The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 28, 1901, Page 7

THE SUNDAY CALL. — HIS is the fifth of a series of J} articles being published by Tha Sunday Cell in the interest of charity as exemplified by those char- itable institutions of San Francisco controlled by women. These papers are either written by cfficials of the different organiza- tions or have been read and approved by them, and therefore can be relied ppon as accurate in detail. With thority the guarantee of such au- they cannot fail to awaken ong the many readers who a general way, that gocd ng done, yet lack epecific information as to how, whore and by whom. and charity. s ck But the rity. Go out of the Poor Aged and see if you with this couplet. 2 combination of the rongest in evidence is so quietly 1 unosten- o th ters, is the last earth- ) old men and » too feeble to work g » the alms se 8 care for themselves s to the home is age, ill- Until the house w no one presenting s ever turned away. t of its kind on the been open between and the work of arvelous. for their building. The them on Howard enth and Seven- them a refuge un- uild such a home at the; wi want and Joseph, patron saint ithout means of any kind or without wing where their next meal is com- rve a beautiful child- w at they will be cared for, and, ke tired children, leave it afl in the nds of they. Every lab slowly and up a gentie pony and s goes his rounds for con- riously h two B fons. No distinction is made in the asking, as de in the giving. Merchants for food, for and have put nd given i# m none and families are asked clothes and for money their n pockets z hands in are busy most of the who are able about a little, go dc to their sitting 3 tch wonderful crazy d while the hour 1 knitting. he source of com- 1 ! j there is scarcely a time w £0n rippled form is not bent in may be found any pleas- walking in twos or threes dis- cussing the days when “I was a boy” or o0ld fellow has been a carpen- up a tiny workshop and with his tools. It is 2 to tinker about and bufld 1 all day shelf here or drive extra nail His partner has a paint brush n the air most of the time. & nd anything needs his at- vou to understand T am the p of this crowd,” he said row of colors. “I stood behind a « g each one has his little to do. If they are given the morn- news becomes so absorb- e —————— ORTRIBUTION ‘WAGON ing tha. the k is forgotten, and as a consequence they are all kept until Sun- day. So the day is passed in working, smok- ing and chattigg They are at peace wilh the world and the world is at peace with them. Although living in the same house and being served by the same willing hands, the men and women live as entirely apart as two distinct familie Their dormitbries, with their rows and rows of green enamel beds, are on differ- ént floors, and so are their dining-rooms with their numbered chairs and napkin rings ch individual on becoming an inmate of the home receives a number and all their belongings are marked with it from that time on. Shoes, hosiery, all wearing apparel, in fact, is labeled, as much of it is exactly alike, barring size and shape. It is the only way to avoid confusion.’ Up on th floor is a bright, sunny room filled with beds, couches and easy chairs. It is known as the infitmary, but is the jolliest one imaginable. Most of the inmates are not really ill, but are un- able to walk without aid, and cannot get ©up R L ] " ¢ and down the stairs at all. ‘Tneir tongues are not affected in the slightest, however, and they keep up a busy chatter 11l the blessed day long. The hands that are slipped gently about a cripple and that soothe pain away are those of kindness, and the lesson is not lost, but is repeated in smaller ways by the old people. If an old man or woman is missed from his or her usual place friends crawl up the stairs and are all solicitation. Noth- ing that they are able to do is too much trouble. The Sisters say the old people are rich with charity and loving kindness, if not with earthly goods. Often'on entering the home the old peo- ple are extremely feeble and walk with crutches. After a few weeks of regular wholesome meals and contentment ; improve wonderfully—so much so they put aside the crutch and use only a cane. Often when they are 'in a hurry even that is forgotten, until some one calls their attention to the fact, and then not another step can be taken with- cut it. They are like so many children to take care of. Had the home been four times as large as it 1s, every room could have been easily filled. - One day last week fourteen appli- cants were'turned away, and rarely a day passes without four or five. One old woman was told that all the beds were taken. *Oh, good sister, take