XXXII ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 



the California coast in 1542, but little has been ascertained in 

 respect to their language and its relations to the speech of 

 neighboring tribes. 



Few vocabularies were collected by the early Spanish mis- 

 sionaries and those gathered were very imperfect, so that no 

 conclusions can be based upon them with confidence. 



As a result of the policy pursued by the various missionaries 

 among these docile tribes, aboriginal habits were soon ex- 

 changed for others imposed by the priests. Tribal organiza- 

 tions were broken up and the Indians were removed from their 

 homes and located about the missions. In addition the Span- 

 ish language was early introduced and so far as possible made 

 to replace the aboriginal tongue. As a consequence Spanish 

 became familiar to a large number of the proselytes, and all 

 the surviving Santa Barbara Indians speak Spanish fluently, 

 or rather the Mexican dialect of Spanish. Indeed, the im- 

 pression prevails generally in California that none of the In- 

 dians can speak their own tongue. As a matter of fact, how- 

 ever, in their own families and when away from the white men 

 they discard Spanish entirely. 



The attempt to preserve the language was begun none too 

 soon, as of the large population attributed to this part of the 

 California coast Mr. Henshaw was able to discover onl}^ about 

 fifty survivors, and these were widely scattered over several 

 counties. A number of the dialects of the linguistic family 

 are now extinct, and only a month before Mr. Henshaw's 

 arrival at San Buenaventura an old woman died who, it is 

 believed, was the last person to speak the dialect belonging 

 to the Island of Santa Cruz. In Santa Barbara and Ventura 

 counties six dialects of the family were found, which are be- 

 lieved to be all that are now extant. 



In the case of the dialect of Santa Rosa island, but one Indian 

 remained to speak it. Two more dialects are spoken by two or 

 three individuals only. The existing dialects, named accord- 

 ing to the missions around which they were spoken, are as 

 follows : San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa Island, 

 Purissima, Santa Inez, and San Luis Obispo. With the ex- 

 ception of the last named the several dialects are very 



