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From these letters, now in the possession of the Historical Society of Southern California, I briefly collate some of the leading character- istics of the Southern Indians:
GOVERNMENT.
"Before the Indians belonging to the greater part of this country were known to the whites they comprised, as it were, one great family under distinct chiefs; they spoke nearly the same language, with the exception of a few words, and were more to be distinguished by a local intonation of the voice than anything else. Be- ing related by blood and marriage war was never carried on between them. When war was consequently waged against neighboring tribes of no affinity it was a common cause."
"The government of the people was invested in the hands of their chiefs, each captain com- manding his own lodge. The command was hereditary in a family. If the right line of de- scent ran out they elected one of the same kin nearest in blood. Laws in general were made as required, with some few standing ones. Rob- bery was never known among them. Murder was of rare occurrence and punished with death. Incest was likewise punished with death, being held in such abhorrence that marriages between kinsfolk were not allowed. The manner of put- ting to death was by shooting the delinquent
with arrows. If a quarrel ensued between two parties the chief of the lodge took cognizance in the case and decided according to the testi- mony produced. But if a quarrel occurred between parties of distinct lodges, each chief heard the witnesses produced by his own people, and then, associated with the chief of the oppo- site side, they passed sentence. In case they could not agree an impartial chief was called in, who heard the statements made by both and he alone decided. There was no appeal from his de- cision. Whipping was never resorted to as a punishment. All fines and sentences consisted in delivering shells, money, food and skins."
RELIGION.
"They believed in one God, the Maker and Creator of all things, whose name was and is held so sacred among them as hardly ever to be used, and when used only in a low voice. That name is Qua-o-ar. When they have to use the name of the supreme being on an ordinary oc- casion they substitute in its stead the word Y-yo-ha-rory-nain or the Giver of Life. They have only one word to designate life and soul."
"The world was at one time in a state of chaos, until God gave it its present formation, fixing it on the shoulders of seven giants, made ex- pressly for this end. They have their names, and when they move themselves an earthquake is the consequence. Animals were then formed, and lastly man and woman were formed, separ- ately from earth and ordered to live together. The man's name was Tobahar and the woman's Probavit. God ascended to Heaven immediately afterward, where he receives the souls of all who die. They had no bad spirits connected with their creed, and never heard of a 'devil' or a 'hell' until the coming of the Spaniards. They believed in no resurrection whatever "
MARRIAGE.
"Chiefs had one, two or three wives, as their inclination dictated, the subjects only one. When a person wished to marry and had selected a suitable partner, he advertised the same to all his relatives, even to the nineteenth cousin. On a day appointed the male portion of the lodge
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brought in a collection of money beads. All the relations having come in with their share, they (the males) proceeded in a body to the resi- dence of the bride, to whom timely notice had been given. All of the bride's female relations had been assembled and the money was equally divided among them, the bride receiving noth- ing, as it was a sort of purchase. After a few days the bride's female relations returned the compliment by taking to the bridegroom's dwelling baskets of meal made of chia, which was distributed among the male relatives. These preliminaries over, a day was fixed for the cere- mony, which consisted in decking out the bride in innumerable strings of beads, paint, feathers and skins. On being ready she was taken up in the arms of one of her strongest male rela- tives, who carried her, dancing, towards her lover's habitation. All of her family, friends and neighbors accompanied, dancing around, throw- ing food and edible seeds at her feet at every step. These were collected in a scramble by the spectators as best they could. The relations of the bridegroom met them half way, and, tak- ing the bride, carried her themselves, joining in the ceremonious walking dance. On arriving at the bridegroom's (who was sitting within his hut) she was inducted into hier new residence by being placed alongside of her husband, while baskets of seeds were liberally emptied on their heads to denote blessings and plenty. This was likewise scrambled for by the spectators, who, on gathering up all the bride's seed cake, de- parted, leaving them to enjoy their honeymoon according to usage. A grand dance was given on the occasion, the warriors doing the danc- ing, the young women doing the singing. The wife never visited her relatives from that day forth, although they were at liberty to visit her."
BURIALS.
