Tamalpais (WPA)

Arthur George Murphy

The county of Marin’s famous geological feature is shown in its most majestic form in Arthur George Murphy’s “Tamalpais,” seen through the drifting veils of Northern California’s famous coastal fog, a poem of lost love writ beneath.

Tangled myths enshroud the peaks of Mount Tamalpais (a.k.a. Mt. Tam; from the Coast Miwok phrase tamal pajis, meaning “west hill”), but one legend seems to find its way into local lore more than others: that of the “Sleeping Maiden,” a near-universal descriptor for peaks that resemble a sleeping woman, inspiring tales that feature a broken hearted lover whose body is melded with the mountain after her death from grief. Owing to it’s profile as that of a woman in repose with her face to the sky and her feet to the sea, Mt. Tam for years was subject to this romanticized ideal. It was incorrectly attributed to the beliefs of the local tribe, the Coast Miwok, but was eventually proven to be a vestige of Victorian apocrypha. In fact, the Coast Miwok once believed that evil spirits resided on the mountaintop and historically avoided Mt. Tam.

Another myth linked to the mountain includes the perplexing notion, also spun in Victorian times, of Plains tribes carrying their dead thousands of miles away from their homelands to the foot of the seaside mountain - further proof of the power of a beautiful geological feature to fuel one’s imagination.

The poem beneath the image reads: HEAR MY SONG OH TAMALPAIS! / FROM WHERE YOUR SHROUD AS WRAPPED IN VEILS OF MIST AND SUNSHINE, / WHERE THEY BORE YOU LONG AGO TO WATCH AND WAIT / THAT YOUR SACRIFICE SUPREME BE NOT IN VAIN. / TO SEE THAT GLORIOUS DAY SOME DISTANT AGE / WHEN THE BRAVE PIAYTUMA SHALL FIND YOUR GRAVE / AND BOTH UNITED BE ONCE AGAIN. / THE WITCH HAS RINGED YOUR ROCKY GRAVE / WITH THREATS OF DEATH TO THOSE WHO'D FIND YOU; / SITS AT YOUR FEET IN GUARDING FEAR / LEST YOU BREAK THE TIES THAT BIND YOU AND FLY TO THE TRIBE OF THE WANDERING BRAVE. / ACROSS THE SEAS I SEND YOU, / EACH YEAR THE LEAVES BEGIN TO TURN; / FAR BEYOND HER ANGRY WATCHING / FAR ABOVE HER LOW CONCEPTIONS / AWAY TO THE NORTH THE GREY GOOSE FAST DESCENDING/ BEARING WORDS OF THE NEAR RECEPTION--- / WORDS FROM THE LOST PIAYTUMA.