It is generally conceded by both the early and modern
California historians that the Pacific Coast Indians were far inferior as a
race to the stalwart Eastern Indians, idealized by Fenimore Cooper. The
Indians of the San Francisco Bay region formed no exception to this rule.
They lived under the most primitive conditions, with apparently no
aspiration for the higher civilization that characterized the Aztecs and
Peruvians.
When the white man came upon the scene there were four
tribes of Indians in Contra Costa County. These were the Juchiyunes,
Acalanes, Bolgones, and Carquinez Indians. They knew practically nothing of
the arts of civilization. All the historians of the period describe them as
going about in a state of semi-nudity, if not entirely naked. Occasionally
the men wore a crude sort of loin-cloth and the women fashioned an apron
from tules; these hung from the waist to the knees fore and aft, and were
open at the sides. In winter they wore crude garments made from deerskins
or feathers of waterfowls.
Little effort was made toward constructing habitations.
In the summer a few boughs interwoven formed their shelter from the sun and
occasional showers. In the winter they lived in their wickiups. The
latter, as described by Bancroft, "are sometimes erected on the level
ground, but more frequently over an excavation three or four feet deep, and
varying from ten to thirty feet in diameter. Round the brink of this hole
willow poles are sunk upright in the ground and the tops drawn together,
forming a conical structure, or the upper ends are bent over and driven into
the earth on the opposite side of the pit, thus giving the hut a
semi-globular shape. Bushes or strips of bark are then piled up against the
poles, and the whole is covered with a thick layer of earth or mud. In some
instances the interstices of the frame are filled with twigs woven
crosswise, over and under, between the poles, and the outside covering is of
tule reeds, instead of earth. A hole at the top gives egress to the smoke,
and a small opening close to the ground admits the occupants. Each hut
generally shelters a whole family of relations by blood and marriage, so
that the dimensions of the habitation depend on the size of the family."
They were short of stature, sturdily built, with broad
shoulders, and were possessed of great strength. Their complexions were
swarthy, with less of the copper color of the Eastern Indians. Their
features were flat, with none of the aquiline characteristics of the
legendary Indian. Their coarse, straight black hair they wore long and
unkempt. They were generally beardless, although Dr. Marsh, in a letter to
Lewis Cass in 1846, stated that "they are a hairy race, and some of them
have beards that would do honor to a Turk."
Describing the Indians further, in the same letter, Dr.
Marsh wrote: "In some individuals the hair grows quite down to the
eyebrows, and they may be said to have no foreheads at all. Some few have
that peculiar conformation of the eye so remarkable in the Chinese and
Tartar races, and entirely different from the common American Indian or the
Polynesian, and with this unpromising set of features, some have an animated
and agreeable expression of countenance. The general expression of the wild
Indian has nothing of the proud and lofty bearing or the haughtiness and
ferocity so often seen east of the mountains. It is more commonly
indicative of timidity and stupidity."
As to food they were omnivorous, eating anything
available, according to the season. They ate various kinds of roots which
they dug from the earth. Earthworms and grasshoppers formed a portion of
their diet. They made a primitive sort of bread from the pounded kernal of
the buckeye, and are said to have used a certain kind of fat worms for
shortening.
It is interesting to note that the Indians inhabiting
the San Francisco Bay region used no canoes, substituting therefor a rude,
makeshift boat fashioned from bundles of tules firmly bound together. These
were about ten feet long and pointed at both ends. Until the coming of the
Jesuit Fathers the Bay Indians had no other crafts than these tule boats,
which were in use as late as 1840. Bancroft offers this explanation: "The
probable cause of the absence of boats in Central California, is the
scarcity of suitable, favorably located timber. Doubtless if the banks of
the Sacramento and the shores of San Francisco Bay had been lined with
large, straight fir trees, their waters would have been filled with canoes.
Yet, after all, this is but a poor excuse; for not only on the hills and
mountains, at a little distance from the water, are forests of fine trees,
and quantities of driftwood come floating down every stream during the rainy
season, out of which surely sufficient material could be secured for some
sort of boats."
