CALIFORNIA INDIANS

Before European and American settlers came, California's Indians had little need to travel long distances or wage protracted wars with neighbors over scarce resources. Food sources were almost everywhere. Tribes had separately defined territories, but they didn't necessarily see themselves as possessing a hunk of land, the way white settlers did.

Things, both animate and inanimate, weren't thought of as outside objects to be manipulated or seized for their value so much as integral parts of humanity that had to be treated with care and respect. The concept of a separately-defined past and present apparently made little sense to many of them, and change held no value at all.

Dwellings were often constructed of earth, stone, split planks, redwood bark, or a combination of the four. Some were dug slightly below ground level, with a round hole for an entrance. Smaller huts framed with willow branches were common in some regions. Circular dancehouses with floors sunk a few feet into the earth and roofs of heavy timbers were used much the way whites used their own churches—for worship, meetings, games, and social functions. Men usually held cleansing sweats in these structures, often followed by an icy plunge into a nearby creek.

In most societies, women were not allowed to participate in dancehouse activities--yet in many tribes, only women were allowed to achieve the powerful position of Shaman. Dances often related to what anthropologists once called the Kuksu system of beliefs, incorporating principles of both spirit transformation and world renewal.

Unlike Indians in colder climates—who typically celebrated the coming of spring and the end of cold weather—California Indians often celebrated the coming of fall, which meant an end to dry conditions, the sprouting of new grass, and the shedding of acorns in Valley and foothill areas. In both their dances and stories, spirits were often depicted as animals. Commonest among these was an intriguingly complex and witty character named Coyote, whose persona mirrors the paradoxically good, evil, honest, and deceitful traits of human beings--whose lives he could manipulate at will.

Tribes had their creation stories, many of which involved Coyote or other spirit beings. Religions often stressed a concept of world renewal, where things that have gone bad are restored to order, sometimes with a catastrophic event. Marriages were often marked with an exchange of gifts, and polygamy was common. The dead were usually cremated and their possessions burned, in ceremonies involving the unhindered expression of grief.

Some societies (e.g. the North Coast Yurok) had rigid social hierarchies with distinct upper and lower classes. In other, more egalitarian, tribes, tribal decisions were made by an informal group of elders rather than a designated "chief." Some tribes practiced careful land-management (arguably a form of agriculture), in which vegetation was burned at specified intervals to bring out edible plants and create forage for game. Pruning and cultivation were also practiced, and some of California's rapidly-disappearing oak woodlands may have originated from Indian acorn planting.

And then the white settlers came. It's always these same six words, over and over again, haunting every historical discourse and neutrally-worded tourism brochure. Clichéd as the idea has become, California's Indians suffered a holocaust at the hands of Europeans and Americans. The Spanish Missionaries, who looked upon them as heathens (but at least regarded them as human), killed their culture with words, their people with diseases. Gold rush settlers, who often hailed from slave states, where non-white races were regarded as chattel, took over their land, bedded their women, retaliated against their slightest hostility with all-out massacre, and eventually had them rounded up and crammed into reservations.

Is there a happy ending? You tell me. Blackjack, anyone?