CHAPTER XII.

The Indians of California.

THERE is no doubt that a numerous and wide-spread Indian population exists in Northern California, in the vicinity of the Bay of San Francisco, and the valleys of the Sacramento and Russian rivers. I think it would be safe to compute their numbers at between forty and fifty thousand, not including those living as far north as the Roque river region, and the country of the Shaste Indians. These latter savages are fierce and warlike, attacking all who enter their territory, and especially white men, who should not venture among them in parties of less than eight or ten well-armed men. They cannot properly be classed with the Californian Indians with whom I am acquainted, and concerning whom I am about to make a few observations.

When the missions were secularized and plundered in 1831, Upper California was supposed to contain a population of 4,500 "gente de razon," (whites,) and about 50,000 Indians of the Presidios alone. Of the latter it is said that 22,000 were more or less christianized, the majority of the Indian population being composed of Gentiles, or wild Indians. Notwithstanding the ravages of smallpox and other diseases among them, I am inclined to think that all the Indians of Upper California, including those above excepted, may be safely estimated at sixty thousand. It should be remembered that many of them live in retired and secluded retreats, wholly unknown to the

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HABITS OF THE INDIANS.

whites, and that the sea-coast north of the settlements, the country north of Ross, and the almost unexplored valley of the Roque river, are, according to the reports of the few hunters and trappers who have lighted their solitary camp-fires in those regions, inhabited by great numbers of Indians.

The Laguna Indians are a fair specimen of the Californian aborigines. They are docile, mild, easily managed, and although lazy and unthrifty, will work tolerably well for short periods at making adobes, getting in crops, and doing farm-work generally, taking in payment, with great avidity, beads and toys of the cheapest kind, handkerchiefs, cottons, and other common dry goods. On the other hand, they are roguish, ungrateful, and incorrigibly lazy unless closely watched, and occasionally punished corporeally. They are not at all revengeful, and are cowardly and cringing towards the whites. They are thorough sensualists, and most abandoned gamblers in their small way. They have some rude games of chance with bones, resembling dice, and with something like jack-straws, at which, as I know to my cost, they will sit up all night, playing for articles of little value, literally "making night hideous" with such awful noises as would do credit to an amateur concert of rooks, jackdaws, magpies, and bull-frogs. They have but little idea of differences in value, and will give large odds merely for the sake of playing. Thus one will wager his shirt worth two dollars against a small piece of tobacco worth sixpence, and if he had ten dollars he would readily wager the whole sum against a dollar's worth of beads, or even a single string. All the gold they may acquire will undoubtedly fall into the hands of sharpers for a twentieth part of its value. They are physically an inferior race, and have flat, unmeaning features, long, coarse, straight black hair, big mouths, and very dark skins, of a temperature lower than those of the whites, and to the touch something like a frog's.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

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The Gentiles go in the extremest "model artist style of costume, except a mantle, which they make of rabbit skin, or a "feather blanket," so called, curiously wrought of feathers from the breast of the wild duck. They are offensively dirty in their persons, and also in their habitations, which are conical wigwams of tulé, bountifully stocked with industrious fleas. Their food is principally bread, made of acorns, which are very large and plentiful in California, and are pounded into a paste in a wooden mortar, and baked in a rude oven. This bread looks and tastes like coarse black clay, strongly resembling the soundings in Hampton roads, and being about as savory and digestible. They also make "mansanita" bread of a small red berry, borne by the tree of that name; and convert burrclover seeds, wild oats, and all sorts of roots which they dig up, into the "staff of life." They also eat fish-to that I will swear-and dry it for winter use. They ingeniously entrap and ensnare the smaller animals, descending even so low as field-mice; but their great performance is hunting deer, which they approach with a buck's head and horns fastened to their own noddles, groping along stealthily in the high grass, until the genuine and deceived animal is within range of their arrows. They also are fond of horsemeat, and when hard pressed with hunger will occasionally steal a bullock. They are wretchedly improvident, and seldom lay up stores to last through the rainy season, which it is absolutely necessary to provide against, as the country cannot then be travelled, and all the animals retire to the fastnesses of the mountains. Like all the family of man, even these spiritless people have their warlike propensities, and maintain armories to make their bows, and arrows, and lances. The bows are beautifully made of light and elastic wood, stiffened, and made more elastic by sinews, strongly braced, at the back of the bow. The arrows are neatly fashioned from a peculiar light, strong, straight twig, and are tipped with barbed obsidian heads, and winged with

