Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Trade and Trails in Aboriginal California (September 1950) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Author: L. L. Sample Publisher: UC Archaeological Survey Published: September 1950 # of Pages: 32 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2016-03-29 10:08:48 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 05:54:06 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 05:54:06

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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-kthose at the head of the south fork of the American River. ‘While crossing the summit of the Sierras in this peeion while it was still wintcr, Fremont found Washo crossing to the west. The Paiute carried trade articles to the iwok, to the Westcrn Mono (tionachi) and to the Yokuts. The iiono ogly occasionally went cast across the Sierras to the Owens Valley Paiute,” but they made trips to the Yokuts trading their own products and those obtained from the Paiute, T. J. Mayfield, who grew up with Yokuts, maintained that, the Yokuts and Mono being essentially unfriendly to one another » the trading was carried on by a few members who made a business of it. The Miwok and Yokuts made trips into Costanoan territory to trade; the Yokuts also traveled to the Salinan and Chumash on the coast. The Tubatalabal went as far cast as Randsburg on the Mohave Desert, southwest of Tejon and west to the Chumash area around Ventura, and to Tulare Lake. The Chumash may have come occasionally as far as Tubatalabal territory.°~ Mason says that "numerous items make it appear that the Salinan Indians mage trips to the Tulare Lakes as well as receiving those people as visitors.°* The coast people probably did return the visits of some Yokuts tribes, but these trips appear not to have been continuous or regular. 3 The Salinans were cnomics of the Costanoans on the north and, according to Kroeber, were too far away from the Chumash for trading. It is also possible that the products of these two coastal peoples wore cnouzh alike that the intcrior Yokuts articles held greater trade value to both. In the far south the Kamia and Diegueno visited each other regularly. The Eastern Diegueno living in the mountal ps.» usually came in the cold season when thcy were running low on food. > The Yumas wandered extensively up and down the Colorado. They traveled to the terri pory of and received visits from Halchidoma, Mohave, Yavapai, and Papago. Some of the longest trips in California were made by the Mohave traveling to the California coast to trade with the Chumash, to the lower San Joaquin Valley to trade with the Yokuts, into Arizona to trade with the Yavapai and others. They were the distributors of Southwest material in Califomia. Trade between southern California and the Southwest has been demonstrated archacologically. Pacific coast shells have been found in Pueblo ruins. According to Brand, nine species of shells found in 132 Southwestern archacological sites could have come only from approximately what is now the Southern California coaste*“! This trade was already important by 900 A. D. (some trading may have taken place carlicr) as inferred from dating of Southwestern sites in which Pacific Coast Haliotis sp. and Olivella biplicata are found and from dated Southwestern pottery shards found in Pacific Coast shell mounds.28 Grooved axes of Southwestern origin have been found in the Santa Barbara Channel region and sporadically as far north as the Oregon line.®? An interesting archaeological specimen is a Glycymeris shell bracelet found in Orange County, Southern Californiae Glycymeris shell was a Gulf of California shell traded into Arizona. A. Woodward says that the carving on the Orange County specimen is reminiscent of Gila Valley work, 30 That the coast Indians were in contact with the Colorado River tribes is documented in historic sources. The Spanish mission padres were constantly hearing Coast Indian rumors of white, bearded and armoured mon to the east, Cabillo in 1542 was told by the Chumash that armed and mounted men were scon to the easta reference, with little doubt, to the Coronado expeditionary forcee Garces in 1776 was told by Mohave Indians that they would gladly guide him across the desert-they were used to making the trip to the coast. On the trip along the Mohave trai], Garces met two groups of Mohave returning from the west with shells, He was amazed to find thom making the trip without provisions or weapons to hunt. Without burdens of this kind the Indians said that they could cross the desert in four days. At the edge of the San Joaquin Valley the Mohave guides refused to go north. They said that