California through Native Eyes

Reclaiming History

William J. Bauer, Jr.

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780295806693
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Native American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Most California histories begin with the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the late eighteenth century and conveniently skip to the Gold Rush of 1849. Noticeably absent from these stories are the perspectives and experiences of the people who lived on the land long before European settlers arrived. Historian William Bauer seeks to correct that oversight through an innovative approach that tells California history strictly through Native perspectives. Using oral histories of Concow, Pomo, and Paiute workers, taken as part of a New Deal federal works project, Bauer reveals how Native peoples have experienced and interpreted the history of the land we now call California. Combining these oral histories with creation myths and other oral traditions, he demonstrates the importance of sacred landscapes and animals and other nonhuman actors to the formation of place and identity. He also examines tribal stories of ancestors who prophesied the coming of white settlers and uses their recollections of the California Indian Wars to push back against popular narratives that seek to downplay Native resistance. The result both challenges the "California story" and enriches it with new voices and important points of view, serving as a model for understanding Native historical perspectives in other regions.

CHAPTER 1

Creating

ALL PEOPLE HAVE A CREATION STORY, A NARRATIVE THAT EXPLAINS their origins, sense of place, and uniqueness. California Indian creation stories begin on the water. Austin McLaine, an eighty-one-year-old Concow man living on the Round Valley Reservation, said that long ago water covered the entire world. Light existed, but the sun and human beings did not. A man, sometimes identified as Earth Maker, floated in a boat on a vast sea.¹ A Paiute narrative—told by Hank Hunter, a one-hundred-year-old man from Independence—starts with two brothers, the brown dragonfly Esha and the white dragonfly Oonoop, flying over a large body of water.² Yuki creation, as told by sixty-eight-year-old Lizzie Tillotson from the Round Valley Reservation, opens with water covering the whole world. The water’s foam resembled a feather, from which arose the image of man, whom the Yuki know as Taikomol’, “he who walks alone.”³ McLaine, Hunter, and Tillotson proceeded to describe how creators formed California’s land, People, and culture on this blank slate of water. Creators used a tremendous amount of work and a proper division of labor to form the Earth for a specific and special People. After resting, creators prepared that world for human beings. Creators centered the storyteller’s People at the heart of the known world and established boundaries between the storyteller’s People and their neighbors. California Indians used colors, physical appearance, and language to define who belonged with the storyteller’s People and who did not. Then, through intense negotiations, creators and Coyote developed the social, political, economic, and cultural practices that structured human life, such as kinship, birth, death, and work.

Creation narratives were not inert historical sources and interpretations. Rather they are living understandings of what happened in the past. During the Great Depression, creation stories challenged the prevailing “California Story,” which Settlers used to justify colonialism in the state. Simultaneously oral histories confronted prevailing ideas about California Indian land and identity. California Indians used their creation stories to articulate Indigenous identity, sovereignty and land.

The image of water covering the entire world is an appropriate place to begin California Indian creation stories. For terrestrial People like the Concows, Paiutes, and Yukis, water is a formless but powerful landscape.⁴ The vast body of water over which the Dragonfly brothers flew or on which sat Earth Maker or Taikomol’ evokes the image of an amorphous landscape. Sometime in the People’s deep history, the land sat outside their realm of experiences.⁵ Before creation Concows and Yukis had not listened to the wind rustle the leaves of oak trees. Paiutes had not diverted mountain streams to irrigate crops of indigenous plants. The People had not tracked deer through the foothills and valleys. The land did not exist—it was a blank ocean—until the People arrived, created identities, and experienced a life there.

Creating the land required a tremendous amount of work. Tillotson explained that after appearing on the ocean foam, Taikomol’ stood up on a feather, stretched his arms out, and asked, “What am I going to do?” The water carried him north, and from there he moved south, creating the Earth. This job took several days and exhausted Taikomol’. On me căus cō, the seventh day, Taikomol’ rested. After taking the day off he returned to work. Tillotson did not know how long it took Taikomol’ to complete the Earth. When he finished, Taikomol’ looked in each direction—north, south, east, west—and said, “My beautiful Earth.” Next he formed mountains, on which he engraved river valleys and springs.⁶

For Concows the stupendous amount of work necessary to create the world required the effort of more than one individual. McLaine explained that Turtle swam from the north and met Earth Maker on the boat. Earth Maker asked, “How are you on diving?” Turtle replied, “I am good at that. Why do you ask me these questions?” Earth Maker responded, “Because we do not want to live on the water all our lives, we want to live on the ground.” Turtle asked, “How are we going to do that?” Earth Maker replied, “I’ll make a rope and tie it around you and you can dive to the bottom and get all the dirt you can.” Earth Maker tied a rope around Turtle, who dove down into the water. When Turtle reached the bottom of the water, he filled his ears, fingernails, and mouth full of dirt. Turtle tugged on the rope and Earth Maker pulled him up. When Turtle resurfaced, he had only a small amount of dirt left in his mouth. Earth Maker asked Turtle to dive again. When Turtle gathered all the dirt he could carry, he yanked again on the rope, and Earth Maker pulled him up. Turtle had just as much dirt as he had before. Earth Maker flattened the dirt and put the disc on the boat’s south stern. Earth Maker instructed Turtle, “We shall lie down and rest.” When Earth Maker awoke, the water had receded, land appeared, and Turtle had left, following the water.⁷

