My inquiries as to how civilized men could commit such atrocities found the following answers:—
In 1864 there was a large floating and mining population in Northern California, which “had no use for Indians,” and was ready to kill them on slight provocation. In distinction to these people was a small number of settlers who lived among the Yanas in friendship, and hired them to work on land. The killing was done by men who did not know the Yanas. Those settlers who did know the Yanas were overawed, and were unable to save them, except secretly, as in the case of the two men who rescued the three women on Little Cow Creek by conveying them beyond danger. Oliver and Disselhorst, who saved twelve, were at the edge of Redding, where support was possible. At first the rage of the killing parties was boundless; they swore that white women would not be murdered again in that country, and that not an Indian should be left alive in it. An intense feeling of indignation at the murder, coupled with an unspeakable contempt for Indians, was the motive in the breasts of most of the white men. Had they looked on the Yanas with ordinary feelings of justice, they would have tried to find the guilty instead of slaughtering a whole nation. There was another element among the slayers of the Indians,—a vile one, an element which strives to attach itself to every movement, good or bad in all places—a plundering element. That year the Yanas had worked a good deal, and it was not uncommon for single persons of them to have from $40 to $60. One informant told me that a man showed a friend of his $400 which he had taken from murdered Indians. Money and everything of value that the Yanas had was snatched up by these robbers.
Nearly all the men who killed the Yanas have gone out of the country or are dead. A few are in Northern California yet, and the children of some of the dead ones are living there now. Though one’s indignation at the deeds of 1864 be great, there is no use in mentioning names at this hour. All that is left is to do for the poor remnant of an interesting people that which we have done for Indians in other parts: give them land properly surveyed and the means to begin life on it.
THE WINNING OF HALAI AUNA
The Yanas were fond of astronomical myths, or myths of the upper world. The morning star and the moon appear in them frequently. The great sweat-house of the sun is the dome of heaven.
The name of the mysterious and mighty old uncle, Igupa Topa, seems to me to be derived from Iguna, chief sweat-house, and Tuina or Toina, the sun. Tuina is the prevailing pronunciation, but Toina is used also. Igupa is the regular form of son of Iguna, as is Topa of Toina. He is a person whose strength is well known to the sun, who has evidently a clear perception of how dangerous a person he is.
The shooting of Wakara into the sky is a curious variant of the tree-bending by Tulchuherris and Sas in the Wintu myth.
THE HAKAS AND THE TENNAS
This myth describes a deadly feud between the people who were turned into flint, that is, fire, presumably lightning, and the grizzlies or cloud people. After I had prevailed on him to give me the story, the narrator told it with unfeigned delight. His sympathy with the old woman Tsuwalkai was great, and his enthusiasm for Tsawandi Kamshupa, who rose from the spittle of Tsawandi Kamshu, evident and striking. The origin of Ilhataina in this myth and in the following called “Ilhataina,” which is the usual name for lightning, strengthens my view that the Wintu Tulchuherris, a name which is merely an epithet, meaning “dug up,” is the same person as Ilhataina of the Yanas. The regular acknowledged lightning of the Wintus is called Walokit, who is a child of Wima Loimis, grizzly bear maiden, and the sun.