me in. I've got a little cot of my own and can sleep any place at night, and fold it up in the day time,” she urged. Poor old soul, the house seemea to her a haven of rest and her one ambition was to siip into QUILTING BEE any nook or cranny that might be free from care. For that is what they all are—free from all anxiety of any kind. From the day that their name 4ppears on the roll until the last call, they are sure of all nucessi- ties and much kindness. Even the littie tobacco that the men smoke is provided for them and the rést of their days are spent in thanking God for his great kind- ness to them. No wonder the home is filled to its utmost capacity and that it has prospered exceedingly. No distinction is made as regards creed or nationzlity, excepting when the time that is allatted every man has expired. Then all are laid to rest according to their belief, and to the best ability of the home. K KX “ By Postal Cara. ) e & o+ T began by the literary girl sending what she thought was a joke to the editor of the comic monthly. He promptly returned it with a sin- gle.word scrawled across it In blue pen- cil—*01d.” “8o are you,” the, same day. “Do you think so?” he seribbled under 2 photo of himself that he Sent to her. “Not at all!” came the sny answer, after she had admired its good points. “Are you?’ Evidently this editor want- ed to know things. “What woman is this?” was the erig- matic sentence on the postal. “Prove it.” 'This young editor was noth- ing if not insistent. “‘Here 'tis.” And the photographs of some literary are not half bad. Very fine,” was as much as he dared by postal. “Same to you!" And the girl thought the queer matter closed. “Why don’t you write at length?” “Can’t.” “Why not?” - “Am otherwise engaged.” “To whom? “My future husband, you silly! My postals have given out. Good-by!"—Anna Cosulich, in August Smart Set. she answered by postal Jhe Jirange HMabits of Our dildest Jribe. ¥ ~ —ip DH‘.'s_mALLY. the Seri are cast In season of cactus fruits the younger fo.< out thought of the cutlery. heroic mold. The mean adult and even the elders fatten inordinately hout Seriland (as implied, in- stature is 6 feet for male and 5 on tunas and their seeds—the latter eaten deed, the proper ignation *‘Our- feet™81% inches for females; i. e., twice in ancient Californian fashion. ireat-Mother-Folk-Flere™) the matron with the possible exception of one or two Larger land game is a rich resource, s higher rank than even the dvugh- Patagonian pecples, the Seri are the tall- and its chase'is at once an apprenticeshi warrior. he tribal law is founded est aborigines of America. Both sexes are to and a mimicry of warfare, terminat notable for robustitude of chest and slenderness of limb, though the extremi- ties are large. The great chests and huge haunches of the Seri bear witness to their own naive descriptions of the chase, in which three or five striplings partly ‘surround and partly run down jackrabbits, and five hunters habitually capture deer in similar fashion: and these recitals are corrobor- ated in turn by dozens of vaqueros who have seen small bands spring on the withers of full grown horses, break their necks by jaguar-like twists, rend them into quarters with teeth and nails, and then shoulder these and flee over the sand- wastes so swiftly as to escape pursuing horsemen. The Seri inhabit a region of hunters, yet they are so far the fleetest of all and so distinguished by a pecu- liar ‘‘collected” or up-stepping gait (like that of a thoroughbred racer or prowling coyote) as to have gained their tribal sobriquet—they are “‘spry” par excellence, even among the light-footed Tarahumari and Otomi and Papago. In their own view the glory of the Serl tribe is in their hair; it is black and luxuriant, and is worn long by both sexes, who brush and cultivate it with tireless assiduity; it is not merely admired, but revered nearly or quite unto worship, and interwoven with faith in a Samsonian cuit which throws light on many obscure cus- ‘toms of various peoples in the several stages of culture. The tresses are treas- ured as symbols of vigor and of fecundity; the combings are kept scrupulously smoothed and twisted into slender strands, wound on skewers and eventually worked into necklaces and belts; indeed, the locks symbolize shield as well as strength, even to the engendering of ideas of ap- pareiing along those lines of associative and emblematic development by which the primitive mind is swayed. Tke chief occupations of the Seri are food-getting and fighting. Their ‘fore- most food source is the green turtle, which is taken by means of a light lip- head harpoon, broken up with cobble- stenes, and promptly gorged from entrails to