A History of the Kashaya Indians, 1812-2012

THEY GAMBLED SKILLFULLY FOR SURIVAL:

A HISTORY OF THE KASHAYA INDIANS, 1812-2012

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A University Thesis Presented to the Faculty

California State University, East Bay

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In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in History

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Jared White

September, 2012

THEY GAMBLED SKILLFULLY FOR SURIVAL:

A HISTORY OF THE KASHAYA INDIANS, 1812-2012

Jared White

Approved: Date: D!£-leider k:1 ~

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I would like to thank my wife and family for all of their love and support during my educational pursuits, without which I would not have been able to finish this thesis. I would also like to express my appreciation to my thesis advisor, Professor Khal Schneider, for the indispensible insights and guidance offered in American Indian history and to Professor Dee Andrews for reading my paper and availing her historical and writing expertise.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………. iv

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter 1: The Kashayas’ Pre-contact Cultural Foundation……………………………...7

Chapter 2: A Gamble on the Russians…………………………………………………...17 Signs of Change……………………………………………………………...18 Learning to Play by the Indians’ Rules………………………………………23 The Relationship’s Beginning (1812-1820s)…………………………………28 The Agricultural Years (1820s-1841)………………………………………...39 The Gamble’s Outcome………………………………………………………43

Chapter 3: Maintaining Community against All Odds…………………………………..47 Stolen Territory……………………………………………………………….47 The Benitz Era………………………………………………………………..54 Legacy of the Benitz Era……………………………………………………..67 At Haupt’s Place……………………………………………………………...74 Introduction to the Earth Lodge Cult and Bole Maru………………………...78 Capitalistic Transformation of Community…………………………………..84 Family Legacies and Living History…………………………...…………….90

Chapter 4: Annie Jarvis and the Revival of Indian Religion………………………….....98 Moving to a Permanent Home………………………………………………107 Conservationism versus Indian Rights………………………………………104 Schools, Churches, and Assimilation……………………………………...... 115 Jobs, the Great Depression, and the Indian New Deal………………………127 Annie Jarvis’ Legacy………………………………………………...………134

Chapter 5: Risky Cultural Adaptations and Political Sovereignty...……………………137 Leveraging Academia and Education for Cultural Survival……...…………157 The Kashayas’ Part in Red Power…………………………………..………164 The Kashayas’ Ongoing Opponents……………………………..………….172 Conclusion……………………………………………………………..……179

Bibliography………………………………..…………………………………………..183

Introduction

“Now the bear is going to start to play. That bear had been claiming that he was an expert gambler. Now he started to play while they were laughing and shouting, expecting to win – ‘Under a Manzanita, swoosh, swoosh, grunt’ – he was saying while playing. They (his opponents), unexpectedly, guessed him too. The next to play is the mussel – the one that is going to win. […] He played, singing while playing. Unexpectedly, he got more sticks than anyone.”1

Long before people existed, powerful animal-people ruled the earth. Of these, the most intelligent, craftiest, and powerful of all was Coyote. According to “The People from on Top of the Land,” or “Kashayas” as they are more commonly known, Coyote created the ocean, food, and the first people. In one of the Kashayas’ creation stories,

Coyote gathers a great number of tail feathers from various birds, then arranges them in a circle on the floor of a sweathouse and turns them into people. “’Let there be people!’ he said four times. Suddenly, on the fourth time, Coyote heard people talking and laughing in the sweathouse. When he went down there to see the people he had created, amazingly there were people dwelling inside.”2 These were the first people, the first Kashayas.

While Kashayas refer to themselves as “The People from the Top of the Land,” a neighboring band of Pomo Indians gave them the name “Kashaya,” which means “expert gamblers.” This is an appropriate name, as gambling was an important part of Kashaya culture for eons. Beginning approximately two hundred fifty years ago, however,

1 Herman James, “The Animal Gamblers,” Kashaya Texts, Robert Oswalt, ed., In University of California Publications in Linguistics, Vol. 33, Bull, W.E. Bull, C.D. Chretien, M. B. Emeneau, M. R. Hass, Harry Hoijer, D.L. Olmsted, R.P. Stockwell, eds. (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1963), 123.

