THE LAST WILD TRIBE OF CALIFORNIA 233 



THE LAST WILD TRIBE OF CALIFORmA 



Bx Peofessok T. T. waterman 



IN the fall of 1908 some attention was aroused in the press by a story 

 to the effect that hunters had encountered in the state of California 

 a tribe of Indians who were still in the stone age. The idea of a " wild " 

 tribe in a thickly settled region like California was so novel that it served 

 to awaken a very wide interest. The Indians themselves, however, had 

 meanwhile vanished. Some three years later an individual who had all 

 the appearance of belonging to this group was apprehended in northern 

 California. He was put in jail, and a few days later turned over to the 

 university. Since then he has been received everywhere as the last sur- 

 vivor of his tribe. The whole series of incidents deserves some expla- 

 nation. I think it ought to be said at the outset that the story as given 

 in the papers of that period is quite true. The individual captured in 

 1911 was a surviving member of a stone-age tribe. He is still alive and 

 well at the university; and he has given from time to time extremely 

 interesting accounts of the history of his people. 



I should like to explain first of all the rather unusual career of this 

 tribe, and how they happened to remain "wild." The occupation of 

 California by the whites is usually pictured as a peaceful transaction. 

 We hear little of Indian wars in connection with this state. The Cali- 

 fornia tribes pursued, as it happened, a more or less settled mode of life. 

 Being non-migratory, they were peculiarly open to attack and reprisal 

 for any resistance they could have offered to the white invasion. The 

 influx of whites moreover was on the whole so sudden and overwhelming 

 that those Indian disturbances which did occur were soon forgotten. 

 It is quite possible that if California had been settled one family at a 

 time as ISTew England was, "massacres" and "wars" would have oc- 

 curred that would have rung down the ages like the wars waged by the 

 Indians on the Colonies. If there had been a long course of conflicts, 

 our California tribes might have developed a name for ferocity like that 

 enjoyed by the Mohawk, or the Apache. As a matter of fact, the white 

 occupation here was accomplished by violence and bloodshed, and 

 through armed conflict with the natives far and wide. The U. S. Army 

 records show almost as many movements of troops against the Indians 

 as occurred in any other area of the same extent. The whole period of 

 " occupation " was so short, however, that Indian troubles for the most 

 part were soon things of the past. 