"When a person died all the kin collected to mourn his or her loss. Each one had his own peculiar mode of crying or howling, as easily dis- tinguished the one from the other as one song is from another. After lamenting awhile a mourning dirge was sung in a low whining tone, accompanied by a shrill whistle produced by blowing into the tube of a deer's leg bone.
Dancing can hardly be said to have formed a part of the rites, as it was merely a monotonous action of the foot on the ground. This was con- tinued alternately until the body showed signs of decay, when it was wrapped in the covering used in life. The hands were crossed upon the breast and the body tied from head to foot. A grave having been dug in their burial ground, the body was deposited with seeds, etc., accord- ing to the means of the family. If the deceased were the head of the family or a favorite son, the hut in which he lived was burned up, as likewise were all his personal effects."
FEUDS-THE SONG FIGHTS.
"Animosity between persons or families was of long duration, particularly between those of different tribes. These feuds descended from father to son until it was impossible to tell of how many generations. They were, however, harmless in themselves, being merely a war of songs, composed and sung against the conflict- ing party, and they were all of the most obscene and indecent language imaginable. There are two families at this day (1851) whose feud com- menced before the Spaniards were ever dreamed of and they still continue singing and dancing against each other. The one resides at the mis- sion of San Gabriel and the other at San Juan Capistrano; they both lived at San Bernardino when the quarrel commenced. During the sing- ing they continue stamping on the ground to express the pleasure they would derive from tramping on the graves of their foes. Eight days was the duration of the song fight."
UTENSILS.
"From the bark of nettles was manufactured thread for nets, fishing lines, etc. Needles, fish- hooks, awls and many other articles were made of either bone or shell; for cutting up meat a knife of cane was invariably used. Mortars and pestles were made of granite. Sharp stones and perseverance were the only things used in their manufacture, and so skillfully did they combine the two that their work was always remarkably uniform. Their pots to cook in were made of soapstone of about an inch in thickness and procured from the Indians of Santa Catalina.
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Their baskets, made out of a certain species of rush, were used only for dry purposes, although they were water proof. The vessels in use for liquids were roughly made of rushes and plas- tered outside and in with bitumen or pitch."
INDIANS OF THE SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL.
Miguel Constansó, the engineer who accom- panied Portolá's expedition in 1769, gives us the best description of the Santa Barbara Indians extant.
"The Indians in whom was recognized more vivacity and industry are those that inhabit the islands and the coast of the Santa Barbara channel. They live in pueblos (villages) whose houses are of spherical form in the fashion of a half orange covered with rushes. They are up to twenty varas (fifty-five feet) in diameter. Each house contains three or four families. The hearth is in the middle and in the top of the house they leave a vent or chimney to give exit for the smoke. In nothing did these gentiles give the lie to the affability and good treatment which were experienced at their hands in other times (1602) by the Spaniards who landed upon those coasts with General Sebastian Vizcayno. They are men and women of good figure and as- pect, very much given to painting and staining their faces and bodies with red ochre.
"They use great head dresses of feathers and some panderellas (small darts) which they bind up amid their hair with various trinkets and beads of coral of various colors. The men go entirely naked, but in time of cold they sport some long capes of tanned skins of nutrias (ot- ters) and some mantles made of the same skins cut in long strips, which they twist in such a manner that all the fur remains outside; then they weave these strands one with another, forming a weft, and give it the pattern referred to.
"The women go with more decency, girt about the waist with tanned skins of deer which cover them in front and behind more than half down the leg, and with a mantelet of nutria over the body. There are some of them with good features. These are the Indian women who make the trays and vases of rushes, to which they give a thousand different forms and grace-
ful patterns, according to the uses to which they are destined, whether it be for eating, drinking, guarding their seeds, or for other purposes; for these peoples do not know the use of earthen ware as those of San Diego use it.
"The men work handsome trays of wood, with finer inlays of coral or of bone; and some vases of much capacity, closing at the mouth, which appear to be made with a lathe-and with this machine they would not come out better hol- lowed nor of more perfect form. They give the whole a luster which appears the finished handi- work of a skilled artisan. The large vessels which hold water are of a very strong weave of rushes pitched within; and they give them the same form as our water jars.
