Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 5

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366

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ourselves in a vineyard among wild grape vines and numerous rose bushes in full bloom. The ground is of a rich, black, clayish soil, and will produce whatever kind of grain one may desire to cultivate. We kept on our road to the west, passing over like excellent pastures. After one- half league's march we approached the rancheria of this locality. Its Indians came out to meet us howling like wolves. We also greeted them, and they wanted to make us a gift of seeds, but not having at hand wherein to carry it we did not accept their present. The Gentiles, seeing our refusal, threw a few handfuls on the ground and scattered the rest to the winds."

The aborigines of Los Angeles seem to have been a hospitable race. From their throwing away their gifts when the Spaniards refused them it would seem that it was a violation of the rules of Indian etiquette to take back a present. Throughout their march Portolá's explorers were treated hospitably by the savages. The Indians lived to regret their kindness to the Spaniards.

After the founding of San Gabriel the In- dian dwellers of Yang-na were gathered into the mission fold, and no doubt many a time they howled louder under the lash of the Mission major-domos than they did when with their tribal yell they welcomed the Spaniards to their rancheria in the woods by the river called Porciuncula.

Hugo Reid, in the series of letters referred to in a previous chapter of this volume, has left us an account of the mode of life, the religion, the manners, customs, myths and traditions of the aborigines who once inhabited what at the time he wrote (1851) was Los Angeles county. Los Angeles then included, besides its present area, all of the territory now in Orange and San Ber- nardino and part of that in Kern and Riverside counties. Reid was married to an Indian woman and had exceptional facilities for studying them. I regard his account as the best of any published. The Indians of San Diego differed but little from those of Los Angeles. From these letters I briefly collate some of the leading character- istics of the Indians of Southern California.

GOVERNMENT.

"Before the Indians belonging to the greater part of this county 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. Being related by blood and marriage, war was never carried on between them. When war was consequently waged against neighboring tribes

* Chia, which Father Crespi frequently mentions in his diary, is a small, gray, oblong seed, procured from a plant having a number of seed vessels on a straight stalk, one above another, like wild sage. This, roasted and ground into meal, was eaten with cold water, being of a glutinous consistency and very cooling. It was a favorite article of food with the Indians.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

of no affinity it was a common cause. * "The government of the people was invested in the hands of their chiefs, each captain com- inanding 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 be- tween parties of distinct lodges each chief heard the witnesses produced by his own people, and then, associated with the chief of the opposite 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 decision. Whipping was never resorted to as a punish- ment. All fines and sentences consisted in de- livering shell 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-àr. When they have to use the name of the Supreme Being on an ordinary oc- casion they substitute in its stcad the word Y-yo- ha-ring-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 expressly 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, sep- arately from earth, and ordered to live together. The man's name was Tobohar and the woman's Pobavit. God ascended to Heaven immediately afterwards, 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. Having nothing to care about their souls it made them stoical in regard to death."

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 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 residence 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 dwell- ing baskets of meal made of chia, which was dis- tributed among the male relatives. These pre- liminaries 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 relatives, who carried her dancing, toward her lover's hab- itation. All of her family, friends and neighbors accompanied, dancing around, throwing food and edible seeds at her feet every step, which were collected in a scramble as best they could by the spectators. The relations of the man met them half way, and, taking 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 her new residence by being placed alongside of her husband, while baskets of seeds were liber- ally emptied on their heads to denote blessing and plenty. This was likewise scrambled for by the spectators, who, on gathering up all of the bride's seed cake, departed leaving them to enjoy their honeymoon according to usage. A grand dance was given on the occasion, the war- riors doing the dancing ; the young women do- ing the singing. The wife never visited her rela- tions from that day forthi, 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 distinguished 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 decr's leg bone. Danc- ing 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 continued alternately until the body showed signs of decay, when it was wrapped up in the covering used in life. The hands were crossed upon the breast

IHISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPINCAL RECORD.

and the body tied from head to foot. A grave having been dug in their burial ground, the body was deposited with seeds, etc., according to the means of the family. If the deceased were the head of a family or a favorite son, the hut in which he lived was burned up, as likewise 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 for 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 fend com- menced before Spaniards were even dreamed of, and they still continue yearly singing and danc- ing against each other. The one resides at the Mission of San Gabriel and the other at San Juan Capistrano; they both lived at San Bernar- dino when the quarrel commenced. During the singing 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 thircad 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 cone 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. Their baskets, made out of a certain species of rush, were used only for dry purposes, although they were waterproof. The vessels in use for liquids were roughly made of rushes and plas- tered outside and in with bitumen or pitch, called by them 'sanot.'"

MYTHOLOGY.

