TEHACHAPI REGION
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- 1 TEHACHAPI REGION – KAWAIISU FAMILY GROUPS
TEHACHAPI REGION – KAWAIISU FAMILY GROUPS
By David Earle
The Kawaiisu appear to have incorporated elements of the lifeways of immediately neighboring Yokuts, Chumash, and Takic groups, and could be said to have possessed an amalgam of Great Basin and California cultural features. The Kawaiisu do not appear to have been organized in corporate territorial or marriage-regulating lineages, clans or moieties, unlike some interior Takic groups or the neighboring Southern Valley Yokuts. The exact nature of their territorial organization is unclear. No evidence has so far come to light to suggest that the Kawaiisu may have possessed the patrilineally inherited song groups that regulated claims to and access to hunting territories among the culturally related Chemehuevi of the Mojave Desert (Earle 2004:45-48).
Environment
This region centers on 4,000 feet elevation Tehachapi Valley. Upper boundaries of the region, to the south and north of the valley, are at the 4,600 feet. level that marks year-round habitation at this latitude. The surrounding mountains rise to as high as 7,600 feet. The western part of the Tehachapi Valley is drained by Tehachapi Creek, which flows into the neighboring Caliente region and down into the Kern River basin of the southern San Joaquin Valley. Smaller Cache Creek runs out of Tehachapi Valley to the east, dropping down to the floor of the Mojave Desert, where elevations are as low as 2,800 feet. Native vegetation on the Tehachapi valley floor was mainly grassland, with a valley oak savannah in the Brite Creek area on the west. Blue oak woodlands cover higher hills within and above the western portion of the region. Pinyon woodlands dominate the mountains to the north and south of the east side of the valley. Farther east, Mojave mixed woody scrub covered the slopes down to the Mojave Desert floor, and is there replaced by creosote bush scrub.
Early Expedition References
Garcés 1776. In the late spring of 1776, Franciscan missionary Fr. Francisco Garcés visited Kawaiisu territory, during an unsuccessful attempt to find an interior route from Sonora to Monterey (Coues 1900:I:304-305). After having explored northward in the San Joaquin Valley and in the western Kern Valley, Garcés returned southward in early May through Yawelmani (Yowlumni) Yokuts territory at Bakersfield. He then traveled back to the ranchería of San Pascual located on Tejon Creek. From there he climbed northward out of Tejon Canyon to Cummings Valley, west of the Tehachapi Valley. A principal native trail ran northeast from Tejón Canyon up the ridge face to the north of the canyon, and ascended into the southern end of Cummings Valley at a point to the west of Cummings Mountain.
This trail is shown on an 1855 plat survey map, crossing modern Banducci Road about 1.25 miles west of the Cummings Ranch (General Land Office 1854-1855). This route, or one in the general vicinity, was followed by Fr. Garcés as he climbed into Cummings Valley on May 11, 1776, where he entered Kawaiisu territory and camped at a lake he called the Laguna de San Venancio (Coues 1900, VolumeI:304-305). This region was ascribed to the Kawaiisu by a consultant of John Harrington in 1916 (Harrington 1986:III:Reel 98: 664-670)
Garcés then made his way east and southeasterly through Brite’s (Brite) Valley, then turned northeast into Tehachapi Valley, where a ranchería of a group called the ’Cobaji’ by Garcés’ Mohave guides was encountered. We know that Kovahya was a Mohave term for the Kawaiisu (Kroeber 1925:602). From the distances reported by Garcés this settlement would appear to have been located in the western half of the Tehachapi Valley, perhaps in the vicinity of Old Town. Garcés stayed at this settlement on May 12-13, 1776. His diary entry for May 12th noted that:
There were here none but women and children, who made us presents of meat, seeds, and even of two baskets to take along with us. There are here firs, oaks, and many other kinds of trees. I returned the favor with some small shells (cuentesillas), such as they prize, but the women told me that they regaled me solely because we were so needy; that their nation was generous (bizarra), not stingy like that [the Southern Valley Yokuts] on the west. I believe that they are right about this, for those of the west are dealers even among their very selves… These people are very robust, the women at least, who are the only ones I saw, as the men were out hunting. They told me that toward the north-northeast there were many people , and that I could go there [Coues 1900:I:304-305].
