Soon after my brother’s arrival, I received a visit from my esteemed
friends, Mr. and Mrs. B---- and Nelly. During their stay, we visited
Yuba city, situated about half a mile from Marysville, on the opposite
bank of Feather River. It may not be amiss to state, that Yuba city,
with the exception of three or four houses, has been removed to
Marysville. There is, however, an Indian rancheria existing there, which
draws many visitors to the spot. We started, one bright morning, in a
two-horse team, to visit the rancheria. It was proposed to ford the
stream. Accordingly, we started for the ford. The banks of the river are
quite precipitous; and, as we descended the steep slope, and saw the
wide, rolling river below, we felt (Mrs. B---- and myself) as though we
would rather never see an Indian rancheria than stem the swiftly
rushing current; but soon down we went with such a rush, we could not
tell where we were until the water around our feet caused us to suspect
we were really sinking. The river proved to be higher than our driver
anticipated, or the wagon not as high, and by the means we reached the
opposite bank a wetter, if not a wiser party.
An Indian rancheria consists of a number of huts, constructed of a
rib-work or frame of small poles, or saplings of a conical shape,
covered with grass, straw, or tule, a species of rush, which grows to
the height of five or six feet. The huts are sometimes fifteen feet in
diameter at their bases, and the number of them grouped together vary
according to the number of the tribe which inhabit them. The Indians are
generally well made, and of good stature, varying from five feet four
inches to five feet ten, with strong muscular developments. Their hair
is long, black, and coarse; and their skin is a shade lighter than that
of a mulatto. It is universally conceded that the California Indians
possess but few, if any, of those nobly daring traits of character which
have distinguished the savage tribes of the Atlantic States, from the
days of King Philip down to the notorious Billy Bowlegs.
The extreme indolence of their nature, the squalid condition in which
they live, the pusilanimity of their sports, and the general imbecility
of their intellects, render them rather objects of contempt than
admiration. They are deficient in all those manly arts which have given
measurable immortality to the Cherokees. They have none of the invention
of the Sioux, Pottawatamies, or other north-western Indians, and are
outwitted by the cunning even of the “Tontos,” whose own self-applied
vernacular assigns no higher rank in aboriginal tradition than that of
_fools_.
They place entire dependence on nature’s bounty for support. If the crop
of acorns fails, or the mountain streams send not forth their usual
schools of fish,--snails, worms, roots, and insects, furnish food with
which they appease the gnawings of hunger. There is a kind of grass in
the valleys the Indians eat, that is pleasant to the taste and
nutritious. In the season of this grass, I have seen numbers of them all
out feeding like cattle. The children all go naked. This grass has a
tendency to increase their ordinary dimensions; and you will often hear
it remarked, as one makes his appearance, “There comes a little
grass-fed.” We saw them making their acorn bread (parn they call
bread). To render it short and rich, they mashed up angle-worms, and put
in it. After baking it,--which they did by making an excavation in the
earth, and building a fire therein; when the earth was sufficiently
heated, they scraped out the ashes, put in the bread, and covered it
over with hot ashes,--they generously insisted upon our eating a piece.
The keenness of our appetites was considerably repressed, however, by
witnessing the several employments of the tribe. One old squaw was
relieving her husband’s head of a score of vermin, which she ate with an
apparent relish. She practised, however, the principle of
self-abnegation to perfection, by occasionally tossing some of the
finest-looking ones down his throat, for which he smacked his thanks
with apparent zest. The hair on the heads of the chiefs is all drawn up,
and tied in a knot on the top of the head, and ornamented with feathers.
The squaws’ heads look like pitchmops; the hair is very thick, coarse,
and black, and cut square round the head. No part of the forehead is
visible; the hair falls to the eye-brows. They have jet-black eyes; and
some of them have a decidedly pleasant expression with the eye. The
little babies are beauties. Their mothers learn them to swim, as soon as
an old duck does her young. They build little pens at the brink of the
river, so that the current cannot carry them down stream, put them in,
and keep them there half the time. They are really amphibious. They have
a cruel custom of piercing the ears of their infants, and inserting
sticks the size of the little finger. During the process of thus
beautifying their infants, the whole side of the head and face is
terribly swollen, and the child must suffer inconceivably; but better
for them to die in the operation than to live in opposition to the
prevailing mode.
The longevity of the race is proverbial. We saw some who looked more
like mummies than living beings. They bring them out of the huts, and
set them in the sun, days; and there we saw them sitting, their eyelids
drooping so you could not perceive the eyeball, limbs perfectly
motionless, and so shrivelled and black as to be absolutely repulsive to
the sight. Some of their limbs are affected with a loathsome cutaneous
disease.
When one of their number dies, they consume the body by fire, grind the
bones to ashes; then the near relations mix these ashes with pitch, and
daub their heads and faces with it, as a badge of mourning. During this
process, and for several consecutive days and nights, they keep up a
loud hooting and howling, and render night hideous with their mournful
lamentations. They have large gatherings sometimes at their rancherias,
to celebrate some event; then dancing and singing, loud shouting and
howling, is continued without intermission the whole night. During these
orgies, the noise made by them is such as to prevent sleep, although a
quarter of a mile distant. Their council-chamber is of sufficient
capacity to accommodate three hundred persons; the entrance to which is
an aperture of just sufficient size to admit a man’s body when bent
double. In the centre of the roof is another small aperture; and, except
by these two openings, no air or light can be admitted. They perform
their singular dances in this place. Often Americans go there to witness
these sports; but a few moments’ confinement in such a close place
generally suffices. From their burrowing propensities, these Indians
have derived the name of “Diggers.”
Their mode of costume almost defies description, it is so omnifarious.
Sometimes they imitate the style adopted by our first parents in
Paradise. The women are especially delighted to get on a man’s shirt, in
which they will parade the streets apparently as pleased with themselves
as any fashionable belle when sporting the most costly fabric. I was
once exceedingly amused at the sight of an Indian and his squaw
promenading the street, dressed à la mode. He sported a pair of boots,
and an old, faded piece of calico over his shoulders, as an apology for
a serape. She was dressed in a red flannel shirt, over which she had
drawn an old black satin sack, which some one had given her, or which
she had stolen. Over their black heads was elevated a shattered
umbrella, and her arm was placed within his. Immediately in advance of
them were walking a very fashionably dressed gentleman and lady. The
countenances of the “Digger” and his mehala (an appellation given to the
squaws) were illuminated with a grin expressive of much delight,
entertaining, no doubt, the satisfactory belief that they were equally
as much admired by observers as those in advance of them, whose motions
and walk they were vainly endeavoring to imitate. They are inveterate
gamblers; but I think it would puzzle wiser heads than mine to
understand their games. They appear to place some value upon money, with
which they gratify their gambling propensities. They flock in numbers
into the back yards of hotels, and greedily devour all the offal
destined to be thrown to the hogs. Sometimes you can induce them to cut
a few sticks of wood; but, as a general thing, they are too indolent to
exert themselves much.
The rivers abound in excellent salmon, which the Indians spear in great
numbers, and dispose of in the towns. They are the finest I ever tasted.
Some of them are three and four feet long, and weigh fifty pounds or
more. It is amusing to see the Indians spearing them. They stand in the
river on rocks or shoal places, looking intently into the water with the
spear elevated, waiting, perfectly motionless, for a sight at one.
Instantly the spear descends, and, as sure as it does, it buries itself
in the body of the fish. Their aim is unerring.