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THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INDIANS*
No. I. [me Cahroc]
In a conversation, wherein participated a distinguished scientist, the remark
was made that the character of the California Indians seemed to contain no romantic
element. To this a gentleman who had once periled his life in defending a handful of the
despised race from the frenzied atrocity of a mob, made reply, that, if there was no
romance in their life, at least there was in their death.
It has been the melancholy fate of the California Indians to be at once most
foully vilified and least understood. "Men damn what they do not understand. " To have
been once the possessors of the most fair and sunny empire ever conquered by the Anglo-
Saxon, and to have had it wrenched out of their gripe with the most shameless violence;
to have been once probably the happiest, and afterward reduced to the most miserable
and piteous ruin, of all our American aborigines! Pity for the California Indian that his
Purple-tinted mountains were filled with dust of gold, and that his green and shining valleys,
lying rich and mellow to the sun, were pregnant with so large possibilities of wheat! Pity
for the blotched and sweaty toad, "ugly and venomous," that he "wears yet a precious
jewel in his head !" Fatal for him was the unconscious guardianship of these apples of
Hesperides; and in what proportion the gold of his placers was beautiful in the eyes of
the White Man, in that proportion was he the dragon, odious to look upon, and worthy of
death. It is small concern of pioneer miners to know aught of the life-story, customs,
and ideas of a poor beggar, who is so fatuously unwise as to complain that they darken
the water so he can no longer see to pierce the red-fleshed salmon, and his women and
PaPPooses are crying for meat; aid when he lies stiff and stark in the arid gully, where
the white, pitiless sun of California shakes above him the only winding-sheet that covers
his swart body, he is not prolific in narration of his people's legends and traditions.
Dead men tell no tales.
And what have we done to compensate the Indian for this gigantic robbery? You
will mention to me the Reservations. Good! I have seen them--and they are so raw, so
bald, so primitive in their uses, and so crude in their outcome, that they were scarce worth
the visiting, except for the opportunity they afforded of noting the workings of the natural
and unregenerate Indian mind. As for giving any glimpse of the benefits bestowed by the
White Man upon the savage, why, bless you, the scope and significance of those benefits
are pretty much measured by bushels of wheat and gallipots of mollifying ointment. Not
but that the agents are sincere and earnest Christian men, and the majority of their
Subalterns likewise, in seeming; but the chasm between them and the wretched, unhappy
Itdians is world-wide; and into that chasm little is hurled to bridge it over, save bright
bayolets, granaries of wheat and corn, and utterly maladroit Christian endeavor, quite
useless because quite too spiritual-minded to compel the Indian, by the whole military
*Overland Monthly, Vol. 8, pp. 325-333, 1872.
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power of the United States Government, if necessary, to construct for himself a chimneys
and change his linen. Instead of building the Indian-house from the bottom upward, they
lay the corner-stone among the stars; and, meantime, the untutored savage is weeping
his eyes out in the accursed, bitter, eternal smudge of his cabin.
Above all others, the California Indians are a shy, foxy, secretive, close-
mouthed race, and will not impart whatever information they may possess until confidence
has been grounded on a long intimacy, and then not completely unless one does them the
flattery to learn their language. This singular secretiveness has kept the great body of
the Whites in profound ignorance of their ideas, whatever they may have observed of their
customs. It has brought upon their heads more charges of cloddishness, and more
calumniations, than have been heaped upon any other Indians.
Wandering over the sweltering and arid plains of the interior, dust-choked and
athirst; wading over the execrable mining streams, and floundering among the slimy stOnesq
or slumping into the foul porridge; losing the trail an average of a dozen times a day
among the mountains, and falling headlong down through the chaparral; bewildered in the
maze of cattle-trails out of all whooping, and losing even my familiar and helpful Number
Nip, "the shod-horse tracks," to which the trail-hunter clings as to life; clambering with
Indian guides around coast headlands, with fingers and toes rigidly hooked into niches of
the rocks, and wetted to the skin by the prodigious splashing of the surf, or resting in a
sea-girt cave, where they might have done the business for me with a sharp stone, and
no soul in all the world been the wiser; bowling lively down the rough-ridging rapids of
the swamp-stained Klamath, so swiftly that our hair flutters behind our hats--three of
us in a little, bobbing cockle-shell of a canoe, and liable to be capsized out of the same
in a twinkling; confronting a huge black bear on a lonely mountain, with no useful tree
in reach: I remember all these things with exceeding pleasure, but they are of no
consequence in themselves, except as showing that some pains was taken to get correct
information.
