THE WINTUS
The Wintus are a nation or stock of Indians who before the coming of white men owned and occupied all that part of California situated on the right bank of the Sacramento, from its source near the foot of Mount Shasta to its mouth at the northern shore of San Francisco Bay.
These Indians extended into Trinity County on the west, and still farther to the mountain slope which lies toward the Pacific. Only a small number of them, however, were on the western declivity. The great body of the nation lived on the eastern slope of the Coast Range and in the Sacramento Valley. Some of their finest mental productions are connected with the upper course of the Sacramento and with the MacCloud River, or Wini Mem.
It is difficult to determine what the Wintu population was half a century ago, but, judging from the number of houses in villages, the names and positions of which have been given me by old men, I should say that it could not have been less than 10,000, and might easily have been double that number. At present there are not more than 500 Wintus in existence.
The Wintus have suffered grievously; great numbers have been killed by white men, others have perished by diseases brought in by strangers; but those who remain are strong and are more likely to increase than diminish. Times of violence have passed, and the present Wintus are willing and able to adapt themselves to modern conditions.
It may be of interest to readers of these myth tales to know something of the present condition of the Wintus.
In 1889, when I was in California, commissioned by Major Powell for the second time to make linguistic investigations among various tribes of the Pacific coast, a few Wintus came to me in Redding, California, and complained of their wretched condition. There was not a spot of land, they said, where they could build a hut without danger of being ordered away from it. “This country was ours once,” added they, “but the white man has taken all of it.” I told them to bring their people together, and invite also the Yanas, who had suffered more than all other people of that region, and then explain to me what was needed.
The two peoples met on a little stony field in a brushy waste outside the inhabited part of Redding. There they made speeches and discussed matters for three hours the first day and as many the second. They gave me all the points of what they wanted, which was simply that the United States should give each man of them a piece of land, with help to begin life on it. I jotted down in brief form what they had told me, read it to them, and they were satisfied. Next day the paper was copied in the form of a petition from the two nations to President Harrison. They signed the petition before a Redding notary, and gave it to me with a request to lay it before the President.
Early in 1890 I was in Washington. Anxious to win the case of my poor Indian friends,—or “Diggers,” as some men are pleased to call them contemptuously,—I looked around for a Congressman of influence to go with me to support the petition before the President. I found no suitable person till I met my classmate and friend, Governor Greenhalge of Massachusetts, at that time a member of Congress. When he heard the tale of the Yana massacre and realized the sad plight of the Wintus, he offered at once to cooperate with me. He went to the President and explained the affair to him. Two or three days later he accompanied me to the White House. I gave the petition to President Harrison, who promised to favor it with his executive initiative. He did this so earnestly and with such emphasis that an agent was appointed very soon to find land for those Indians. The agent found land for them in various places, but within the radius of their former possessions. The condition of the Wintus at present is this: They have lands which are described, but in most cases the boundaries are not indicated by any material mark, or at least very few of them are; white men are trespassing, and it is impossible for the Indians to protect themselves till their boundaries are fixed tangibly. They will not have the means to begin serious work till they receive assistance. They are waiting now in hope that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs will have their lands surveyed, and that Congress will make a small appropriation for their benefit. This is the extent of their hopes and wishes. They are very glad to have land, and the majority of them will make fairly good use of it. When I met them in 1895, they were very grateful for the part which I had taken in settling them in life, adding that they could not have settled themselves unassisted. As to me, I cannot but make an emphatic acknowledgment of the generous and effective aid given by Governor Greenhalge.
“Olelbis,” the first myth published in “The Sun” (March 29, 1896), was preceded by the following brief introduction:—