The universal remedy prescribed by the Indians for all
diseases was the sweat-bath. Every rancheria had its sweat-house or
temescal, the latter name having been bestowed by the Franciscan
Fathers. The patient after perspiring in the temescal for several hours, to
the point of exhaustion, completed the treatment by plunging into the cold
waters of a near-by-stream. The temescal was always built on the bank of a
body of water, preferably a river. The following extract is taken from the
account of a pioneer who underwent the ordeal:
"A sweat-house is of the shape of an inverted bowl, is
generally 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 to give out the smoke.
When a dance is given, a large fire is kindled in the center of the edifice,
and the crowd assembles, the white spectators crawling in and seating
themselves anywhere out of the way. The apertures, above and below, are
then closed, and the dancers take their positions."
"Four and twenty squaws, en dishabille, on one
side of the fire, and as many hombres, in puris naturalibus, on the
other. Simultaneously with the commencement of the dancing, which is a kind
of shuffling hobble-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 together and flung over a clothes-line - innumerable pigs
under a gate - all combined would produce a heavenly melody compared with
it. Yet this uproar, deafening as it is, might possibly be endured, but
another sense soon comes to be saluted. Talk of the thousand stinks of the
City of Cologne! Here are at least forty thousand combined in one grand
overwhelming stench."
He then relates how he was well-nigh overcome in the
oppressive atmosphere, from which there was no escape. After being
literally "in durance vile" for several hours, the apertures were suddenly
thrown open and the Indians rushed out with a whoop and plunged into the icy
water, emerging therefrom to sink exhausted on the bank.
The Contra Costa Indians cremated their dead. This
practice prevailed among all the Bay Indians. Farther south the Indians
buried there dead. The mother or a near relative of the deceased was
generally given the distinction of lighting the funeral pyre. All the
possessions of the dead were piled around the body and were consumed in the
flames. Afterward the ashes were mixed with pitch and smeared on the faces
of relatives as a badge of mourning.
They all believed in a continued existence after death,
and in all probability, in common with most of the Indians on this
continent, had a vague idea of a Great Spirit. They held certain rocks to
be sacred, and paid veneration to the grizzly bear, whose flesh they would
never eat.
The story of these Indians would not be complete without
reference to their extreme docility. In the letter previously quoted, Dr.
Marsh refers to them as a "race of infants."
"In many instances," he wrote, "when a family of white
people have taken a farm in the vicinity of an Indian village, in a short
time they would have the whole tribe for willing serfs. They submit to
flagellation with more humility than the negroes. Nothing more is necessary
for their complete subjugation but kindness in the beginning, and a little
well-timed severity when manifestly deserved. It is common for the white
man to ask the Indian, when the latter has committed any fault, how many
lashes he thinks he deserves. The Indian, with a simplicity and humility
almost inconceivable, replies ten or twenty, according to his opinion of the
magnitude of the offense. the white man then orders another Indian to
inflict the punishment, which is received without the least sign of
resentment or discontent."
Dr. Marsh concludes his account with the observation
that "throughout all California the Indians are the principal laborers;
without them the business of the country could hardly be carried on."
Where are the California Indians today? It is doubtful
if one could find a score in all of Contra Costa County, and throughout the
State they have been decimated in similar proportion. With the coming of
the white man came the plagues of civilization - diseases previously unknown
among the Indians. The white man had as a heritage the stamina and
resistance of millions of ancestors who had successfully battled with
disease; the Indian had not, and Nature remorselessly swept him aside.
measles, smallpox, and cholera, sporadic among the white settlers, assumed
the form of a pestilence among the Indians, and took toll of them by
thousands.
That the Indians were numerous throughout the State in
early times is attested by many explorers, including Kit Carson. He wrote
that the valleys of California were full of Indians in 1829, but that when
he visited the State in 1859 they had disappeared to a surprising extent.
Settlers in localities where Indians were once numerous stated that they
knew nothing of the previous history of the Indians. They had undoubtedly
been exterminated by a pestilence. Beyond this nothing was known, as the
California Indians kept no records. With possibly the sole exception of the
Aztecs, the North American Indians were not given to writing memorials for
the future historian. Here and there throughout the State, however, are a
vast number of piles of stone and circles of earth which mark the sites of
once popular rancherias. Near by are always found the remains of the
indispensable sweat-house. These, with their burial-places, about which are
always found a large quantity of beads, mortars, and arrow-heads of flint,
are all that remain of a once numerous race.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta