Chapter II: Part 2

In the Central region objects made of feathers greatly predominate over all others, and are mostly made to be worn actually on the body. Head-dresses are particularly conspicuous and of many forms. In the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and the adjacent region cloaks of large feathers attached to a network are worn. In the Tulare basin these are replaced by skirts consisting of strings of eagle-down. With these down-skirts are worn large upright head-dresses of crow and magpie feathers. This combination of costume was used also by the Mission Indians in Southern California and by the Washo of Nevada, and at least the head-dress is found as far north as the Sacramento valley. Network caps filled with down, and forehead bands of down, are frequent in various parts. Perhaps the most typical single object of ceremonial apparel is a flat band, usually worn on the forehead, and consisting of the trimmed red quills of the yellow-hammer sewed side by side. This head-band occurs through the whole of Central California and is used also by the tribes east of the Sierra Nevada, in the state of Nevada, and south of Tehachapi pass in Southern California. The large foot drum of the Central region has already been mentioned. Whistles are also used and there are two forms of rattle, one consisting of silk cocoons containing gravel, the other of a split stick. The cocoon rattle is usually associated with the shaman, the clap-stick with dancing.

In the South, especially among the Mission Indians, the dancing apparel, as is evident from the instances already mentioned, is of much the same type as in the Central area. On the Colorado river feather ornaments of the same general character are used, though they are of a simpler type and head-dresses predominate. The whistle is but little used in the South, the drum occasionally, baskets and other objects being chiefly employed for this purpose. The rattle is the all-important musical instrument in this region. It is made most frequently from a gourd or a turtle-shell.

MYTHOLOGY AND BELIEFS.

In mythology a deep-going difference between the three culture areas again appears. The Northwestern mythologies are characterized primarily by a very deeply impressed conception of a previous, now vanished, race, who by first living the life and performing the actions of mankind were the producers of all human institutions and arts as well as of some of the phenomena of nature. Second in importance in the Northwest are myths dealing with culture-heroes more or less of the trickster type familiar from so many other parts of North America.

In Central California there is always a true creation of the world, of mankind, and of its institutions. The conception of the creator is often quite lofty, and tricky exploits or defeats are usually not connected with him. Often there is an antithesis between this beneficent and truly divine creator and a second character, usually the Coyote, who in part cooeperates with the creator but in part thwarts him, being responsible for the death of mankind and other imperfections in the world-scheme. In the northern half of the Central region the creator is generally anthropomorphic; if not, he is merged into one personage with the more or less tricky Coyote. In the southern half of the region the creators seem always to be animals with the dignified and wise eagle as the chief. The myths of the Central region not directly concerned with creation are mostly stories of adventure, of much the same type as European folk and fairy tales. They do not explain the origin of phenomena except in a casual, isolated way, and but rarely are of ceremonial import.

In Southern California there is no creation. The various animate and inanimate existences in the world are born from heaven and earth as the first parents. Sometimes heaven and earth are regarded as the first concrete existences, who were, however, preceded by a series of psychic beings grouped in pairs. The bulk of the Southern origin myth consists of a history of mankind, at first as a single tribe and later centered in the tribe which tells the story. In the successive experiences of this body of people, which are accompanied by more or less journeying, the world is gradually brought to its present stage, and all the institutions of mankind, particularly of the narrating tribe but also of others, are developed. The people are under the leadership of one or two great leaders, at least one of whom always dies or departs after his beneficent directions. The thoroughly Southwestern and Pueblo character of this long origin myth is obvious. It is usually followed to a greater or less extent by migration legends recounting the wandering and conflicts of different tribes or clans. The remaining myths are in plot essentially not very different from the adventure stories of the Central region, but both much longer and more elaborate, and at the same time distinctively ritualistic in that they form the basis or framework of the singing ceremonies that have been described. As these ceremonies themselves are nothing but myths, there is neither need nor room for traditionary accounts explaining the origin of the ceremonies.

