Picturesque Pala Part 5

Over a thousand dollars' worth of baskets and nearly a thousand dollars' worth of fine hand lace were on exhibition. Farmers from a distant county were chosen as judges and with pleased astonishment remarked that the exhibition as a whole would have taken a prize at any county fair.

Thus living with congenial administrators in a climate softer even than the city of San Diego, for the breezes of the Palomar mountains mingle with those of the Pacific in the trees which shade their humble homes; having at the end of the princ.i.p.al street of the village a hedged plaza, filled with blooming flowers all the year, making a frame for the old Mission chapel, which stands restored as the best preserved of the Mission chapels, a picture place of San Diego county and their place of wors.h.i.+p; not wealthy, but having sufficient for the necessities and some of the comforts of life; it is little wonder that the Indian of Pala pursues the even tenor of his way, happy and without a care for the future.

CHAPTER XII.

With the Pala Basket Makers.

The art instincts of primitive people naturally were exceedingly limited in expression. Their ignorance of tools not only restricted their opportunities for the development of handicraft ability, but also deprived them of many materials they otherwise might have used.

Hence whenever an outlet was discovered for their artistic tendencies they were impelled to focus upon it in a remarkable degree. With few tools, limited scope of materials, and next to no incitement to higher endeavor as the result of contact with other peoples, they yet developed several arts to a higher degree than has ever yet been attained by the white race. One of the chief of these artistic industries was the making of baskets.

Look at one of these exquisite pieces of aboriginal workmans.h.i.+p and you will be astonished at the perfection of its form, its marvelous symmetry, the evenness of its weave, the suitability of the material of which it is made, its remarkable adaptability to the use for which it is intended, the rare and delicate harmoniousness of its colors, and the artistic conception of its design. These qualities all presuppose pure aboriginal work, for directly the Indian begins to yield to the dictation of the superior (!) race, she proceeds to make baskets of hideous and inartistic shape, abominable combinations of color, and generally senseless designs.

Let us watch these basket-makers at work, as we find them at Pala today. The weaver must first secure the materials. For the filling of the inner coil she gathers a quant.i.ty of a wild gra.s.s, or broom corn, the stems of which perfectly fulfil the purpose. The wrapping splints are made of three or four products of the vegetable kingdom. The white splints are secured from willows which are peeled and then split and torn apart so as to make the desired size. The thinness and pliability of the splint is determined by sc.r.a.ping off as much as is needed of the inside. A black splint is found in the cuticle of the martynia, or cat's claw, which grows profusely on the hill-sides. Sometimes, however, the white willow splints are soaked in hot sulphur water for several days, and this blackens them. This water is secured from one of the hot springs which are found all over Southern California. The rare and delicate shades of brown in the splints used by the Pala Indians are gained from the root of the tule. These roots are dug out of the mud of marshy places and vary in shade, from the most delicate creamy-brown to the deepest chestnut. Carefully introduced into a basket they make harmonies in color that fairly thrill the senses with delight. Now and again an added note of color is found in the red of the red-bud, which, when gathered at the proper time, gives a st.u.r.dy red, not too vivid or brilliant, but that harmonizes perfectly with the white, black and brown. As a rule these are the only colors used by the older and more artistic of the Pala weavers. Now and again, a smart youngster, trained at the white man's school, will come back with corrupted ideas of color value, and will flippantly make gorgeously colored splints with a few packages of the aniline dyes that, to the older weavers, are simply accursed. But even the most foolish and least discerning of the white purchasers of baskets made of these degraded colors cannot fail, in time, to learn how hideous they are when compared with the natural, normal and artistic work of the more conservative of the weavers.