Sometimes, when wandering on the great, ferny, wind-swept hills of the upper
coast, keeping a sharp weather-eye out for the trail, I have seen a half-dozen tatterde,
malion Eurocs, with their stiff hair bristling in the wind, their two short club-queues
bouncing on their shoulders, and their lips and hands stained gory-red with the juice
of salal-berries, spying me, quit their picking, and come rushing down through the
chaparral, with a wild, lunatic laugh that made my hair stand on end. But they were
never bent on "butcher deeds," and never gave any war-whoop more fiendish than the
insinuating question, "Got any tobac?"
One who travels afoot among the Indians, habited in the plain garb necessary
amid the scraggy thickets of California, will find them making themselves very familiar
with him, sometimes to his amusement, often to his great disgust. The lively Klamath$'
especially, conceived the greatest curiosity respecting myself and my business. They
carefully scrutinized every article of my apparel in turn, and men who understood them
said they always discussed in detail, and with the greatest minuteness, every stranger5
hat, coat, boots--every thing--and tried thus to conjecture his occupation. They wanted
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to purchase my clothes; they wanted to swap handkerchiefs; they wanted to peep into
my traveling-bag. Waxing presently more familiar, they felt the quality of my cloth,
stroked it down, rubbed it between their thumbs and fingers, asked what it cost,
clasped my arm with their hands to measure my muscle, and then encouraged me with
the brief, judicious remark, "Bully for you!" They turned up my boots to inspect the
nails and soles of the same; they wanted to try on my coat; and, last and worst of all,
the rascals wanted to try on my trousers!
Like ill-mannered White people--to use the mildest phrasing--they were very
fond of borrowing my knife, pencil, drinking-cup--any thing-- which they would present-
ly insert into their pockets, hoping I might forget to ask for it again.
One means of protection which old pioneers advised me to take, was, in
journeying anywhither, always to keep at my tongue's end the names of several prominent
citizens of the vicinity, to impress the savages with the belief that I was thoroughly
acquainted in those parts, had plenty of friends, and ample means of redress if they
did me any mischief. The Indians are strongly attached to their homes, on which they
have fudged so long in the building; and they have learned, by tough experience, that,
if they do any thieving, it will be the worse for them, and that it will go hard by the
Whites will burn their rancherias, and requite the stealing double. They desire to live
in quiet where they were born, and they understand that they must keep the vicinal
peace; but with a stranger in the gates, it is qaite a different matter. Men keeping
trading-posts, or having bands of them to fetch and carry on their ranches, almost
without exception, say they are the most honest Indians they ever knew. But from a
stranger, who they think is without means of swift and certain requital, they will prig
every thing he has in the world.
In this, as in a hundred other things, the California Indians display their
notable cunning. As the Italian proverb says, they have the open countenance, but
their thoughts are exceedingly tight and crafty.
I am much indebted to them for guidance through labyrinths of trails; but
unlike Cuffee, they never rendered any service, however minute, without expecting
payment. For every substantial benefit I paid them, but I speedily discovered, that,
if a present were to be made every time it was expected, it would require a sumpter-
mnule to carry my substance about. For instance, Tacho-Colly, Chief of the Ta-ah-tens,
refused to count ten in his language unless I paid him, and only consented, at last,
when he saw me entering into negotiations with one of his subjects, by presenting
him a handful of sweet crackers. Once I was sitting with three stalwart and sinister-
looking Eurocs on a rugged promontory, waiting for the tide to ebb; and when lunch-
time arrived, we fell to--they, on their dried smelt; I, on some sandwiches. They
had no claim on my luncheon, therefore asked for nothing; but presently I commenced
talking with one about Indian concerns, and, in an instant, the crafty savage espied the
drift, saw he had established a claim, and remarked, "Me talk you Injun-talk, you
give me piece of bread and meat. I
The difficulties ot the undertaking are sometimes almost disheartening. It is
very rare to find an Indian who can give any connected account of himself; so one must
possess already a considerable stock of facts, or a vivid imagination, and ask a thou-
sand questions in such manner that the Indian can answer "Yes" or "No." Then, too,
they have a terror of a Reservation Agent, which is significant and piteous to behold;
and, if one asks a number of questions, or produces a note-book, without making an
elaborate explanation, the poor beggar gets scared, and will answer to never a word
more. Many an Indian would perish in his tracks rather than go the the Reservation,
which he remembers only as an infamous pest-house. Many a wretched, trembling
squaw has fled for life to some pioneer, and gladly slaved for him all her life long,
without reward or recognition, for the sake of his protection against the Agent.
