The Arrow-Maker Part 1

The Arrow-Maker.

by Mary Austin.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The greatest difficulty to be met in the writing of an Indian play is the extensive misinformation about Indians. Any real aboriginal of my acquaintance resembles his prototype in the public mind about as much as he does the high-nosed, wooden sign of a tobacco store, the fact being that, among the fifty-eight linguistic groups of American aboriginals, customs, traits, and beliefs differ as greatly as among Slavs and Sicilians. Their very speech appears not to be derived from any common stock. All that they really have of likeness is an average condition of primitiveness: they have traveled just so far toward an understanding of the world they live in, and no farther. It is this general limitation of knowledge which makes, in spite of the multiplication of tribal customs, a common att.i.tude of mind which alone affords a basis of interpretation.

But before attempting to realize the working of Indian psychology, you must first rid yourself of the notion that there is any real difference between the tribes of men except the explanations. What determines man's behavior in the presence of fever, thunder, and the separations of death, is the nature of his guess at the causes of these things. The issues of life do not vary so much with the conditions of civilization as is popularly supposed.

Chiefest among the misconceptions of primitive life, which make difficult any dramatic presentation of it, is the notion that all human contacts are accompanied by the degree of emotional stress that obtains only in the most complex social organizations. We are always hearing, from the people farthest removed from them, of "great primitive pa.s.sions," when in fact what distinguishes the pa.s.sions of the tribesmen from our own is their greater liability to the pacific influences of nature, and their greater freedom from the stimulus of imagination. What among us makes for the immensity of emotion, is the great weight of acc.u.mulated emotional tradition stored up in literature and art, almost entirely wanting in the camps of the aboriginals. There the two greatest themes of modern drama, love and ambition, are modified, the one by the more or less communal nature of tribal labor, the other by the plain fact that in the simple, open-air life of the Indian the physical stress of s.e.x is actually much less than in conditions called civilized.

When the critics are heard talking of "drama of great primitive pa.s.sions," what they mean is great barbaric pa.s.sions, pa.s.sions far enough along in the process of socialization to be subject to the interactions of wealth, caste, and established religion, and still free from the obligation of politeness. But the life of the American Indian provides no such conditions, and, moreover, in the factor which makes conspicuously for the degree of complication called Plot, is notably wanting,--I mean in the factor of Privacy. Where all the functions of living are carried on in the presence of the community, or at the best behind the thin-walled, leafy huts, human relations become simplified to a degree difficult for our complexer habit to comprehend. The only really great pa.s.sions--great, I mean, in the sense of being dramatically possible--are communal, and find their expression in the dance which is the normal vehicle of emotional stress.

In _The Arrow-Maker_ the author, without dwelling too much on tribal peculiarities, has attempted the explication of this primitive att.i.tude toward a human type common to all conditions of society. The particular mould in which the story is cast takes shape from the manner of aboriginal life in the Southwest, anywhere between the Klamath River and the Painted Desert; but it has been written in vain if the situation has not also worked itself out in terms of your own environment.

The Chisera is simply the Genius, one of those singular and powerful characters whom we are still, with all our learning, unable to account for without falling back on the primitive conception of gift as arising from direct communication with the G.o.ds. That she becomes a Medicine Woman is due to the circ.u.mstance of being born into a time which fails to discriminate very clearly as to just which of the inexplicable things lie within the control of her particular gift.

That she accepts the interpretation of her preeminence which common opinion provides for her, does not alter the fact that she is no more or less than just the gifted woman, too much occupied with the use of her gift to look well after herself, and more or less at the mercy of the tribe. What chiefly influences their att.i.tude toward her is worthy of note, being no less than the universal, unreasoned conviction that great gift belongs, not to the possessor of it, but to society at large. The whole question then becomes one of how the tribe shall work the Chisera to their best advantage.

