California is a fairly rich field for prehistoric antiquities. Since American occupation, at least a million specimens have probably been discovered; about one in a hundred has found a resting place in a public museum or become available as a permanent record for science to draw upon. But the ancient objects are widely scattered in the ground, and the absence of ruins and earthworks has made the discovery of inhabited sites largely a matter of accident. Systematic exploration is therefore comparatively unremunerative, unless undertaken on an intensive scale. Only in two regions are artifacts and burials found in some concentration. The more profitable and best exploited of these areas are the Santa Barbara Islands along the coast of the Santa Barbara Channel, and the winding shores of San Francisco Bay. In each instance, the formerly inhabited sites are readily revealed by the presence of shell and sometimes of ashes. The channel district was the more heavily populated, and the art of the natives distinctly more advanced. This region has therefore been extensively dug over by enthusiasts, and a number of valuable collections have been amassed and deposited in public institutions. The San Francisco Bay shell mounds yield a smaller quantity of less interesting material. Now and then a nest of burials proves a fairly rich pocket, but in general not more than two or three implements can be secured for each cubic yard of soil turned over; the majority of these are simple bone awls, broken pestle ends, arrow points, and the like. On the other hand, some of the diggings in these northern mounds have been conducted in a scientific manner, with the result that some attempt can be made to interpret the period, manner of life, and development of culture of the ancient inhabitants. It is likely that the southern area will allow much more ample conclusions once it is investigated with definite problems in view. ANCIENT SITES The number of prehistoric sites is known to have been very considerable wherever topography and climate and food supply encouraged settlement. Figures l, 2 and 3 suggest the density and continuity of occupation on San Diego Bay, as well as on two of the islands of the Santa Barbara group. These districts comprise the principal shore lines in California that face on sheltered waters. The surf-beaten cliffs which constitute the remainder of the coast undoubtedly held a smaller population. Their numerous short transverse streams, most with half-filled mouths, offered the natives many sheltered sites, but the remains indicate that these were frequently occupied only as temporary or intermittent camps. Away from the coast, the ancient sites are much more difficult to detect, and data are so scattered that any present endeavor to map the sites, even for restricted districts, is out of the question, although painstaking investigation reveals abundant evidences of occupation. On San Francisco Bay, over half the bulk of deposits left by prehistoric occupants is shell. This, along with the soil, rock, and ash that have become mixed in, has usually accumulated to some height, forming a distinct, and sometimes a conspicuous rounded elevation. The sites in this region are therefore well described by their common designation of “Shell Mounds.” Elsewhere, even on the coast, shell usually forms a smaller proportion of the soil or refuse left by ancient villages, except perhaps for certain localities in the Santa Barbara district. In consequence, the mound formation is generally also less visible. ANTIQUITY The shores of San Francisco Bay have been subsiding in recent periods, as the geologist reckons time. These shores are mostly low, and frequently bordered by an extensive tidal marsh. Some of the mounds appear to have been established at the water’s edge and have been affected by this subsidence. They grew up faster than the land sank, and thus remained convenient for occupation. But their bases have become submerged or covered with inorganic deposits. The exact depth to which this subsidence has taken place is somewhat laborious to ascertain, and has been determined for only a few of the ten or more mounds known to be partly drowned. The bases of these range from 3 to 18 feet below the ocean level of today. This fact makes a respectable antiquity for the beginning of their occupation certain. Some of the mounds on San Francisco Bay remained inhabited until the historic period. Early Spanish travelers did not refer definitely to shell mounds. But it is only natural that, between a site and a group of houses filled with people, the latter would be more likely to attract attention. A number of objects of European source have been found in the upper layers of these mounds, sometimes in association with burials: adobe bricks, a crucifix, medals, three-legged metates of Mexican type, and the like. The Emeryville and Ellis Landing mounds, two of the largest and best explored on San Francisco Bay, have been estimated by excavators to possess ages of from one to several thousand years, and from three to four thousand years, respectively. The latter figure is arrived at by an ingenious computation: The Ellis Landing mound contains a million and a quarter cubic feet of material. About 15 house pits were recently still visible on