Periods of Religious Development in and about Native California.
Periods of Culture Development in Native California.
A natural question arises here. Does this reconstructed history apply only to ritual cults, or can a parallel development be traced for other elements of religion, for industries, inventions, and economic relations, for social institutions, for knowledge and art? The findings are that this history holds for all phases of native culture. Material and social development progressed much as did religion. Each succeeding stage brought in new implements and customs, these became on the whole more specialized as well as more numerous, and differed more and more locally in the four sub-culture-areas. Thus the plain or self bow belongs demonstrably to an earlier stratum than the sinew-backed one, basketry precedes pottery, twined basketry is earlier than coiled, the stone mortar antedates the slab with basketry mortar as the oval metate does the squared one, earth-covered sweat houses are older than plank roofed ones, and totemism may have become established before the division of society into exogamic moieties. It would be a long story to adduce the evidence for each of these determinations and all others that could be made. It will perhaps suffice to say that the principles by which they are arrived at are the same as those which have guided us in the inquiry into religion. It may therefore be enough to indicate results in a scheme, as on page 315. It will be seen that this is nothing but an amplification of the preceding table. The framework there constructed to represent the history of native rituals has here been further filled with elements of material and social culture.
In general terms, the net results of our inquiry can be stated thus.
First Period: a simple, meager culture, nearly uniform throughout California, similar to the cultures of adjacent regions, and only slightly influenced by these.
Second Period: definite influences from the North Pacific Coast and the Southwest, affecting respectively the northern third and the southern two thirds of California, and thus leading to a first differentiation of consequence.
Third Period: more specific influences from outside, resulting in the formation of four local types: the Northwestern, under North Pacific influences; the Southern and Lower Colorado under stimulus of the Southwest; and the Central, farthest remote from both and thus developing most slowly but also most independently.
Fourth Period: consummation of the four local types. Influences from outside continue operative, but in the main the lines of local development entered upon in the previous era are followed out, reaching their highest specialization in limited tracts central to each area.
This summary not only outlines the course of culture history in native California: it also explains why there are both widely uniform and narrowly localized culture elements in the region. It thus answers the question why from one aspect the tribes of the state seem so much alike and from another angle they appear endlessly different. They are alike largely insofar as they have retained certain old common traits. They are different to the degree that they have severally added traits of later and localized development.
A natural question is how long these periods lasted. As regards accurate dating, there is only one possible answer: we do not know nearly enough. Moreover modern historians, who possess infinitely fuller records on chronology than anthropologists can ever hope to have on primitive peoples, tend more and more to lay little weight on specific dates. They may set 476 A.D., the so-called fall of Rome, as the point of demarcation between ancient and mediæval history because it is sometimes useful, especially in elementary presentation, to speak definitely. But no historian believes that any profound change took place between 475 and 477 A.D. That is an impression beginners may get from the way history is sometimes taught. Yet it is well recognized that certain slow, progressive changes were going on uninterruptedly for centuries before and after; and that if the date 476 A.D. is arbitrarily inserted into the middle of this development, it is because to do so is conventionally convenient, and with full understanding that the event marked was dramatic or symbolic rather than intrinsically significant. In fact, the value of a historian’s work lies precisely in his ability to show that the forces which shaped mediæval history were already at work during the period of ancient times and that the causes which had molded the Roman empire continued to operate in some degree for many centuries after the fall of Rome.
Nevertheless there is no doubt that occasional dates have the virtue of impressing the mind with the vividness which specific statements alone possess. Also, if the results of anthropological studies are to be connected with the written records of history proper, at least tentative dates must be formulated, though of course in a case like this of the periods of native culture in California it is understood that all chronology is subject to a wide margin of error.