2 Herman James, “The Creation of People and the Ocean,” Kashaya Texts, 43.

Kashayas were forced to use their expert gambling skills in a competition for the highest stakes they had ever known, their existence as a people.

While the Kashayas’ struggle against brutal oppression was anything but fun and games, traditional gambling provides a useful metaphor to describe the strategies

Kashayas’ used to survive Spanish, Russian, and American colonization. For the

Kashayas, as for other California and American Indians, the realm of possibilities in the face of colonial power was narrow, yet their historical trajectory was not one of inevitable assimilation or destruction. Instead, by maintaining and adapting their cultural traditions, taking calculated risks, and carefully reading their opponents, Kashayas contested, and continue to contest, the dictates of capitalism, white supremacy, and colonization. Kashayas created their own path from the past into the present by leveraging whatever space they could find in a world crowded by destructive agendas. In one Kashaya story, a bear claims that he is an expert gambler and is going to win; in the end, however, it is a small mussel from the coast that is declared to be “the one that is going to win.”3 Like the mussel, Kashayas challenged the narratives of power with their own expectations.

From 1812 through 2012 the Kashayas lived through four distinguishable periods of colonization – the Russian era, the Gold Rush, the Ranching era, and post-WWII

America – which roughly correspond with the chapters in this paper. In order to overcome European and American assaults on their existence, the Kashayas used a number of cultural tools to adapt to and contest the colonial expectations of the different

3 Herman James, “The Animal Gamblers,” Kashaya Texts, 123.

opponents that accompanied each period. By drawing on some of the major themes of

American Indian history, this paper focuses on one important facet of California Indian history in connection to the Kashayas’ survival strategies against each opponent. The use of the word “opponent” is fitting, not only because it is consistent with the gambling analogy, but because, while the colonists the Kashayas faced were not always literal enemies, they sought to take land and possessions that had historically been part of the

Kashayas’ lifeways. These opponents found a people who were not about to give up their cultural inheritance or material possessions without a struggle.

The thematic outline of the paper is as follows:

In Chapter 1, I outline the Kashayas’ pre-contact culture in order to help the reader recognize the cultural elements that would remain central to the Kashayas’ identity under the pressures of colonization. In their gamble for survival, traditional land, language, religion, and community would be consistently prioritized for risk-taking.

These elements would also be used as tools for Indian agency and, when re-asserted in the twentieth century, would form the basis for re-making cultural identity and establishing political sovereignty.

In Chapter 2, I describe how the Kashayas subverted the expectations of powerful

European colonists through the use of careful diplomacy and by taking calculated risks.

By the time the Russians arrived in 1812, the Kashayas, along with Indians across the

West Coast, faced the threat of becoming forced laborers or new converts at the hands of

Spanish soldiers and Franciscan friars. While the Russian American Company (RAC), like the Spanish, sought to benefit from Indian labor, the Kashayas accomplished on the

Sonoma Coast what Indians in other fur trading societies were able to accomplish – they leveraged one colonial power (the Russians) against another (the Spanish), in combination with other pre-established cultural strategies, to assert their own expectations for their labor and living patterns. The Kashayas would continue to face colonial demands for Indian labor into the modern era, but from their first contact with the Russians, they established a pattern of resistance that would help them preserve their efforts for the continuance of their own culture.

In Chapter 3, I explain how the Kashayas re-created traditional communities despite the violence that accompanied American colonization. Early European colonists were quickly displaced by American gold miners and ranchers who hoped to make their fortunes in the West, albeit at the expense of those not selected for “manifest destiny.”

After California became a state, and with the passage of the Act for the Government and

Protection of the Indians in 1850, Indians were exploited for their land and labor beyond anything experienced during Spanish or Russian colonization. While the Kashayas and other Indians continued to resist forced labor, the heightened violence and disease of the period increased the difficulty and importance of maintaining traditional communities and kinship networks. Though displaced from most of their land and forced to work for white ranchers, the Kashayas preserved and recreated communities, on what had become white land, through the use of traditional village sites, strategic intermarriages, and matrilocal settlement patterns.

