The Rainbow Bridge: A Chumash Story

The Rainbow Bridge: A Chumash Story

Retold by Aaron McEmrys

The first Chumash people were created on Santa Cruz Island. They were made from the seeds of a Magic Plant by the Earth Goddess, whose name was Hutash. Hutash was married to the Sky Snake, the Milky Way. He could make lightning bolts with his tongue. One day, he decided to make a gift to the Chumash people. He sent down a bolt of lightning, and this started a fire. After this, people kept fires burning so that they could keep warm, and so that they could cook their food.

After the Sky Snake gave them fire, the Chumash people lived more comfortably. More people were born each year, and their villages got bigger and bigger. Santa Cruz Island was getting crowded, and the noise the people made was starting to annoy Hutash. It kept her awake at night. So, finally, she decided that some of the Chumash would have to move off the island. They would have to go to the main land, where there weren’t any people living in those days. But how were the people going to get across the water to the mainland? Finally, Hutash had an idea of making a bridge out of a rainbow. She made a very long, very high rainbow, which stretched from the tallest mountain on Santa Cruz Island all the way to the tall mountains near Carpinteria. Hutash told the people to go across the Rainbow Bridge, and fill the whole world with people.

Neela and her little brother Anacapa didn’t know what to think when their grandmother found them on the beach where they loved to play. Grandmother found them as always, Neela collecting beautiful shells to make necklaces and bracelets out of, while Anacapa swam and played in the white waves. Even though Anacapa was younger than Neela, he was already a great and fearless swimmer, and had such quick hands that while everybody else used long spears and nets to catch fish, Anacapa could catch them with his bare hands!

This was all well and good, but for all his talent, little Anacapa was also a reckless and very disobedient boy who had a gift for getting himself into trouble. So Neela, who was older and much more mature was always careful to keep an eye on him.

Grandmother explained that they must leave the island with the rest of their family and many other people from their village. The children were sad, for they had never been anywhere else and could not imagine a more perfect place. So they followed their grandmother back to the village with their heads hung low and their eyes saying silent goodbyes to all the rocks and trees and hills they knew they would never see again.

But everything changed when they saw the Rainbow Bridge! That morning, when the sun came up, everyone was astonished to see an enormous bridge that stretched all the way across the sea to the dark mountains at the edge of the world. The bridge arched high into the sky, much higher than the tallest tree and it was so long that no one could see the end of it. But that wasn’t what made the children forget about their sorrow – it was that the bridge was made out of an enormous rainbow! Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet – all shining and transparent in the bright morning sun. It was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.

Many people were afraid to step onto the bridge, because they could see right through it to the crashing waves below. It was scary to think about climbing up into the sky on a rainbow and walking all the way across the ocean to a strange new place where they didn’t know anyone, not even the names of the trees.

But the goddess Hutash had been very clear – they must cross the bridge – and everybody knew better than to argue with a goddess! So the Chumash people started to go across the bridge. As Neela and Anacapa stepped onto the hazy watercolor bridge, Grandmother warned them once again: “Do not look down! You must walk straight ahead and keep walking. If you look down, who knows what might happen! Promise me that you will do as the goddess says!”

The children looked at grandmother’s solemn eyes and promised.

At first it was easy to keep their promise. But after a while, some of the people began to get worried, some were afraid and others, like Anacapa, started to feel so sure of themselves that they became careless. Neela kept catching her little brother trying to look down through the bridge out of the corner of his eye, and she slapped him on the head and said that he must keep his promise to grandmother and the goddess.

But in the end, Anacapa’s curiosity got the best of him, as it always did. He dropped a stone onto the bridge to see what would happen – and it fell right through – down and down and down until it hit the water far below with a tiny splash! He was suddenly terrified – how could the bridge hold all of them when it couldn’t even hold a small stone!!?? Anacapa fell to his knees, staring down through the bridge to where the stone had fallen.

Other people had seen the stone fall too and soon many people were terrified and panicked. Some of them kept their eyes straight ahead and kept walking. These people got across safely, but some people made the mistake of looking down. They just couldn’t help it! It was a long way down to the water, and the fog was swirling around. They got so dizzy that some of them fell off the Rainbow Bridge, down, down, through the fog, into the ocean.

Neela saw her brother fall right through the bridge. She screamed and lunged toward him, but her grandmother caught her firmly by the hand and forced her to keep walking. Many other people were falling now too, and the goddess Hutash, looking down from the sky, felt very badly about this. She didn’t want them to drown. She looked at little Anacapa falling down, down, down like a little stone and she made a magic sign with her hand. Suddenly, in mid-air, Anacapa turned into a dolphin! He splashed into the water and began flipping and splashing along below the bridge, quite happily, it seemed. With another graceful twist of her hand, all the falling people turned into dolphins just like Anacapa.

Neela and the rest of her family made it across the bridge to what is now Santa Barbara, with Anacapa swimming along behind. And so Neela and Anacapa continued to play for many years on the beach as they always had, Neela collecting shells while her brother danced on the waves. This is why the Chumash still believe that the dolphins are their sisters and brothers.