it. If contemporaneously occupied, these would indicate a population of about a hundred. The Indians ate fish, game, acorns, seeds, and roots. A per capita allowance of fifty mussels a day, or an equivalent in other molluskan species for adults and children, therefore, seems liberal. Five thousand mussel shells crush down, per experiment, to a quarter as many cubic inches. Ash, rock, and other debris would bring the daily accumulation to about a cubic foot for the entire settlement. At a rate of deposition amounting to 300 to 400 cubic feet annually, 3,500 years would be required to build up 1,260,000 feet. There are too many indeterminate factors in such a calculation to allow its results to be pressed rigidly; but it seems reasonable. The bottom of the mound now being 18 feet below sea level, a subsidence of half a foot per century is indicated. The population may have averaged more than 100, but this would be a rather high figure for a native Californian village. It may have been augmented seasonally by visitors from the interior. But to compensate, its own inhabitants are likely to have spent five or six months of each year in the hills away from their mussels. However the question is approached, 3,500 years seems a conservative deduction. A check has been attempted by another investigator. Fourteen percent of the Ellis Landing mound, according to a number of analyzed samples, is ash--a weight of over 7,000 tons. Assuming 3,500 years, we have a production of 11 pounds daily. The woods available in the vicinity yield less than 1 percent of ash. Hence, more than 1,200 pounds of wood were burned daily, or, on the previous estimate of population, about 80 pounds per family of 7 persons. As a woman can carry this bulk in one load, the figure appears conservative. In other words, a test of the factors assumed in the first calculation yields a credible result. Of course, many mounds are smaller, less or not at all depressed below sea level, and evidently more recent and shorter lived. But again, Ellis Landing may not be the most ancient. It seems extremely probable, therefore, that a minimum duration of 3,000 years must be allowed for the shell mound period on San Francisco Bay. ANCIENT CULTURE PROVINCES Exploration of prehistoric sites anywhere in the State rarely reveals anything of significance that is not apparent in the life of recent natives in the same locality. This rule applies even to limited districts. The consequence is that, until now, the archaeology of California has but rarely added anything to determinations of ethnology beyond a dim vista of time, and some vague hints toward a recognition of the development of culture. Nor do the local varieties of culture seem to have advanced, receded, or replaced one another to any extent. Objects of Santa Barbara type are found only in the Santa Barbara district, and almost never about San Francisco Bay. Humboldt Bay yields some variant types, but these are also peculiar to the locality; how ancient they may be cannot yet be stated, but they are certainly not mere recent types. Moreover, there is no indication whatever that the San Francisco Bay culture ever prevailed at Humboldt Bay, and it is certain that the characteristics of the culture of the latter district never penetrated far enough south to be even partly represented in the former region. In other words, correlation of archaeological and ethnological findings reveals that not only the general Californian culture area, but even its subdivisions or provinces, were determined a long time ago, and have ever since maintained themselves with relatively little change. PURELY PREHISTORIC IMPLEMENTS In regard to a few utensils, we do know that customs have changed. Prominent among these are the mortar and metate. The mortar is found practically everywhere in California; in most localities, it is rather frequently discovered underground. But in a considerable area of the State, comprising roughly its northern half, it was not used by historic tribes, at least not in the portable form, or for the purpose of grinding acorns. In this area, it either consists of an excavation in bedrock, or it is a small instrument used for crushing tobacco or meat, or is made of a basketry hopper set on a slab. It is therefore probable that at some time in the past, more or less remote, a change came over northern California which led to the abandonment of the large, movable acorn mortar of stone in favor of these other devices. Even in the southern half of the State, this mortar was not so extensively used in recent times as its frequency among prehistoric remains has led us to believe. The metate or grinding slab seems to have come in about as the mortar went out of use. The evidence is less complete, but it is significant that there are no metates in the San Francisco shell mounds, although a slab mortar is now and then to be found. It is possible that the historic, but little known Costanoans and Coast Miwok of San Francisco Bay followed their ancestors or predecessors on the spot in going without the metate. However, it would be rather surprising if they had done so, because modern interior tribes in the same latitude--the Miwok and Maidu, and even those farther north--grind on the metate, and all the coast tribes from San