[in 1903] tells me that when he came here there were about
500 Indians (Ko-ko-he-ba) living in Burr Valley, a few on
Sycamore Creek, 600 or 700 at Cole Spring (Hol-ko-mahs) and
about the same number (also Hol-ko-mahs) in Fandango Ground
and in Haslet Basin.... He says a very large village was
stretched along the south side of King's River two or four
miles below the mouth of Mill Creek and for half a mile the
dome grass-covered houses nearly touched. There were also
large villages on Dry Creek and one above the forks of
King's River some miles above Dry Creek. The tribe at the
forks is now extinct."
(There is only one survivor of the Burr Valley tribe.)
Although the numbers may be somewhat exaggerated, there is no reason
why the essential correctness of this account should be questioned.
This is particularly true in view of the circumstantial detail with
which it is recorded. The Kokoheba must be regarded as having a
population of at least 500 and the Holkoma of 1,200, making 1,700
for the Kings River Mono. If there were 730 on the upper San
Joaquin and 600 on the upper Kaweah and if 500 are added for the
Emtimbitch-Wobonuch group, the total is 3,530, not much more than
was calculated by means of area comparisons.
For the Kings River as a whole the estimates of 1850 to 1853 indicate a
substantial Indian population. Savage (Dixon, MS, 1875) sets the number
as 2,000, a remarkably low figure for him. G. W. Barbour and Adam
Johnston (Sen. Ex. Doc. 4, 1853, pp. 253-256) both state that for the
purpose of consummating treaties 4,000 Indians came to Camp Belt on the
Kings River in 1851. Lt. George H. Derby in his careful account of the
southern part of the central valley in 1851 says that there were 17
rancherias on Kings River, "numbering in all about three thousand
including those situated among the hills in the vicinity" (Derby,
1852). Many of these were Choinimni, but at least half must have been
Mono.
If we accept Derby's count of 17 villages for 3,000 persons, the
average number of inhabitants per rancheria would be 177. For the area
farther north the equivalent number was taken as 70. There is reason to
believe that for the basins of the Kings and Kaweah Derby's figure of
177 is a closer approximation. Ben Hancock's description of the village
on the Kings below Mill Creek is very graphic and explicit (see
citation above.) If the "dome-grass covered houses nearly touched" and
stretched along the river in only a single row, and if each occupied 50
linear feet, then there must have been 52 houses in half a mile.
Allowing 5 persons per house, in accordance with Gifford's data for
the North Fork Mono, the inhabitants must have numbered 260. One of the
rancherias seen by Derby was Cho-e-mime which had 70 "warriors."
Reckoning the "warriors" as half the males the population would have
been 280. Derby says the village of Notonto (of the tribe Nutunutu on
the south bank of the lower Kings) had 300 inhabitants. These places
were of course relatively large and important and do not represent the
general average. However, the village of Notonto must have reached
fully 150 persons.
Apart from the Mono, the tribes located on the Kings River were all
Yokuts, as follows: Aiticha, Apiachi, Wimilchi, Nutunutu, Wechihit,
Toihichi, Chukomina, and Choinimni. For these the modern ethnographers
Kroeber, Gayton, Latta, and Stewart have been able to locate and
identify 25 villages inhabited during the youth of informants. Since
this covers a somewhat larger territory than was seen by Derby, the
correspondence in number of rancherias is reasonably close. At 150
persons per village the population would be 3,750. If we add 1,700 for
the Kings River Mono, the total is 5,450. However, there may have been
some overlap, so this figure may be reduced to 5,000. It should be
noted that the area embraced within this estimate includes the Kings
River basin as a whole, together with that of all its affluents.
The Kaweah River from Lemon Cove to the town of Tulare diverges to form
a delta, which originally contained a very large native population. At
the time of the American occupation there had occurred a material
reduction, which was accelerated by the fact that the region provided
excellent farming land for the entering Americans. Hence the value for
the population in 1850-1853 must be relatively low in comparison with
preceding decades. In May, 1851, according to G. W. Barbour (1853, pp.