An identification of myth and ceremony that is in many ways similar to that prevalent in Southern California is characteristic also of the Northwestern region, where the formulae which constitute the essential religious elements, as well as being the direct means, of most supernatural accomplishment, are nothing but myths. The Northwestern formula is a myth, rarely a direct prayer, and practically every more serious myth is either in whole or in part a also a formula. In purpose, however, as well as in rendering, the spoken myth-formulae of the Northwest and the sung myth-ceremonies of the South are different, the former having always a definite practical result in view, whereas the latter have no aim other than their own recital.

Thus the mythology of Southern California resembles that of the Southwest rather than that of the remainder of the state. That of the Northwestern region shows affinities to the North Pacific Coast in its prevalence of the culture-hero and trickster over the creator. The most marked special characteristic of the Northwestern mythology, other than its practical use of myths for religious purposes in the shape of formulas, is its strong and definite, though inconsistently carried out, idea of the previous race which is parallel to but distinct from mankind, and which is the originator, not by any act of creation but by merely living its life, of everything human except mankind itself, the origin of which is never accounted for. This idea of a previous supernatural race analogous to mankind crops out to some extent in almost all North American mythologies, and particularly in other parts of California: but it seems nowhere to be so deep-seated and so freely expressed as in this region. The members of this vanished race are almost always strictly human, in Northwestern California, and not animals or personifications. They are nothing but men, living the life of the Indians, transposed into a mythic supernatural age, and by the fact of their mere existence regarded as the originators of the present condition of the world. They therefore leave no room for a creator, and but little for the culture hero, whose exploits, when not of purely personal significance, consequently consist mainly of the destruction of evil beings.

If the mythology of Northwestern California in spite of its partial northern affinities accordingly has a dominant character all its own, the same is also true of the larger, more representative Central region. A true creator, and a full and consistent attempt at an account of the creation, are found nowhere else in North America, or at least only sporadically and carried out with an apparently much less degree of thoroughness. The remainder of the Central Californian mythology however scarcely presents any unique qualities, even some of the specific myth-episodes, such as the favorite one of the bear and deer children, being found over considerable territories outside of California. Even the important characteristic of the presence of creation-myths is in a measure a negative one, for from a world view some approach to such a myth may be expected among most peoples, whether primitive or civilized, and it is primarily only in America that special bents of mind and of religious thought have supplanted the idea of creation by the culture hero, the tribal history, and other conceptions. We are therefore not far from right if we regard the unique development of creation myths over the greater part of California as merely a part of a general tendency of the California Indians towards simplicity and lack of strongly marked peculiar and American qualities in any one direction, a tendency which has already been emphasized in other aspects of their religion, and which must be said to characterize their whole life and culture.

Ideas as to the world and the existence of the dead vary from tribe to tribe but present nothing specially distinctive. The world is usually regarded as surrounded by water, sometimes as floating upon it. It is often secured by four or five pillars, ropes, or other supports. Beyond where earth and sky meet there is often another land. The dead sometimes go below, sometimes above, sometimes across the ocean to the west, and sometimes to more or less distant parts of this earth. The entrance to the world of the dead is pointed out by some tribes. People who have temporarily died have been there and returned to describe it. Dances constitute the principal occupation of the dead. No ideas of future rewards and punishments based on conduct in this life have yet been found. If such ideas exist they must be very scantily developed. As in other parts of the world, there are occasional ideas of transmigration of souls into animals, but these conceptions are nowhere systematically worked out or of any religious importance.

SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFERENT TRIBES.

Such are the principal characteristics of the religion of the Indians of California as a whole, and of the larger ethnographical areas of the state. It is obvious that with so great a linguistic and political diversification as existed among these Indians, there must have been many local modifications of the scheme which has been outlined. The most conspicuous or best known of these special modifications it is the purpose of the remainder of this paper to consider. In this review the groups to be taken up will, for the sake of greatest convenience of classification, be the linguistic families. These numerous families are territorially so restricted, and usually so small in numbers, that they almost form the equivalent of the tribe in other regions of North America, that is to say, of a subdivision of the family. Strictly there are no tribes in the greater part of California. The families or stocks are the largest linguistic units, usually subdivided into several dialectic areas, each of which contains a number of small village communities that are the only units of political or social organization.

