ORO LOMA REGION – QUIHUETHS LOCAL TRIBE

The Oro Loma region seems to have been the homeland of a small group of Northern Valley Yokuts speakers called Quihueths in a Mission San Juan Bautista Padron (census). They are probably equivalent to the Kahwatchwah, remembered by an informant of Frank Latta in the 1920s. The arid Oro Loma region, in the western San Joaquin Valley and adjoining Coast Range hills of northwest Fresno County and southwest Merced County, contains the crossroads of Oro Loma, but no true towns, today. It is one of the least understood regions in central California, both in its boundary delineation and in the identification of its people in the mission records. All results discussed here are tentative, based upon indirect inferential approaches to the data. The best evidence for placement of a Quihueths local tribe derives from Father Arroyo’s introduction, in his 1822-1827 Padron, to a list of the earliest Lathruunun (Yokuts) speakers at San Juan Bautista: “I continue with the first people I baptized, from Quihüeths, jointly with Cutósos and Chanecha, to whose lands I went both by myself and together with soldiers.” The two other groups are firmly placed on the landscape, the Chanecha Yokuts in the Los Banos region to the north of Oro Loma, and the Cutocho Yokuts who came from the Mendota region to the south. This leaves the plain around Oro Loma, east of Mission San Juan Bautista, available as the most likely homeland of the Quihueths. Water would have been an issue for people living on those plains. The nearby San Joaquin River was under control of the Nopchinche Yokuts (Santa Rita Park region) and the Eyulahuas/Copcha Yokuts (Firebaugh region). Thus, the Oro Loma mapping region has been drawn to include the watercourse of the lower valley of Little Panoche Creek, along the east edge of the Coast Range southeast of Los Banos.

At least 41 Quihueths people moved to missions San Juan Bautista and Soledad between 1806 and 1819. The earliest were baptized at Mission Soledad between 1806 and 1811 under the group names Siquidmit, Quiuecha, and Tular; there were 22 of them, none under 15 or over 30 years old. Then between 1812 and 1819 Father Arroyo de la Cuesta at Mission San Juan Bautista baptized 19 people from Ahsnii, Auquisticaus, Quiguiths, Sinathreha, and Teilamne—tiny groups that he lumped together in his later 1822-1827 Padron as the Quihueths. Other possible candidates for the first Yokuts-speaking converts from the Oro Loma region are the “Guachirrones de la Sierra” baptized at Mission San Juan Bautista between 1799 and 1807 (see Mission Register References below).

The contact-period inhabitants of the Oro Loma region seem to have been involved in a strong resistance to missionization that also involved the Chanecha of the Los Banos region between 1808 and 1816 (see Spanish Period Expedition References section below). Their population may have been greatly reduced prior to missionization by warfare against the Spaniards. By the 1818-1822 period the San Joaquin River groups were going to missions Santa Cruz, San Juan Bautista, and Soledad, so we know that the Oro Loma people, no matter who they were, had already been absorbed into the missions by then. Latta, whose native consultant assigned the western San Joaquin Valley plains and adjacent Coast Range hills to the Kahwatchwah, was the only twentieth-century ethnographer to capture any information about the native people of the plain west of Firebaugh. Quihueths genetic lines may still exist among descendants of nineteenth-century Indians of Mission San Juan Bautista and Mission Soledad.

Environment

The Oro Loma region lies along the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and includes a small area of the adjacent Coast Range foothills. Elevations in the foothills vary from 1,300 feet down to 600 feet, while elevations in the larger San Joaquin plain area slope gradually down from 600 feet at the foothill edge to 120 feet in marshland areas on the north and northeast. Surface water in the region is confined to Little Panoche Creek, which leaves the Coast Range in the west part of the region and once flowed, at least seasonally, out across the plain to marshes and distributary sloughs of the San Joaquin River north and east of Oro Loma. Natural vegetation of the entire region was once valley grassland, with cottonwood trees along Little Panoche Creek.

Spanish Period Expedition References

1812-1814 Punitive Expeditions. Spanish soldiers clashed with villagers in the San Joaquin Valley east of Mission San Juan Bautista during the year 1812. Indirect references indicate that Father Arroyo de la Cuesta was with the soldiers during the first clash. The event is documented in a San Juan Bautista death register entry of August 9, 1812 stating:

I gave religious burial … to the body of Antioco, an adult of this mission, who had been killed at the rancheria of Quiguch" [SJB-D 1162, by Father Ullibari].

