FIREBAUGH REGION – EYULAHUAS AND COPCHA LOCAL TRIBES

The Eyulahuas and Copchas, two Northern Valley Yokuts-speaking local tribes, shared a stretch of the San Joaquin River in the vicinity of the modern town of Firebaugh according to the most likely interpretation of a small number Spanish expedition diary references. The Firebaugh region is drawn to encompass that stretch of river and plains to the east and west, in Fresno and Madera counties. The Copcha were encountered along the San Joaquin River in the Firebaugh region by two Spanish expeditions. The Eyulahuas were encountered in the same general area by yet another expedition. That might suggest that Eyulahuas and Copcha were synonymous terms for one group. Yet the two groups were consistently distinguished in the mission records. Text provided below in the Mission Register References section describes the overlapping and intermingled patterns of Copcha and Eyulahua baptism at Mission Juan Bautista during the 1817-1822 period. Five Copcha stragglers were baptized at San Juan Bautista between 1826 and 1832, often with Heuchi relatives from the Madera region. Three Copchas were baptized at Mission Santa Cruz, but no Eyulahuas are identified at Santa Cruz. A hint from an early record indicates that some Eyulahuas went to Mission Soledad, but they have yet to be identified there among the many people said to be from the “Tulares.”

All in all, it seems that all of the Eyulahuas and more than half of the Copchas joined the missions. Missionized survivors and their children at the end of the Mission Period were integrated into the San Juan Bautista population. Those Copchas who did not join the missions moved east to join their Heuchi and Hoyima Yokuts neighbors. They were probably hard-hit by the 1833 malaria epidemic. Nevertheless, some of their descendants may have been among the mixed Yokuts groups on the early Fresno River and San Joaquin River reservations after 1850.

Environment

The Firebaugh region lies on the flat lands at the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. Most of the region consists of low marshlands, lakes, and plains along numerous distributary channels of the San Joaquin River at 120-150 feet in elevation. Elevation gradually rises on the west to 220 feet on the Panoche/Silver Creek alluvial fan and on the east to 180 feet on the plain north of Cottonwood Creek, which flows down from the east to meet the San Joaquin River. (Although riverine, the Firebaugh region people may have utilized a greater area than currently mapped, out onto the plain in the Oro Loma and Mendota regions.) The main San Joaquin River probably jumped back and forth among various distributaries in this region from one year to the next. Pre-contact? vegetation was grassland and freshwater marsh, with willow thickets and occasional cottonwood trees along the channels of the San Joaquin River.

Spanish Period Expedition References

Moraga-Muñoz 1806. The Moraga-Muñoz punitive expedition left Mission San Juan Bautista on September 21, 1806 and arrived in the Santa Rita region on September 23, by way of Pacheco Pass and Los Banos Creek. From their camp (in either the Santa Rita Park or Dos Palos vicinity) the party explored southward on September 24, probably into the Firebaugh region:

This morning the expedition went south (leaving the camp at the same spot) in search of a village which, according to information, was of 400 people. We had the misfortune to find no one in it and saw only signs of its’ having been inhabited. Not being able to ascertain whither the people had gone we turned eastward to investigate a large river, previously discovered by Second Lieutenant Don Gabriel and called by him the San Joaquin… In the rainy season this river and its adjacent land may be impassable, according to the vestiges left by immense overflows of water [Muñoz in Cook 1960:248].

Pico 1815. José Dolores Pico led a punitive raid into the San Joaquin Valley from the Monterey Presidio in November of 1815. On November 9 they headed south to the Firebaugh region from a camp in either the Los Banos or Mud Slough region to the north:

I took a southerly direction and emerged from the tule swamp. Having traveled about eight leagues from the said swamp I turned in an easterly direction toward the San Joaquin River. On arriving at this river at about six o’clock in the afternoon I was told that some armed heathen were crossing to the opposite bank. Immediately Corporal Juarez went over with some men to investigate them. The heathen, seeing that the soldiers were crossing the river, gathered in a village near by and began to shoot at them [Pico in Cook 1960:268-269].