Paiute creators, like Concow creators, cooperated in order to create the world. Esha, the brown dragonfly, asked his brother, Oonoop, the white dragonfly, to make land. After flying for several days Oonoop finally said, “Esha, I have figured a way to make land, but you must help me as best as you can.” Oonoop asked Esha to sing as they flew. After singing for a few days, a dab of dirt appeared in Oonoop’s hand. He threw the dirt into the water, and it floated. Oonoop and Esha sang again, and another bit of dirt appeared in Oonoop’s hand. He threw the dirt into the water, and it spread out to make a small island.⁸

Concows, Yukis, and Paiutes understood creation as the product of everyday actions and relationships, buried deep in their respective histories. The first Yukis, Concows, and Paiutes who arrived in their homelands expended considerable energy to transform the unknown landscape into a known place. They identified the best places to fish for steelhead or salmon. They hiked the Sierra Nevadas or North Coast Range’s hillsides to find the most productive acorn or pine nut groves. This work was as exhausting as creation. As with Taikomol’ and Turtle, who slept after creating the world, the People must have rested after they prepared the land.⁹ Work, like creation, required a suitable division of labor. At creation Earth Maker and Turtle divided the tasks of creation according to their abilities. Turtle possessed a prodigious ability to swim and hold his breath. Alternatively Earth Maker had the ability to manipulate the land into form. Family labor strategies reflected the way Earth Maker and Turtle divided their labor. Native Peoples organized their work activities according to kinship and gender. Kin had obligations to pool their work power to harvest acorns, hunt game, fish for salmon, or construct irrigation networks. By the 1930s Native families continued to organize their work by gender in California’s agricultural and pastoral economies.¹⁰ These labor systems produced food and resources for the People and re-created creation on a seasonal basis. By cooperating to hunt deer or rabbit, fish, harvest acorns and pine nuts, build irrigation networks, or pick hops, Indigenous People reenacted the work and labor that brought their worlds into being.

Owens Valley Paiutes used singing, not labor, to describe the significance of kinship in creation. Paiutes sang in various contexts. They sang during gambling matches to produce good luck and confuse opponents. Healers learned healing songs to cure illnesses. During a healing an assistant accompanied the healer and translated parts of the song to the audience. When hearing the Paiute creation story, listeners might provide a song or join in the singing, much as the audience did when the healer and his assistant sang to heal a person. In addition to gambling and healing singers, communities hired singers for Round, or Circle, Dances (a social dance). Held in the fall, these dances united Paiutes after they had dispersed for the summer. A town headman invited Paiutes from neighboring communities for the dance. Women tapped prospective dance partners on the shoulder, and they proceeded to hold hands. All dancers then formed a circle and hopped or side-shuffled in a clockwise direction. Singing remained a vital aspect of Paiute life during the Great Depression. Paiutes sang deer songs during fandangos, celebrations that occurred when seasonal agricultural work ended. Singing united Paiute People and activated the creative power needed to heal the sick, tell sacred histories, and celebrate a new season.¹¹

Human-animal relationships, in addition to human-human, created parts of California. Nonhumans, such as the Dragonfly brothers and Turtle, had to work with humans to find dirt underneath the water and sing the world into existence. California Indians owed respect and reciprocity to the animals they hunted, the steelhead they fished, and the plants they harvested. Furthermore animals taught the People important traits. Twentieth-century Paiutes, Concows, and Yukis still had much to learn from Turtle’s industriousness and sacrifice and the Dragonfly brothers’ ability to work together and their singing power.¹²

Gradually creators made the land suitable for People. After creating the land, Esha asked Oonoop to enlarge the island. Oonoop sang into being another bit of dirt and used it to increase the size of the island. He said, “Brother Esha, see if the island is big enough for you and I. Run along the edge of the island and circle the island.” At this point Esha transformed into Coyote, the famous shape-shifting trickster in American Indian oral tradition, and started out. He returned in a few minutes. “Brother Oonoop,” Esha said, “I am afraid the island is too small for you and I to live on.” Oonoop sang again and the island grew. Esha ran around the island, and it took him a little longer to return. Still Esha considered the island too small. Oonoop once again expanded the island. This time it took Esha a couple of days to return to his brother. Panting, Esha said, “Brother Oonoop could you put just one more handful on the island?” Oonoop replied, “Esha, you must be satisfied. I am going to put a little more than a handful.” Esha set out again and, several days later, flopped down at Oonoop’s feet. “Brother Oonoop,” gasped a hungry and tired Esha, “I am perfectly satisfied. The land is big enough for you and I to roam on.” Oonoop created a bounded island specifically for himself, Esha, and their Paiute descendants.¹³

