“Here’s another! Here’s another! Here’s another!”
It is the excited voice of a naked, gesticulating youngster, little
more than three years old, who is pointing to a tiny hole in the smooth
surface of the tide beach at his feet.
“Yes, yes, child, I am coming,” is the reply, in soft, affectionate
tones, by a woman a few steps away.
“But I am hungry, I am hungry,” comes the insistent, half-petulant
voice.
“Well, you can’t have any clams now, you know. Mark the one you have
and run along to find some more. Soon we shall go home.”
At this the child stoops unsteadily and with a rough, pointed splinter
of bone draws a circle around the hole, then patters away along the wet
beach.
Presently his mother comes forward, with a rough basket in one hand
and a short, stout, pointed stick in the other. She is barefooted and
bareheaded. Her only garment is a sort of skirt made of loose bark
strands, reaching from the waist to the knees. Her heavy, glistening,
black hair is fastened in two locks hanging down in front, partially
covering her breasts. Her complexion, a shade darker than that of the
child, is the color of a smoked, reddish brick or of a certain shade of
Oriental bronze. Scarcely more than twenty years old, she has a fine,
comely figure.
Having reached the spot indicated by the child, the young woman sets
the basket down. Then, grasping the stick with both hands, she drives
it into the firm beach mud and with a single, deft, prying motion
brings to the surface a good-sized clam. She picks it up, throws it
into the partly filled basket, and proceeds a few steps to where the
child is calling her anew.
Similar scenes are being enacted on every hand. Women and children,
numbering close to one hundred in all, are scattered along the beach
for nearly half a mile; a hundred yards or so beyond there is another,
somewhat smaller group. In both groups the women and older children are
busy with the digging-stick, while the younger children run about over
the beach locating the clams. Presently there is a curious splash near
the edge of the receding waters. The splash is repeated once or twice
and with it a chorus of voices rings out.
“Wixi! Wixi!” (Stingaree! Stingaree!)
A dozen or so half-grown children come running from different
directions, all shouting vehemently, “He’s mine! He’s mine! I saw him
first! I saw him first!”
There is nothing actually to be seen, except perhaps a small area
immediately off shore where the water is unusually muddy. Into the
water the children rush, keeping clear of the roiled spot, and when
ranged partly around it on the sea side, they begin to poke into it
with their sticks. Very soon there is another violent splash and a
large, monstrous looking creature is seen to lift itself almost bodily
out of the shallow water.
“Wixi! Wixi! We’ve got you!” shouts the chorus. “We’ve got you!”
The steadily receding water soon reveals the cause of the excitement—an
extra large eagle ray, a kind of flat-fish, in outline something like
an immense butterfly, plus a long whip-like tail, near the root of
which appears a sharply-pronged, bony excrescence which can inflict
a severe wound. Wixi is an ugly fellow, and as he lies there in two
or three inches of water, flopping spasmodically, lashing his tail
viciously from side to side, the children plant their sticks firmly in
the ground, making a sort of fence around him, while they stand back
out of reach. But, the moment the monster subsides, all pound and punch
with their sticks, screaming and carrying on like a pack of fighting
dogs. Finally, the oldest of the children, a girl of ten or eleven,
manages to insert her digging-stick in the creature’s eye. A few
violent lashings, and the ray lies still.
The girl remains leaning on the stick, holding the great fish firmly
transfixed. The other children fall over each other in a scramble to
get near it. All seek to pierce the dead body with their sticks and to
pull it away. But their implements are too weak and dull. Some grasp
with their fingers at the slimy thing, but to no avail. The girl stands
unmoved.
In their rage some of the children suddenly turn upon her. In an effort
to defend herself, she lets go her stick, and at the same moment the
big ray is pulled away, but not by any of the original claimants.
During the tumult a boy of thirteen or fourteen had approached
unnoticed from the larger group of clam gatherers, and had wound the
tail of the ray two or three times around his hand. Now when the girl’s
hold on the stick is released, he jerks the ray away and starts to run
as fast as his legs can carry him toward his own people, the body of
the big fish dragging behind him over the slippery mud.
There is a tremendous uproar. Some of the children attempt to follow,
but they are soon outdistanced. The girl who killed the ray, finally
realizing what has happened, bursts out: “You took my wixi! You took my
wixi! You—wixi! You—!” Her voice chokes with sobs. But her epithet is
taken up by a chorus of voices in both groups of clam diggers, those of
Kawina and those of Akalan: “You wixi! You wixi!”
But the boy pays no heed. When he reaches the shore proper, he winds
the ray’s tail a few more times around his hand, swings the immense
body over his shoulders, and disappears among the marsh weeds in the
direction of his home.
Wixi! Wixi! Thus the boy is nicknamed for life.