65
THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS*
No. VII. The Meewocs
By far the largest nation, or group, in California, both in population and in  (
extent of territory, is the Meewocs, whose ancient dominion extended from the snow-
line of the Sierra to the San Joaquin River, and from the Cosumnes to the Fresno. When
We reflect that the mountain valleys were thickly peopled east as far as the uppermost
end of Yosemite (in summer, much further up), and consider the extent of the San
Jaoquin plains--which to-day produce a thousand bushels of wheat for every white
inhabitant, old and young, in some sections--then add to this the long and fish-thronged
streams, the Mokelumne, the Stanislaus, the Tuolumne, the Merced, the Chowchilla,
and the San Joaquin encircling all--along whose banks the Indians anciently dwelt in
great numbers--we see what an area there was for a dense population. Even Feather
Island, in the San Joaquin, contains the ruins of a village, cons tructed in their peculiar
military style, consisting of many scores of dwellings. The fertile bottom-lands along
the lower Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced, especially, are said to have been most
thickly studded with villages; averaging each over twenty-five, between the San Joaquin
and the foot-hills.
And yet, broadly extended as it was, and feeble or wholly dormant as was the
national life, or consciousness of unity, this people possess a language more homogeneous
than many another not half so widely ramified. An Indian may start from the extreme
upper end of Yosemite, and travel with the sun 150 miles to the San Joaquin--a long
distance to travel in California without encountering a new tongue--and still make himself
understood, with little difficulty. Another may journey from the Cosumnes to the Fresno,
crossing three rivers, which the timid race had no means of ferrying over save casual
logs, and still he will hear the familiar numerals, with scarcely the change of a syllable,
and he can squat down with a new-found acquaintance, and impart to him hour-long
communications, with only about the usual supplement and bridging of gesture. There
are, as always, many and rapid dialectic departures, but the root remains, and is
quickly caught by the Indian of another dialect; while there are not so often whole
cohorts of words swinging loose from the language, and passing into oblivion, as one
journeys along. In the Neeshenam territory it is like the march of a regiment through a
hostile country--every ten miles you go, there is a clean breach of a whole battalion
of words, which are replaced by others totally different; but in the Meewoc, they keep
their places better, though they change their uniforms often. For instance, north of
the Stanislaus they call themselves Meewoc (Indians); south of it, to the Merced, Meewa;
South of that, to the Fresno, Meewie. On the upper Merced, "river" is wakalla; on the
upper Tuolumne, wakalumy; on the Stanislaus and Mokelumne, wakalumytoh--being un-
dOubtedly the origin of the word tMokelumne," as cossoom, or cossoomy (salmon), is
Of "Cosumnes." For the words "grizzly bear" there exist, in different dialects, all
* Overland Monthly, Vol. 10, pp. 322-333, 1873.
66
the following forms: oozoomite, osoamite, uhzoomite, uhzoomituh.
Their language is not lacking in words and phrases of greeting, which are
full of Indian character. When one meets a stranger, he generally salutes him "Wooneh?"
" whence do you come?" Sometimes it is "'Weoh ucooh?" about equivalent to "how do
you do?" How like the savage! With the infinite inquisitiveness and suspicion of the
race, touching a stranger, he desires to know from what quarter he hails, whither he
is bound, on what business etc., etc. After the stranger has answered the third or
fourth question, he frequently volunteers the remark, "Haykangma, " "I am hungry;"
which seldom fails to procure as substantial a response as the larder will allow.
Perhaps he will acknowledge it with IICoonee," "thank you;" more probably not. When
the guest is ready to take his departure he never fails to say, "Wooksemussy, t "I am
going." To this the host replies. "Cotoellay ," "you go ahead"--a complimentary
expression which arose from the custom of walking single file.
Some of the idioms are curiously characteristic of that point-no-point style
which savages have in common with children. Thus, hyem is "near;" and hyetkem is also
"near," but not quite so near; and cotan is "away off." Yet, the latter may not be so
very distant, after all; for tolleh is the bank of a river, and cotun tolleh is the opposite
bank, though you could fling a stone across. Chuto is "good;" chutosekay is "very good."