One must depend mostly on men who have dwelt a good part of their lives
among them; and, for this reason, many a "squaw-man," whose contribution to the large
uses of civiliation was not otherwise conspicuously apparent, was, to me, a mine of
treasure. One might spend years with diligence in acquiring an Indian tongue, then
journey a three-hours' space, and find himself adrift again, so multitudinous are the
languages and dialects of California. Carefully recorded conversations with five
hundred men, thereforewould be more profitable than five years spent by one man,
to say nothing of the value of time.
The custom in respect of names is various. Sometimes there is a tribal
name for all who speak the same language; sometimes none, and only names for
separate villages; sometimes a name for a whole tribe or family, to which is prefixed
a separate word for each dialect, which is generally co-extensive with some valley-
Of the first, an instance is found in the Cahrocs, on the Klamath, who are a compact
tribe, with no dialects; of the second, in the large tribe, on the lower Klamath, who
also have no dialects, and yet have no name, except for each village; of the third,
in the great family of the Pomos on Russian River, who have many dialects, and
a name for each--as Ballo Ki Pomos, Cahto Pomos, etc.
To increase the confusion, the Indians seldom call their neighbors by the
same tribal names as the latter themselves adopt.
As a simple basis of classification, I used the ten numerals. These will alwaYl
detect a new language, but not always a new dialect; for a tongue may have many dialect'
with wide departures, yet the numerals will remain about the same throughout.
It is frequently a hard work to scrape away the debris created by the White
Man during twenty years, and get down to the bed-rock of the old tribal organizations.
The California tribes crumbled under the touch of the Pale-face, and their members
were proud to group themselves about some strong man in the land, and call theinSe1ve
by his name. They thought it greater honor to be called Bidwell's Indians, Hubbard'S
Indians, Redding's Indians, or so, than Wintoons, or whatever might chance to be
their native title. Some remnants of tribes have three or four names, all in use
within a radius of that number of miles; some, again, are merged, or dovetailed, into
others; and some never had a name taken from their own language, but have adopted that
given them by a neighbor-tribe, altogether different in speech. All these things are
exceedingly perplexing and vexatious. For this reason, I have studiously ignored all  0
the names given to tribes by Americans, else the whole matter would have been involved
in an inextricable confusion.
On the Klamath River there live three distinct tribes--called the Eurocs,
Cahrocs, and Modocs; which names mean, respectively, "down the river," "up the river,"
and "head of the river." The habitat of the Cahrocs extends from a certain canon, a few
miles above Weitspeck, along the Klamath to the foot of the Klamath Mountains, and a
few miles up Salmon River. They have no recollection of any ancient migration to
this region; on the contrary, they have traditions of creation, the flood, etc., which
are fabled to have occurred on the Klamath.
The Cahrocs are probably the finest tribe of Indians in Califomia. Their
stature is a trifle under the America; they have well-sized bodies, erect and strong-
knit; and when a Cahroc has the weapon to which he is accustomed--a sharp stone
gripped in the hand--he will face a White Man, and give him a square, handsome fight,
though he flees before him when armed with a snickersnee, or pistol, in the use of which
he does not feel confidence. The Klamath face is less broad than the face in the Sacra-
mnento Valley, but, in early manhood, nearly as oval as the Caucasian; cheek-bones not
O?ver-prominent; eyes bright, moderately well-sized, and freely opened straight across
the face; nose broad at the base, straight and strong, with ovoid nares; forehead rather
low, but without that disfiguring point of hair growing down the middle, such as one sees
inl the Sacramento Valley; chin and forehead nearly on a perpendicular line; color ranging
from buff-hazel, or old-bronze, almost to black. Many of them--especially the young
squaws--are notable for the fullness of the eyes, and the breadth of sclerotic exposed.