In Chapter 4, I provide a synopsis of the California Ghost Dance movement and explain how the Kashayas selectively used aspects of white culture, in combination with

Indian religion, to resist assimilation and fortify traditional culture. As the Gold Rush transitioned into a period marked by ranching and other industries, the Kashayas faced increased assimilation efforts in the form of educational and religious programs. At the lowest point in their history in terms of culture, population numbers, and land loss, the

Kashayas and other California Indians turned to the new Ghost Dance religion to resist these efforts and re-establish traditional practices. For the Kashayas, one woman in particular, named Annie Jarvis, led the Kashayas in the new religion and helped lay a cultural foundation for continued survival into post-WWII America.

In Chapter 5, I argue that WWII marked a period of heightened attack on the

Kashayas’ existence as a community. In order to protect their sovereignty, which depended on the preservation of their culture, community, and land, the Kashayas had to make risky cultural adaptations and learn how to wield modern political power. Essie

Parrish, the primary spiritual leader following Annie Jarvis, led many from the group in conversion to Mormonism but eventually rejected her new found faith in favor of more traditional Kashaya practices. She and other tribal leaders also encouraged members of the community to pursue college education and participate in academic studies of their tribe in order to obtain more influence in the remembrance and interpretation of their culture. Around the same time, the tribe’s youth started participating in the emerging

Red Power movement and adapted the use of direct action in order to regain Indian sovereignty and political power. Following WWII, cultural adaptations sometimes resulted in further assimilation, but, more often than not, the Kashayas selectively used elements from the dominant culture to contest the narrative that said they were “destined

for assimilation.”

Many, if not all, the strategies the Kashayas’ employed for survival, including cultural adaptations, were rooted in traditional cultural and diplomatic patterns developed over thousands of years, long before their contact with Europeans. From the time the

Kashayas first encountered the Russians on the shores of Metini (an important village site) in 1812, through the present, the Expert Gamblers made decisions based on historical conceptions of themselves and the world around them. The Kashayas were somewhat unique among Pomo speakers in that they had a high degree of affiliation based on their common language. The Kashayas, therefore, while still not a “tribe,”

can be more accurately spoken of as a unified group. They had many things in common, including language, religion, geographical boundaries, and kinship patterns, which caused them to identify and work together against colonial dictates.

Chapter 1

The Kashayas’ Pre-contact Cultural Foundation

For thousands of years, before the three destructive waves of European settlement touched down during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the region known today as

California experienced more than its fair share of catastrophic forces. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, and tsunamis were common, yet the destructive forces they unleashed never permanently destroyed the people or environment that existed there.

Between the hot sands of the Mojave Desert and the wind-chilled waters of Tule Lake, over 300,000 Indians organized themselves into kinship-networks and larger bands to live off the plenty of the land. California Indians spoke approximately 300 different languages, interacted through vast trade-networks, cultivated and improved the land, and developed culturally rich societies.4 “The People from the Top of the Land” formed one small but important aspect of this diverse region, and their history represents one of the possibilities for Indian survival following European colonization.

The Kashayas, also referred to as the Southwestern Pomo, are one of seven

California Indian groups that were categorized by linguistics and ethnologists as “Pomo.”

This designation was given based on the similar linguistic qualities shared. Each of the seven Pomo languages, however, is truly distinct. While each language shares similarities with the others, much the way Spanish and French do, speakers of two different Pomo language were historically unable to communicate. It should also be

4 Sherburne Friend Cook, The Population of California Indians: 1769-1970 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 199-200.

noted that the language groupings do not correspond with political organizations, such as tribes or nations. Within each language group a variety of different dialects were spoken, and political organization was based on small kinship networks, rather than common language. Prior to contact with Europeans, Southwestern Pomo speakers only loosely

(though more so than other Pomo speakers) functioned as a cohesive community. Small family groupings, followed by tribelets led by male “chiefs” and shamans, composed the primary political units.5

Members of the Southwestern Pomo have been the subjects of casual and academic observation since the early nineteenth century. Russian settlers and explorers were among the first to record information about the Kashayas’ culture. Other passerd- by and visitors to the Ross Settlement also took time to make observations. Among the earliest visitors were, Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly, a French naval captain, Vasili