In the Northwestern region, in spite of the excessive limitation of this territory, a distinction must be made between three tribes which occupy the heart of the region and show the culture in its most extreme form, and a fringe of surrounding tribes where the Northwestern culture is either less developed or subject to greater extraneous influences. The three more characteristic groups are the Yurok and Karok, small independent linguistic families, and the Hupa division of the Athabascan family. These alone practice the Deerskin dance and the "New Year's" or world-making ceremonies. With them also the peculiar mythological and shamanistic conceptions typical of the region are found in the purest form. The surrounding tribes are the Wishosk or Wiyot, perhaps the Chimariko and some of the Shasta, the Athabascan Tolowa, and the Athabascans southwest of the Hupa.

The Yurok held the Deerskin and Jumping dances at three places along the Klamath river, and the Jumping dance alone at three points on the coast, to the south. At the mouth of the river an annual spring ceremony to cause or regulate the ascent of the salmon was made. Until this ceremony had been made salmon were not eaten. The shamans of the Yurok were almost all women. Alone of all the tribes in the Northwestern region the Yurok held no dance or public ceremony on the occasion of a girl's puberty. Their traditions seem to have the peculiar Northwestern qualities perhaps more deeply impressed upon them than even those of their neighbors, the Karok and Hupa, especially in regard to the underlying conception of a previous race and its function. In accord with the development of this conception, the mythical heroes of the Yurok show less approximation to being creators than those of the other tribes, and animals are mentioned in the mythology surprisingly little.

The Karok, who live immediately upstream from the Yurok on the Klamath, held the Deerskin and Jumping dances at three places. At each of these the dances were conducted in connection with a sacred ceremony called "New Year's" by the whites and "making the world" by the Indians. This ceremony was performed early in autumn, practically by one man, the priest who knew the formula and ritual. A similar ceremony was held at a fourth locality in spring, in connection with the coming of the salmon. The Karok regard the Deerskin and Jumping dances of the Yurok and Hupa as the equivalents of these ceremonies of their own, reckoning altogether ten places in the world at which they are performed. Karok mythology is of the Northwestern type, but shows more animal characters than that of the Yurok.

The territory held by the Hupa was much less extended than that of their neighbors, and this was no doubt the occasion of their making only one Deerskin and Jumping dance in their valley. They held a New Year's ceremony in autumn which had distinct reference to the acorn crop. Ceremonials and restrictions connected with menstruation were considerably developed, much more than among the neighboring Yurok. It was thought dangerous to speak to a dog, as he might be provoked to answer, which would be a fatal portent.

The religion of the other Athabascans in this part of the state is very little known, but it is certain that before the southern end of Humboldt county is reached, in other words, in the Eel river drainage, a totally distinct set of conceptions and practices is encountered, which are allied to those of the Central region.

The Wiyot or Wishosk, who adjoin the Yurok on the south, did not practice the Jumping dance, other ceremonies, which are very little known, taking its place among them. One dance was performed by women standing up to the hips in water. Shamanism is of more prominence among them than with their neighbors the Yurok, and men as well as women are affected with supernatural powers. The sex of the guardian spirit is usually the opposite of that of the shaman. It is possible that on account of the almost complete disappearance of their tribal life and communal religious practices, shamanism, which has been retained with greater vigor among the Wiyot, now appears relatively more important, as the only remnant of the religious side of their culture. An elaborate hanging feather head-dress, a belt, a pipe for smoking, and another for sucking, are the constant paraphernalia of the medicine-man. Two shamans often support each other in curing disease, one diagnosing, the other removing the pain. The mythology of the Wiyot resembles that of the Yurok chiefly through possessing certain specific narrative episodes in common with it. But the idea of a previous parallel race is very little developed, and there is a true creator, Above-Old-Man. Most of the other mythical characters are animals. The whole mythology therefore is of the Central rather than of the Northwestern type.

