SOME PRIMITIVE CALIFORNIANS. 



493 



and almost seems to live in, the happy days before the Gringos 

 came. This was her story : When she came as a girl to live on 

 the Robles Ranch, there were three Indian rancherias within a 

 mile of her home, one marked by the mound, and two others not 

 far from the present 

 station of Castro ; but 

 the Indians who lived 

 on the mound had al- 

 ready deserted it, for 

 when the Mission Fa- 

 thers came to Santa 

 Clara, the allegiance 

 of the Indians was 

 soon divided : some 

 welcomed the new 

 life and the new faith, 

 and learned to pray 

 and to hoe corn, to 

 string rosaries, and to I'^io. 6. 



weave tule sombre- 

 ros ; while others still chose " the winds of freedom," and thought 

 that acorns, clams, and fetiches would do very well for them. 

 Among those who chose to be wild heathen still were the Indians 

 of the Robles Rancheria ; so they left their immemorial village 

 site and went off down the San Joaquin Valley to Tulare, and 

 were never seen again. 



This story is confirmed by the fact that in our excavations we 

 found no trace of any trade with whites no glass beads, no bit of 

 iron ; this is noteworthy, since nearly all the known sites of old 

 rancherias in California yield European beads in greater or less 

 plenty. We had, therefore, by great good luck, been excavating 

 a really prehistoric rancheria untouched by any foreign influence. 

 On showing the various objects we had found to Donna Maria, 

 she recognized their use at a glance, with the exception of the 

 charm stones, which puzzled her ; she confirmed, however, the 

 statements which we had heard before as to the use of the sharp- 

 pointed bones as hair ornaments. The manners and customs of 

 these Indians were probably much the same as of those who 

 went on living at the two neighboring rancherias, and with the 

 latter Donna Maria was well acquainted, for, as she said, she had 

 " danced with them often when a girl." 



Piecing together our finds and the story of Donna Maria, the 

 life of the Robles Rancheria reconstructs itself as follows : A 

 little Indian village lies half hidden in great oak groves near San 

 Francisco Bay, close by a spring oozing up under shady willows ; 

 an irregular circle of huts made of poles covered with rushes and 



