63.0 Aboriginal California and Great Basxn Cartography*

Robert Fo Heizer

"As seen on the map, the distribution of the Yuki seems irregularo

This is not because their location ran counter to natural topography, but
because it followed it* Their country lies wholly in the Coast Range

mountains, which in this region are not, on the whole, very high, but are
much broken. They contain some valleys, but the surface of the land in
general is endlessly rugged. The Yuki habitat is, however, not defined,
except incidentally, by limiting mountains and ranges, but is given in

block by the drainage of such-and-such streams, The native did not think,
like a modern civilized man, of his people owning an area circumscribed by

a definite line, in which there might happen to be one or many watercourses*

This would have been viewing the land through a map, whether drawn or mental,
and such an attitude was foreign to his habito What he did ki4ow was that

the little town at which he was born and where he expected to die lay on a
certain river or branch of a river; and that this stream, or a certain

stretch of it, and all the creeks flowing into it9 and all the land on or
beten these creeks, belonged to his people; whereas below, or above, or

across certain hills2 were other streams and tributaries, where other people
lived, with whom he might be on visiting tenms or intermarried, but who had
proprietary rights of their own" (Kroeber, 1925, ppo 160o161)o

The passage quoted above is taken from A. Lo Kroeber's Handbook of the
Indians of Calitornia.  The statement is important, for it estabishes a
generalization which has been applied in drawing up the detailed map of
California tribes contained in Kroeber's 4?oko  Inspection of the large

colored map in the Handbook will show how consistently stream drainages and
watersheds served as tribal boundaries, and indeed, the same situation holds
on the modem map of Califomia county boundaries (Cqy,9 1923). The concept
of drainage and watersheds as forming territorial boundaries of tribes has

proved applicable beyond CalifoMia, as, for example, in Kroeber' s detailed

map of American Indian tribes (Kroeber, 1939, p. 8 and map 1A in rear pocket)o

As a student of California Indian culture9 Kroeber? s stateuent that9
"tviewing the land through a map, whether drawn or mental, 0 0 t fwas] an

attitude o 0 . foreign to o o o [the California nativess] habit't'; may be, and
probably is, true with reference to the Indian either visualizing or sketch-
ing a map of the territory occupied by his groupo  Dro Kroeber, a person
more intimately familiar with the, California tribes, and an indefatigable

researcher in ethnogeography, doubtless had good reason to state that such
ideas were foreign to the native's habit, the implication being that there

* Support for the research presented here was supplied by the National

Science Foundation (G3917)o Paper Noo 1l

being no need or reason for such cartographic conceptions, they did not

occur to the Indiano  I can myself attest to the fact that even today non-
map-oriented individuals are not rarities in California. Almost any arch-
aeologist engaged in archaeological site reconnaissance has had the exper-
ience of hauling out a UOSOGOS. topographic quadrangle  showing it to some
provincial, and hearing him say, "I dontt understand maps--never use gem"

or something of the sort. He is not familiar with maps, but he knows where
he is  and he can di;rect you to a specific spot some miles away by citing
natural features as guidemarks.

This brings me to the point of this articlo, viz., that the California
Indian may not have thought in terms of maps9 but when he was zsked for

directions, or requested to draw a map, he could often do soo/ There is

abundant evidence of this fact in the historical documents which record the
earliest meetings of Indians and Caucasians. It was the Indian who knew

where he was, the Caucasian who was inquiring about what lay aheado  Answers
to such inquiries were most often rendered in gestures and signs, but occa-
sionally a native would draw a map on the earth.

The earliest instance seems to be that described by Fr. Juan Crespi on
Sunday, August 6, 1769, when the Portola expedition was among the Fernandeiio
group of Gabrielino and the camp was visited by numbers of nativesO  Crespi

says, ttThey had heard of the sailing of the packets to the coast and channel
of Santa Barbara; they drew on the ground the shape of the channel with its
islands, marking the route of the shipst (Bolton, 1927, p. 151)o

Fremont, while at Pyramid Lake, Nevada, on January l,5 1844, interro-
gated the local Northern Paiute people and reports,, "We could obtain from

them but little information respecting the country. They made on the ground
a drawing of the [Trluckee] river which they represented as issding from an-
other lake rTahoe] in the mountains three or four days distant, in a direc-
tion a little west of south; beyond which, they drew a mountain [Sierra
Nevadas]; and further still, two rivers [Sacramento and/or American or
Feather or San Joaquin] on one of which [Sacramento?] they told us that
people like ourselves travelled" (Fr6mont 1945h, p. 219).

