Evidently if a still later religious movement developed as an elaboration or addition of the Kuksu Cult, it should be less widely diffused than this system, forming a sort of nucleus within the core. Actually there is such a later growth. This is the Hesi Dance, confined to the Patwin and Maidu of the lower Sacramento valley ([Fig. 32]), and regarded by them as the most sacred portion of the Kuksu system. It is the one of all their rituals into which the largest number of differently garbed performers enter, and is made twice a year as the spectacular beginning and finale of the series of lesser Kuksu dances.
The history of native ritual in Central California thus is fairly plain. Early in the Third Period, perhaps already during the Second, the specialists in religion, the medicine-men, had acquired the habit of giving public demonstrations. This resulted in a bond of fellowship among themselves and a sense of exclusiveness toward the community as a whole. Out of this sense there was elaborated during the Third Period, somewhere about the lower Sacramento Valley, the idea of an organized secret society with initiated members. The performances became more and more elaborate, and the production of proof of supernatural power gradually crystallized into impersonations of deities. By the beginning of the Fourth Period, the Kuksu Cult had been established. During this period, it was carried from the center of origin to its farthest limits, whereas at the center the Hesi Dance was evolved as a characteristic addition. If native development had been able to proceed undisturbed, if, for instance, the coming of the white race had been deferred a few centuries longer, the Hesi might have followed the diffusion of the earlier Kuksu Cult; and while this new spread was in progress, the Patwin who form the central nucleus of the whole Kuksu-Hesi movement might have been devising a still newer increment to the system.
159. Third and Fourth Periods in Southern California: Jimsonweed and Chungichnish
The Southern California Jimsonweed Rites are quite distinct from the Kuksu Cult in their regalia, dances, and teachings, but are also based on initiation. It may therefore be concluded, first, that they grew up contemporaneously in the Third Period; and next, that they sprang out of the same soil, a growing tendency of the medicine-men toward professional association. The selection of the jimsonweed as the distinctive element in the south seems to have been due to influences from Mexico and the Southwest. The tribes of Arizona and New Mexico use the plant in religion, the Aztecs ascribed supernatural powers to it, and the modern Tepecano of Mexico pray to it like a god. The Spanish-American name for the plant, toloache, is an Aztec word. Because Mexican civilization was so much the more advanced, it seems likely that the use of jimsonweed originated in Mexico, was carried into the Southwest, and from there spread into Southern California—perhaps at the receptive moment when the medicine-men’s associations were drawing more closely together and feeling the need of some powerful emotional element to lend an impetus to their cults.
While the Jimsonweed religion was followed by Californian tribes from the Yokuts on the north to the Diegueño on the south, its most elaborate forms occur among groups near the center of Southern California, especially the Gabrielino of Los Angeles and Catalina Island. This group associates the greatest number of rituals and dances with the Jimsonweed Society, and is therefore likely to have had the leading share in the working out of the religion.
By the opening of the Fourth Period the Gabrielino must have had the Jimsonweed Rites pretty fully developed, while the peripheral tribes like the Yokuts and Diegueño were perhaps only learning the religious use of the drug. The Gabrielino however did not stand still during this Fourth Period, and while the original rather simple Jimsonweed Rites spread north and south, they were adding a new element. This is the Chungichnish Cult, based on belief in a great, wise, powerful god of this name, to whom are due the final ordaining of the world and the institution of the Jimsonweed Rites and their correct performance. Associated with this belief is the use of the “ground painting.” This is a large picture, usually of the world, drawn in colored earths, sands, seeds, or paints, on the floor of the sacred enclosure in which the Jimsonweed rituals were practised. This ground painting served both as an altar for the rites and as a means of instructing the initiates (§ [192], [193]). The custom of this sacred painting became firmly established among the Gabrielino, and is known to have spread from them to other tribes, such as the Luiseño. From these it has been carried, in part during the last century, after the white man was in the land, to still more remote tribes like the Diegueño, who recognize the Gabrielino island of Catalina as the source of the Chungichnish Cult and sing its songs to Gabrielino words ([Fig. 32]).
160. Third and Fourth Periods on the Lower Colorado: Dream Singing
In Southeastern California, among the tribes of the Lower Colorado River, the Third and Fourth Periods are less easily distinguished. The reason for this seems to be the fact that religion developed among these tribes less through the invention or establishment of new elements, than by the lopping away of older ones, with the result of a rather narrow specialization on the few elements that were retained. Tribes like the Yuma and Mohave scarcely danced for religious purposes. The special costumes, showy feather headdresses, disguises, musical instruments, sand-paintings, altars, and ritualistic processions that mark the Kuksu and Jimsonweed cults, were lacking among them. They did adhere to the widespread and ancient idea that dreams are a source and evidence of supernatural power. In short, their religion turned inward, not outward. Instead of their medicine-men forming a society based on initiation, the Colorado River tribes came to feel that every one might be a medicine-man according to his dreams. They put emphasis on these internal experiences. The result has been that they believe that a legend can be true and sacred only if it has been dreamed, and that a man’s songs should be acquired in the same way. Religion, therefore, is an intensely individualistic affair among them. Since no two men can dream quite alike, no two Yumas or Mohaves tell their myths or sing their song cycles identically. This cast to their religion is so strong that it looks to be fairly ancient. The beginnings of this local type of religion may therefore be set in the Third Period. As for the Fourth Period, it may be inferred that this chiefly accentuated the tendencies developed in the Third, the dream basis augmenting as ceremonialism dropped away.