While this is undoubtedly the largest, it is, also, probably the lowest nation il
California; and it presents one of the most hopeless and saddening spectacles of heathen
races. According to their own confession, to-day, in former times both sexes, and
all ages, went absolutely naked. All of them, north of the Stanislaus at least, and
probably many south also, not only married cousins, but herded together so indiscri-
minately in their wigwams, that not a few Americans believe and assert, to this day,
the monstrous proposition, that sisters were frequently taken for wives. But this is
mainly false. The Indians all deny it, emphatically; and not one of their accusers could
produce an instance, having been deceived into the belief by the general circumstance
above-mentioned. They eat all creatures that swim in the waters, all that fly through the
air, and all that creep, crawl, or walk upon the earth, with, perhaps, a dozen
exceptions. They have the most degraded and superstituous beliefs in wood-spirits,
who produce those disastrous conflagrations to which California is subject; in water'
spirits, who inhabit the rivers, consume the fish, and work all manner of evil and
malignity upon men; and in fetichistic spirits, who assume the forms of owls and other
birds, to render their existence a torment and a terror, from the baby-basket to the  ly
grave. In occasional specimens of noble physical stature they were not lacking, espec
in Yosemite and other elevated valleys; but the utter weakness, puerility, and imbecilit
of their conceptions, and the unspeakable obscenity of some of their legends, almost
surpass human belief. But the saddest and gloomi est thing connected with the Meewocs
the fact, that many of them--probably a majority of all who entertain any well-defined
notions whatever on the subject, believe in the annihilation of the soul after death,
escpecailly in the case of the wicked. When an Indian's friend departs the earth, he
mourns him with that great and bitter sorrow of one who is without hope. He will
live no more forever. All that he possessed is burned with him upon the funeral-pyre,
67
in order that nothing may remain to remind them afterward of one who is gone into
black oblivion. So awful to them is the thought of one who is gone down to eternal nothing-
ness, that his name is never afterward even whispered; if one of his friends is so
Unfortunate as to possess the same name, he changes it for another; and if, at any time,
they are compelled to mention the departed, with bated breath and mournful softness
they murmur simply "Itteh, " "him." Himself, his identity, is gone; his name is lost;
he is blotted out; itteh represents merely the being that once was. Like all the other
tribes of sunny California, they are gay and jovial through their lives; but, while most
Of the others have a mitigation of the final terrors in the assured belief of an immor-
tality in the "Happy Western Land," the Meewocs go down, with a grim and stolid
sullenness, to the death of a dog, that will live no more. It is necessary to say, how-
e'ver, that not all entertain this belief; but it seems to prevail more especially south of
the Merced, and among the more grave and thoughtful of these. Throughout the whole
Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys one will occasionally meet an Indian who believes
in annilhilation; but nowhere so many as among the Meewocs.
As to tribal distribution, the Meewocs north of the Stanislaus, like the
Neeshenams, designate principally by the points of the compass. These are toomun,
choomuch, hayzooit, and olowit (north, south, east, and west), from which are formed
various tribal names--as Toomuns, Toomedocs, and Tamolecas; Choomuch, Choomwits,
Choomedocs or Chimedocs, and Choomteyas; Olowits, Olowedocs, Oloweeyas, etc.
Olowedocs is the name applied to all Indians living on the plains, as far west as Stockton.
But there are several names which are employed absolutely, and without any
reference to direction. On the south bank of the Cosumnes are the Cawnees; on Sutter
Creek, the Yulonees; on the Stanislaus and Tuolumne, the extensive tribe of Wallies; in
Yosemite, the Awanees; on the south fork of the Merced, the Nootchoos; on the middle
Merced, the Choomteyas; on the upper Chowchlla, the Hethtoyas; on the middle Chowchilla,
the tribe that named the stream; and on the north bank of the Fresno, the Pohoneeche es.
There were probably others besides these, especially on the plains; but they have been
So long extinct, that their names are forgotten. Dr. Bunnell mentions the "Potoencies,
but no Indian had ever heard of such a tribe; also, the "Honachees, "1 which is probably
a mistake for Monachees--a name applied, on King's River, to the Piutes.
The name "Wallie"l has been the subject of no little discussion. Some assert
that it is a word applied by the pioneers to the Indians, without any particular meaning;
Others, that it is an aboriginal word, denoting "friend." The latter theory probably
had its origin from the fact that these Indians, on meeting each other, frequently cry
OUt"Wallie! wallie!" As a matter of fact, it is derived from the word wallim, which
Means simply "down below;" and it appears to have been originated by the Yosemite
Indians, and applied to the lower tribes with a slight feeling of contempt, for which there
Was some ground. The Indians on the Stanislaus and the Tuolumne use the term freely
in conversing among themselves; but on the Merced it is not heard, except among the
Alnericans. The Yosemite Indians despised the Wallies because they could not make
bows (having no suitable timber), and had no pluck; the Wallies, in turn, affected to
despise those north of the Stanislaus and down on the plains, because they married
COusins.