Fr"mont, on December 6, 1843, when somewhat south and east of Klamath
Lake, Oregon, among the Klamath tribe says, "The stream we had struck tPit
River] issued from the mountain in an easterly direction, turning to the

southward a short distance below; and, drawing a course upon the groundis. -

they made us comprehend that it pursued its way for a long distance in that
direction, uniting with many other streams, and gradually becoming a great
rivero  Without the subsequent information, which donfirmed the opinion, we
became immediately satisfied that this water f,rmed the principal stream of
the Sacramento River,   o . l" (Ibid., p. 206)I2

In the journal of J. Goldsborough Brxff under date of November 79 1850,
is the entry,9 "The older Hough related to me their first visit to Honey
Lake, as they called it,g from a weet subs ance which they found exuding

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from the heads of wild oats in the basin. (I have named it L. Derby).

An aged Indian visited their camp, and they made signs to him that they
were in search of a deep-basined lake, where there was gold, and they

showed him a small lump of the metal. The old savage, then took a pair
of macheres (large flat leathers to throw over the saddle) -and sprinkled
sand over them, drew a model map of the country there, and beyond it,

some distance. He heaped up sand, to form buttes, and ranges of moun-
tains; and with a straw, drew streams, lakes and trails:  then adjusted

it to correspond with the cardinal points, and explained it. He pointed
to the sun, and by signs made them understand, the number of day's travel
from one point to another. On it he had traced, (as I found on their

explanation,) Mary's Humboldt River, Carson River, Pyramid lake, and the

emigrant routes, -- above and below. He moved his finger, explanatory of
the revolutions of wagon wheels, and that white people travelled along,

with guns, on the said routes. On his map, he had exhibited the lake they
were then at, and another in a deep basin, with 3 buttes beside it, and
said that gold was plentiful there; and also, that 10 months ago the

whites had visited it, and fought with the Indiansit (Bruff, 1949, pp. 453-
454)0

In 1849 A. J. McCall describes the making of a sand map by Northern
Paiute at Lassen's: MBadowsg

"While at the Meadows I met a friendly and intelligent Indian who

made for me a map in the sand, a topographical map of the route over the
rsierra] Nevada&. The sand was piled up to indicate mountains.s and with
his fingers he creased the heap to show the canyons and water courses.
To indicate wood and timber he stuck in sprigs of sage, and spears of

grass where grass was to be found, and made signs to inform us where the
Indians were friendly or dangerous.  It was really an ingenious affair
and he was well acquainted with the country" (McCall, 1882, p. 72).

In 1853 Lt. A* Wo Whipple encountered Chemehuevis near the Colorado
River, and describes (Whipple, 1856, p. 111) how one ". . . drew a
sketch of this country, giving the Pai-ute names of tribes, and the
rivers where they dwell.'" In another section of the same report are

reproduced 3 Indian maps, one a Tewa Pueblo map of the Rio Grande towns

(Whipple, Ewbank and Turner, 1856, p. 9), another a Yuma map of the Colo-
rado River with tribes located (Ibid., p. 16), and the third the Cheme-
huevi map of the Colorado showinWgtribal locations- (Ibido, p. 16)o The

Yuma and Chemehuevi maps are also described and reprodued by Mbllhausen
(1861, vol. 1, pp. 433-34). M81lhausen calls the Chemehuevi, quite cor-
rectlyp Paiute. It is presumably the Yuma map that is referred to by
Kroeber (quoted above) as "ti .   the only native map ever published
from Califoriao. "/

In Mallery's volume on North American Indian pictography (MallerY,
1886, p. 157-58) occurs the following description of a sand map made by
a Southern Paiute in Southern Nevada.

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"Dr. W. J. Hoffman states that when at Grapevine Springs, Nevada, in
1871, the Pai-Uta living at that locality informed the party of the exact
location of Las Vegas, the objective point. The Indian sat upon the sand
and with the palms of his hands formed an oblong ridge to represent Spring
Mountains and southeast of this ridge, another gradual slope, terminating
on the eastern side more abruptly; over the latter he passed his fingers

to represent the side valleys running eastward. He then took a stick and
showed them the direction of the old Spanish trail running east and west
over the lower portion of the last-named ridge. When this was completed
the Indian looked at the members of the party, and with a mixture of Eng-
lish, Spanish and Pai-Uta, and gesture signs, told them that from where
they were now they would have to go southward, east of Spring Mountain,

to the camp of Pai-Uta Charlie, where they would have to sleep; then in-
dicating a line southeastward to another spring (Stumps) to complete the
second day; then he followed the line representing the Spanish trail to

the east of the divide of the second ridge, above named, where he left it,
and passing northward to the first valley, he thrust the short stick into
the ground and said, 'Las Vegast"'