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RELIGION OF THE INDIANS.

feathers. The head is tied on with sinew, and the shaft is ornamented with rings of the distinguishing paint of the owner's rancheria. Their knives and spear-points are made of obsidian and flint. They are dexterous in the use of their weapons, especially the arrows, which are of two kinds, one short and light for killing game, and the other a war-shaft, measuring a cloth-yard in length. These are carried at the side, in a quiver made of the skin of a bear's cub or fox, stripped off whole. The bow-strings are made. of the wild flax of the fields.

When going to war with a neighboring rancheria, the casus belli is usually trifling, such as a trespass on lands in acorn time, the stealing of girls, &c. On coming in sight of the enemy, they form in an extended line, something like light infantry, and shouting like bacchanals, dance from side to side to prevent the foe from taking deliberate aim. They do not scalp the slain like other North American savages, which is a trait indicative of the native gentleness of the Californian Indian. They paint their bodies with cinnabar, ochre, charcoal, pipeclay, or anything else that comes to hand. Besides their weapons and feather blankets, they manufacture from pingrass very excellent baskets, called coras," of all sizes, generally of a conical shape, and so finely worked that they hold water. They sometimes ornament the smaller ones with beads, pearl-shell, feathers, &c., so that they present quite an elegant appearance. They also make a sugar of the root of the tulé.

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Their religion appears to be polytheistic, their deities being both numerous and multiform. They frequently carry with them an assortment of pocket-gods, which they worship. Those I have seen were rude images of bears, otters, beavers and other animals, carved in wood or bone, and were usually worn with a string around the neck. I once saw in a rancheria of Sacramento Indians the handle of an "Arkansas tooth-pick," composed in equal parts of horse, alligator and snapping-turtle, which was probably the spoil of one of

SOCIAL CONDITION.

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my erratic countrymen, and enjoyed a high degree of sanctity. A Supreme Being, however, is evidently acknowledged by them, and to Him they address their humble petitions for favor in war, hunting, crops, food, and the like. On important occasions they employ women, who have a peculiar "call" for worship, to go forth into the solitudes of the woods, where they sit on the ground for hours, and cry loudly in monotonous prayer, nothing interrupting them when engaged in these devotions. Whether the petitions which ascend from costly temples, "made with hands,” are more acceptable to the Most High than these lowly and simple supplications of His poor Indian children, is a question for theologians to solve.

These unsophisticated people do not appear to be very strongly attached to their own religious opinions, and so little are they tinged with sectarianism or bigotry that they are easily induced to embrace the white man's faith, especially the Catholic.

Their patriotism exhibits itself in clanship; and while they will get all they can out of a white man, they will share, with reckless generosity, to the last morsel, with their "parientes," kindred and friends.

The Indian rancherias are situated in pleasant, well-selected spots, near the banks of a stream, and remain in the same spot until it suits the fancy or convenience of the nomadic proprietors to "pull up stakes." They possess no title to any land whatever in the country, the Indian titles, even to the mission property, having been extinguished by the laws of Mexico, and the lands granted to Mexican citizens resident in California. By the laws of that country the Indians were deemed "minores y pupiles "-minors and pupils and were at first placed under the tutelage or guardianship of the ecclesiastics at the missions; and after the missions were suppressed by the Mexican Congress, they were turned over to the hard guardianship of the military and civil authorities, who were authorised, under certain