THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS
Dr. A. L. Kroeber’s map shows all tribes within the present political
boundaries of the State of California. The tribes of the extreme
northwest corner and those of the southern tip of the state are not
typical of what we generally think of as “California Indians”.
Although it may not be scientifically sound to do so, it is often
convenient to refer to the Indian tribes of the California region
collectively. The term “Digger Indians” is frequently used for this
purpose with a somewhat disparaging connotation. The origin of this name
is traceable to white traders and pioneers who observed that local
Indians dug extensively for a number of food items, hence the name
Digger was applied. However, this is a poor name as digging was but one
of many methods the Indians used to secure food. Besides, digging was by
no means peculiar to Indians of the California area. It is best,
therefore, simply to use the term California Indians, if one wishes to
refer to this group of tribes as a whole.
In connection with the nickname Digger Indian, it is of interest to note
that the California tribes used the conspicuous pine of the foothills,
_Pinus sabiniana_, as a source of edible pine nuts and for other
purposes too. Because the so called Digger Indians used these trees so
much, the pioneers named the conifers Digger Pines, a name recognized
today as the proper common name of that tree.
California tribes are usually not considered high culturally among
Indians generally, yet Yurok, Pomo, and Chumash are equal to any tribe
in North America in wood, bone, steatite, obsidian, feather, and skin
work, while local tribes of the Lassen area made basketry of a variety
and quality unsurpassed elsewhere.
Although there were local differences in food habits, the California
Indians as a group had a highly diversified diet in contrast to the
so-called one-food tribes in surrounding areas. Of course it is an
over-simplification to speak of one-food tribes, for all ate quite a
variety of foods. Yet, it is true that several cultures had been built
upon the great abundance and importance of one particular food item as
compared to all other foods eaten. North of California, Indians built
their culture largely upon the salmon. To the east were tribes which
depended upon the bison for most of their needs, and southeast of
California the Southwest Indians built their culture around the all
important maize or native corn. In any of these regional groups, if the
main food item failed, disaster struck the tribes. In contrast, the
Californians, with diversified eating habits, had four major food
sources: fish, game, roots, and seeds or nuts. Each was important and
the failure of any one caused hardship, but by no means the serious
disaster which befell the more specialized groups of Indians if their
main food supply item failed. If any one item of the California Indian
diet were to be selected as the most important and universal food, one
of the nuts, the acorn would have to be named.
[Illustration: INDIAN TRIBAL DISTRIBUTION IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
after A. L. Kroeber]
TOLOWA
YUROK
KAROK
UPPER
LOWER
SHASTAN
SHASTA
OKWANUCHU
ACHOMAWI
ATSUGEWI
KORO MINU
NEW RIVER
MODOC
NORTHERN PAIUTE
LASSEN VOL. NAT. PARK
PYOT
WHILIOUT
ATHABASCAN
CHILULA
HUPA
NONGATL
SINKYONE
LASSIK
WAILAKI
KATO
YUKI
YUKI
HUCHNOM
COAST YUKI
POMO
N.
C.
S.W.
E.
S.E.
WAPPO
CHIMA RIKO
WINTUN
NORTHERN
CENTRAL
SOUTHWESTERN
SOUTHEASTERN
COSTANOAN
SAN FRANCISCAN
SANTA CLARA
SANTA CRUZ
YANA
N.
CENTRAL
SOUTHERN
YAHI
MAIDU
NORTHEASTERN
NORTHWESTERN
SOUTHERN
WASHO
MIWOK
COAST MIWOK
PLAINS
NORTHERN
CENTRAL
SOUTHERN
YOKUT
NORTH VALLEY
California Indians are often regarded to have been lazy and shiftless.
To be sure there were such individuals, but we have that type of person
in our midst too, and I dare say in equal or greater percentage. As a
matter of fact, Indians generally could not afford to be lazy—there was
no beneficent government to coddle them. It was largely a case of sink
or swim. They had to provide their own shelter, food, and clothing as
well as what amusement and extras—hardly to be called luxuries—they
wished to enjoy. These things were all wrought from the wilderness with
their own bare hands, using only wood, stone, and fire as tools. These
native Americans lived in a stone-age culture. Metals, the wheel,
domesticated herd animals, and agriculture were unknown to California
Indians. Although there was some seasonal migration, there were no truly
nomadic or wandering tribes in California.
In California there were 103 separate tribes each speaking its own
language. To be sure, some were mere dialects of others, but there were
21 tongues completely distinct from each other and mutually
unintelligible. These belonged to several unrelated language families,
as shown on the second map.
As suggested above, Kroeber has shown that we are technically incorrect
in referring to the California Indians as a single group of tribes.
