THE TURQUOISE GOD

T

A MEXICAN LEGEND

BY ISABEL MOORE

HE Turquoise God was born white; but urged by the Sun whom all gods and men obey-he yielded to the power of secret flame and put on a beautiful azure; the colour of the heart of heaven.' Consequently Turquoise, even unto this day, is so in sympathy with the skies that it is always changing in shade light blue when the heavens are clear, dull and sometimes green when the heavens are in a sullen mood. And, as sympathy with heaven is but the medium for the sympathy humane, so in turn does Turquoise guard its owner from evil by drawing upon itself any malignant influence: growing pale when there is danger, and in all things being so helpful that there has arisen a proverb among mankind which says, 'A turquoise given by a loving hand carries with it happiness and good fortune.'

But all this has come about in the long ages that have elapsed since in the Valley of White Turquoise in the land of the ancient Incas the Turquoise God that was born white obeyed the Sun and became blue.

Now the Temple of the Sun stood in the City of the Kings, Coricaucha which means the Place of Gold, and certainly there was much gold in that place where, according to an old Chronicler, 'every fountain, pathway and wall was regarded as a holy mystery.'

Among far-reaching fields of maize stood the Temple, builded of stone, simple and solid, as befitted the earthly dwelling of the deity who presided over the destinies of man; who gave light and warmth to the nations; whose breath was life to the vegetable world; who was the father of the royal dynasty; and the founder of the Empire of the Incas. And far beyond the plateau on which it stood, toward the distant, magic west of the world, stretched the crests of the frozen Andes.

Upon the chief altar of the Temple burned the sacred flame, cared for by the Virgins of the Sun. This was the holy of holies. At the west end of the Temple was emblazoned a representation of the face of the Sun God, glancing in all directions through innumerable shafts of golden rays; and so placed that the Sun himself, when rising and shining in at the eastern entrance, looked directly upon his prototype and lighted

the whole edifice with fresh young glory. And, opening from the great chamber with its frieze of heavy gold, were various chapels sacred to the other ruling deities: the silver-faced Moon Goddess, mother of the Incas, the sparkling stars, the iridescent Rainbow, and the mighty Gods of Thunder and Lightning.

These were the greater gods. And near them, like satellites, were the lesser gods, of whom the Turquoise God was one. But though he was a lesser god, he was a very ancient god in that land, and with Crystal and Coral had embellished the sanctuary of the dread deity, Pachacamoc, the Creator of the World, he whom the Incas had found among their predecessors in the land and who was yet older than their Sun God.

It was during the Feast of Raymi, of the summer solstice, when the Sun God returned to his people from the South, that the White Men came. There had long been predictions of this coming of a white and gleaming people, new Children of the Sun. The oracles had said that the race of the Incas should become extinct with the twelfth Inca, who was now upon the throne. There was strife between the royal brothers. Comets had been seen in the heavens. Earthquakes had shaken the land. The Moon had been en-ringed with fire of many colours. A thunderbolt had fallen upon one of the royal palaces and burned it to ashes. An eagle, chased by hawks, screaming in the air, had been seen to hover above the great Square of Cuzco; and when, pierced by the talons of his tormentors, the king of birds had fallen lifeless in the presence of many of the Inca nobles, the wise men read in the event an augury of their own destruction.

Pilgrims were assembled, prostrate and breathless, for the first rays of the Sun God to strike his golden likeness in the Temple, at the time of the Feast of Raymi. Conch and trumpet and atabal brought forth barbaric melodies. The royal mummies, with their robes profusely ornamented, were seated in gold-embossed chairs, to welcome the Sun God.

Then came the White Men from the North, Pizarro and his followers, in the name of the Holy Vicar of God and the Sovereign of Spain.

Like thunder clouds, dense masses of warriors closed down upon the slopes and summits of the mountains. There advanced a forest of crests and waving banners; of lances and battleaxes edged with gleaming copper. The ground shook with the tread of heavy cavalry. A trumpet sounded a prolonged note, and the Spaniards descended upon the beautiful and sacred city as it lay lapped in its verdant valley. They went directly to the square in front of the great Temple. They proclaimed

that the dynasty had fallen; the sceptre forever passed from among the Incas.

Before this race of dazzling strangers, dropped from the clouds, the people fled. And it was not many days before flame enveloped the city of Coricaucha. Towers and huts and halls and palaces went down before it. Graves were rifled of their buried jewels; human beings were tortured to extort hidden treasure; the royal mummies were stripped of their ornaments. The ancient seat of empire was laid in ashes,— all but the temple that stood ever forth against the flame-while the shadowy Andes looked down upon all.

