The Aboriginal Population of the San Joaquin Valley, California Part 5

On October 16, 1806, having arrived from the San Joaquin River two days previously, Moraga sent out two scouting parties. One went upstream and found a rancheria of "como de 60 almas," called Ayquiche (or Aycayche).

They were no doubt among the Aiticha, above Sanger. Here they heard about, but did not see, six other rancherias "sitas a la orillas del rio por la parte de la sierra." The other party went downstream and found three villages close together on a s.p.a.cious plain along the banks of the river. They had a total of 400 inhabitants, but most of the people had fled. The "List of rancherias visited in this trip and the one in April" gives the names of these villages: Aycayche, which "according to the Indians" had 200 people, Ecsaa with 100, Chiaja with 100, and Xayuase with 100. In addition there was Capitau, which was very small and a "sugeto" of Xayuase. It had about 10 people.

Apparently in October Munoz and Moraga found only 60 Indians left in Aycayche, whereas in April they learned that it really contained 200.

The difference must be ascribed to fugitivism.

The three downstream villages are credited by the "List" with 100 inhabitants apiece, but the diary states that there was a total of 400.

The latter figure is more likely to be correct. Thus, with Aycayche, Moraga saw in this sector four villages and 600 persons. The other group of villages, six in number, was farther toward the mountains and no particular information concerning them is given in the diary. The "List," however, is more explicit. Under Aycayche it is stated:

Aqui hay otras 6 rancherias que no se pudieron reconocer y son todos, segun la noticia de los indios de esta rancheria como del porte de almas de Pizcache.

Pizcache is said to contain 200 souls. An aggregate of 1,200 persons is therefore indicated or, for the entire region seen by Moraga, 1,800.

The middle course of the Kings River has been discussed in the preceding section and it has been pointed out that in the middle of the nineteenth century this region was relatively heavily populated. The accounts of several contemporary observers indicate that in 1850 or thereabouts somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 natives were still to be found between the remnants of the Nutunutu on the west and the foothills Mono on the east. The ethnographic data supplied by Kroeber, Gayton, Latta, and Stewart show approximately 25 villages remembered by informants. If we use the fairly conservative average of 150 persons per village, the total is 3,750. To a.s.sume 3,500 is merely to stay within the bounds of the existing evidence.

If we accept tentatively 3,500 as the number of Indians on the middle Kings River in midcentury, then we are confronted with the problem of backward extrapolation. For the Tulare-Kaweah region the probable decline from 1800 to 1850 was probably to the level of approximately 20 per cent of the original value. Direct application of this factor to the Kings River gives a value for 1800 of 17,500. This is manifestly far too high. For the Mono and the Miwok in the upper foothills many facts point to a population decline to approximately 70 per cent of the prehistoric value. Application of this factor gives 5,000 for the Kings River, a high but not impossible figure.

Other considerations are worth mention at this point. In his diary of 1826 Jose Dolores Pico describes his adventures on the Kings River in January of that year. He was chasing stock thieves and trying to recover stolen animals. From January 10 to January 14 he beat back and forth along the Kings River, from the sloughs to the foothills, attacking every Indian in sight. The results were discouraging. He captured no animals, killed not over a score of natives, and was completely outmanoeuvered by the combined forces of the Wimilchi, the Notontos, and Chukamina. The entire tenor of the doc.u.ment suggests an active, competent, and quite powerful local confederacy of tribes. This diary of Pico describes the only expedition to the Kings River of which we have doc.u.mentary knowledge between 1806 and the coming of the Americans.

These facts suggest, first, that there was a sizable population which managed to maintain itself reasonably well for several decades along the Kings River. Secondly, they suggest that there may perhaps have been a slow migration of the more exposed valley people, like the Nutunutu, higher up the river. Both these factors would tend to keep the population decline to a minimum.

In view of the confusion surrounding the evidence in this area and in view of the apparent inadequacy of the Moraga figures the aboriginal population of the middle Kings River may be set at 5,000, with the full realization that this value represents the best guess under the circ.u.mstances.

The upper river was inhabited by the Mono groups, Holkoma and Wobonuch, for which an 1850 population of 1,700 was computed. The decline to 70 per cent may be accepted here without serious reservation; hence the original number would have been 2,340. Adding the values for the three sectors of the river we get 9,130 or, estimating to the nearest hundred, 9,100.

