USA > California > Los Angeles County > Pasadena > History of Pasadena, comprising an account of the native Indian, the early Spanish, the Mexican, the American, the colony, and the incorporated city, occupancies of the Rancho San Pasqual, and its adjacent mountains, canyons, waterfalls and other objects of interest: being a complete and comprehensive histo-cyclopedia of all matters pertaining to this region > Part 4
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The next historic point in regard to these Pasadenaland Indians is the founding of a Mission among them.
THE INDIAN RELIGION.
The native Indians of Pasadenaland were very religious, in their rude way, and that accounts for their being so early and so easily brought under the religious influence of the Mission Fathers. Several of the pioneer mission- aries, as Junipero Serra, Crespi, Boscana, and others have left some accounts of the religious ideas and customs of these aborigines, besides such secular writers as Gov. Fages, Hugo Reid, etc. In the Thompson & West "His- tory of Los Angeles County," on page 15, J. Albert Wilson summarizes the matter in perhaps as fair shape as it can well be done in so brief a space ; and as this summary applies in particular to the Indian predecessors 125 years ago of the church-going people of Pasadena to-day, I make free to quote it :
" They believed in one God, the Creator, whose name - "Qua-o-ar," was rarely spoken, and never save in a low and reverend voice. They usually referred to him by one of his attributes, "Y-yo-ha-ring-nain " - " The Giver of Life." They had but one word for life and soul. Their theology knew no devil, and no hell, prior to the advent of the missionaries ; and they have ever since maintained that these, being a foreign innovation,
*This wild cherry grows abundantly in the West San Gabriel and intramontane Arroyo Seco canyons ; and during the last week of October, 1891, myself and wife and H. N. Farey and wife camping there, ate freely of it, both stewed and raw, and found it quite palatable, with a distinct cherryish flavor wheu fully ripe.
{This "shafted-ball thistle" I have seen growing abundantly near Monrovia and through the valley eastward ; it is also found about Pasadena. It is the Salvia columbariae of botany, a species of sage, although prickly like a thistle.
24
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
concerned the foreigners only. They looked for no resurrection of the body, but firmly believed in a spiritual existence after death. The souls of wizards were supposed to enter animals-especially bears .- [Hence they would not eat bear meat .- ED.] And eagles, owls, crows, and porpoises were held sacred. * *
* Each village had its church [worship place], woven of basket-work, and circular in form. This building was sacred ever, yet was consecrated anew whenever used. A similar but unconsecrated building served for rehearsal, and the religious education of youth designed for the priesthood. Only seers and captains, male dancers and female sing- ers (all of whom took part in the service) were permitted to enter the con- secrated church except on funeral occasions, when near relatives of the deceased were also admitted. The services consisted in asking vengeance on enemies, returning thanks for victory, and rehearsing the merits of dead heroes ; together with the appropriate dances, songs, and gesticulations."
MISSION INCIDENTS.
The original San Gabriel Mission [" Old Mission "] was founded Sep- tember 8th, 1771, The first baptism was that of a child, November 27th ; and the whole number of baptisms during the first two years was only 73. This was deemed poor success ; and in reporting on it Father Junipero Serra attributed it largely to the bad conduct of the soldiers. He complained that " the soldiers refused to work, paid no attention to the orders of their worth- less corporal, drove away the natives by their insolence, and even pursued them to their rancherias [villages], where they lassoed women for their lust and killed such males as dared to interfere." [See Bancroft, Hist. Cal., Vol. I, p. 181.] And Hugo Reid says of these Indians : "Women used by the soldiers were obliged to undergo a long purification ; and for a long time every child born with white blood in its veins was strangled."* They refused to eat any food given them by white men but buried it in the earth. Brown sugar they thought to be the excrement of these new comers; and cheese they thought was dead men's brains. The padres wanted to convert the Indians to Christianity as they viewed it, while the soldiers wanted to conquer and enslave them.
Another report at the end of 1773, says: "At San Gabriel the native population is larger than elsewhere- so large in fact that more than one Mission will be needed in that region. [Hence the San Fernando Mission, which was established September 8th, 1797 .- ED.] The different rancherias [villages] are unfortunately at war with each other, and that near the Mis- sion [San Gabriel] being prevented from going to the sea for fish, is often in great distress for food .ยก Here the conduct of the soldiers causes most trouble ; but the natives are rapidly being conciliated."-[Hist. Cal., Vol. I, p. 202.]
