The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-03-18
THE SAVING OF "A NATION
How the Chimahuevis Grew From Two
to a Hundred
All In the Memory of Mantle Story Of the
Family of Chief Bill and
His Squaw

has fund of Indian stories that is mex
haustible. His best. certainly his most
poetic, he recently told to Herald re.
porter, and it illustrates the fact that In
dian tribes do not die out so easily as is
sometimes thought. Mr.. Tingman' story
| is as follows:
| A number of old timers, real old timers,
can remember that there was warlike
race of Indians called the Chimahuevis
settled along the Mojave river who COM
mitted so many depredations on emf
| grants that the government found it nee
,, essary to esta blish Fort Cody, and wal
resulted, which left but handful of the
tribe alive. These settled at what is now
known as Twenty Palms, where
there was but spring OF water, and they
rapidly died off, leaving but two, old Chief
Bill and his squaw, the last OF the once
powerful nation.
Chief Bill had no children, and this
fact caused him great sorrow, for he saw
that with his death the once great tribe
would become extinct. The old couple
were sun worshipers, and every morning
and evening prayed to the great god OF
fire that they might be blessed with pap
pooses, but several years passed by and
about the wickiup.
One morning the squaw went to the
spring to fill her ola and said her prayer
to the sun, and then bent over the clear
pool of water to fill the OLA. when, to her
astonishment and fear, she saw under the
surface the beautiful face of baby, a real
Chimahuevi urchin, with its coarse
black hair, serious, earnest black eyes, a
clean bronze skin, and its little mouth
already showing the lines of determine
ton and courage characteristic OF the
race. A.-a1t
M. - A.. 1
it aroused into a passion the squaw s
motherly instincts, which had been kept
alive by her prayers and her hopes, and
the knowledge that on herself depended
the continuance of a race which had once
been the lords of the desert she and Chief
Bill loved so well. She stretched her lean
brown arms into the pool as if to clasp
the babe to her fast beating heart, but
with gesture it repealed her, and by
signs told her that the water of that
spring was only good to grow corn and
tobacco, and if she wished any pap
pooses in her wickiup. she and Bill must
move to another water hole, about twelve
miles away toward where Indio now is,
and then the lovely babe appeared to melt
away into the bubbles of the spring and
dissolved into little ripples that danced
merrily in the beams OF the smiling sun,
to whom the old squaw lifted her voice in
thanksgiving.
Chief Bill. when he heard the squaw's
story, pulled down his wickup and
moved to the spring at Indio, and in due
course of time lusty man child arrived
TO gladden. the old couples heart and
then came others, girls and boys until
all told the Chimahuevs numbered twelve
souls.
The youngsters grew fast and in the
kindllng atmosphere of the desert matur-
ity comes quickly; it was not many years
before the eldest of the dozen children
began to think of wives and husbands,
and the boys went among the Mojaves
and chose their squaws and the Mojave
and married his daughters; but Bill al
ways insisted in the latter case that they
must join his tribe and remain, and his
family grew wonderfully fast.
And Chief Bill and his squaw moved
back to their home at Twenty nine Palms,
for the spell was broken ana they saw the
Chlmaheuvis were not to become ex-
tinct.
Whatever may be the virtue of the water
or the truth OF the old squaw's story, 1T is
now fact that old Bill in place of, as
was once the case, being the chief of a
tribe consisting of only his wife and him
self now rules over family of more than
one hundred defendants, and one which
each year is materially augmented
As he holds up his latest great grand
child to the admiring gaze of visitors
Chief Bill looks as happy and wise as
Solomon, and grunts "Ugh Heap Injun
now. Water long way down gulch heap
good
II visited the spring recently." said Mr..
Tingman to Herald man, "and | found
Yankee prospe ,tor there, who was max
ing arrangements with Bill to bottle the
water and put it on the Market