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Snake
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Miguelino Salinan Snake Introduction by Katherine Turner The Miguelino Salinan story that follows is one of the eleven written down by J. Alden Mason on his second trip to the Salinan Indians in 1916. In 1910 J. Alden Mason had transferred from the University of Pennsylvania to the University of California to complete his graduate work in anthropology. He had no experience with linguistic fieldwork and only a sketchy acquaintance with Spanish, but he was soon doing fieldwork with Salinan-Spanish speakers. The next year, 1911, Mason received his doctorate with a dissertation on ‘‘The Ethnology of the Salinan Indians .’’ In 1916 Mason had a fellowship at the University of California and returned to his linguistic fieldwork with Salinan. Mason had a speech impediment (stutter) and had no language in common with the Salinan speakers he interviewed, so he hired Spanish interpreters, primarily J. Alonzo Forbes, a justice of the peace. Perhaps this helps explain why he often mixed the two Salinan dialects. The Salinan language, a memberof the Hokan stock, is comprised of two mutually intelligible dialects. The language was spoken in an area of central coastal California. Spanish intrusion came swiftly at the end of the eighteenth century. Two Franciscan missions were established in the area, the first less than two years after the first recorded Spanish expedition in 1769. By 1810 most of the Salinas River Valley groups and peoples from the Inner Coast Ranges were missionized. The death rate was extraordinary in the missions, and the Indians who survived were expected to speak Spanish. By the twentieth century only a handful of fluent speakers remained. Maria Ocarpia gave this mythological tale of the origin of rattlesnakes to J. Alden Mason in 1916. Ocarpia was also known to other linguists as Maria de Los Angeles. The daughter of Anesmo Bailon, she was first married to Fernando Ocarpio and then to Tito Encinales. She served as a teacher of Miguelino Salinan from 1901, when she worked with A. L. Kroeber, until 1932, when she last worked with J. P. Harrington. Mason describes her as an elderly woman in 1916. ‘‘Snake’’ shows the Christian influences of the Franciscan missionaries. The story takes place in mythological time and features the personifications of animals and natural phenomena, such as Hawk, Raven, Snake, and Whirlwind. This snake 241 power-of-place story appears to be part of a larger tale because it is comparatively short. Still, it is a self-contained whole by itself. The ‘‘dream-helper’’ is a West Coast specialization of the ‘‘guardian spirit’’ found throughout almost all of North America. In Salinan the dream-helper was a song and a physical object, often a flute. The object was held in the hand to invoke its power. When it was not in use, it was usually hidden in a distant rocky crevice. The dream-helper is found in south central California among the Tulare Yokuts and the Western Mono Indians . There are also a few scanty references to a dream-helper among the Southern Yokuts, the Chumash, and the Kitanemuks. Based on my experience with other records of the Salinan language, I have retranslated Mason’s text after phonemicizing and grammatically analyzing the story and working out a literal translation. With this translation we have a clearer reflection of the beauty of Maria Ocarpia’s retelling of this dramatic episode. Of the places mentioned in the story—Me:neka (Maynekah), Lo:yam (Loiyum), and Lesa:m (Laysahm)—only Lesa:m can be identified as the historical Moro Rock. suggested reading Mason, J. Alden. 1912. The Ethnology of the Salinan Indians. University of California Publications in Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 10, no. 4. Berkeley: University of California Press. . 1918. The Language of the Salinan Indians. University of California Publications in Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 14, no. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. Turner, Katherine. 1988. Salinan Linguistic Materials. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 10 (2): 266–70. Snake Told by Maria Ocarpia Translated by Katherine Turner Snake that ate Indians was born from Whirlwind, which fed it. Hawk heard it, and Raven said, ‘‘What shall we do? How great are your dream powers?’’ Hawk answered, ‘‘I have the power to catch Snake. I am ready.’’ ‘‘Good, mine is two or three mountains from here,’’ Raven said. ‘‘Where is that?’’ asked Hawk. Raven told him, ‘‘At Me:neka.’’ ‘‘Where is that place again?’’ asked Hawk. ‘‘At Lo:yam. Where’s yours?’’ ‘‘It’s around my neck...