*It is related that during Friar Zalvidea's incumbency, from 1806 to 1826, every woman who had the misfortune to have a miscarriage, or bring forth a still-born child, was presumed to have destroyed it on purpose because it had a white man as its father, and she was therefore severely punished for infanticide. Her head was shaved, she was flogged once a day for fifteen days, compelled to wear iron 011 her feet, and to sit on the altar steps at church every Sunday for three months holding in her arms a hideously painted wooden image of a child. This was "doing penance " for her sin .- See Hist. Los A. Co., p. 35. Lewis's, 1889.
+"The Ahapchingas were a clan or rancheria between Los Angeles and San Juan Capistrano, and enemies of the Gabrielenos or those of San Gabriel."-Cal. Farmer, May 11, 1860 : cited in " Native Races," p. 460.
25
DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADENIAN.
That word " conciliated " simply means that the male Indians who had spirit enough to resist the outrages of the soldiers had either been killed or had fled to the mountains ; those remaining were cowed down and passively submitting to their fate. There was indeed an occasional revolt ; and the old records abound in accounts of floggings, shootings, banishments, sen- tence to exceptionally hard labor, recapture of fugitive Indians, shaving of heads, iron on feet, men (and sometimes a man and woman) chained together by the leg, etc. Hence it would appear that these natives were not so tame and unspirited a race as is commonly supposed,* for they did make all the resistance that was possible for them to make with their crude resources against the superior discipline, weapons and intelligence of the Spaniards.
THE NAMING OF SAN PASQUAL RANCHO.
Some time during 1774-75 the San Gabriel Mission was moved from the original site on the banks of the river to its present location ; but some- time before the removal one of the " conversions " or baptisms was that of the old chief, Hahamovic, who had furnished food to Governor Portola's famished party in January, 1770. He was christened by the name of Pascual [spelled with a "c" in Spanish but "q " in English]. This was a name of common occurrence in Spanish usage ; but its special adaptation to him is supposed to have been suggested from the vast and brilliant poppy fields within or bordering on his tribal territory, and which the Spaniards had poetically termed the glorious altar cloth of Holy Easter [San Pascual]. At any rate, he was christened " Pascual," and being the hereditary chief of his clan, he was known to the Spaniards as " Pascual el Capitan," and his people as the "Pascual Indians." Nevertheless, the Rancho San Pas- cual in its distinctive character as a rancho, did not take its name from him, as some writers have supposed - but, as I have narrated elsewhere, it was given as a land grant by the Mission authorities to Eulalia Perez de Guillen ; and as the formal assignment of the land to her occurred on Easter Day [San Pascual in Spanish] therefore this body of land or rancho was called the San Pascual or Easter Day ranch. This was after the Mission lands were threatened to be secularized and Mission rule broken up, in 1826-27 ; but as her claim became forfeited, it does not appear in the official records of title to the ranch. [For full account see Chap. 3.]
The " Tourists' Guide to South California," page 19-20, gives a pretty complete list of civilized occupations in which our San Pasqual Indians, along with others, were trained, many of them becoming very skillful work- men. This list has a special historic interest as relating to the intelligence and tractability of these Indians, and is at the same time useful to the English reader for explaining the Spanish terms ; hence I quote it here :
"Of this rude, ignorant, useless, savage population the padres made
*This will explain why the old stone mill below foot of Lake avenue was built to serve as a fortress, in case of a possible revolt and siege by the Indians.
26
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
silleros (saddlers), herreros (blacksmithis), sastres (tailors), molineros (mill- ers), panaderos (bakers), plateros (silversmiths), toneleros (coopers), carga- dores (freighters), valeros (candle makers), vendemiadores (vintagers), caldereros (coppersmiths), zapateros (shoemakers), sombrereros (hatters), comfeleros de panocha (makers of panocha ), guitareros (guitar makers), arrieros (muleteers), alcaldes (judges), mayordomos (overseers), rancheros (ranchmen), medicos (doctors), pastores (shepherds), cordileros (rope- makers), lenyadores (woodcutters), pentores (painters), esculores (sculptors), albanilos (masons), toreadores (toreadors), acolitos (acolytes), canteros (stonecutters), sacristanos (sacristans), campaneros (bellringers), cocineros (cooks), cantores (singers), musicos (musicians), cazadores (hunters), jabon- eros (soapmakers), curtidores (tanners), tegidores (weavers), tigeros (tile makers), bordodores (embroiderers), piscatores (fishermen), marineros (sailors), vinteros (winemakers), caporales (corporals), habradores (farmers), vaqueros (cattle herders), llaveros (turnkeys), domadores (horse tamers), barberos (barbers), cesteros (basket makers), and carpenteros (carpenters). * *
* Such a host of skilled workers and producers were developed by the sagacious training of the savages by the padres."
