted woman, too much occupied with the use of her gift [Pg xi] to look well after herself, and more or less at the mercy of the tribe. What chiefly influences their attitude toward her is worthy of note, being no less than the universal, unreasoned conviction that great gift belongs, not to the possessor of it, but to society at large. The whole question then becomes one of how the tribe shall work the Chisera to their best advantage. ”

“ To one fresh from the consideration of the roots of life as they lie close to the surface of primitive society, this obsession of the recent centuries, that the community can only be served by a gift for architecture, for administration, for healing, when it occurs in the person of a male, is only a trifle less ridiculous than that other social stupidity, namely, that a gift of mothering must not be exercised except in the event of a particular man being able, under certain restrictions, to afford the opportunity. ”

“ The greatest difficulty to be met in the writing of an Indian play is the extensive misinformation about Indians. Any real aboriginal of my acquaintance resembles his prototype in the public mind about as much as he does the high-nosed, wooden sign of a tobacco store, the fact being that, among the fifty-eight linguistic groups of American aboriginals, customs, traits, and beliefs differ as greatly as among Slavs and Sicilians. ”

“ Do you think they will make him war leader?
Wacoba
(Ornamenting the basket she has brought with a wreath of flowers, which she plucks.) Padahoon will never agree to it.
Tiawa
But if Simwa is the better man?
Wacoba
The Sparrow Hawk is older, and has the greater experience.
Seegooche
Prutt! If age and experience were all, my husband would not ask that a new leader be chosen. Young men are keenest-eyed and quickest afoot.
(She moves up the trail looking for signs of the Chisera.)
Tiawa
(Going over to Wacoba, aside from Seegooche.) ”

“ Are not the gods of Sagharawite stronger than the gods of the Tecuyas?
Tavwots
Not when we have one to lead us who despises their blessings.
Simwa
Well, I believe in the medicine of Tibu. He has made old women of you.
Chief
Think no more of that. Let us consider what is to be done.
(Shadows of vultures appear on the rocks, attracted by the dead. Wacoba springs up from casting dust upon her head to flap them away with her blanket, which she spreads over the body of her husband.)
Padahoon
(As he motions to the men to move the body near the shelter.) ”

“ I speak freely for Padahoon according to our custom which is, without discredit to [Pg 57] the Arrow-Maker, for the leadership of the elder. But at least let us remember that the gods have high affairs; they are not always listening to the gossip of the camp-fire and hut. What word have they of Sagharawite except as the Chisera carries it? If we put the choice to them, let her know what we are thinking in our hearts. ”

“ Bright Water
Chief's daughter I am, and wife of the war leader. Why should you concern yourself with his affairs?
The Chisera
(After a pause, with great dignity.) Because he loved me.
Indians
Ah! Ah—ah! Ah!
Simwa
(Laughing.) The Friend of the gods has eaten rattleweed. Does a man love a wild woman who goes muttering and waving her arms, when she should be weaving and grinding meal? Would he take a wander-thought to his bed, and have witless children? Sooner I had a snake in my hut to run and tattle to the gods of me. [Pg 105]
Tavwots
(To Padahoon.) ”