Francisco Bay north uniformly employ the pounding slab. The latter may be a modification of the mortar, under the influence of the metate in those regions influenced by the metate culture, but into which the metate proper did not penetrate. Found in prehistoric deposits on Humboldt Bay, and at several interior points in extreme northern California, are examples of an ornamental stone object which can hardly have been anything but a club. It is of animal shape, the head fairly defined, the tail serving as handle, and the legs projecting somewhat as if they were spikes. This is a type with affiliations in Oregon and on the Columbia River, and was not used by any historic tribe in California. These animal-shaped clubs are almost certainly to be connected with the simpler edged fighting club of stone used by the recent Indians of northwestern California. LOWER SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY In the delta region of the great interior valley, particularly in the vicinity of Stockton, several special objects have been found in sufficient numbers to insure their being characteristic of the region. These include narrow cylindrical jars or vases of steatite; clay balls, either plain or incised, perhaps slung shots for water fowl or substitutes for cooking stones in the alluvial region; and neatly worked obsidian blades of about a finger’s length and crescentically shaped. Also found are thin ornaments of either haliotis or mussel shell, cut into forms ranging from that of a human outline to more conventionalized figures; if they were of civilized origin, they would suggest the form of a stringed musical instrument. The distribution of these types is so well localized as to give a first impression of a specific ancient subculture. But the area is one from which historic tribes were early drained into the missions, so that historic data which would enable a comparison on the basis of ethnology are practically nil. It is therefore quite possible that we are confronted by the usual phenomenon of a culture proceeding undisturbed from prehistoric times until its elimination by the Caucasian, with merely the peculiarity that its modern phase disappeared before being observed. This solution is indicated by the fact that investigations among the Miwok have revealed findings that the so-called “Stockton curves” of obsidian were known to these Indians, the blades being attached to the fingers in imitation of bear claws by dancers who impersonated the animal. It seems rather likely that if the northern valley Yokuts survived in condition to depict the culture of their great-grandfathers, they would be able to explain most of the other types, which now appear isolated or peculiar, as something familiar in the region when the Spaniards came. UPPER SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY A rather remarkable discovery of burials near the shores of Buena Vista Lake at the head of the San Joaquin Valley, in a territory that was historically Yokuts, seems to reveal a stronger influence of southern California--and even the Southwest--that is discernible among modern Indians of the region. A carefully preserved eagle skull with eyes of haliotis, for instance, suggests a definite connection with the Luiserno and Diegueno eagle-killing ceremony, until it became known that the modern Yokuts also practiced a mourning rite over eagles. But a specimen of a wooden club of the “potato-masher” type, standard in southern California and the Southwest--unfortunately not preserved, but of definite description--points to the conclusion indicated. The same may be said of a number of bags twined in basketry technique, but of soft string materials. These are similar to bags or wallets made by the Diegueno and Mohave, and bear an especial likeness, at least superficially, to utensils of the so-called “basket makers” who once lived at Grand Gulch, in southern Utah. Another point of interest is hair that is preserved with some of the Buena Vista Lake skulls; it is wound or contained in typical central Californian head nets, but the hair itself is plastered in long, pencil-shaped masses. In the historic period, Colorado River tribes, and no other known tribe, followed this as their fashion. Yet the remains are of natives of the region. Because many of the objects preserved with them are articles of household use, and because the interment of the dead is precise, there can be no suspicion of a party of raiding warriors having been slain and buried far from home. Perhaps of greatest interest in this collection is an unornamented cotton blanket, unquestionably made among one of the settled tribes of New Mexico or Arizona. It is one of the few authentic instances of long distance trade of any manufactured article either into or out of California. It is, however, suggestive that the last wearer of the blanket was certainly not following the style customary among those who wove it. Roughly cut into it were two ragged holes for the arms, so that the wearer could put it about himself somewhat like a coat. Had the maker intended the blanket to be worn in this fashion, he might have woven it in one piece, but would have trimmed and seamed the holes. Unfortunately there is no indication whatever of the age of this very unusual find. It