With her materials duly prepared the weaver is now ready to go to work. What drawing has she to represent the shape of her basket; what complicated plan of the design she intends to incorporate in it? How much thought has she given to these two important details? Where does she get them from? What art books does she consult? She cannot go down to the art or department store and purchase Design No. 48b, or 219f, and her religion, if she be a _good_ woman (that is, good from the Indian, not the white man or Christian standpoint), will not allow her to copy either one of her own or another weaver's form or design. She, therefore, is left to the one resort of the true artist. She must create her work from Nature, out of her own observations and reflections. Thus patterning after Nature the shapes of her baskets are always perfect, always uncriticizable. There is nothing fantastic, wild, or crazy about them, as we often find in the _original creations_ of the white race. They are patterned after the Master Artist's work, and therefore are beyond criticism.

But who can tell the hours of patient and careful observation, the thought, the reflection, put upon these shapes and designs. The busy little brain behind those dark-brown eyes; the creative imagination that sees, that vizualizes _in the mind_ and can judge of its appearance when objectified, must be developed to a high degree to permit the use of such intricate, complicated and complex designs as are often found. There are no drawings made, no pencil and paper used, not even a sketch in the sand as some guessers would have the credulous believe. Everything is seen and worked out _mentally_, and with nothing but the mental image before her, the artist goes to work.

Seated in as easy a posture as she can find out-of-doors or in, her splints around her in vessels of water (the water for keeping them pliant), and an adequate supply of the broom-corn, or gra.s.s-stem, filling at hand, she rapidly makes the coiled b.u.t.ton that is the center, the starting point of her basket. Her awl is the thigh-bone of a rabbit, unless she has yielded so far to the pressure of civilization as to use a steel awl secured at the trader's store for the purpose. St.i.tch by st.i.tch the coil grows, each one sewed, by making a hole with the awl through the coil already made, to that coil. When the time comes for the introduction of the colored splint, she works on as certainly, surely and deftly as before. There is no hesitation. All is mapped out, the st.i.tches counted, long before, and though to the outsider there is no possible resemblance discernible between what she is doing with anything known in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, the aboriginal weaver goes on with perfect confidence, seeing clearly the completed and artistic product of her brain and fingers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: One of the Portable Houses bought by the U. S. Indian Department. The rear house was erected by the Indians themselves, and is the home of Senora Salvadora Valenzuela and her daughters.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Two Pala Indian Maidens.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pala Boys at Work on the Farm.]

And how wonderfully those fingers handle the splints. No white woman has ever surpa.s.sed, in digital dexterity, these native Indians. Do you wonder? Watch this weaver day after day as her basket grows. A week, two, three, a month, two, three months pa.s.s by, and the basket is not yet finished. Time as well as creative skill and digital dexterity are required to make a basket, and it is no uncommon thing to find three, four and even five or six months consumed before the basket is done, and the weaver's heart is secretly rejoiced by the beauty of the work.

Is it surprising that the Indian often refuses to show, even when she knows she can make a sale, the latest product of her skill? The work is the joy of her heart; she has met the true test of the artist--she loves her work and, therefore, joys in it--how can she sell it? So when you ask her if she has a basket to sell she shakes her head, and when, days or weeks later, pressed by a real or fancied necessity, she brings it out and offers it for sale, you inwardly comment--perhaps openly--upon the untruthfulness of the Indian, when, in reality, she meant to the full her negative as to whether she had a basket to _sell_.

There are many skilful and accomplished basket weavers at Pala, who genuinely love their work. They are preserving for a prejudiced portion of the white race, proofs of an artistic skill possessed for centuries by this despised aboriginal race, and, at the same time, give delight, pleasure, joy and kindlier feelings to those of the white race who feel there is a fundamental truth enunciated in the doctrines of the universal Fatherhood of G.o.d, and the Brotherhood of Man.

CHAPTER XIII.

Lace and Pottery Makers.

In the preceding chapter I have presented, in a broad and casual manner, the work of the Pala basket-makers. They are not confined, however, to this as their only artistic industry. They engage in other work that is both beautiful and useful. For centuries they have been pottery makers, though, as far as I can learn, they have never learned to decorate their ware with the artistic, quaint, and symbolic designs used by the Zunis, Acomese, Hopis and other Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, or that might have been suggested by the designs on their own basketry.

