[Martinetta Kinsell, The Moonwitch, A Legend of Lake Tahoe, The Overland Monthly, May 1903]

 

THE MOONWITCH

A LEGEND OF LAKE TAHOE

__________

BY MARTINETTA KINSELL

            WHEN the Summit-valleys fold themselves away for the Long White Sleep, the Sierra Indian crawls into his nest of squirrel-skins, under the snowed-in wigwam, as cosy and warm as a grizzly in his den. There he lies all winter, munching from full baskets—if his squaw has been a good provider—and sleeping much. But at times he must wake up and repeat the old tribe-tales, sound for sound, as learned from his forbears. Then from the half-buried hut comes a chanting mutter, a monotone of rhythmic gutturals—like a brook gurgling under ice-blocks.

            It was longer ago than can be reckoned by the white man's book. No lake was there then where Tahoe spreads to-day, but only a chasm that burrowed down among the peaks of the Sierra. It reached to the bottom of the world, and was full of devils.

            At times, fire and smoke came out of this pit, with roarings and tremblings of the earth, so that the medicine-men—who alone understood such sign-talk—warned their people not to go near it, and for untold generations the hole lay black and enchanted, given over to demoncraft.

            But, although the Indians—whose rancherias filled all the west-land—dared not climb above the snow-line, the White Sleep was their harvest god. Its depths gauged their food supply ; their springs and streams, the yield of fruits, as well as bread-seed and the root-wales, all waited upon the mood of the storm. It was, too, the hunter's calendar, for when the sky-ranges put on their blankets of white, the redman got ready his traps and snares. But —no snow, no game.

            The boundaries of the Chaparral tribes were the great valleys on the west, and the snow, or danger line, above them to the east. At its best it was a zone of fatness and plenty, and every summer when bush-crops were heavy the thankful tribes held a sacred dance on the foothills. In this—feast and pow-wow as well—all were expected to join. But when the snow-god forgot them, instead of a thank-feast the tribes staid at home, and generally killed off their medicine men for failing to win favor with the giver of nuts and mast.

            Now a time came, when for three winters the Sierra frowned bare and black, with only a few caps of snow that melted in the first desert-breath from the south ; the north wind raged, icy and dry, through the shivering foothills, and summer brought sand storms from the fire lands of the Mojave to scorch what promise the dying thickets put forth. Game there was none; the roots withered, the trout pools burned dry.

            Under this drought the Bush-Tribes were famishing. Smoke-dances and magic brought no relief ; medicine-men grew scarce. As if to sharpen their woe they saw their mortal enemies, the kelp and fisher-folk of the coast, sluggish with over feeding from the sea, their food mother. But hardest of all to bear was the sight across the danger-line above them, where mountain hollows that had been snow-pockets still drank from hidden cisterns. There, game fed in droves and nut-pines cast their cones among the ripe oats.

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            In despair, the braves crouched in their lodges with covered heads, that they might not see their women mourn by empty baskets, or their papooses die with hunger.  But there was one young chief, Tahoe of the Upper Hillmen, who despaired not. He looked ever toward the mountains. Wise, he was, and a hunter of might, who feared nothing in flesh or spirit. The camp fires of his people circled the chaparral mesas for ten signal peaks, and all the tribe looked to him—their brother and chief by the sacred bond. Save them he must ; but how? As the gods of the bush failed him he would find others ; he watched for a sign, but none came. At last, when he heard small children wailing for food he could wait no longer. Calling to his braves he pointed to the forbidden heights :

            "Who will follow me into the land of devils to slay meat?" 

            "He is crazed," said the others. With cunning they caught and bound him, and sent for their magicians to come and drive away his evil spirit. Now, Tahoe was crafty as well as bold, and after a day and night in the sweat-house he said :

            "Lo, I am cured ; cease your leapings and bellowings and unbind me."

            At this moment came runners, themselves gaunt for food, to tell of a stranger-witch who with her tribe of Shining Ones—sorcerers all —was hard beset in the plains below. The stranger's boat had come up from the ocean into the bay of Bitter Water one evening just as a full moon rose before its time to face the going down of the summer sun—a thing, as all know, wrought only by ghosts and magic. The coast villagers were terrified at the sight of this monster canoe. It was like a bird in form and motion ; its beak

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was golden, its wings flapped in the sea wind. In through the harbor gate it floated—straight out of the sunset, and along the track of the risen moon. The women and the men in this canoe rowed not, but moved with enchantment and against the tide. They were not dark, as living people should be; their hair shown yellow in the sun, their eyes sparkled like the blue of deep water, and their faces gleamed whiter than the clouds of noon. As they came, they laughed and sang, and looked ever toward the moon-rise.