flipper-bones and sinew—and even to plastron if the family is large and the chelonian small. Pelicans and other water fowl yield quotas of food, as do all man- ner of fish and shell fish; and during the Ider jar: in a berserker blood-craz: than that of the carnivore v; but the small burrowing squirrel (who helped to build the world in their mythology) is? 1d multi- ymb the practically sacred, and has so increased plied under its taboo as to h sub-soil of all Seriland and protect the principality from invading horsemen, and afford ohe of the most striking examples of unwittingly bene- ficial co-operation between men and ani- mals. Weapons are selected and used in ac- cordance with zoic moti the cobble- stone implements are classed as teeth in Seri thought and language, and arrow points (including fores! harpoon heads, and firestick foreshafts ke sym- bolize teeth of sea lion or s far-rumored and ill-repute 3 the arrow poison of the tribe is but a witc brew of death symbols wholly magical in motive and effective (if at all) through chand®, carriage of ger mess. The much-mooted question of canribal- ism must be left open; the affirmative is favored by the blood craze of battle and presumption that it ends like the chase it mimics in gluttonous gorging of raw of the morbific fiesh, and also by other analogies; -but the negative may rest provisionally on the dearth of direct evidence and the consistent denials entered by the tribes- men themsclves. The typical Seri tool is but a cobble- stone picked up along:ide at random, useq once or mere according to need and fit- ness, never shaped or fashioned save wear of use, and at once discarded f a cidentally so spawled or split as to form sharp edges. Yet it is a revelation.to see the variety of uses to which the crude cobble may be put; breaking up turtles, felling carrizal and octilla, rending the tough hide of horse or deer, grinding seeds, severing tendons, chopping off cords between two used as hammer and anvil—these are but a few of their func- tions. Thus the tribesmen typify the pro- tolithic stage of culture, the plane of de- signless useé of materials furnished freely by nature; and as befits their lowly plar they are devoid of knife-sense so ut that the warrior with borrowed knife his back and equine haunch befcre him tears hide and tendon with his teeth with- oh faith and expressed in terms of kin- ship and elative age; the kinship is traced only in the maternal line (in fact. it is questionable whether paternity is recognized—the female has no word for father. and the term used by the male to demote his s seems of doubtful ing—and there are no old men in the So the matron is priestess, law- e, while her brothers in or- the appellate executives, and her spouse merely a perpetual guest from another clan without voice in do- mestic affairs, save perchance in social tumults attending war. The woman is the prepotent factor in tribal existence; she is the shaman who brews the magic tribe) giver and jud der of age arrow poison; the Wise One who ecasts protecting charms over outgoing warriors and lays spells on enemie she is the shaper of the life- rving olla, the maker of the sacred hair-corn; she is the 1a of the feast, sharing the portions and keeping alive the distributive tabus by which the rights of the weak are pro- tected; she is the blood carrier and the face-mark bearer of the elan; and at death she is buried with ceremony and mourned long and loud as a link in the tribal lineage, while her warrior spouse rots where he falls. Especially rigorous is the Seri law concepning marriage (i e., the first mar- riage, for the incidental polygamy of later decades seems but a ripple on the surface of deeper thought and custom). The sacrament fills a year from the first mootings to the final feast. During this period the groom is banned (under pain of owtlawry) to show perfect manhoad, according to tribal standards, by sue- cessfully passing the m renuous tests of providence and continence during the same period the prospective bride oceu- pies a place of character making prom- inence in cian and tribe, and the probation ends in a feast measuring the skill of the groom as fisherman and hunter and the thrift of the bride as a maker of wares, and hence fixing the place of the pair in tribal esteem. A besetting fallacy pro- claims that law is lacking in primitive life, and that the éonjugal relations of the prime were laxer than in later times. Many recent facts point the fallacy, but the ciearest indication of all is found. in the fcemal mating of the Seri—a union more closely hedged about with observ- ance and @remony and public counseling than that of any other people thus far known.—From the Land of Sunshine.