PART IWHEN DOCAS LIVED AT THE INDIAN VILLAGEBUILDING THE FIRE
PART IWHEN DOCAS LIVED AT THE INDIAN VILLAGE
“OH, mother!” cried a little Indian boy, “I am hungry.”
“Then go and start the fire so that I can cook breakfast,” answered his mother.
It was about a hundred years ago that this little boy, whose name was Docas, poked his head out of a brush house. Ama, his mother, was sitting on the ground just outside, grinding acorns in a stone bowl.
Docas went to the middle of the hut, where the blazing fire of wood had been the night before. Just before Ama had gone to sleep she had covered with ashes the glowing coals that were left from the fire.
Docas raked off the ashes and began to blow on the blackened coals that were left. There was not much life in them, but they began to redden a little.
He put some dry leaves against them and blewharder. The leaves smoked, but would not light, no matter how hard he blew. And all the time the coals were getting blacker and blacker.
At last he called, “I cannot light it, mother.”
Ama came over where he was and began to blow, too; but even she could not start it, for the fire had died out.
“I must get some new fire,” said Ama at last.
She picked up two dry willow sticks and two flints. She rubbed the willow sticks together very hard for a while.
“Do you see the little dust that is gathering?” she asked. “Now I will strike the flints together until they send a spark down into that dry dust.”
In a few minutes a spark fell into the dust, the dust flared up, and Docas exclaimed, “There! now we have a fire.” He dropped some dry leaves on the burning dust, then he put some little twigs on the leaves. After that he called to his younger brother:—
“Wake up, Heema! Come and get some big sticks for the fire.”
Heema rolled off the mat of tule reeds on which he had been sleeping, rubbed his eyes, and said, “I’m ready, Docas.”
Heema did not have to spend time dressing. All the Indian children ever wore was a little skirt made of rabbit-skin or deer-skin.
In a minute more Heema had piled some large sticks on the fire. Then it blazed up brightly.
“It’s foggy, and I’m cold,” said Docas. “Sit down by the fire with me and get warm.”
Docas and Heema were California Indians. They lived in an Indian rancheria, or village, near San Francisco Bay. Their father, whose name was Massea, was chief of the rancheria.
Docas was seven years old, while Heema was six. Alachu, one of their sisters, was three. Umwa was the other sister. She was so tiny that she had to be carried in a basket on her mother’s back.