68
Perhaps the only special features to be noted in their physiognomy, are the
smallness of their heads, and the flatness of some of them on the sinciput, caused by
their lying on the hard baby-basket when infants. I felt the heads of a village near
Chinese Camp, and was surprised at the diminutive balls which lurked within their
masses of hair, though perhaps others in the State would reveal the same feature. The
Chief, Captain John, was at least seventy years old, yet his head was still perceptibly
flattened on the back, and I could almost encircle it with my hands.
All the dwellers on the plains, and as far up on the mountains as the cedar-
line, bought all their bows and most of their arrows from the upper mountaineers. An
Indian is about ten days in making a bow, and it costs $3, $4, or $5, according to work-
manship; an arrow, 121 cents. Three kinds of money were employed in this traffic.
White shell-beads, or rather buttons, pierced in the centre and strung together, were
rated at $5 a yard; periwinkles, at $1 a yard; fancy marine shells, at various prices,
from $3 to $10, or $15, according to their beauty.
The chief or headman of a village is little more than a master of ceremonies.
When he decides to hold a dance in his village, he dispatches messengers to the neigh-
boring rancherias, each bearing a string whereon is tied a certain number of knots.
Every morning thereafter the invited chief unties one of the knots, and when the last but
one is reached, they joyfully set forth for the dance--men, women, and children--all,
without any exception.
Occasionally there arises a great orator or prophet, who wields a wide infl1e0Ce,'
and exerts it to introduce such reforms as seem to him desirable. Old Sam, of Jacksonq
was such a one. Sometimes he would set out on a speaking or lecturing tour, traveling
many miles in all directions, and speaking with great fervor and eloquence nearly all
night, according to accounts. Shortly before I passed through that region, he had intro-
duced two reforms (whether permanently or not, can not be here stated), at which the
reader will probably smile, but which were certainly in the right direction. One was,
that the Indians no longer tarred their heads in token of mourning, but painted their
faces--paint being so much easier to scrape off. The other was, that, instead of holdin
an annual "cry," or Dance of Weeping, in memory of the dead, they should dance and
chant dirges. In one of his speeches to his people, he is reported to have counseled
them to live at peace with the Americans, to treat them kindly, and avoid quarrels
whenever possible, for they were weak, and it was worse than useless to contend againSt
their conquerors. He then diverged into remarks on household economy: "Do not waste
cooked victuals. You never have too much, anyhow. The Americans do not waste their
food. They work for it, and take care of it. They keep it in their houses, out of the
rain. You let the squirrels get into your acor ns. When you eat a piece of pie, you eataMe
it up as far as the apple goes, then throw the crust into the fire. When you have a panc
left, you throw it to the dogs. Every family should keep only one dog. It is wasteful
Typocksie, Chief of the Chimteyas, was a notable Indian in his generations
holding undisputed sovereignty in the valley of the Merced, from South Fork to the
plains. Early every morning, as soon as the families had had time decently to prepare
breakfast, he would step out before his wigwam and lift up his sonorous voice like a
69
Stentor, summoning the whole village to work in the gold-diggings; and himself went
forth to share the labor of the humblest. Men, women, and children went out together,
taking their dinners along, and the village was totally deserted until about three o'clock,
(E) when they ended their labor for the day. Every one worked hard, inspired by the example
of their great chieftain, the men making dives into the Merced of a minute or more, and
bringing up the fat gravel, while the women and children washed it on shore. They got
abundance of gold and lived in civilized luxury as long as Typocksie was alive. He is
described by one who knew him well as a magnificent specimen of a savage, standing
full six feet high, straight and sinewy, shiny-black as an Ethiopian, with eyes like an
eagle's, a high forehead, and nostrils strongly walled, each of them showing a clean,
bold ellipse. He died in 1857, and was buried in Rum Hollow with unparalledled pomp and
splendor. Over 1s 200 Indians were present at his funeral. After this grand old barbarian
was gone, his tribe speedily went to the bad; their industry disappeared; their gold was
gambled away; their fine clothes followed hard after it; dissension, disease, and death
scattered them to the four winds.                            J
Among the Meewocs, when a maiden is married, it is not her father who
receives the presents made by the bridegroom, but her mother. Sometimes the bride
is carried to the lodge of her husband on the shoulders of a stalwart brave, amid a
joyous throng, singing songs, dancing, leaping, and whooping. In partial return for
the presents given by the groom to his mother-in-law, his father-in-law gives the
Young couple various substantial articles, such as are needed in the scullery, to set them
up in housekeeping. In fact, here, as generally throughout the State, it is a kind of esta-
blished usage that the parents are to do everything for their children, and the latter
n1othing, until they marry. The children run wild and learn nothing useful but what they
Please. More than that, the Meewoc father often continues these presents of flesh and
acorns to the young couple for several years after their marriage. And what is his
reward? When he waxes old, he is treated little better than a slave, and has to shift
Pretty much for himself. This is too much the case among all peoples, civil or savage.