"To eat the seeds which they use in place of bread they toast them first in great trays, put- ting among the seeds some pebbles or small stones heated until red; then they move and shake the tray so it may not burn; and getting the seed sufficiently toasted they grind it in mor- tars or almireses of stone. Some of these mor- tars were of extraordinary size, as well wrought as if they had had for the purpose the best steel tools. The constancy, attention to trifles, and labor which they employ in finishing these pieces are well worthy of admiration. The mortars are so appreciated among themselves that for those who, dying, leave behind such handiworks, they are wont to place them over the spot where they are buried, that the memory of their skill and application may not be lost.
"They inter their dead. They have their cem- eteries within the very pucblo. The funerals of their captains they make with great pomp, and set up over their bodies some rods or poles, ex- tremely tall, from which they hang a variety of utensils and chattels which were used by them. They likewise put in the same place some great planks of pine, with various paintings and fig- ures in which without doubt they explain the exploits and prowesses of the personage.
"Plurality of wives is not lawful among these peoples. Only the captains have a right to marry two. In all their pueblos the attention was taken by a species of men who lived like the women, kept company with them, dressed in the same garb, adorned themselves with beads, pen-
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dants, necklaces and other womanish adorn- ments, and enjoyed great consideration among the people. The lack of an interpreter did not permit us to find out what class of men they were, or to what ministry they were destined, though all suspect a defect in sex, or some abuse among those gentiles.
"In their houses the married couples have their separate beds on platforms elevated from the ground. Their mattresses are some simple petates (mats) of rushes and their pillows are of the same petates rolled up at the head of the bed. All these beds are hung about with like mats, which serve for decency and protect from the cold."
From the descriptions given by Viscaino and Constansó of the coast Indians they do not ap- pear to have been the degraded creatures that some modern writers have pictured them. In mechanical ingenuity they were superior to the Indians of the Atlantic seaboard or those of the Mississippi valley. Much of the credit that has been given to the mission padres for the patient training they gave the Indians in mechanical arts should be given to the Indian himself. He was no mean mechanic when the padres took him in hand.
Bancroft says "the Northern California In- dians were in every way superior to the central and southern tribes." The difference was more in climate than in race. Those of Northern Cal- ifornia living in an invigorating climate were more active and more warlike than their sluggish brethren of the south. They gained their living by hunting larger game than those of the south whose subsistence was derived mostly from acorns, seeds, small game and fish. Those of the interior valleys of the north were of lighter complexion and had better forms and features than their southern kinsmen. They were divided into numerous small tribes or clans, like those of central and Southern Cali- fornia. The Spaniards never penetrated very far into the Indian country of the north and consequently knew little or nothing about the habits and customs of the aborigines there. After the discovery of gold the miners invaded their country in search of the precious metal. The Indians at first were not hostile, but ill
treatment soon made them so. When they re- taliated on the whites a war of extermination was waged against them. Like the mission In- dians of the south they are almost extinct.
All of the coast Indians seem to have had some idea of a supreme being. The name dif- fered with the different tribes. According to Hugo Reid the god of the San Gabriel Indian was named Quaoar. Father Boscana, who wrote "A Historical Account of the Origin, : Customs and Traditions of the Indians" at the missionary establishment of San Juan Capis- trano, published in Alfred Robinson's "Life in California," gives a lengthy account of the relig- ion of those Indians before their conversion to Christianity. Their god was Chinigchinich. Evi- dently the three old men from whom Boscana derived his information mixed some of the religious teachings of the padres with their own primitive beliefs, and made up for the father a nondescript religion half heathen and half Christian. Boscana was greatly pleased to find so many allusions to Scriptural truths, evidently never suspecting that the Indians were imposing upon him.