253-255) there were 7 tribes on the Kaweah, and 1,200 people came to
treat with the commissioners. These tribes included the following:
Chunut, Choinok, Wolasi, Telamni, Gawia, Yokod, and Wukchamni. Of
these, the first, the Chunut, inhabited the shore of Lake Tulare and
should not be included as a Kaweah River tribe. The estimated
population of the remainder would, therefore, be approximately 1,000,
if the figure of the commissioners is to be taken without
qualification.
With respect to the individual tribes there are a few scattered bits of
information. Derby (1852) mentions three rancherias or bands in the
area: Cowees (Gawia) with 200 people, Thulime (Telamni) with 65 men, or
roughly 200 people, and Heame-a-tahs (Telamni) with 200 people. Merriam
in his "Yokuts List" cites an informant who said that the Wukchumne
"used to number" 5,000 and occupied the valley now called Lemon Cove
and up and down the Kaweah River. Clearly this is an extreme
overestimate, unless the informant was referring to the period prior to
1800. Finally Merriam cites a letter by Lt. N. H. McLean, which states
that the "Four Creeks Country" included the "Cahwiahs, Okuls, Choinux,
Wicktrumnees, Talumnies" and in 1853 had not over 1,200 souls.[4]
It thus appears quite evident that the six Yokuts tribes, except
perhaps the Wukchumni, had no more than 200 persons apiece during the
era under consideration. From modern informants Kroeber, Gayton, and
Latta have obtained for the Choinok, Gawia, Telamni, Yokod, and Wolasi
collectively the names of only 8 villages. Assuming the Kings River
value of 150 persons per village, which seems to be confirmed by Derby
for the Kaweah River also, this means 1,200 persons for the five
tribes. Gayton and Latta, however, find 15 names for the Wukchumni,
which would indicate a population of 2,250. Such a figure is highly
unlikely. It is probable that earlier times are referred to by the
informants or that there is confusion among tribal affinities.
Alternatively, the Wukchumni villages may have followed the style of
the hill-dwelling Mono and have been very much smaller than has been
indicated by Derby for the valley-inhabiting Yokuts. Since we cannot
resolve the difficulty with the data at hand, it is better to accept
the practically unanimous opinion of contemporary white observers that
the population below Lemon Cove did not exceed 1,200 in 1851. To these
must be added the 600 Mono previously discussed, making a total for the
Kaweah River as a whole of 1,800 persons.
If the two river basins are considered jointly, the method of area
comparisons as applied to the Mono, estimates by government officials,
accounts by early pioneers, and the village lists secured from modern
informants all apparently agree that the population of the region
reached several thousand as late as 1850 and 1851. We may therefore
accept the total of 6,800, or 5,000 on the Kings and 1,800 on the
Kaweah.
KINGS-KAWEAH ... 6,800
______________________
THE TULARE LAKE BASIN
The shores of Tulare Lake (see maps 1 and 2, area 2) were aboriginally
inhabited by three tribes, the Tachi, Wowol, and Chunut. In close
proximity on the northeast were the Nutunutu, but since the latter have
been included with the Kaweah River tribal group, they must be omitted
from consideration here. Savage allocated 1,000 Indians to Tulare Lake
(Dixon, MS, 1875). McLean said there were 1,000 Indians "on the lakes"
in 1853, 500 of which were "Notontos," leaving 500 for the "Taches" and
"Tontaches" (Merriam collection). The most reliable account is that of
Derby (1852). However, Derby in his terminology confused the Tachi with
the Chunut, in which mistake he has been followed by Merriam (under
title "Indians of the Tache Lake Region in 1850," MS). Derby makes it
clear in his account that he found the village of Sintache (population
100) at the northern side of the then nearly dry Lake Tontache, that is
to say on the southern shore of the big Lake Tache (Tulare). These were
probably Chunut. There was also a small rancheria which he called
Tinte-Tache at the south side of the same lake, i.e., Tontache
(population 50). These are likely to have been Wowol. The tribe known
to ethnographers as the Tachi were north of the big lake (i.e., Lake
Tache or Tulare). Their chief told Derby that they had 800 people and
that their principal rancheria was northwest of the lake (population
300). Since Derby also applies the name of Tinte-Tache to the northwest
village, it is clear that there were two rancherias of this name
included in his account.
