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THE CALIFORNIA ABORIGINES

Stephen Powers

In the Atlantic Monthly, of March, 1874, there was published an

lrticle entitled "Aborigines of California", in which I presented facts tend-
,ng to show that these aborigines are descended from the Chinese. The con-
l.usions which were arrived at in that paper have been questioned, on the
Iround that, however great may be their likeness to the Celestials, they

ennot be descended from them, since they have no pottery, no hieroglyphics,
adno monuments; and the time never has been in the historical period when
Ie Chinese were without these.  It is argued that no people could lose the
rtof pottery, or even if they lost the art itself, that the pottery would

ain, being almost indestructible.  It is not intended to rehearse in

is paper the arguments there presented in favor of a Chinese origin, but
rely to offer some facts and suggestions as to these Indians and their
'edecessors on the coast.

The Voy collection, in the University Museum, contains a large

ber of pre-aboriginal stone implements; but there is no link to connect
race who made them with the present one except per deterins. In fact,

ce the California Indians of today have no monuments or pottery, there is

Aink except those of language, customs, etc., to connect them with any race;
nce the consideration of monuments and the like is pretty much eliminated
m the discussion as between them and the Chinese. Even if the very few
mains found today served to prove that a pre-aboriginal race brought the

amic art from China and practiced it here, it would still remain to show
t the people were the ancestors of the California Indians. There is a

somewhere, which cannot be passed except per soltum.

The simple fact of the almost total lack of ceramic remains, and

character of the relics found in the Alameda and other shell mounds, show
t the present race must either have supplanted or descended from one

ch was little more advanced than themselves. The few and simple stone
lements used by the California Indians resemble, in their main purpose
design, those of the extinct races exhumed in the shell-mounds, only

y are conspicuously ruder and simpler. Take the stone mortars for instance.
pre-aboriginal mortar is carefully dressed on the outside, and has three

ral shapes; either flattish and round, or shaped like a duck's egg, with a

1 on the side, or with the bowl in the large end, and the small end inserted

oceedings of the California Academy of Science, Vol. 5, pp. 392-396,
75. (Powers' theory of cultural degeneration is also expounded in
s Tribes of California, 1877, pp. 432-435.)

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a

into the ground. But the Indian takes a small bowlder of trap or greenstone,

and beats out a hollow in it, leaving the outside rough. Whenever one is seen
ini possessioni of a mortar dressed on the outside, he will acknowledge that he

dideI niot make It, but found It; in other words, it is pre-aboriginal. The pre-

aborigines used handsomely dressed pestles, evenly tapered to the upper end, or

else a uniform cylinder for about three fourths of the length, with the remaining
fourth also uniform, but smaller, for a hand-hold; but the squaw nowadays picks

up a long, slender cobble, from the brook. The pre-aborigines fought with heavy
knives, or swords, carved out of jasper or obsidian, which were, probably, used

as daggers rather than as swords; that is, the combantants sought to pierce each
other with the point, instead of dealing blows with the edge. The Indians of

today fight with rough stones, such as they pick up, choosing those which are long
and sharp-pointed; and their constant aim is to strike each other in the face with
the points, just as their predecessors or ancestors probably did with their carved
knives. The pre-aborigines made, out of sandstone or other soft stones, a small
and almost perfect sphere, as an acorn-sheller; but the squaw nowadays simply

selects a smooth cobble from the brook for this purpose. In the collection of
A. W. Chase, Esq., of the U.S. Coast Survey, there are spindle whorls of stone,
some of them found in mounds made by extinct tribes, and other found among the

Klamath River Indians and the Nome Lackees, all of which bear a close resemblance;
and in this instance, there is no perceptible deterioration in the workmanship.

I strongly suspect, howoever, if the Indians possessing these implements had been
closely questioned, they would have acknowledged that they found them, and did

not make them, just as they acknowledge in regard of the superior stone mortars
and pestles. That is, they are really indebted to their ancestors for them.

Near Freestone, Sonoma County, I saw in possession of its finder, what was pro-
bably a spindle whorl of pottery - the only instance of the kind I know of. In
regard to tobacco-pipes, the deterioration is not so manifest, for I have seen

soapstone pipes of as handsome workmanship as any obtained from the mounds. But
I still think there is deterioration shown, in the fact that the Indians nowadays
use so many wooden pipes of the rudest construction; though we have no means of
showing that their ancestors did not use equally poor ones, since their wooden

pipes, if they had any, have perished.    Then again, as to the shell mounds them-

selves. I am of opinion that they are merely the accumulations of a race of men
who dived for clams, as the Wintoons of the Upper Sacramento do to this day, to
a limited extent. In other words, the Wintoons and other tribes are descended
from a people who were more energetic and industrious than themselves.

Langsdorff and La Perouse both mention that they saw many Indians with

magnificent beards, but now they are almost totally destitute of beards. Whether
the ever-increasing drought and dessication of the Pacific Coast, which have swept
away the ancient forests, have also destroyed the beards of the aborigines, is a
question I am not competent to determine.

