THE SO-CALLED CALIFORNIA ''DIGGERSr 201 



THE SO-CALLED CALIFORNIA "DIGGERS." 



By MABEL L. MILLER. 



TWO years ago I began to collect notes bearing on the settle- 

 ments, manners, and customs of Indian tribes once inhabit- 

 ing the country along the banks of the Sacramento and Feather 

 Rivers, from the American River, north to Chico Creek and east- 

 ward into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. These tribes have been 

 considered the lowest type of California Indians ; but by force of 

 changed environment the few remaining are giving up their wild 

 ways and adopting civilization, even Christianity. They have 

 always been misunderstood and often misjudged: the very name 

 " Digger," by which these Indians are known, is a misnomer and 

 a term of reproach, which they have always resented. It is of 

 uncertain origin. Old settlers say that they did not hear the 

 name until some time after the year 1841, when it was first used 

 by an abandoned type of white men in allusion to the Indian 

 custom of digging camass root for food. Immigrants became 

 familiar with the name, and the appellation soon spread. With- 

 out doubt the name originated in the Rocky Mountains ; there 

 might have been a band or village of the Shoshones, or of some 

 kindred tribe, that bore a name so closely resembling the word 

 " digger " as to be easily corrupted into it. 



White people scarcely ever pronounce Indian names correctly. 

 The miners and immigrants of early days spoke of the Nem-Sa- 

 Win Indians as the Nimshews; the Sulam-Sa-Wins as the Sulam- 

 shews ; and the Kem-Sa-Wins as the Kimshews. There are min- 

 ing camps designated after each of these clans or villages, but 

 named in the miner's dialect. The inappropriate name of " Dig- 

 ger," therefore, is not a tribal name. No tribal name has ever 

 been found, although the Ethnological Bureau at Washington 

 has sent men here to study the language and character of these 

 Indians ; these men gave them the name of Midu, which they 

 understood to mean man, but this is not a tribal name. 



There is no tribal name, because there is no tribe. One of the 

 first things that strikes the observer is the fact of the entire sepa- 

 ration of these Indians into local units or villages, each bearing 

 its own name and having its own chief. On this point we have 

 the evidence of General John Bid well, of Chico, who came to 

 California in the year 1841 ; he has figured largely in the history 

 of the northern part of the State, and has had large experience 

 among these Indians. I have also met other old settlers, com- 

 panions of such men as Kit Carson, Joe Walker, Pegleg Smith, 

 and Isaac Graham, all men with whom Indian life and experi- 

 ence and the names of Indian tribes were subjects of constant 



VOL L. 17 