represents a series of burials uncovered by natural causes and detached from the village to which they belonged. At any rate, if the latter stood in the vicinity, it left no evidences of refuse or other accumulation. The state of preservation of many of the articles suggests comparative recency. But set against this is the high aridity of the district. The interments may not be more than a few centuries old; but they are certainly pre-Spanish. SANTA BARBARA REGION The Santa Barbara Islands and mainland contain in their ancient graves the greatest number of unique forms and specialized types to be found in California. Unfortunately, the historical culture of the Chumash and island Shoshoneans has been so completely wiped out that, in the majority of instances, it is quite impossible to say whether the peculiar objects dug out of graves were or were not in use by the Indians of 150 years ago. So far as seems safe, they have been tentatively connected with technological and religious practices of these Indians. It does not seem possible to interpret them more decisively, or worthwhile to speculate upon them at greater length, until additional historical information becomes accessible for this group, or systematic excavations enable characterization of the several periods and types of culture that may be represented in prehistoric deposits of the region. A word may be added about two types of implements to which there has been some controversy: a stone ring or perforated disk, and a pear or plummet shaped object. It has been affirmed that the former was a club head or a net sinker. But the holed disk is most common in the Chumash region, and the surviving Chumash unanimously declare that it was slipped as a weight over the root-digging sticks of their women. The size, shape, and evidences of wear on the pieces confirm this interpretation. An assumption that such a stone may have been used for a hammer or for cracking acorns is entirely natural, but marks indicative of such occasional secondary utilization cannot be stretched into a basis for theories. The net sinker of California was a beach pebble, nicked or notched on opposite edges, or sometimes grooved. Anything more finished or ornate would have been a sheer waste of labor, and would not have appealed to so practical minded a people as the Californians--at any rate, not in any occupation in which religion did not directly enter. The only exception to the interpretation of the round, perforated stone as a digging stone weight is provided by a few specimens found slenderly hafted and feathered in a cave which contained several hundred other clearly ceremonial objects. The plummet-shaped stone, often very symmetrically ground and well polished, sometimes made of attractively colored or banded rock, is without doubt a ceremonial object. At least, every interpretation obtained from recent Indians confirms that stones of this type were amulets or fetishes for luck in hunting and fishing. They may possibly also have been used by rainmaking shamans. The fact that traces of asphalt show some pieces to have been suspended is, of course, no proof of their having been used as sinkers, true plummets, or weaving weights. In fact, one such chamm stone was actually found only a few years ago, suspended from a string over a fishing place near an Indian settlement in the San Joaquin Valley. Whether these stones, which are most common in central California, but are also known from Chumash territory, were originally made as charms, or whether they served some other purpose and were only put to magical use when they were discovered by later generations of natives, it is impossible to decide with certainty. The positive knowledge of their recent employment should weigh more heavily in the reader’s mind than any conjecture, no matter how appealing, as to what their earlier use may have been. PICTURE ROCKS About 50 sites with carved or painted rocks have become known in California. These range from boulders bearing a few scratches, to walls of caves or overhanging cliffs covered with a long assemblage of figures in red, yellow, black, and white. Their distribution is by no means uniform. About half occur in territory occupied in the historic period by Shoshoneans. Nearly all the remainder are in areas immediately adjacent to Shoshonean tracts. Other parts of California are practically devoid of such monuments of the past. This distribution cannot be accounted for by environment. It is true that the open plains of the great valley and the heavy redwood belt would furnish few exposed stones suitable for inscribing. But the half-forested, broken country north and south of San Francisco, and the foothills of the Sierra, offer abundant opportunities for the inhabitants of these regions to avail themselves most sparsely. On the other hand, petrographs are common throughout the Great Basin, which was solidly tenanted by Shoshoneans. The inference is therefore strong that these people are mainly responsible for the painted and carved rocks of California, partly through the work of their ancestors’ hands, and partly by their influence on their neighbors. The most remarkable pictographs are those in the Chumash country, beginning with the famous Corral Rock in the Carrizo Plains, the largest and most