A variant version of Garcés’ diary published by John Galvin states under the same date entry that the many people to be found to the north-northeast were of the same Cobaji or Kawaiisu nation (Galvin 1965:58).
The Tehachapi group sat astride an important travel and exchange corridor linking the San Joaquin Valley and coastal southern California with the Colorado River and the southwest. Mohaves in particular were involved in a circuit of long-distance exchange wherein they brought goods from the southwest to exchange for shell beads in the southern San Joaquin Valley. These beads were brought to the valley from coastal southern California (Earle 2005). Aside from being hosts to the Mohaves, the Kawaiisu were also involved themselves in exchanging salt and other products to the west.
Palomares 1808. After Garcés’ account from 1776, the next description of Spanish travel through the area was that of the José Palomares expedition of 1808. Even by that relatively early date, flight from the southern California Franciscan missions had begun to be a feature of mission life. At that time a native chief who was called Quipagues by the Spanish authorities was offering refuge to runaways from Missions San Fernando and San Gabriel. He apparently resided with his son Hopono in the Tehachapi Mountains region, and appears to have been a Kawaiisu chief. He was later recalled by consultants of John Harrington as having had much-feared supernatural powers (Blackburn 1975:273-275). Palomares’ expedition, in search of mission runaways, searched rancherías in the southern Antelope Valley and then crossed the Tehachapis by way of the old Tejón Pass (San Pascual) before fighting with Quipagues inconclusively in the San Joaquin Valley foothills.
Another Spanish expedition, that of Fr. Luís Antonio Martinez, that visited the Southern Valley Yokuts in 1816, reported that a grandson of Quipagues was killed fighting against the Yokuts in 1816 (Cook 1960:271-272). In 1819, as the flight of neophytes became even more of a problem for the Franciscan missionaries at Missions San Fernando and San Gabriel, Quipagues himself was still sheltering runaways (Nuez 1819: Fol. 1). A proposal was also floated by Spanish authorities at around this time to build a fort in the Tehachapis to break up Mohave exchange with the southern San Joaquin Valley and limit the flight of mission runaways to the region. This plan was not, however, put into effect.
Mission Register References
Mission San Fernando, 1820-1838. The Kawaiisu were generically referred to by their Kitanemuk neighbors to the south as the Akutushyam. This designation and the variant Agutushyam was also used by other groups such as the Desert Serrano/ Vanyumé (Anderton 1988:267). The apparent ranchería designations Akutus and Akutuspea appear in sacramental registers at Mission San Fernando as ’Acutus’ and ’Acutuspe’. Acutuspe (or Akutuspea) is a name usage featuring the Kitanemuk Serrano locative ending -pea.
Information from mission registers at Mission San Fernando indicate that the rancheria of Acutuspea (Acutusinga) was the place of origin of a number of individuals baptized at the mission. This place may have had some association with Quipagues or his immediate relatives. A daughter of Quipagues was reported in a Mission San Fernando sacramental record as having originated at "Tusinga", either born or married there. As mentioned above, the people of Acutuspea, what the Kitanemuk called the Acutusjam (Acutusyam), were identified by other native groups as the inclusive term for the Kawaiisu ethnic group as a whole. No other community mentioned in the Mission San Fernando registers can be even tentatively identified with the Kawaiisu. The name of the Acutuspea rancheria was variously listed as Acutuspe, Tupsipe, Acutus, Cutusinga, Tusinga, Tuucsinga, Tusigna, and Tusina. The locative endings used here- -nga or -gna and -pea, are Gabrielino/ Fernandeño and Kitanemuk Serrano, respectively.