The two "Village Sentinels".,as the Eurocs call them, at the mouth of
the Klamath, and the human head carved in stone near the Geysers, seem to be

relics of former idolatry; and indeed the legends connected with the latter state

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at their ancestors were idolaters.  Their religion now, if they can be said
have any, is a near approach to fetichism; that is, the worship of animals,
cch as the coyote, the white owl, the black eagle, etc.  Fetichism is a lower
rm of religion than idolatry.

There are two legends - one among the Cahrocs of the Klamaths, and

e among the Pallegawonaps of Kern River - which, in my opinion, are undoubt-
lly a corrupted version of some old zodiac-myth, and therefore point to a
motely semi-civilized origin for their narrators.

I might extend these instances and comparisons, but it is not necessary.
be California Indians, like their predecessors, belong unmistakably to the
one Age; and the fact that they have degenerated to a lower grade in that

0, argues strongly that their ancestors, after crossing the sea, might have
generated from the Bronze Age or the Iron Age of China.

For these reasons, I am disposed to believe that the California Indians
e simply deteriorated from what we (perhaps erroneously) call a pre-

riginal race; and ultimately, from the Chinese. Instances are not wanting
re a people have retrograded from civilization almost to barbarism in the

rse of many centuries. Witness the Fellahs, who are supposed to be descended
ectly from the ancient Egyptians.  China itself, with all its vast popu-

ions, has stood still for twenty centuries; and a colony from it wandering

a new land, where the abundance of nature and the genial climate invited
to relax the efforts which a crowded community had necessitated for the

ntenance of life, might degenerate to a low point without difficulty. When
Chinese of today come to this land of plenty, how poor are the dwellings

implements they construct for themselves, compared with those they used in
na. How poor are our own, compared with those we made in the East.

I do not forget that the Indians, almost with one accord, attribute
se superior stone implements to a race older and other than their own.

re is also a Neestenaw legend which cannot be very well explained, except
the supposition of a reference to an earlier race of cannibals, from whom

r forefathers suffered grewsome damage.   On the other hand, they all

.at that their progenitors were created from the soil where they now live (to

all their accounts, there must have been a hundred of these "special
tions" in California); so that their legends are not consistent.

The theory of degeneration above advanced, is quite in accord with

climatic changes and the deforestation which have taken place on this coast,
within the historical period.  We know, from the statements of Biscayno
other early Spanish explorers, that extensive forests were flourishing

r San Diego and Monterey, three hundred years ago, where now there are none.

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Biscayno says the natives of Santa Catalina Island had large

wooden canoes, capable of sea voyages, whereas that island is now comparatively

treeless. Fossil remains have been discovered in Southern California and Arizona,
which indicate that there were once heavy forests where now are barren, wind-
swept plains. Ruins of great walled cities, and large systems of irrigating

ditches, in Arizona and New Mexico, on the Gila, Little Colorado, De Chaco, San
Juan, and other streams, plainly show that these regions once contained an

agricultural population, who were ultimately driven out by the ever-increasing

drought and the failure of the streams. The great sequoias, on the high Sierra,
may, perhaps, be the last lingerers of a gigantic race of forest trees, which
the changed climatic conditions of California have destroyed from the plains.

We know that the deforestation of Babylonia, Assyria, Palestine, and

Greece, has been accompanied by a corresponding deterioration of the inhabitants,
and it may have been, also, largely the cause of it.

While there is nothing to show that the present race of California

Indians are descended from an agricultural people, like the New Mexican Pueblos,
there is much to show that their predecessors were superior to them, and that

their predecessors were also their ancestors. The California Indians are simply
a poor copy of the people whom we usually call pre-aborigines; but the copy

follows the original so closely that there can be little doubt that it is a copy
made by transmission.

In New Mexico, there is a large and powerful tribe called the Navajoes.
There are good evideences that they are descended from the Hoopaws of this state,
and that they have migrated, within comparatively recent times, from the Trinity

or the Klamath. Of these evidences I will here mention only one - the similarity
of their numerals, as shown in the following table:

Hoopaw             Navajo
One         .           .Chlah.                                   Kli.

Two        ..Nach.                                                Nahkee.
Three       .           .Tach.                                    Tah.

Four        ..Tinckh.                                              Dteen.

Five         ..Chwolch.                                           Estlahh.
Six        ..Hostan.                                              Hostonn.
Seven       ..Ochkit.                                             Susett.
Eight         .          .Cahnem.                                  Seepee.
Nine .                                         Nocostah.          Nastyy.

Ten .Minchlah                                                     Nisnahh.

The Navajoes today are superior to the Hoopaws, perhaps not in prowess,

but certainly in the arts of peace. They possess the arts of weaving and pottery,

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Lich the Hoopaws know nothing about; but it is considered probably that
iey acquired those arts from the Pueblo Indians since their migration.

rnce, the Navajoes offer no argument against the theory of degeneration. If
tey carried those arts with them from California, they powerfully confirm
ie theory, so far as the Hoopaws are concerned.

I offer this paper, not as an exhaustive treatise on this subject,

it as giving some facts and theories which I hope others, more capable, will
rk out more fully.

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