Stephen Powers (1877, p. 384) records that a Yokuts Indian, to illus-
trate a myth about how the Sierra Nevadas and Coast Ranges were formed,

I,0 , * drew in the sand a long ellipse, representing quite accurately the
shape of the two ranges. e    " 011 Whether this can be called a map as such

is unclear, but the basic idea is present and for present purposes we shall
consider this instance as evidence of the translation of topographic fea-
tures into a plane map.

The instances cited above refer to the following tribes and dates:
Fernandeno, 1769 (Crespi); Havasupai, 1775 (Escalante); Oregon Klamath9
1843 (Fremont); Pyramid Lake Paviotso, 1844 (Fremont); Honey Lake Pavi-

otso, 1849, 1850 (Bruff, McCall); Chemehuevi and Yuma, 1853 (Kllhausen,

Whipple); Southern Paiute, 1871 (Mallery); and Yokuts, 1877 (Powers).  In
these instances we may be reasonably or fully certain that the Indians'
mapping technique was not acculturated, but was aboriginalo  From more
recent times there are at least two examples of Indian-made maps which

might theoretically be ascribable to Caucasian influence, but even admit-
ting the possibility, it seems unlikely, Kroeber reproduces a sketch map
drawn between 1911 and 1916 by the famous Yahi, Ishi, and says this map

is of interest because it proves the California Indians to have

been not totally devoid of faculty in this directiono They usually refuse
pointblank to make even an attempt of this kind, alleging utter inability,
and it is only in the extreme south of the State that some rudiments of a
sense of tracing topography appear. The Mohave readily draw streams and
mountains in the sand, and the only native map ever published from Cali-

fornia [see supra] is a sketch of this type. The Diegueno ground paintings
also evince some elements of cartograph 14  endeavor, although in ritualized
form"' (Kroeber, 1925, p. 344W fig. 32)OV

The second recent Indian map was drawn by an Owens Valley Paiute, and

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depicts the Big Piine creek drainage area (Steward, 1933, p. 326, fig. lO).
It was drawn some time between 1927 and 1931, is of modern date and hence

may be suspect as representing a facility present among this group in pre-.
Caucasian times. The map was executed by a man then about 100 years old,

which means that he was alive when the first whites were seen, and was too
old to have gone to school. I am inclined to think that these facts, to-
gether with the 1849 and 1850 sand-maps of the same general Paiute group
at Honey Lake, indicate the Ons Valley map as representing persistence
of an old and original trait,,/

It will have occurred to the reader that there is a definite weighting
of instances of sand-map making among groups who live in semi-arid regions.
Whether such maps were more used by the natives of the less well-watered
portions of western North America, or whether, in the period of Caucasian

discovery and exploration, it was in those less attractive regions that geo-
graphical advice was more deliberately sought and acqired from the natives,
is something which I do not believe can be answered with the evidence at
hand. Forest tribes, arctic coast dwellers and plains peoples all make

similar maps in the sand or draw them on bark or hide, so we can suppose no
very absolute rule to obtain here as regards environmental determinism. If
I were pressed to give my own opinion, I should say that the abundance of

references attesting to sand-maps among the Shoshonean peoples is probably
a matter of historical and documentary chance, but I would not rule out the
further possibility that the practice was emphasized by those thinly popu-
lated tribes who occupied the regions of deficient rainfall.  At any rate,
to such tribes these maps might often be of critical importance in the

matter of arranging a rendezvous, or any number of other reasons which might
theoretically apply.

This little review of the cartographic ability of certain California
and Great Basin Indians has served to illuminate, however imperfectly, one
aspect of the natives' knowledge of the actual world.6/

There is nothing remarkable in these little maps scratched in the
sand, for primitive peoples all over the world can make such charts of

areas known to them.L/ In the extensive amount of intertribal trade and

the involved networik of trails of California Indians (Sample, 1950)9 such
simple maps appear to have a rational functional context.

Notes

1. Kroeber, despite the interpretation I have given his statements, would

agree with this, as witness his remarks in the Handbook, p. 344.

