USA > California > Glenn County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 5
USA > California > Colusa County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 5
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and then shot it as it clambered up the opposite bank, leaving the huge carcass and hide to be eaten by coyotes or to rot in the tangle of undergrowth. General Bidwell, apparently feeling that he had done the only logical thing, thus naïvely describes the incident: "I shot, and the blood flew out of his nostrils two or three feet high, when he bounded off a hundred yards and fell dead. These scenes were a common occurrence; in fact, almost of hourly occurrence." These "common occurrences" had their inevitable effect. In less than ten years after the first white man set foot within the borders of the county, the chief game animals had almost entirely disappeared. Antelope, which at first were almost as common as cattle are today, and almost as tame, could not be found; elk had vanished completely; and deer had retreated to the brushy fastnesses of foothill and moun- tain. There is probably not a person in the county today who ever saw an elk or an antelope here, so quick and complete was the white man's slaughter. I trust that the race may rapidly advance to a point where even the ordinary reader may find it hard to believe the story of his ancestors' treatment of the Indians and animals they found here-so foolish was it in its short-sighted cruelty.
Of the carnivorous animals, the grizzly bear was the most important and among the most plentiful. The reason for his numbers is easy to see. No other animal could match him in fighting power; the Indians did not have weapons or courage to vanquish him; and therefore, when he wanted to shuffle off this mortal coil he had to die a natural death or commit suicide. He seems to have been averse to the suicide route; so he "lived till he died." General Bidwell says, "The grizzly bear was an hourly sight. In the vicinity of streams it was not uncommon to see thirty or forty in a day. ... In the spring of the year the bears chiefly lived on clover, which grew luxuriantly on the plains, especially in the little depressions on the plains. We first saw one, which made for the timber two or three miles away; soon another, then more, all bounding away to the creek. At one time there were sixteen in the drove." Of course, the settlers had some excuse for annihilating the bears; for they were a menace to young stock, and would turn on a man if closely cornered. So the grizzly quickly disappeared from the open, accessible parts of the valley. He had found his match at last. A few remained in the thick brush and timber along the river for a few years, but today the grizzly has been banished from even the deepest mountain fastnesses.
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Black bears also abounded in the timber along the river, and there were a few in the mountains. Those along the river quickly succumbed; and the mountain bears have been compelled to follow suit, although more slowly. It is doubtful whether there is now a bear within the limits of the county.
The mountain lion has never been so plentiful as the numer- ous stories of his cunning and ferocity might lead one to think. A very few have been killed in the mountains in the extreme western part of the county, but the great majority of the settlers never came in contact with a mountain lion.
The smaller, short-tailed wildcats were also rare; but one has been found occasionally. They are shy and hard to get sight of, and it may be that a few of the tribe still make their home in the brushy canyons of the western mountains.
The coyote was, and still is, the most common and the most annoying of the predatory animals. In the early days of the county the coyote was widely distributed, not only infesting the broken hill sections, but also being very numerous on the plains and along the river. He was never dangerous to human life, but was a constant pest, sneaking into camps and stealing sup- plies, and working havoc among the calves, lambs, pigs. and poultry of the settlers. He was bold and impudent in those early days, before he had come to know the white man thoroughly; and the stories of his escapades are almost unbelievable. It is said that he would come into camp and steal meat from under a man's pillow at night. Naturally the white man resented such familiarities, and made life hard for Bre'r Coyote. Today he exists in the foothills, only by the exercise of a cunning and fleet- ness that seem positively uncanny. The ordinary traveler never sees one; and to the practiced eye he appears merely as a gray shadow disappearing around a hillside, or into a ravine or thicket of brush, at a great distance. The hunter or trapper who can catch a coyote is entitled to the credit of being a clever person. A liberal bounty paid by the county supervisors for coyote scalps stimulates pursuit of them, but as yet they seem to be in no danger of extinction. No man who admires pluck and persever- ance in the face of odds can fail to feel like taking off his hat to the coyote.