History provides a start toward a computation, although its aid is a short one. California began to be settled about 1770. The last tribes were not brought into contact with the white man until 1850. As early, however, as 1540 Alarcón rowed and towed up the lower Colorado and wrote an account of the tribes he encountered there. Two years later, Cabrillo visited the coast and island tribes of southern California, and wintered among them. In 1579 Drake spent some weeks on shore among the central Californians and a member of his crew has left a brief but spirited description of them. In all three instances these old accounts of native customs tally with remarkable fidelity with all that has been ascertained in regard to the recent tribes of the same regions. That is, native culture has evidently changed very little since the sixteenth century. The local sub-cultures already showed substantially their present form; which means that the Fourth Period must have been well established three to four centuries ago. We might then assign to this period about double the time which has elapsed since the explorers visited California; say seven hundred years. This seems a conservative figure, which would put the commencement of the Fourth Period somewhere about 1200 A.D.
All the remainder must be reconstruction by projection. In most parts of the world for which there are continuous records, it is found that civilization usually changes more rapidly as time goes on. While this is not a rigorous law, it is a prevailing tendency. However, let us apply this principle with reserve, and assume that the Third Period was no longer than the Fourth. Another seven hundred years would carry back to 500 A.D.
Now, however, it seems reasonable to begin to lengthen our periods somewhat. For the Second, a thousand years does not appear excessive: approximately from 500 B.C. to 500 A.D. By the same logic the First Period should be allowed from a thousand to fifteen hundred years. It might be wisest to set no beginning at all, since our “First” period is only the first of those which are determinable with present knowledge. Actually, it may have been preceded by a still more primitive era on which as yet no specific evidence is available. It can however be suggested that by 2000 or 1500 B.C. the beginnings of native Californian culture as we know it had already been made.
There is left as a final check on the problem of age a means of attack which under favorable circumstances is sometimes the most fruitful: archæological excavation, especially when it leads to stratigraphic determination, that is, the finding of different but superimposed layers. Unfortunately archæology affords only limited aid in California—much less, for instance, than in the Southwest. Nothing markedly stratigraphical has been discovered. Pottery, which has usually proved the most serviceable of all classes of prehistoric remains for working out sequences of culture and chronologies, is unrepresented in the greater part of California, and is sparse and rather recent in those southern parts in which it does occur.
Still, archæological excavation has brought to light something. It has shown that the ancient implements found in shellmounds and village sites in Southern California, those from the shores of San Francisco Bay in Central California, and those along the coast of Northwestern California, are distinct. Certain peculiar types of artifacts are found in each of these regions, are found only there, and agree closely with objects used by the modern tribes of the same districts. For instance, prehistoric village and burial sites in Northwestern California contain long blades of flaked obsidian like those used until a few years ago by the Yurok and Hupa. Sites in Southern California have brought to light soapstone bowls or “ollas” such as the Spaniards a century ago found the Gabrielino and Luiseño employing in cooking and in jimsonweed administration. Both these classes of objects are wanting from the San Francisco Bay shellmounds and among the recent Central Californian tribes.
It may thus be inferred (1) that none of the four local cultures was ever spread much more widely than at present; (2) that each of them originated mainly on the spot; and (3) that because many of the prehistoric finds lie at some depth, the local cultures are of respectable antiquity—evidently at least a thousand years old, probably more. This fairly confirms the estimate that the differentiation of the local cultures of the Third Period commenced not later than about 500 A.D.
Archæology also yields certain indications as to the total lapse of time during the four periods. The deposits themselves contribute the evidence. Some of the shellmounds that line the ramifying shores of San Francisco Bay to the number of over four hundred have been carefully examined. These mounds are refuse accumulations. They were not built up with design, but grew gradually as people lived on them year after year, because much of the food of their inhabitants was molluscs—chiefly clams, oysters, and mussels—whose shells were thrown outdoors or trodden under foot. Some of the sites were camped on only transiently, and the layers of refuse never grew more than a few inches in thickness. Other spots were evidently inhabited for many centuries, since the masses of shell now run more than thirty feet deep and hundreds of feet long. The higher such a mound grew, the better it drained off. One side of it would afford shelter from the prevailing winds. The more regularly it came to be lived on, the more often would the inhabitants bring their daily catch home, and, without knowing it, thus help to raise and improve the site still further.