2.  The facts are uncertain here, for Fremont was lost in the marshy area

east of Klamath Lake and was not on Pit River, though his Indian map
may have, as he thought, been intended to show the Pito

Some years earlier Emmons, while attached to the Wilkes Expedition,

inquired among the Oregon and Northem Califoria tribes about maps.
His questionnaire included this interrogation, "Are they expert in
drawing maps or charts of the rivers, or sections of country which

they inhabit?"  The answer supplied by Enmons was:   "Should judge. not.
I endeavored upon more than one occasion to obtain information of the
unexplored country adjoining them by tracings in sand, but could not"
(Emmons, 1853).

3. When Escalante was at Oraibi in 1775 he spoke with a Havasupai who

drew him a map with charcoal on a breastplate showing details of the
route from Oraibi to Havasu Canyon (Bolton, 1950, pp. 2-3).   This

instance is of interest in attesting to map-making in still anothe.r
Yunan tribe.

4. On the Dieguenfo ground-paintings, see Kroeber, 1925, p. 644.

5. While no reliable Indian testimony exists to show that the sometimes

rather elaborate petroglyph designs are route or regional maps, there
is widespread belief among aficionados of archaeology that these are

"Indian maps."  Steward (192) 22Y has commented upon this matter,
and I endorse his statement. He says, "Many of the elaborate combina-
tions of connected circles, wavy lines, etc., have been regareded [i.e.,j
assumed] as maps. This seems to be a plausible explanation and may be
true in some instances. Nevertheless many such arrangements have been
studied by the authors and it is clear that they do not represent at
all the country surrounding the site where they are found.   It seems

hardly possible such maps could have been of great use unless someone

were on hand to explain their meaning to the wanderer and in that case
they would scarcely be necessary."

6. Cosmological concepts, such as that of the Yurok (Waterman, 1920, pp.

189-193, fig. 1), the Luisen'o (Kroeber, 1925, pp. 662-664), or the

Pomo (Loeb, 1926, p. 300), are of a higher level of abstraction even
when they include the material, visible world in the schema.

7. For North America, see Noronoa (l951)2 and for two early studies on a

world-wide basis see Dr8ber (1903) and Andree (1878, pp. 197-221).

On maps from the ancient Near East see Lutz (1924)and Lucas (1948, p.
185); for the Eskimo see Cadzow (1924, p1. 6, pp. 144-46)i S lver
(1957), and Jenness (1922, po 229); for Africa [Warega tribe] see

Driberg (1929, p. 49); for Peru [Inca] see Means (1936, pp. 342-43).

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Bibliography

Andree, R.

1878   Ethnographische Parallalen und Vergleiche.  Stuttgart.

Bolton, H. E.

1927   Fray Juan Crespi, Missionary Explorer on the Pacific Coast,

1769-1774. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley.

1950 Pageant in the Wilderness. Utah State Histo Soc., Salt

Lake City.

Bruff, J,

1949

Go

Gold Rush. The Journals, Drawings, and Other,Papers of
Jo Goldsborough . . * April 2, 1849 - July 20, 1851  '

Georgia Willis Read and Ruth Gaines, eds. Columbia Univ.
Press, New York.

Cadsow, D. A.

1924   Eskimo Collection from Baffin Land and Ellesmeere Land.

Mus. Amer, Ind., Indian Notes, vol. 1, no. 3. pp. 143-52.

Coy, Owen C.

-1923.  Califomia County Boundarieso   Berkeley.

Driberg, J. H.

1929   The Savage as He Really Is.  Routledge Introductions to

Moderm Knowledge, no, 3. London.

Dr8ber, E,

1903   Kartographie bei den naturv8lkern. Kglo bayer. Hof. u,

Univ. Buchdruckerei von Junge und Sohno Erlangen.

Emmons, Go F.

1853   Replies to inquiries respecting the Indian tribes of Oregon

and California. In Schoolcrafto Indian Tribes, pt. 3,
pp. 200-225.
Fremont, J. C.

1845   Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in

the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North Califomia in the
Years 184344.o  Blair and Rivers, Washington, D.C.

JemnesS,1 D.

1922   The Life of the Copper Eskimo.

Expedition, vol. 12. Ottawa.

Report of the Canadian Arctic

7 -

Kroeber, A. L.

1925   Handbook of the Indians of California.  Bureau of American

Ethnology, Bull . 78, Washington, D. C.

1939   Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America.  Univ. of

California Publs. in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol.
38. Berkeley.

Loeb, E. M.