Within the political boundaries of the State of California there were
actually three separate cultures with a number of subcultures, which
were as follows: The small area in the northwest corner of the state,
the Klamath River drainage, was occupied by the Northwest California
Sub-culture, a part of the North Pacific Coast Culture which extended
into British Columbia. The California-Great Basin Culture had three
representatives in the state: the smallest or Lutuami Sub-culture,
represented by the Modoc tribe only, extended down from the north across
the east central portion of the northern boundary of California. The
next larger was the Great Basin Sub-culture just east of the
Cascade-Sierra backbone. The third and largest sub-culture of the
California-Great Basin Culture was that of the Central California tribes
(the Diggers of the pioneer), extending westward from the Cascade-Sierra
crest to the Pacific Ocean across the bulk of the state. The fifth
sub-culture is known as the Southern California comprising the area
south of the Tehachapi Mountains from the coast east across the Colorado
River, being a part of the Southwest Culture.
[Illustration: LINGUISTIC FAMILIES
INDIAN LANGUAGE GROUPS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA and the families to
which they belong, after A. L. Kroeber]
Lutuamian
LUTUAMI
Hokan
KAROK
SHASTAN
CHIMARIKO
POMO
WASHO
YANA
Shoshonian
PAIUTE
Penutian
WINTUN
MAIDU
MIWOK
YOKUT
COSTANOAN
Algonkian
YUROK
Athabascan
ATHABASCAN
Yukian
YUKI
Nevertheless, some generalities hold, and at the risk of the inaccuracy
which is typical of generalizations, we might set forth the following
customs as being characteristic of California Indians:
Animal flesh bulked a smaller volume of food eaten than did vegetable
materials—or, in the case of coastal peoples, than did seafoods. Dog and
reptile flesh were considered poisonous or undesirable, but insects and
worms were generally eaten. Acorns were the most important single food.
All tribes utilized seeds of such plants as buckeye, grass, sedge, and
sunflower family plants. All items, but the first, were collected with a
basketry seed beater in a conical burden basket, parched, winnowed,
ground, and eaten either dry, as unleavened bread, or as boiled mush.
Although the fish hook and line were known throughout the area, most
fishing was done by means of nets, weirs, use of poison, and harpoons
thrust, but not thrown.
Hunting with bow and arrow was most important. Disguise and dogs were
used in the north, but surrounding the game was the common means of
hunting in the south.
The northern bow was short, broad, and sinew backed while southern
Californians used long narrow bows without reinforcement.
Arrows were usually two-piece and tipped with obsidian points. Three
different arrow releases were used among California Indians. Northern
arrows were straightened by use of a hole through a piece of wood or
similar material, and were polished by use of horsetail stalks while a
grooved squarish soapstone (steatite) did both jobs in the south.
Basketry was highly developed, being California’s best art form. The
northern quarter of the area did twined basketry; coiled basketry
prevailed elsewhere.
Cloth was unknown, but woven rabbit skin strip blankets were universal,
especially for bedding. Rush mats were twined and sewn.
Pottery was unknown except for a very crude undecorated form in the San
Joaquin Valley, an intrusion from the Southern California Sub-culture
where pottery became important.
Music of California was characterized by singing, rattles, whistles,
split slap sticks, flute, and musical bow. The last two instruments were
the only ones which were able to make real melodies, but amazingly,
neither one was used for dances or ceremonies. California Indians were
virtually without any drums—the exception being a single headed flat
foot drum used in ceremonial sweathouse chambers of the tribes in the
Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys.
Dress of California women was a front and a back apron of
skin—especially buckskin—or of plant fiber. Men wore nothing or a folded
skin about the hips or between the legs. In bad weather both sexes used
cape-like or wrap-around (over one arm and under the other) skin robes.
In localized areas the brimless dome-shaped basketry cap was worn by
women. Hair of both sexes was long (but shorn in mourning) and
frequently put up in nets by men. Men removed their beards by pulling
with their fingers.
In mountain areas social and religious cults were lacking. In the
extreme northwest corner wealth dances were held; in central California
the secret society and Kuksu dances, in the south the Jimsonweed
initiation system, and in the Colorado River area the dreamsong ceremony
flourished.
Houses varied from open enclosures and brush or bark shelters to frame
structures more or less completely dug into the ground and covered with
bark, brush, and dirt, usually with a roof entrance and or one to the
south; this was the earth lodge. In the extreme northwest housing was
not the earth lodge, but a structure built on top of the ground;
hand-split planks were used in its construction.
Sweat houses were of the earth lodge type, often of daily service and in
northern areas, lived in too. Sweat houses of California were not heated
by steam, but directly with fire.