The shapes of their pottery in the main are simple and few, but, when made by skilful hands, are beautiful and pleasing. They make saucers, bowls, jars and ollas. Clay is handled practically in the same way as the materials of basketry. After the clay is well washed, _puddled_, and softened, it is rolled into a rope-like length. After the center is moulded by the thumbs and fingers of the potter, on a small basket base which she holds in her lap, the clay rope is coiled so as to build up the pot to the desired size. As each coil is added, it is smoothed down with the fingers and a small _spatula_ of bone, pottery or dried gourd skin, the shape being made and maintained by constant manipulation. When completed it is either dried in the sun, or baked over a fire made of dried cow or burro dung, which does not get so hot as to crack the ware, or give out a smoke to blacken it.

In the dressing of skins, and making of rabbit-skin blankets, the older Indians used to be great adepts, but modern materials have taken away the necessity for these things.

Before the Palatinguas were removed from Warner's Ranch to Pala, one of them, gifted with the white man's business sense, and with the creative or inventive faculty, started an industry which he soon made very profitable. Every traveler over the uncultivated and desert area of Southern California has been struck with the immense number of yuccas, Spanish daggers, that seemed to spring up spontaneously on every hand. This keen-brained Indian, Jose Juan Owlinguwush, saw these, and wiser than some of his smart white brothers, determined to put them to practical and profitable use. He had the bayonets gathered by the hundreds, the thousands. Then he had them beaten, flailed, until the fibres were all separated one from another. The outer skins were thrown away, but the inner fibres were taken and cured. Then, on one of the most primitive spinning-wheels ever designed, and worked by a smiling school-girl, who pa.s.sed a strap over a square portion of a spindle, at the end of which was a hook, so as to make it revolve at a high degree of speed, the fiber was spun into rope. To the hook the yucca fibre was attached, and as the spindle revolved the hook twisted the fibre into cord. The spinner, with an ap.r.o.n full of the fibre, walked backwards, away from the revolving hook, feeding out the fibre as required and seeing it was of the needed thickness. Some of the rope or cord thus made was dyed a pleasing brown color, and then was woven on a loom, as primitive as was the spinning-wheel, into doormats, which I used, with great satisfaction, for several years.

Soon after the Palatinguas were settled at Pala, the Sybil Carter a.s.sociation of New York introduced to them, with the full consent of the government officials, the art of Spanish lace-making. In a recent newspaper article it is thus lauded: "Ancient craft [Basket-making] of Pala Indians Gives Place to More Artistic Handiwork." This is a very absurd statement, for wherein is the work of lace-making more _artistic_ than basket-making. In the article that follows our newspaper friend tells us candidly that the creative spirit is still alive in the manufacture of basketry:

They use the natural gra.s.ses and no artificial coloring. _No two baskets are alike_, though the mountain, lightning flash, star, tree, oak-leaf, and snake designs are most common.

The italics are mine. Our writer then goes on to say of the lace-making:

The little ten-year old school-child and the grandmother now sit side by side weaving the intricate figures with deft hands and each receives fair compensation for the finished product. It takes sharp eyes and supple fingers to produce this lace, _but no originality_, for the Venetian point, Honiton, Torchon, Brussels, Cluny, Milano, Roman Cut-Work and Fillet patterns are supplied by the government teacher, Mrs.

Edla Osterberg.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Fiesta Procession, Leaving the Chapel for the Headgate of the Irrigation Ditch.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pala Indian Women Dancing at the Fiesta.]

Again the italics are mine. There is no comparison in the art work of basketry and that of lace-making, yet it is a good thing the latter has been introduced. It brings these poor people money easier and quicker than basket-making, and, as they must earn to live, it aids them in the struggle for existence.