The religious belief of the Santa Barbara Channel Indians appears to have been the most rational of any of the beliefs held by the Cali- fornia aborigines. Their god, Chupu, was the deification of good; and Nunaxus, their Satan, the personification of evil. Chuputhe all-powerful created Nunaxus, who rebelled against his cre- ator and tried to overthrow him; but Chupu, the almighty, punished him by creating man who, by devouring the animal and vegetable products of the earth, checked the physical growth of Nunaxus, who had hoped by liberal feeding to become like unto a mountain. Foiled in his am- bition, Nunaxus ever afterwards sought to in- jure mankind. To secure Chupu's protection, offerings were made to him and dances were instituted in his honor. Flutes and other in- struments were played to attract his attention. When Nunaxus brought calamity upon the In- dians in the shape of dry years, which caused a dearth of animal and vegetable products, or sent sickness to afflict them, their old men interceded with Chupu to protect them; and to exorcise their Satan they shot arrows and threw
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stones in the direction in which he was sup- posed to be.
Of the Indian myths and traditions Hugo Reid says: "They were of incredible length and contained more metamorphoses than Ovid could have engendered in his brain had he lived a thousand years."
The Cahuilla tribes who formerly inhabited the mountain districts of the southeastern part of the state had a tradition of their creation. Ac- cording to this tradition the primeval Adam and Eve were created by the Supreme Being in the waters of a northern sea. They came up out of the water upon the land, which they found to be soft and miry. They traveled southward for many moons in search of land suitable for their residence and where they could obtain susten- ance from the earth. This they found at last on the mountain sides in Southern California.
Some of the Indian myths when divested of their crudities and ideas clothed in fitting language are as poetical as those of Greece or Scandinavia. The following one which Hugo Reid found among the San Gabriel Indians bears a striking resemblance to the Grecian myths of Orpheus and Eurydice but it is not at all probable that the Indians ever heard the Grecian fable. Ages ago, so runs this Indian myth, a powerful people dwelt on the banks of the Arroyo Seco and hunted over the hills and plains of what are now our modern Pasadena and the valley of San Fernando. They com- mitted a grievous crime against the Great Spirit. A pestilence destroyed them all save a boy and girl who were saved by a foster mother pos- sessed of supernatural powers. They grew to manhood and womanhood and became husband and wife. Their devotion to each other angered the foster mother, who fancied herself neglected. She plotted to destroy the wife. The young woman, divining her fate, told her husband that should he at any time feel a tear drop on his shoulder, he might know that she was dead. While he was away hunting the dread signal came. He hastened back to destroy the hag who had brought death to his wife, but the sorceress had escaped. Disconsolate he threw himself on the grave of his wife. For three days he neither ate nor drank. On the third day a whirlwind
arose from the grave and moved toward the south. Perceiving in it the form of his wife, he hastened on until he overtook it. Then a voice came out of the cloud saying: "Whither I go, thou canst not come. Thou art of earth but I am dead to the world. Return, my husband, return!" He plead piteously to be taken with her. She consenting, he was wrapt in the cloud with her and borne across the illimitable sea that separates the abode of the living from that of the dead. When they reached the realms of ghosts a spirit voice said: "Sister, thou comest to us with an odor of earth; what dost thou bring?" Then she confessed that she had brought her living husband. "Take him away!" said a voice stern and commanding. She plead that he might remain and recounted his many virtues. To test his virtues, the spirits gave him four labors. First to bring a feather from the top of a pole so high that its summit was in- visible. Next to split a hair of great length and exceeding fineness ; third to make on the ground a map of the constellation of the lesser bear and locate the north star and last to slay the celestial deer that had the form of black beetles and were exceedingly swift. With the aid of his wife he accomplished all the tasks.
But no mortal was allowed to dwell in the abodes of death. "Take thou thy wife and re- turn with her to the earth," said the spirit. "Yet remember, thou shalt not speak to her; thou shalt not touch her until three suns have passed. A penalty awaits thy disobedience." He prom- ised. They pass from the spirit land and travel to the confines of matter. By day she is invis- ible but by the flickering light of his camp-fire he sees the dim outline of her form. Three days pass. As the sun sinks behind the western hills he builds his camp-fire. She appears before him in all the beauty of life. He stretches forth his arms to embrace her. She is snatched from his grasp. Although invisible to him yet the upper rim of the great orb of day hung above the western verge. He had broken his prom- ise. Like Orpheus, disconsolate, he wandered over the earth until, relenting, the spirits sent their servant Death to bring him to Tecupar (Heaven).