(ig         In case of the birth of twins, one of them is invariably destroyed, though
there seems to be no other form of infanticide. It is the universal sentiment that two
babes are an excessive burden to the mother, and their ingenuity has never compassed
the imprating of nutriment from a bottle. Mention is made of a squaw named Haoocheah,
living near Murphy's, who, in 1858, gave birth to twins and destroyed one, with the
approval of all her kindred.
Part of their physicians are men, and part women. Scarification and prolonged
sluction with the mouth are their staple methods. In case of colds and rheumatism,
they apply California balm of Gilead, externally and internally, with good results.
Stomachic affections and severe travail are treated with a plaster of hot ashes and moist
earth spread on the stomach. They believe that their male physicians, who are more
Properly sorcerers, can sit on a mountain-top fifty miles distant from a man they wish
to destroy, and compass his death by flipping poison toward him from their fingerends.
The physician's prerogative is, that he must always be paid in advance; hence, a man
Seeking his services, brings his offering along--a fresh-slain deer, or so many yards
70
of shells, or something--and flings it down before him without a word, thus intimating
that he desires the worth of that in medicine and treatment. The patient's prerogative
is, that, if he dies, his friends may kill the doctor.
In the Acorn Dance, in autumn, the whole company join hands and dance in a
circle, men and women alternating--a position of equality not often accorded to the gentle
sex. They generally have to dance by themselves, or at least in the outer circle, behind
their partners! Besides this anniversary or fixed dance, there are others, ordinary
fandangos (calteh), for feasting and amusement. They resemble a civilized ball somewhat
inasmuch as the young men of the village giving the entertainment contribute to a purse
wherewith to purchase a large quantity of rabbits, wild fowl, acorns, sweet roots, and
other delicacies (nowadays, generally a bullock, sheep, flour, fruit, etc.). Then they
select an open, sunny glade, far within some sequestered forest, where they will not
be disturbed by intruders, and plant green branches of trees in the ground, forming a
large circle. Grass and pine-straw are scattered within, to form at once a dancing-
floor and a divan. Runners are then dispatched to all the villages in the vicinity to
invite the people, and here they collect and spend several days--sometimes a week--
gambling, feasting, and sleeping in the breezy shade by day; and by night dancing to
lively tunes, with execrable and most industrious music, and wild, dithyrambic
crooning of chants, and indescribable dances, now sweeping around in a ring beneath
the overhanging pine-boughs, and now stationary in a kind of piton-rod dance, with
rustling plumes and jingling beadery--at this day replaced by the rags they have got of
civilization.
