USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches > Part 18
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After the death of Savage, many were the aspirants who sought to step into his shoes and gain prominence among, and control over the Indians; but no one ever succeeded in filling his place among them. They felt like orphans, and realized the fact that their best friend was gone.
Since that time they have dwindled away; and the various tribes that then counted their thousands, have now scarcely a corporal's guard left. Whisky and other vices have decimated them.
The Indian Race.
THE race is a thing of the past; the villages which dotted the banks of the river are razed to the ground, and nearly all traces of their existence are obliterated. Most of the aborig- ines have gone to the happy hunting-grounds, those remaining being scattered among the hills and settlements, possessing no tribal relations or village organizations.
Kit Carson says that in 1829 the valleys of California were full of Indians. He saw much of large and flourishing tribes
that then existed. When he again visited the State, in 1839, they had mostly disappeared, and the people who resided in the localities where he had seen them declared that they had no knowledge of them whatever. They had disappeared, and left no record of the cause that led to their extermination. No estimate of their numbers appears to have been made until 1833, and it was known that they had then greatly decreased.
It does not appear difficult to account for the rapid decrease in the number of these savages. The different tribes were continually at war. Besides this, the cholera broke out among them in the fall of 1833, and raged with terrible violence. So great was the mortality, they were unable either to bury or burn their dead, and the air was filled with the stench of putrefying bodies.
Col. J. J. Warner, at present residing in Los Angeles, was one of the Ewing Young party, who, while on a trapping ex- pedition, passed up through the Sacramento Valley in 1832, and returned in 1833. He says "the banks of the San Joaquin and King's River were studded with Indian villages, the houses of which, in the spring, during the day-time, were red with the salmon the aborigines were curing. At this time there were not upon the San Joaquin or Sacramento Rivers, or any one of their tributaries, nor within the valleys of the two rivers, any inhabitants but Indians. At the mouth of King's River we encountered the first and only village of the stricken race that we had seen after entering the great valley; this village contained a large number of Indians, temporarily stop- ping at that place. We were encamped near the village one night only, and during that time the death angel, passing over the camping-ground of these plague-stricken fugitives, waved his wand, summoning from the little remnant of a once num- erous people, a score of victims, to muster to the land of the Manitou; and the cries of the dying mingled with the wails of the bereaved made the night hideous, in that veritable valley of death.
" On our return, late in the summer of 1833, we found the valley depopulated. From the head of the Sacramento to the great bend and slough of the San Joaquin, we did not see more than six or eight live Indians, while large numbers of their skulls and dead bodies were to be seen under almost every shade tree, near water, where the uninhabited and deserted villages had been converted into grave-yards; and on the San Joaquin River, in the immediate neighborhood of the larger class of villages, we found not only many graves, but the vestiges of a funeral pyre."
INDIAN SWEAT-HOUSE.
"About the only thing common to all the Indians of the Pacific Coast was the sweat-house. This great sanitary insti- tution, found in every rancheria or village, was a large circu- lar excavation, covered with a roof of boughs plastered with mud, having a hole on one side for an entrance, and another in
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HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
the roof to serve as a chimney. A fire having been lighted in the center, the sick were placed there to undergo a sweat-bath. for many hours, to be succceded by a plunge in cold water.
"This treatment was their cure-all, and whether it killed or relieved the patient depended upon the nature of his disease and the vigor of his constitution. Their knowledge of the proper treatment of discase was on a level with their attain- inents in all the arts of life. Roots and herbs were sometimes used as remedies, but the 'sweat-house' was the principal reli- ance in desperate cases. A gentleman who was tempted, some years ago, to enter one of these sanitary institutions, gives the following story of his experience :-
"A sweat-house is the shape of an inverted bowl. It is gen- erally about forty feet in diameter at the bottom, and is built of strong poles and branches of trees, covered with earth to prevent the escape of heat. There is a small hole near the ground, large enough for the diggers to creep in one at a time, and another at the top of the house, to give vent to the smoke. When a dance is to occur, a large fire is kindled in the center of the edifice, the crowd assembles, the white spectators crawl in and seat themselves any- where out of the way. The apertures, both above and below, are then closed, and the dancers take their position. Half-naked In- dians and squaws join in the festivities. Simulta- neous with the commence- ment of the dancing, which is a kind of shuffling hob- ble-de-hoy, the music bursts forth. Yes, music fit to raise the dead. A whole legion of devils broke loose! Such screaming, shrieking, yelling and roaring was never before heard since the foundation of the world. A thousand cross-cut saws, filed by steam power-a multitude of tom-cats lashed to- gether and flung over a clothes-line-innumerable pigs under the gate, all combined, would produce a heavenly melody com- pared with it.