An inconclusive skirmish ensued. Then the Spaniards retreated to camp a short distance north. Early the next morning, November 10, they were attacked by the local native men. The Spaniards drove the men off, killing many and capturing one:

Of the dead, one was found to be a Christian of Mission San Juan and a leader in stealing horses. … The action having ceased, I ordered Corporal Juarez with ten men to make a reconaissance of the rancheria, which was called Copicha [Pico in Cook 1960:268-269].

This examination of the “Copicha” village is an explicit reference indicating that the Copcha were living in the Firebaugh region. At 11 AM on November 10, Pico moved south, arriving that night at a camp in the Mendota region without mentioning any other group in the Firebaugh region.

Pico-Ortega 1815. Pico returned north from the Tulare Lake area in a combined party with Juan Ortega. They left the Mendota region on the morning of November 25, crossed the San Joaquin River in the vicinity of the confluence of the river and Fresno Slough, and continued on into the Firebaugh region. There they encountered a Copcha village again. Pico’s diary reads:

At about seven o’clock in the morning we arrived at the village of Cupicha, which we found without inhabitants. (This village is in the meadow along the river where the San Joaquin joins the Tecolote.) We inquired of the heathen Indians whom we had with us and they told us the people had moved to the mountains. We went westward and crossed the river [Pico in Cook 1960:270].

Pico’s Tecolote was certainly the Fresno River (although later Estudillo would label Mariposa Creek the Tecolate). Here, for the second time, Pico referenced the Firebaugh region people as the Copcha. Although he was told that they had gone “to the mountains,” there is no way of knowing whether that group had moved eastward all the way to the Sierra or merely to one of the adjoining regions, such as Hernden or Madera.

Estudillo 1819. José María Estudillo entered the Firebaugh region from the Mendota region to the south on November 6, 1819. There he found the Eyulahuas living together with a group he called the “Othos”:

Started at 5:30 A.M., following the banks of the river northward, full of meadows and swamps. At 3 P.M. I saw the fresh track of an Indian. I followed it to the middle of a bay of willows formed by the river. Settled on its banks I found five old women, an old man, a youth of about twenty, and a consumptive-looking young woman of about the same age, also a hermaphrodite whom they called Joya. All the natives belonging to the ranchería of Othos and Yulavas, [under?] Captain Chegice already christianized at San Juan with the name Bartolome, and Quetas [an] unconverted Captain. They informed me that a very few days before Bartolome had come, sent by the priests of San Juan, and Queutas and all the people had gone to the mission with him, leaving the possessions I saw, and the old and infirm who remained there [Estudillo in Gayton 1936:81].

Estudillo told the people that he would send their captains from Mission San Juan Bautista to bring them to that mission once he himself returned to it. Both of the mentioned captains appear as Eyulahuas in the mission records. Bartolome Chegice had been baptized as the Eyulahuas captain by Father Arroyo at San Juan Bautista in March of 1818 (noted as Thregiae in SJB-B 2225). Estudillo’s “unconverted captain,” Queutas, was baptized by Father Arroyo on Jun 15, 1820, at which time he too was identified as an Eyulahuas captain (SJB-B 2484).

Mission Register References

The Eyulahuas and Copchas were missionized between 1816 and 1832. San Juan Bautista was the home mission of all 80 identifiable baptized Eyulahuas people and 63 of 66 baptized Copchas. Three other identifiable Copchas were baptized at Mission Santa Cruz. Combined, 95% of them were baptized by the end of 1822. Other Eyulahuas and/or Copchas were certainly baptized at Mission Soledad (see Arroyo’s statement in the San Juan Bautista Padron subsection below), as well, but tribal attributions at Soledad are impossible to assign for many who were baptized there merely as “Tular” people.

