It is the custom of the few Indians of Wintun stock, who now live in Cortina valley, in the western foothills of the Sacramento Valley at a point about eighty-five miles nearly due north of San Francisco, to hold each spring a ceremony called Hesi. During an attendance at this ceremony in May 1906, the following theories concerning the recent great earthquake which affected San Francisco and other parts of the Coast Range region in California were gained from a speech made by the shaman who conducted the ceremony and from discussion by other Indians assembled.
The world was originally much smaller than at present. As the Indian population in times past increased, the earth was rent and stretched by Coyote Old Man, the southern Wintun culture-hero, in order to make room for the newcomers. In the beginning the surface of the earth was a plain, but with the rendings, of which there have been already been four, the present mountains, valleys, and other physiographical features were formed. There is to be another great rending of the earth, in which the mountains are to be razed and the whole surface of the earth is to be made level, like the Wintun abode of the dead. Quite naturally, the great earthquake which had occurred less than a month previously was connected in the Indian mind with this expected catastrophe, particularly by virtue of the fact that at the time of the ceremony referred to there were small earth tremors felt almost every day, and also owing to the fact that at that particular time there was on Cache Creek, a point not more than fifteen miles distant, a great landslide which dammned the stream for several days, finally breaking with the weight of the accumlated water and doing considerable damage at Rumsey, the nearest town downstream.
There were, however, differences of opinion concerning these seismic disturbances. One of the shamans held that, as the Indians are so nearly extinct, these disturbances were the forerunners of the great levelling which is to transform the world. On the other hand, the old shaman above referred to, who conducted the ceremony on this occasion, held that the Indians are not entirely gone and that the disturbances were the forerunners of another stretching of the earth, this time in order to make room for the ever-increasing white population. He was of the opinion, however, that [when] all the Indians are dead, which will be very soon, according to him, this great catastrophe will totally destroy all things on the earth and render it like the Wintun abode of the dead.
This same difference in opinion was found to exist among many of the Indians assembled at this ceremony, some expressing the belief that the great levelling or end of the world was at hand, others accepting the explanation given by the old shaman that this was merely another stretching of the earth to make more room. But all seemed to be confident that ultimately there would be a great upheaval and levelling which would obliterate all things at present upon this earth.
The California Reader
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