KINGS RIVER ... 9,100 _____________________

UPPER SAN JOAQUIN, FRESNO, AND CHOWCHILLA RIVERS AND MARIPOSA CREEK

The area between the Merced and the Kings rivers (see maps 1 and 4, area 5), which includes the courses of the upper San Joaquin, the Fresno, and the Chowchilla rivers, together with Mariposa Creek, is very poorly represented in the early doc.u.mentary sources. The central valley itself, as far as the foothills, was apparently traversed by numerous expeditions and raids, and the population was largely missionized, killed, or dispersed. The written record is, however, quite inadequate. It is therefore not feasible to consider each of these river systems separately, as was done in the discussion of the population about 1850. It is preferable to discuss the entire region as a unit and, when necessary, pa.s.s to indirect methods of estimate.

The Pitkachi on the San Joaquin are mentioned in 1806 by Moraga, who allows 200 persons to their rancheria. The tribe appears again in the baptism record of Soledad Mission (MS in the Bancroft Library, Berkeley) according to which 205 Indians from "Picatche" were baptized from 1821 to 1824 and another 18 in 1831. An additional 23 came from rancherias in the vicinity, a total of 246. Another rancheria, Capicha, is referred to by Pico in 1815, who said it was uninhabited at that time, the inhabitants having fled to the mountains. As late as 1853 Wessels said that the Pitcache, together with the Noo-to-ah, a Mono group, numbered 500 to 600 souls. Kroeber mentions three villages remembered by modern informants.

If 246 Indians were baptized in one mission, the tribe as a whole must have numbered at least four times as many, or 1,000. If two fair-sized rancherias are mentioned by the Spanish observers, the entire tribe may well have possessed four or five, which again implies a population of 1,000. If there were approximately 300 survivors in 1853, by comparison with other open valley areas the original population must have been fully three or four times as great, or perhaps 1,200. If three rancherias were known to modern informants, they must formerly have been important places with anywhere from 200 to 400 people, again indicating a total of 1,000 for the tribe.

Concerning the Hoyima there are two references, one by Pico in 1826 and one by Rodriguez in 1828. Pico states merely that he attacked the rancheria and captured 40 gentiles and 1 Christian, a fact which in itself would not furnish a very significant clue to population. He also noted "mucha guesamenta y cueros casi frescos de caballada que habian matado."

The account by Rodriguez is more circ.u.mstantial. This soldier went along the San Joaquin River in late April of 1828. On the 24th he sent a group of men to scout the "rancheria de los Joyimas, que es adonde an comido la caballada." At dawn the next day they attacked the village, "que estaba en medio de los dos brazos del rio" (the San Joaquin west or northwest of Fresno). He captured 26 Indians and 27 animals (horses). Another 60 or 80 horses escaped "en el monte." At about this time a gentile captain came from a rancheria designated Guche or Getche, depending upon how one deciphers the handwriting of the ma.n.u.script. He "vino a los Joyimas a comer caballo." The rancheria named here is probably that of the Heuchi on the Fresno River. This gentile said there was another rancheria "mas arriba" at which there were horses. Rodriguez sent Simeon Castro to investigate. He found no one at the rancheria mentioned but went on 2 leagues to another rancheria, likewise deserted but containing the carca.s.ses of 100 dead horses, which had been slaughtered and were about to be eaten. It was noted by Rodriguez that: "Estas 3 rancherias son una misma que es la de los Jaimes." It was also remarked that the rancheria was divided when the horses arrived in order to eat with less fear of detection. From this account it is clear that the Joyimas had at least three villages.

Allowing somewhat over 300 persons each, the population of the group would reach 1,000.

The slaughtered horses open up an interesting field of speculation. It is clear that by 1828 large segments of the aboriginal population had entirely given up the sedentary ancestral mode of life in favor of an existence based upon stock raiding. To do this it was necessary to recast village life completely--as is suggested by the fact that the rancheria was "divided" when the horses arrived. In order to catch the horses for food other horses were essential for rapid transportation to and from the coastal settlements. New arts and skills had to be learned, and new categories of labor had to be evolved.