Every autumn brings around the Annual Mourning (nootyu); and occasionally,
in case of a high personage, there is a speoial mourning, fixed by appointment a few
months after his death. Both are alike. A whole village or several villages assemble
together, generally in the evening,seat themselves on the ground in a circle, and engage
in loud and demonstrative wailing, beating themselves and tearing their hair. The
squaws wander off into the forest, wringing their arms piteously, beating the air,
weeping with upturned eyes, and adjuring the departed ones of the year, whom they
tenderly call "dear child," or "cousin," to return. Sometimes, during a sort of trance
or frenzy of sorrow, a squaw will dance three or four hours in the same place without
cessation, crooning a dismal noise. Others, with arms interlocked, walk to and fro
in a beaten path for fours, chanting weird death-songs, with eldritch, inarticulate
wailings--sad voicings of savage sorrow. On the Merced, the women do not apply pitch
over the whole head, but only a small blotch under the ears, while the younger squaws
singe their hair short. When some near relative chances to be absent at the time of
the funeral, some article belonging to the deceased (frequently a hat, nowadays) is
preserved from the general sacrifice of his effects, and retained until this person
returns, that the sight of it may kindle his sorrow, and awaken in his bosom fresh
and percing recollections of that being whom he will never more behold. On the lower
Tuolumne, after dancing a frightful death-dance around the grave into which they have
just lowered the body, they go out of mourning, by removing the Ditch, until the
Annual Mourning comes round, when they renew it. On the latter occasion, they
fashion out of clothing and blankets a rude effigy to represent the deceased person or
71
persons, and carry it around the graves with doleful laments. Perchance the soul of
the departed may have lost its way to the Happy Western Land, and be wandering sad
and houseless on earth; but it will now joyfully enter the effigy, and, by the swift,
bright flames, be started on its road afresh.
As soon as the Annual Mourning is over, they heat water and scour off the
Pitch; then all the relatives are at full liberty to engage in their ordinary pursuits,
attend dances, etc., which before were interdicted. That solemn occasion itself too
frequently winds up with a debauch of sensuality.
The oldest brother is entitled to his brother's widow, and he may even convey
her to his wigwam on the way home from the funeral, if he is so disposed, though it
Would be accounted hardly less unseemly than among civilized people.
Though incremat ion very generally prevails among the Meewocs, the time
never was when it was universal. Captain John states, that, long before they had ever
seen any Europeans, the Indians high up in the mountains buried their dead, though his
People, living about Chinese Camp, always burned, as low down on the Stanislaus as
Robinson's Ferry, the action of the river has revealed long ranks of skeletons--three
or four feet beneath the surface, doubled up, and covered with stones--of which none
of the bones showed any charring.
In res-ect of legends, they relate one which is very remarkable. First, it
is necessary to state that there is a lake, or an expansion of the river, some four miles
long and from a half-mile to a mile wide, on the upper Tuolumne, directly north of
Hatchatchie Valley. I know no name for it except the aboriginal one, Owyanuh (clearly
a dialectic variation of awya, which denotes "lake"). Nat Screech, a veteran mountaineer
and hunter, relates that he visited this region in 1850, and at that time there was a valley
along the river, having the same dimensions that this lake now has. Again, in 1855,
he happened to pass that way, and dis-overed that the lake had been formed as it now
exists. He was totally at a loss to account for its origin; but subsequently he learned
the Meewoc language, of the dialect spoken at Little Gap, and, while listening to the
Indians one day, he overheard them casually refer to the formation of this lake in an
A) extraordinary manner. Upon being questioned, they stated that there had been a
tremendous cataclysm in that valley, the bottom of it having fallen out apparently,
whereby the entire valley was submerged in the waters of the Tuolumne. As nearly as
he could ascertain from their imperfect methods of reckoning time, this occurred in
1851; and, in that year, while in the town of Sonora, Screech and many others
remembered to have heard a huge explosion in that direction, which they then supposed
Was caused by a local earthquake.
On Drew's Ranch, Middle Fork of the Tuolumne, still lives an aged squaw,
Called Dischee, who was present when this remarkable event occurred. According to
her account, the earth dropped in beneath their feet, and the waters of the river leaped
UP and came rushing upon them in a vast, roaring flood, almost perpendicular, like
a Wall of rock. The Indians were stricken dumb and motionless with terror by the
72
awful noise, but when they saw the waters coming, they escaped for life, though thirty
or forty were overtaken and drowned. Another squaw, named Isabel, relates that the
stubs of trees, which are still plainly visible deep down in the pellucid waters, are
considered by the older and more superstitious Indians to be evil spirits, reaching up
their arms to grasp them, and that they fear them greatly. The story of the origin
of this Tuolumne lake, if true, is valuable, as going to corroborate Professor Whitney's
theory of the formation of Yosemite Valley.
An Indian of Garrote narrated to me a legend of the creation of man and
woman by the coyote, which contained a large amount of aboriginal dirt. Yet this story,
with all its unclean particulars, was related by him with the most straightforward and
profound gravity, though surrounded by his whole family. Most of their fables are puree
and some are rather pretty, but when they do verge into impurity, they become the most
monstrous and revolting excrescences that ever grew out of the mind of man. Following
is a fable told at Little Gap:
CREATION OF MAN.
