Tribes Today Today, there are many active native tribes around the world. They continue to fight for equal rights. Not all of these tribes have been able to protect their ancestral lands. Still, they remain true to their cultures and ways of life. Oroville, California The Lone Survivor In 1911, California was developing into a modern state. Cars were replacing horses. Telephones and electricity were making their ways into homes. In the city of Oroville, California, the local sheriff received a call. A starving man had been caught stealing meat. The man did not speak a language that anyone was familiar with. He had leather strips through holes in his ears. A piece of wood pierced his nose. He wore a loincloth made of bearskin. Newspapers spread the story of this strange person. Eventually, scholars discovered that he spoke the language of the Yahi. The Yahi were part of the Yana tribe. No one else in town spoke the language.66page0006page0006.xhtmlIn fact, no one else from his tribe could be found alive. This man, Ishi, became famous. Reporters called him the last untamed American Indian. He had spent his whole life in the hills, living the same way his ancestors had for thousands of years. Now, he found himself in a modern society. In some ways, Ishi was the last chapter in a meaningful book about the Yana. Ishi demonstrates how to use a bow and arrow.
A Lost Name In Yahi culture, people did not speak their own names. Even though he was the last of his tribe, Ishi followed this taboo. People called him Ishi because it means man in the Yahi language.77page0007page0007.xhtmlChange in a Golden Land About 14, 000 years ago, humans first set foot in what is now California. It was a much different place then! Woolly mammoths and mastodons, both elephant-like animals, moved in herds across the land. Giant sloths picked leaves off trees. Camels munched on grass. People hunted and ate these beasts. But soon, some of these huge animals became extinct. The first Californians had to find new ways to survive. Tribes moved to new places searching for food. They spread their cultures as they went. Luckily, these cultures are not lost. Before the Spanish arrived, American Indians did not read or write. So, there are no written records from the early tribes. But, historians have studied artifacts. These primary sources give clues about out how the tribes lived. Animal bones show what they ate. Burial sites share information about their beliefs. Baskets offer a look into their daily lives. All these items tell about these people of the past. Tightly woven baskets like this could carry water.88page0008page0008.xhtml Fierce Competition Huge animals served as food sources for early tribes. But these animals were also food for other predators, such as saber-toothed cats and dire wolves. Early tribes had to defeat not just their prey, but other predators, too. High-Tech Hunt California Indians used several weapons to hunt. A common weapon was the atlatl (AHT-lah-tuhl). This device helped to hurl spears. The atlatl was a very advanced weapon. It let humans hunt from far away instead of having to strike animals up close. Bones from woolly mammoths and other animals have been found in tar pits in California.99page0009page0009.xhtmlNot all California Indians lived the same way. Picture a tribe that lived on flat land near the ocean. One day, some of its members moved into the hills. The plants and animals there were not the same as what they ate before. The air was cooler. The people in the hills had to learn new ways to live. They created new words to describe their lives. Now, imagine that thousands of years have passed. The two groups have developed different customs. What started as one tribe turned into two separate tribes. That is how California Indians became so varied. Spanish explorers came to the region in 1769. There were already about 300, 000 California Indians living there. But they were not a single group. They formed many tribes. In some areas, four or five tribes lived within a day's walk of each other. In other areas, tribes could go years without seeing someone from another tribe. Each tribe had its own way of life. These differences made California very diverse! American Indians in San Francisco's port, drawing, 18151010page0010page0010.xhtmlTribal Territories
Say What? Some historians think there were almost a hundred languages in California before settlers arrived. And there were many more dialects. There was such a wide range that members of the same tribe might have had a hard time speaking to each other!1111page0011page0011.xhtmlNear the Ocean No one knows what early California Indians in the Los Angeles area called themselves. Most experts think it was Tongva (TON-vah). Some think it was Kizh (KIHZ). The Tongva Indians were masters of the ocean. Canoes were central to their lives. Today, historians study Tongva canoes to learn more about the tribe. All Tongva canoes were built the same way. In the first step, they selected driftwood logs and let them dry. Next, the Tongva formed planks. They used antlers or whalebones to cut the wood. They connected the planks with rope. Then, the Tongva coated the canoe to make it waterproof. Because the Tongva relied so heavily on the sea, they stayed near the ocean. Most of the tribe lived in present-day Los Angeles. Some traveled to the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California. Narcisa Higuera was one of the last Tongva speakers. She provided a lot of information about her tribe's culture.1212page0012page0012.xhtml Fox Forward Foxes live on six of the eight Channel Islands (shown below). Historians think American Indian tribes brought foxes to the southern islands thousands of years ago. The tribes may have brought foxes for their fur. Other tribes may have kept them as pets. Resources The Tongva tribe used a tar?like substance called asphaltum on their canoes. It acts like glue and makes things waterproof. Asphaltum is still around. It is the tar that washes up on beaches. Though it may be a bother now, hundreds of years ago, it carried value for the Tongva tribe.1313page0013page0013.xhtml
Warrior Woman Toypurina was a Tongva shaman. She led a rebellion against the Mission San Gabriel Arcngel in 1785, but it failed. When the priests asked her to tell her side of the story, she kicked over a stool. She was exiled and sent to a different mission. In 1771, Spanish priests began calling local tribes Gabrielios (GAH-bree-eh-lee-nyos). In that year, they built a mission in Los Angeles. They named it Mission San Gabriel Arcngel. Priests hoped to use the mission to convert nearby American Indians. One of those tribes was the Tongva. The priests hoped to change the Tongva's way of life. They made the Tongva work on the mission's farms. They also fed Spanish foods to the Tongva. The priests thought those were good ways to make the tribes follow Spanish customs.1414page0014page0014.xhtmlSome Tongva members stayed at the mission. Others tried to flee. But, Spanish soldiers forced them back. They whipped the Tongva to show the rest of the tribe what would happen if they tried to leave, too. While at the missions, the Tongva were exposed to new diseases, which killed many of them. There were about 5, 000 Tongva when the mission was built. Within a few decades, that number plummeted.