Rodriguez found among the Hoyima as a whole 87 to 107 live horses (27 captured, 60-80 in the wilderness), which were presumably about to be killed and eaten, together with 100 animals already slaughtered. The total thus reached approximately 200. The question now is pertinent: how much food can be obtained from 200 horses? If we a.s.sume that each of these relatively light range animals weighed 800 pounds, we may deduct about 25 per cent to account for bones, hide, certain of the viscera, and other inedible parts, leaving 600 pounds which the Indians could and did consume. The aggregate is 120,000 pounds of meat. If this meat was dried and preserved, according to general practice, it was sufficient to supply 329 persons the equivalent of one pound of fresh meat per day for one calendar year. If it had to be consumed immediately or within a few days, and if every man, woman, and child ate 20 pounds apiece, it was adequate for 6,000 people. If the entire tribe, not merely one rancheria, divided the meat into equal shares, and if the tribe numbered 1,000 persons, then the share of each individual amounted to 120 pounds. Whether these figures are strictly accurate is irrelevant. They merely emphasize that a quite sizable group must have been concerned. We may therefore regard the Hoyima as being as large a tribe as the Pitcache, and estimate that the population was at least 1,000.

The remaining two tribes in the valley proper, as listed by Kroeber and others, were the Heuchi and the Chauchila. They occupied the north bank of the Fresno River and the distributaries of the Chowchilla River. The ethnographic data include no more than one or two villages for each tribe. The Heuchi are referred to by Rodriguez, who says that the rancheria of the "Jeuche" was completely deserted. However, since it was the princ.i.p.al tribal village, it must have contained at least 200 persons. The Chauchila were also noticed by Rodriguez, who says that at "Chausila" he "captured" 142 people and "killed many." If we concede that as many escaped as were captured or killed, there must have been fully 400 in all.

The Nupchenches, although they are merely mentioned as a possible tribe by Kroeber (Handbook, p. 485) and are doubtfully recorded by Schenck (1926), occupied an important position in the early nineteenth century.

Indeed, the failure of Kroeber and Schenck to consider them seriously makes it necessary to set forth in some detail the information about them contained in the Spanish reports.

These natives were distributed along the San Joaquin River from its big bend near Mendota to approximately the mouth of the Merced (see map 4, area 5A). The first mention of them is by Moraga in the diary of 1806.

He found two rancherias, Nupchenche with 250 people and Cutucho with 400 souls which was "junto a la primera llamada Nupchenche." This means that Cutucho was close to but at that time not necessarily part of Nupchenche. From the description in the diary Nupchenche was situated at or near the mouth of Santa Rita Slough in T9S, R12E, and this is almost exactly where Schenck places it on his map (Schenck, 1926, p.

133). The next visitor who left a record was Jose Dolores Pico in 1815.

On November 7 he left San Luis Gonzaga in western Merced County (in approximately T10S, R8E) and went east to the Tulares at "Arroyo nombrado San Jose," which was close to the rancheria of the Cheneches.

At dawn of the 8th he attacked the village and captured 66 persons, but "... la mayor parte de esta gente se fue p^{r} estar dha rancheria en mal parage." The gentiles said that 4 leagues up the San Joaquin River was Nupchenche, thus placing Cheneches on the river in the southern part of T8 S, R11E. This location checks well with the statement made elsewhere in the diary by Pico that Cheneches was near the junction of the San Joaquin and "Las Mariposas," or Mariposa Creek. If Pico captured 66 persons but "the majority" escaped, the total number must have reached from 200 to 400, if not more.

Pico then scouted Nupchenche and learned that all the inhabitants had fled. He therefore by-pa.s.sed the village and went 8 leagues southeast up the San Joaquin to the rancheria Copicha. This rancheria, which by the way must not be confused with the Cutucho of Moraga, was thus located on the river several miles north of Firebaugh, probably near or in T11S, R13E. As a check on this location is Pico's further statement that Copicha was in the valley of the San Joaquin "junto del Tecolote,"

or the Chowchilla. On November 10 he moved 8 leagues southeast from Copicha and saw horses from the rancheria Tape, which, from the distances, was near Mendota. This view is supported by Estudillo, who saw the region in 1819 and says that the spot "... donde Tape tenia su rancheria" was 24 leagues south of Cheneches and 25 leagues north of Notonto. Actually, Mendota appears to be approximately halfway between these two points.

Pico mentions one other village, Malim, which he places near Cheneches.

Confirmation is found in a letter of Fr. Marcelino Marquinez (MS) on May 25, 1816, stating that the Cheneches recently have killed two Christians from Malim. The latter rancheria thereupon allied itself with Notoalh and Luchamme. No other trace of the two last-named villages is found.