Golovin, a Russian naval captain who made an around the world voyage on the

Kamchatka (1817-1819), and members of Golovin’s crew, such as Fydor Matyuskin and

Ferdinand von Wrangel. After the Russians’ abandoned their California settlement mid- century, very few observations were recorded (at least that we have record of) until the late-eighteen hundreds. One of the most detailed descriptions of Kashaya culture was made during the 1870s by an American journalist named Stephen Powers. Then, beginning at the turn of the century, University of California Berkeley anthropologists,

5 A.L. Kroeber, Pomo Indians, in Handbook of the Indians of California, (Berkeley, CA: California Book Company, 1953), 226.

such as Alfred Kroeber, Samuel A. Barrett, Edwin Loeb, and Edward Gifford carried out rigorous academic studies. Most of what is known about pre-contact and early Kashaya culture is a result of these early observations and studies, in combination with information gleaned from oral histories. Later, archaeological studies would reveal additional information about the human history on the Kashayas’ homeland.

The region occupied by Southwestern Pomo speakers stretched south from the

Gualala River to just south of the Russian River and about thirty miles inland. This region is part of California’s Redwood Belt, where giant Sequoias once lined the coast.6

Kashayas’ still live on a piece of their traditional homeland, but their forty acre reservation, purchased by the United States government, is a poor remuneration for the vast tract of land that was stolen from them during the nineteenth century. The

Kashayas’ culture and history are deeply connected to their traditional homeland, where they developed a culture that sustained five hundred to a thousand Kashayas at any given time for thousands of years. To this day their land is marked by the remains of over forty village sites and is embedded with living history and cultural importance.

The many resources of the land were plentiful but only in what they provided in sum. No one resource provided enough food or materials in absence of what Kashayas ingeniously and necessarily made use of together.7 One of the most abundant food supplies, however, came from tan oak trees. Acorns, for Kashayas and most other

6 Fred Kniffen, Pomo Geography, in University of California Publications, A.L. Kroeber, R.H. Lowie, E.W. and R.L. Olson, eds., Vol. 36 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1940), 382.

7 Ibid., 383-384.

California Indians, were a primary dietary staple.8 Oak trees grew in abundance in the foothills of the central coast and provided relatively consistent harvests.9 To make them edible, Kashayas ground the acorns into flour, extracted the bitter tannic acid by pouring water over flour piled on a bed of sand, then boiled them in water-tight baskets, using hot rocks to heat the water. The process was labor-intensive, but the abundance of protein, fat, and carbohydrates contained in the acorns made it worth it. Acorn flour was eaten as mush or formed into loaves, wrapped in leaves, and baked in an underground oven.

In addition to acorns, Kashayas utilized a wide variety of fauna and flora for food purposes; only a few potential food sources were excluded from their diet due to spiritual taboos. On land they obtained deer, rabbits, clover, wilt oats, wild potatoes, wild strawberries, buckeyes, huckleberries, wild grapes and more. Meat was cut into strips and dried in the sun. Extra acorns were stored for use during winter. Kashayas knew their land well. The seasons and various land marks indicated when and where they could find what foods.

One of the most important pantries in the Kashaya outdoor kitchen was the ocean and its connecting water systems. According to tradition, Coyote created ocean foods by throwing in various objects that looked like food. For mussels he put in a kind of mushroom; for abalone, he threw in a turtle, and for fish he threw in something that

8 Joseph L. Chartkoff and Kerry Kona Chartkoff, The Archaeology of California (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), 39-40.

9 Lightfoot, Kent G., Thomas Wake, and Ann M. Schiff, Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility, Vol. 1, The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Fort Ross, California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 39; James R. Rawls and Walton Bean, California: An Interpretive History, Eighth Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 11-12.

looked like a fish, etc.10 From these teeming waters, Kashayas collected and dried edible seaweed, mussels, abalone, and clams in abundance. Kashaya men also fished for salmon and trout in the Gualala and Russian rivers using spears and net-like baskets.

These resources were shared with surrounding people groups, who were allowed unhindered access to the coast.11 Kashayas carefully managed their environment by adhering to centuries old taboos, burning underbrush and wild oat stands, and propagating or pruning native plants.