San Juan Bautista. Of 80 Eyulahuas who went to San Juan Bautista between 1817 and 1823, the largest groups appear in the baptismal register in 1818, 1819, and 1820. The first convert, baptized alone on January 22, 1817, was an infant “nacido en el parage de Pileunet, hija de Guonche y de Chimilcat de la rancheria de los Eyiloas (SJB-B 2149 by Fr. Arroyo). Her parents and six others were baptized on May 6, 1817, at which time all were noted as Eyulahuas except her mother, who was listed as a Copcha (SJB-B 2161-2168). The first noted Eyulahuas captain, Bartolome Thregiae (age 30), led a group of five Eyulahuas and one Copcha for baptism on March 3, 1818 (among SJB-B 2225-2250). Three other Eyulahuas captains were noted in the Mission San Juan Bautista baptismal register over the next two years. Next was Capitán menór Constantino Alema (SJB-B 2387), a 20-year-old baptized in December of 1819. The presumed main captain, Olimpiades Queutas (age 50), led a group of married couples in baptismal order on June 15, 1820 (SJB-B 2484). On October 28, 1820, Quarto Huooya, older brother of Constantino, was identified as captain as he led the last significant Eyulahuas group for baptism. Three of the last four Eyulahuas converts were baptized on May 22, 1822 among a large, mixed lowland straggler group that included Nopchinche Yokuts (Santa Rita region), Quitratre Yokuts (Atwater region), and Utrocus Yokuts of the El Nido region (SJB-B 3135, 3143, 3144).The last convert was baptized on March 1, 1823 among a group of Utrocus Yokuts (SJB-B 3298).

The 63 Copchas identified in the San Juan Bautista baptismal register were baptized between 1816 and 1832. Possibly the earliest baptized Copicha individual was Pastor Chujai, baptized on July 5, 1816 as the only “Coipathre” ever to appear in mission records (SJB-B 2114). Although Coipathre suggests Copicha, Pastor was listed as a “Nopthrinthe” in Father Arroyo’s 1822/1824 padron, casting doubt on the equivalency of group names Coipathre and Copicha. Arroyo baptized the great majority of explicitly identified “Copcha,” 54 people, over the years 1819-1822, often in mixed groups with Eyulahuas Yokuts. Three of the entries carried more information: “Copcha en los Tulares” (SJB-B 2629), “orda de Copchas” (SJB-B 2538), and “raza o familia de Copchas” (SJB-B 2422). Arroyo identified one Copcha captain; he was Jucundo Cathscaths, who led a group of his people in line for baptism on June 13, 1820 (SJB-B 2475). The last five San Juan Bautista Copcha converts were baptized between 1826 and 1832, often with Heuchi Yokuts (Madera region) individuals.

Note that the “Otho” hermaphrodite mentioned by Estudillo was probably the person baptized at Mission San Juan Bautista on May 7, 1822, with the same gender description, as the only “Jochomne” in the mission records (SJB-B 3120). That person is included in the overall count of baptized Copchas.

Santa Cruz. Two identified Copchas were baptized at Mission Santa Cruz, two of whom were labeled Copcha and one who was labeled an Ochoyo. Father Escude baptized Casimiro from the Rancheria Ochoyo on April 5, 1817. Two young children of Casimiro were baptized at San Juan Bautista in April of 1821, but later appear as Copchas in a Santa Cruz Padron (SJB-B 22747, 2748). Additionally, Casimiro’s Copcha wife and another Copcha woman were baptized at Santa Cruz in the fall of 1821 (SCR-B 1936, 1937); the latter woman was married to a Heuchi Yokuts man (from the Madera region) at the time of her baptism, but did not renew that marriage in the mission system. No explicitly identified Eyulahuas were baptized at Mission Santa Cruz, and none of the otherwise-unlocated splinter groups at Santa Cruz have been shown to cross-refer to Eyulahua.

Soledad. It is known that Copchas went to Mission Soledad (see Arroyo’s Padron discussion below), but its records are inconsistently annotated for ethno-geographic information and no records, which are inconsistent in identifying home villages or local tribes. However, two women went to Mission Soledad from an unlocated Yokuts group called Ochomna or Ochonoma. The first of the two was a young “Ochonoma” woman who came in quite early, in 1804, with a large group of Chalons; she was already married to a Christian man from an unknown place called “Upaan en los Guacharones” (SO-B 1030 by Fr. Jayme). The second was an infant from “Ochomna en el Tular” brought by her catecumen mother in December of 1823, at a time when Pitkachis and Hoyimas were being baptized at Soledad (SO-B 1971 by Fr. Juan Cabot). It is possible, but not definite, that Ochonoma and Copcha are synonymous. Other Copchas might have been at Soledad among the many people labeled there only as “Tulares” Indians.

Mission Marriage Patterns. Eyulahuas were involved in 22 renewed pre-mission marriages, all at San Juan Bautista. Most were married within the group (24 people in 12 marriage events), while three were married to Nopchinche Yokuts (Santa Rita region), three to Copcha Yokuts (presumed Firebaugh region neighbors), two to Kiwech Yokuts speakers (Oro Loma region), one to a Chauchila Yokuts (Dairyland region) and one to an Uthrocos Yokuts (El Nido region). The pattern of Copcha renewed pre-mission marriages at Mission San Juan Bautista was similar; they were involved in 16 such marriages, most within their group (20 people in 10 marriages), while two were married to Nupchenche Yokuts, one to a Chauchila Yokuts, and one to a Heuchi Yokuts (Madera region), in addition to the three pre-mission marriages to the Eyulahuas. The one pre-mission Copcha marriage noted at Mission Santa Cruz seems to have involved two Copchas, if in fact the “Ochoyo” husband was a Copcha (SCR-M 673; SCR-B 1688).

Widowed and previously unmarried missionized Eyulahuas people at Mission San Juan Bautista married Nopchinche Yokuts (six events), Heuche Yokuts (four events), Hoyima Yokuts (two events), Kiwech Yokuts (two events), Utrocos Yokuts (two events), Chauchila Yokuts (one event), Copcha (one event), Cuccunun Yokuts (one event), other Eyulahuas (one event), Pitkachi Yokuts (one event), Quitratre Yokuts (one event), and Coast Range Costanoan speakers (six events) as well as mission-born people.

Previously unmarried missionized Copchas wedded Chauchila Yokuts (four events), Nopchinche Yokuts (two events), Uthrocos Yokuts (two events), Eyulahuas Yokuts (one event), Quihueths Yokuts (two events), Quithrathre Yokuts (two events), Hoyima Yokuts (two events), Heuchi Yokuts (one event), Ochentac Costanoans (one event) and Sutunuchu Sierra Miwoks (one event) at San Juan Bautista. At Mission Santa Cruz young missionized Copchas married Tomoi and Partacsi Costanoans from the Coast Ranges.

San Juan Bautista Padron. Father Arroyo listed the Eyulahuas second in his San Juan Bautista Padron of the early 1820s, after the Nopchinches (his Nopthrinthre). He wrote in the preamble, “then follows the Eyulahuas who are intimates with those of Copcha.” In the text introducing the Copcha individuals (the third group listed), he wrote, “There total 33 from the Copchas, united with the Eyulahuas … I do not know if there are more of them in their land, but some reside at Santa Cruz and Soledad.” At the end of that Copcha list, Arroyo added, “This brings to an end these two Nations, the Eyulauas and Copcha, who were nearly united in their native state.”

