Miniature Cradleboard

Chapter Three   

Shell Flower

            The summer cooled into fall.  The Numa continued to travel and harvest the wealth of the earth.  Winnemucca and Truckee still stood at opposite ends of the issue of traveling to California, and they both vied for the attention of Thocmetony.

            Thocmetony was the love of the band.  At six, her seriousness made her seem like a small woman rather than a child.  She could be counted on to be in the middle of anything that went on with the grownups.  While they traveled she carried a miniature burden basket just like the conical ones her older sister and mother had.  When they stayed for a long time in one place, she built tiny villages in the dirt, complete with brush karnees and small clay animals.

            After traveling, when a camp was decided upon, she would unpack her precious belongings; a rabbit skin cape, her hairbrush made from rye roots, a tiny cradleboard that an aunt had made her, some cast off baskets and her water jug. She would make a small camp for herself, setting out the pieces with care.

            The elders of the group would encourage her by giving her special morsels of food to cook and important tasks for the band.  Thocmetony loved it when someone treated her like an adult and she would stack firewood with her big sisters and dig roots with her mother just to be with them.

            Food had been scarce with the limits on travel imposed by Winnemucca.  He continued to urge the group to remain away from the trails but the people tired of squirrel and rabbit and hungered for fish.  A party of men decided to travel to the lake for a weeks fishing.

            Thocmetony was upset at her father and grandfather for leaving but she too desired a break in the sameness of the food.

            "Can I go with you?" she asked her father as he and the other men assembled.  "You will need someone to cook."

            Winnemucca smiled and stroked her long dark hair.  "Maybe when you are older.  Now your mother needs you here to harvest seed and pine nuts."

            Thocmetony knew that there was a white encampment down by the lake.  She was curious to see if the people were as her father or grandfather said.  The week passed while she made clay figures of the horses and wagons.  She and her sister tried to imagine what it would be like to live with the whites.

            Grandfather said that there was always plenty of food.  Thick slices of meat cooked in broth with vegetables and seed cakes that they called bread.  The whites slept in wooden shelters or in their wheeled homes on the trail. 

            There were also tales that the oldest shared with her.  Stories of the Cannibal owl that came in the night and took bad children, throwing them over its shoulder into it's burden basket onto a long, sharp spike.  Some said that the whites were like the Cannibal owl and would eat Numa children if they cried too loud in the night.

            During the day while they played, it was hard to think of the whites as mean.  They had such pretty things.  At night though, when the sounds would drift up the canyons from the lakeside camps, she believed that something was going on that she didn't want to know.

Picture from Stereoview of Piute Girls          

One morning, Thocmetony and her little sister and their cousins played village up canyon from the karnees.  The rapid explosions of gunfire froze their play.  The morning was new and still, making the noise come from all directions.

            Little Elma, her young sister, sat with a clay horse in her hand and then started screaming.  Thocmetony quickly grabbed her, covering her mouth and rocking her into calmness.

            "Shh, shh." she breathed into Elma's ear. "Hide." she whispered to her cousins. 

            Wise enough to know to be quiet, and young enough to be afraid, the five young girls moved up canyon towards a rock shelter.  Thocmetony carried Elma for a short ways and then put the quietly sobbing child down. 

            "I won't leave you, I promise."  The day she had spent buried was still strong in her own mind.  She wouldn't leave her sister.

            Coaxing the toddler along, Thocmetony babbled quietly to Elma.  "See, just put one foot in front of the other.  Look at the sage flowers over there, and here is a spotted feather."  Her banter calmed her sister and enticed her up the trail.

            Meeting with the cousins, the girls all crowded into the small rock cave.  They watched fearfully down the canyon for any sign of movement.

            Whispering, they told stories.  One cousin kept trying to bring up the tales they heard at night.

            "The Whites," the cousin started, "they even look like owls, round strange eyes and whiskers sticking straight out in all directions, they must be related."

            "Hush!"  Hissed Thocmetony as Elma started a small hiccupping cry.

            "Look, someone is coming.  It's one of the cannibals."  the cousin whimpered.

            Thocmetony had been fighting her own fear and grew angry with her cousin.  "Quiet!"  Her fingers dug into the loose gravel on the floor of the shelter.  She would throw it if she had to, anything to hush this Jaybird.

            The sage rattled one more time and the girls clamped their mouths shut, too scared to even breathe.  Tuboitonie's slender, tall figure appeared on the trail.  She looked confused.  Her eyes searched the canyon as if looking for something.  It's us she is looking for; Thocmetony realized and crawled out from between the rocks.