Some of these shellmounds are now situated high and dry, at some distance above tide water. Others lie on the very edge of the bay, and several of these, when shafts were sunk into them, proved to extend some distance below mean sea level. The base of a large deposit known as the Ellis Landing mound, near Richmond, is eighteen feet below high tide level; of one on Brooks island near by, seventeen feet. The conclusion is that the sites have sunk at least seventeen or eighteen feet since they began to be inhabited. The only alternative explanation, that the first settlers put their houses on piles over the water, is opposed by several facts. The shells and ashes and soil of the Ellis Landing mound are stratified as they would be deposited on land, not as they would arrange in water. There are no layers of mud, remains of inedible marine animals, or ripple marks. There is no record of any recent Californian tribe living in pile dwellings; the shore from which the mound rises is unfavorably situated for such structures, being open and exposed to storms. Suitable timber for piles grows only at some distance. One is therefore perforce driven to the conclusion that this mound accumulated on a sinking shore, but that the growth of the deposit was more rapid than the rise of the sea, so that the site always remained habitable.
How long a time would be required for a coast to subside eighteen feet is a question for geologists, but their reply remains indefinite. A single earthquake might cause a sudden subsidence of several feet, or again the change might progress at the rate of a foot or only an inch a century. All that geologists are willing to state is that the probability is high of the subsidence having been a rather long time taking place.
The archæologists have tried to compute the age of Ellis Landing mound in another way. When it was first examined there were near its top about fifteen shallow depressions. These appear to be the remains of the pits over which the Indians were wont to build their dwellings. A native household averages about 7 inmates. One may thus estimate a population of about 100 souls. Numerous quadruped bones in the mound prove that these people hunted; net sinkers, that they fished; mortars and pestles, that they consumed acorns and other seeds. Accordingly, only part of their subsistence, and probably the minor part, was derived from molluscs. Fifty mussels a day for man, woman, and child seem a fair estimate of what their shellfish food is likely to have aggregated. This would mean that the shells of 5,000 mussels would accumulate on the site daily. Laboratory experiments prove that 5,000 such shells, with the addition of the same percentage of ash and soil as occurs in the mound, all crushed down to the same consistency of compactness as the body of the mound exhibits, occupy a volume of a cubic foot. This being the daily increment, the growth of the mound would be in the neighborhood of 365 feet per year. Now the deposit contains roughly a million and a quarter cubic feet. Dividing this figure by 365, one obtains about 3,500 as the presumable number of years required to accumulate the mound.
This result may not be accepted too literally. It is the result of a calculation with several factors, each of which is only tentative. Had the population been 200 instead of 100, the deposit would, with the other terms of the computation remaining the same, have built up twice as fast, and the 3,500 years would have to be cut in half. On the other hand, it has been assumed that occupation of the site was continuous through the year. Yet all that is known of the habits of the Indians makes it probable that the mound inhabitants were accustomed to go up into the hills and camp about half the time. Allowance for this factor would double the 3,500 years. All that is maintained for the computed age is that it represents a conscientious and conservative endeavor to draw a conclusion from all available sources of knowledge, and that it seems to hit as near the truth as a calculation of this sort can.
One verification has been attempted. Samples of mound material, taken randomly from different parts, indicate that 14 per cent of its weight, or about 7,000 tons, are ashes. If the mound is 3,500 years old, the ashes were deposited at the rate of two tons a year, or about eleven pounds daily. Experiments with the woods growing in the neighborhood have shown that they yield less than one per cent of ash. The eleven daily pounds must therefore have come from 1,200 pounds of wood. On the assumption, as before, that the population averaged fifteen families, the one-fifteenth share of each household would be eighty pounds daily. This is a pretty good load of firewood for a woman to carry on her back, and with the Indians’ habit of nursing their fires economically, especially along a timberless shore, eighty pounds seems a liberal allowance to satisfy all their requirements for heating and cooking. If they managed to get along on less than eighty pounds per hut, the mound age would be correspondingly greater.
