The Acorn-Planter: A California Forest Play

ARGUMENT In the morning of the world, while his tribe makes its camp for the night in a grove, Red Cloud, the first man of men, and the first man of the Nishinam, save in war, sings of the duty of life, which duty is to make life more abundant. The Shaman, or medicine man, sings of foreboding and prophecy. The War Chief, who commands in war, sings that war is the only way to life. This Red Cloud denies, affirming that the way of life is the way of the acorn- planter, and that whoso slays one man slays the planter of many acorns. Red Cloud wins the Shaman and the people to his contention. After the passage of thousands of years, again in the grove appear the Nishinam. In Red Cloud, the War Chief, the Shaman, and the Dew-Woman are repeated the eternal figures of the philosopher, the soldier, the priest, and the woman--types ever realizing themselves afresh in the social adventures of man. Red Cloud recognizes the wrecked explorers as planters and life-makers, and is for treating them with kindness. But the War Chief and the idea of war are dominant The Shaman joins with the war party, and is privy to the m******e of the explorers. A hundred years pass, when, on their seasonal migration, the Nishinam camp for the night in the grove. They still live, and the war formula for life seems vindicated, despite the imminence of the superior life-makers, the whites, who are flooding into California from north, south, east, and west--the English, the Americans, the Spaniards, and the Russians. The m******e by the white men follows, and Red Cloud, dying, recognizes the white men as brother acorn-planters, the possessors of the superior life-formula of which he had always been a protagonist. In the Epilogue, or Apotheosis, occur the celebration of the death of war and the triumph of the acorn-planters. PROLOGUE Time. In the morning of the world. Scene. A forest hillside where great trees stand with wide spaces between. A stream flows from a spring that bursts out of the hillside. It is a place of lush ferns and brakes, also, of thickets of such shrubs as inhabit a redwood forest floor. At the left, in the open level space at the foot of the hillside, extending out of sight among the trees, is visible a portion of a Nishinam Indian camp. It is a temporary camp for the night. Small cooking fires smoulder. Standing about are withe-woven baskets for the carrying of supplies and dunnage. Spears and bows and quivers of arrows lie about. Boys drag in dry branches for firewood. Young women fill gourds with water from the stream and proceed about their camp tasks. A number of older women are pounding acorns in stone mortars with stone pestles. An old man and a Shaman, or priest, look expectantly up the hillside. All wear moccasins and are skin-clad, primitive, in their garmenting. Neither iron nor woven cloth occurs in the weapons and gear. [Shaman] (Looking up hillside.) Red Cloud is late. [Old Man] (After inspection of hillside.) He has chased the deer far. He is patient. In the chase he is patient like an old man. [Shaman] His feet are as fleet as the deer's. [Old Man] (Nodding.) And he is more patient than the deer. [Shaman] (Assertively, as if inculcating a lesson.) He is a mighty chief. [Old Man] (Nodding.) His father was a mighty chief. He is like to his father. [Shaman] (More assertively.) He is his father. It is so spoken. He is his father's father. He is the first man, the first Red Cloud, ever born, and born again, to chiefship of his people. [Old Man] It is so spoken. [Shaman] His father was the Coyote. His mother was the Moon. And he was the first man. [Old Man] (Repeating.) His father was the Coyote. His mother was the Moon. And he was the first man. [Shaman] He planted the first acorns, and he is very wise. [Old Man] (Repeating.) He planted the first acorns, and he is very wise. (Cries from the women and a turning of faces. Red Cloud appears among his hunters descending the hillside. All carry spears, and bows and arrows. Some carry rabbits and other small game. Several carry deer) PLAINT OF THE NISHINAM [Red Cloud] (Still descending.) Good hunting! Good hunting! [Hunters] Good hunting! Good hunting! (Completing the descent, Red Cloud motions to the meat-bearers. They throw down their burdens before the women, who greedily inspect the spoils.) MEAT SONG OF THE NISHINAM (The younger women take charge of the meat, and the older women resume their acorn-pounding.) (Red Cloud approaches the acorn-pounders and watches them with pleasure. All group about him, the Shaman to the fore, and hang upon his every action, his every utterance.) [Red Cloud] The heart of the acorn is good? [First Old Woman] (Nodding.) It is good food. [Red Cloud] When you have pounded and winnowed and washed away the bitter. [Second Old Woman] As thou taught'st us, Red Cloud, when the world was very young and thou wast the first man. [Red Cloud] It is a fat food. It makes life, and life is good. [Shaman] It was thou, Red Cloud, gathering the acorns and teaching the storing, who gavest life to the Nishinam in the lean years aforetime, when the tribes not of the Nishinam passed like the dew of the morning. (He nods a signal to the Old Man.) [Shaman] (Who, throughout the Old Man's recital, has nodded approbation, turning to Red Cloud.) Sing to thy people, Red Cloud, the song of life which is the song of the acorn. [Red Cloud] (Making ready to begin) And which is the song of woman, O Shaman. [Shaman] (Hushing the people to listen, solemnly) He sings with his father's lips, and with the lips of his father's fathers to the beginning of time and men. SONG OF THE FIRST MAN [Shaman] Hail, Red Cloud, the first man! [The People] Hail, Red Cloud, the first man! [Shaman] Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world! [The People] Who showedst us the way of our feet in the world! [Shaman] Who showedst us the way of our food in the world! [The People] Who showedst us the way of our food in the world! [Shaman] Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world! [The People] Who showedst us the way of our hearts in the world! [Shaman] Who gavest us the law of family! [The People] Who gavest us the law of family! [Shaman] The law of tribe! [The People] The law of tribe! [Shaman] The law of totem! [The People] The law of totem! [Shaman] And madest us strong in the world among men! [The People] And madest us strong in the world among men! [Red