That old saying, "All roads lead to Rome" may have been true in ancient times, but it is doubtful if twenty-five people in all of Northern San Diego County could have been found, in the summer of 1915, who would have agreed with it. At that particular time, all roads seemed to be leading into an isolated mountain canyon deep in the heart of San Diego County's remotest hinterland, Pamoosa Canyon, all of them over narrow, steep, and dangerous grades.Notes, by Craig Walker:Undoubtedly, never before in the entire history of Pamoosa Canyon had there been anything to match the motley caravan of vehicles that rolled into this canyon on the night of August 21, 1915. There were riders on horseback, people in wagons of every description, from buck-boards, buggies, surreys, carts, and tally-hoes, to huge four-horse farm wagons filled with straw and over-flowing with people. There were bicycles, motorcycles, and even a few automobiles. There were a few who traveled on foot, and at least one small boy who rode on a burro.
Where were these people going? You would never guess! They were going to see a full-scale pageant play in the wilderness. That is what they were going to see, believe it or not!
Several weeks before, word had trickled out from his mountain retreat that, in August during the full-moon, Isaac Jenkinson Frazee, playwright, poet, artist, musician, and long-time student of Indian culture, would, with the help of his talented family and friends, present the Premiere Performance of "Kitshi-Manido", an Indian Peace Pipe Pageant that he had recently written.
At first this piece of news brought smiles to the faces of those who heard it. Where would the audience come from? Who would risk life and limb traveling over those dangerous roads at night? If Mr. Frazee was able to scare up enough people in those hills to make up a cast, where would he get costumes for all of them--a cast of sixty or more? How would he illuminate that dark canyon of his? Where would he find musicians and dancers? These and many more were the practical, sensible questions they asked one another. How satisfactorily they were answered was probably best told by something Mr. Louis J. Stellmann wrote for "Sunset" magazine. Under the title "A Pageant in the Wilderness" he had this to say about that night in August, 1915:
A Metropolitan audience large enough and cultured enough to flatter a pretentious stage production of modern times, recently gathered in as wild and primitive an auditorium as might be found, to witness one of the most remarkable outdoor pageants in all of California's multifarious and widespread program of dramatic pageantry... Here came an audience of fifteen hundred people on the evening of August 21, and here, amid the giant oaks and sycamores, was presented a simple and beautiful Indian play; its background the great trees and rocks; its footlights, kerosene lanterns; its spotlight the full and newly-risen moon. Hundreds of conveyances of every style carried the audience, from the primitive ranch wagon cushioned with hay and drawn by a double span of plow horses to the up-to-date limousine of a world famed prima donna, Ellen Beach Yaw."
This, and many other articles, were written about the Peace-Pipe Pageant, both critics and press having been very generous with publicity and praise. Nothing more really needs to be written about the Pageant, but not enough has ever been told about the stupendous amount of thought and labor involved in its production.
After fifty years have gone by, this writer--one of the Frazee daughters--still looks back in awe and wonderment upon that part as being some kind of a modern "miracle"! She remembers well all the problems which had to be solved before one word of its poetic lines, or one note of its exquisite music, could be heard. For instance, roads had to be improved, in some instances new ones built; an amphitheater and stage built; a cast organized and trained; orchestral music had to be composed and musicians found to play it; costumes had to be designed and made; wigs, bows and arrows, peace-pipes and war bonnets had to be fashioned. There was the matter of rehearsals. Also, where and how the cast of sixty would be housed and fed from a kitchen with only a single stove and no running water! Last, and very important, was how this project would be financed. Some materials had to be purchased no matter how simple and primitive in nature the play was to be. Food cost money and so did tents and sleeping equipment. Building materials had to be hauled long distances into this out-of-the-way place. These and many other problems arose to frustrate the family. It would be pleasant to say a public-spirited benefactor generously stepped in at the right moment and solved all their financial problems, but it never happened! For the most part these problems were overcome through the power of intangible means; such as a spirit of cooperation, determination, inspiration, faith and an enthusiastic and motivating believe in the meaning and spirit of their play.
After hearing it read once, It was amazing how quickly neighbors and friends responded. For instance, a banker from Oceanside who had gone out to the Frazee ranch to camp and who expected to spend most of his time relaxing and "inviting his soul" in a soft hammock, heard a rehearsal, caught its spirit, borrowed a pair of overalls, grabbed a hammer, and set to work building seats for the production during the rest of his vacation. And, he had the time of his life doing it!