Raccoons and foxes were also here before the days of gold; and they are here yet, as they probably are everywhere in the United States. They are not plentiful because they both steal chickens; and, furthermore, there is a bounty on foxes, so their numbers are kept down by hunters. Another predatory pest is 2
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the skunk, but his depredations have never been serious enough to be worth mentioning.
Mention has already been made of the game animals of the county and the rapidity with which they disappeared after the white man came. The largest of these was the elk, which, although fairly plentiful in the beginning, was the first to suc- cumb to the white man's onslaughts. He was too easy a mark to last long; and by 1853, or four years after the gold rush began, he was a matter of history. Will S. Green says, "They were mercilessly killed by hunters, killed not for their flesh, but for the fun of the killing."
The antelope also furnished an easy mark for the hunter; and although the first comers found thousands of them in the county, they were exterminated almost as soon as the elk. It wasn't much more of a job to shoot one of them than it would be to go out and shoot a cow nowadays. Will S. Green says, "When we kept the hotel in 1850-1851, we had a contract with a man by the name of Sneath to furnish one antelope a day for his board. He would go out and shoot down two, give one to an Indian for bringing the other in, and come home. He was hardly ever gone over an hour." Thus it can be seen that the great bands of ante- lope that roamed over the Sacramento Valley would have been a most valuable food asset to the settlers for many years if they had been protected and conserved; but no such thought seems to have entered the minds of the early comers here. The truth is, they were too busy with other things-things, to them, far more important. And so, although they sometimes caught and tamed an antelope fawn, and found it an exceedingly docile and gentle pet, they never withheld the rifle when there was an antelope in sight. To say that there were no individual exceptions to this rule would be erroneous; but it was a rule so faithfully followed that the Sacramento Valley antelope melted away like a Sacra- mento Valley snow, and were gone.
Deer were plentiful in the county in early days; and though they have been driven to the rougher parts of the mountains, they still survive. Moreover, because of increasingly stringent game laws and more watchful enforcement of them by state game wardens, the deer bid fair to survive indefinitely. As they are the only. big game left in any numbers, sportsmen all over the state have united in having them protected. At present about a hundred of them are killed in the mountains in the western part of the county each season. The season has been shortened to about two months in the late summer and early fall, and only bucks older than yearlings or "spikes" can be killed. Each
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hunter is limited to two deer a season. Under these restrictions the deer have increased rather than diminished in numbers during the past few years.
The natural game animal for boy-hunters in this county, as in other parts of the United States, is the rabbit. Cottontails are plentiful in the brush along the river and the sloughs, and by most people are said to be "better than chicken." Oftentimes, when the low lands are covered by a flood, men and boys go along the levees or row to knolls of high land, or even bunches of willows and other brush, and catch as many cottontails as they can carry. Quails are very easily shot under these circumstances, too. The jack-rabbit, a larger, skinnier, longer-legged species of the genns, is more widely distributed than the cottontail, and is in less danger of extinction because he is not so highly prized for food. He is considered a pest rather than a game animal, especially by orchardists and gardeners, for he eats young trees, vines and vegetable growth of every kind. In the days of the Indians, jack-rabbits were present in droves, but the activities of farmers and horticulturists have greatly reduced their num- bers. However, there are still enough of them left for all prac- tical purposes, in the opinion of those who raise young plants.
Of the rodents, aside from rats and mice, ground-squirrels and gophers are the only common ones. Both live in the ground, and both are pests. Gophers are probably as common as they were in the beginning; but the numbers of ground-squirrels have been greatly decreased by persistent slaughter, chiefly by poison- ing. The cooperation of state and county authorities in furnish- ing poisoned grain and instructions for its use has helped in the campaign against the squirrels. A few years ago local scientists discovered that ground-squirrels were carriers of bubonic plague, and this discovery gave a great impetus to the war against them.