"Round about the roaring fire the Indians go capering, jumping, and screaming, with the perspiration starting from every pore. The spectators look on until the air grows thick and heavy, and a sense of oppressing suffocation overcomes them, when they make a simultaneous rush at the door for self-protection, and find it fastened securely; bolted and barred on the outside. The uproar but increases in fury, the fire
waxes hotter and hotter, and they seem to be preparing for fresh exhibitions of their powers. The combat deepens, on, ye brave! Sec that wild Indian, a newly-elected captain, as with glaring eyes, blazing facc, and complexion like that of a. boiled lobster, he tosses his arms wildly aloft, as in pursuit of imaginary devils, while rivers of perspiration roll down his naked frame. " After hours of suffocation in solution of human perspira- tion, carbonic acid, charcoal smoke, the uproar ceases and the Indians vanish through an aperture, opened for the purpose. The Indians plunge headlong into the ice-cold waters of a neighboring stream, and crawl out and sink down on the banks utterly exhausted. This is the last act of the drama, the grand climax, and the fandango is over."
Most of the wild Indians had no permanent place or resi- dence. Each tribe had a territory which it considered its own, and within which its members moved about. Each family had a hut, and a cluster of these huts was called a rancheria. The ranche- rias were usually esta b- lished on the banks of streams, in the vicinity of oak trees, horse-chestnut bushes, and patches of wild clover. Such places were generally on fertile soil, with picturesque scenery.
INTERIOR OF TEMESCAL, OR INDIAN SWEAT-HOUSE.
In the San Joaquin Val- ley it was more convenient to make the hut a frame- work of poles, and cover it with rushes or tules. These huts might be de- serted for a time, but were considered the property of the builders, who moved, according to the seasons, to those places where they could obtain food most conven- iently. In one month they would go to the thickets; in another, to the open plain; in another, to the streams.
FOOD AND ITS PREPARATION.
The principal living of the Indians was grass seeds, acorns and fish. The men were sometimes enterprising enough to kill an antelope, deer, or other game, but as this usually required some considerable labor, fresh meat was not on the daily bill of fare. The squaws did all the hard work, and even had to carry in the fish caught by the lords of creation. The wife or mother of a family was expected to provide all the food neces- sary for her lord and the children. They make water-tight baskets of willow twigs, in which they collected and prepared their food, carried water, etc. The acorns were dried, and pounded in stone mortars into a very fine flour. A basin was
LONE OAK. RANCH. PROPERTY OF OLIVER PADDOCK. 6 MILES S.W. OF HANFORD. TULARE CO. CAL.
93
THE CHARACTER AND HABITS OF INDIANS.
then made in the sand on the river bank, about twenty inches across and four inches deep, into which a coating of this meal, about half an inch thick, was put, and water poured on until both meal and sand were perfectly saturated. This being left to stand several hours, took the bitter taste of the acorn entirely away. The squaws understood then just how to take this up, without in the least mixing it with the sand. It was then put into a basket, and a kind of soup made of it.
Grass seeds were pounded up and made into soup, but did not have to go through the purifying process of the sand basins. The river, creeks, and several sloughs, were full of fish, and these were caught by means of nets made of wild heup. The nets were generally made by the men. Every spring, when the salmon were running up the river, enough were caught and dried to last nearly all the year.
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
In height, these Indians rarely exceed five feet eight inches and more frequently they are lower in stature. In build, they . are strong and well knit, though seldom symmetrical. A low, retreating forehead, black, deep-ret eyes, thick, bushy eye- brows, high check-bones, a nose depressed at the root, and somewhat spread out at the nostrils, a large mouth, with thick prominent lips, teeth large and white, but not always regular, rather large ears, large hands and feet, the latter being perfectly flat, and a broad chin, is the prevailing type.