After the coyote had finished all the work of the world and the inferior animals'
he called a council of them to deliberate on the creation of man. They sat down in an
open space in the forest, all in a circle, with the lion at the head. On his right sat
the grizzly bear, next the brown bear, and so on around, according to rank, ending
with the little mouse, which sat at the lion's left.
The lion was the first to speak; and he declared he should like to see a man
created with a mighty voice, like himself, wherewith he could frighten all animals.
For the rest, he would have him well covered with hair, terrible fangs in his jaws,
strong talons, etc.
The grizzly bear said it was ridiculous to have such a voice as his neighbors
for he was always roaring with it, and scared away the very prey he wished to catch.
He thought the man ought to have prodigious strength, and move about silently, but
very swiftly when necessary, and be able to grip his meat without making any noise.
The buck said the man would look very foolish, in his way of thinking, unless
he had a magnificent pair of horns on his head with which to fight. He also thought it 9Was
very absurd to roar so loudly, and he would pay less attention to the man's throat than
he would to his ears and his eyes, for he would make the one like a spider's web, and
the other like fire.
The mountain sheep protested he never could see what sense there was in
such horns, spreading every way, only to get caught in the branches. If the man had
horns neatly rolled up, they would be like a stone on each side of his head, giving weigh'
so that he could butt a great deal harder.
When it c ame the coyote's turn to speak, he declared all these were the StIIP1
speeches he ever listened to, and that he could hardly keep awake while such noodleS 1l
nincompoops were talking. Every one of them wanted to make the man just like himself.
They might as well take one of their own cubs and call it a man. As for himself, he
very well knew that he was not the best animal that could be made, and he could make one
a great deal better than himself. Of course, he would be like himself in having four
legs, five fingers on each, etc. It was well enough to have a voice like the lion's,
but it should also be as small as that of the little mouse sometimes. The grizzly bear
also had some good points, one of which was the shape of his feet, by which he could
stand up if he wished, and he was in favor of making the man's feet nearly the same.
The grizzly was also happy in having no tail, for he had learned from his own experience
that that organ served principally as a harbor for fleas. The buck's eyes and ears
Were pretty good, also--perhaps better than hi s own. Then there was the fish, which
was naked, and which he envied, because hair was a burden most of the year; so he
favored a man without hair. His claws ought to be as long as the eagle's , so that he could
hold things in them. But, with all their separate gifts, they must acknowledge that there
was no animal besides himself that had wit enough to supply the man; and he felt obliged,
therefore, to make him like himself in that respect--cunning and crafty.
After the coyote had made an end, the beaver said that he had never heard such
arrant twaddle in his life. No tail, indeed! He would make a man with a broad, flat
tail, so that he could haul mud and sand on it.
The owl declared all the animals seemed to have lost their senses; none of
them proposed to give man wings. For himself, he could not see of what use anything
on earth would be to him without wings.
The mole said it was perfect folly to talk about wings, for with wings the poor
man would be certain to fly up and crack his noddle against the sky. Besides, if he had
eyes, he wou Id be certain to get them singed against the sun; but without eyes, he could
burrow in the cool, soft earth, and be happy.
Last of all, the little mouse squeaked out that he would make a man with eyes,
of course, so he could see what he was eating; and as for burrowing in the ground, that
was a humbug.
So they all disagreed, and the council broke up in a row. The coyote flew at
the beaver, and nipped a piece out of his cheek; the owl jumped on the coyote's head, and
c0]lmenced lifting his scalp; and so they all got to fighting. But finally they stopped, and
taking each a lump of clay, they commenced molding a man according to their ideas;
but the coyote began to make one like that he described. It was so late when they fell
to Work, that nightfall had come on before any one had finished his model, -and they
laid down and fell dead asleep. But the cunning coyote remained awake, and worked
hard on his model all night. When all the other animals were fast asleep, he went slyly
around and threw water on their models, and so spoiled them. In the morning, early,
he finished his, and gave it life before the others could make new models; and so it
was that man was created by the coyote.
74
YOSEMITE.