            Three days and nights they floated around the bay, until they came to the mouth of the Long River—flowing clear then, as its icicle fountains in the Modoc land. Up they went, as far as the tule-huts in the great valley, and all the Indians followed along the shore, though sore afraid of the magicians, but most they feared a wondrous squaw who stood often at the boat's prow.

            She was fairer than the others, with a mantle of hair more shining than golden sleep-flowers that burn among the young grass. Her eyes were the eyes of a sorceress; yellow they were, with glints of flame ; the hill leopardess, hovering over a pool —as do her kind before drinking—meets such eyes in the unlapped water. And because of her hair and eyes, and the charms she threw as she laughed and sang to the full moon, the people knew her for a moon-witch.

            Warriors, looking upon her, felt their strength leave them. Armed with spears and arrows and stone-axes, these fighting men blackened the river banks, but as soon as they saw the woman's face their weapons fell from their hands. Strange to tell, the Indian woman and maids felt no charm, only a blindness of rage instead. Like furies they snatched from the men their unused weapons and fell with such hate upon the sorceress and her friends that they were forced to leave their sinking boat and fly for the hills.

            The strangers carried stone-slings and knives of an unknown metal—like a new moon for shape and glitter—and so well they defended their way through the hot valley and up the ridge paths that all of them were left alive, though spent and ready to fall, when at last they neared the boundaries of the starving Hill-men.

            Here they met no more fighting, for when Tahoe heard of their plight he threw off his cords and shrilled the battle-scream of the Bush-men.

            "Better to die in battle or by strange ways of this Moon-witch," he cried, "than by the slow fire of empty stomachs. Let us rescue her, and win new scalps from those baked dogs of the plains !"

            In the hot fight that followed, both Tule and Kelp-men joined with their women ; but the Bush-warriors, led by their chief, fought like starved lions, till at last their enemies fled down the trails, leaving heaps of dead.

            Tahoe himself saved the shining-haired woman from a score of axes and carried her, weak and fainting as she was, to his mother's lodge.

            To the strangers were given the last scraps of food. Their wounds were dressed, and after a night of rest in the safe wigwams they came forth fresh and whole. But they hungered, and as they looked about and saw no meat, and that their hosts were thin with fasting, they wondered much, for there was game herding in plain view, on the upper slopes. To this they pointed, but by signs the Bush-men made them understand—devils owned there.

            The Moon-Witch stood in her lodge door and laughed toward the sun. Tahoe looked upon her, as a man looks at but one woman in a life. He forgot his people and their woe, forgot himself, and saw only that laughing face, so much fairer than a living maid's should be.

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            "I hunger," signed the woman. She smiled at the young chief and pointed to the herds of game.

            This time he did not wait for braves or sweat-blankets. He caught his bow and quiver, climbed with swift leaps to the danger line, crossed it at a bound, and sprang on from ledge to ledge toward the quarry. The Shining Ones followed him with their stone-slings.

            By this time, the tribes were gathering from north and south to see the strange visitors. When the hunters were out of sight in the glens above, a great fear fell upon the people; in silence they waited, but no hope was there on any face.

            "Soon the earth must open," they whispered one to another, "and devour us all, where we stand !"

            The Moon-Witch climbed a high rock that stood as in warning—a finger of granite on the edge of the snow-line, and while the dark multitude cowered on the mesa below, she laughed and sang and preened her mantle of hair ; it shimmered like a cloud of gold in the noon-light.

            "We know her for a sorceress," said the women.

            "She has sent our young chief to the devils," muttered the maids, "but for our fear of coming death we would slay her with fire, here and now!"

            Hours passed, until, sick with dread, the crowds set up their death songs. But as the wailing grew louder it changed to a mighty cry of joy that echoed from hill to hill, and was answered from the steeps above, where the lost hunters came again, dragging great loads of game —elk and deer and mountain-goats.

            This food was brought first to the priests, who ate, though in fear. Then the hungry crowds—seeing that a miracle had been done—fell upon the meats until not a shred was left.  Tahoe ate not, until with his own hands he had dressed a portion with fire and carried it to the Moon-Witch on her rock. She made him sit beside her to share it, the while she glanced and smiled and murmured to him in the sweet sounds of an unknown tongue.

