We Were All Like Migrant Workers Here

Work, Community, and Memory on California's Round Valley Reservation, 1850-1941

William J. Bauer Jr.

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780807895368
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios de nativos americanos

The federally recognized Round Valley Indian Tribes are a small, confederated people whose members today come from twelve indigenous California tribes. In 1849, during the California gold rush, people from several of these tribes were relocated to a reservation farm in northern Mendocino County. Fusing Native American history and labor history, William Bauer Jr. chronicles the evolution of work, community, and tribal identity among the Round Valley Indians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that enabled their survival and resistance to assimilation. Drawing on oral history interviews, Bauer brings Round Valley Indian voices to the forefront in a narrative that traces their adaptations to shifting social and economic realities, first within unfree labor systems, including outright slavery and debt peonage, and later as wage laborers within the agricultural workforce. Despite the allotment of the reservation, federal land policies, and the Great Depression, Round Valley Indians innovatively used work and economic change to their advantage in order to survive and persist in the twentieth century. We Were All Like Migrant Workers Here relates their history for the first time.

Chapter One
making the world in a basket

WORK, LABOR, AND COMMUNITY
IN ANCIENT TIME CALIFORNIA

Long ago, water covered the world. There was no land, no plants, and no people—only Coyote. He watched as a down feather drifted from the sky and entered the water. The feather became sea foam and floated on the top of the waves lapping around Coyote. Then the sea foam sprouted hands, teeth, eyes, a head, arms, legs, and eventually a whole person—Taikômol’, he who goes alone. Taikômol’ taught his song to Coyote and then went about forming the world. First, Taikômol’ took rushes from his body and wove them into form. When Taikômol’ stood on the frame, however, it failed to hold his weight. Next, he took an awl from his body and made a coiled foundation out of redbud, a small deciduous tree with small, heart-shaped leaves. After packing the redbud coil with pitch, it held his weight. Taikômol’ stood on the tightly woven frame and said, “Weiyi,” and the earth spread out in all directions. Coyote looked around at the high mountains surrounding the lush valley like the sides of an expertly made basket, and remarked, “Coyote himself is glad about the earth.”¹

The foundation of Round Valley Indian work, labor, and community rests, much like Taikômol’ standing on the frame of his basket, on those very practices that occurred in “ancient time” California.² In 1990, Nomlacki Eugene Jamison Sr., who grew up on the Round Valley Reservation, remarked, “We learned a long time ago from ancestral teaching how to live, how to survive, how to fish, how to hunt, how to grow this or that.” As with many Native California tribal nations, the ancestral teaching that Jamison refers to begins with the creation narrative. Yuki and Maidu creation stories serve as the coiled foundation for labor and community relationships by describing creation as an act of work and labor, the complementary social ties between Native Californians and the land and Native California labor. The work and economic activities featured in creation stories explained the differences between California Indian nations, since creators taught different tribes distinct languages and work practices.³

The everyday work activities and labor organization that undergirded creation narratives and oral traditions shaped community bonds before the arrival of Europeans. In order to access the unique resources in their respective “life zones,” California Indians practiced a gendered division of labor.⁴ California Indians followed a similar economy whereby men hunted wild game in the mountains and fished in the abundant streams and women harvested plants (of which acorns were the most important staple) in the valleys. Although men and women worked separately most of the time, men and women often cooperated to hunt, fish, and harvest but retained aspects of their gendered division of labor. Additionally, land management strategies and hunting and fishing ceremonial observances connected Native people to their prey and conveyed the important relationship with their landscapes.⁵

The work activities and division of labor not only unified Native California families but also created community ties in ancient time California. Economic activities, especially the redistribution of food sources, forged social ties within Native California villages. The items produced through work activities emerged as badges of status, based upon a shared concept called “industriousness.” The production of surplus goods linked northern California Indians to a small world system, or regional network of trade, marriage, cultural exchange, and big time events. This economy sustained California Indians until contact with Euroamericans and remained vital for decades afterward.⁶