A cross-referencing note was added next to Antioco’s entry in the book of baptisms at the time, stating:

He died as is noted in the entry 1162 … along with Jose Joaquin … They were killed by the non-Christians when they went on the expedition with Father Arroyo” [margin of SJB-B 1072].

The death record of the other man, Jose Joaquin, was entered later in the year:

On September 24 it was verified that there died on my expedition an adult of this mission named Jose Joaquin, baptized 1018; he was killed on the same day as Antioco … but he was not buried on sacred soil [SJB-D 1168 by Arroyo de la Cuesta].

Another entry suggesting a raid in 1812 is found in the Mission San Carlos records. On September 11, 1814, Father Sarria baptized an adolescent boy:

They took [him] during an expedition made by the troops of this Royal Presidio under the command of Sergeant Vallejo during the year 1812 to a refuge that they had in the tulares near Mission San Juan Bautista … surviving, he was brought in and adopted …. His parents' names are not known, although they still lived when he was brought in. They were not from the rancheria where the refuge existed, but from farther away … his older brother is a neophyte at Santa Cruz [SCA-B 2920 by Sarria].

We have speculated elsewhere that Father Arroyo ran into trouble at the Quihueths village in the Oro Loma region shortly before the death register entry of August 9, 1812, and that the proof of Jose Joaquin’s death on September 24, 1812 came during a retaliatory expedition by Sergeant Vallejo against the Quihueths (cf. Milliken 1993:78-80). Such an expedition may have resulted in numerous deaths among the Quihueths. That would explain their low overall baptized population, documented in the following section.

Mission Register References

The Oro Loma region people were completely removed from their homelands through missionization between 1806 and 1819. Forty-one of them are tentatively identified in the mission registers, although it has proven impossible to distinguish with certainty the mission register-listed groups that actually came from the Oro Loma region. We proceed in this section under the assumption that they were the people known as Quiuech or Siquidmit at Mission Soledad and as Asthnii, Teilamne, Sinathre, and Quiguiths at Mission San Juan Bautista. Additionally, the "Guachirrones de la Sierra" baptized at Mission San Juan Bautista between 1799 and 1807, now identified in the CPNC database as Chalon Costanoan speakers of the inner Coast Ranges, may have been Yokuts speakers from the Oro Loma region.

Soledad Baptisms. The first currently-identified Oro Loma people to appear at Mission Soledad, nine altogether, were listed as the “Tular,” but led by a man listed from the specific rancheria of “Quiuech”; the group was baptized on May 29, 1809 (SO-B 1340-1349). Their appearance followed earlier baptisms of general “Tulares” people and “Yyin” people at Soledad, probably from the Helm region. All in all, 21 Quiuech people (including Tulares people with Quiuech relatives) were baptized at Mission Soledad through 1813. They lack systematically documented family ties to any other group in the Mission Soledad records.

San Juan Bautista Baptisms. Mission San Juan Bautista took in a total of 19 people that we identify with the Oro Lomo region; all were baptized by Father Arroyo de la Cuesta between 1812 and 1817. At baptism, two were identified as being from Ahsnii (SJB-B 1964, 2147); two were identified as “Auquistacos de la ranchería Cutostho” [SJB-B 2016, 2019]; three were explicitly stated to be Quihueths (“Quiguiths Nación, Rancheria Lohol” [SJB-B 2017,2018]; “Rancheria de Quihuehs” [SJB-B 2182]; five were called Sinathrehas (specifically “Nación Sinathreha de la Rancheria de Yaucaug” in three of the cases [SJB-B 2012-2014]); and six as Teilamne (specifically “Nación Teilemne de la Rancheria de Siahama [SJB-B 2015],” “Nación Teilamne de la Rancheria de Siama [SJB-B 1965,1966]” in three of the cases); and one was identified as an Eyuslahua Yokuts at baptism [SJB-B 2169]. Thirteen of the nineteen were still alive in 1822, at which time Father Arryo de la Cuesta labeled them all Quihueths in the 1822-1827 Padron.

Other candidates for the first Yokuts-speaking converts from the Oro Loma region, but not included as Oro Loma people in the present CPNC, are 40 or so “Guachirrones de la Sierra” baptized at Mission San Juan Bautista between 1799 and 1807. “Guachirron” is believed to mean “River People” in southern Costanoan languages (per Pinart in Heizer 19452:18). The Guachirrones de la Sierra were intermarried with a number of Coast Range Ohlone/Costanoan groups, among them the Orestacs, Ochentacs, and Tammarons. They are currently assigned to the Potrero Peak, Panoche Pass, and Little Panoche regions of the Coast Range. An in-depth study of all possible clues may provide evidence for re-assigning them as Yokuts of Little Panoche Creek in the Oro Loma region.