There is good reason for believing that, if the Indians could know how much
more we have extracted from their words and legends than they ever put into them, they
would be very much amused. All California Indian names which possess any significance
whatever, are to be interpreted on the plainest, most obvious, and even the most prosaic
principles; whereas, the grim walls of Yosemite have been made by White men to
blossom with aboriginal poetry, like a page of "Lala Rookh." From the "Great Chief
of the Valley," and "Goddess of the Valley," down to the "Cataract of Diamonds," the SUMP
tuous    imaginations of various discoverers have trailed through that wonderful gorge
blazons of mythological heraldry and pageantry of demigods of more than oriental
gorgeousness. It o uld be a thousand pities, truly, if the aborigines could not have
succeeded in interpreting more poetically the meanings of the place than our countrymen
have in such misearably bald appellations as "Nevada Fall," "Vernal Fall," and similar
names; and whether they did or did not, they were not such maunderers as to perpetrate
the melodramatic and dime-novel shams that have been fathered upon them.
In the first place, they never knew of any such locality on earth as Yosemite
Valley. Second, there is not now, and never has been, anything in that valley which the
Indians called Yosemite. Third, they never called Old Ephraim himself Yosemite.
Lastly, there is no such word in the Meewoc language as Yosemite.
The valley has been known to the Indians from time immemorial as Awanee.
True, this is only the name of one of the ancient villages which it contained; but this
village was the metropolis of the valley, and gave its name by pre-eminence to the whole
ot it; and, in accordance with the Indian custom, to the inhabitants of the same. In all
the dialects north of the Stanislaus, the word for "grizzly bear" is oozoomite; at Little
c3ap, osoamite; in Yosemite, oozoomite; on the South Fork of the Merced, uhzoomituh.
How this was ever corrupted into its present form, and applied to the whole valley, when
there is only one rock known by this name to the Indians, is curious. Mr. J. M.
Hatchings, in his "Guide Book," states that the pronunciation on the South Fork is
"Yohamite;" and some years ago there was an acrid controversy between the partisanS
of that word and those of "Yosemite." Now, there is occasionally an Indian among the
Meewocs who might be called a cockney, as he never can get the "haitches" right.
Different ones will pronounce the word for "wood" susueh and huhueh; also, the word for
"eye" hunta and shunta. But no one of at least a score that I asked ever gave other than
one of the three pronunciations above set down.
Elsewhere in California, the aboriginal names have effected such slight
lodgment in the atlases, that it is seldom worth while to spend any considerable time in
seeking to set them right. Here it is different. Professor Whitney and Mr. Hutchingfs
in their works on the valley, both state that they derived their information concerning
names, etc., from White men only. The Indians certainly have a right to be consulted
in this department of knowledge; and if they differ from the interpreters, every right'
thinking man will accept the statement of an intelligent savage as against a half-doZen
White men. As for any connected, lucid account of his customs, he can not give it;
75
but if he does not know the single words of his own language, pray who does? Acting
on this belief, I employed Choko (a dog), generally known as "Old Jim," and accounted
the wisest native head in the valley, to go with me around it, and name in detail all the
places. He is, or claims to be, one of the very few original Awanees now living; for a
California Indian, he is exceptionally frank and communicative; and he is as full of talk
and as truthful as he is shiftless--a kind of aboriginal Sam Lawson. He was even pig-
headed in his persistency about certain little embellishments which White men had added
to the valley legend, which he considered spurious, and vhich he would have none of.
"White man too much lie, ? said he, when I tried, by way of experiment, to induce him
to lend his countenance and authority to some of these extra-official touches. He little
knew how miserably he was hacking down the gorgeous stories related by the guide-
books; but I strongly suspect he is far better authority than they, and that the simple and
even bald narrations he gave are nearer the truth than those of others. A magazine
article is no place for a dry list of names, neither is there space to give more than one
of the legends.
The extreme narrowness of range of the California Indians' knowledge is aptly
shown in their frequent lack of specific names. Thus, the Merced is Wakalla, which is
Simply "the river;" Yosemite Fall is Choloc, which islthe fall;" and Mirror Lake is
AM:!? which is "the lake.?" They knew so little of the great world that it was not
naecessary for them to designate which river or which lake.
The name Tutochanula is a permutative substantive, formed from the verb
tultakana, which means "to creep like a measuring-worm;" and means also the worm
itself. Hence this name may be interpreted "Measuring-worm Stone," or "Rock of
]Degrees;?? and the story from which it originated is as follows:
LEGEND OF TUTOCHANULA.