Cloud] Life is good, O Shaman, and I have sung but half its song. Acorns are good. So is woman good. Strength is good. Beauty is good. So is kindness good. Yet are all these things without power except for woman. And by these things woman makes strong men, and strong men make for life, ever for more life. [War Chief] (With gesture of interruption that causes remonstrance from the Shaman but which Red Cloud acknowledges.) I care not for beauty. I desire strength in battle and wind in the chase that I may kill my enemy and run down my meat. [Red Cloud] Well spoken, O War Chief. By voices in council we learn our minds, and that, too, is strength. Also, is it kindness. For kindness and strength and beauty are one. The eagle in the high blue of the sky is beautiful. The salmon leaping the white water in the sunlight is beautiful. The young man fastest of foot in the race is beautiful. And because they fly well, and leap well, and run well, are they beautiful. Beauty must beget beauty. The ring-tail cat begets the ring-tail cat, the dove the dove. Never does the dove beget the ring-tail cat. Hearts must be kind. The little turtle is not kind. That is why it is the little turtle. It lays its eggs in the sun-warm sand and forgets its young forever. And the little turtle is forever the Kttle turtle. But we are not little turtles, because we are kind. We do not leave our young to the sun in the sand. Our women keep our young warm under their hearts, and, after, they keep them warm with deer-skin and campfire. Because we are kind we are men and not little turtles, and that is why we eat the little turtle that is not strong because it is not kind. [War Chief] (Gesturing to be heard.) The Modoc come against us in their strength. Often the Modoc come against us. We cannot be kind to the Modoc. [Red Cloud] That will come after. Kindness grows. First must we be kind to our own. After, long after, all men will be kind to all men, and all men will be very strong. The strength of the Nishinam is not the strength of its strongest fighter. It is the strength of all the Nishinam added together that makes the Nishinam strong. We talk, you and I, War Chief and First Man, because we are kind one to the other, and thus we add together our wisdom, and all the Nishinam are stronger because we have talked. (A voice is heard singing. Red Cloud holds up his hand for silence.) MATING SONG [Red Cloud] (As Red Cloud sings, Dew-Woman steals from behind a tree and approaches him.) [War Chief] (Angrily.) The councils of men are not the place for women. [Red Cloud] (Gently.) As men grow kind and wise there will be women in the councils of men. As men grow their women must grow with them if they would continue to be the mothers of men. [War Chief] It is told of old time that there are women in the councils of the Sim. And is it not told that the Sun Man will destroy us? [Red Cloud] Then is the Sun Man the stronger; it may be because of his kindness and wiseness, and because of his women. [Young Brave] Is it told that the women of the Sun are good to the eye, soft to the arm, and a fire in the heart of man? [Shaman] (Holding up hand solemnly.) It were well, lest the young do not forget, to repeat the old word again. [War Chief] (Nodding confirmation.) Here, where the tale is told. (Pointing to the spring.) Here, where the water burst from under the heel of the Sun Man mounting into the sky. (War Chief leads the way up the hillside to the spring, and signals to the Old Man to begin) [Shaman] (Solemnly.) I am the Shaman. I know what has gone before and what will come after. I have passed down through the gateway of death and talked with the dead. My eyes have looked upon the unseen things. My ears have heard the unspoken words. And now I shall tell you of the Sun Man in the days to come. (Shaman stiffens suddenly with hideous facial distortions, with inturned eye-balls and loosened jaw. He waves his arms about, writhes and twists in torment, as if in epilepsy.) (The Women break into a wailing, inarticulate chant, swaying their bodies to the accent. The men join them somewhat reluctantly, all save Red Cloud, who betrays vexation, and War Chief, who betrays truculence.) (Shaman, leading the rising frenzy, with convulsive shiverings and tremblings tears of his skin garments so that he is quite naked save for a girdle of eagle-claws about his thighs. His long black hair flies about his face. With an abruptness that is startling, he ceases all movement and stands erect, rigid. This is greeted with a low moaning that slowly dies away.) CHANT OF PROPHECY (The People set up a sad wailing.) [War Chief] (Striking his chest with his fist.) Hoh! Hoh! Hoh! (The People cease from their wailing and look to the War Chief with hopeful expectancy.) [War Chief] I am the War Chief. In war I command. Nor the Shaman nor Red Cloud may say me nay when in war I command. Let the Sun Man come back. I am not afraid. If the foxes snared him with ropes, then can I slay him with spear- thrust and war-club. I am the War Chief. In war I command. (The People greet War Chief's pronouncement with warlike cries of approval.) [Red Cloud] The foxes are cunning. If they snared the Sun Man With ropes of sinew, then let us be cunning And snare him with ropes of kindness. In kindness, O War Chief, is strength, much strength. [Shaman] Red Cloud speaks true. In kindness is strength. [War Chief] I am the War Chief. [Shaman] You cannot slay the Sun Man. [War Chief] I am the War Chief. [Shaman] The Sun Man fights with the thunder in his hand. [War Chief] I am the War Chief. [Red Cloud] (As he speaks the People are visibly wan by his argument.) You speak true, O War Chief. In war you command. You are strong, most strong. You have slain the Modoc. You have slain the Napa. You have slain the Clam-Eaters of the big water till the last one is not. Yet you have not slain all the foxes. The foxes cannot fight, yet are they stronger than you because you cannot slay them. The foxes are foxes, but we are men. When the Sun Man comes we will not be cunning like the foxes. We will be kind. Kindness and love will we give to the Sun Man, so that he will be our friend. Then will he melt the frost, pull the teeth of famine, give us back our rivers of deep water, our lakes of sweet water, take the bitter from the buckeye, and in all ways make the world the good world it was before he left us. [People] (While the People sing the hillside slowly grows dark.)