Creation Myths of Primitive America: In relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of MankindCurtin, Jeremiah
Religion
Creation Myths of Primitive America: In relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of Mankind
Curtin, Jeremiah
Creation -- Mythology; Indian mythology -- North America; Indians of North America -- Folklore
The answer is as follows: Certain Indians lived, or rather lurked,
around Mill Creek, in wild places somewhat east of Tehama and north of
Chico. These Mill Creek Indians were fugitives; outlaws from various
tribes, among others from the Yanas. To injure the latter, they went
to the Yana country about the middle of August, 1864, and killed two
white women, Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Jones. Four children also were left
for dead by them, but the children recovered. After the murders the
Mill Creeks returned home unnoticed, carrying various plundered
articles with them.
Two parties of white men were formed at once to avenge the women and
four children. Without trying in any way to learn who the guilty were,
they fell upon the Yanas immediately, sparing neither sex nor age.
They had resolved to exterminate the whole nation. The following few
details will show the character of their work:--
At Millville, twelve miles east of Redding, white men seized two Yana
girls and a man. These they shot about fifty yards from the village
hotel. At another place they came to the house of a white woman who
had a Yana girl, seven or eight years of age. They seized this child,
in spite of the woman, and shot her through the head. "We must kill
them, big and little," said the leader; "nits will be lice."
A few miles north of Millville lived a Yana girl named Eliza,
industrious and much liked by those who knew her. She was working for
a farmer at the time. The party stopped before this house, and three
of the men entered it. "Eliza, come out," said one of them; "we are
going to kill you." She begged for her life. To the spokesman, who had
worked for her employer some time before, she said: "Don't kill me;
when you were here I cooked for you, I washed for you, I was kind to
you; I never asked pay of you; don't kill me now."
Her prayers were vain. They took Eliza, with her aunt and uncle, a
short distance from the house and shot the three. My informant counted
eleven bullets in Eliza's breast.
After this murder the party took a drink and started; but the leader,
in killing Eliza, said, "I don't think that little squaw is dead yet."
So he turned back and smashed in her skull with his musket. The man
who counted the bullet holes in her bosom, himself a white man, saw
her after the skull was broken. He knew the girl well, and gave me
these details.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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