The Last Survivor

Taylor, H.

The story of To-tu-ya (Foaming Water) is one of interrupted childhood, unfilled longing, and silent suffering. She was born in Yosemite in the early eighteen forties. Ahwahnee was her playground; tumultuous Chorlock she loved; graceful, enchanging Pohono she feared. The monoliths— Tu-tock-ah-nu-la, Tis-sa-ack, To-koya, Loya—given life in story by the Yosemite Indians, stood as protecting sentinels over her and her tribe. But scarcely a dozen years had passed when family and tribe were scattered by war and defeat at the hands of oncoming American miners. While yet in her teens, she married a full-blooded Yosemite, a fellow refugee. Only the eldest of the five children she bore him survives. The untimely death of her husband brought added hardships. She married a Mexican miner, Lebrado Yerdies, whom she bore four daughters. Life was nearing its close when To-tu-ya returned from exile to live a few days in her home of earliest memories. Souvenir-loving tourists came to look at her as she sat shelling a pile of acorns; one of them offered a nickle for an acorn from her hands. With deep feeling and resentment she pushed the coin aside and cried, “No! Not five dollars one acorn, no! White man drive my people out—my Yosemite.” In her heart To-tu-ya treasured her Indian name, though the world called her Maria Lebrado. To-tu-ya —Foaming Water—will be heard as long as the melting snows pour in torrents over the granite walls of her childhood Yosemite.