42 EXPLORATIONS OP INDIAN GRAVES. 



Continuing our excavations in No. 2, a long, straight pipe and a small mortar 

 having a handle (the first of its kind), and containing red paint, were found, and near 

 the latter a pipe only partially bored out. On the opposite side of the creek a trench 

 was opened beneath a gigantic piece of whalebone, but several hours' work revealed 

 nothing but broken bones, and it was abandoned and work resinned in Nos. 1, 2, and 3. 

 During the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th, the excavating was continued, resulting in the 

 discovery of mortars, ollas, pipes, etc., and curiously enough in No. 3 of no fewer than 

 30 skeletons which had been buried in sea-sand, and under which were 3 fine stone 

 spearheads and some fragments of iron. In No. 2 were several large ollas and mor- 

 tars, and near the head of a skeleton, presumably that of a female, some china cups 

 and saucers of very ancient shape. The time allotted to these explorations having 

 now nearly expired, the remainder of our stay was devoted to filling up holes and 

 packing the specimens. The specimens were roughly estimated as weighing from 10 

 to 15 tons. 



Regarding the people of whom we have been speaking, and of whom no repre- 

 sentative remains to tell of their history, but little could be learned; the crumbling 

 bones and household gods we had so ruthlessly disturbed, were the only witnesses of 

 the former existence of a once populous race; but beyond this they made no revelation, 

 while careful examination of the entire literature of the Pacific coast proved fruitless 

 iu throwing light on these early generations. All the Avriters who speak of these In- 

 dians, and it is but fair to state that few, if any, of them were possessed of original 

 information on the subject (having gathered their materials from Ferrel's narrative), 

 are of the opinion that they were friendly, peaceable, and inoffensive, which opinion 

 is enforced by the absence in their graves of warlike implements to any extent. Ca- 

 brillo states that they were armed with bows, the arrows being pointed with flint 

 heads, simUar to those used by the Indians of New Spain; he also speaks of clubs, 

 but mentions no other weapon. As to population, he states that on some of the islands 

 there were no people, but that others were densely populated; the former we have not 

 been able to identify. The Indians told him they had occasionally suffered from the 

 attacks of warriors armed like the Spaniards, and from the fact that toward the middle 

 of the eighteenth century the mission priests of Santa Barbara removed their savage 

 parishioners from the islands to the mainland to escape the ravages of the Russians 

 and their Kodiak allies, it is supposed that this warfare had been going on for a num- 

 ber of years. As to the extent of the population we can form an idea only from the 

 number of burials, at different points, and villages, the names of which have been 

 handed down to us through Cabrillo. At a rough guess, our party must have exposed 

 at their main trenches the remains of no fewer than 5,000 individuals, and, from what 

 we have subsequently learned, .there are hundreds of these burial-places along the 

 coast. 



With regard to the towns, the Indians informed Cabrillo that the whole coast was 

 densely populated from the Pueblo de las Canoas to 12 leagues beyond the Cabo de 

 Galera (Point Concepcion), and gave him the names of these towns; from the extended 

 list it may be inferred that a large population once lived in the region explored. 



With regard to the time that these people disappeared we can only conjecture. 

 Prom the Mission records it appeal's that in 1823 the total number of Indians in the 

 vicinity of Santa Barbara was upward of 900, but this census embraced all Indians, 



