California

1
California
Abundant languages, styles, and environments

• Intensive Foragers

2
General characteristics

• Large temperate area
• Including northern Baja.
• Densely populated
• Foraging Economy
• Knew of, but did not practice, agriculture
• Owens Valley Paiute, agricultural Puebloan
  neighbors to some Californian groups
• Nut processing occurs everywhere

3
Economy

• Mixed foraging economy
• Coast heavy reliance on sea mammals, shellfish,
  and fish
• Interior include reliance on game

Ishi making a bow and biface
4
Nut processing

• Local, stationary
• Easily gathered
• Higher populations
• labor intensive
• Requires leaching
• Storage
• Importance of basketry
• Encouraged sedentary lifestyle

Bedrock mortars Indian Grinding Rocks State
Historical Park
5
Impact on social structure

• extensive networks of cooperation,
• strong gender division of labor
• storable food supplies
• surplus
• sendentarism

6
Social life

• Settlements permanent distinct spheres of
  activity for males and females
• translated stored surplus into wealth
• leisure time employed in creation of art

Kawaiisu gift basket
California shell beads
7
Politics

• Permanent class structure
• Elite, middle, poor
• Permanent chiefs
• coercive power
• control stored surplus
• could convert surplus to wealth and status
  markers
• inherited patrilineally.
• Villages interacting in districts
• like modern political structure. districts
  interacted with others in regular ways, through
  alliance, trade, or enmity.

8
Gender roles

• Labor division
• Women responsible for food producing and
  processing
• Women responsible for child care
• Large groups close to home
• Men handled diplomatic relations
• Trade, warfare
• Men traveled and hunted
• Solo or w/few companions
• Men associated with supernatural
• Men as Shamans
• Mens rituals predominated
• Women less visible in supernatural world
• Menarche and menstrual rituals
• Bridewealth

9
Ritual life

• Very rich
• Three main types
• kuksu cult
• toloache
• first fruits

10
Spanish Period

• Brief contact 1542
• Sustained contact begins 1700s
• Missions
• Predominate on coast
• Father Serra
• Indians as slaves
• Loci of disease
• Material wealth
• Modification to repartimiento system

Santa Barbara Mission
11
Mexican period

• Secularization
• landlords and indentured servants.
• traditional way of life gone
• land grab opened up the interior

12
American period

• Mexican-American war
• California is ceded to US
• Gold rush of 1849
• Civil War
• hostile.
• genocidal
• unarmed Indians

13
Human cost
Ishi at UC Museum