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2 For Woman’s Wobk. A SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INDIAN VILLAGE IN 1816. BY HANNAH E. TAYLOR. TTI BOUT sixteen miles from Los Angeles—on the Los Angeles-Pa- O cific Electric Railway toward the sea, and about two and a half miles inland —the United States Government has erected the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Veteran Soldiers, upon a beautiful mesa that gently slopes to the blue ocean. This mesa stretches from the hills a mile north of the Home, south to the Puente Hills. The woodsy breeze sweeps over this plain from the canyons —of which there are several —and on summer days the ocean breezes fan this favored region. Neither money nor skill has been spared upon the buildings, and the spacious and artistic grounds consist of groves, orchards and drives. Upon this sloping mesa, south of the Home, is situated the growing town of Sawtelle, composed largely of the families, relatives and friends of veterans in the Home. We are familiar with the saying that Southern California resem bles Italy. In many things this is evident. The most obvious facts in Italian geography are the Alps and Apennines. These tremendous barriers protect Italy from the north wind and snow, and in like man ner Southern California is protected by the Sierra Madre Mountains. Then also the great climatic variableness in both countries caused by the hills and valleys, mountains and canyons, is evident. We find the likeness most complete among the Santa Monica Coast Ranges, where canyon after canyon opens out upon the beach of the blue Pacific. The skies of Southern California are of a deeper blue and the sunshine is sunnier, for in Southern California there is less moisture than in Italy. In the days gone by, these coast hills and vales were peopled with a dense Indian population. There seemed to be an Indian chief, with his tribe, located at every water spring throughout the length and breadth of the land. In the early days of the San Gabriel Mis sion their tepees were spread under the friendly oaks and beside the picturesque sycamores, and their simple, joyous, and sometimes hero ic life made its history. But the proud, free, warlike Indian was a dream of the past. Like the herds of buffalo, they no longer sweep across the plains upon their swift ponies. No longer they meet at council amid the grand and almost boundless forests. The universal invasion of the money-getting rftces of Europe seemed to infect the mental atmosphere of the continent, and the brave warrior and the poet-dreamer were becoming adapted ’ to their surroundings like the eyeless fish in the dark Mammoth Cave. Their power to absorb the legends and the wild spirit-dreams of their ances tors was being displaced every day by a calculating, practical men tality—by the white man’s daily drudgery. One thing they can never understand—the trees! Those sacred and wonderful buildings of their Great Spirit—how can the white man ruthlessly level them to the ground and selfishly use them without a thought of his sons, or his son’s sons? They mourn and will mourn for the beautiful forests and groves, the happy homes of their boyhood and their young manhood. Now as they sit about their campfires the grandfathers relate the his tory of the past, of the great continent that was theirs, and the fierce wars of long ago; the care-frce, glorious past —all past. .Chief Movoric and his tribe had established themselves near the springs, which until recently was known as the Santa Monica Water bupply—two fine springs just below the erovernment reservation for the Home and near the large old sycamore tree still standing there. Sometimes one chief was the paternal head of more than one vil lage: Chief Movoric governed the village by the springs, and his son Photus was sub chief of the village among the Santa Monica hills and vales. Another village occupied Santa Monica canyon, old Chief All yahs’—whose beautiful daughter,Eona, was the pride of many villages. The days were growing shorter and the rainy season was approach ing. The bulky, cumulus clouds were pushing their white heads above the Santa Monica hills: they had been peeping over for several days, but to-day their white figures were nearly to the zenith—the parched and dusty plains seemed to await with hungry expectation the coming rain. The girls were gathering acorns: for a month past the women had been shelling them as the girls brought them in. They broke the shells with their sharp white teeth and many of the driest had al ready been pounded to flour in their stone mortars. In a few days they would begin the bread-making. Their fathers, brothers and lov ers were on the beach, at the mouth of the canyon, taking fish from the ocean. Some of the girls had but now returned from the San Gabriel Mission. They had been invited by the sweet Mother Eulalia Perez to see the lovely needle-work that she was teaching the women there, and to learn of the cooking and housekeeping. They had looked with astonishment at the immense piles of grain in a corral, where fifty horses had been turned in, while Indians and soldiers hounded them on to a mad gallop. In a little time the grain lay underneath the straw, where they could have easily filled their baskets with seeds enough to last a long time. They would be glad if their own people would plant fields and tramp out the seeds in the same way—they said to one another as they slowly filled their baskets with the wild oats. Shadows were creeping over the fields and hills, and the ccol air from the ccming