Neighbor men offered themselves and their teams to repair the roads. And, although 1915 was not an election year, and so a "vote-getting" year, the Supervisor for that district sent out a road-scraper and work-crew who did their bit towards straightening out some of the most dangerous curves and rock-strewn narrow places.1
In the meantime, Mr. Frazee had already found a place for an amphitheater. He discovered an almost ready-made spot--one so well suited to its purpose one might almost say Mother Nature had fashioned it for that exact use. Below the "Castle" ran the deep banks of a dry stream bed--just the thing for an orchestra pit! Above it, on the south side of one bank, lay a slightly elevated and level area the right size for a stage. A high cliff behind the stage would serve as a sounding board to reflect the voices of actors and musicians. As an added note of perfection, a wide-branched live oak tree stretched its branches skyward near the middle of the stage, making a sort of canopy it as well as a place from which to hand kerosene lanterns for illumination. A wild rose thicket--just the place for the chorus and dancers to hide behind while waiting their cue to go on stage, grew to the right. Other small trees and shrubs served as "wings" for this out-door theater. On the opposite side from the stage, the creek bank curved in almost a perfect semi-circle, forming a natural place for seating an audience. Here were placed row after row of wooden seats rising tier after tier, to a level place above which provided "standing room only" as well as a position from which the lights from a semicircle of automobiles was directed upon the stage. Alas! All was not perfection. Poison oak grew there in abundance! No sooner was it chopped out than it sprang up again. It proved to be a menace the entire time of rehearsal.
One amusing but painful episode connected with the presence of this poisonous vine occurred on opening night. One of the gift-bearers in Act III "broke out" with poison oak the morning of the Premiere. So determined was she that the play should go on, she kept herself hidden until nightfall. When it came time for her appearance, she stepped onto the stage bearing her gift--a water-tight olla--upon her head. She leaned down to present it to old supposedly-blind Wahwona, played by Mrs. Frazee, who reached up to take it from her hands. Suddenly Mrs. Frazee saw the girl's face swollen to almost twice its natural size, eyes mere slits, and skin as red as forest-fire. She was so shocked she almost forgot the lines she had to say, but quickly recovered her composure and added a few lines of her own! In perfect rhythm to the sound of drum beat off stage, she chanted, in the best Indian fashion, "Oh! You poor, poor thing! Go home and wash your face in baking soda. Be sure not to get it in your eyes!" No one in the audience was any wiser for this bit of ad lib medicinal advice, so perfectly had she chanted it in time to the drum beat. Years afterward, when Mrs. Frazee really was blind, she would laugh gayly whenever she was reminded about that part of the pageant. There were many other amusing incidents, too numerous to tell.
When it came time for selecting the cast, Mr. Frazee, the director of his play, was more than ever thankful that the gods had been generous in endowing his children with talents of one kind or another. All of them, but one, were now teenagers or past. All had had some experience in school plays or other amateur theatricals. Helen Frazee had received an ovation for the high manner in which she had interpreted her role in "King Admetis," a Greek play, when it was staged the year before at San Diego State College. To her was assigned the leading feminine role, "Majella the Spirit of Love, High Priestess of Kitshi-Manido. Mrs. Frazee looked the part of Old Wahwona, a blind woman with spiritual vision. Mr. Frazee, who possessed a very musical dramatic voice, and who had been an entertainer all of his life, took the major role of the Indian chieftain, "Abnal", or "Old Ab". The rest of the roles were filled by the remaining members of the family, some having to play double roles in order to complete the cast. The choreographers and members of the chorus came from Escondido, Oceanside, Pasadena, and other places. Miss Gertrude Relty, an accomplished dancer from Pasadena brought down a group of little girls from that city who she had trained, to join the pageant. Mrs. Percy Evans of Escondido trained the Star Chorus, and Mrs. William Spencer of Oceanside and others undertook similar tasks. The charm and beauty these songs and dances contributed to the overall pageantry can never be overestimated.