The complexion is generally very dark, often being nearly black, though some are more of a copper color. The hair is very thick, coarse, black and straight; is generally worn short, es- pecially by the men and some of the older women. The younger ones always wear theirs long.
The men have beards, short, thin, and stiff. We have seen some of the young men with a soft, downy moustache upon. their upper lip, cultivating it with as inuch pride as the ordi- nary "Young America."
TOILET OF AN INDIAN BELLE.
The women were scarcely better clad, although we think they were much more modest than their sisters of the Colus tribe, who were the admiration of our friend Green, of Colusa, in his younger days, and who, he says in his History of Colusa County,* were so negligent and untidy as to allow their tunicas to wear out " until a very few cords sufficed to remind them of the modesty of Mother Eve."
The Indian women of this valley in summer-time wore a fringed apron of tule and other grasses, which fell from the waist before and behind nearly down to the knees, and open at the sides. We never heard of their failing to keep these dresses in good repair, and think when one became suffi- ciently soiled or damaged to shock the modesty of an admirer that they certainly must have ordered a new one.
There was a great plenty of grass in the country at that time, and it would have been an easy matter for one of our belles to have kept a wardrobe, with several changes in it for all emergencies.
A SHOCKING THOUGHT.
To think of one of these belles appearing at a ball with simply a bunch of tules hung down in front as her only ball dress, is simply shocking.
They might have done such things in Colusa, and such sights may have been witnessed by the historian Green in his young days, but we will not add to the already sufficiently degraded character of the tribes among us such utter disre- gard of modesty and decency among their women.
In the winter season a half-tanned deer skin is used in addi- tion to the garment above mentioned. The hair is generally worn cut short, though occasionally we find it loose and flow- ing, especially among the younger women, it frequently falling below the waist. They " banged " the hair by cutting it off square in front, and we presume the present style in vogue among the white belles is taken from the custom of some of these aboriginal tribes. We never saw any of them with " montagues" on; it may be that they are not yet far enough advanced in civilization to adopt these late beautifiers of the person.
FOOD AND METHOD OF OBTAINING IT.
Their main reliance for food is acorns, roots, grass-seeds, berries, and fish. Though generally too lazy to hunt, yet there were times when the men ventured forth on the chase, and managed to kill an antelope, deer, rabbit, or some other game. Small game, such as hares, rabbits, and birds, were easily shot with the bow and arrow, as well as deer and antelope. In hunting the latter the hunter, disguised with the head and horns of a stag, creeps through the long grass to within a few yards of the unsuspecting herd, and pierces the heart of the fattest buck at his pleasure. Game traps, it seems, were never invented by any of them, and they had to depend on the chase altogether for meat. The squaws gather the acorns, roots, grass-seeds, berries, etc., and, in fact, do all the hard work, even to carrying in the fish and game which have been captured by their lords.
The squaw, who is a wife and mother, is required and expected to provide all the food necessary for her buck and the papooses. We have seen them gathering acorns in the forest with large, cone-shaped, willow baskets, carried on their backs by means of a strap attached to the basket and carried around over the head, throwing the whole weight on the fore- head; they would knock the acorns down with a pole which they carried for that purpose, and filling their baskets would return towards night, to all appearances completely fatigued. We have seen them in numbers passing through the streets of the town loaded down with the fruit of the oak.
*Published in 1879 by Elliott & Co.
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THE CHARACTER AND HABITS OF INDIANS.
MODE OF CATCHING FISH.
They caught fish by both spearing and netting. The waters of the San Joaquin, King's, and Kern Rivers generally furnished them with good fishing. They spear the sahnon with spears made of some kind of tough wood, from four and a half to five feet long, headed with flint or bone sharpened to a point.
We have seen them catching fish with a net in a manner somewhat similar to the American mode of netting. They dry the fish in the sun, and also pieces of meat cut string-like; this they reserve for winter. After the whites arrived in the county the Indians became, to a great extent, beggars, and now frequently slide around to the back door and beg a mcal.of victuals, it being seldom that anything can be obtained from them as a recompense for it; sometimes you can get them to saw a little wood, but not often. When they are employed in this manner, they are slow and lazy about it.