Twelve individuals are mentioned that are associated with what appear to be variant names of this rancheria. A six-year old female, Luisa Albertonia, whose mother was from "Tucsigna" and whose father was from Castac, was baptized in 1820, and two females age five and 12 (María de la Presentación and Esperanza) from "Tusina", were baptized in 1821, all of gentile parents. A 24 year old female named Ynocencia from "Acutuspe" was also baptized in July 1821. Fructuosa, a 25 year old woman from "Tusinga", reportedly called Quipag in her gentility, was baptized in 1823. She was the mother of the five-year-old baptized in 1821. She may have been associated in some way with the native chief Quipagues or his family. An 18 year old woman named Francisca originating at "Tupsipe" was baptized in 1830. In March 1835, a 35 year old woman named Rosenda from "Tusinga" was baptized at San Fernando. She had come in from the "monte", the back country, apparently the previous year, when four children born there were finally baptized in September—Lucia, six, Cornelio, four, Cipriano, two, and Manuel, aged one. She had been married in her gentility to a man born at Mission San Gabriel named Basilio, who had been a runaway. Rosenda was also the daughter of "Equipagues" (Quipagues), who was deceased by the time that Rosenda was baptized. In July 1837, a 42 year old woman named Ana Teodora was baptized from "Acutus". In November 1837, a three-year old born at "Acutus" was baptized as Ysabel. She was the daughter of a gentile mother and a father named Pedro Pablo who had been baptized at Mission San Fernando in 1816, and had probably been absent from the mission in recent years. During the same month, a five-year old named Juan de la Cruz, of gentile parents, was baptized from "Cutusinga". Finally, an infant named María Jesus was baptized at Mission San Fernando as the daughter of Romualdo of the Serrano settlement of Nacaya (Najayabit) and María (apparently unbaptized) of "Tuucsinga" (Mission San Fernando 1820-1838).
It is unclear whether any of the cases of baptisms at Mission San Fernando were related to Mexican military forays into the Tehachapi region. The apparent connection of several of the native people baptized at Mission San Fernando, as discussed above, with chief Quipagues, a symbol of native resistance to Spanish/ Mexican rule, certainly raises that question. In 1844, John Frémont, as noted below, was shown a place southeast of the Tehachapi Valley where a Christian Indian had been killed by Mexican soldiers. The period of the later 1820s through the 1850s was one of persistent stock raiding by interior native groups aided by ex-neophytes of the missions. Forays into the central valley and other interior areas by Mexicans pursuing stock raiders were a feature of this situation. Judy Barras was told a native story about Kawaiisu living in the Sand Canyon area of the eastern Tehachapi Valley who were attacked by "Spaniards" (Barras 1984:9).
1840-1900 Historic References
Frémont 1844. The expedition of exploration led by John C. Frémont that visited the California interior in 1844 passed through the Tehachapi region in April of that year. Due to the size and military nature of the expedition, native peoples in southern California tended to avoid contact with it. However, Frémont mentioned that when his party camped on Tehachapi Creek at Caliente, he was visited by an unnamed horse-mounted mission Indian from Mission San Fernando, described as on leave from the mission with permission to visit relatives in the area. He had seen Frémont’s party climbing the creek and had ridden downstream to meet them. The next day Fremont’s party and the ’Indian’ climbed the creek to the Tehachapi Valley, where four of the Indian’s ’compañeros’ briefly joined him. Two of these Indians accompanied the group to overnight at their next campsite on the Mojave Desert side of the Tehachapi Pass. The next day, Frémont purchased a saddle and spurs from them, and traded scarlet cloth for a horse, before they turned back to the Tehachapi region. The native man then guided the party from the Tehachapi region southeastward, presumably via Willow Springs, to Elizabeth Lake, and pointed out various desert water sources to them, as well as the trail that ran farther east from Elizabeth Lake in the direction of the Mojave River. He also pointed out the spot along the route of travel where a Christian Indian had been killed by Mexican soldiers. He then returned on a trail to San Fernando (Jackson and Spence 1970:666-672).
Williamson 1853. In 1853, Lieut. R. S. Williamson led a railroad survey party along the southern San Joaquin Valley in search of pass routes across the southern Sierra Nevada. The party then traveled up the south fork of the Kern River to Walker Pass and backtracked to Kelso Canyon on the South Fork of the Kern River (Williamson 1856). The survey party then traveled on an Indian trail across the mountains southwestward from the direction of Kelso Canyon and Kelso Valley to arrive at the Tehachapi Valley.
Williamson’s account indicates that the expedition traveled southwest from Kelso Valley and to the west of Cache Peak before entering the Tehachapi Valley, apparently at the mouth of Whiterock Creek just west of Monolith, rather than at Cache Creek farther east. A native ranchería was encountered, apparently located between Monolith and Tehachapi, and then a second one was noted as situated near the expedition’s camp established two to three miles west of the first ranchería, on Tehachapi Creek probably near Old Town, the former pre-1870s site of Tehachapi. Williamson described descending to the Tehechapi Valley as follows:
From this ridge was a steep and continuous descent for eight or nine miles, when we found ourselves in a beautiful prairie, apparently completely surrounded by high mountains, and, as far as the eye could tell, it was a horizontal plain. It was ten miles long, and from three to four broad. We came to an Indian rancheria, where we learned that there was a stream of water and good grass two or three miles further on. We proceeded to the place, and here found an excellent camping ground. … There was another rancheria close to the place selected for our camp, and from the Indians we learned that their name for the creek was Tay-ee-chay-pah. It is the one called Pass creek by Colonel Frémont, and is the same one he ascended when he crossed the mountains in 1844 [Williamson 1856:19].