The squaws age early, but even at forty or fifty their faces are furrowed with compara-
tively fine lines, and they seldom display those odious hanging wrinkles and that simian
aspect seen in the Sacramento Valley.
With their smooth, hazel skins, oval faces, plump and brilliant eyes, some of
the young maidens--barring the tattooed chins--have a piquant and splendid beauty. In
those full, voluptuous eyes, so broadly rimmed with white, there is something dangerous,
a very unmistakable suggestion of possible diablerie. When we consider, in addition,
the paucity of White Women, it is small wonder that so many pioneers-including nearly
all the county officers--have taken them for wives. The young people of both sexes
dress in the American fashion; and I have seen plenty of them appareled with quite
Correct elegance--the young Indians in tolerable broadcloth, spotless shirt-fronts,
and neat black cravats; the girls in chaste, pretty, small-figured stuffs, with sacques,
collars, ribboned hats, etc.
The Cahroc is taciturn and indifferent toward his squaw and parents, but
Seldom wantonly cruel; easy-going with his children; talkative with his peers; generous
to the division of the last crumb; mercenary and smiling to the White Man; brave when
need is, but cunning always; fond of dancing; quick to imitate; very amorous; revengeful
but avaricious, being always pacable with money.
The primitive dress of the men is simply a buckskin girdle about the loins;
of the women, a chemise of the same material, or of braided grass, reaching from tile
breast to the knees. The hair is worn in two club-queues, which are drawn forward
over the shoulders. The squaws tattoo-in blue--three narrow fern-leaves perpendicu-
larly on the chin--one falling from each corner of the mouth, and one in the middle. For
this purpose they are said to employ soot--gathered from a stove--mingled with the juice
of a certain plant. In their native state, both sexes bathe the entire person every
morning in cold water; but in the care of their cabins and the immediate vicinity, they
are execrably filthy.
For money, the Cahrocs make use of the red scalps of woodpeckers, which are
valued at $5 apiece; and of a curious kind of shells, resembling a cock's spurs in size
and shape, white and hollow, which they polish and arrange on strings, the shortest
being worth 25 cents, the longest about $2--the value increasing in a geometrical ratio
with the length. The unit of currency is a string of the length of a man's arm, with a
certain number of the longer shells below the elbow, and a certain number of the
longer shells below the elbow, and a certain number of the shorter ones above. This
shell-money is called allicochick, not only on the Klamath, but from Crescent City
to Eel River, though the tribes using it speak several different languages. When the
Americans first arrived in the country, an Indian would give from $40 to $50 in gold
for a string of it; but now, it is principally the old Indians who value it at all.
The Cahrocs are very democratic.  They have a head-man, or captain, in
each rancheria; but, when out on the war-path, they are somewhat more united, being
under the command of one chieftain. But the authority of all these officers is very
slender. The murder of a man's dearest relative may be compounded for by the
payment of money, the price of an average Indian' s life being esa pasora--one stringf
If the money is paid without higgling, the slayer and the avenger become boon companiOlas
for evermore. If not, then the avenger must have the murderer's blood; and a system
of retaliation is initiated, which would be eternal, were it not that it may be checked
any moment by the payment of money.
In war they take no scalps, but decapitate the slain, and bring in the heads
as trophies. They do battle with bows and arrows; and, in a hand-to-hand encounter,,
which often occurs--they clutch ragged stones in their hands, and maul each other
with terrible and deadly effect. They sometimes fight duels, with stones, in this
manner. Though arranged without much formality, they are conducted with a consi'
derable degree of fairness--the friends of the respective combatants standing around
them, and setting them on their pins agains when they fall.
