The Native Races (Complete 5 Part Edition). Hubert Howe Bancroft

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СКАЧАТЬ or volcanic glass, sometimes barbed and sometimes diamond-shaped. It is fastened loosely to the shaft, and can be extracted only from a wound by cutting it out. The shaft is frequently painted in order that the owner may be able to distinguish his own arrows from others. Spears, or rather javelins, are used, seldom exceeding from four and a half to five feet in length. They are made of some tough kind of wood and headed with the same materials as the arrows. Occasionally the point of the stick is merely sharpened and hardened in the fire.521 The head of the fishing-spear is movable, being attached to the shaft by a line, so that when a fish is struck the pole serves as a float. Some of the tribes formerly poisoned their arrows, but it is probable that the custom never prevailed to any great extent. M. du Petit-Thouars was told that they used for this purpose a species of climbing plant which grows in shady places. It is said that they also poison their weapons with the venom of serpents.522 Pedro Fages mentions that the natives in the country round San Miguel use a kind of sabre, made of hard wood, shaped like a cimeter, and edged with sharp flints. This they employ for hunting as well as in war, and with such address that they rarely fail to break the leg of the animal at which they hurl it.523

      BATTLES AND WEAPONS.

Battles, though frequent, were not attended with much loss of life. Each side was anxious for the fight to be over, and the first blood would often terminate the contest. Challenging by heralds obtained. Thus the Shumeias challenge the Pomos by placing three little sticks, notched in the middle and at both ends, on a mound which marked the boundary between the two tribes. If the Pomos accept, they tie a string round the middle notch. Heralds then meet and arrange time and place, and the battle comes off as appointed.524 Among some tribes, children are sent by mutual arrangement into the enemy's ranks during the heat of battle to pick up the fallen arrows and carry them back to their owners to be used again.525 When fighting, they stretch out in a long single line and endeavor by shouts and gestures to intimidate the foe.526

      Notwithstanding the mildness of their disposition and the inferiority of their weapons, the Central Californians do not lack courage in battle, and when captured will meet their fate with all the stoicism of a true Indian. For many years after the occupation of the country by the Spaniards, by abandoning their villages and lying in ambush upon the approach of the enemy, they were enabled to resist the small squads of Mexicans sent against them from the presidios for the recovery of deserters from the missions. During the settlement of the country by white people, there were the usual skirmishes growing out of wrong and oppression on the one side, and retaliation on the other; the usual uprising among miners and rancheros, and vindication of border law, which demanded the massacre of a village for the stealing of a cow.

      Trespass on lands and abduction of women are the usual causes of war among themselves. Opposing armies, on approaching each other in battle array, dance and leap from side to side in order to prevent their enemies from taking deliberate aim. Upon the invasion of their territory they rapidly convey the intelligence by means of signals. A great smoke is made upon the nearest hilltop, which is quickly repeated upon the surrounding hills, and thus a wide extent of country is aroused in a remarkably short time.

      The custom of scalping, though not universal in California, was practiced in some localities. The yet more barbarous habit of cutting off the hands, feet, or head of a fallen enemy, as trophies of victory, prevailed more widely. They also plucked out and carefully preserved the eyes of the slain.

It has been asserted that these savages were cannibals, and there seems to be good reason to believe that they did devour pieces of the flesh of a renowned enemy slain in battle. Human flesh was, however, not eaten as food, nor for the purpose of wreaking vengeance on or showing hate for a dead adversary, but because they thought that by eating part of a brave man they absorbed a portion of his courage. They do not appear to have kept or sold prisoners as slaves, but to have either exchanged or killed them.527

      IMPLEMENTS AND MANUFACTURES.

They are not ingenious, and manufacture but few articles requiring any skill. The principal of these are the baskets in which, as I have already mentioned, they carry water and boil their food. They are made of fine grass, so closely woven as to be perfectly water-tight, and are frequently ornamented with feathers, beads, shells, and the like, worked into them in a very pretty manner. Fletcher, who visited the coast with Sir Francis Drake in 1579, describes them as being "made in fashion like a deep boale, and though the matter were rushes, or such other kind of stuffe, yet it was so cunningly handled that the most part of them would hold water; about the brimmes they were hanged with peeces of the shels of pearles, and in some places with two or three linkes at a place, of the chaines forenamed … and besides this, they were wrought vpon with the matted downe of red feathers, distinguished into diuers workes and formes."528 The baskets are of various sizes and shapes, the most common being conical or wide and flat. Their pipes are straight, the bowl being merely a continuation of the stem, only thicker and hollowed out.529

      NO BOATS IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY.

It is a singular fact that these natives about the bay of San Francisco and the regions adjacent, had no canoes of any description. Their only means of navigation were bundles of tule-rushes about ten feet long and three or four wide, lashed firmly together in rolls, and pointed at both ends. They were propelled, either end foremost, with long double-bladed paddles. In calm weather, and on a river, the centre, or thickest part of these rafts might be tolerably dry, but in rough water the rower, who sat astride, was up to his waist in water.530 It has been asserted that they even ventured far out to sea on them, but that this was common I much doubt.531 They were useful to spear fish from, but for little else; in proof of which I may mention, on the authority of Roquefeuil, that in 1809–11, the Koniagas employed by the Russians at Bodega, killed seals and otters in San Francisco Bay under the very noses of the Spaniards, and in spite of all the latter, who appear to have had no boats of their own, could do to prevent them. In their light skin baidarkas, each with places for two persons only, these bold northern boatmen would drop down the coast from Bodega Bay, where the Russians were stationed, or cross over from the Farallones in fleets of from forty to fifty boats, and entering the Golden Gate creep along the northern shore, beyond the range of the Presidio's guns, securely establish themselves upon the islands of the bay and pursue their avocation unmolested. For three years, namely from 1809 to 1811, these northern fishermen held possession of the bay of San Francisco, during which time they captured over eight thousand otters. Finally, it occurred to the governor, Don Luis Argüello, that it would be well for the Spaniards to have boats of their own. Accordingly four were built, but they were so clumsily constructed, ill equipped, and poorly manned, that had the Russians and Koniagas felt disposed, they could easily have continued their incursions. Once within the entrance, these northern barbarians were masters of the bay, and such was their sense of security that they would sometimes venture for a time to stretch their limbs upon the shore. The capture of several of their number, however, by the soldiers from the fort, made them more wary thereafter. Maurelle, who touched at Point Arenas in 1775, but did not enter the bay of San Francisco, says that "a vast number of Indians now presented themselves on both points, who passed from one to the other in small canoes made of fule, where they talked loudly for two hours or more, till at last two of them came alongside of the ship, and most liberally presented us with plumes of feathers, rosaries of bone, garments of feathers, as also garlands of the same materials, which they wore round their СКАЧАТЬ