178 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1900. 



of the city schools, htis also tukcii a deep interest in local archaeology 

 and kindly drov^c out with our party to the neighboring flats, where a 

 number of mounds were examined. 



The objects shown in the accompanying plptes belong to the 

 Stockton collections or were presented to the U. S. National Museum 

 by Stockton collectors. Brief descriptions are given in connection 

 with the plates and more detailed information may be obtained from 

 the writings of Mr. Meredith.^ 



TULARE RESERVATION, TULARE COUNTY. 



On our way south from San Francisco to Los Angeles we made it a 

 point to stop at Porterville, in Tulare County, long enough to pay a 

 visit to the Tulare Indians'^ located on South Fork of Tule River, 20 

 miles eastward from the village. Their reservation was originally 

 situated on the fertile lowlands where the river valley opens out upon 

 the plain, but this land was acquired by the whites and is now largely 

 under cultivation. The Indians were removed to the upper valley, 

 where they now dwell in comfortable, though simple, frame houses. 

 Here the narrow, rocky banks of the river rise abruptly into massive 

 and precipitous mountains. It is indeed a secluded and lonely spot, 

 an ideal retreat for the humble remnant of a people once laying claim 

 to the broad, rich lowlands now traversed by railways and dotted with 

 incipient cities. The houses are scattered at short intervals for 2 or 3 

 miles along the valley. A little farming is done and some stock is 

 kept, and there is a school near the agent's residence, attended at the 

 present time by twentv or thirty children. 



Near the upper end of the reservation a most interesting spot, known 

 as Painted Rock, or The Painted Rocks, was visited. Here the little 

 stream is confined to a narrow gorge bordered by enormous masses of 

 granite, over which the torrents pour in the wet season. At the sides, 

 however, there is enough comparatively level ground to accommodate 

 dwellings and small fields. This site, it appears, was a favorite resort 

 of the native peoples, the Tulares or their predecessors, for a long 

 period of years. The protected surfaces of the great granite blocks 

 are still covered with s3anbolic paintings in bright colors, and some of 

 the flatter exposed surfaces are pitted with mortar basins wherein the 

 women of many generations have come to grind acorns and seeds. In 

 Plate 29 are shown two excellent illustrations of one of these milling 

 places, there being between forty and fifty more or less deeply sunken 

 conical mortars visible. Another large, rounded mass near by con- 

 tains upward of seventy-five of these pits, varying from shallow 

 basins or incipient mortars to conical depressions a foot in depth. 



1 H. C. Meredith in Moorehead's Prehistoric Implements, p. 258; Land of Sun- 

 shine, October, 1899; American Archaeologist, II, p. 310. 



'•'The Yokuts of Powers. Tribes of California, Contributions to North American 

 Ethnology, III, p. 369. 



I 