In the lace work-room, the last time I was there, thirty-nine weavers in all, varying from bright-eyed children of seven years, to aged grandmothers, were intently engaged upon the delicate work. The bobbins were being twisted and whirled with incredible rapidity and sureness, in the cases of the most expert, and all were as interested as could possibly be.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Religious and Social Life of the Palas.

It would require many pages of this little book even to suggest the various rites, ceremonies and ideas connected with the ancient religion of the Palas. It was a strange mixture of Nature wors.h.i.+p, superst.i.tion, and apparently meaningless rites, all of which, however, clearly revealed the childlike wors.h.i.+p of their minds. In the earliest days their religious leaders gained their power by fasting and solitude. Away in the desert, or on the mountain heights, resolutely abstaining from all food, they awaited the coming of their spirit guides, and then, armed with the a.s.surance of direct supernatural control, they a.s.sumed the healing of the sick and the general direction of the affairs of the tribe.

Then, later, this simple method was changed. The neophytes sought visions by drinking a decoction made from the jimpson weed--_toloache_ --and though the older and purer-minded men condemned this method it was gaining great hold upon them when the Franciscan Missionaries came a century or so ago.

Even now some of their ceremonies at the period of adolescence, especially of girls, are still carried on. One of these consists of digging a pit, making it hot with burning wood coals, and then "roasting" the maiden therein, supposedly for her physical good.

I have also been present at some of their ancient dances which are still performed by the older men and women. These are pet.i.tions to the Powers that control nature to make the wild berries, seeds and roots grow that they may have an abundance of food, and many white men have seen portions of the eagle and other dances, the significance of which they had no conception of. Yet all of these dances had their origin in some simple, childlike idea such as that the eagle, flying upwards into the very eye of the sun, must dwell in or near the abode of the G.o.ds, and could therefore convey messages to them from the dwellers upon Earth. This is the secret of all the whisperings and tender words addressed to the eagle before it is either sent on its flight or slain--for in either case it soars to the empyrean. These words are messages to be delivered to the G.o.ds above, and are pet.i.tions for favors desired, blessings they long for, or punishments they wish to see bestowed upon their enemies.

But when the padres came the major part of the ancestors of the present-day Palas came under their influence. They were soon baptized into the fold of the Catholic Church. The fathers were wise in their tolerance of the old dances. Wherein there was nothing that savored of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, sensuality, or direct demoralization, they raised no objection, hence the survival of these ceremonies to the present day.

But, otherwise, the Indians became, as far as they were mentally and spiritually able, good sons and daughters of the church.

Of the good influence these good men had over their Indian wards there can be no question.

A true shepherd of his heathen flock was Padre Peyri. When the order of secularization reached San Luis Rey and every priest was compelled to take the oath of allegiance to the republic of Mexico, Peyri refused to obey. He was ordered out of the country. At first he paid no attention to the command, but when, finally, his superiors in Mexico authorized his obedience, he stole away during the dead of night in January, 1832, in order to save himself and his beloved though dusky wards the pain of parting. It is said that when the Indians discovered that he had left them and was on his way to San Diego in order to take s.h.i.+p for Spain, five hundred of them followed him with the avowed intention of trying to persuade him to return. But they reached the bay at La Playa just as his s.h.i.+p was spreading sail and putting out to sea. A plaintive cry rose heavenward while they stood, their arms outstretched in agonized pleading, as their beloved padre gave them a farewell blessing and his vessel faded away in the blue haze off Point Loma.

The last resident missionary at San Luis Rey was Padre Zalvidea, who died early in 1846.

From this date the decline of the Mission was very rapid. In 1826, the Indian population was 2,869 and in 1846 it scarcely numbered 400.

After the death of Padre Zalvidea the poor Indians were like a flock of sheep without a shepherd. They dispersed in every direction, a prey of poverty, disease, and death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Pala Campanile After Rebuilding in 1916.]