KINDS OF FOOD.
As heretofore stated in Dr. Marsh's article, "their food varies . with the season. In February and March they live on grass and herbage: clover and wild pea-vine are among the best of their pasturage. I have often seen hundreds of them graz- ing together in a meadow, like so many cattle."
The angle-worms were found in boggy and swampy locali- ties, around springs, ponds, etc. The squaws, taking their sticks of chaparral, which formed their usual instruments of excavation, pushed them down into the mire. By shaking these from side to side, the surrounding earth was compressed. The worms, feeling the pressure, came to the surface, and were quickly seized and thrown into the baskets. When washed and boiled they made an excellent and nutritious soup-for the Indians.
The green plant-worms were picked from the vegetation, stripped by the fingers, and dried or boiled.
The ants were sometimes disposed of by simply carrying then from the tree or bush to the mouth upon the tongue- primitive, indeed, in its simplicity.
Pine cones were gathered before the nuts had fallen out, and much labor was therefore saved. The nuts, which are of a pleasant, oily taste, and exceedingly nutritious, were extracted .by beating the cones, and eaten raw.
The wild pea-vines were gathered in immense quantities when young and tender. By placing elder sticks against the sides of the basket and extending beyond the opening, the squaw was enabled to carry nearly a cart-load of the light growth. In the spring and summer they make lengthy trips into the mountains in search of food, and sometimes prepared their winter stock in these encampinents, carrying it after- wards to their rancherias. To prepare the pea-vine for eating, the hole in the ground was resorted to. In this, heated rocks were placed, and covered with a layer of the vine; water was
thoroughly sprinkled on; then two or three heated roeks; another layer of pea-vine, sprinkled as before; and so in that order by successive layers, until the mass was formed in the shape of a cone. When completed, one of the baskets was placed over it, forming a secure covering, and the inass left until the next day. It was then thoroughly steamed and cooked. The squaw, with the stone pestle, crushed the steamed mass on an inclined board. With the sole of her foot placed at the bottom of the incline, she kept the vines on the board. The process was continued until all became plastic. The squaw then with her hands shaped it into the form of a cake, and after putting a hole through the eenter, hung it out to dry. The heated rocks were handled by the squaws with two sticks as easily and gracefully as a civilized woman would wield the tongs.
The great chief "Ten-ie-ya" of the Yosemite tribe, was captured at the time of the Indian war just mentioned, and kept in captivity. But the chief became tired of his food, said it was the season for grass and clover, and that it was tanta- lizing for him to be in sight of such abundance, and not be permitted to taste it. It was interpreted to Captain Boling, when he good-humoredly said that he should have a ton if he desired it. Mr. Cameron (now of Los Angeles) attached a rope to the old man's body, and led him out to graze. A wonderful improvement took place in his condition, and in a few days' he looked like a new man.
BUT FEW INDIANS REMAIN.
The numerous tribes that once occupied the valley of the San Joaquin and the foot-hills of the Sierras, have actually died out or been reduced to a few miserable individuals.
There are but few now left in the country, and an Indian is rarely seen. As the valleys were occupied and fenced, the usual modes of Indian hunting and living were cut off. Quar- rels were frequent with the settlers, who claimed to have had cattle stolen, and the Indian was sure on general principles to receive severe punishment.
LAST INDIAN TROUBLE.
The last serious Indian difficulty occurred in the summer of 1856, when the Four Creek Indians again went on the war path. Companies were soon raised in the adjoining counties. About fifty men from Tulare County went to the scene of disturbance. The soldiers stationed at Fort Miller, under Captain Livingston, among whom was John Dwyer, also repaired to the battle-field, taking two howitzers with then, and soon the redskins were dislodged and subdued.
TULARE COUNTY SOLDIERS.
In this campaign, the "Petticoat," or " Cottonbag " Brigade, of Tulare County, did distinguished and enviable service, and is entitled to particular mention for their gallantry, fearless- ness, and intrepidity, and above all for their ludicrous and mummy-like appearance in the field.
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THE TULARE AND KERN RIVER INDIANS.
