Transcript Elusive Eden: A New History of California, fourth edition

Elusive Eden: A New History of
California, fourth edition
CHAPTER THREE: THE NATIVE PEOPLES
The "Digger" Stereotype
• Derogatory European, American term
--Assumed Indians ate bugs
--Assumed lazy, Cal too hospitable
--Justified mistreatment
• Beginning 20th c studied by anthropologists
--Alfred L. Kroeber: cultures complex, dynamic
--Robert F. Heizer, Lowell J. Bean, Michael J.
Moratto sympathetic
• New insights from carbon dating, etc.
NATIVE ORIGINS, LANGUAGES, AND
POPULATIONS
• Original view: Native cultures primitive, static
• Current view: cultures adapted to social,
environmental change
• First Paleo Indians arrived in NA 50,000 15,000 BCE ("before common era")
--Ice Age exposed Beringea
--pursuing large game
--living throughout North, South America by
12,000 BCE
• arrived in Ca in Holocene ("Human" era),
10,000 BCE
--offshoots of different NA groups
--nomadic hunters
• ice age ended 6000 - 3000 BCE
• humans adapted: hunting plus gathering
• changing environments = adaptation
--material culture
--social culture
• rising native populations
• complex cultures establ by 1000 BCE
• Spoke variants five original NA language
groups
• Ocean, mountain barriers, distances limited
contact
• By 17th c, divided into 100+ groups
--64-80 different dialects
--Customs
--Lifeways
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Largest population north of Mexico
Estimates 300,000 to 1 M
Dense in valleys, along coast
Yokuts, Chumash villages 1000+
ECONOMY: FOODS
• Subsistence economies: hunting, gathering
• More practical than agriculture
--Added to prejudice of early Europeans
• Relatively high standard of living
--Hundreds of animals, plants available
--Seasonal migrations
--Access to water, food determined camp, village
location
• Eight ecological economies and examples:
• coastal tideland collectors
--Costanoans, Ohlone in reed canoes
• sea hunters and fishers
--Chumash plank canoes
• riverine fishers
--Yurok, Yokuts, Karok
• lakeshore fishers, hunters, and gatherers
• valley and plains gatherers
• foothill hunters and gatherers
--Sierra Nevada Miwok
• desert hunters and collectors
--Cahuila
• desert agriculturists
--Yuma, Mohave, Cahuilla, Pauite
• Common foods: seeds, nuts, roots, stems,
leaves
--Acorns toxic
• Early 20th c Alfred Kroeber proposed
"environmental determinism"
--life too easy for Cal Natives
--No agriculture, earthworks, complex political
structures
• New theories 1960s, 1970s
--R. L. Kelly, others proposed "ecofunctionalist"
model
--Cal Natives affluent, lived in harmony with
nature
• Radiocarbon, new techniques undermine
explanations
• Medieval Climatic Anomaly, 800 to 1350 CE =
disastrous heat wave, drought
--Forced group migrations, disrupted trade,
increased warfare
--breakdown in long-standing trade
relationships, and increased interpersonal
violence.
• SF Bay hunters probably overhunted large
game, sea lions
• Natives recalled droughts, starvation, war
• Acorn use may mean other food scarce
--Easily stored
--Collecting 500 pounds per person per year =
massive effort
--Processing labor intensive
--women husked, ground, washed meal
• Kroeber, others: acorn universal, began
around 5000 BCE
• Radio carbon dating suggests 1000 years later
--Adaptation to shortages
--Different times in different areas
--4000 BCE SF Bay; 2800 BCE Central Valley,
Delta; 1000 BCE Sierra Nevadas
ECONOMY: INDUSTRY AND TRADE
• Food surpluses supported trade, industry
• Regional availabilities
--volcanic black obsidian: mining, carving
weapons
--granite: mining, carving tools, art
--cinnabar: mined for paint
--sea salt: harvesting, curing
--shells: currency, jewelry
• surplus foods, goods = elaborate trade
networks, currency systems
• linked tribes, cultures across regions
• trade could reduce warfare
• Cal Natives relatively high standard of living
• Work intense, but periodic, shared
• Diet varied, high in proteins
--Superior to contemporary Europeans
--Superior to missions later
SCIENCE, ECOLOGY, AND AGRICULTURE
• Natives experimented with animals, plants,
minerals
• Knowledge passed thru oral tradition
• sophisticated understanding of surroundings
--studied animals, climate
--seasons, planets
--Chumash built observatories, celebrated
summer solstice
• Used plants as medicines, set bones,
performed surgery
• Analyzed dreams
• Shamans specialized knowledge of plant,
animal life
--Europeans went to Indian doctors
• Reshaped environment
--Sowed wild grasses closer to home
--Dug irrigation canals
--Pruned trees, shrubs
--Controlled burns maintained forests, meadows
• Desert tribes (Yuma, Mohave, Halchidhoma,
Cahuilla) farmed floodplains
--Grew corn, beans, squash
• Owens Valley Paiute dammed streams, dug
canals
--Cultivated wild grasses for food
--reeds for baskets, tools
RELIGION
• Relationship to natural environment central
theme
• Practices varied group to group
--monotheism
--animism
• natural and supernatural forces affected daily
life, afterlife
• rites to mark important events: birth, puberty,
marriage, death
• limited births, avoided incest
• redistributed goods like other NA groups
• practices maintained unspoiled environment
POLITICS AND SOCIETY
• Organized into small groups
• Barriers, cultural specialization, environmental
limits kept groups small
• No common political system united Cal groups
• Tribelets 100 to 1000 people
--Some lived in one or two camps, others in
dozens of villages
• Southern tribes organized by family ties