In closing this chapter, let me mention briefly the winged creatures of the county. The "national bird" of Colusa County is undoubtedly the wild goose. In the early days literally millions of these birds covered the lowlands at certain seasons of the year; and in their flight they made the sky dark over large areas. The encroachments of farming operations upon their resorts, to- gether with constant slaughter (for until recently no game laws included the goose in their protection), have made great inroads upon their numbers. Market hunters, by soldering two double- barreled shotguns together and discharging all four barrels at the same time, or nearly the same time, have been known to kill one hundred ninety-six geese at one "shot"-if such a bombard- ment could be called one shot. But let it not be understood that
1169819
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the goose is nearing extinction in Colusa County. In spite of the hundreds of thousands of birds that have been killed and shipped to the city markets, or otherwise disposed of, geese are yet so plentiful as to be a pest to the grain farmers, who must hire herders each winter to keep them off the young grain. As late as 1906 they were so plentiful as to extend in a broad, unbroken ribbon across the sky from one side of the horizon to the other, in their flight. Although their numbers are thinning each year, it will be many years before persons who like goose will have to go without game, especially since the law now throws some protection around them.
More toothsome and more eagerly sought after than the goose is the wild duck, which, although not so numerous as the goose, comes here in great number and variety during the fall and win- ter seasons. Canvasback, mallard, sprig, teal, widgeon, and others are all well represented in the bags brought in from the hunting grounds of this county, to which hunters come from all over the state and from other states. They are not nearly so plentiful as they were a few years ago; but hunters frequently succeed in getting twenty-five in one day, the limit allowed by law. Ducks are proving a nuisance to the newly established rice industry in this county, and the laws protecting them will probably be mod- ified within the next few years. At present it can be truthfully said that Colusa County is a paradise for goose and duck hunters.
The dove and the quail rank next in importance to the goose and the duck as game birds, in Colusa County. Quails, which were quite plentiful in the early days, are found in limited num- bers in the brush along the river and the sloughs, and among the foothills. Civilization has been hard on them, and they are des- tined to become still scarcer as time goes on, in spite of the protective legislation they have enjoyed for years. The dove tribe seems to be more hardy in the face of its enemies, and these swift-flying birds are widely and thickly distributed over plain and foothill country. Legal protection has helped them greatly, and they seem to be diminishing little, if any, in numbers.
Bird life was particularly abundant in the Sacramento Valley when the white man came, and most of the species have survived. Among the birds that the early settlers found here, and that yet may be found here, are the swan, the crane, the mud hen and a few other water birds, the turkey buzzard, the blackbird, the meadow lark, several kinds of hawks, owls, linnets, sparrows and woodpeckers, the robin, the blue jay, the magpie, and the chaparral cock, or road runner.
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A list of the "winged creatures" of the county ought to in- clude two which, in the early days, were an almost unbearable pest, but which, happily, have so decreased in numbers as to be of little importance today. These are the yellow jacket and the mosquito. In 1850, yellow jackets were as thick along the river as flies are today, and no meat or fruit could be left out- doors unprotected without being quickly eaten by these voracious insects. Mosquitoes were unbelievably fierce and troublesome in the brush along the river. James Yates, who came to Colusa in 1850, before there was a house in the town, used to tell of his experience with mosquitoes when he was hauling wood at the Seven-Mile House, above Colusa. He said it was absolutely im- possible to bring the horses to the river, even to water them, because of the fierce attacks of the mosquitoes. So he had to leave his team outside the timber line, two miles back from the river, and carry water to them. This he accomplished by filling two buckets with water, running with them as long as he could stand the mosquitoes, and then setting them down and fighting off the bloodthirsty insects. This operation was repeated till the horses were reached, beyond the brush and timber line. Today one gives scarcely a thought to mosquitoes, although some still exist. The introduction of rice-growing, however, may again bring a mosquito problem.