San Juan Bautista 1822-1827 Padron. Father Arroyo’s San Juan Bautista Padron of the early 1820s provides the key for interpreting the distribution of the western San Joaquin County groups in the expected Mission San Juan Bautista outreach area. In its preamble, he explained the order of the tribal lists that would follow. The following sentence from that preamble is pertinent to the Oro Loma region:

I continue with the first people I baptized, from Quihüeths, jointly with Cutósos and Chanecha, to whose lands I went both by myself and together with soldiers [Arroyo de la Cuesta 1822-1827].

Following this preample, the Padron provides separate lists of individuals from the Nopchenche, Eyuslahua, and Copcha. Then comes the list relevant to the Locobo/Quihueth problem. It is a composite list of people from a number of groups, people Arroyo had baptized over the first years after his arrival at San Juan Bautista in 1808. He wrote:

The first non-Christian Indians I baptized after my arrival … cannot be separated, due to the small number of each. They are the following, and many others of them have died (Arroyo de la Cuesta 1822-1827]:

[list of 11 Quihueths, 3 Cutosos, 2 Taliths, 1 Chanech, 1 Unijaima, 1 Orestaco, all baptized 1808-1814]

These are the initial converts from the Tulares, and since 1819 no more of them have come forward. Below follow more of them, in the same format, lacking Christian names, but with Gentile names that should suffice to replace them. And so I continue without further explanation.

[list of 12 Cutoso, 9 Chanech, 4 Quihueths, 1 Athsnii baptized 1816-17, and an addition, 1 Cutoso baptized 1820]

This completes those of the small dispersed tribes. If any of the Chanecha, Cutoso, Quihueths, their old people for example, remain fugitives or are aggregated elsewhere, the rest should be reunited at San Juan Bautista, as should any from the first groups [in the Padron], Nopthrinthres, Eyulahuas, and Copcha, who remain on their lands. [added later-ed. …] Among those mentioned in these nations, without doubt, no one remains. All their relatives are at Soledad and at Santa Cruz (Arroyo de la Cuesta [1822-1827]).

It is from this important padron that the people variously identified in their Mission San Juan Bautista baptisms as Ahsmii, Athsni, Auquiticaus, Quihueths, Sinathres, and Teilamnes have been consolidated as members of a single Quihueths local tribe that was separate from the neighboring Chanecha of the Los Banos region and Cutocho of the Mendota region.

Mexican Period Expedition References

Native people had long evacuated the Oro Loma region by the beginning of the Mexican Period in 1821. Most military expeditions from Monterey during the era crossed from Pacheco Pass through the Los Banos region to the San Joaquin River. However, the Rodriguez expedition of 1828 did cross to the San Joaquin River through the Oro Loma region. Its diary makes no comments pertinent to the region.

1846-1910 Historical References

The Quihueths did not sign the 1851 federal treaties. No references to native people of the Oro Loma region are known for the 1840-1910 time period.

Classic Ethnographic References

Kroeber 1925. Kroeber assigned the Oro Loma region, and surrounding lands of the San Joaquin Valley and eastern Coast Range hills, to speakers of the Yokuts language family. He seems to have lacked any knowledgeable native consultants for the vicinity, since he failed to note any local Yokuts tribes or villages of the west side in text or on his maps (cf. Kroeber 1925:486, plates 1, 47).

Latta 1949. Latta assigned the Oro Loma region to a Yokuts-speaking group called “Kah-watch’-wah, meaning "Grass Nut People” (1949:14). His information was second-hand, told to him in 1930 by his knowledgeable Dumna Yokuts informant Pahmit, who had learned about the group as a young man from a Los Banos Indian named So-pah’-no (Latta 1949:14-15):

Sopahno said his tribe name was Ka-watch’-wah. They live on west side of San Joaquin River, from below Firebaught ‘bout five miles down to north Los Baños town, north where San Luis Creek runs into San Joaquin River. They live too in the west hills all along from Panoche to north of San Luis Ranch. San Luis Creek all belong to Kahwatchwa. Their home villages both on Los Baños Creek, one at hills and one at San Joaquin River.