notable group in the State. They stretch to the vicinity of Santa Barbara, extend easterly into Gabrielino land in the Sierra Madre, and northeasterly among the Yokuts in the southern Sierra Nevada. These pictographs are almost all painted in several colors, protected from the weather and well preserved except for defacings by civilizcd vandals, and inclined to the representation of recognizable figures--men, animals, suns, and the like. Outside of this area, carvings preponderate. Although sometimes extensive, these are simpler: circles, spirals, zigzags, rows of triangles, and other geometric designs prevail, usually in quite irregular arrangement. It is true that the distinction between paintings and incised stones must be made with caution; stone is much slower to work than pigment, and an equal effort would lead to much less elaborate results. Many of the carvings may originally have been overpainted, the color quickly washing out in exposed locations, such as granite outcrops. Yet caves and smooth overhangs occur in many regions outside the district of the Chumash, Gabrielino, and southern Yokuts. There can be little doubt that, had the inhabitants of the remoter regions felt impelled to produce complicated or life-like pictures, they would have found the opportunity to make them, and their handiwork would have been more frequently preserved than is the case. The cave paintings of the south, therefore, represent a particular art, localized style, or cult. This can be connected, in all probability, with the technological art of the Chumash and island Shoshoneans, as manifest in the occasional carvings of whales, quadrupeds, and the like in steatite. Since these paintings fall well within the region of the Toalache religion-- in fact, their distribution coincides fairly closely with the area in which this religion was strongest--and since the cult was in certain tracts worked out in visible symbols such as the sand painting, an association with this religion is also to be considered; however, nothing positive is known in the matter. Two questions are always asked about pictographs: What do they mean? How old are they? Neither can be answered. The modern Indians are familiar with them as landmarks. But they can give little information to the visitor, except to say that they have always been there. No connected story can be deciphered from any group of symbols, and many are so obviously nonrepresentative as to leave even a speculative imagination baffled for a clue. Many of the pictures may have been made by shamans; but again there is no specific evidence pointing in this direction, and it is quite possible that medicine men were not connected with the making of any. Luiseno girls paint granite boulders at the conclusion of their adolescence rites. But this seems a local custom, and the paintings made in accordance with it are of different character from those found in caves farther north. They would, in any case, wash off in a generation or two. It has sometimes been conjectured that the symbols served as boundary marks, direction signs, or for some analogous practical purpose. Yet this interpretation fits neither their character, their location, nor the habits of native life. The Indian knew the limits of his territory and his way around in it; his impulse would have been to obscure the path for strangers rather than blazon it. The uncertainty is equal in regards to age. Many of the pictures need not be more than two or three hundred years old, since all evidence goes to show that nothing survived in California tradition for even half a dozen lifetimes, except possibly in a garb wholly altered into myth. On the other hand, the sheltered paintings, and some of the deeper cut rocks, may well be several times as ancient. The only hope of a partial answer to the question seems to lie in examination by mineralogists and geologists entitled to an opinion as to the resistance of stones, severity of exposure, and the rate of surface disintegration under given climatic conditions. CULTURAL TRAITS OF CALIFORNIA’S INDIANS History. The prehistoric background of California’s native American Indians is uncertain. They probably lived in the region at a time so remote that their beginnings were literally forgotten. On the basis of carbon-dated human bone fragments, however, some authorities place the date of their arrival in California over 20,000 years ago. Anthropologists and historians generally agree that the Indians of America originated in Asia and moved eastward via the Bering Straits or a temporary land bridge that connected North America with the Asian continent. Some of the artifacts discovered at the time of the building of the Trans-Alaska pipeline in the 1970s tend to confirm this theory. California Indians, like many other minority groups, have been portrayed in an unfortunate manner. It was once believed that these Indians could not be measured favorably against other tribal groups in North America. Compared to the land they inhabited, which was rich in natural products and attractive in physical beauty, the first inhabitants did represent somewhat of a contrast. They cannot be measured, however, only against Caucasian standards. From ancient times, these Indians arrived at an adjustment to their environment