INDIAN SWEAT HOUSE.
Pasadena's "Sheep Corral Springs" seem to have been a favorite point and place of resort among the Indians. When our colonists first came here there were some remains of a small old adobe house on the flat a short distance above the springs, at the foot of Hanaford's bluff, and an old water ditch ran from the Arroyo bed out toward the house and down through the same rich bottom land that is now in use there by Byron O. Clark as a blackberry orchard, but the ancient adobe and ditch have entirely disappeared. At that time (1874) there were some pumpkin vines and other vegetables still occupying the ground, from seed of former cultivation. John W. Wilson, I. N. Mundell, and others remember noticing the old adobe walls and water ditch, but had no idea when or by whom they were made. And Mr. Wilson says when he first came here, in 1871, there was a similar water ditch on the west side of the Arroyo bottom a short distance above Devil's Gate, and another one a little way above his adobe ranch house opposite the end of Logan street, where he resided about twenty years. These ditches, however, were long ago filled up and obliterated by vegetable growths and by sand wash from rains or overflow. They were only remnants of the improvements made by Carlos Hanewald and John Pine in 1850-51, who had bought from Don Manuel Garfias a mile square of land for $2,000, at 48 per cent interest. [See article on "Complete Chain of Title of the Ranch. "]
A man known as Don Geo. Walter, who was orderly sergeant in Capt. B. D. Wilson's U. S. company of California soldiers in the Mexican war, (all captured and made prisoners in a fight at the Chino ranch house in Sep- tember, 1846,) told some of our colony people that the Indians formerly had a "sweat house " or Temescal here at the Sheep Corral springs. This was
27
DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADNIAN.
a sort of aboriginal Turkish-bath process, peculiar to the South California Indians, for the cure of rheumatism and sundry other ailments, and was un- doubtedly the pioneer sanitarium of Pasadena, which has been so prolific of such institutions in these later years. This native sweat-house or hot bath was operated thus: A hole was dug in the ground deep and large enough for a man to sit there in the squat posture and have it filled with water up to his waist. Over this was built a booth or hut of tules, having a small doorway that could be closed with a mat of woven rushes or some animal skin. This hole was filled with water, and from a fire outside hot stones were put into it until it was just as hot as the human body could endure, then the patient sat down in it and the door was closed, but an occasional hot stone was added to the water to produce steam and make him sweat freely. The patient was kept there about an hour. After he had been thoroughly sweated and almost par-boiled, he must rush out and dive head foremost in- to a ditch filled with cold water deep enough for him to go entirely under, then get out and take a lively run for a mile or two, when the blood would go rushing through the system like a race horse and the patient would feel as fine as a fresh-tuned piano. Sergeant Walter said he once went through the process there himself with the Indians ; but once was enough for him. This adventure of Walter's was probably before 1846; and the Indians may have had a ditch or sluice there for their sweat-house business which was afterward utilized by Hanewald and Pine in 1850, in their search for placer gold deposits in this Arroyo sandwash.
THE INDIANS AFTER MISSION RULE WAS BROKEN UP.
When the Missions were broken up and their lands sold by the Mexi- can government in 1835-36-37. most of these Indians were left landless and helpless, notwithstanding some grants made to them. Some of them worked for white people, and had some sort of a dwelling place and familyhood on the ranch where they worked ; while others huddled together in fragments of tribes among the canyons and mountains, gaining a scant livelihood by stealing, begging, chopping wood, grubbing greasewood, etc. Even as late as 1884-85 the fine body of land now known as Linda Vista was called " In- dian Flat" because it had been for many years occupied by one of these fragmental Indian settlements ; and there was another one in a little nook or canyon up between La Canyada* and Crescenta Canyada; besides single families occasionally found in out-of-the-way places ; and all living in rude huts made of sticks, bushes, tule stalks, rushes, and perhaps some fragments of boards, old matting, bits of threadbare carpet, and other rubbish which they had picked up.