--Basic unit: lineage
--Several lineages: clan
--Clans exercised authority over members
• Northern groups less formal: village structures
= authority
• Territories 50 sq mi in rich areas, 1000s in
others
• Chiefs inherited positions thru kinship
--Status based on family, leadership skills
• Shamans religious figures, advised chiefs,
commoners
• Women could be shamans
--Some Pomo, Chumash, Miwok women cochiefs
• Protracted warfare infrequent
--Mohave, Yuma trained warriors
--Extracted tribute from losers
--San Diego Ipai and Tipai attacked Spanish
• Groups divided by class
--Elites
--Commoners
--Vagabonds
--Slaves
• Elites controlled property, trade, tools,
provided leaders
• Commoners supported elites with labor, gifts
• Newcomers/vagabonds unrelated to lineages
--New marriage partners
--Needed to avoid incest
• Slaves war captives, criminals, debtors
--Status temporary
Upward mobility uncommon
• Gender roles flexible
--Males most likely to be chiefs, shamans,
warriors, hunters
--Adults, youth, elderly all labored
--Both sexes gathered food, but women more
likely to prepare
• Women probably originated acorn processing,
basketry, herbal cures
• Children learned adult roles early
• European gender systems disrupted Native
traditions
--Male agriculture
--Female domesticity
--Rules re marriage
THE ARTS
• Men carved wood, bone, and stone for tools,
art
• Rock carvings (petroglyphs), rock paintings
(pictographs) common among southern tribes
• Chumash painted cave state park
• Women wove baskets, tools and art
--Pomo ceremonial baskets
--Baskets important trade items
ON THE EVE OF EUROPEAN COLONIZATION
• Triblet primary social, political unit
• Most autonomous
• Formal alliances, trade relations
• Evolving: new religious practices, arts
• Villages grew in size
• Increased specialization in crafts, communal
roles
• Grave goods show growing wealth,
stratification
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Technologies simpler than Europeans
No written languages, metals, draft animals
Weapons inferior to Spanish guns, swords
Vulnerable to European diseases
Lacked central organization to resist invaders
Tattooed Yuki
Indian
The first systematic
attempt to gather
information about
the California
Indians was made
by Stephen Powers
in Tribes of
California (1877).
This is one of the
volume’s many vivid
illustrations of
Native life at a time
when it was rapidly
disappearing.
Bancroft Library.
California Indian Tribal Boundaries
Tribes of California drawn by A.L. Kroeber.
Reprinted in Robert F. Heizer and Albert B.
Elsasser, The Natural World of the California
Indians (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1980), p. 5.
Indians Hunting
Near San
Francisco Bay
Visiting artist Louis
Choris depicted
hunters belonging to
San Francisco Bay
or San Joaquin
Valley tribes in 1816.
Strong and flexible,
Indian bows were
constructed
especially for
hunting small game
at short or medium
distances. Bowmen
took great pride in
their skills.
Huntington Library.
Women Processing Acorns in the
Sacramento Valley, ca. 1840
Acorn processing was a constant
task for tribeswomen with oak groves
in their territories. Along with other
strenuous female responsibilities, this
practice led early American
observers to jump to the false
conclusion that Indian women were
oppressed by their men. “On the
women, all the drudgery seems to be
thrown,” observed Charles Wilkes,
the American military officer in
charge of the expedition that
produced this illustration. Actually, all
tribal members worked hard for the
welfare of the group, and
responsibility for acorn processing
and plant gathering, vital to tribal
survival, earned women respect and
status within Indian communities.
Illustration from Charles Wilkes,
Narrative of the United States
Exploring Expedition during the
Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, and
1842 (1845). California State Library.
Indian Ecological Zones
From Robert F. Heizer and Albert B.
Elsasser, The Natural World of the California
Indians (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1980), p. 60.
Indian Village Scenes
Differences in local climate and building materials
contributed to variations in Indian architecture:
tule-thatch Yokuts houses protected from the hot
San Joaquin Valley sun by a shade; earth-covered
Maidu lodges in the equally hot Sacramento Valley;
Miwok bark-slab lodge, Yosemite Valley; Sierra
Nevada bark-slab community house. From Stephen
Powers, Tribes of California (1877). Bancroft Library.
"A Sweat and a Cold
Plunge”
Male sweathouses were
common among many
California Native groups. In
these large buildings, adult
men slept, socialized, and
performed various rituals.
For example, purification
rites were performed before
hunts to appease the animal
spirits and to remove bodily
scents that might alert game
to the men’s presence. After
sweating before fires in the
sealed buildings, the men
plunged into cool water. The
ritual was repeated until
body and soul were
cleansed. From Stephen
Powers, Tribes of California
(1877). Bancroft Library.
Sampler of Indian Baskets
The two baskets at the top of the
illustration were used by women to
carry infants. The others served
diverse purposes. Although Native
Californians preferred baskets
because they were portable and of
greater use in a mobile, gathering
way of life, some southern California
tribes also made and used pottery or,
like the Chumash, carved steatite
bowls. From Stephen Powers, Tribes
of California (1877). Bancroft Library.