STUDYING THE MISSION INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 

 AND THE TAOS OF NEW MENICO 



r.v J. p. HARRINGTON, 



EtlDiohxjis! , Bur can of American lifhnului/y 



A douljle veil has l)een drawn over the Mission IncUans of CaH 

 fornia. Thev (Wd not yield their civilization directly to the Americans, 

 as did the Indians elsewhere in the state, Init first to a Spanish culture, 

 which persisted for only two or three generations, hut strongly. At 

 the same time the Mission area covers the picturesque shores of the 

 southern half of California, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, 

 and San Diego, the portion of the state which now holds the center 

 of population and the focus of interest. To piece together the life 

 of its red men is. therefore, douhly difficult and important. 



Both field and office study hy the writer in 1928 hore on the 

 preparation of two monographic manuscripts for publication by the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, one on the Chumashan Mission 

 Indians of California, the other on the Taos Indians of New Mexico. 

 The beginning of the year found him in California enga.ged in field- 

 work at Santa Barbara. In March he returned to the Bureau, and 

 in July took the field again, proceeding first to California and then to 

 New Mexico, returning to Washington in October and spending the 

 remainder of the }ear in the elaboration of his recent and earlier 

 notes. 



The Calif (jrnian work consisted of recording the knowledge of sur- 

 viving Indians and of searching- the Mission archives and the Ban- 

 croft Librarv at I Berkeley for historical documents which might furnish 

 information on the all but obliterated customs of these Indians. The 

 historical search especially was richly rewarded by the discovery of 

 several new manuscript sources. 



As regards their ethnology, the Chumashan Indians are in a pecu- 

 liarly unfortunate position. Instead of preserving their aboriginal 

 customs up to 1850, as did most of the California Indians, they were 

 forced to give them up considerably earlier, as their territory was 

 included in that colonized by the Spanish in the eighteenth century, and 

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