This check calculation thus verifies the former estimate rather reasonably. It does not seem rash to set down three to four thousand years as the indicated age of the mound.
This double archæological conclusion tallies as closely as one could wish with the results derived from the ethnological method of estimating antiquity from the degree and putative rapidity of cultural change. Both methods carry the First traceable period back to about 1,500 or 2,000 B.C. After all, exactness is of little importance in matters such as these, except as an indication of certitude. If it could be proved that the first mussel was eaten by a human being on the site of Ellis Landing in 1724 B.C., this piece of knowledge would carry interest chiefly in proving that an exact method of chronology had been developed, and would possess value mainly in that the date found might ultimately be connectible with the dates of other events in history and so lead to broader formulations.
The anthropological facts which have been analyzed and then recombined in the foregoing pages are not presented with the idea that the history of the lowly and fading Californians is of particular intrinsic moment. They have been discussed chiefly as an illustration of method, as one example out of many that might have been chosen. That it was the California Indians who were selected, is partly an accident of the writer’s familiarity with them. The choice seems fair because the problem here undertaken is rather more difficult than many. The Californian cultures were simple. They decayed quickly on contact with civilization. The bulk of historical records go back barely a century and a half. Archæological exploration has been imperfect and yields comparatively meager results. Then, too, the whole Californian culture is only a fragment of American Indian culture, so that the essentially local Californian problems would have been further illuminated by being brought into relation with the facts available from North America as a whole—an aid which has been foregone in favor of compact presentation. In short, the problem was made difficult by its limitations, and yet results have been obtained. Obviously, the same method applied under more favorable circumstances to regions whose culture is richer and more diversified, where documented history projects farther back into the past, where excavation yields nobler monuments and provides them in stratigraphic arrangement, and especially when wider areas are brought into comparison, can result in determinations that are correspondingly more exact, full, and positive.
It is thus clear that cultural anthropology possesses a technique of operation which needs only vigorous, sane, and patient application to be successful. This technique is newer and as yet less refined than those of the mechanical sciences. It is also under the disadvantage of having to accept its materials as they are given in nature; it is impossible to carry cultural facts into the laboratory and conduct experiments on them. Still, it is a method; and its results differ from those of the so-called exact sciences in degree of sharpness rather than in other quality.
It will be noted that throughout this analysis there has been no mention of laws; that at most, principles of method have been recognized—such as the assumption that widely spread culture elements are normally more ancient than locally distributed ones. In this respect cultural anthropology is in a class with political and economic history, and with all the essentially historical sciences such as natural history and geology. The historian rarely enunciates laws, or if he does, he usually means only tendencies. The “laws” of historical zoölogy are essentially laws of physiology; those of geology, laws of physics and chemistry. Even the “laws” of astronomy, when they are not mere formulations of particular occurrences which our narrow outlook on time causes to seem universal, are not really astronomical laws but mechanical and mathematical ones. In other words, anthropology belongs in the group of the historical sciences: those branches of knowledge concerned with things as and how and when they happen, with events as they appear in experience; whereas the group of sciences that formulates laws devotes itself to the inherent and immutable properties of things, irrespective of their place or sequence or occurrence in nature.
Of course, there must be laws underlying culture phenomena. There is no possibility of denying them unless one is ready to remove culture out of the realm of science and set it into the domain of the supernatural. Where can one seek these laws that inhere in culture? Obviously in that which underlies culture itself, namely, the human mind. The laws of anthropological data, like those of history, are then laws of psychology. As regards ultimate explanations for the facts which it discovers, classifies, analyzes, and recombines into orderly reconstructions and significant syntheses, cultural anthropology must look to psychology. The one is concerned with “what” and “how”; the other with “why”; each depends on the other and supplements it.