With the Yuki of Mendocino county a pure form of the Central culture obtains. The creator is Taikomol, "he who goes alone." His companion, who supplements his work, especially as regards the culture of man, is Coyote. There is a Taikomol ceremony in which this character is impersonated, and which is shamanistic at least to the degree of being performed to cure an individual of sickness. There is no trace of the sacred formulae of the Northwest. The shaman, who is usually a man, receives his power either by dreaming or in a vision in a desolate place. His power is not sought by him and he possesses definite guardian spirits. Bear shamans are much feared. All the Yuki possess a sacred society initiation ceremony, in which performances of magic are prominent. Among the northern Yuki and neighboring Wailaki this is called Flint ceremony, and the initiates display magic powers in handling and swallowing flint points. Among the southern Yuki, as among the neighboring Pomo and Athabascan Kato, the ceremony relates to ghosts and is popularly known as Devil dance. The members possess power of causing sickness and contend against each other much like the shamans of the Maidu and Yokuts.

One of the most conspicuous features of the religion of the Pomo, who are south of the Yuki, is their shamanistic fetishes. The medicine-man possesses a number of objects, stones, parts of animals, and other articles, which he treasures and with which his power is largely bound up. Pomo mythology is characterized by the importance of Coyote, who comes nearer than any other personage to playing the part of creator. In certain ceremonies there are exhibitions of fire-eating and the clown occurs.

The Wintun occupy a territory which is of much greater extent from north to south than from east to west. The northern and southernmost members of the family therefore differ considerably. In the north there is a well defined conception of a creator who dwells above, and to whom Coyote forms an antithesis. In the south, where everything shows the Wintun and Pomo to have influenced each other considerably, he is replaced by Coyote. In both regions a world-fire is prominent in the mythology. In the north the shaman is inaugurated in his career in a ceremony in which he is assisted by his older colleagues. The southern Wintun may prove to have been the people who largely developed the dances and ceremonies characteristic of a large part of the Sacramento valley. They show much in common with their western neighbors the Pomo, and with the Maidu who adjoin them on the east and who themselves declare that they have derived the Hesi and other dances from them.

None of the groups so far discussed, with the possible exception of part of the Wintun, practiced any distinct mourning ceremony. On the other hand, all that follow, with the possible doubtful exception of one or two tribes on the outskirts of the state, held mourning ceremonies as among the most important of all their religious practices.

The Maidu everywhere possessed a secret society. Their system of dances becomes less and less developed as one proceeds farther from Wintun influence. Among the mountain tribes almost all ceremonies were much less developed than in the Sacramento valley. Shamanistic beliefs and practices also varied, although there was everywhere a clear idea of spirits personally acquired and controlled by the medicine-man. Among the northeastern Maidu every shaman's son invariably became a shaman, although only through his own acquisition of spirits, which might be those of his father. In the Sacramento valley spirits were acquired by involuntary dreaming without much regard to heredity. Puberty ceremonies for girls were performed both among the northwestern and northeastern Maidu, perhaps among those of the south also. The mythology of the several Maidu divisions is much more uniform than their religious practices. The creator is always opposed and his beneficent work rendered incomplete by Coyote. It is clear that the mythology of the Maidu is distinctive and much less under Wintun influence than their ceremonies.

Among the Miwok the Coyote largely takes the place of the creator. As among their northern neighbors the Maidu, the mourning ceremony was important, and the two stocks held at least certain dances in common. The individual mourning practices and restrictions of the widow were elaborate and severe. Nothing is as yet known of a secret society, but as both the southern and northern neighbors of the Miwok performed initiation ceremonies, it is likely that they also possessed them.

Among the Yokuts, who occupied the head of the San Joaquin-Tulare valley south of the Miwok, there are no traces of the ceremonial system of the Sacramento valley, which is replaced by public shamanistic ceremonies, in which contests and exhibitions of magic were conspicuous. The annual rattlesnake ceremony which has been described is of this type, as is the Ohowish, a ceremony in which medicine-men from different villages or districts; directed their powers against each other. There seem to have been also certain animal dances among the Yokuts. Medicine-men usually acquired their power by dreaming, sometimes by visions while alone. Bear shamans were known, but were not so much dreaded as farther north. Rain doctors, who could control the weather, were important. Their power was bound up with certain stone amulets evidencing a fetishistic development. Formulae, some with ritualistic accompaniment, were spoken, but differed from those of the Northwest in being short direct prayers or supplications instead of mythical narratives. The creators in Yurok mythology are several animals, the chief of whom is the eagle and among whom Coyote always finds a place. A favorite mythological personage is the prairie-falcon, and a myth which has found a particular development relates the visit of a husband to the world of the dead in pursuit of his wife.