The boys from Millerton and vicinity, were under Capt. Ira Stroud. Chas. A. Hart acted as commissary, furnishing beef, etc., and was dubbed Captain Carne, meat captain.
The Coarse Gold Gulch and Fresno River boys were under Capt. J. L. Hunt, and the whole force from Fresno County was designated as the "San Joaquin thieves."
INDIAN BATTLE ON TULARE LAKE.
There is an Indian tradition of a battle on Tulare Lake. It is the story of a fight the Indians of this valley had more than half a century ago with the Mexicans. It is given here as it was told to J. W. A. Wright by an old Indian who now lives on the Tule River Reservation, three miles above Porterville, on the north side of Tule River. This old man says a fierce battle and several skirmishes were fought between his people and the Mexicans, somewhere between Atwell's Island and the mouth of Tule River. This occurred when he was a boy just begin- ning to go about with the warriors of his race. As he was then perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, and is now between seventy and eighty, this would place the battle in question some fifty or sixty years ago. His statement is that a Mexican force came to this valley across the Coast Mountains from a mission, likely San Juan. This force had, as the old chief expresses it, "a big gun on a cart." He says the "big gun " killed plenty of Indians every time it was shot. But there were too many Indians for the Mexicans. They drove the force back and captured the big gun on wheels.
Having no use for it and not knowing what else to do with it, a large number of them ran it out into the lake as far as they could, and left it there. The very shallow nature of the lake along that shore shows how easily they could have done this. Two miles from shore the water is only three feet deep, and in sounding during a sail for twenty-five miles across that end of the lake the greatest depth sounded was only six feet. If this tradition of the Indians be true, and it certainly has about it the air of probability, that old Spanish cannon must now be lying somewhere in the lake, possibly imbedded in its sandy or muddy bottom, to be some day exposed and found, should the lake water continue to recede as it has for ten years past. The old Indian states farther that his people drove the Mexicans back by way of Buena Vista Slough, and they killed three Mexicans at the south end of the lake and buried them there. Buena Vista Slough, which now is and has for some years been dry, then emptied into Tulare Lake on the west side of Skull Island, near " The Willows."
Though a few surviving Indians resort to Tulare Lake, there were large villages of them near the lake in the remote past, and even when white nien first came into this valley, about thirty years ago. Still more of them lived around the lake when Spanish expeditions penetrated Tulare Valley from the mission stations near the coast, fifty, eighty, and one hundred years ago. These lake Indians navigated parts of this lake,
more or less, from remote ages up to within the last six or eight years, in canoes about twelve feet long, built of dry tules strongly lashed together by ropes of green tules, the sides and bottom made about four inches thick, just such boats as the ancient Egyptians made from the bulrushes of the Nile, and such as the Abyssinians make to this day along the Upper Nile. The aborigines also made strong, light rafts, by lashing them together in bundles-these tules frequently growing eight or ten feet long. The rafts were usually made ten or twelve feet long, and six or eight feet wide. These rude crafts-both canoes and rafts-would safely carry three or four Indians in shallow and quiet water, such as exists in good weather in the shallows near the shores.
KERN RIVER INDIANS.
The Indians of Kern River, owing to the influence of a mission chief " Don-Bincente," who had a plantation at the Tejon's Pass, remained peaceful during the Indian troubles of 1851-56. Some 150 of the remnants of the Indian tribes still live at the entrance of the Tejon Cañon in cottages of adobe, covered with thatch. They have been taught a simple form of civilization Their dwellings are well constructed, comfortable; and neatly and cleanly kept. They cultivate the ground to the extent of their wants, and have gardens and vineyards and free range for their ponies.
They work mostly on General Beale's ranch, who pays them cash for their labor. They are faithful and trustworthy, and do their work just as they are told. A few have learned to read and write, and are generally inclined to save their earn- ings, but are inclined to games of chance.
They profess the Catholic religion which seems to have peculiar adaptation to their wants. They have an humble place of worship at their principal settlement surmounted by a cross. One of the congregation often read prayers, and sup- plied the place of a priest.
Both men and women since the advent of civilization, have adopted, as nearly as possible, the dress of the whites. The women wear the brightest colors of calicos, and sometimes are rich enough to own an old shawl.
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