*An old Spanish Mexican at Pasadena was asked what " Canyada" meant. He put his hands to- gether, then opened them a little at their thumb side, making a narrow trough shape, and said-" can- yone! canyone!" Then opening the trough mnuch wider, he said " canyada! canyada!" So canyada is simply a large wide canyon.
28
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
Farnsworth's book entitled "A Southern California Paradise," page 17, in speaking of results when the Mission lands were secularized and the civil rule of the priests broken up, says :
"The Indians were given certain portions of land, and remained at the Mission, working for the white settlers, until 1862-63, when the small-pox broke out and spread rapidly among them. The few Indians that escaped were so effectually frightened that they betook themselves to the mountains near San Bernardino, where they have since continued."
As to their peculiar skill in basket work, the American Naturalist, 1875, P. 598, says :
"In Utah, Arizona, Southern California, and New Mexico the Indians depend solely on the Rhus Aromatica, var. tribola (squawberry) for material out of which to make their baskets. It is far more durable and tougher than the willow, which is not used by these Indians. * * Baskets made thus are very durable, will hold water, and are often used to cook in."
Hugo Reid mentions twenty-four principal ranches which had formerly been lands belonging to the San Gabriel Mission, and among them are San Pasqual, Santa Anita, Azusa, Cucamonga, Chino, San Jose and Puente. The domain of this Mission extended from the Arroyo Seco eastward to the desert, and from the mountains to the sea.
Prof. C. F. Holder, in "All About Pasadena," says :
"In 1852 a report was made by the Hon. B. D. Wilson to the Depart- ment of the Interior, to the effect that there was then in Santa Barbara, Tu- lare, Los Angeles, and San Diego counties, about fifteen thousand Indians, comprising the Tularenos, Cahuillas, San Luisenos, and Diegenos. Thirty years later another report was made showing a decrease of ten thousand ; the remaining five thousand are fast disappearing."*
In the same work, page 68-69, Prof. Holder again says :
"The Giddings ranch [at mouth of Millard canyon] is the site of an ex- tremely old settlement; and for years objects of various kinds, mostly old and broken, have been plowed up. They were generally flat, shallow mor- tars, [metates] of a dark stone, with short, flat grinding or mealing stones. In following the plow of Mr. Giddings I have seen pieces of mortars or pestles thrown up every few moments, showing that large numbers must have been left here; and as they were buried a foot or more below the sur- face, it is evident that they were older than many others found upon the sur- face. The old town was situated at what is now the beginning of the road leading down into Millard canyon ; ; and the assumption is that the women went up into the canyon to collect acorns, which were brought down to the village to be ground. Every year at plowing time, which comes between November and Christmas, specimens are unearthed. * * * Also on the San Rafael ranch, opposite the west end of California street, many interest- ing specimens have been found; and the author has picked them up in var- ious parts of the city. Few of the older residents but possess a collection of some size."
*In some streets of this little city [Los Angeles, 1852] almost every house is a grog shop for In- dians."-B. D. Wilson's Report as Indian Agent.
+See article entitled " A pirate prisoner in the Pasadena mountains."
29
DIVISION ONE -PRE-PASADENIAN. .
INDIAN HORSE-EATERS IN PASADENA. TWO WHITE MEN KILLED.