No other occupied settlements were mentioned as having been observed in the Tehachapi Valley. During Williamson’s explorations of the Tehachapis and the adjacent south end of the San Joaquin Valley, he observed the first steps in the establishment of the Sebastian Indian Reservation by E. F. Beale.
A small number of Kawaiisu or Tehachapi Indians were resident at least briefly at the Sebastian Reservation at the southern terminus of the San Joaquin Valley, adjacent to the Cañada de las Uvas, in the 1850s. An undated map showing the location of native rancherías and of the Sebastian Reservation was prepared at the direction of Theodore Preschille, apparently for the Superintendency of Indian Affairs, in the later 1850s or beginning of the 1860s (Earle 2003:24). This map shows a village called ’Tehatchipe’ located adjacent to the confluence of Brite Creek and Tehachapi Creek, which confluence is near the location of Old Town.
The Tehachapi Valley was settled beginning in the mid 1850s, the Brite family being among the first settlers. An 1856 ’Indian Scare’ related to trouble in the Four Creeks area near Visalia had caused the Brites and other local settlers to fortify themselves. Brite advised a friend to retrieve cattle that Brite had been pasturing for him (Caughey 1952:148). These and later alarms didn’t directly affect the Tehachapi area, although they did involve areas farther to the north. Mine prospecting boomed in the southern California interior in the late 1850s, and both the Tehachapi area and the Kern River Valley were the objects of much activity by prospectors and miners. The Kern River was particularly active in the late 1850s, with more development in the early and mid-1860s.
When William Brewer passed through the original settlement of Tehachapi (Old Town) in 1863, he did not mention observing any native inhabitants of the area (Brewer 1966:389-390). Comments by Tehachapi pioneers about possible native unrest suggests the presence of native people in the general area in the late 1850s and 1860s. Native people appear to have been living in the Sand Canyon area, northeast of Monolith, at this time and later. Among Kawaiisu-speakers settled in the eastern foothills of the San Gabriel Mountain range or resident in Victorville in around 1905 were individuals that reported having been born in "Tehachapi" during this era (Kroeber 1925:602).
US Decennial Census – 1860, 1880. The 1860 US Decennial Census is the first which provides information on the geographical location of native individuals and families in the Tehachapi region. No native families are listed for the Tehachapi Valley itself, although native people (probably Yokuts and Kitanemuk) are living farther south in the Tejon Canyon area. In the 1880 US Decennial Census, once again, no families are listed for the Tehachapi Valley, but two families of Indians are listed for Cummings Valley and Brite’s Valley. In Cummings Valley, Alaya Quareta, age 35, vaquero, and his native wife Antonia, 30 were listed. In Brite’s Valley, Niaris, 40, a laborer, his wife, Maria, 27, and sons Sotorio, age eight, Apahata [?], six, Pquatio [?], four, and Tom, four months, were enumerated (Bureau of the Census 1880: Caliente Twp.: Cummings Valley Pct.: p. 6).
Non-Ethnographic Twentieth-Century References
US Decennial Census 1900. John Marcus was a long-time resident of the Tehachapi Valley, although he was born in the Panamint Mountains region and had reportedly lived in Kelso Valley as a child. He and his wife Louisa and two sons were listed in the 1900 US Decennial Census. Four other households, those of Sal Guadalupe, Joe George, Louis Jesuit [?], and Juan Manuel were listed as resident in the Tehachapi area in 1900 (Bureau of the Census 1900: Twp. 14, East Greenwich Pct., Sheet 8A). Guadalupe worked as a wood chopper, while the others worked as farm laborers.