Mexican Period Expedition References

Pico 1826. Sergeant José Dolores Pico led a Mexican army expedition against horse thieves and fugitive Christians in the central San Joaquin Valley during the winter of 1825-1826. From Mission San Juan Bautista he came over Pacheco Pass to the Los Banos vicinity. On January 1, 1826 they camped in the Dos Palos vicinity of the Santa Rita region. Next day, January 2, they reported that they traveled eastward (which, within context of the overall diary, was actually southeastward), and came up to a village that seems to have been approximately where the town of Firebaugh is today:

At dawn I went out to reconnoitre and to see if I could find the guides [sent eastward the day before], going always in an easterly direction. At a distance of six leagues, on the San Joaquin River, I came upon a village at which the previous day some heathen Indians had arrived. With them were five Christians from San Juan Bautista. Of these we caught two by surprise, very bad individuals, who had been fugitives already for a long time. The name of one was Rustico, who had been running loose now about two years; the other was called Canuto and he had been a fugitive for four years. Now the guides, who had come a day earlier, as I have stated, were holding in their possession the Christians who were at the river because they were sick together with other casuals who had joined them. There were also some fourteen other Indians whom the Rev. Father Fray Felipe Arroyo had sent out about a week previously to hunt out these sick people. Finally, at about 9:00 o’clock in the evening, forty more heathen and Christians came in [Pico in Cook 1962:181].

Pico’s Rustico, mission records show, was a Chauchila who had been baptized at San Juan Bautista at age 30 in December of 1820 (SJB-B 2613). Canuto was an Eyulahuas who had been baptized at San Juan Bautista at age 13 in July of 1817. The Firebaugh region was clearly a borderlands area by 1826, where Mission Indians, fugitives, and tribal people came together.

The Pico party moved east out of the Firebaugh region the next day, January 3, to continue a campaign that would last many days:

I left the river and went toward the Sierra Nevada, where I had received information a certain Feliz, neophyte of Soledad Mission, and another from San Juan had gone to the village of the Jollimas [Pico in Cook 1962:181].

Although directions in Pico’s diary are subject to varying interpretation, it is suggested here that he moved over the plain through the eastern portion of the Firebaugh region, thence on into the Herndon region. His campaign took him to the east and south before he finally left the San Joaquin Valley via a pass south of Tulare Lake on January 24.

Smith 1827. Jedediah Smith passed through the Firebaugh region in March of 1827, on his way north from San Bernardino with scores of trappers and more than 100 horses. In his diary review at his camp on the Stanislaus River, he noted the absence of Indian people in the stretch of land from the bend of the San Joaquin River to the Stanislaus:

Since I struck the Peticutry [San Joaquin River] I had seen but few indians. The greater part of those that once resided here having (as I have since been told ) gone in to the Missions of St. Joseph and Santa Clara [Smith in Brooks 1977:146].

Rodriguez 1828a. Sergeant Sebastian Rodriguez led a party into the east-central San Joaquin Valley against horse-stealing Indians in April and early May of 1828. The precise route of the party is impossible to reconstruct from its diary, but the groups they attacked were the Chauchila, Heuchi, and Hoyima, and the area seems to have been north and east of the Firebaugh region on Cottonwood Creek (Herndon and Friant regions), the Fresno river (Madera and Raymond regions), and the Chowchilla river (Le Grand region). To reach those areas, the Rodriguez party first crossed the San Joaquin River on April 23, probably in the northern part of the Firebaugh region:

I reached the river at about 10:00 o’clock in the morning and found it at high water. Three rafts were assembled and during the day we got across … Here we slept the night [Rodriguez in Cook 1962:184].

Rodriquez’s group waited until late the next day, April 24, then moved east over the plain on their way to “Monte Redondo,” probably just west of Pinedale and the San Joaquin River in the eastern portion of the Herndon region. The party “did not arrive until dawn of the 25th because the guides got lost,” wrote Rodriguez (in Cook 1962:184). It is clear that they traveled at night, probably because they were trying to enter Hoyima territory (Herndon region) in secrecy. Toward the end of the raid, on April 29, an entry noted that the Hoyima, Heuchi, and Chowchilla withdrawl and resistance were aided by a fugitive Copcha Yokuts named Delfino:

All these villages are stirred up by a Christian Indian from Mission San Juan, who came to tell them that the soldiers were on their way. This man arrived the day before I did, and after just being able to notify the Joyimas, immediately made a circuit through the north giving his warnings everywhere that horses are eaten. The heathen Indians stated that the Christian is called Delfino [Rodriguez in Cook 1962:185].

