Yolo County CA Archives History - Books .....A Mild Land - A Mild Indian 1913 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com December 3, 2005, 12:03 pm Book Title: History Of Yolo County CHAPTER III A MILD LAND—A MILD INDIAN The proverbial temperamental mildness of the California Digger Indian is characteristic of the climatic condition of the country—warm winters, cool summers, full harvests, wild or domestic, in every season, with every prospect pleasing and only man being vile. The mission of the missions as originally intended by Spain was to fit the natives of her Pacific coast possessions for citizenship. She could not hope to make them good Spaniards but she thought to make them good Catholics, and with some education they would do till amalgamated and lost in the white race. But the Mission Fathers early saw that the natives of Las Californias were not satisfactory raw material for civilization; that the new convert would jump the mission compound and revert to his original wilds on the slightest provocation. The plan of soul salvation did not interest the "neophyte" digger as much as did the chile con carne meals which the priests served up to their charges—and the Franciscan missionaries have ever been good cooks; and the wise old padres seeing they had to feed their converts to keep tnem faithful, made them work on the mission ranches. So, Lo was the farmer, the herder and the man of whatever work he could be persuaded to do. HE WAS THE ADOBE BUILDER In the rough adobe architecture he was the builder under the direction of the priestly architect. He soon learned to mold the big mud-bricks, sun-drying them first on one side then on the other, and then plastering the hard earth-cakes into walls. He was a fairly good worker—fairly good for that early California day—and not difficult to herd to his job. Plenty of carne for him, when the vaqueros rode in with a fat steer, and beans on the side and the chief life-problem was solved. He never struck for higher laborers' wages, because he never received any kind of wages. Where he stayed on the ranches and was as useful as his limited intelligence permitted, he was as well off as he would have been astray amid the wilds; doubtless around the hacienda kitchen he found existence as safe as he would have found it while running free and rounding up the sprightly grasshopper on the golden summer hills. The Digger has become a "rare bird." Civilization and to him kindred epidemics have swept him away. In the great conflict of the human races only the fittest can survive. Here and there over the country where once the red thousands roved are remnants—a few who have exchanged the unclean rancheria, the unwholesome life, for a more sanitary existance—near some fruit or hop ranch where they readily find employment, and opportunities to imitate in dress and manner of living the white people. The sites of forgotten Indian habitations are marked by the only things time cannot quickly obliterate— old stone mortars where the mahalas mashed the acorn kernels for the native bread. Even the grand oaks of California shed manna for her forest children. In their season these acorns were gathered and cached, till needed, up among the branches of the mother-tree. It was an exceedingly course flour or meal that came from these rude mortars, but this made it more healthful, possibly, and with water heated by hot stones in their tightly-woven fiber baskets the ground acorns were cooked in batter or resembling loaves. This "daily bread" of the wilderness, seasoned with ashes and different kinds of "dirts," was not rich in nutriment nor exquisite in flavor but served with a plain salad of green clover and a relish of grass seeds or pine nuts, made the "quiet family meal," or "howling tribal feast," what the country newspaper writer calls "a sumptuous repast." TRIBES OF THE SONOMA DISTRICT It is not known how many tribes dwelt within the Sonoma district before the deadly whites and other ills got among them. By "Sonoma district" is meant what is now known as Yolo, Solano, Napa, Sonoma and probably part of Mendocino and Lake counties. These "tribes" were mere bands having Indian family names, and occupying some special locality. They had their ceremonious "dances" for pleasure and their "sweat-houses" for health, and they fought among themselves at "the drop of a hat"—often the most trivial matter would set one rancheria against a neighbor, and a bloody feud would be on. But deadly epidemics would suddenly break out among Indians, often destroying whole bands. In the early portion of the '40s smallpox appeared among the rancherias and the scourge swept through the entire district. The stricken people having no sanitary habits or treatment of sickness other than a parboiling in the unclean and disease-breeding sweat-house, followed by a plunge in cold water, were easy victims. The death-dealing microbe of whatever form of pestilence was then in action, struck right and left, and it is estimated that seventy-five or eighty thousand Indians perished within the district before the plague wore itself out. PASSED AND LEFT NO MEMORY The red people of California, less able to exist than any of the American aborigines, have virtually passed away, leaving not a relic of their presence, leaving not a picturesque memory in the grand domain they inhabited. It is a reasonable thought that a race of human beings living remote from the disturbing influence of aliens, possessing this goodly land in fee-simple for ages, would draw something akin to inspiration from the noble mountains and valleys around them and in course of generations would have arisen from their primitive sordidness but little above their brother, the coyote, to at least the first steps in the scale of human superiority. In the southwest, the Indians—remnant branches of the lordly Aztecs—have left on the Arizonan and Mexican mesas imperishable and frequently rare objects of their intelligence and morality. In the northwest the native and original occupants, while not possessing the near-civilization of the more southern tribes, had the inborn quality of sturdy manhood, the spirit of independence that moved them to fight for their streams and forests. In California the Indian was destined to disappear un-honored and unsung and no system of conservation could have checked his going. Additional Comments: Extracted from HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA WITH Biographical Sketches OF The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth and Development From the Early Days to the Present HISTORY BY TOM GREGORY AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913] File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/yolo/history/1913/historyo/amildlan125ms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/cafiles/ File size: 7.2 Kb