1926   Pomo Folkways. Univ. of California Publs. in American Archae-

ology and Ethnology, vol. 19, no. 2. Berkeley.

Lucas, A.

1948   Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries.  London.

Lutz, Ho Fo

1924   Geographical Studies Among Babylonians and Egyptians.

American Anthropologist, vol. 26, pp. 160-174.

McCall, A. JO

1882   The Great California Trail in 1849.  Bath, New York.

Mallery, G.

1886   On the Pictographs of the North American Indians. Bureau of

American Ethnology, 4th Annual Report, pp. 1-254. Washington.

Means, P. A.

1936   Ancient Civilizations of the Andes.  Scribners, New York.

Mllhausen, B.

1861   Reisen in die Felsengebirge Nordamerikas.  Leipsig, 2 vols.

Noronoa, D.

1951   Maps Drawn by North American Indians.  Eastern States Archaeo-

logical Fqderation, Bull. 10, p. 6.

Powers, S.

1877   Tribes of California.  Contribs. to North American Ethnology,

vol. 3. Washington.

Sample, Lo

1950   Trade and Trails in Aboriginal California.  Univ. of Califor-

nia Archaeological Survey Report No. 8. Berkeley.

S6lver, C. V.

1957   Eskimo Maps from Greenlando Archaeology, vol. 10, pp. 188-90.

Steward, Jo H.

1929   Petroglyphs of California. Univ. of California Publs. in Ameri-

can Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. 24. Berkeley.

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Steward, J. H. (cont'd.)

1933   Ethnography of the Owens Valley Paiute, Univ. of California

Publs. in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. 33, no. 3.
Berkeley.

Waterman9 T. To

1920   Yurok Geography. Univ. of California P-ubls. in American Arch-

aeology and Ethnology, vol. 16, no. 5* Berkeley.

Whipple, A. W.

1856   Reports of Explorations and Surveys to Ascertain the Most

Typical and Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad

from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. 33rd Congress,
2d Session, Executive Document no. 78, vol. 3, pt. 1.

Whipple, A, We. To Ewbank and W* W. Tumner

1856   Report Upon the Indian Tribes.  In Whipple, pt. 3.

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64. Determining the General Source of California Olivella Shellas

Joan M. Silsbee

As Olivella shell beads are frequently found in California Indian

sites, it is useful to have a simple system of determining the origin of
the shells. Species identification is difficult unless the entire shell
is intact, but since the archaeologist usually only needs to know the

general geographic source of the shell, two characteristics of the callus
or raised ttglassy"t area next to the aperture can be used to distinguish
Gulf of California species from those of the California coast. Fortu-
nately, the callus is enough harder than the rest of the shel3L that it
generally remains in good condition, so that structural differences in

the callus may be used to distinguish the origin of fragments as well as

shell beads which lack apex and base due to the stringing processo These

two differences appear to be independent of the size, age, proportions and
coloration of the shell; to judge from the specimens in the paleontologi-
cal collections at the University of California at Berkeley and at Los

Angeles and at the Los Angeles County Museum, the differences must have
existed since the Late Miocene.

Olivella species from the West Coast, 0. biplicata and 0. baetica,

respeiv       are shown in Figs. la, b. Bofh species are now found from
Vancouver, British Columbia, at least to Magdalena Bay., Baja California,
although the slender, smaller 0. baetica is more comuon south of Point
Conception, California.  Figs, lc d, e, f show Gulf of California spe-
cies; illustrated are 0. dama, 0. undatella, 0. tergina and 0. anazora,
respectively.

The Coast species are distinguishable by the curved, short callus

which does not extend towards the apex of the shell beyond the aperture,
i.oe.,v the callus does not go above the open space. The Gulf species

s7ow a straight, long callus which extends toward the; apex to the suture
above the attachment of the outermost side of the apeiture: the callus
goes well beyond the top of the opening (see Figs. lg, h).

A second characteristic which is not as definite as the boundaries
of the callus is the shape and indentations of- the ridge at the base of
the callus.  The Coastal species show a single, high ridge sometimes

divided by as many as four or five but generally fewer indented lines;

whereas the Gulf species have a relatively flatter ridge with many lines
almost as deep as the level of the rest of the callus--sometimes the

shells appear to be engraved with a series of lines rather than having

slight ridges. This character does not appear to be satisfactory on all
fossil shells, and occasional modern specimens vary almost to the point
of overlapping the opposite type.  In a series of specimens, however,
the two groups are quite distincto

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