There is no process of courtship, but the whole affair of love-making is
conducted by the father of the bride and the bridegroom expectant. When a young
Philander becomes enamored of some dusky Clorinda,,he goes straight to the fathers
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and, without any beating of the bush, makes him a plump offer of so or so many strings
for her. They chaffer, and higgle, and drive bargains without any reference to her
Wishes. t"My ducats and my daughter," says the avaricious old Cahroc. A wife is
seldom purchased for less than half a string; and, when she is especially skillful in
making acornbread, and weaving baskets, or belongs to an aristocratic family, she
sometimes costs as high as two strings--say $80 or $100. There is no wedding-
ceremony whatever, but the bride follows the bridegroom to his cabin, and they at once
set up their savage Lares and Penates.
No marriage is legal or binding unless preceded by the payment of money;
and that family is most aristocratic in which the highest price was paid for the wife.
For this reason, it stands a young man in hand to be diligent in accumulating shells,
and not to be niggard in haggling with his prospective father-in-law, So far is this  Q9
shell-aristocracy carried, that the children of a woman for whom no money was paid
are accounted no better than bastards, and the whole family are spit upon. Bigamy
is not tolerated, even in the chief. A man may own as many women for slaves as he
is able to support, or, rather, to purchase; but, if he cohabits with more than one,
he beings upon himself obloquy and contempt. He is beneath the notice of honest
Indians.
Before marriage, virtue is an attribute which can hardly be said to exist in
either sex, all the young women being a common possession; but after marriage, when
the dishonor of the woman would involve also that of the husband, they live with tolerable
chastity, for savages. Still, no adultery is so flagrant but the husband can be placated
With money; and it seldom requires more than one string. Virtue, therefore, is
exceedingly rare, as an innate quality, but is simply an enforced condition; and, indeed,
the Cahroc language, though rich in its vocabulary, is said to contain no expression for
"Virtue," though possessing an equivalent for "prostitute," corresponding to the fact.
And yet, with all their immorality, inconsistently enough , bastards are universally
shunned and despised. They, and the children for whose mother no shell-money was
paid--who are illegitimate, in fact, according to Cahroc ideas--constitute a class of
Social outcasts, Indian Pariahs, who can intermarry only among themselves.
There prevails in this tribe a juster division of labor than among the
Eastern Indians. The men build the wigwams; kill the game, and generally bring
it in; construct the fishing-boats, weirs, and nets, and catch the salmon; cut and bring
in all the fuel for the sweat-houses; help to gather acorns and berries; make the fish-
gigs, bows, and arrows. The women gather and bring in the firewood used for secular
Purposes; carry in all the acorns and roots; weave the baskets; generally bring in and
dry the salmon; perform all the work of the scullery; make the clothes. Squaws also
constitute more than half of the "medicines," and officiate as midwives. Yet they
are regarded as drudges, and the Cahroc word for "woman"1 is asisicitatva, which
Signifies "water-carrier, " from the two words, asisick and tatvan.
The Cahrocs have a conception of a Supreme Being, whom they call Chareya.
The root of this word is the same as the first syllable of "Cahroc, " and also calleh, or
callay, in the Russian River dialects, signifying "above;" but, with the curious accretive
capacity of Indian languages, it is expanded into the complicated idea of "The Old Man
Above." Chareya sometimes descends to earth, to instruct the prophets (or medicines),
when he appears as a venerable man, clad in a close-fitting tunic, with long, white
hair flowing down his shoulders, and bearing a medicine-bag. When creating the world,
he sat upon the Sacred Stool, which is still preserved by the Chareya-Indian, and on
which he sits, on the occasion of the great annual Dance of Propitiation. But, as among
all the tribes of northern California, the coyote is the real and practical object of
veneration. They also believe in spooks, or demons, called apparoan, who run after
people at night in the forest, and leave tracks, which, when seen in the morning, bear
a very suspicious resemblance to horse-tracks.
The sweat-house is constructed entirely underground, smallish and oblong,
puncheoned up inside, covered with a flat roof level with the earth, and airtight, except
for the little hatchway at one side. It is church, theatre, cafe chantant, dormitory,
sweat-bath, and medical examination-room in one; and it is consecrated exclusively
to masculine occupation. Lapitean says, among the Eastern Indians the men never
enter the private wigwams of their wives, except under cover of darkness; but here,
the case is reversed, for it is the men's apartments that are sacred. No squaw may
enter the sweat-house, on penalty of death, except only when passing her examination
for the degree of M. D. During the rainy season, when fires are comfortable, they are
kept burning in the sweat-houses day and night; and there are always enough of them it'
each village to furnish sleeping accommodations for all the adult men thereof.