which they considered workable. Although their general culture was simple, they had superior mastery in certain specialized activities. Among these were well-developed cult religions, intricate basket designs, acorn-leaching operations, and skill in flint chipping. Their dependence upon acorns as a basic food may have discouraged any interest in organized agriculture. Similarly, their excellent and serviceable basketry work could account for their neglect of fired pottery. Like other North American Indians, the first Californians did not understand the principle of the wheel, had no real system of writing, and in general led a Stone Age level of existence. Usually peaceful in outlook, the Indians lived in tune with their environment. Several tribes, among them the Hupa and the Yurok, showed highly developed culture traits. It is difficult to generalize with so many different tribal groupings, but basically, California Indians were relatively isolated from other North American Indian cultures by mountain barriers and deserts, and developed a society suited to their own geographic needs. Their style of living was simple, built around food gathering and fishing rather than sowing, planting, or harvesting. Rather than describing this way of life in terms of “culture lag,” it is more accurate to speak of the California Indian culture as uncomplicated, yet effective in providing them a livelihood. Until recent history, their social system remained essentially intact for thousands of years. The California natives were not dull-witted. This is best shown by the facility with which they acquired use of the Spanish language; the Spaniards also taught them to read music and sing church chorals. California’s aborigines were without formal education, of course, and such accomplishments as they acquired in a few years of mission instruction are remarkable. Their abilities in mechanical arts are best illustrated in some remains of California missions, which were erected almost entirely by Indian workmen under the direction of friars. At these missions, the Indians became fairly skilled carpenters, weavers, and farmers. They were also excellent cattle herders, although the Indians had never seen domesticated animals, including horses, before the coming of the Spaniards. Food. The major food staple of California Indians was the acorn. Along with dried salmon and nuts, this provided a basic diet, and could also be stored for winter. Before acorns could be eaten, they had to be hulled, parched, and pulverized, and the tannic acid leached out. This last procedure was done in a basket or in a sand basin. The Indians then boiled the sweetened ground acorn meal. Shasta Indians roasted moistened meal, while Pomos mixed red earth with their meal, and sometimes baked it; the resultant mixture could be eaten or stored. The Indians also boiled and ate the green leaves of many plants. Although they possessed no intoxicating drinks, they did smoke wild tobacco. Hunting and Fishing. Weapons of the California tribes were few in number and poor in quality, usually small bows and arrows and flint-tipped lances. When hunting larger game, the Indians made up for their lack of efficient weapons by strategy. Wonderfully deft and skilled in stalking game, they contrived disguises with the head and upper part of the skins of animals. They also set out decoys to attract birds within arrowshot. Game drives were also organized, with the animals chased past hidden hunters. Less common was the technique of running down a deer by human relays until it fell from exhaustion. Pits and traps were used to catch large game, except for the grizzly bear; the grizzly was held in such fear and respect that the Indians let it alone, believing it possessed of a demon. Smaller animals such as wood rats, squirrels, coyotes, crows, rabbits, lizards, field mice, and snakes were fair game. Cactus apples and berries were a special treat. The Indians were not fastidious in their tastes, and did not disdain to eat snails, caterpillars, minnows, crickets, grubs found in decayed trees, slugs, fly larvae gathered from the tops of bushes in swamps (these had a texture rather like tapioca pudding), horned toads, earthworms (used in soup), grasshoppers (roasted and powdered), and skunks (killed and dressed with due caution). An important part of the diet of coastal Indians was fish, especially salmon and shellfish. Often excellent fishermen, the natives jealously guarded their “salmon waters.” Incursions by intruders upon salmon fishing areas along northern rivers resulted in bloody conflicts. Food, whether animal or vegetable, was mostly provided by nature. Although Colorado River Indians were settled agricultural tribes, most other natives of California followed no form of agriculture, except the occasional scattering of seeds of wild tobacco. Indeed, after the coming of the padres, male Indians frequently opposed such radical notions as organized crop cultivation, involving backbreaking labor in the fields. Division of Labor. Women and children performed much of the drudgery among the California tribes. Women hunted small animals, gathered acorns, caught fish, scraped animal skins, fashioned robes, hauled water and firewood, wove baskets, barbecued meat, and constructed dwellings. Yet