SOME NATIVE CALIFORNIA oral traditions emphasize that work and labor were instrumental to the formation of the world and the origins of the people. This was not a universal trope of California Indian creation narratives, however. Some narratives featured creators imagining the world into being. For others, however, creators made the world, either by weaving it into being or by physically manipulating the land. In the early twentieth century, anthropologist Alfred Kroeber recorded two versions of the Yuki creation narrative. Yuki Ralph Moore’s account began this chapter, and Diddle, Moore’s contemporary, offered a similar story. In both versions, the world was a blank slate for the creator to make the world and place the people. Creation, though, took an enormous amount of work energy. First, Taikômol’ (the Yuki creator) took the implements necessary to sew the foundation for a basket from his body: “When [Taikômol’] stood on the water he had something bent, like the start of a woman’s basket.” Then, Taikômol’ sewed two coiled foundations, with the last one being the strongest. The earth then spread from the more rigid foundation. Other California Indian oral traditions emphasize the work energy needed to form the world. The Maidu creation story is an earth diver narrative. Turtle floated on a raft amid a vast sea. Earth Initiate climbed down from the sky on a rope of feathers and landed on Turtle’s boat. He then asked Turtle to dive to the bottom of the ocean to recover dirt. It took Turtle six years to swim to the bottom of the ocean and return with a little bit of dirt underneath his nails. After an exhausted Turtle flopped back onto the raft, Earth Initiate took the dirt, rolled it into a ball, and placed it on the bow of the boat. After he looked at the ball four times, the ball of dirt became the earth.⁷

Both stories illustrate the importance of work and labor in some California Indian worldviews. They relied on well-known work activities to create the world. Whereas Yukis structured their creation around the job of weaving a basket, the Maidu story featured Earth Initiate manipulating the earth into a ball. These two stories also emphasized the social nature of creation. Taikômol’ and Earth Initiate shared the work of creation with two other individuals—Coyote and Turtle, respectively. In fact, the way in which Yukis and Maidus transmitted the story indicates the vital role of work and labor in perpetuating tribal histories and cultures in the twentieth century. Kroeber paid Moore and Diddle as anthropological informants. Frequently, anthropologists hired younger Indians to serve as interpreters to translate the Yuki and other California Indian languages into English. These arrangements forged social relationships between Yuki informants, like Moore, and academic anthropologists, like Kroeber, which sometimes lasted for decades.⁸

After telling the story of creation, oral traditions went through the process of place making. Creation stories emphasize the indigenousness of their respective people by featuring and naming the important features of the land. The Yuki story “Coyote and the World,” for instance, begins with the people eating raw meat at a town named Suk-üpît, located south of the Middle Fork of the Eel River. In order to acquire fire, Coyote and the people must travel north into Round Valley, where Spider sat on fire. Their trip required them to cross the Eel, after which they camped and danced at Mïlitîki (located in the southern foothills of Round Valley). Then the people arrived at where Spider held fire, Uuk’in, in the western foothills of Round Valley. After acquiring fire, Coyote attempted to make the sun rise. First, he tried to make it rise to the west over the coast. Then, he undertook to make the sun rise among the Wailacki, to the northwest. Third, he tried to make the sun rise northeast of Round Valley, among the Creek Wintun, near present-day Cottonwood, California. Finally, on the fourth try, Coyote successfully made the sun rise at a place known as Môc Ampül Amlatc, also known as White Oak Rabbit Knoll, east of Round Valley.⁹ The Maidu creation story similarly uses geography. After creation, Earth Initiate and Turtle’s raft beached at Tadoikö, near present-day Durham, California (just south of Chico). Here, Earth Initiate planted the first acorn tree, the life-blood of northern California Indians.¹⁰

Both the Yuki and the Maidu oral traditions forged crucial social connections between their respective people and geographic places. Yuki and Maidu oral narratives reminded people of where certain events occurred in their past, which invested those places with a history that predated European contact. The stories linked people to the specific places, reminding them on a daily basis of what had occurred in the geography that surrounded them. Too, the places mentioned in oral traditions contributed to the unique identities of the individual tribal nations. Tadoikö meant little or nothing to the Yuki, and Uuk’in had no meaning for the Maidu. These tribally specific stories and places coupled Native Californians to their landscapes.