In summer, the Indians occupy the common cabins, or brush-wood booths,
with their wives; but in winter, they sleep by themselves in the sweat-houses; and I
suspect they use the terrors of religious taboo to banish the squaws from them, in
order to enjoy the warm and cozy snuggery themselves. But, airtight as they are,
and heated perpetually (for, once kindled, the fire must never be suffered to go out
until spring), the atmosphere in them is villainous beyond description.
Of numerous fables and coyote stories in vogue among the Cahrocs, related
by gifted squaws to their children, I will give here one specimen, which is not entirely
unworthy a place in that renowned old book written by one AEsop:
FABLE OF THE ANIMALS.
In the old days, a great many hundred snows ago, Chareyasitting on the
Sacred Stool, created the world. First, he made the fishes in the big water, then the
animals on the green land, and, last of all, The Man. But the animals were all alike
yet in power, and it was not yet ordained which should be for meat to others, and
which should be meat for The Man. Then the great Chareya bade them all assemble
together in one place, that The Man might give each his power and his rank. So the
animals all met together, a great many hundred snows ago, on an evening, when the
sun was set, that they might wait overnight for the coming of The Man on the morroW.
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Now, Chareya commanded The Man to make a great many bows and arrows, as many
as there were animals, and to give the longest to the one that should have the most
power, and the shortest to the one that should have the least, etc. So he did, and
after nine sleeps his work was ended; and the bows and arrows which he had made
were very many.
Now, the animals, being gathered together in one place, went to sleep, that
they might rise on the morrow, and go forth to meet The Man. But the coyote was
exceedingly cunning--above all the beasts that were, he was so cunning. So he consi-
dered within himself how he might get the longest bow, and so have the greatest power,
and have all animals for his meat. He determined to stay awake all night, while the
others slept, and so go forth the first in the morning, and get the longest bow. This
he devised within his cunning;  then he laughed to himself, and stretched out his
snout on his fore-paws, and pretended to sleep like the others. But about midnight
he began to get sleepy, and he had to walk around camp and scratch his eyes a consi-
derable to keep them open. But he still got more sleepy, and he had to skip and jump
about like a good one, to keep awake. He made so much noise this way, that he woke up
some of the other animals; so he had to think of another plan. About the time the
norning-star came up, he was so sleepy that he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.
Then he took two little sticks, and sharpened them at the ends, and propped open his
eyelids, whereupon he thought he was safe, and he concluded he vould take just a
little nap with his eyes open, watching the morning -star. But in a few minutes he was
minutes he was fast asleep; and the sharp sticks pierced through his eyelids, and
pinned them fast together.
So the morning-star mounted up very swiftly, and then there came a little
peep of daybreak, and the birds began to sing, and the animals began to rise and stretch
themselves; but still the coyote lay fast asleep. At last, it was broad daylight; and
then the sun rose, and all the animals went forth to meet The Man. He gave the longest
bow to the cougar, so he had the greatest power of all; and the second longest to the
bear; and so on, giving the next to the last to the frog. But he still had the shortest one
left, and he cried out, "What animal have I missed?" Then the animals began to look
about, and they soon spied the coyote lying fast asleep, with the sharp sticks pinning
his eyelids together. Upon that, all the animals set up a great laugh, and they jumped
on the coyote, and danced upon him. Then they led him to The Man--for he could see
nothing for the sticks--and The Man pulled out the sticks, and gave him the shortest
bow of all, which would shoot an arrow hardly more than a foot. And all the animals
laughed very much.
But The Man took pity on the coyote, because he was now the weakest of all
the animals--weaker even than the frog--and he prayed to Chareya for him; and Chareya
gave him cunning, ten times more than before, so that he was cunning above all the
beasts of the wood. So the coyote was a friend to The Man and his children, and
helped them, and did many things for them, as we shall see hereafter.
In the Cahroc legends, the coyote is as important as Reynard in ours. When
one Cahroc has killed another, he often barks like a coyote, believeing he will thereby
be endued with so much of that animal' s cunning as to be able to elude the punishment
due to his crime.