Kelsey 1905-1906. C. E. Kelsey was appointed a Special Indian Agent with the responsibility for carrying out an enumeration of non-reservation Indians in northern and central California in 1905-1906. At that time, Kelsey recorded 15 native people comprising two families as resident in the Tehachapi region (Kelsey 1971:43). "Sistemo" [Setimo] Rafael, his wife and four children were listed. Rafael, actually Setimo Girado, was later enumerated in 1910 as resident on "Paris Road", in the Paris-Loraine area, and thus had apparently moved his residence. Kelsey’s 1905-1906 listing of "Marcus and wife" should correspond to John Marcus, approximately 30-33 years old at the time, and his wife Luisa [Louisa], approximately the same age, along with four children. A woman listed as "mother" was also enumerated, perhaps Luisa’s parent.
US Decennial Census 1920, 1930. In 1920, John Marcus was working as a farm laborer in Cummings Valley, while his family was resident at the Monolith townsite, adjacent to the Monolith Cement Plant. A native settlement existed at Monolith at that time, and included five native households, those of George Green, Sam Willie, Louisa Marcus, Rosie and Harvey Hicks (the latter a Euro-American farmer), and Jim Manuel. Green, Willie, and Manuel worked as farm laborers rather than at the cement plant (Bureau of the Census 1920: 2nd Twp., E.D. 79, Sheet 7A). The Niadras [Niaris] family was still resident in the Cummings Valley, while the head of the family worked as a farm hand in Old Town Tehachapi, along with another native, James Manuel (Bureau of the Census 1920: 2nd Twp., E.D. 80, Sheet 1B, 2A). In 1930, the Marcus and Willie households may still have been located in the same area as in 1920 (Bureau of the Census 1930: 8th Twp., Greenwich Pct., E.D. 15-47, Sheet 2A). As discussed below, John and Louisa Marcus later moved from Monolith to the Cache Creek-Sand Canyon region, where Louisa had apparently lived previously.
Classic Ethnographic References
Merriam 1905. Merriam gathered information about the Tehachapi region people while at the Tejon Rancheria on Tejon Creek in November 1905 (Merriam 1967).
Tehachapi Valley Rancheria. Tribe, Ow´-wah-tum Nuwuwah (Shoshonean). Near "Old Town," about two and a half to three miles west of present town of Tehachapi, and on floor of valley on the creek. In their own language:
The place (Tehachapi Valley or Basin): Ta-hatch’-a-tum-ban’-dah.
The tribe: Ow’-wah-tum Nuwuwah (possibly "Many people"
The rancheria: Ow’-wah-tum Nuwuwah av-ven-nah
The people: Ta-hach’-atum’ban Nuwuwah
At the Tejon, the Hammenat and Too-lol’min people call their tribe Ah-koo-toot’-se-am and use the name in a sense broad enough to include the subtribe on Upper Caliente Creek and Piute Mountain [Merriam 1967:433].
Merriam in this case had heard the Hammenat (Kitanemuk) and Too-lol’min (Tulamni Yokuts?) at the Tejón Rancheria discuss the Ah-koo-toot’-sa-am (Akutushyam), who were not part of ’their tribe’ (they in fact did not themselves belong to the same ethnic-linguistic group). The term Akutushyam, based on the name of the ethnohistoric village of Akustushpea (Tehachapi region?), referred exclusively to the Kawaiisu and not to the Tejon groups.
Kroeber 1905, 1925. Kroeber (1925: Plate 47) mapped the Tehachapi region as territory of Kawaiisu speakers in his Handbook. He did not comment upon the region specifically, but did state: "Tehachapi has its designation from a local name, which has been taken over by the Yokuts as Tahichpi-u" (Kroeber 1925:602). He also reported that the Serrano and Kitanemuk call the Kawaiisu "Agutushyam, Agudutsyam, or Akutusyam."
Latta 1949, 1977. In 1949 Latta identified the Caliente, Havilah, and Tehachapi regions as the homelands of the Kawaiisu.
Occupying Tehachapi Valley and the country north through Walker’s Basin were the Kawaiisu… Another Kawiisu village was Tahichpiu, after which modern Tehachapi was named (Latta 1949:40).
In his 1977 edition, Latta changed his spelling of the group’s name to "Kawiesu" and added a tribute to a Kawaiisu consultant.
Handahyu (Hahn-dah-yoo), last full-blood Kawiesu, died about 1945 at the home of Rawley Duntley on Oak Creek, east of Tehachapi Valley where he had worked stock for more than forty years. He was an able, intelligent and responsible person of reserve: born, lived a long life and died in the area about which he furnished data (Latta 1977:272).