            The good news spread like a beacon flame, and at once the Bush-tribes left their homes in the chaparral and hastened up the Sierra, feeding like hungry locusts as they went. The ungleamed territory was a vast grannary of roots and seeds; game swarmed to their traps. Forgotten were their years of famine as the hill-men fattened on the chase; children were glad under the nut-pines and women mourned no longer as they stored the great baskets that had been empty so long.

            Tahoe let his young men do the hunting. He was learning the strange speech of the gold-haired woman, and teaching her the tongue of his own tribe. Together they wandered in the forest ; he built her a lodge of cedar boughs, and his old mother trimmed their evening camp-fire while they two sat in the flare of the balsam logs.

            Behind the higher summits the Indians dared not go, but they camped by a chain of fish-pools, far above the hill mists, and went on feasting day and night. Of this dull work the shining ones grew tired; they cared not for the gorging, and soon wearied of game that stood unafraid. So one morning after a night of talk, they signed farewell to the camps and started for the summits. With them went the Moon-Witch and Tahoe climbed by her side till they came to the crest by a path the hill goats had beaten.

            "I go also," he said, "even into the chasm."

            But she bade him return to his people. "Be ready, when I come again, to follow me with a few of your boldest," she commanded ; and he, who ruled chiefs with a look or motion, stood still in the trail at her soft tones.

            "Only come thou soon," he murmured. Alone up there against the sky his people saw him waiting for hours after the woman disappeared.

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            Then he came back to his mother's fire to sit and brood, or wander by himself like a lost hunter.

            Much time passed and the Shining Ones came not back. In two more moons the Long White Sleep would be upon them. Many grew afraid. "Surely," they said, "the devils of the bottomless hole have devoured our new friends. Let us go home or we too shall be destroyed.

            Tahoe called his head men together around a great council fire.

            "Let every chief speak his mind," said he. "For me, I shall stay on the high mountain. All who fear may turn again to their old rancherias."

            Three days and three nights the pow-wow lasted. Quarrels there were, and lamentings, but a small band of men and women with brave souls stood by Tahoe. Many of these lost family and friends when the faint-hearted host struck camp and filed off down the ridges—the timid, the old and the sick—to seek again their starved huts in the chaparral. There numbers of them died miserably, as cowards should. Others kept alive on rank herbs and bitter roots till the drought ended. They became Diggers, and are so called to this day.

            But Tahoe and his few followers who held to the high Sierra made a great feast with a sacred dance to the next full moon ; and they chanted a new song:

            "We are the mountain folk. This is our happy hunting ground; if we die by magic we can but go to another like it. Mountain folk are we forever!"

            Thus a bold new tribe was formed. Its men were the strongest and best of all the foothill nations ; as for the women, none but the young and handsome who were skillful hut-wives, were allowed to stay.

            Still a secret fear of the unseen chasm was upon them, and they kept away from it. Tahoe alone went often to the crest and waited there in the wild-goats' path, but he spoke no word as he sat in his mother's wigwam, the one brave who had chosen no mate.

            One night as they crouched by their log fires planning how to keep warm, when the snow came, they heard a voice they knew well calling to them. The voice was like a song, and Tahoe answered it with a cry of joy and welcome, for there on the ridge above them was the Moon Witch. She laughed and beckoned. As under a spell, Tahoe and his band of strong young men and women arose and followed her. They followed all night, through unknown trails, and over those notches in the sky—the tracks of the storm-god—till they came to a great valley that lay close under the stars. And what they saw there under the moon and by the white beams of morning, drove all fear from their hearts forever.

            For here was no bottomless chasm, but a snow-fed sea, that gleamed and flashed its billows of blue as far as the eye could follow. Its surface trembled with the dartings of trout ; upon its banks roamed herds of deer and elk. Farther back, meadows of wild grain met and mingled with cone-woods that cloaked the mountains to their frozen tip. Held in this frame-work of forest and barrier peaks the lake shone like a mirror.

            "I give you this land," said the woman, "in return for that you did for me and my tribe in our need. The lake shall be called Tahoe after your chief, who saved me from death. You and your children shall hold the region long, long—until another race, white-faced like the giver, shall take it from you. You may stay without fear. But the storm gods claim sacrifice—the lake will never give back its dead. Drowned ones must float forever in its depths, and their spirits haunt its shores and waters."