So did the Spaniards to their brethren who became a flock without a fold. And on the Temple of the Sun they raised the Cross of Christ. The old Gods fled. Only the Sun God, who in his manifold greatness could not desert his people, visited again that land.

Along the narrow streets and by the banks of the crystal river that flowed through the city, hastened the Turquoise God: on through the straggling borders of houses along the outer edge of the city, on and again. on among the rocks and waterfalls and woods, as though the Spaniards were close behind. Indeed they did hunt for him after their appetite for gold had been somewhat appeased. But he eluded pursuit and by that time had got far beyond their reach, passing the length of the Empire, a hundred leagues, north by the great highway of Cuzco. Along the Cordillera of the Andes from South America and the Isthmus, he entered into the land of the mighty Aztecs and the kingdom of Anahuac, where the War God, Mexitle, had builded his city at the direction of the Eagle. And there he found a state of affairs curiously like that in the land of the Incas. Destruction and pillage by the omnipresent White Men were raging; the temples were in ruin; the Older Gods had fled.

In that land the Turquoise God received the name of Chalchihuitl, while he dwelt for a little space upon Turquoise Mountain; and, later on, he hid in a cave where years and years afterwards were the famous turquoise mines of the Cerillos.

But nowhere could he find a safe retreat. So on he fled, northward, ever keeping near the ridge of the Great Divide, and passing the whole length of the tierra caliente: and yet again beyond the vast table-lands where the hills stretch away and ever onward to the north. And on all the country round about over which he wandered, the Turquoise God left azure footprints.

In the land of his final exile, among the mesas in the land of the Zunis, he at last found refuge, and a companion.

The Goddess of Salt had for a very long time been greatly troubled by the people near her domain on the sea-shore who took away her snowy treasures without offering any sacrifice in return; and so she forsook the ocean and went to live in the mountains. But the people of New Mexico followed after her; and she, wearied to death of them, declared she would pass from their view forever, and penetrated further and further inland. Whenever she stopped beside a pool to rest she turned it salty; and she wandered so long about the great basins of the West that much of the water in them is very bitter.

Then it was that she and the Turquoise God met, and travelled on together, hand-in-hand. Each had the same need of companionship. Each had lost all of this world except themselves. Therefore they loved each other very happily.

Presently they came to a wonderful mesa, guarded by a high wall of sandstone. This they broke through, making a great arched portal. But the Goddess of Salt hit her head against the portal when passing under it and broke off one of her beautiful plumes so that it fell outside. And there it lies unto this day.

And within that magic Mesa, hidden in the mirage of the desert, they rested side by side forever. Their foot prints can still be seen there— the snowy salt and the outcrops of azure turquoise nuggets.

I

SAN FRANCISCO UNDER

STRESS

BY HARRY COWELL

Na house set by his own hands on the rocks of a hill overlooking life and the once fair city of St. Francis, today so desolate, there has dwelt these many years, and still dwells, with God for next-door neighbor, a humble worker in words, whom now an incurable love of the impossible constrains to dip his pen in the gloom of earthquake and the glow of fire, to the end of drawing, rough-sketchwise, from his particular point of view, the twofold disaster that of late has befallen California.

To the vast majority of San Franciscans, awaking that dread morning in sudden alarm from dreamless sleep, it seemed that the dawn was come of the last day, and the earth in the throes of dissolution. Space was passing into nothingness. Time had already ceased to be. For forty-odd seconds there was eternity.

Then matter righted itself, and, after a fashion, mind; and the old order of things was in a measure re-established. But even at noon, six hours and more after the great trembler, men, with the awe of the unknowable still heavy upon them, gazed first at the ominous blood-red sun and then at one another in silence, yet, as who should say, The end of all things is at hand!

Reason had been hurled from her throne, and lay stunned. During the interregnum, Fancy, with doting Superstition for prime minister, held sway; and, as if the graves had gaped and given up their dead, the air was felt to be peopled with dim beings hurrying to and fro in confusion or huddling together in affright. From the north and from the south, from the east and from the west they seemed to come, to foregather into a vast concourse, and suddenly to disperse the departed, just as the imagination had often pictured them in the Valley of Jehoshaphat on the day of judgment.

With not a few of the braver of those still living, although the spirit was undismayed, the flesh none the less feared for itself; and one rose up at the voice of a bird, and at the footfall of Love upon the stairs fled in panic fear. Masks were shaken off, disguises dropped, and human nature went naked about the ruined streets, discovering both unexpected beauty and ugliness beyond belief. Much that is hidden was revealed and many