Kroeber and Gayton mention a total of 8 villages for the Tachi. If one
of these had 300 people, as Derby states, then the average population
of the other seven was approximately 70. This agrees with Derby's two
southern rancherias of 50 and 100 persons respectively. For the Chunut
Kroeber, Gayton, and Latta all mention the village of Chuntau. Kroeber
mentions one other, Miketsiu. This would indicate a population of
nearly 150. For the Wowol the ethnographers give three villages, or an
implied population of, say, 220. The total for the lakes would then
reach 1,170, or very close to the general contemporary estimate of
1,000. The figure 1,100 may be accepted as a compromise.
TULARE LAKE BASIN ... 1,100
___________________________
TULE RIVER, KERN RIVER, AND THE BUENAVISTA BASIN
The remaining Yokuts territory is large in area but relatively small in
population. It includes the watersheds of the Tule and Kern rivers
together with those of the small creeks between (Deer, White, and Poso
creeks) and Buenavista Basin south of Bakersfield (see maps 1 and 2,
areas 1F and 1G). The tribes placed by Kroeber in the region are the
Koyeti, Yaudanchi, Bokninuwad, Kumachisi, Bankalachi (Shoshonean),
Paleuyami, Yauelmani, Hometwoli, Tuhohi, and Tulamni.
G. W. Barbour (1852), in a letter dated July 28, 1851, said that the
area bounded by Buenavista Lake, Tule River, and Paint Creek contained
a population of about 2,000. Savage (Dixon, MS, 1875) said there were
1,700 on the Kern River and Barbour (1853) stated that, for
treaty-making purposes in 1851, 1,700 congregated at Paint Creek below
Tule River. The villages listed by Kroeber, Gayton, and Latta for the
various tribes are as follows: Bokninuwad 2, Hometwoli 3, Koyeti 8,
Kumachisi 6, Paleuyami 7, Tuhohi 1, Tulamni 3, Yaudanchi 8, and
Yauelmani 7. The total is 45. The village size indicated by Derby for
the Tulare Lake Basin and adjacent valley territory is 60 or 70; that
for the hill regions is undoubtedly smaller. If we take 40 persons as
the average village population, the aggregate for the region would be
1,800 and if we take 50 persons, it is 2,250. We cannot be far in error
in setting the population at Barbour's value, 2,000.
TULE-KERN-BUENAVISTA ... 2,000
______________________________
On the basis of gross estimates and semicomprehensive counts for the
entire region the population for the San Joaquin Valley and neighboring
foothills in 1851 was tentatively set at 8,600 (p. 34). The detailed
consideration of the seven subdivisions of the entire region, as above,
leads to an estimate of 19,000, as set forth in the following
recapitulation.
Stanislaus-Tuolumne 2,000
Merced-Mariposa-Chowchilla 2,500
Cosumnes-Mokelumne-Calaveras 1,000
Fresno-San Joaquin 3,600
Kings-Kaweah 6,800
Tulare Lake Basin 1,100
Tule-Kern-Buenavista 2,000
________
Total 19,000
It is believed that this total is more reliable than that previously
given for several reasons. In the first place, it is derived from a
careful consideration of all available sources in detail. In the second
place, the preliminary estimate was weighted heavily by the reports of
government officials, who saw principally those Indians with whom they
were able to make treaties or whom they were able to collect on
reservations. That this seems to represent less than one-half the
natives in the territory is not surprising. In the third place, recent
investigations by ethnographers have brought to light many local groups
which were overlooked by contemporary observers, official and civilian
alike. We may therefore accept the figure 19,000 as the population of
the San Joaquin Valley surviving in 1852.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: These treaties seem to have been concluded without proper
authorization from the Federal government and were never ratified by
the Senate. They were incorporated in Senate Confidential Documents,
June, 1852, and remained unpublished for half a century. Finally they
were ordered printed in 1905 as a Senate Reprint and are now available
under the title of "18 California Treaties."]
[Footnote 2: This village list and all others herein referred to under
the name of Merriam are part of the extensive file of personal
manuscript material collected by the late C. Hart Merriam and
deposited, through the kindness of his heirs, with the Department of
Anthropology of the University of California, Berkeley. Merriam's
village lists were very carefully compiled and for many regions of the
state cannot be duplicated in any publications which have hitherto
appeared.]