            Then she lead them to a spring near the edge of the lake and laid a

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spell upon it so that it became a cure-all for sickness. There it bubbles hot and healing to this day.

            She taught them to make wigwams that are warm under the snow ; she helped them to fashion nets and snares and weapons of a new cunning. To the squaws she gave basket-patterns, fine and strange; and she showed them the "squirrel-skin weave"—and no other tribe can make such fur-robes.

            Then she taught them how to store their food for winter; with many other wise things that the mountain Indian remembers, even now.

            And ever, as the Moon-Witch came and went at these tasks, the young chief walked beside her. Autumn began to chill the short days. The pair sat by the shore.

            "Why look you across the water?" asked Tahoe.

            "A boat should come for me."

            "Nay, we are promised ; no boat shall carry you away."

            For answer the woman shook her mantle of her hair more closely around her, and turned shivering again toward the lake.

            "I love not the snow. I would laugh always and sing to a warm sky. Come thou with me, Tahoe."

            "Whither."

            "To our new tribe-land south of the moon-rise."

            "And my people?"

            "They need thee not; behold them fed and warm in the land of plenty I have given them."

            "I am their chief ; they love me."

            "I love thee, thou swart and bold one. Thy lodge and no other will I trim. I know a valley where the trees hold bloom and fruit of gold to a sun that knows no cloud. There —even while this land burrows under frozen drifts—will we fashion our shelter of hewn-rock."

            Tahoe looked at the woman as a

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man looks at but one woman in a life; then he gazed over the water toward that gap in the southern peaks.

            "Yes, yes," cried the woman ; "it is there, that warm valley, with its birds and flowers and sun fruits! There waits our home—"

            But Tahoe turned away. His face was like the face of one dead.

            "A hill-chief is bond to his tribe. I may not forsake them."

            "Choose between them and me," said the woman. Her eyes burned with strange fire, her arms beckoned him. But his lips were like stone as he answered her:

            "Truth to the tribe-bond."

            "Can nothing free thee?"

            "But death—or madness."

            "Then be thou mad," cried the witch, "but only for me, and when summer nights shine on the water, for then will I come back to thee —true man as thou art—and the tribe-bond shall hold me also."

            That night a full moon swung low over the lake and dancing along in its beams came a canoe; winged it was, and the Shining Ones on board of it rowed not but moved with enchantment. The woman bade farewell to the Indians, who mourned with sorrow at her going. To her lover she spoke what none other might hear.

            "Wait my sure coming!" she called again as she entered the boat and sailed away in the track of the moon.

            But through that pass in the southern peaks came a gale of wind that smote the lake as with the slap of an unseen hand. The flying boat was made to toss this way and that among coils of black water as a moth might flutter among writhing snakes. Then it rose on a high-flung billow and a last glimpse saw it flitting straight into the heart of the moon.

            All night the storm raged over the boiling lake.

            "They cannot drown," said the Indians ; "sorcerers all, they ride safe where living boatmen must sink."

            But they never saw the Moon-Witch again.

            The White Sleep came and melted away. Summer ripened and a great feast was made ready. The chief s lodge was woven with boughs and vines from the thickets, and every night as the moon rode on toward its full Tahoe waited by the shore and gazed along the shining trail for the boat that came not.

            "Madness grows upon him," said the others; "see where he laughs and beckons and calls in the unknown tongue."

            Summer came and went. One harvest night when the lake glowed and trembled under the magic of a great white moon the Indians, sitting at their feast, heard a cry of joy and welcome and saw their mad chief spring into the lake. In vain they called to him; swift and strong went the swimmer. Far out under a pool of moon-beams hovered a mist-like shape. There he disappeared, but they heard his laugh again, and with it what sounded like the laugh of a woman.

            They saw him no more. In vain they searched the waves and shore and heaped the funeral pyre. Lake Tahoe never gives back its dead.

            Sometimes, when harvest moons weave meshes of silver between the long green days, they who sit at summer feasts in the high Sierras chant muttering rhythms of a Moon-Witch and storm gods.

            The tribes remember. Every year in all the centuries they set their tents in the old way and burden the fine-stitch baskets for the winter. And when the Long White Sleep comes down over the Summit valleys the Indian crawls into his nest of squirrel-skins under the snowed-in wigwam and sleeps—sleeps and wakes, and mutters his stories over and over again, to be passed on as long as a redman is left in the Tahoe land. That time may be short—the white-skinned race has come again.