How they did this, with what damage and success is to be read, but if to be read profitably, with its application in mind to the present social awakening to the waste, the enormous and stupid waste, of the gifts of women. To one fresh from the consideration of the roots of life as they lie close to the surface of primitive society, this obsession of the recent centuries, that the community can only be served by a gift for architecture, for administration, for healing, when it occurs in the person of a male, is only a trifle less ridiculous than that other social stupidity, namely, that a gift of mothering must not be exercised except in the event of a particular man being able, under certain restrictions, to afford the opportunity. There is perhaps no social movement going on at present so deep-rooted and dramatic as this struggle of Femininity to recapture its right to serve, and still to serve with whatever powers and possessions it finds itself endowed. But a dramatic presentation of it is hardly possible outside of primitive conditions where no tradition intervenes to prevent society from accepting the logic of events.

Whatever more there may be in _The Arrow-Maker_, besides its Indian color, should lie in the discovery by the Chisera, to which the author subscribes, that it is also in conjunction with her normal relation for loving and bearing that the possessor of gifts finds the greatest increment of power. To such of these as have not discovered it for themselves, _The Arrow-Maker_ is hopefully recommended.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

_The Arrow-Maker_ was first published as produced at The New Theatre, New York, in the spring of 1911. In that edition certain concessions were made to what was thought to be the demand for a drama of Indian life which should present the Indian more nearly as he is popularly conceived.

After four years the success of the published play as an authentic note on aboriginal life as well as a drama suitable for production in schools and colleges, seems to warrant its publication in the original form. As it now stands, the book not only conforms to the author's original conception of the drama, but to the conditions of the life it presents.

With the addition of notes and glossary it is hoped the present edition will meet every demand that can be made on an honest attempt to render in dramatic form a neglected phase of American life.

M. A.

THE ARROW-MAKER

ACT FIRST

SCENE.--_The hut of the_ CHISERA, _in the foot-hills of the Sierras.

It stands at the mouth of a steep, dark canon, opening toward the valley of Sagharawite. At the back rise high and barren cliffs where eagles nest; at the foot of the cliffs runs a stream, hidden by willow and buckthorn and toyon. The wickiup is built in the usual Paiute fas.h.i.+on, of long willows set about a circular pit, bent over to form a dome, thatched with reeds and gra.s.s. About the hut lie baskets and blankets, a stone metate, other household articles, all of the best quality; in front is a clear s.p.a.ce overflowing with knee-deep many-colored bloom of the California spring. A little bank that runs from the wickiup to the toyon bushes is covered with white forget-me-nots. The hearth-fire between two stones is quite out, but the deerskin that screens the opening of the hut is caught up at one side, a sign that the owner is not far from home, or expects to return soon._

_At first glance the scene appears devoid of life, but suddenly the call of a jay bird is heard faintly and far up the trail that leads to the right among the rocks. It is repeated nearer at hand, perfectly imitated but with a nuance that advises of human origin, and two or three half-naked Indians are seen to be making their way toward the bottom of the canon, their movements so cunningly harmonized with the lines of the landscape as to render them nearly invisible._ CHOCO _and_ PAMAQUASH _with two others come together at the end of the bank farthest from the_ CHISERA'S _hut._

CHOCO

Who called?

PAMAQUASH

It came from farther up.

CHOCO

Yavi, I think.

PAMAQUASH

He must have seen something.

CHOCO

By the Bear, if the Castacs have crossed our boundaries, there are some of them shall not recross it!

PAMAQUASH

Hush--the Chisera--she will hear you!

CHOCO

She is not in the hut. She went out toward the hills early this morning, and has not yet returned. Besides, if the Castacs have crossed, we cannot keep it from the women much longer.

PAMAQUASH

(_Who has moved up to a better post of observation._) There is some one on the trail.

(_The jay's call is heard and answered softly by_ PAMAQUASH.)

CHOCO

Yavi. But Tavwots is not with him. (YAVI _comes dropping from the cliffs._) What have you seen?

YAVI

Smoke rising--by Deer Leap. Two long puffs and a short one.

(_The news is received with sharp, excited murmurs._)

PAMAQUASH