The Evening News. November 16, 1916

39. Civilizing The Indians

The result in Spanish California proves the danger of suddenly changing the habit of life, of even tribes so remote from modern civilization as the Indians of the Santa Clara valley and the Californian tribes in general. To the Spaniards it seemed barbarous for human beings to live on acorns, pine nuts, grasshoppers and young yellow jackets. The only rational Indian food was fish, and large game like deer and antelope, which they snared with skill. The Spaniards reasoned that the Indians would be better off eating wholesome roasted barley, (atole) corn meal, (Pinole) fresh beef, mutton and vegetables, served with coarse meal cakes called tortillas.

To the Spaniards the Indians temescal was a horrible, weird place. Air tight it was half under the earth with the top above ground. Here assembled the medicine man and woman to cure the sick. Here naked, in furnace-like heat, men and women danced till they were half stifled. Then they plunged from the temescal into a river near which the building always stood.

The Spaniards longed to rescue the Indians from these strange, uncivilized rites. The fathers gave them presents, taught them music and gradually drew them to the Mission. The Indians had little skill with their hands, except in basketry. This trade they taught their conquerors, but the Spaniards taught the women weaving, spinning, needle work. The men learned to till the soil, and they readily became expert in the crafts.

The children showed a gift for music, especially religious music. So beautifully they sang at the Santa Clara Mission that one old Spanish lady confessed to me that she forgot that the singers were Indians.

The Indians themselves had crude musical instruments. Their flutes were of elder wood and deer horns. They had clear voices and they sang songs of love and vengeance. They had good ears for music, and so, they learned readily the flute, the violin cello and the violin.

The life of the Indians was systematized at the Mission. Perhaps that very system to which they were unaccustomed made their mortality greater than that of any European country in the early part of the nineteenth century. At the Santa Clara Mission the mortality was twelve per cent, and at the Mission Delores, San Francisco, it was higher.

Yet life at the Mission was rational and wholesome. The Indians arose with the ringing of the Angelus, the sunrise bell, and assembled in the chapel. They had morning prayers and religious instruction. After breakfast they worked till eleven o'clock, when they dined. At two they recommenced work and did not stop till an hour before sunset. Seven hours work and two hours religious instruction was their daily task. After prayers they supped and played games.

The Indians worked in squads under an Indian foreman called the Alcalde. Alcaldes had the privilege of dressing like Spaniards. For their work the Indians received food, clothing and instructions. Each man had a linen shirt, pantaloons, a smock, a coarse blanket and sometimes shoes. Women received annually one gown and two changes of underclothes. The girls were kept apart from the men, and were instructed by the older Indian women.

The neophytes were kindly treated, but when they neglected religious instructions they were sometimes flogged.

But the redman could not endure restraint. They longed for the freedom and indolence of the rancherias. Besides undoubtedly the presideos corrupted the Indians, and spread disease among them, as did many of the early Spanish settlers, who were not of good character. For this reason the fathers always protested against the establishment of the presidios as well as grants of private ranches. One of the priests at the Santa Clara Mission, with much reason, complained to the Governor at Monterey that all the young Spaniards did was to force the Indians, to work while they themselves rode about, playing the guitar and corrupting the women of the rancherias.

Transcribed by Kitty LaFavor, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2008