Boats generally were of rushes tied into balsa rafts or into boat
shapes. In addition one-piece dugout canoes from tree logs were typical
of the northern portion of California, becoming progressively more
refined in workmanship and in design to the northwest. A unique lashed
split board canoe was made by channel island tribes in the Santa Barbara
vicinity.
The tribe as a political unit, so common elsewhere in America, did not
exist in California. What we call a tribe was actually a number of
groups of Indians, each of whom had a chief, spoke the same language
dialect, had the same customs, intermarried regularly, and were usually
mutually friendly. There was no tribal chief as such.
In the northwest portion of California wealth was so important that real
chieftain leadership was lacking. In central and southern California the
chief was a powerful local leader on a hereditary basis. Between the two
extremes was a zone where tribes struck a compromise; the hereditary
local chief had moderate authority and usually was well to do, but not
necessarily so. Rich men in smaller political divisions were influential
headmen under the local chief.
Warfare was only for revenge and not for plunder or for a desire for
distinction. Except for the Northwest Sub-culture, scalps were generally
taken and included the victim’s skin down to his eyes or nose, and
including the ears. Not infrequently the whole head was taken by a
victorious warrior. The weapon was the bow and arrow, with rocks
employed in close combat. Such war implements as shields, clubs, spears
(throwing), and tomahawks were not used.
Guessing games, usually played by men, were universal, with variations,
and heavy gambling was the rule. Shinny in several different forms was
widely played.
Shamans were employed for curing diseases which were believed due to the
presence in the body of some foreign hostile object. This was removed by
sucking accompanied by singing, dancing, and tobacco smoking.
The girls’ adulthood or puberty ceremony and dance was important to all
California tribes.
Population figures even on the most scholarly basis, Kroeber states, are
at best reasonable guesses. As nearly as can be determined there were
originally about one million Indians in North America, three million in
Central America, and three million in South America. California probably
had about 133,000 Indians or nearly one per square mile. This is a
density three or four times greater than for the whole of North America.
Today the North American Indian population (including about 30%
half-breeds) is less than 10% of what it was. Over 90% of our Indians
have been destroyed by wholesale killing at the hands of the white man,
by new diseases, unfavorable changes in diet, clothing, and dwellings
plus such Caucasian cultural factors as settlement, concentration, and
the like. The decline in Indian population varied directly with the
degree of civilized contact the several tribes experienced. It is
interesting to note that virtually all of the Indians exposed to the
Spanish missions commencing 1769 are gone except for a few in the
extreme south who were only partly missionized. Kroeber states:
“It must have caused many of the fathers a severe pang to realize, as
they could not but do daily, that they were saving souls only at the
inevitable cost of lives. And yet such was the overwhelming fact. The
brute upshot of missionization, in spite of its kindly flavor and
humanitarian root, was only one thing: death.”
Kroeber also points out that some tribes had much less resistance and
hence suffered greater decline in population in response to equal white
contact than others did. As in the case of other living things, there
were favorable circumstances under which the Indian flourished—where
life was relatively easy and secure. Such conditions produced virile
stock and a rich culture both materially and spiritually—a condition
found in broad valleys drained by the great rivers of California: the
Klamath, the Sacramento, and the San Joaquin. As is also the case with
specific plants and animals, Indians in less favorable sites lived
submarginally—a difficult existence, poor in material and spiritual
culture. Under such circumstances it takes just a small amount of
additional unfavorable influence to make existence impossible. On this
basis Kroeber explains the extinction or near extinction of poor
mountain tribes upon contact with the whites while the Indians of the
fertile valleys, although suffering more intensive Caucasian contact,
were able to survive in reasonable numbers. This is a specific exception
to the general observation made above that population decrease varied
directly with the degree of contact. There are examples in California;
the local one is the survival of valley Maidu and Wintun populations as
compared to the surrounding mountain people with poorer cultures: the
Yahi, Yana, Okwanuchu, Shasta, New River Shasta, Chimariko, and the
Athabascan tribes of the west with survival percentages today of up to
only 5% at best.
There is another factor which caused greater devastation of the
economically insecure mountain tribes. White settlers were able to use
to their own advantage some of the labor, services, and even food which
the valley Indians afforded them. Thus it was not to the interest of the
whites to wipe out these Indians. On the other hand, the mountain tribes
with a poorer economy were prone to steal livestock to supplement their
food supplies as they had no means to gain wealth to enable them to buy
from the whites. Such depredations were a major cause of retaliation by
white man in the form of bloody punitive attacks on Indians from whom
the settlers had nothing to gain.