This statement about his consultant being the last "full-blood" Kawaiisu is not accurate. Latta’s original notes, archived at Yosemite National Park, should be checked for information from Handahyu regarding the Tehachapi region and on the Kawaiisu region.
Western Tehachapi Valley – Native Places
Harrington 1916. John P. Harrington carried out linguistic and ethnographic fieldwork at the Tejon rancheria on Tejon Creek in 1916. In 1947 he worked with related Chemehuevi and Kawaiisu consultants at Tehachapi, Victorville, and Las Vegas. A native consultant at the Tejón Ranchería named Pedro Cuhueye, who was interviewed by Harrington in 1916, stated that Cummings Valley, Brite Valley, and Tehachapi Valley were occupied by the Kawaiisu (Harrington 1986:III:Reel 98:664-670). Kitanemuk terms were provided that identified important localities in Cummings Valley. These included Hakapea [Ahakapea] at George Cummings’ house. An aguaje or water source named Hupitspea was located to the south of the ranch towards Cummings Mountain. A lake at the Chanac Ranch was called Memeyek in Kitanemuk. This is a body of water that has since dried up. A site at a spring on the west side of Brite Valley was called Chilampea or Chiram. This name appears to be Kitanemuk rather than Kawaiisu in origin. A location at the Banducci ranch was called ’a’aheaveahunait—the bear bathing place.
In addition, Harrington was told that the Kitanemuk name for the modern site of Tehachapi was tarahu’pea, the name making reference to a baby’s cradle. This name appears to correspond to a Kawaiisu placename recorded by Zigmond, discussed below. Harrington was also given terms for the Old Town site—tevijek—and for an aguaje with a large oak just north and below Old Town—tahit∫rpea (Harrington:III:Reel 98: Fr. 670). This name appears to correspond to the Kawaiisu placename for the same location, Tehechita, recorded by Zigmond, as discussed below.
Zigmond 1977, 1980, 1981, 1986, Zigmond et al. 1991. Maurice Zigmond carried out fieldwork among the Kawaiisu in 1936-1940 and 1970-1974. Stephen Cappannari also undertook Kawaiisu fieldwork in 1946-1947, and Zigmond was later provided with field notes from this research. Zigmond was assisted at one point by Charles Hockett in assembling linguistic data. He worked with Emma Williams, John and Louisa Marcus, Setimo Girado, Bob Rabbit, and Refugia Williams in the late 1930s. In the early 1970s, Bertha Goings, Lida and Clara Girado, and Andy Greene were principal consultants. Zigmond was able to gather information on named localities important to the Kawaiisu in the greater Tehachapi Valley region. He collected the names of four native village sites in the Tehachapi area. The exact location of several of these places is not known. It has been suggested that these settlement sites were located along Brite Creek, but this is not certain, particularly given Lieut. Williamson’s observation in 1853 that a native settlement was visited several miles to the east of another settlement that appears to have been located on Brite Creek. The named settlement locations recorded by Zigmond are:
Pamhayikї’ї, pamhayka’a. This is the name of a place west of Tehachapi (presumably modern Tehachapi) associated with the location of a native village (Zigmond et al. 1991:248, 2003:203). No etymology was provided.
Kohno-tsi. This place was a village site located to the west of modern Tehachapi, at a spring or other body of water. The name glosses as cradleboard, since a cradleboard was seen under the water at this place (Zigmond et al. 1991:248, 2003:203). This corresponds to a Kitanemuk name for a site in the vicinity of modern Tehachapi, mentioned above.
Tehechita. This placename is associated by a number of sources with a native village site located on Brite (or Brite’s) Creek in the Vicinity of Old Town, the pre-1876 site of Tehachapi. Just downstream from Old Town and upstream from the confluence of Brite and Tehachapi Creeks was the site of a cienaga that would have been a focus of native settlement.
Tїheshtї-va’a-dї. Zigmond collected this name for a village site, the name glossed as "plant place", although he could not identify the specific plant that the place was associated with. Andy Greene identified the site of this place as near Meadowbrook Park, the former site of the Meadowbrook Dairy. He said that this was located at a running stream, apparently Tehachapi Creek. It is stated that this place was formerly a site for fishing (Garfinkel and Williams 2009:42).