While Mr. Frazee was busy training the cast, Mrs. Frazee was busy, too. To her lot fell the most laborious work of the entire production. Without her cheerful attitude, her poise and equanimity, her great love and admiration for her husband and all that he did, her hard work, and, above all, her powerful faith, the Peace-Pipe Pageant would actually never have gotten off the ground. First of all, she designed and made most of the wigs and costumes for the entire cast of sixty people. This she accomplished through ingenuity and careful planning. Materials were always kept out in the open where they could be picked up and worked on by anyone who happened to have a moment to spare. No visitor or idle sight seer ever came to the ranch that summer without fashioning a moccasin, sewing a seam, stringing a strand of beads, or helping to make an Indian wig, before he left!
The costumes were intentionally designed to reflect the image of a primitive people and not the popular melodramatic one seen on today's movie set. The play was about primitive people, and so it was thought the costumes should be primitive, too. This interpretation helped to simplify matters. Costumes of natural-colored burlap, deeply fringed and worn with moccasins made of the same material, strings of beads made from golden brown chilicote seeds, and headbands of purple, red, and green, looked very realistic in the pale moonlight.
Dancers and members of the chorus were garbed in gauzy cheese-cloth, dyed in an intriguing variety of earth-colors ranging from light to dark tints and shades of sand, copper, and terra-cota brown. For all of these, Mrs. Frazee used native dyes made from the bark and leaves of plants that grew on the hillsides about her home.
The making of realistic wigs presented a challenge both as to material and style. After considerable experimentation, it was found nature had provided the answer. Fibre from the yucca plant, or Spanish bayonet, soaked in oak ash-lye for forty eight hours, laid on a table and scratched with a curry-comb until pliable, then washed and dyed a rich black color, made a very good substitute for human hair. The wigs were worn shoulder-length, hanged across the forehead and encircled with a colorful head band. The only exceptions to this style were the long gray wigs worn by Old Ab and Old Wahwona in the third act.
Besides making wigs and costumes, Mrs. Frazee took on the Herculean task of housing and feeding the entire cast of sixty persons during rehearsals and performances. This would not be an easy task under any circumstances, but when one remembers it was accomplished with a minimum number of helpers and in a kitchen with but one stove and with no running water at all, it also seems like a modern miracle! An entire book could be written about preparation of the pageant, along with some of its many humorous aspects, as well. Such as the time a whole wagon load of folded tents caught fire from the careless handling of a musician's cigarette, burning a hole the size of a silver dollar through the entire bundle. The young teacher son of the family shook his head and said, "There go six paychecks out of my next years salary!
Although most things went surprisingly well, there remained from the very beginning one problem which seemed to be unsolvable. That was the matter of who to get to write the orchestral music and after it was written where to find enough musicians to play it. Although Mr. Frazee was himself a natural-born musician, having composed the lyrics and music for a hundred or more songs, including personal lullabies for his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, he had not had any musical training. In fact, he did not know the first thing about transposing his music into manuscript form. He had to rely on singing them to himself until he got the music fixed in his own mind and then teaching them by rote to his wife and children. He believed that a family "who sings together stays together" so he was ever-ready with a new song whenever an occasion arose. So it was he had great musical plans for Kitshi-Manido--original Indian chants based on study of Indian music he had made, music for the lyrics he had written for solos and choruses, music for the dancers--all of these he wrote, sang, and taught by rote to others but he could not arrange the orchestral accompaniments, nor could he express the ideas he had for a great orchestral overture and recessional. Someone had to be found who could do this part for him. How he was found, who he was, and the great contribution his music made to the Peace-Pipe Pageant smacks of another miracle.
As time was fast running out, and as their spirits sank deeper and deeper, only one person's faith kept hope alive. Mrs. Frazee firmly believed that at the right time, the right musician would turn up. All the rest of us were skeptical about such a thing actually happening, but it did when one day on a hot Sunday afternoon some sight seers came to see the Castle. Mr. Frazee, who had been "under the weather" as he called it, for several days had gone to his room to rest, saying he did not wish to be disturbed by anyone. When the strangers appeared in the yard, Mrs. Frazee invited them to come inside and see her husband's paintings if they wished to do so. In the course of getting acquainted she asked one of them where he was from and what he did. Upon hearing he was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, she hurriedly excused herself, dashed up to her husband's room and bursting in upon him cried, "Get up! Get up and get your pants on! Kitshi-Manido the Great Spirit has answered our prayers! He has sent you a musician!" Half-dazed from being so abruptly awakened from sound sleep, Mr. Frazee dressed as quickly as he could and descended to the big round room in the tower below. It was no time at all before he knew positively that this young stranger was indeed "his" musician, sent for the very purpose of writing the music he had so long dreamed about.