Other writers who mention the Nupchenches group include Fr. Antonio Jaime, who mentions Cutuchu (MS, 1816) as a rancheria from which Soto brought back gentiles, and Ortega, who, in his 1815 diary, mentions Cupicha as having been attacked by Pico. Finally Inocente Garcia in his ma.n.u.script of 1878 records an expedition against the Nupuchineches under Ignacio Vallejo. The rancheria, even in the 1830's was "muy Populosa." The expedition captured 100 warriors and 300 of all ages and s.e.xes, arguing a population of over the 300 claimed as captives.

From these accounts emerge six rancherias, each of which is mentioned independently by at least two writers. From north to south they were: Cheneches and Malim, Nupchenches and Cutucho, Copicha, Tape. Moraga says Nupchenches had 250 people and Cutucho had 400. From Pico's statement concerning captives we may ascribe a minimum of 300 to Cheneches, and Copicha, Malim, and Tape can scarcely have been much smaller. Hence the entire group can have numbered no less than 1,800 in 1816.

At Tape on November 23 Pico found 16 live horses and mules recently killed together with "mucha carne enterciada." If we neglect the meat, 254 whole animals, dead or alive, were actually counted. From November 25 to 28 the party traveled steadily from Tape to Cheneches. From Tape to Cheneches inclusive they saw 500 dead horses. It is not clear whether the 238 animals seen at Tape were included in this figure. If, however, a.s.suming that they were, we use the same ratio of dead horses to inhabitants as was discussed with respect to the Hoyima, these villages should have contained 2,500 persons. This figure is quite reasonable if we grant that the horses were to be consumed by the entire group of villages, rather than only one or two of them, and may be provisionally accepted.

On the basis of the records presented, a probable population value for the valley floor between the Merced and the Kings rivers in the decade 1810-1820 was 5,100. But this may well be an underestimate and be representative of the aboriginal population. Evidence pointing in this direction is the almost complete obliteration of these tribes before 1850. That very serious attrition was going on among these exposed people is evident from the records of all the explorers. The ma.s.sacre and kidnaping described by Pico is itself significant. In addition, we have the discussion by Estudillo in 1819, who found almost the entire surviving population of Tape sick and dying. He also points out that at the moment there were no less than four expeditions, including his own, ranging up and down the open valley, bent upon destruction. To explore the problem further indirect methods must be employed. We may therefore turn to estimates based upon stream distances.

If minor local variation is disregarded, the habitat provided by the Merced and the Kings rivers from the lower foothills out to the center of the valley is in no essential respect different from that characterizing the Mariposa, the Chowchilla, the Fresno, and the San Joaquin throughout its length below the foothills. The native villages were s.p.a.ced more or less uniformly along the larger rivers. Hence an approximate proportionality should have existed between riverbank distance and the number of inhabitants. No high degree of precision can be expected from calculations based upon these premises but the method yielded rational results for the period centering around 1850 and from it the correct order of magnitude should be obtainable.

Airline distances are used for the rivers. The general course of all the streams is substantially straight and the numerous small meanders are uniform in size and occurrence throughout the area. Three river sectors are used as a basis: the lower Merced River, the middle Kings River from and including Mill Creek to Kingsburg plus the princ.i.p.al tributaries, and the lower Kings from Kingsburg to Lemoore. The data are compiled briefly as follows in tabular form.

River Miles Persons per Sector in Length Population River Mile ______ _________ __________ ___________

Lower Merced 32 1,750 55 Middle Kings 75 5,000 67 Lower Kings 20 1,500 75

Despite the uneven nature of the basic information these figures show considerable internal consistency. The mileage of the San Joaquin, Fresno, Chowchilla, and Mariposa amounts collectively to approximately 190 miles (the four streams west of Kroeber's line of the valley Yokuts and down the San Joaquin as far as the mouth of Bear Creek). At 65 persons per mile (the approximate mean of the three values cited above) the population would be 12,350, or, let us say an even 12,000. This is more than double the number indicated directly by the Spanish accounts.

It has been pointed out, however, that these accounts are incomplete with respect to the villages seen and recorded. Furthermore the records demonstrate a condition of severe disorganization on the part of the native society. Hence the indirectly computed figure may reflect more closely the aboriginal population level.

The population in 1850 for the part of the Yokuts territory here being discussed was considered in a previous section. The best estimates were found to be 1,000 for the Mariposa and Chowchilla and 2,900 for the Fresno and San Joaquin. The total, 3,900 is 32.5 per cent of the estimated aboriginal population and represents, therefore, a reduction of the same general extent as was demonstrated for the Kaweah-Tulare Lake region.

