Kern County CA Archives History - Books .....When The Red Man Ruled 1934
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 19, 2006, 5:57 am

Book Title: Where Rolls The Kern

CHAPTER I. 
When the Red Man Ruled.

   ARCHAEOLOGISTS are agreed that the area now officially known and designated
as Kern County, California, has offered a suitable habitat for man, and has been
so used by him from the time of his first arrival in America to the historical
epoch; and since, of course.

   Since this work is designed primarily as a history of what is commonly
referred to as the American period of occupation of Kern County, no further
reference will be made to any pre-historic habitation of the district. However,
it is not thought that the work would be complete without some reference to the
Red Man who occupied the district when the White Man first set eyes on it, so
this brief chapter will be devoted to the first residents of whom we have any
written record.

   Documents left by the earliest explorers tell us that there were numerous
villages or rancherias and that the members of the various Indian tribes waxed
fat on the animal and vegetable life that abounded in the district.

   They tell us that there were literally thousands of elk, deer, antelope,
grizzly bear, mountain sheep, rabbits, ducks, geese, pigeons, swans, cranes,
blackbirds and fish, and almost unlimited quantities of pinon nuts, wild oats,
and other vegetable growth, assuring an ample food supply at all seasons of the
year. References are also frequently made in early chronicles to large bands of
wild horses that roamed the country; but an investigation indicates that these
were of Spanish importation and did not make their appearance in the district
until about 1800.

   Mainly the tribes of what is today Kern County belonged to the Yokut group,
divided into numerous tribes with distinct tribal names, and with somewhat
varying customs and dialects. Although the dialect of each tribe varied from
that of the other, there was sufficient similarity so that they were enabled to
converse one with the other, to some extent at least.

   Generally speaking, the various tribes of Yokuts were on friendly terms with
each other. In the hill sections there resided several tribes of Shoshoneans,
and with these the Yokuts were not so friendly. However, there was trading and
communication back and forth between the Shoshoneans and Yokuts. There were also
a few tribes of the Chumash Indians. These seem to have been more inclined to
mingle with the Shoshoneans.

   The largest of the numerous villages was located on the shore of Buena Vista
Lake in what is now Section 6, Township 32 South, Range 25 East, Mt. Diablo
Meridian. To the Indians it was known as Tulamniu, and to early Spanish visitors
as Buena Vista.

   Early records of population estimates are most confusing, for there seems to
have been a wide difference of opinion on this point on the part of early day
explorers. However, what appear to be the most reliable estimates fix the
population of the entire Kern County area at somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000
persons.

   Edward F. Beale, early day United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and
one of Kern County's most notable pioneers; said in one of his numerous reports
on the subject of Indians that "In the 40's and the 50's there were more Indians
in the vicinity of the Kern and Tulare Rivers than in any other Pacific Coast
locality, drawn and supported by an abundance of vegetable and animal life."

   Between 1860 and 1870 most of the Indians disappeared.

   Stephen Powers in his "Tribes of California," published in 1877, gives us the
locations and names of the various tribes in Kern County as follows:

   At Fort Tejon, Tinlenneh; near Kern Lake, Pohallintinleh; on Kern River,
Palligowonap; South Fork of Kern River, Tipatolapa; North Fork of Kern River,
Winangik; at Bakersfield, Paleumni; at Tehachapi, Tahichapa; Kern River Slough,
Poelo; Kern River Falls, Tomola; at Poso, Beku.

   With the conclusion of this chapter we are going to leave the Red Man
temporarily in full control of the land of Kern with its superabundance of
animal and vegetable life, and proceed to the next chapter wherein the White Man
first casts his eye on the country, and exclaims "Buena Vista," and thereby
bestows a place name that been employed with varying degrees of significance
throughout the entire subsequent history of Kern County, and which is in use to
this day.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Where Rolls the Kern

A History of Kern County, California
By Herbert G. Comfort

MOORPARK, CALIFORNIA:
The ENTERPRISE Press
1934


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