WHO WERE THE NATIVE PEOPLE WHO HELPED TO BUILD THE MISSION?
WHO WERE THE
NATIVE PEOPLE WHO HELPED TO BUILD THE MISSION?
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You're old enough by now to know that Columbus was a little confused when he landed in the Americas. He thought that he'd found India, and so he named the people who lived here, "Indians." Of course, they weren't Indians and so we now call those people, "Native Americans."
When the Spanish came to
California, they found many
Native Americans already living here. Scientists
think that there may have been as many as 10,000 Native Americans living between
Big Sur and San Francisco before the Spaniards arrived. There were about
40 different tribes and they lived in groups between 100 and 250 people in each
tribe.
The Spaniards called all of the Native People who lived here Costenos or Costoans, which is Spanish for "Coastal Dwellers." There were two tribes who lived closest to Santa Cruz and who did most of the work at the Mission. They called themselves the Ohlone and the Zayante.
Almost all of the Ohlone and
Zayante are gone now. We
remember them mainly from creeks or mountains that are
named after them. Still, scientists called "archaeologists," have been
able to discover quite a bit about how they lived. Since they had such a
big part in making the Mission work, we should talk a little bit about
them.
What were they like? Well, first of all, each tribe was separate. You might be from Los Angeles or from San Diego, but you'd still think of yourself as a Californian, wouldn't you? Or you might be from Kansas or Idaho, but you'd still think of yourself as an American.
It wasn't like that for the tribes. They didn't think of themselves as all being Native Americans. Each group had their own language and their own ways of living. They considered themselves separate people who lived near to each other.
What did they eat?
They were lucky there. The area around Santa Cruz was just chock full of
wonderful things to eat. They lived right beside the Pacific Ocean, so
when the
tide went out everyday, they could just walk to the
shore and gather shell-fish for supper. They had clams and oysters and
mussels and abalone.
There are many rivers and
streams that run through the area, too, and so they were great fishers.
They'd catch trout and salmons and sturgeons. If they didn't feel like
eating fish, they'd hunt in the forests for deer, antelopes,
rabbits,
moles or
even bears. And, of course, there were many kinds of birds that they could
trap and eat, too, like ducks and doves and quails.
We know that there are a few
animals that they didn't hunt or eat, because they thought that they were holy
animals. Eagles, owls, and ravens, for instance, were never killed by the
tribes. Do you know what other animal they never hunted? The
frog.
They also had many plants to
eat. The mountains around Santa Cruz are filled with delicious, fat
blackberries that you can gather every summer. And there are elderberries
and
gooseberries and madrone berries. One of the most
important parts of their diets, though, was something you might not think of
today. They ate lots and lots of acorns.
That's right:
acorns! The woods were full of all kinds of oak trees and they would
gather the acorns every autumn.
Of course, they couldn't just pick them up and eat them
like squirrels do. Acorns have something in them called "tannin," that
makes people sick, so they had to get rid of that first. To get rid of the
tannin, they would grind up the acorns and make a kind of a flour out of
them. Then they'd soak the acorns in water to draw out the tannin.
After that, they could make soup out of it, or even a kind of a flour for
baking. Imagine having an acorn cookie!
So, as you can see, the
Ohlone and the Zayante usually didn't have to worry about having enough to
eat. There was so much to eat that they never even bothered to keep
animals like cows and pigs and goats. The only animal they ever trained to
stay with them was the dog. And who wouldn't want to have a dog?
What else do we know about
them? We know that they were wonderful crafts-people. They made
arrow-heads and scrapers and knives from a kind of a volcanic rock called,
"obsidian." They would gather the beautiful shells along the coast and
make them into earrings and pendants, or attach them to their belts or clothing
for decorations. They would
make cloaks
and head-dresses out of the feathers that they gathered. They must have
looked quite colorful when they were all dressed up, don't you think?
What did they actually look
like, though? Well, here's a painting of one of the Native People that
still hangs in the Mision
Galeria. You can click on it, to make it bigger.
His name was Justiniano Roxas and he was very, very old
when the picture was painted. Some people even say that he lived to be 123
years old. Still, you can see that they were quite handsome people, can't
you? What a strong, lovely face he had.
They say that the very last of the Zayante people was a woman who lived for many years beside Zayante Creek, in the mountains just outside of Santa Cruz. When she died, she was buried somewhere among the giant redwoods in Henry Cowell Park. Her grave, like her people, is lost now, but we can always remember these wonderful people when we look at the Missions that they helped to build.
Would you like to more about what kind of things were in the Mission at Santa Cruz? If you would, just click on the bell and we'll show you.