The following myth of the mountain Indians
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of the north bears a strong resemblance to the Norse fable of Gyoll the River of Death and its glittering bridge, over which the spirits of the dead pass to Hel, the land of spirits. The In- dian, however, had no idea of any kind of a bridge except a foot log across a stream. The myth in a crude form was narrated to me many years ago by an old pioneer.
According to this myth when an Indian died his spirit form was conducted by an unseen guide over a mountain trail unknown and inac- cessible to mortals, to the rapidly flowing river which separated the abode of the living from that of the dead. As the trail descended to the river it branched to the right and left. The right hand path led to a foot bridge made of the mas-
sive trunk of a rough barked pine which spanned the Indian styx; the left led to a slender, fresh peeled birch pole that hung high above the roar- ing torrent. At the parting of the trail an in- exorable fate forced the bad to the left, while the spirit form of the good passed on to the right and over the rough barked pine to the happy hunting grounds, the Indian heaven. The bad reaching the river's brink and gazing long- ingly upon the delights beyond, essayed to cross the slippery pole-a slip, a slide, a clutch at empty space, and the ghostly spirit form was hurled into the mad torrent below, and was borne by the rushing waters into a vast lethean lake where it sunk beneath the waves and was blotted from existence forever.
CHAPTER V. FRANCISCAN MISSIONS OF ALTA CALIFORNIA.
SAN DIEGO DE ALCALÁ.
T HE two objective points chosen by Vis- itador General Galvez and President Junipero Serra to begin the spiritual conquest and civilization of the savages of Alta California, were San Diego and Monterey. The expeditions sent by land and sea were all united at San Diego July 1, 1769. Father Serra lost no time in beginning the founding of missions. On the 16th of July, 1769, he founded the mis- sion of San Diego de Alcalá. It was the first link in the chain of missionary establishments that eventually stretched northward from San Diego to Solano, a distance of seven hundred miles, a chain that was fifty-five years in forging. The first site of the San Diego mission was at a place called by the Indians "Cosoy." It was located near the presidio established by Gov- ernor Portolá before he set out in search of Monterey. The locality is now known as Old Town.
Temporary buildings were erected here, but the location proving unsuitable, in August, 1774, the mission was removed about two leagues up the San Diego river to a place called by the natives "Nipaguay." Here a dwelling for
the padres, a store house, a smithy and a wooden church 18x57 feet were erected.
The mission buildings at Cosoy were given up to the presidio except two rooms, one for the visiting priests and the other for a temporary store room for mission supplies coming by sea. The missionaries had been fairly successful in the conversions of the natives and some prog- ress had been made in teaching them to labor. On the night of November 4, 1775, without any previous warning, the gentiles or unconverted Indians in great numbers attacked the mission. One of the friars, Fray Funster, escaped to the soldiers' quarters; the other, Father Jaume, was killed by the savages. The blacksmith also was killed; the carpenter succeeded in reaching the soldiers. The Indians set fire to the buildings which were nearly all of wood. The soldiers, the priest and carpenter were driven into a small adobe building that had been used as a kitchen. Two of the soldiers were wounded. The cor- poral, one soldier and the carpenter were all that were left to hold at bay a thousand howl- ing fiends. The corporal, who was a sharp shooter, did deadly execution on the savages.
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Father Funster saved the defenders from being blown to pieces by the explosion of a fifty pound sack of gunpowder. He spread his cloak over the sack and sat on it, thus preventing the pow- der from being ignited by the sparks of the burning building. The fight lasted till daylight, when the hostiles fled. The Christian Indians who professed to have been coerced by the sav- ages then appeared and made many protesta- tions of sorrow at what had happened. The mili- tary commander was not satisfied that they were innocent but the padres believed them. New buildings were erected at the same place, the soldiers of the presidio for a time assisting the Indians in their erection.
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