The foothill region drained by the four rivers being discussed includes the extreme northern Yokuts tribes, the North Fork Mono, and some of the southern Miwok. In the consideration of the 1852 population it was not advantageous to segregate river sectors as has been done for the earlier data. This is because, with certain exceptions, the data pertaining to the later period cover as a rule the entire stretch of each river, rather than the central valley plain as distinct from the foothills. Nevertheless it is possible to arrive at the result desired indirectly.

For the Yokuts on the middle Fresno River it was concluded that the average number of inhabitants per village was 60. This value was based on village numbers and general estimates for the period of 1850 and included also the a.s.sumption that the villages had been much reduced in size by that year. For precontact times it is quite justifiable to maintain that the average size was of the order of that demonstrated for the Kings and the Merced, or let us say 150. The tribes on the Fresno and San Joaquin not seen or at least not reported by the Spanish writers are the Gashowu, Wakichi, Kechayi, Dumna, Toltichi, Dalinchi, and Chukchansi. The total number of villages recognized for these seven tribes by Kroeber, Gayton, and Latta is 36. This total of course rests on the memory of informants and pertains to conditions in the period 1840 to 1850 or perhaps 1860. There is no proof whatever that the village number in 1800 was the same, yet the whole history of Indian-white contact in the valley region leads one to believe that it can hardly have been smaller. Since there is no evidence to the contrary and since the hypothesis is inherently reasonable, we may concede 36 villages of 150 persons each or 5,400 in all.

For the southern Miwok on the upper Mariposa and Chowchilla, calculated by means of village counts and Gifford's average of 21 Indians per village, the values of 273 and 410 respectively were obtained. The factor of a reduction to 70 per cent of the aboriginal population may be here applied, yielding a total of 975 for the two streams. The figure for the North Fork Mono in prehistoric times has already been placed at 640.

If we now add 12,000 for the valley and marginal Yokuts, 5,400 for the foothill Yokuts between the Miwok border and the Kings River, 975 for the southern Miwok on the Mariposa and Chowchilla and 640 for the North Fork Mono the total becomes 19,015.

The validity of this figure can be subjected to a check through comparison by area. This method cannot be expected to show up minor or secondary errors but it will bring to light any fundamental or serious discrepancies. We may block out four major regions: the Kaweah-Tulare Lake, the Kings River, the Merced River, and the segment between the Merced and the Kings. Each of these represents fundamentally the same type of environment, i.e., a rough strip extending southwest to northeast, beginning with the lakes and sloughs of the central valley axis, pa.s.sing across the valley floor to the foothills, and reaching ultimately the middle alt.i.tudes of the Sierra Nevada. Four cross sections are thus obtained, differing in width but fairly uniformly including the habitats represented. It should be noted that the water surface of Lake Tulare as it existed in 1860 has been deducted from the area of the Kaweah-Tulare region; also that the two northern regions include a relatively greater expanse of uninhabitable mountain territory than do the two southern regions. The western boundary has been drawn along a line approximately five miles west of the San Joaquin River and the prolongation of its axis toward the lake. The westward extension of the Tachi toward Coalinga had to be neglected since there are no clear tribal boundaries in this area. The number of square miles was computed by township lines and the error of estimate must be considered at least plus or minus 20 per cent. The results follow:

Population Area density Region (sq. mi.) Population per sq. mi.

______ _________ __________ ___________

Kaweah-Tulare 1,880 14,100 7.12 Kings 1,530 9,100 5.85 Merced 1,400 3,500 2.50 Mariposa-San Joaquin 3,760 19,000 5.05

The density of the Mariposa-San Joaquin area is quite close to that of the Kings River Basin. The Kaweah-Tulare territory has a somewhat higher density, but this finding is compatible with the known enormous concentration of population around Tulare Lake and in the Kaweah delta.

The value for the Merced strip is unduly low. The discrepancy can be accounted for on two grounds. The first, already mentioned, is that this river, throughout its length, pa.s.ses through a greater area of uninhabitable mountains than do many of the other streams. The second is that our estimates for the lower Merced are insufficient. They rest in essence on the single report by Moraga, who, as has been shown, tended to underestimate and who did not see, or at least did not report upon, the entire course of the lower river. Moreover there is no report at all from Spanish sources with respect to the San Joaquin between the mouth of the Chowchilla (Nupchenche group) and the mouth of the Tuolumne. That villages did exist throughout this region is attested by the illuminating account of J. J. Warner, who was a member of Ewing Young's expedition to the great valley in 1832 and 1833. (I use the text as quoted in Warner, 1890.) He says (p. 28):