|
The day
is blustery and clear as you stand on the high ground
near Nipaguay, the town above the majestic bay, gazing
at the wondrous sight of a giant canoe with huge white
wings. Casts No Shadow, the shaman, has foreseen this
event in a vision. He knows that strange men
riding grotesque four-legged creatures will soon
disembark, and the result for his people, the
Kumeyaay Indians, who have lived in this place for
centuries, will not be good.
Soon,
this place will be renamed San Diego. Fields sown in
food crops for the Kumeyaay will be used for horse
pasture by these barbaric invaders who call themselves Spanish.
Customs and traditions centuries old will be banished,
to be replaced by something called Christianity; those
who fail to embrace this new world-view will be forced
into acquiescence by beatings, starvation, and outright
genocide. Rape will be common and your people will
become slaves to these new masters, forced to build
their so-called "missions."
But, you
don’t know all this yet. You greet the newcomers—whose
faces and bodies, like their horses, are covered with
hair—fearing the worst, but hoping for the best. You
love peace, but you are capable of waging a just war.
Yet, you have no knowledge of the thunderous power in
the sticks slung over their shoulders and you will not
be able to resist . . .
MISSION
is the story of a young Kumeyaay Indian bride whose life
and dreams are shattered when the Spanish padres and
army leatherjackets invade Southern California and start
"civilizing" the Indians. This spell-binding
new novel is written by Margaret Wyman, who makes her
home in Idyllwild, CA in the sparkling San Jacinto
Mountains.
|