Eastern Tehachapi Valley – Native Places
Cache Creek and Proctor Lake
The eastern portion of the Tehachapi Valley included several canyons on the north side of the valley occupied in historic times. In addition, Proctor Lake, on the eastern valley floor, was exploited by the Kawaiisu as a source of salt that was stored by them in the canyon region to the northeast.
Harrington 1916. A consultant at the Tejon Rancheria told Harrington in 1916 that the Kawaiisu gathered salt at Proctor Lake, located east of Monolith and west of the mouth of Cache Creek canyon. This shallow lake would fill with winter runoff, which would then evaporate. Harrington was also told that a set of at least three caves (as they were sketched for him) located to the west of Creation Cave, and apparently on the west side of Cache Creek, were used to store the gathered salt. He was told that the salt was also traded to the soldiers at Ft. Tejon, presumably in the later 1850s. These salt caching caves may account for the name given to Cache Creek. These caves were referred to as Wamejek (Harrington 1986:III:Reel 98:Fr. 510). Proctor Lake was referred to as hjaviek—derived from hjavit—salt—in Kitenemuk (Harrington 1986:III:Reel 98:Fr. 670).
Barras 1984. Judy Barras was a Tehachapi-area avocational ethnographer who worked with Kawaiisu consultants in the 1960s-1980s. Barras recounts a story about the reminiscences of John Marcus respecting Proctor Lake, apparently retold to Barras by Charles Powell. According to the story, when Marcus was a child "in the 1860s or 1870s", he and his family would travel from Kelso Valley, where they lived, to Proctor Lake every year. They would plant "vegetable seed traded from the Americans" and gather salt from the lake bed. The surface layer of dirty salt was removed with the hand, Marcus recounted, revealing purer white salt underneath. The salt was placed in heavy net receptacles made from "the bark of a red bush". This may possibly have been Flannel Bush (Fremontodendron californicum), a woody shrub whose bark was used by the Kawaiisu to make cordage (Zigmond 1981:32). The salt was taken back to Kelso Valley to be given to relations. The salt was also said to have been exchanged to friends in return for beads. The visit or visits to the lake must have been timed to permit the harvesting of the planted crops as well.
The story continues that when the annual trip to Proctor Lake was made in 1876, the family saw strange men with long braids at the lake and returned to Kelso Valley. Powell surmised to Barras that these were Chinese laborers. If these events happened with Marcus as an eyewitness, the dates mentioned in this account may not be entirely reliable. John Marcus was in fact born in the Panamint region in circa 1872-1875, and did not come to Kelso Valley until he was a young boy. If he were an eyewitness, this might have occurred in the 1880s. The lake was reportedly mined for salt by the Narboe family beginning in 1873, with 100 to 300 tons per year being produced (Kern County Historical Society n.d., Gossard 2007:23). John Narboe received a homestead entry patent for the southwest quarter of section 29, T32S, R34E, MDBM, including the southwest portion of Proctor Lake, in 1879 (Bureau of Land Management n.d.). Andy Greene confirmed that Proctor Lake was a salt source exploited by the Kawaiisu.
Sand Creek/Sand Canyon
Zigmond 1980, Zigmond et al. 1991. Zigmond published traditional stories, accounts, and dictionary references that mentioned Sand Canyon (Zigmond 1980:202, Zigmond et al. 1993:189). Barras (1984) and other have interpreted these mentions of Sand Canyon as referring to the canyon northeast of Proctor Lake on the north side of the Tehachapi Valley where Tomo Kahni State Historic Park is now located. However, at least one mention of Sand Canyon in the corpus of Kawaiisu traditional stories appears to refer to another Sand Canyon, one extending to the north of Loraine as a side canyon of Caliente Creek (Zigmond 1980:202).
?iiči-vi-vi-d</u>i. Zigmond recorded the term ?iiči-vi-vi-di as referring to Sand Canyon. The term refers to sumac (Rhus trilobata) a principal plant material used by the Kawaiisu for sewing strands used to weave coiled baskets. It is not clear if this name refers to the Sand Canyon near Cache Creek or the other Sand Canyon in the Loraine area.