Once the various creators made the land, they placed plants and animals there. Little Toby, a seventy-five-year-old Yuki man from the Round Valley Reservation, said that Taikomol’ planted foods for all the Yuki to gather: acorns, clover, nuts, and seeds. Then Taikomol’ put animals, such as bear, deer, elk, grouse, rabbits, squirrels, and fish, on the earth for Yukis to eat.¹⁴ Mary Saulque and Emma Washington, Paiute women from Benton, said that Kama (Rabbit) appeared after the creator made the Paiute world. Esha (Coyote) hunted, killed, and ate Kama.¹⁵ Creators made the land suitable for the People by providing them with plants and animals.

Creators made the land, animals, and plants for a specific and distinct People. Polly Anderson, a seventy-seven-year-old Concow woman from the Round Valley Reservation, observed, “The Indians said that over on the Feather River, there were big flat rocks where they could stand right out in the river and catch their fish. They believed that Jesus left these rocks there mainly for them.”¹⁶ The creator made these rocks for Concows, and no one else, to use in fishing. Taikomol’, the Yuki creator, called his creation a “beautiful Earth.” Only the Yuki, Lizzie Tillotson suggested, appreciated the mountains climbing out of the valley floor and encircling the People like a well-made basket.¹⁷ Only the Yuki thought that the life sustaining oak groves that dotted the valley were beautiful. That land was ideally suited for the specific People who Taikomol’ eventually created there.

California Indians argued that if the Creator made the land specifically for the People, then the Creator made a People expressly for that land. Paiutes Mattie Bulpitt, Jim Tom Jones, and George Robinson shared slightly different versions of this story. Their histories about the creation of People begin with a solitary male figure living in a rock house or a cave, located in Inyo County’s Round Valley.¹⁸ Although the three stories varied, Bulpitt, Jones, and Robinson knew exactly where Coyote lived: a stone house in Round Valley. The trio did not attempt to invalidate each other’s story; instead they added their narratives to the rich corpus of Paiute knowledge and strengthened Paiutes’ connection to places in their homeland. Coyote’s home was a powerful place. Paiutes believe that a force called puha permeates all living things. Rocks, rock homes, and rock art, like those mentioned in the stories, are sites for obtaining or communicating with puha.¹⁹ Round Valley was the origin of Paiute People, knowledge, and religious beliefs.

After precisely locating Coyote’s house in Round Valley, Jones, a ninety-five-year-old from Bishop, explained that Coyote was making a blanket out of rabbit skin when a beautiful woman passed by. She looked into his house and then went on her way. Mesmerized, Coyote followed the woman as she traveled west, out of Round Valley, through Pine Creek Canyon. Coyote caught up with this beautiful woman at Pine Lake. The bashful couple only smiled at one another and did not speak a word. After spending two days together near the lake, the duo descended the mountains and set up camp at Pine Creek Canyon’s mouth. “This camp,” Jones explained, “was the camp of where Mother and Father of all Indian races lived. Here the Mother of all Indians had a lot of children.”²⁰ In the version of the story told by Robinson, a seventy-five-year-old man from Independence, after catching up with the woman, Coyote killed some ducks to prove that he was a good hunter. He took the ducks to the woman, who lived with her mother. Coyote spent the night at the house, where he attempted to sleep with the beautiful woman. However, she had teeth in her vagina. Coyote used a stick to take out the teeth and impregnated the woman. She then lived with Coyote and became the mother of all Indians.²¹

Robinson’s and Jones’s creation stories reminded listeners of the process by which Paiute ancestors enlarged their homeland. In the 1930s Settler historians believed that California Indians lived remote and isolated lives before the arrival of Americans.²² Yet Paiutes understood their history as one in which they continually expanded the space in which they lived. Recall that in Hank Hunter’s creation story, Esha and Oonoop created a small island, which Oonoop increased to accommodate his brother’s request. Like Esha’s laps around the island, Coyote’s pursuit of First Woman enlarged the world they inhabited. The listener follows Coyote as he drops his work and trots west, through Pine Creek Canyon and up to Pine Lake. Coyote and First Woman stretched the Paiute world to include Round Valley, Pine Creek, and Pine Lake.

The Paiutes’ understanding of their history was not of ancient knowledge. In the 1930s Paiutes constructed a “place-world,” in which they knew the exact places of their creation.²³ They could follow Coyote’s footsteps and re-create the story of Coyote and First Woman conceiving the People. Paiutes and their ancestors followed this path in the summer when they left the blisteringly hot Owens Valley for Pine Lake’s cool sanctuary. As they made this trip, Paiutes could travel comfortably, knowing that their ancestors and cultural her...