it is incorrect to label the males as lazy. Men were primarily responsible for hunting and fishing, and for certain specialized occupations. Among the Hupa, for example, this included making bows, arrows, nests, and pipes, dressing hides, and preparing ceremonial firesticks from cottonwood roots. Dwellings. Native dwellings of the Indians varied according to local climate. In northwest and central California, they were sometimes partly excavated, with sides and roof of heavy wood slabs; center posts held up the roofs of larger structures. These “houses,” half above and half below ground, kept the Indians warm in cold weather despite the damp atmosphere of their interiors. Dwellings of the Klamath River tribes were built above the surface, were rectangular in shape, and had walls and roof constructed of redwood planks. The Yurok and Hupa built frame houses. Mountain Indians usually preferred bark or wood-slab buildings. The Chumash along the Santa Barbara coast built houses of “half-orange” shape, constructed with poles drawn together and tied at the top. Thatched grass, foliage, or wet earth covered this type of dwelling; its light construction was suited to the mild climate of the area. In warmer parts of California, the natives were satisfied with a thatch or brush shelter, piled up on its windy side. When the collection of bones and other refuse strewn on the floor became too offensive, and the fleas and vermin too numerous, an Indian family would set fire to their “house” and built a new one elsewhere. Ceremony. The Indians were fond of dancing, in which they engaged not only for amusement, but also for ceremony. Northwest tribes held such ceremonial dances as the salmon dance, special dances for a newborn child, and dances for the black bear, the new clover, and the white deer. They also danced to welcome visiting Indians, for peace and, of course, to begin war. Singing and chanting also played an important part in the lives of the Indians. The Indians took special pride in their watercraft, which was handled with dexterity and skill. One common type was the tule balsa, a sort of raft made out of river rushes. This craft, used for fishing, was poled or paddled on inland waters. They also made use of wooden plank canoes, burned or chopped out of large trees. These native Americans were also fond of athletics, in which they displayed unusual talent. They engaged in a variety of ball games and in a number of contests of leaping, jumping, and running. Defeat was accepted with the same sportsmanship as victory; there was, nonetheless, familial and local pride in achievement. Political System. In pre-Columbian California, a strict political or tribal system cannot easily be discerned. Except for a minority of well-defined tribes or tribelets, including the Yumas and some of the Indians of California’s northwest coast, the basic political unit was the community settlement. Rancherias, as the Spanish called these separate village units, were loosely knit groupings of several hundred aborigines. A rancheria typically had a leader whose authority was limited to giving advice. The term “chief” could be applied to him only with qualification. Sons of chieftains inherited the father’s power only if they were potentially of similar capacity. Wealth played a part in chieftainship, but ability to inspire confidence had to be demonstrated anew by each generation. Each family was a law unto itself. Yet public atonement for injury was not unknown. Sometimes serious offenses could be excused for “money.” A murderer might even buy himself off by paying the family of the deceased in skins or shells, after which friendship might be restored. California’s native Americans were not generally nomadic. Boundaries were well-defined, and to pass beyond a local boundary sometimes meant death to the trespasser. Mothers taught children the landmarks of their own family or tribal limits, the lessons imparted in a singsong enumeration of the stones, boulders, mountains, high trees, and other objects on the landscape beyond which it was dangerous to wander. Controversies between villages sometimes led to “wars.” Rock and arrow fights sometimes took place around acorn groves or salmon streams. California Indians appeared less warlike than many tribes in the East, and their mildness of character led some early writers to speak of them as cowardly. In truth, the Spaniards had sharp encounters with them before they were subjugated. Americans, later, found them already subdued by the Spaniards. Medicine. An institution the Californians had in common with most other American Indians was that of the sorcerer or “medicine man”; they had profound faith in his ability to cure illness. His treatment consisted mainly of incantations, after which he placed one end of a hollow tube against the body of the patient. He would then pretend to suck out the cause of the disease, which might be a sliver of bone, a sharp-edged flint flake, or a dead lizard previously hidden in his mouth. His successes, in fact, depended partly upon his ability to fabricate incredible stories. Notwithstanding the pretenses of these practitioners, they also had knowledge of medicinal properties of many herbs, roots, and other natural remedies, and these were used to benefit their