Ma-a-puts, Ma-a-pii-ci, Ma’a-pїї-tsi. This contact-era settlement locality is situated in Sand Canyon, about a mile south of another historic Kawaiisu village site called Tomo Kahni. The name of this place means Old Woman, and it refers to a supernatural being that had appeared at a cave nearby, apparently at Creation Cave, near the site of Tomo Kahni. Six or seven house rings were reported for the site, as well as two adobe structures (Mundie 1970). Mundie reported that it had been occupied during the nineteenth century and as recently as 1910. Artifacts later recovered at the site included projectile points, ceramics, and glass beads. Andy Greene was familiar with the location, and reported that his family had lived there before moving to a site closer to the native cemetery in Sand Canyon. Greene’s son-in-law George Peebles had also provided information about use of the adobe structures at the site by his wife’s relatives (Garfinkel and Williams 2009:28).
Tomo Kahni.
Zigmond et al. 1991. The native settlement site of Tomo Kahni is located approximately a mile to the north of Ma-a-puts in Sand Canyon. The name, as attested by Zigmond and Andy Greene, means ’Winter House’ (Zigmond et al. 1991:284). The settlement is associated with a nearby cave and rock art site well known in the sacred lore of both the Kawaiisu and neighboring Kitanemuk.
Within the Tomo Kahni area are several prehistoric and historic habitation sites that are included within the boundaries of the Tomo Kahni State Historic Park.
The archaeological and historic site complex of Tomo Kahni, including Nettle Spring, has been recorded as CA-KER-21 and KER-508, with a native occupation reportedly extending to at least as late as 1890. Louisa Marcus (1870-1951), wife of John Marcus and grandmother of Andy Greene, reportedly lived at this village site early in her life. Andy Greene identified a house ring at Nettle Spring where his grandmother had lived (Garfinkel and Williams 2009:43). The archaeological deposit extending through the site area is associated with two springs (Garfinkel and Williams 2009:43).
The cave and rock art associated with Tomo Kahni has been protected by inclusion in a state park unit and is recorded as KER-508. The cave has been variously known as Teddy Bear Cave or Inspiration Cave, as designated by Andy Greene, or as Creation Cave. One of John Harrington’s native consultants called it "The Bear Fiesta Place".
Within the cave are found a number of painted polychrome zoomorphic figures. These figures are reported in Kawaiisu sacred stories to have been painted by the people-animals when the world was first created. Each one of the people-animals chose and painted his own likeness, at a gathering that was presided over by Grizzly Bear (Garfinkel and Williams 2009:43, Zigmond 1977:76, 1980:41). A mortar hole within the cave was said to mark the place where the world was created.
Harrington 1916. Harrington collected the following account about the cave from consultant Luisa Ygnacio:
The bear fiesta place Luisa knows well. Not a cliff, but a llano [open area], very rocky, and in it is a sunken place like a room, a dell in the rocks. The rocks which form the walls of this are painted with all kinds of animals and sunken in the floor of the room is a mortar hole a foot or more deep with a pestle 1-1/2 foot long in it—it was there that the bear pounded when he made fiesta. Coyote and all the animals pintado [painted] there. Called place Nohtavea—old woman place (Harrington 1986:III:Reel 98:Fr. 500).
This account was corroborated for Harrington by Magdalena Olivas at the Tejon Rancheria (Harrington 1986:III:Reel 98:Fr. 670).
North of the confluence of Cache Creek and Sand Creek (Sand Canyon), on upper Cache Creek, John and Louisa Marcus and their grandson Andy Greene lived from the mid-1930s through 1942, according to Greene (Garfinkel and Williams 2009:45).
Barras 1984. The Cache Creek and Sand Canyon areas appear to have been a focus of local native settlement before and during the nineteenth century. Barras (1984:9) collected a traditional native story about a Spanish/ Mexican era raid against the native population of Sand Canyon, where babies had to be kept from crying out. Andy Greene related family oral traditions concerning a raid by US Army forces in the area during the Civil War era of the nineteenth century. This may have occurred during the Civil War era, when unrest in the Eastern Sierra area included the involvement of Kawaiisu in hostilities against White miners in the Kern River region. One version provided by Andy Greene suggested that this occurred after the Keysville Indian massacre in the spring of 1863. The oral traditions included accounts of the death of a White scout with a "peg-leg" who was hated by the local Kawaiisu. It has not yet been possible to find corroboration in Army records of such a raid in the area, but research is ongoing (Barras 1984:81). A native cemetery dating from historic times is located east of Sand Canyon road in the canyon. Many Kawaiisu who lived inn the region during the course of the twentieth century are buried there.