CHAPTER IV
THE INDIANS
There is little in the history of the Indians of this county, and the record of their experiences with the whites, to give either the writer or the reader cause for pride. Indeed, the contact of the two races is so marked by thoughtlessness and callousness at the best, and by injustice and cruelty at the worst, that it makes a rather sordid tale. The quotation from General Bid- well's story of the early explorations of the county, given in an earlier chapter of this work, serves to show how the Indians were regarded, and consequently treated, by many of the white men. Little further along that line need be said, for it is now too late to make any fit reparation or restitution, the Indians of the county being reduced to fewer than one hundred in number. Of course not all the white men were unjust or cruel in their treatment of the Indians. On the contrary, many of them were the consistent benefactors of their guileless red brethren. But
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there are in every community a certain number of men with little or no regard for the rights of others; and as this condition was greatly aggravated in the unorganized communities of the early days, the Indian suffered correspondingly. Possibly one should not blame those whose natures led them to prey upon weaker fellow men, any more than one should blame a hog for being a hog; but it seems to me that the United States government is extremely blameworthy for its failure to meet the problem that the Indians presented.
Nobody knows how many Indians there were in this county when the white man came. Nobody ever did know-any more than we of today know how many ground-squirrels or jack-rabbits there are in the county-for nobody had time or sufficient interest in the matter to count the Indians, even if they had been rounded up and had stood still long enough to be counted. General Bid- well says there must have been ten thousand in the county when he first saw it; but that estimate includes what is now Glenn County, and part of Tehama County. General Green says there were about a thousand of the Colus Indians, as nearly as he could estimate the number. These estimates of two of the most intelli- gent observers of the time are all the information available on the subject. About 1832 or 1833 an epidemic, probably of small- pox, swept over the valley, greatly reducing the numbers of the Indians, so that the first explorers and settlers of Colusa County undoubtedly found the population of the Indian villages at a low ebb. It is entirely possible that before the epidemic Colusa County contained more people than it does today.
When the white man came, he found Indian villages every few miles along the river. Some of them were hardly pretentious enough to be called villages, but they seemed to be more or less independent settlements, or even to belong to different tribes. There were about a dozen of these groups or settlements between Princeton and Sycamore, and several more between Sycamore and the southern boundary of the county. All the groups between Sycamore and Princeton belonged to a tribe that called themselves the Coru Indians. The natives pronounced the name more as a German than as an American would pronounce it, giving the "r" a rolling sound; and the whites, finding the name hard to get as the Indians gave it, corrupted it into "Colu," a corrup- tion which the Indians seem to have adopted along with many other customs and practices of the white man.
The chief village of the Colus Indians was located about where the Municipal Water Works of Colusa now stands. It had apparently been quite a populous center, containing the residence
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of the chief and the seat of government for the entire tribe; but the epidemic of 1832, above referred to, had evidently made it an undesirable place to live, and when the first white men came they found that the chief, Sioc, had taken his lares and penates, his people, and all his earthly possessions across the river and established a new capital there. There were no Indian villages on the plains, because of the lack of water, and probably also because of the lack of shelter. To the west, the nearest neigh- bors the river Indians had were located in the foothills, the chief tribe of these living along Cortina Creek, near its entrance into the valley. There were numerous settlements along Bear Creek, Stony Creek, and the other streams of the mountains and foothills. General Bidwell found that in 1844, which was a very dry year, the foothill Indians had all migrated to the valley of Stony Creek, thousands of them having temporary habitations along that stream. The river and foothill Indians had, by tacit consent, divided the plains between them, so that the former never foraged west of a line about where the railroad now runs, and the latter never came east of that line, without permission of the other. Sometimes the hill tribes asked for and obtained leave to forage in the territory of the river Indians, and vice versa. A reciprocal agreement like this was often very necessary, owing to the failure of the food supply in a particular section of the country.
A third division of the tribes was found back in the high mountains, among the timber. They were not very numerous, and are now gone-without leaving a trace of their former existence.