clouds sent them to their tepees. Woman’s Work. “Saw you, Juan Rey?” asked Etha of her companion. “How know you any Juan Rey?” she answered. “He with the blue eyes and brown hair, who stood staring at Eona until the soldiers shouted to him to get out of the way or be killed.”' • • * Eona was the light and joy of her father’s declining years. He was anxious to see her established in a home of her own before he must take his long journey to the spiritland, for strange and stirring changes were rapidly taking place. His old companion and brother, the Chief on the plain by the two springs, was anxious to consolidate the interests of the two tribes by taking her for his son’s wife. To be sure, Photus was no longer young, but he was wise, and Eona had swept her father’s hearth and stirred his mush since she was a maid of ten summers. To-day Eona had been with the girls to the Mission, Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. As she prepared her father’s dinner, she noticed the anxious, loving attention with which she was regarded by him. Turning suddenly, she threw her arms around his neck, and sobbed out: “Oh, Father, dear, why must this wedding be?” “Dear child, my word has been pledged. Your loving truth has always been my boast. Brave Photus both wealth and fame has won, and when you are his queen no richer bride will walk among our tribes.” * * * High grew the dark, luxuriant live oaks in the beautiful canyon of Santa Monica. In meditation deep, a noble youth paced restlessly the still lone hours away. Joy and truth beamed in his blue eyes, for she—his love—will meet him here to-day! At last her welcome steed among the shady trees meets hie enraptured view. Away to the winds he flung his doubts, and drew her within his arms. “Oh, love, my love, will you nestle ever here?” For one delicious moment —oh, why not? Must she say “No?” Despair was in the thought. She slowly drew away, a tender dew suffusing her dark eyes, a wondrous flush adorning all her face. She turned from him toward the western skies. The heavens seemed thickening with a golden dust that added darkness to her long black hair, revealing her clear cut features. She seemed the ethereal essence of race and clime. “My Eona! myself! my very own! The Great Spirit made us one, Sweet Love, ere we were born. I shall be alone away from you,, though loved by all the earth —alone, forlorn, and you, my darling, you will grieve for me, though home and children claim your loving care. Doom us not to such despair!” What sound is that upon the ocean breeze? The echoing tread of horses’ feet upon the sun-baked ground! ‘ Oh! Juan! Juan! The Mission Indians are on the trail. What ca,n be the meaning of this?” She sprang upon her fleet pony, and with one last look of love and agony she was gone. Old Chief Movoric always accompanied his men upon all their ex peditions. This morning they were away to the beach. They had determined that the inland tribes should not fish upon their beaches, and so they had a fight in prospect. The girls of the village were heating stones in a bonfire and put ting them in baskets of water, for it was breadmaking time—the acorns had been dried and pounded to meal. • * • lo return to the village by the springs. There were a large num ber of girls in this village by the sycamore, and they were bright and lively. They were dressed in short gowns, fashioned something like a Mother Hubbard, girdled at the waist, and fastened above the bust with a bright piece of metal, shaped liked a crescent or full moon, lhey were chatting as they worked, and were superintended by a young matron. Their language seemed to be all vowels, as their musi cal voices rose and fell. Some were forming the little hills of sand where they spread the flour and wet it many times, that the bitter might drain away in the sand, their little hands and- tapering fingers nimbly manipulating. ‘This way, Ayah—help lift this stone,” said Evay to her com panion . A large, overgrown boy of eighteen or twenty years arose from the ground a little distance away, and sprang forward to lift the stone; but the girls turned away from him, making a noise something like that made by hens when a hawk sweeps down for their chickens. \\ hy are you not with the braves on the beach?” asked the matron. Do not want to be!” roughly answered the boy, as he laughed and tried to come in among the girls again. They glanced around in indignation. No Good, ybu are lazy—you are fooling around for fun when others are working: what will you be doing when others are eating?” asked Ayah. “Why, I will be eating with them!” “Will you? Not by my work.” He picked up a blanket and stood with it wrapped around him, holding the blanket out as if to wrap another in it with him which was a courting custom among some of the tribes—the girl who would come out and be folded in the blanket with him consenting to be his wife. But the girls turned their backs on him: he shouted and caper ed around, while one of the girls ran to Marche’s tent. Marche was an elderly woman who was, so to speak, the President of the Woman’s Confederated Clubs: she ordered the social affairs of the village. She listened to the complaint, then taking a bundle of small switches, she put them in the hands of a little girl and sent them around to the different tents. Presently a number of elderly women from many tents, with long switches in their hands, walked rapidly toward the impudent youth, and Marche said: We have watched you, No Good, from childhood. Your evil words and doings fall around like thistle down that cannot be gath- MAY, 190