When Earth Initiate planted the first acorn tree, he not only invested Tadoikö with importance but he also instructed the Maidu about the economic potential of their homelands. After Earth Initiate and Turtle’s boat landed, Earth Initiate called the sun and moon to rise at their respective times and brought forth the stars. Then he created twelve acorn trees, with the first tree located at Tadoikö. The acorn trees’ central position both in Maidu geography and in their creation narrative points to their role as a foundational part of Maidu life. Acorns constituted a vital part of the northern California Indian diet. Similarly, animal prey featured prominently in Yuki oral tradition. At the end of the Yuki story “Coyote and the World,” Coyote instructed the other animals in the world to become auhäm, or game animals. Coyote said to the assembled creatures, “You, deer, shall always be food for humans. And you also jackrabbit, shall always be food for people.” Eventually Coyote assigned quail, squirrels, birds, bear, and elk to similar relationships with Yukis. Both Yuki and Maidu oral traditions instructed the people about the economic foundation of Native California life. They emphasized the important hunting and harvesting activities of northern California Indians, which sustained the people for centuries before Euroamerican invasion.¹¹

Other narratives described the ways in which Native Californians acquired these economic necessities. According to a Lassik story, Panther and Crow survived an apocalyptic flood on top of a mountain. When the water receded, Crow and Panther climbed down the mountain but were alone in the world. In order to survive, the pair began practicing the gendered division of labor that undergirded California Indian economic life. Lassik women later mimicked Crow, who ate clover and dug for roots, bulbs, and earthworms. Meanwhile, Panther hunted deer and provided meat to the diet, the typical male duties. Thus, the Lassik oral tradition tells of the beginning of the division of labor that was the basis of economic life in ancient time California.¹²

The work, labor, and economic resources that feature prominently in these oral traditions explained the distinct identities of California Indians. Ancient time California was one of the most diverse and densely populated areas in North America. More than 300,000 indigenous people lived in California, speaking more than one hundred different languages. According to the Yuki, Taikômol’ instructed the people how to live in the distinct life zones. First, Taikômol’ gave different languages to the Yuki and Wailacki. “Everything [Taikômol’] arranged,” Yuki Ralph Moore explained. “How they would make ropes, he arranged; how people would set snares, he arranged. All the peoples he taught differently.” Then, speaking the Wailacki language, Taikômol’ taught the Wailacki how to fish for salmon. “This shall be, this the Wailacki shall do,” Taikômol’ said. Afterward, Taikômol’ gave the Nomlacki their language and taught them “how they would hunt deer and snare jackrabbits and snare cotton tail rabbits and how always they would do different things.” Finally, Taikômol’ “said that [the Yuki] would drive deer and gather clover as food and find broadiaea-bulbs for food.” Work—driving deer rather than snaring rabbits—proved foundational to Yuki identity. Moore concluded that since that time, “the Ukomnom did everything as Taikômol’ had done it.” From a Yuki perspective, economic activities differentiated the tribes of California. Taikômol’ placed each tribal nation in distinct environments and taught them different hunting, fishing, and harvesting practices.¹³

AS THE YUKI creation narrative tells listeners, surviving in ancient time California required California Indians to adapt different work skills to their unique environments. Dotted with isolated and small valleys, surrounded by rugged mountains and rivers, northern California’s distinctive geography produced diverse life zones, which teemed with important resources. The specific work activities needed to survive in ancient time California contributed to the amazing diversity of the area’s tribal nations. Anthropologists divide California Indians into six cultural areas or regional lifeways. Indians who came to live on the Round Valley Reservation represented the Central California and Northeastern cultural areas. The Yuki and Wailacki were autochthonous to the Round Valley area, settling in the valleys and northern mountains, respectively. Between 1856 and 1873, the federal and state governments removed Lassiks, Cahtos, Pomos, Nomlackis, Concows, Nisenans, Atsugewis, and Achomawis to Round Valley. Anthropologists classify most of these tribes as Central California Indians, except for the Atsugewi and Achomawi, who represented the Northeastern cultural area.¹⁴

