Decem­ber 15, 2008 The Inde­pen­dent, San Fran­cisco, Cal­i­for­nia
Moon­al­ice, Leon Rus­sell poster by Chris Shaw

Accord­ing to Moon­al­ice leg­end, back when this area was known as Yerba Buena, the tribe was led by a bril­liant matri­arch named Cas­san­dra Moon­al­ice. Cas­san­dra could pre­dict the future. She pre­dicted the 1906 earth­quake. She pre­dicted the Crashes of 1929 and Pearl Har­bor. She knew that there would be no rap­ture at the mil­len­nium; instead she pre­dicted a vil­lage idiot from Texas would be elected pres­i­dent. Cas­san­dra recorded her pre­dic­tions on hemp paper and put them in the tribal library.

So why didn’t we know about Cassandra’s pre­dic­tions? They went up in smoke. In clas­sic Moon­al­ice tra­di­tion, Cassandra’s descen­dants used the records as rolling papers.

Accord­ing to Moon­al­ice leg­end, a jour­ney of a thou­sand miles begins with the care­ful prepa­ra­tion of ade­quate sup­plies of hemp.

M131