Very little is known of the ethnology of the coast tribes west of the Miwok and Yokuts. Among the Southern Costanoan peoples creation myths resembling those of the Yokuts are found. Coyote is at once a trickster and a giver of civilization and arts to man. Similar ideas probably prevailed among the Salinan tribes. As regards the Esselen and Chumash nothing is known.

Tribes belonging to the great Shoshonean family held almost all the eastern border of the state as well as a large part of the southern desert and coast region. The former inhabited the Great Basin, and are culturally entirely distinct from those of Southern California, of whom alone is there any considerable knowledge extant as regards religion. Certain of the northern groups, such as the Mono, lived on the western or California slope of the Sierra Nevada, in contact with the Yokuts and Miwok, and partook more largely of the culture and presumably religion of these people than of the tribes of the Basin.

Among the Shoshoneans of Southern California, such as the Gabrielino and Luiseno, the so-called Mission Indians, mourning ceremonies were more important than any others, and were held both on the death of a person, sometime afterwards, and again in a still more public manner at large gatherings. At some of these ceremonies images representing the dead, and recalling those of the Maidu far to the north, were burned. One form of mourning ceremony was the Eagle dance, performed with an eagle that was slowly killed as the ceremony went on through the night. Many of the songs of the mourning ceremonies are of mythological content, referring to the great leader or culture-hero Wiyot. The puberty ceremonial for girls was elaborate and contained symbolic actions. The initiation of males was intended for boys, and therefore also took on largely the character of a puberty ceremony. This character was heightened by the presence of numerous ordeals. Part of the initiation of boys consisted of the drinking of jimson-weed. Sand paintings of a very simple type, evidently influenced by basket patterns, but thoroughly symbolic in meaning and therefore essentially of the same nature as those of the Pueblos and Navaho, were made in connection with this initiation. On the whole religious symbolism was more developed than in Central California or even among the Yuman tribes to the east, who are geographically so much nearer the Indians of the Southwest. The shaman acquired his power by dreaming, and the pipe with which he sucked as well as smoked was of the utmost importance to him. Paraphernalia were much used by the shamans, especially boards or wooden swords, which were swallowed and worn as head-dresses. These, however, were not purely fetishistic objects, but of potency rather through symbolism and association. The mythology of the Shoshonean Mission Indians was not essentially different from that of the other Indians of Southern California.