patients. Spaniards consulted Indian medicine men when all other means of cure had failed. Until the coming of the Spaniards, the Indians did not suffer from such white man’s diseases as smallpox, influenza, and measles. Tuberculosis was unknown to them, and the common cold rare. Religious Beliefs. Religion was primitive in the pre-Columbian era. Cults were based on distinct ideas about the creation of the world and about the primeval flood, each family believing that creation took place at a spot within their local territory. One belief held that at a remote time in the past, a billowing sea rolled up onto the plains to fill the valleys until it covered the mountains. Nearly all living beings were destroyed in this deluge, except a few who had gone to the high peaks. There were some vague notions of a supreme being among different groups. The Indians also held a concept of immortality: In eternity, good persons would go to a happy land beyond the water. Mythology was also extensive, including Aesopian fables dealing with the lion, coyote, raven, and snake. Language. Within the present boundaries of California, twenty-two linguistic families and 135 regional dialects have been discovered. Many Indian groups could not understand each others’ speech, although they were separated in distance sometimes by only the width of a stream. The natives of California left behind little of greater permanence than the place names given from their various dialects. However, the meaning and origin of most of these place names remain cloaked in mystery because they were forgotten long before white men grew inquisitive enough to study them. California had a dense native population, doubtless a result of the mild climate and ample food supply. An early estimate placed their numbers at the time of European discovery at 100,000 to 150,000, or one-eighth of the population in the area now covered by the United States, even though the territory these Indians occupied was only one-twentieth of that total land area. After the Spaniards came unknown diseases, such as measles, smallpox, and diphtheria, in which whole tribes were often wiped out. Conditions after settlement. Following the decline of the missions in California’s Mexican period, the condition of the natives was further deteriorated. Gold mining operations destroyed their food sources. Northern “salmon waters” were so roiled up that fish no longer swam up some of California’s streams to spawn. Miners cut down acorn groves for firewood and seized valuable land. Induced to sign treaties that they did not understand, the natives were moved off fertile lands into rocky deserts. Starvation, disease, and liquor conspired with sophisticated weapons against the Indians. Pioneers who had been shot at by Indian warriors while crossing the Plains were scarcely in a friendly mood, and to most settlers, the Indian was a kind of animal. Well-armed whites usually had their way in the struggles over land. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), which transferred sovereignty over California from Mexico to the United States, contained a guarantee to repay Indians for lands taken from them. United States commissioners concluded eighteen treaties with the leaders of 139 native bands, by which the Indians agreed to recognize the sovereignty of the United States, to keep the peace, and to refrain from acts of retaliation. In 1852, the treaties were transmitted by President Millard Fillmore to the United States Senate. The Senate, however, failed to ratify them. The Indians claimed they had promptly complied with the terms imposed, yet the compensatory acreages promised them were, for the most part, not forthcoming. During the 1850s and 1860s, many officials placed in charge of Indian affairs were unfit for their posts. Too often, whenever a reservation contained valuable land, the Indians were driven onto rocky or sandy terrain. It is remarkable that the Indians displayed relatively little hostility in these encounters. In the south there was only one significant uprising. However, skirmishes took place frequently in northern California. In one case, a Spanish expedition against retreating Indians led to the discovery of one of the world’s most beautiful valleys, the Yosemite. Population Changes. The decimation of the California Indians, especially in the latter half of the nineteenth century, is both tragic and grievous. From the beginning of the American period to the opening of the twentieth century, their numbers declined from 100,000 to 15,500. In only these few decades, a proud people became utterly broken in health and morale. California Indians have had a few champions, however. One of them was Helen Hunt Jackson, whose two influential books, A Century of Dishonor (1881) and Ramona (1884), focused on California and called attention to the mistreatment of the Indians. Today, most of California’s Indians have been assimilated into the general population, though some linger in the confining atmosphere of reservations. Of these, the largest is the Hoopa Valley Reservation in Humboldt County; one recently established area is an eighty- acre tract set aside for the Washoe tribe. Most of these reservations are lacking in rich soil or a sufficient water supply to carry on agriculture.