The information from Sopahno indicates that the Kawatchwah were centered on Los Banos Creek, but held the entire plain west of the San Joaquin River from the CPNC Los Banos region south through the Oro Loma region into the Mendota region, as well as the west portion of the Santa Rita and Firebaugh regions. From this point of view, the Chaneche/Locobo of the Los Banos region and the Quihueths of the Oro Loma region were the same people. This makes it very important to understand Sopahno’s background. Sopahno told Pahmit that his father’s village was Kahtomah, on Los Banos Creek, that he had been brought to Mission San Juan Bautista when he was about 12-15 years old, and that his people were released from Mission San Juan Bautista after he lived there about twenty years. The information, in the context of CPNC studies, suggests that he was a Chaneche/Locobo born around the year 1802.

Sopahno stay at Mission San Juan ‘bout twenty years. Then the priests tell Indian, ‘You all go away from Mission. You all go back your homes.’ …. Sopahno come back to his old home. There’s nobody there. Indian all gone, Indian house all burned long ago. He go horseback. He go up Los Baños Creek to hills. He go up river ‘bout fifteen miles. There’s no Indian anywhere. He go cross Fish Slough to California Ranch and see some Indian spear salmon in San Joaquin River” (Latta 1949:15-16).

The event certainly took place during the secularization period of the mid-to-late 1830s. Sopahno met Pahmit’s father, Tom-quit, among the Indians fishing on the San Joaquin, and went to live with Tom-quit’s mixed Pitcache/Dumna group.

According to Pahmit, Sopahno claimed the Las Juntas vicinity in the Mendota region. “One their villages, name Kahwahchu [meaning Grass Nut Place] was right where they had that Mexican town, Las Juntas, just where Fish Slough and San Joaquin River go together” (Latta 1949:16). (See Kroeber [1925:Plate 47, 484] for reference to a vaguely-documented Pitcachi village east of Mendota called Gewachiu.) If he had been a Chaneche from Los Banos Creek, why was he claiming the entire plain west of the San Joaquin River for his people, and who were the Kawatchwah? Mission records show that the Chaneche/Locobo of Los Banos Creek were intermarried with the Quihueths, as well as with the Nopchinche along the San Joaquin River. At Mission San Juan Bautista, as populations plummeted from disease, still more intermarriage took place among all of the Yokuts groups from west of the San Joaquin River and along its course east of the mission. Sopahno’s remembered Kawatchwah may or may not refer back to the Quihueths, but they certainly seem to have been an amalgamated Yokuts group during the Mission Period.

Recent Ethnographic Studies

Cook 1955. In his study of the aboriginal population of the entire San Joaquin Valley, Cook (1955:75) mapped the Oro Loma region in his westside plain Area 14, which extended from San Joaquin County south almost to Tulare Lake. He mapped no groups at all within that region, and in fact excluded that region completely from the population analysis that he presented in his text. “The westerly boundary has been drawn along a line approximately five miles west of the San Joaquin River and the prolongation of its axis toward the [Tulare] lake,” Cook (1955:53) wrote. Thus, Cook’s (1955:53) estimate of 5.05 people per square mile on the San Joaquin valley plain between the Mariposa and San Joaquin rivers is not relevant to the Oro Loma region.

Latta 1977. In his 1977 edition, Latta (1977:143-146) repeated his 1949 material on the Kawatchwah (as told by Pahmit from Sopahno), with new subheadings but no new commentary.

Wallace 1978. The California volume (Wallace 1978) divided Yokuts groups into Northern Valley, Southern Valley, and Foothill sections to discuss the large Yokuts language territory in three conveniently-sized chapters. The Oro Loma area is mapped in the Northern Valley chapter. Although no villages are mapped within the Oro Loma area or related to it in text, map and text together incorrectly suggest that the area belonged to some sub-tribe of the Nopchinchi tribe (Wallace 1978:462, 470). For some unknown reason, Wallace considered Nopchinchi (the Santa Rita region local tribe) to have been some sort of "super-tribe", with some of the other middle San Joaquin River local tribes as subgroups within it. Overall, Wallace’s (1978) presentation of ethno-geographic information for his Northern Valley Yokuts area is neither systematic nor accurate.

Milliken 1993. Milliken first applied indirect mission register analysis to the Oro Loma area in 1993. The analysis was thorough, bringing together data from all pertinent missions, from Arroyo’s Mission San Juan Bautista Padron (1822-1827), and from relevant Spanish and Mexican journals. Chanech, it was argued, occupied the Los Banos vicinity and Quihueths the Oro Loma vicinity (Milliken 1993:51-53, maps 5a, 5b).

Milliken 1994. In a brief publication focusing on the Ohlone/Costanoan-Yokuts language boundary, Milliken (1994:166,175) reiterated his tentative placements of Chanech at Los Banos and Quihueths at Oro Loma.