            Her mother's face was ashen in the morning sunshine.  Worry lines marked it that Thocmetony didn't remember seeing earlier.  "What is wrong?"

            "Someone saw shooting down by the lake.  Hurry, get the other girls."

            The four girls crawled out into the light.  Little Elma was happy to see her mother and toddled over and clung to Tuboitonie's robe until she was lifted up onto a hip.

            What her mother had said was bad news.  They couldn't keep running from the white that were filling up all the good harvesting areas and camped at all the fishing spots.  What if someone had been hurt?  What if Father had been hurt?  Thocmetony hurried along at her mother's side.  Father was right, the whites only brought sorrow.

            The camp bustled with activity as the six came upon it.  The men had returned and blood showed on every man.  The blood of wounds from the guns, the blood of injured men that the unhurt had carried.

            Thocmetony counted, her grandfather was there and father and her brothers and some cousins but one of her uncles was missing.  As they stood at the edge of the camp, the playmate that had talked of the cannibal whites grew pale.  The cousin noticed that her father was not there.

            The small group split in the direction of each of their own Karnees.  Women bustled every direction cleaning men and packing wounds.  The men who were patched or unhurt gathered in the center of the village.

            Thocmetony heard the men as their voices rumbled.  Her Uncle had been killed and nine more had been wounded.  Only five escaped the gunfire that had rained on them as they peacefully fished in the lake.

            The men's anger was enough to keep Thocmetony away from the War Council that was growing by the minute.  Women and boys cried for revenge as they stood behind their fathers and older brothers.

            Frightened of the whites and frightened of the anger in her bands voices, Thocmetony skirted the council and crept into her own karnee.  She buried herself beneath the rabbit skin robes piled inside and pushed her face into the fragrant grass that was spread for bedding.

            As the voices got louder outside, she thought she would cry until one man called out for silence.  Truckee's words invited order to the council.

            Thocmetony lay trembling as her Grandfather's voice quieted the noisy band.

            "You demand that the whites who live on the lake should be killed and that I should give the blessing to do so.  I will not.  There is no more justice in the killing of innocents that had nothing to do with what happened today, than the deed that was done to us."  Tears stained his face.  "My own dear son is among the dead and you accuse me of favoring the White Brother to the Numa.  That is not true.  It is my promise that has value here and your promise to me.  You know it is not the men at the lake that did this and we will not do the same wrong."

            Thocmetony felt the heat of tears on her face as she lay beneath the robes.  Her cousin would be without a father tonight.  Where was the justice in that?

            The sound of cries and moaning came from outside.  Her aunt and parents gathered to mourn for the dead.  As she lay listening to the sounds beneath the warm robes, she dozed knowing what was to be done.

            Her uncle would be cleaned and prepared for burial, but would not be brought into a karnee.  The spirit might remain and then the karnee would have to be burnt.  Her Aunt would cut her braids and place them on the chest of her husband before he was buried.  Close kinsmen would also cut their hair.

            Her mother's voice and a tugging on the robes roused her.  Sleepily, she opened her eyes and sat up startled.  Her mother's beautiful straight hair had been cut to above her shoulders.  Turning her head, she saw that her father too had cut his long hair.  Surprise waned as she remembered her late uncle and understood.

            It was dark outside.  She had gone the whole day without eating.  Hunger was sharp, but the sharper pain was the pain of the dead.  Snuggling close to her mother, she again drifted off to sleep.

            The night was full of dreams.  Visions of the Numa in great councils with herself at the head.  The sight of many dead walking beyond the living and simpler dreams of she and her cousins playing with their families close by.

            "He wants to leave now."  Tuboitonie was speaking to her husband.

            "You want to go among those that would kill us."  Winnemucca sounded angry.

            Thocmetony peaked out from beneath the robes.  The decision involved her.  "I want to stay here with Father.  He can take care of us." 

            Her mother glanced at her and Thocmetony saw how the short hair clung to her tearstained face.  "We must leave before the moon wanes, before the snow comes to the mountains."

            "No, we should stay here.  The Whites kill."

            "Believe me little Shell Flower, I want to stay also, but grandfather says we must leave in the next few days."  Her face was weary and resigned.  "We will return in the spring, grandfather promised."

            Emotions that had surged all day now exploded within Thocmetony.  She launched herself at her mother.  Young fists struck Tuboitonie's face and shoulders.  Rough hands grabbed Thocmetony’s arms from behind and pulled her into Winnemucca's embrace.

            "Calm the storm, Little One.  You have lightning in your eyes and fire in your heart." 

            Thocmetony exhausted, found the anger dissipated as quickly as it appeared.  "Father."  She hiccupped into loud sobs.  "Mother."