Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Letter from Yuba, Empire Ranch (1855) (4 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 4
other Indians of a certain district, which is its own for hunting, fishing, gathering nuts
and berries, seeds and roots, grasshoppers and clover. A Mr. Storms, the person
employed by Mr. Henley to treat with the Indians and persuade them to remove has
won King Weimer to his interest, therefore the Indians of his tribe, outside of his
especial clan, will have no more to do with him. Several of the tribe have tried a
residence in the Tulare Valley. Lieutenant Beale had persuaded them to remove; but
when a stranger took his place, all from this vicinity left the Reservation and came
home. They do not bring a favorable report say there is "mucha (much) cold there.”
Though further south the weather is much colder than in this Yuba Valley, just below
the foot hills of the Sierra Nevada. Indeed, there is no warmer place in the State,
perhaps unless it be in a desert. There are no frosts here, and the Indians love their
home. Within half a mile of this ranch is the mound which has for ages been the burying
ground of this whole tribe. Here they bring the ashes of the departed having burned
the body usually where the death occurs. Here they hold their cries for their dead
friends, and here are the cries of the whole tribe in honor of a chief deceased. The
several campondiers (or camps) within a circuit of a dozen miles contain no more than
two hundred and fifty Indians, and perhaps fifty more are scattered around, living with
the Americans. Five years ago the number was often as many as seven hundred
assembled for a dance. They are dying off very fast, and the reason is not because they
have not enough to eat, but their diet is different from what it was. They depend on
flour, which they beg, or buy with gold dust for they mine sometimes and though 'tis
true that game is not now easily taken, fish and birds are still plenty. The Indians take
cold now, because they wear clothes and do not understand their use. If they can get
them, they will put on a half-a-dozen shirts at once, in the warmest day of summer, and
then they know no better than to take off their clothes in a cold storm, lest their
garments get a wetting. It requires more cultivation than the Digger Indians possess to
endure the exposure of civilized life, and slowly will they melt away before it. The
picaninnies (little children) wear no dress in the camp. Some of them are very
beautiful. The older children (the muchachas), the mughers and indianos, are usually
dressed. But in such a storm as this, the shelter of the campondias seems miserable.
The one near here . visited. The tents (or campondias, as they call them,) are made of
cloth whatever they can find, old cabiu covers and blankets spread over a frame work
made of the limbs of a tress. Each family has its own tent. They kindle a fire at the
mouth to keep the dampness out, and there they sit or lie upon the ground, unless they
have a blanket beneath them. They have a big campondier belonging to the tribe, in
which they meet for dances. This is covered with earth, and would furnish a better
shelter for them all than do their cabins. But it is common property, and is sacred. They
need shelter only in the rainy weather. The tent is the place where they store their food
and utensils. Could the government appropriation for the Indians be wisely expended,
by persons interested to make them as comfortable as possible, it seems to me it would
be given to building them homes that should furnish a comfortable shelter in the rainy
season, and to giving them clothes for the cold weather allowing them to remain
where they are. They are now homeless, almost without exception. Capt. Sutter
commenced a discipline that has taught them to fear the Americana, and if there is a