There were once two little boys living in the valley, who went down to the
river to swim. After paddling and splashing about to their hearts' content, they went
Oil shore, and crept up on a huge bowlder that stood beside the water, on which they
laid down in the warm sunshine to dry themselves. They soon fell asleep, and they slept
so soundly that they never wakened more. Through sleeps, moons, and snows, winter
and summer, they slumbered on. Meanwhile, the great rock whereon they slept was
treacherously rising, day and night, little by little, until it soon bore them up beyond
the sight of their friends, who sought them everywhere, weeping. Thus they were
borne up, at last, beyond all human help or reach of human voice--lifted up, inch by
inch, into the blue heavens--far up, far up, until their faces scraped,.the moon; and still
they slumbered and slept, year after year, year after year. Then at length upon a
time, all the animals assembled together to bring down the little boys from the top of
the mighty rock. Every animal made a spring up the face of the wall as far as he could
leap. The little mouse could only jump up a hand-breadth; the rat, two hand-breadth;
the raccoon, a little higher; and so on: the grizzly bear making a prodigious leap far
up the wall, but falling back, in vain, like all the others. Last of all, the lion tried, and
he jumped up higher than any other animal had; but he fell down flat on his back. Then
camne along an insignificant measuring-worm, which even the mouse could have crushed
by treading on it, and began to creep up the rock. Step by step, step by step, a little
at a time, he measured his way -up, until presently he was above the lion's jump; then,
pretty soon, out of sight. So he crawled up, and up, and up, through many long sleeps,
for about one whole snow, and at last he reached the top. Then he took the little boys,
and came down the same way he went up, and brought them safe down to the ground.
And so the rock was called after the measuring-worm (tultakana), Tutochanula.
This is not only a true Indian story, but it has a pretty meaning, being a kind
of parallel to AEsop's fable of the hare and tortoise that ran a race. What all the great
animals of the forest could not do, the despised nieasuring-worm accomplished, simply
by patience and perseverance. It also has its value, as showing the Indian. idea of the
formation of Yosemite, and that they must have arrived in the valley after it had assumed
its present from.
The extreme simplicity of the aboriginal names, in contrast with such pompOUS
flummeries as "The Three Brothers" and "Royal Arches," is shown in a couple cf
instances. Next east of Cathedral Rock is a tall, sharp needle, unnamed by us, which
the Indians call Pooseena Chukka, which means, "The squirrel and the acorn-cache. "
A single glance at it will show how easily the simple and wondering savages, on their
first entrance into the great valley, as they were pointing outto one another the various
objects, imagined here a squirrel nibbling at the bottom of an acorn-cache. The other
instance is the Royal Arches, which they call Chockonee--that is, "a baby-basket."
Literally, chokonee means a "dog-place, " or "dog-house." There is a vast deal more
resemblance to a baby-basket than there is to a royal arch, whatever that may be.
Ozoomite Lawatuh ("grizzly-bear skin") is their name for Glacier Rock, givef
on account of its grayish, grizzled appearance; and it is the only name in the valley from
which its present appellation could have been formed by corruption.
There were nine villages in Yosemite, within the recollection of Choko, all of
which he located with the greatest minuteness. Their names were as follow: Wahaka
(foot of The Three Brothers), Saccaya, Hocoewedoc (site of Hutchings' Hotel), COomnieep
Awanee (foot of Yosemite Fall), Machayto, Notomidoola, Laysamite, and Wisculla.
There were formerly others, extending as far down as Bridal Veil Fall, which were-
destroyed in wars that occurred before the Americans came. At a low estimate, these
nine villages must have contained 450 inhabitants. Dr. Bunnell indirectly states, that
the valley was not occupied during the winter, and was used only as a summer resorts
and as a stronghold or refuge in case of defeat elsewhere; but the three surviving AWalee
agree in saying it was occupied every winter. This is quite possible; for Mr. Hutchi'gs
and others dwell there throughout the year, without inconvenience. Moreover, the
assertion of the Indians is borne out by the locations of the villages themselves. With
the exception of two on the south bank, they were all built as close to the north wall as
the avalanches of snow and ice would permit, in order to get the benefit of the sunshine
just as Mr. Hutchings' winter cottage is, to-day. If they had been intended only for  (
summer occupation, they would have been placed, according to Indian custom, near the
river.