San Joaquin County CA Archives History - Books .....Indian Wikiups 1923
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Kellie Crnkovich markkell95@aol.com December 16, 2005, 3:42 pm

Book Title: History Of San Joaquin County, California

In this mild, equable climate of San Joaquin almost any kind of a shelter was 
sufficient during the winter months. One should remember also, that the winter 
climate, then was much milder than at the present time, for the thick forest of 
trees tempered the cold wintry blasts, and the warm weather was modified by the 
same means. During the summer, according to Carson, their wikiups were built of 
the flimsiest material and with the smallest amount of labor. They consisted of 
a number of long poles fastened together at the top with grapevines or willow 
branches and covered with grass or tules. In Winter the outside of the huts 
were plastered with wet, soft adobe which dried and hardened in the sun. A 
large hole was made in the top of the hut to permit the passage of smoke and 
then fires were built inside. In these habitations lived the entire family, 
until compelled to move out because of the filth and vermin. Then the wikiup 
was set on fire and burned to the ground and a new shelter constructed. So 
filthy and beastly were the Indians that the remains of food and other refuse 
was permitted to accumulate around their huts until the stench was something 
horrible. Carson said, "They were in the scale of life so low, that there was 
but little difference between them and a grizzly bear, their superiority 
consisting in the fact that they could build a fire and talk.'' Otherwise they 
lived on the same kinds of food and their habits were similar to that of bruin.

The dress of the maids of the forest and the young braves was ever the same. No 
change of the fashion worried their minds nor the minds of their fathers as to 
their extravagance in costumes. The women wore a short apron suspended from 
their waist made of tule or grass. They were in, the fashion of 1920, short 
below and short above. For additional warmth in. winter they wore over their 
shoulders a short fur cape made of rabbit skins. The men during the summer 
months were naked and in winter they also wore a mantle of the skin of some fur-
bearing animal. We may think that with so little clothing they suffered greatly 
with cold during the winter months, but such was not the case. They were the 
sons of Na¬ture, hardened from birth to their surrounding conditions.There was 
much good sense in the reply of an Indian to General Marino Vallejo on one 
occasion when the general asked a naked Indian, "Are you not cold?" "No," 
replied the brave. "Why are you not cold?" Said the Indian, "Is your face 
cold?" "Not at all," replied the General. And the Indian came back, "Indian all 
face."


Additional Comments:
HISTORY OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY 
By George H. Tinkham 

Chapter II The First Landowners

HISTORIC RECORD CO
LOS ANGELES, CA
1923



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