"The Indians of the Los Angeles valley had an elaborate mythology. The Cahuilla tribes have a tradition of their creation. According to this tradition the primeval Adam and Eve were created by the Supreme Being in the waters of a northern sca. They came up out of the water upon the land, which they found to be soft and

miry. They traveled southward in search of land suitable for their sustenance and residence, which they found at last upon the mountain ridges of Southern California."

Of their myths and traditions, Hugo Reid says: "They were of incredible length and con- tained more metamorphoses than Ovid could have engendered in his brain had he lived a thou- sand years."

Some of these Indian myths, when divested of their crudities and the ideas clothed in fitting language, are as beautiful and as poetical as those of Greece or Scandinavia.

In the myth given below there is, in the moral. a marked similarity to the Grecian fable of Or- pheus and Eurydice. The central thought in cach is the impossibility of the dead returning to earth. To more clearly illustrate the parallelism of ideas, I give a brief outline of the Grecian myth :

Eurydice, stung by an adder, dies, and her spirit is borne to the Plutonian realms. Orpheus, her husband, seeking her, enters the dread abode of the god of the lower world. He strikes his wonderful lyre, and the sweet music charms the denizens of hades. They forget their sorrows and cease from their endless tasks. Pluto, charmed, allows Eurydice to depart with her lover on one condition, Orpheus is not to look upon her until they reach the upper world. He clisobeys and she is snatched from him. Discon- solate, he wanders over the earth till death unites him to his loved one.

Ages ago, so runs the Indian myth, a power- ful 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 committed a grievous crime against the Great Spirit. A pes- tilence destroyed them, all save a boy and a girl, who were saved by a foster mother possessed 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 lic 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 has- tened back to destroy the hag who had brought death to his wife, but the sorceress escaped. Dis- consolate, 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 the cloud saying: "Whither I go thou canst not

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

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 order 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 invisible. 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 return with her to the earth," said the spirit. "Yet remem- ber, thou shalt not speak to her; thou shalt not touch her until three suns have passed. A pen- alty awaits thy disobedience." He promised. They pass from the spirit land and travel to the confines of matter. By day she is invisible, but by the flickering light of his campfire he sees the dim outline of her form. Three days pass. As the sun sinks behind the western hills he builds his campfire. 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 west- ern verge. He had broken his promise. Like Orpheus, disconsolate, he wandered over the carth, until, relenting, the spirits sent their ser- vant Death, to bring him to Tecupar (heaven).

The following bears a resemblance to the Norse myth of Gyoll, the River of Death and its glittering bridge, over which the spirits of the dead pass to Hel or the land of the spirits. The Indian, 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.

spanned the Indian Styx; the left led to a slen- der, fresh-pealed birch pole that hung high above the roaring torrent. At the parting of the trail an inexorable 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 longingly upon the delights beyond, es- sayed 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 sank beneath the waves and was blotted from existence forever.

The Indians of the Santa Barbara Channel, according to the reports of the early explorers of that region, were somewhat superior in ap- pearance and intelligence to those of the country further south. The mainland bordering on the channel and the Channel Islands seem to have been more densely populated than any other portion of California. These natives had a dif- ferent religious belief, or at least a different god from those further south. The god of the Chan- nel Indians was named Chupu. He was the deification of good and Nunaxus the personifi- cation of evil. Chupu created Nunaxus, who rebelled against his creator and tried to over- throw him, but Chupu was all-powerful, and to punish this Indian Satan, he created man who, 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 ambition, Nunaxus ever afterwards sought to in- jure mankind.

To secure the protection of Chupu, offerings were made to him and dances were instituted in his honor. Flutes and other instruments were played to attract his attention. When Nunaxus brought calamity upon the Indians in the shape of dry years which caused a dearth of animal and vegetable products or sent sickness to af- flict them, their old men interceded with Chupu to protect them; and to exorcise their Satan they shot arrows and threw stones in the direc- tion in which he was supposed to be. While Chupu was the god of good he could punish an apostate or a renegade with calamity and death. In 1801, a pulmonary epidemic destroyed great numbers of the Indians in the Channel Missions. Chupu revealed to a neophyte in a dream that the plague was sent upon the In-

According to this myth when an Indian died his spirit form was conducted by an unseen guide over a mountain trail unknown and in- accessible to mortals to a rapidly flowing river that separated the abode of the living from that . dians for their apostasy, and all who had been of the dead. As the trail descended to the river baptized woukl die unless they renounced Christianity. The story of the revelation spread among the neophytes of the different missions and they hastened to propitiate Chupu it branched to the right and the left. The right hand path led to a foot bridge made of the mas- sive trunk of a rough-barked pine which

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

with offerings and to divest themselves of their Christianity. The plague abated and the In- dians returned to their allegiance. When the padres learned what had been going on they

were greatly disturbed for they knew the old superstition was still prevalent and had Chupu decreed their deaths the natives would have executed his will.

CHAPTER V.

THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

O F THE twenty-one Franciscan Missions founded in California from 1769 to 1823, nine were in the territory now desig- nated as Southern California. Two of these, San Diego and San Luis Rey, were located in what is now San Diego County; one, San Juan Capistrano, in Orange; two, San Gabriel and San Fernando, in Los Angeles; one, San Buena- ventura, in Ventura; and three, Santa Barbara, La Purisima and Santa Inez, are in Santa Bar- bara County. The asistencia, or auxiliary, of San Antonia de Pala is in San Diego County. The mission buildings of San Diego, San Juan Capistrano, San Fernando, La Purisima and Santa Inez are in ruins. The church buildings of San Luis Rey, San Gabriel, San Buenaven- tura and Santa Barbara are in a fairly good state of preservation and services are still held in them.

SAN DIEGO DE ALCALA.

The four expeditions fitted out by José de Galvez under the instructions from the Viceroy of New Spain for the physical and spiritual con- quest of Nueva California were all united at San Diego July Ist, 1769. The leaders, Gov- ernor Gaspar de Portolá and President Junipero Serra, lost no time in beginning their work. On the 14th of July, Governor Portolá set out on his exploration of a land route to the Bay of Monterey and two days later Father Junipero Serra founded the first mission in California for the conversion of the Indians.

The Mission of San Diego de Alcalá was founded July 16, 1769, by the president of the Lower California Missions, Father Junipero Serra. The original site was at a place called by the Indians "Cosoy," near the presidio, now Old Town.

Temporary buildings were erected here, but the location proved unsuitable and in August, 1774, the mission was removed about two leagues up the San Diego River to a place called by the natives "Nipauay." Here a dwelling for the padres, a storehouse, 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 tem- porary store room for mission supplies coming by sea. The missionaries had been fairly suc- cessful in the conversions of the natives and some progress 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 suc- ceeded 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 sol- diers were wounded. The corporal, one soldier and the carpenter were all that were left to hold at bay a thousand howling fiends. The cor- poral, who was a sharpshooter, did deadly exe- cution on the savages. Father Funster saved the defenders from being blown to pieces by the explosion of a fifty-pound sack of gunpow- der. He spread his cloak over the sack and sat on it, thus preventing the power from ignit- ing by the sparks from the burning buildings. The fight lasted till daylight, when the hostiles fled. The Christian Indians who professed to have been coerced by the savages then appeared and made many protestations of sorrow at what had happened. The military 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.

For years the mission was fairly prosperous. In 1800 the cattle numbered 6,960 and the agri- cultural products amounted to 2,600 bushels. From 1769 to 1834 there were 6,638 persons baptized and 4,428 buried. The largest number of cattle possessed by the mission at one time was 9,245 head in 1822. The total number of domestic animals belonging to the mission that year was 30,325. The old building standing on the mission site at the head of the valley is the third church erected there. The first, built of

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

wood and roofed with tilcs, was erected in 1774; the second, built of adobe, was completed in 1780 and the walls of this were badly cracked by an earthquake in 1803; the third was begin in 1808 and dedicated November 12, 1813. The mission was secularized in 1834.

SAN GABRIEL ARCANGEL.

San Gabriel Arcángel was the second mission founded in Southern California and the fourth in the territory. Father Junipero Serra had gone north in 1770 and founded the mission of San Carlos Borromeo on Monterey Bay and the following year he established the mission of San Antonio de Padua on the Salinas River about twenty leagues south of Monterey.

On the 6th of August, 1771, a cavalcade of soldiers and muleteers escorting Padres Somera and Cambon set out from San Diego over the trail made by Portolá's expedition in 1769 (when it went north in search of Monterey Bay) to found a new mission on the River Jesus de Los Temblores or to give it its full name-El Rio del Dulcisimo Nombre de Jesus de Los Temblores-The River of the Sweetest Name of Jesus of the Earthquakes. Not finding a suitable location on this river (now the Santa Ana) they pushed on to the Rio San Miguel, also known as the Rio de Los Temblores.

Here they selected a site where wood and water were abundant. A stockade of poles was built, enclosing a square within which a church was erected, covered with boughs.

September 8, 1771, the mission was formally founded and dedicated to the Archangel Gabriel. The Indians who at the coming of the Span- iards were docile and friendly, a few days after the founding of the mission suddenly attacked two soldiers who were guarding the horses. One of these soldiers had outraged the wife of the chief who led the attack. The soldier who committed the crime killed the chieftain with a musket ball and the other Indians fled. The soldiers then cut off the chief's head and fastened it to a pole at the presidio gate. From all accounts the soldiers at this mission were more brutal and barbarous than the Indians and more in need of missionaries to convert them than were the savages. The progress of the mission was slow. At the end of the second year only 73 children and adults had been baptized. Father Serra attributed the lack of conversions to the bad conduct of the soldiers.

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Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 5

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co. Number of Pages: 1366

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366