Delfino was identified as a Copcha at baptism as a 22-year-old married Copcha man on December 20, 1819 (SJB-B 2396). He is an example of an escaped missionized person retreating to live amongst the closest viable groups to his original homeland.

1846-1910 Historic References

Neither Eyulahuas nor Copchas signed the 1851 federal treaties. No middle or late eighteenth century references mention any native group living in the Firebaugh region at the time.

Classic Ethnographic References

Kroeber 1925. Kroeber assigned the lands of the San Joaquin Valley, including the Firebaugh region, to the Yokuts language family; he neither discussed nor mapped any local Yokuts tribes or villages in the Firebaugh region (1925:486, plates 1, 47).

Gayton 1948. Gayton’s Yokuts documentation was confined to areas south of the San Joaquin River, with the exception of a few facts she learned from Bill Wilson (Latta’a Pahmit), a Dumna of the Friant region. Wilson provided the following relevant informaton at the end of a list of villages within a few miles of his home in Millerton (1948:153):

6. Ka’oso: village at Firebaugh where “everyone” used to go for salmon fishing.

7. če’yao: salmon camp above no. 6

8. če’sao: salmon camp above no. 7

Camps number 7 and 8 cannot be located as to spot or region, because we do not know the distances Mr. Wilson had in mind for the gaps between the fish camps.

Latta 1949. Latta gave the west side of the San Joaquin River in the Firebaugh region to his “Kahwatchwah” Yokuts group (see Ora Loma region for full discussion of that group). He gave the northeast portion of the region to the Heuchi Yokuts (themselves limited to the Madera region in the CPNC), and the southeast portion to the Hoyima Yokuts (limited to the Hernden region in the CPNC). Latta did not mention the Eyulahuas local tribe at all in his 1949 work.

Recent Ethnographic References

Cook 1955. In his study of the aboriginal population of the entire San Joaquin Valley, Cook (1955:76) did not map either the Eyulahuas or the Copcha. He divided the Firebaugh region among three mapping areas, a western San Joaquin one for the Nupchenches,” a northern Fresno river one for the Heuchi, and a southeastern San Joaquin River area of Hoyima and Pitkachi. Cook’s (1955:50-54) textual analysis of population density, is complex, difficult to follow, and questionable; he suggests an aboriginal population of 5.05 persons per square mile in the eastern San Joaquin Valley south of the Merced River and north of the Kings River.

Latta 1977. In the cover map of his 1977 edition, Latta made slight changes from 1949, placing Heuche and Hoyima (his “Hoyumne”) a bit farther east, and suggesting that the Kahwatchwah held almost the entire Firebaugh region. He also added a brief, unhelpful mention of the “Nopthrinthres Yokuts of San Juan Bautista” as part of his commentary on the “Padre Arroyo’s Records,” but again did not mention the Eyulahuas (1977:265). Latta also added a paragraph about “Ranchería Aopicha” in his 1977 edition, a name that derives from his misreading of a manuscript text of the 1815 Pico attack on the “Copicha” on the San Joaquin River.

Wallace 1978. The California volume (Heizer 1978) divided Yokuts groups into Northern Valley, Southern Valley, and Foothill, to discuss the large Yokuts language territory in three conveniently sized chapters. Wallace’s (1978:462) Northern Valley chapter map shows selected central San Joaquin Valley local tribes but does not include the Eyulahuas or Copcha; the map suggests that the Firebaugh region was just south of the territory of the Nopchenchi, southwest of the Heuchi, and west of the Hoyima. In his text, Wallace (1978:470) listed “Copicha (opposite mouth of Chowchilla)”—a placement that certainly derives from an overly hopeful reading of the locations in the Pico report of 1815—and incorrectly suggested that it was a Nopchinche subtribe; he did not list the Euylahuas. Overall, Wallace’s (1978:462-470) ethno-geographic information is not systematic and not always accurate. File:Example.jpg