William Bower was a young man, creative by nature, musically knowledgeable, and possessor of the rare ability to capture another person's dream regardless of its elusive quality. When Mr. Frazee learned that this young man's mother had taught school for thirteen years on an Indian reservation and that he had spent his boyhood among Indians, absorbing their original music, understanding their religious rituals and admiring their beliefs, mu sic, arts, and crafts, Mr. Frazee knew a turning point in the Peace-Pipe Pageant had arrived--that from this point on everything would be a smashing hit. These two men worked together, hand and glove, to produce some of the most exquisite music ever heard by human ears. The hauntingly beautiful music William Bower wrote to accompany the "Prayer" in Act Two will never be forgotten, or his plaintive accompaniment to the "Song of the Woodland Dove." Critics pronounced his overture "Dawn of Creation" a brilliant piece of musical composition.2
As days flew by, one by one everything was finally finished and at long last the day of the Premiere arrived. There was a general feeling of excitement and expectancy in the air, but among the cast only quiet confidence. People began arriving during the early afternoon hours--some to locate a place to camp overnight, some to stake out a claim to the best seats in the amphitheater, some to look at the Castle and the waterfall, some to meet the author or members of the cast. Their feeling of gaiety, happiness, and good will was so pronounced it was quickly transmitted to members of the cast who gathered around the supper table for one last long pow-wow. In the meantime, as evening approached, camp fires were built and soon the good fragrance of steaming coffee, bacon, and hot dogs was wafted on the air, as picnic suppers were spread beneath the grand old oaks. Just as a giant full moon rose over "Mystery Mountain" casting its beams into dark recesses of the canyon below, people began to move about, covering their camp fires, gather up cushions and wraps and blankets and slowly making their way to the amphitheater, there to await the play they had come so many miles to see.
For the most part they sat in silence, drinking in the deep mystery of the moon-lit night. Drowsy birds in the tree-tops, awakened by the lights and sounds of automobiles, seemed to think dawn had arrived and burst into early morn, singing along with the orchestra when the first eerie notes of the "Chant of Creation" began throbbing through the trees. It was a perfect night for the fulfillment of a dream--the dream of "Kitshi-Manido, and Indian Peace-Pipe Pageant!
Thousands of words have already been written about this pageant, so nothing new needs to be added. Perhaps Virginia Calhoun, noted female Shakespearean actress and member of the famous Ben Greet Players, summed it up as sincerely and accurately as anyone who wrote about it. She wrote in 1915:
An American Indian drama without red-man melodrama seems almost impossible. Mr. Frazee's Indians present no big melodramatic scenes but still all is to be found of the tragedy of the Indians' life of hate and revenge. This is a triumph of art itself, but especially so when love is convincingly the victor.The language of this drama for the most part is poetry, sometimes sung, sometimes spoken, also poetic prose so simple in choice of words, however profound the thought, that a school child might grasp its meaning. Its drama of music and light, dance and song, is also a unique factor in this pageant play's realization.
The high purpose of visioning the brotherhood of man in the fatherhood of God is effectively accomplished by projecting, as a great symbolic allegory, our human experience into the archaic Indian mold. The reactions on the mind is for a better appreciation of the battle every human being wages through his lifetime struggle between the primal passions of evil versus good, hate versus love, selfishness versus service, war versus peace, also a better knowledge of our American Indians as a member of one human family.
In a pictorial sense, from the orchestral overture to the descent into the tomb of the two Old Ones, magnificent pictures, vibrant with intense emotion, make up the scenes, as groups and individuals and this spiritual quality is greatly enhanced by its woodland setting of rare beauty.
1 Today, one of California's major freeways runs in a direct route through this once-isolated wilderness area so it is difficult now for anyone to imagine what those roads were like 87 years ago.2 William Bower later married Helen Frazee, the daughter of the Frazees who played the female lead in the Pageant. Helen wrote several books of sonnets under the name Helen Frazee-Bower.