[Footnote 3: I am indebted to Professor Edward W. Gifford, of the
Department of Anthropology of the University of California, Berkeley,
for the privilege of examining his list of Central Miwok villages,
which was obtained some years ago through an informant and has remained
unpublished.]
[Footnote 4: Merriam's manuscript entitled "Yokuts List" mentions a
report from Lt. N. H. McLean, dated July 12, 1853, to H. J. Wessels, on
file in "Old Files Division," Adjutant General's Office, Washington,
no. H369. As far as I am aware, this letter has never been quoted
elsewhere.]
THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION
In order to estimate the aboriginal population of the San Joaquin
Valley it is necessary to rely very heavily on the accounts furnished
by the colonial Spanish and Mexicans. These were primarily
ecclesiastics and military men who entered the territory for purposes
of exploration, to seek new converts to the missions, or to chastise
stock raiders. The more responsible of these left circumstantial and,
as a rule, fairly accurate narratives and diaries. Unless there is in a
particular case some reason for doubt, their statements may be accorded
considerable confidence.
At the same time two circumstances often render the interpretation of
the data derived from these documents difficult. The first is the lack
of consistent designations for places. During the process of opening up
the area it was inevitable that rivers and villages should be assigned
different names by one explorer after another and that the same name
should be applied to more than one locality. The second is that during
the early phases of exploration some localities were visited
repeatedly, whereas others were overlooked perhaps entirely. Hence the
information available to us is very uneven; it permits us to achieve a
reasonably clear idea of the population of one region but leaves
another almost completely blank. As a result extrapolation by area is
almost unavoidable.
It must also be constantly borne in mind that the Spanish records
themselves do not give us an absolutely undistorted picture of
aboriginal conditions. It is very evident from the reports of the
earliest official pioneers, like Garces in 1776 and Martin in 1804,
that from 1770 onward and perhaps even before white men had straggled
into the valley and had consorted with the natives. There is reason to
believe that these unknown interlopers may have introduced diseases
which adversely affected the population and may have initiated a
process of general social disruption. The best we can do is get as
close to the prehistoric condition as the records allow.
Two other demographic consequences arise from this very early white
contact. In the first place, the documentary record, if we ignore
Garces for the moment, runs nearly continuously from 1804 to
approximately 1840. During this long period an uninterrupted change was
going on among the native population: the population was _continually
decreasing_. Hence later reports tend to deviate from earlier ones, and
indeed may show an entirely new state of affairs arising within a very
few years. In the second place, the deterioration in certain areas took
place so rapidly in the first part of the nineteenth century that any
information secured from informants alive since 1900 is completely
useless. Unless very good documentary evidence is available for such
areas, there is no recourse but to fall back on the method of
extrapolation and area comparisons.
The principal Spanish accounts upon which we must rely include a few
which have been published. Most of them, however, are to be found in
manuscript form in the Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley. Some of them were translated for an unpublished manuscript by
the Late Professor Herbert I. Priestley and several were translated for
Dr. C. H. Merriam. Merriam's translations are on file in his manuscript
collection. The citations to these accounts, published and unpublished,
are given in the manuscript section of the Bibliography. In this text
they are referred to, without further citation, by the author's name
and date.
THE TULARE LAKE BASIN
We may commence detailed consideration of the aboriginal population
with the Tulare Lake Basin, which was inhabited in 1800 by three Yokuts
tribes, the Wowol, Tachi, and Chunut (see maps 1 and 2, area 2). The
first official visitor to the area was Father Juan Martin who entered
the valley in 1804 in search of new mission sites. He found the
principal village of the Wowol, which he called Bubal. This rancheria,
he said, contained not less than 200 children. It was visited again in
1806 by Moraga, who found 400 inhabitants. Eight years later Father
Cabot passed the site and found 700 people. Subsequently, it was
visited by Ortega in 1815 and Estudillo in 1819 but these writers gave
no population figures. Since no other village was ever recorded by name
in the territory of the tribe, it is safe to assume that there was no
other, at least of permanence and reasonably large size.
Gifford and Schenck (1926), in their discussion of the history of the
southern valley, conclude that because the village was reported as
having 400 persons in 1806 and 700 in 1814 there was a real increase in
population during the intervening eight years. This they ascribe to
fugitives from the coastal missions who entered the valley as refugees.