In appearance, the Colusa Indians were not exactly. true to type as laid down in the story books. Instead of being tall, sinewy, alert and active, as were the Indians that Daniel Boone tracked and slew, these aborigines were indolent, quiet, peace- able, and inclined to be fat. In size they ranked about with the white men. They had the true Indian hue of dark-brown copper; coarse, black hair in abundance; and small, beady black eyes. Their dress will not take long to describe. For the men it was absolutely nothing, save perhaps an antelope skin thrown over their shoulders when the weather was particularly cold. The women's garb consisted of a bunch of tule or wild hemp sus- pended from a cord around the waist, and hanging down in front to the knees or thereabouts. This garment was called a tunica ; and it was not worn by very small girls. But although they had very few clothes, they had imbedded within them a great love for dress and ornament. As soon as the whites came, and they
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had opportunity to obtain colored beads, cloth and ornaments, they were not slow to decorate themselves in what they con- sidered the most beautiful style. Before the advent of the white man, shells, feathers, carved bones and strings of bright-colored berries served as ornaments, and, with the exception of the tunicas of the squaws, as the entire wardrobe of the people. The California Indians did not use paints to make their faces hideous, as did the Indians of the Eastern States, nor did their chiefs go to the elaborate lengths of decoration of their hair with feathers, furs and other things, that characterized the chiefs of the Atlantic Coast. In fact, they seem to have had no "war togs," although they sometimes went to war. But war was not their principal business, as it was that of the Eastern Indians, and California Indians are never referred to as "warriors" or "braves." Their chief end in life was, not war and conquest, but a lazy enjoyment of the advantages of climate and other con- ditions of life among which fate had cast them.
Their dwellings and other structures were of the most ephem- eral character. As they had to keep constantly moving about to follow the food supply, they found it, of course, inconvenient to have permanent dwellings. So in summer they lived in camps; in the spring, near the berry and clover patches; in the fishing season, under the trees along the river; and in acorn time, in the oak groves, their only shelter being brush or a few vines gathered together, under which to crawl when they slept. But in winter, or the wet season, they retired to their permanent villages, where they constructed houses of a somewhat more sub- stantial nature. These were made by setting poles fifteen or twenty feet long in the ground in a circle, and then bending the tops together and fastening them to make a framework, which was covered with brush, sticks, leaves and, finally, dirt. An opening was left at one side for a door, and a hole at the top allowed the smoke to pass out. Those who have been in them say that, with a fire burning in the center of them, these houses were too warm rather than too cold. Besides the dwellings, the only building of the village was the sweat-house, which was similar in structure to the residences, only larger.
Elevated bedsteads or bunks, even of the crudest character, were not attempted, the entire family sleeping on tules or grass laid on the ground. They did not even have piles of skins, as the Eastern Indians did, because such things were not necessary in California.
In the matter of food, the Indians could and did get about the same kinds and variety as the bears did. Indeed, the bear and
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the Indian were very much alike in their food habits. Fish was the great food staple, of the river Indians at least; and salmon was the standard fish. The explorer who passed up the valley in 1832, before the great epidemic, relates that the huts of the Indians were red with drying salmon. In the spring of the year, when the salmon were running up the river, and again in the fall, when they were going down, the Indians lived on the river banks and caught immense numbers of them, which they dried for use throughout the year. The salmon were caught by a weir built across the river when the water was low. This weir was made of poles driven into the sand at the bottom of the river and interlaced with willow withies. This made a sort of rough netting, through which the larger fish could not go. One of the most complete and successful of these weirs was located near where the Municipal Water Works now stands, and for that reason the site of the future county seat was long known as Salmon Bend.
Next to salmon in importance, and heading the list of vege- tahle foods, was the acorn. This took the place, with the Indian, of all of our cereals. In the fall of the year the squaws gathered bushels of acorns in wicker-work baskets, and stored them on high rocks or in trees, covering them over with thatches of tules and grass to keep them safe for future use. The acorns were shelled, and in a stone mortar were ground into a coarse flour, which was taken to the river bank and spread out in a shallow basin made in the sand. Water was then allowed to percolate through it, and this washed the bitterness out of the flour, which was then carefully taken up and made into a mush or gruel that is said to have been quite palatable. When the acorn crop failed in one section of the country, long pilgrimages were made to other sections to gather the nuts. Permission thus to engage in foreign commerce had to be obtained from some other tribe, either by diplomacy or by war.
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