Archaeological excavations confirm what oral traditions posited, namely, that indigenous people have resided in California for ages. It is likely that Native peoples have occupied Round Valley since 8,000 B.C.E. Anthropologist David Frederickson suggests that the Yuki are perhaps the oldest indigenous group in the North Coast mountain region, thus explaining why Taikômol’ created them first and subsequently the Nomlacki and Wailacki. Further, archaeological evidence offers a tentative chronology of Yuki history. Through the excavation of town and burial sites, the items that Yuki men and women used in their everyday work provide a timeline of economic and environmental adaptation. By 500 C.E., Yukis were part of the Borax Lake complex, named after an archaeological site in present-day Lake County, California, and noted for the use of manos, metates, and fluted points, similar to the Clovis point, to process wild food sources and hunt game. Between 500 C.E. and 1000 C.E., the Mendocino Complex emerged in Round Valley. A shift toward smaller projectile points and the use of bows and arrows to hunt distinguished this archaeological era. After 1600 C.E., Yukis adopted parts of the Shasta Complex. Distinctive to the Shasta Complex, Yukis settled along streams and rivers and emphasized acorn production and consumption, and Yuki women used stone hopper mortars to grind acorns into flour.¹⁵

During ancient time, the primary male work activities were hunting and fishing. Northern California abounded with all sorts of game. California Indian hunters took down deer, elk, and numerous smaller animals. These endeavors required constant vigilance, practice, and care. Hunters scouted animal habitat and learned their migration routes. This careful observation helped the hunter to forge an intimate relationship with the land, as he had to know the peculiar characteristics of his animal prey and landscapes. Recognizing the skills that animals brought to the chase, hunters looked for ways to gain an advantage on their prey. While on individual hunts, men disguised their appearance by wearing deer antlers and rubbed aromatics on their bodies. Men also perfected calls to attract their prey. When animals were in range, hunters stealthily tracked the animal and then dispatched the deer with a bow and arrow.¹⁶

In areas with abundant waterways, California Indian men fished for steelhead, salmon, and other fish species. Yukis, for instance, dove into the water and used nooses or dip nets to catch fish. They also strategically placed weirs in rivers and mountain streams to catch steelhead and salmon. Fishing coincided with seasonal spawning runs of salmon, trout, and other fish species. Yukis fished for black salmon in the fall, winter and spring salmon during those seasons, and steelhead in the summer. The effective fishing strategies ensured that California Indians had a nearly year-round supply of fish.¹⁷

As the men hunted and fished, the women harvested wild plants. The work activities of Native California women contributed important items to the California Indian diet, medicinal practices, and material culture. Significantly, California Indian women harvested acorns. In the 1940s, a Lassik woman declared, “If the Indians ain’t got acorns, it seem like he ain’t got nothing.” During the appropriate season, Indians harvested enough acorns to last for two years, a hedge against a poor acorn crop in the future. At the conclusion of the harvest, women shelled the acorns, pounded the nuts into meal, leached the tannin in a salt bed, ground the acorns into flour, and stored the flour in granaries for the coming winter. Women wove the large granaries or acorn caches and placed these storage vessels in trees or on the tops of boulders. As needed, women cooked acorn flour into a mush or bread. Women also gathered a variety of plants used in everyday use. Lassik women gathered wild iris fibers to make fishing nets. Finally, California Indian women harvested plants for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. Yukis used angelica to cure colds and alleviate the pain of arthritis, chewed angelica while hunting to mask their scent, and kept angelica root for good luck during grass game.¹⁸

As with hunting, fishing, and harvesting, household tasks divided along gendered lines. Men principally made items associated with hunting and, in some instances, prepared the meals that included meat. Wailacki and Nisenan men cooked meat dishes while Pomo women cooked the rest of the meal, but only after men had carved the animal carcasses. California Indian men usually refrained from processing or coo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• we were all like migrant workers here
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• contents
• maps and illustrations
• preface
• acknowledgments
• introduction
• Chapter One making the world in a basket
• Chapter Two they, white people, made slaves of indians
• Chapter Three they were kept busy at all times
• Chapter Four it give everybody a job
• Chapter Five from farm workers to... farm workers
• Chapter Six they gave all they were going to give to the indians
• Chapter Seven who good to feed them children?
• Chapter Eight building bridges and telling stories
• conclusion
• notes
• bibliography
• Index