The opinion expressed by these authors may serve as the starting point
for discussion of certain general problems which are encountered in
attempting to estimate the aboriginal population of the valley.
In 1804 Martin saw 200 children. If we knew the ratio of children to
adults, we could easily compute the total number of inhabitants. The
age of "children" was variously estimated in colonial New Spain, indeed
all the way from seven to fifteen years. The early California
missionaries used approximately fourteen years for males and twelve for
females. In 1793, however, the system was standardized for doctrinal
purposes. Indians, both gentile and converted, were designated as
children if they were under ten years, i.e., in the age bracket from 0
to 9 inclusive. Hence all the clergy conformed to the method in so far
as they were able and unless they specified otherwise.
There are certain data available which permit us to estimate rather
closely what proportion of the population in California should be
regarded as falling within the category of children. Within the
missions the annual censuses enable us to compute with accuracy that
the individuals under the age of ten years, between the dates 1782 and
1832 averaged 21.4 per cent of the total population (Cook, 1940). This
value is relatively high and may not conform to gentile, or aboriginal,
conditions. With regard to these we have information from
archaeological sources. In the Museum of Anthropology at Berkeley
there are several hundred skeletons excavated from habitation sites in
central and northern California, the ages of which have been determined
and which constitute a fair cross section of the native population
during the centuries immediately preceding invasion by the white man.
Of these skeletons 22.6 per cent represent persons dying under the age
of twenty years, and perhaps 10 or 15 per cent persons dying under the
age of ten.
Further light is shed by the baptism records of the missions San Jose
and Santa Clara (these are discussed in greater detail in a later
paragraph) which list gentile baptisms according to village and
distinguish between men, women, and children. In the two missions, from
approximately 1805 to 1833 there were baptized a total of 5,217 persons
from villages in the valley region. Of these 930, or 17.8 per cent were
children and 1,939, or 37.1 per cent were listed as men. The sex ratio
is 0.826. Evidently the natives captured and brought to the missions do
not give us a completely true picture of the composition of the
aboriginal population, despite the large sample at our disposal. It is
highly probable that (1) the natural sex ratio was nearly unity and (2)
many of the men were killed in warfare or escaped the clutches of the
convert hunters. Therefore we are justified in setting the number of
men equal to that of the women. If we do this, the population
represented by the 5,217 conversions was actually 5,626, of which men
and women each constituted 41.8 per cent and children 16.4 per cent.
Finally, we have figures from Zalvidea (MS, 1806) with respect to
villages at the extreme southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. (These
are discussed subsequently in connection with the population of that
area.) At two of these, after adjusting for disturbed sex ratio, he
found respectively 13.5 and 9.6 per cent children. However, Zalvidea's
account states specifically that in these villages he carries the age
of childhood only through the seventh year. If he had counted as
children those under ten years of age, the percentages would naturally
have been higher.
The data just set forth render it abundantly clear that the children
constituted between 10 and 20 per cent of the aboriginal population.
Since the exact value can never be ascertained, it is wholly reasonable
to establish the arbitrary figure of 15 per cent. If we apply this
factor to Bubal the result is not less than an aggregate of 1,333
persons, much greater than the value set by Moraga in 1806.
With respect to the suggestion of Gifford and Schenck that the number
of inhabitants of Bubal had been augmented between 1806 and 1814 by
refugees from the missions the following points may be noted. In the
first place, it has been possible to show (Cook, 1940) by means of the
mission censuses that in 1815 the cumulative total of fugitives
reported by all the missions in the colony amounted to 1,927 persons.
Of these a great many who ran away in the earlier years were deceased.
Many never went to the valley at all and the remainder were distributed
from Sacramento to Bakersfield. It is highly unlikely that as many as
300 would be concentrated at one village such as Bubal. In the second
place, the majority of the fugitives who did reach the village or its
vicinity were former inhabitants of the locality who were merely
returning to their old homes rather than coastal Indians, who would
have constituted real refugees. On the whole, therefore, and this
conclusion applies throughout the valley, true increase of population
by immigration of foreign fugitives was negligible.