DIVISION ON:^ — PRE-PASADENIAN. 2^ 



favorite food was the kernel of a species of plum, which grows in the moun- 

 tains and islands. It is sometimes called the mountain cherry, although it 

 partook little of either, having a large stone wrapped in fiber and possessing 

 little pulp.* Chia, which is a small, gray, oblong seed, was procured from 

 a plant apparently of the thistle kind, having a number of seed vessels on a 

 straight stalk, one above the other, like sage.f This, roasted and ground, 

 made a meal which was eaten, mixed with cold water, being of a glutinous 

 consistence and very cooling. Pepper seed (chilis) were also used ; likewise 

 the tender tops of wild sage. Salt was used sparingly, as they considered 

 it as having a tendency to turn the hair gray. All their food was eaten 

 cold or nearly so." 



In addition to what Hugo Reid says above, it appears from other writers 

 that they also used prickly pears (fruit of the broad-leaved cactus), the suc- 

 culent water cress, the root of some species of flag, wild barley (or wild oats, 

 avena fatua) and various kinds of grass seeds — besides birds' eggs, of which 

 a healthy quail usually lays from twelve to twenty in a season ; and thus it 

 will be seen that the range of their dietary was not so very limited after all. 

 They also used the native wild berries, some varieties of which are passably 

 edible, as I have myself tested. These are, blackberries ; one species of 

 gooseberries ; nightshade berries ; some portions of the elderberry crop ; 

 manzanita berries ; grapes ; canyon bush cherries. 



The next historic point in regard to these Pasadenaland Indians is the 

 founding of a Mission among them. 



THE INDIAN RELIGION. 



The native Indians of Pasadenaland were very religious, in their rude way, 

 and that accounts for their being so early and so easily brought under the 

 religious influence of the Mission Fathers. Several of the pioneer mission- 

 aries, as Junipero Serra, Crespi, Boscana, and others have left some accounts 

 of the religious ideas and customs of these aborigines, besides such secular 

 writers as Gov. Pages, Hugo Reid, etc. In the Thompson & West " His- 

 tory of Ivos Angeles County," on page 15, J. Albert Wilson summarizes the 

 matter in perhaps as fair shape as it can well be done in so brief a space ; 

 and as this summary applies in particular to the Indian predecessors 125 

 years ago of the church-going people of Pasadena to-day, I make free to 

 quote it : 



" They believed in one God, the Creator, whose name — "Qua-o-ar," 

 was rarely spoken, and never save in a low and reverend voice. They 

 usually referred to him by one of his attributes, " Y-yo-ha-ring-nain " — 

 "The Giver of I^ife." They had but one word for life and soul. Their 

 theology knew no devil, and no hell, prior to the advent of the missionaries ; 

 and they have ever since maintained that these, being a foreign innovation, 



*This wild cherry grows abuudaiitlj' in the West San Gabriel and intramontane Arroyo Seco 

 canvons ; and during the last week of October, 1S91, myself and wife and H. N. Farey and wife camping 

 there, ate freely of it, both stewed and raw, and found it quite palatable, with a distinct cherrj-ish flavor 

 when fully ripe. 



tThis " shafted-ball thistle" I have seen growing abundantly near Monrovia and through the valley 

 eastward ; it is also found about Pasadena. It is the Salvia colnmbariae of botany, a species of sage, 

 although prickly like a thistle. 