The Yuman family, which is so much represented in Arizona and Lower California, occupied the southernmost portion of Southern California. The Diegueno in the coast mountains and on the coast were culturally similar to the Shoshonean Luiseno, with whom they are generally included as the present Mission Indians. Along the Colorado river the physical and ethnic environment was quite different, but as has already been said, there was much closer resemblance to the Mission Indians in matters of religion than in almost any other phase of culture. The principal Yuman tribes in this Colorado region are the Mohave and the Yuma. The religion of only the former is known, but the two give every evidence of having been very similar. The religion of the Shoshonean Paiute or Chemehuevi in the desert adjoining the Mohave has been largely colored by the influence of the latter. The most distinctive feature of Mohave religion is the insistence upon dreaming as the source of everything religious, although this dreaming must be interpreted rather as a belief in the presence of the individual in spirit form at the great events of mythic times. All myths that are at all of sacred character are believed not to be handed down by tradition, but to be dreamed by each narrator. The shaman receives his power by dreaming ritualistic myths, which reveal to him his practices. The lengthy series of songs which are the essence of all ceremonies, and the mythical narratives connected with them, are also learned in dreams. It is probably a result of this importance of the dream-world and of the identification of myth and ceremony, of religious belief and religious practice, that ritualism is so slightly developed among the Mohave. Their geographical nearness and intercourse with the Hopi and other southwestern tribes, among whom ritualism and symbolism find perhaps their highest development on the continent north of Mexico, would certainly justify a contrary expectation. Both ceremonial actions and ceremonial paraphernalia and dress are developed only to a very slight extent. There is no initiation or society. The singing ceremonies, which with the exception of a few minor observances such as that for a girl's puberty, constitute all the Mohave ceremonies other than mourning ceremonies, are quite numerous, more than twenty being known. Some of these ceremonies are acknowledged to have been borrowed from other Yuman tribes, especially the Yuma, and these Indians no doubt have also acquired Mohave ceremonies. Some of the ceremonies are primarily mythical in character, others somewhat shamanistic. All are also sung in mourning. In addition there is a distinctive mourning ceremony held annually for important men.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Much of the material on which the statements in the preceding essay are based is information collected by the University of California's Ethnological and Archaeological Survey of California since 1901 and as yet unpublished. Of old accounts dealing with the religion of the Indians of California, the best is by the Franciscan missionary Boscana, entitled Chinigchinich and published in the 1846 edition of a volume by A. Robinson called Life in California. It deals with the Shoshonean Indians of Mission San Juan Capistrano. An occasional reference of value may be found in other works, such as Venegas' History of California. The series of translations and republications of early explorers in California and the Southwest, published in the Land of Sunshine, later Out West, beginning in 1899, is also convenient, though naturally it deals but incidentally with religion. Reid's account of the Indians of Los Angeles county, published in an early Los Angeles newspaper and republished by Alexander Taylor in the fourteenth volume of California Farmer in 1861, is particularly good, though less so on the side of religion than on most others. Stephen Powers' Tribes of California, issued in 1877 as the third volume of the Contributions to North American Ethnology, a government series, deals with the Indians of the greater part of the state and contains many references to their religious life. Powers is however often very inexact, and the value of his work is in its comprehensiveness rather than in its reliability. An important work is Creation Myths of Primitive America, by Jeremiah Curtin, which consists of a collection of myths from the Wintun and Yana of Northern California. The differences of form which these myths show from most Indian myths that have been published in translation are apparently chiefly due to the method of their presentation by the author. Curtin's introduction is very suggestive but exaggerated. Professor R. B. Dixon has brought out a paper on Maidu Myths, and another, a great part of which is devoted to religion, on the Northern Maidu, both in the seventeenth volume of the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. These two contributions are among the most careful studies as yet made by a trained observer in any part of the state. The same author has also published briefer articles on Some Coyote Stories from the Maidu Indians of California, System and Sequence in Maidu Mythology, and Some Shamans of Northern California, in recent volumes of the Journal of American Folk-Lore, and on The Mythology of the Shasta-Achomawi in the American Anthropologist for 1905. Professor P. E. Goddard has published Life and Culture of the Hupa, the last portion of which refers to religion; and Hupa Texts (with both interlinear and current translations), almost all of which are religious in character. These two papers constitute Volume I of the University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology. In the Journal of American Folk-Lore for 1906 is a paper by the same author on Lassik Tales. Miss Constance Goddard DuBois has published a number of valuable papers on the Mission Indians, mainly concerning the mythology of the Diegueno, in the volumes of the Journal of American Folk-Lore for 1901, 1904, and 1906. In the American Anthropologist for 1905 Miss DuBois has an article on the Religious Ceremonies and Myths of the Mission Indians, while another paper on The Mythology of the Dieguenos appears in the Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress of Americanists. From the present author there have appeared, in the second and fourth volumes of the series of American Archaeology and Ethnology, of the University of California Publications, Types of Indian Culture in California, in part treating of religion, and Indian Myths from South-Central California; in the Journal of American Folk-Lore between 1904 and 1906, A Ghost Dance in California, Wishosk Myths, and Two Myths of the Mission Indians; in the American Anthropologist for 1902, A Preliminary Sketch of the Mohave Indians. In the American Anthropologist for 1905 and 1906 the late Major H. N. Rust has two brief articles on The Obsidian Blades of California and A Puberty Ceremony of the Mission Indians. The Journal of American Folk-Lore has contained a rather confused article on The Cosmogony and Theogony of the Mojave Indians, by Capt. J. G. Bourke, in 1889, and others by G. W. James, on myths of the Mission Indians of Southern California, in 1902 and 1903. In the same Journal appeared in 1902 An Indian Myth from the San Joaquin Basin by J. W. Hudson, and A Composite Myth of the Pomo Indians by S. A. Barrett in 1906. Since 1906 the Journal has contained a series of Notes on California Folk-Lore.

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