Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian War of 1851, Which Led to That Event

by Lafayette Houghton Bunnell

CACHES OR INDIAN ACORN STOREHOUSES.

There were in the country we passed over, some beautiful mountain meadows and most luxuriant forests, and some of the sloping table lands looked like the ornamental parks of an extensive domain. These oak-clad tables and ridges, were the harvest fields of the San Joaquin Indians, and in their vicinity we found an occasional group of deserted huts. These, with their adjacent supplies of acorns, were at once given to the flames. The acorns found and destroyed by the scouting parties, were variously estimated at from eight hundred to one thousand bushels; beside the supply of Piñon pine-nuts and other supplies hoarded for future use. The pine-nuts were not all destroyed by fire; most of them were confiscated, and served as a dessert to many a roast.

From the total amount of acorns estimated to have been destroyed, their supplies were comparatively small, or the number of Indians on the San Joaquin had been, as in other localities, vastly overrated. Our search was thoroughly made—the explorations from day to day, extending from our camps over the whole country to an altitude above the growth of the oaks. During these expeditions, not an Indian was seen after those noticed on the upper San Joaquin; but fresh signs were often discovered and followed, only to be traced to the rocky cañons above where, like deceptive “ignes fatui,” they disappeared.

Being allowed the largest liberty as surgeon to the expedition, I had ample time to examine the various things found in their camps, and obtain from Sandino all the information I could concerning them. The stone arrow-heads and their manufacture, especially interested me. I found considerable quantities of the crude material from which they were made, with many other articles brought from other localities, such as resin, feathers, skins, pumice-stone, salt, etc., used in the manufacture of their implements of war, and for the chase as well as for domestic uses.

At this time but few guns were in the possession of these mountain tribes. Their chief weapons of war and for the chase were bows and arrows. With these they were very expert at short range, and to make their weapons effective were disposed to lay in ambush in war, and upon the trails of their game. Their bows were made from a species of yew peculiar to the West, from cedar and from a spinated evergreen tree, rare in Southern California, which, for want of scientific classification, I gave the name of “nutmeg pine.” It bears a nut resembling in general appearance that agreeable spice, while the covering or pulpy shell looks very much like mace. The nut is, however, strongly impregnated with resin. The leaves are long, hard, and so sharp that the points will pierce the flesh like sharp steel. The wood is stronger and more elastic than either the yew, cedar or fir. It is susceptible of a fine polish. I made a discovery of a small cluster of this species of tree at the foot of the cascades in the cañon, two miles below the Yosemite valley, while engaged in a survey of that locality.[12]

The shafts of their arrows are made of reeds, and from different species of wood, but the choicest are made of what is called Indian arrow-wood (Le Hamite). This wood is only found in dark ravines and deep rocky cañons in the mountains, as it seems to require dampness and shade. Its scarcity makes the young shoots of a proper growth a very valuable article of barter between the mountain tribes and those of the valleys and plains. A locality in the Yosemite valley once famous for its supply of this arrow-wood, was the ravine called by the Yosemites “Le Hamite,” (as we might say “the oaks,” or “the pines,”) but which is now designated as “Indian Cañon.”

Their arrow-shafts are first suitably shaped, and then polished between pieces of pumice stone. This stone was also used in fashioning and polishing their bows, spear-shafts and war clubs. Pumice stone is found in abundance in the volcanic regions of California and Oregon, and east of the Sierra Nevada. The quality of the best observed by me, was much finer and lighter than that seen in the shops as an article of commerce. The arrow heads are secured to the shaft by threads of sinew, and a species of cement used for that and other purposes. The arrow-heads made and in most common use by the California Indians, as well as by many other tribes in the mountain ranges of the West and Southwest, are of the same shape and general appearance, and of similar material, with the exception of obsidian and old junk bottles, as the arrow heads found in all parts of the United States. They have been generally supposed to have been made and used by the pre-historic races that once inhabited this continent. The bow and arrows were in common use by the aborigines when America was first discovered, and their use has been continued to the present time among the tribes whose limited territories were not to any extent intruded upon by the whites.

The Indians of California, unlike those of Southern Mexico and South America, who use the woorara (strychnos toxifera), poison their arrow-heads with the poison of the rattlesnake. Some animal’s liver is saturated with the poison and left until it reaches a state of thorough decomposition, when the barbs are plunged into the festering mass, withdrawn and dried. The gelatinous condition of the liver causes the poison to adhere to the stone, and the strength of the poison is thus preserved for some days. Only those arrow-heads that are inserted into a socket, and held in place by cement, are thus poisoned. These are easily detached after striking an object (the concussion shattering the cement, and the play of the shaft loosening the barb), and are left to rankle in the wound.

According to Russio, however, this practice is now seldom resorted to, except in revenge for some great or fancied injury, or by the more malignant of a tribe, Indian policy seeming to discountenance a former custom.