Judge Eaton has narrated for this History the following incidents :
"When I first came out here Don Manuel Garfias told me that I would be exposed to incursions during the spring, from the Pah ute Indians, who were in the habit of coming in through the mountain passes to steal horses to eat. They employed no skill in catching them, but relied upon such an- imals as they might find at the end of a picket rope; or slipping quietly upon a band when lying down in the night, and lassoing one while sleeping. I had been at Fair Oaks only long enough to get a pair of bronchos trained to drive in a buggy, when without any notice whatever, their picket ropes were cut close to the pickets and the horses taken. They were within a hundred yards of my house, but the thing was done so still and sly that they did not alarm the household. I started out a couple of Mexican boys on their trail and in an hour they returned with one animal that they caught by the picket rope. After breakfast I despatched a boy to B. D. Wilson's but on his way down he saw the other three horses coming from the Santa Anita ranch full tilt, with their picket ropes trailing behind them. They did not stop until they got into one of the ranch bands, and the boy drove them all up to my corral. This was Monday. On Wednesday night I took them out after dark and hid them in a belt of oak timber, back of the house. The next morning two of them, a. pair of handsome grays, were gone. I mounted one of the Mexicans on a horse and sent him in pursuit. He traced them into Santa Anita canyon, but having no arms he was afraid to go farther and returned. After a lapse of so much time it was useless to prosecute the search, as the Indians had probably killed the horses when they got fairly into the mountains, and packed off the meat on their backs, [This was in 1865 .- ED.] The summer following there came onto the ranch a band of desert Cahuillas, ten bucks and one squaw. They made head- quarters near the base of the mountains, never showing themselves in the daytime, and making nightly raids on the neighboring settlers, carrying off calves that they found in the corrals. I saw their tracks occasionally, but apprehended no danger from them, though I felt a little anxiety about my family during the day, when I was absent in the canyon, and not a soul nearer than three miles upon whom they could call for assistance. At that time an old man, Sam Kramer, had charge of Dr. Griffin's stock of brood mares and colts, and lived in the old ranch house. One day, I think it was in May, the man who at the time had charge of the Stoneman place, came along accompanied by a friend of his from Los Angeles, and asked Kramer if he would not join them in a bee-hunt up the Arroyo Seco. As he could not join them they rode on, and that was the last time they were seen alive. The next day as Kramer was riding over the ranch looking after his stock, he discovered in one of the bands a horse with saddle and bridle on. Driving the band to the corral he found that the horse was the same one ridden by his neighbor the day before, and the saddle was covered with blood. Im- mediately notifying the family and summoning assistance, they commenced a search for the body of the missing man. Following the tracks of the bee- hunters up the bed of the Arroyo, to a point opposite the west end of Cali- fornia street, they found a deserted Indian camp. The occupants had ap- parently left in haste, dropping an old soldier coat, and a small bag of pan- ole, (parched corn ground or pounded into meal.)
"Following the horse tracks which indicated that their riders were
30
HISTORY OF PASADENA.
making all possible speed, they were led up into the thick brush upon the eastern bank of the Arroyo. Half way up the hill they encountered the body of one of the victims, stark dead. An arrow pierced his heart to the center. Upon withdrawing it they found the arrow head was of glass. They then remembered that they had seen at the camp just left, the rem- nants of a black bottle out of which the Indians had been constructing arrow heads. The body had not been molested in any way. The dead man had a Derringer pistol in his hand which had been recently discharged. The other man could not be found, but on the following day his horse and bloody saddle entered one of the ranch herds, and the search was continued, with the result that not far from the spot where the first man was found lay the body of his companion. He had been killed by a single arrow piercing the heart, but entering at the back. This arrow was also pointed with a head made of black glass. These are two of the most remarkable arrow shots ever heard of. The body of this man had not been disturbed either. In his hand was a revolver with one barrel freshly discharged, and in his pocket was found nearly $40. It was evident therefore that the object was not robbery. The mystery attending this tragedy was never thoroughly ex- plained. The theory was that these men, coming suddenly upon the band of apparently wild Indians, (for they wore no clothes but breech- clouts, no hats, and were armed with bows and arrows,) attacked them with their pistols. The Indians returned the fire with the results already told. They suddenly left for their homes in the mountains of the desert country. Only one man ever saw them, and from him I obtained a description of the band but too late to pursue them.
"Two years after the above occurrence the people around the outskirts of San Bernardino were annoyed by frequent thefts of calves from their cor- rals. A party started in pursuit of the marauders, and overtaking them before they reached their mountain home, captured them and gave them a drum-head court-martial and executed them on the spot. Indians, after they find there is no escape from death, boast of the scalps they have taken, so now did the chief of this party boast of having killed two white men in the Arroyo Seco a couple of years before. And that is all we ever learned of this remarkable event."
HELEN HUNT JACKSON'S WORK.
Hon. Abbott Kinney, in the Pasadena Valley Union of September 5, 1885, speaking of the then recent death of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson, who was associated with him on the U. S. Indian Commission, says :
"Helen Hunt Jackson was a woman of warm heart, poetic insight, and large cultivation. Her sympathies were wide enough to have a place for every one in distress whom she knew. She was as much at home and as welcome at the scanty fireside of the hovel as in the palace of the rich. The Mission Indians of Southern California, for the most part an industrious and much injured people, have much to thank Mrs. Jackson for in the improved condition of their land tenures, their good schools, and the more intelligent course of the government toward them. Her poems, novels and essays have been widely read; many of them are of a high order of merit, and some of her poems are gems, true to nature, simple and touching, that have in them the qualities of perpetual endurance. "Ramona " is her last great work. It has been well said that it is by far the best novel ever written
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