Like other California Indians, Kashayas migrated across the land seasonally, according to food supplies and weather conditions. During the summer most Kashayas lived near the coast, but during the winter they moved inland to avoid the harsh coastal winds. Their conical shelters were made of bark, branches, and brush, and were perfectly suited to match their frequent migrations and California’s moderate climate. The

Kashayas’ environment shaped their culture, but their culture also shaped and gave meaning to their environment. This give and take between culture and the material world, which is part and parcel of every human civilization, is evidenced in the remains and evolution of Kashayas’ material and immaterial culture alike.12

Kashayas’ basketry work is a perfect example of how they made use of materials around them in specifically Kashaya ways. In the pre-contact Kashaya world, there were

10 Herman James, “The Creation of People and the Ocean,” Kashaya Texts, 45.

11 S.A. Barrett, Material Aspects of Pomo Culture, (New York: AMS Press, 1980), 153; A.L. Kroeber, Pomo Indians, 229.

12 P. Kostromitonov, “Notes on the Indians in Upper California,“ in Ethnographic Observations on the Coast Miwok and Pomo by Contre-Admiral F.P. von Wrangell and P. Kostromitonov of the Russian Colony Ross, 1839, translated by Fred Stross, ethnographic notes by R.F. Heizer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 8.

few divisions, if any, between the sacred and the profane. Nearly everything had a spiritual significance that garnered fear or respect. Baskets were no exception. Carefully woven from various plant fibers, especially sedge root, baskets were one of the most commonly used tools, but they also had spiritual significance and still do for many

Kashayas and other Pomo Indians. Baskets were used to carry everything from food to babies; they could also be woven tightly enough to hold boiling water for cooking. They were woven with intricate and meaningful designs that were believed to provide protection and could take months to complete. With proper care, however, they could last a lifetime.13

Other examples of Kashayas’ thriving and complete culture are abundant. Intense periods of food collection punctuated long periods of time for rest, celebration, art, and play. The Kashayas enjoyed a number of different games, especially gambling, and one of the most popular was called “coka” or the grass game. Coka was played by two teams of two. A player from one team shuffled marked and unmarked bones beneath a pile of grass in front of him and then behind his back, while the other team tried to guess which hand held the marked bones. The Kashayas believed that a gambler could gain the ability to guess correctly by performing special rituals before playing, singing powerful gambling songs, and carefully observing his opponent’s movements. Traditional stakes were small, but larger stakes, such as clothing and tools, were played for as well.14

13 “Pomo Basket Weaving: A Tribute to Three Elders,” produced by David Ludwig, U.C. Berkeley, 1994; S. A. Barrett, Pomo Indian Basketry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1908), 136.

14 Burt W. Aginsky and Ethel G. Aginsky, “The Pomo: A Profile of Gambling Among Indians,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (May, 1950), 112-113.

The untrained observer of a traditional gambling game might overlook

Kashayas’ techniques for winning, but in gambling, as in all else, Kashayas left little to chance.15 In all they did, Kashayas set out to discover and obtain the benefits from following the rules of the created world. When they adorned themselves with tattoos or piercings made out of bone or glass, these had both ascetic and spiritual importance.

When Kashayas crafted tools such as knives or arrowheads from stones obtained through trade, they did not use them indiscriminately but followed special protocols that kept their society in balance, such as sharing meat or practicing limited warfare. If such taboos were violated one could incur spiritual poisoning or death.16 Sickness or premature death were almost always believed to be the result of violating a taboo or of spiritual poisoning by an enemy.

For the Kashayas, while there were divisions between the sacred and profane, their land, culture, history, and the spiritual realm were all intricately connected.

Consequently, being in tune with the spiritual aspects of the world was considered crucial for survival. Kashayas were hesitant about revealing spiritual beliefs and practices, as to do so was taboo, but over the years anthropologist and other observers gained a few insights into their beliefs. The earliest observers recorded two primary spiritual ceremonies that were performed to reinforce community and maintain harmony between

15 A.L. Kroeber, “Games of the California Indians,” American Anthropologist, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1920): 272-273. 16 P. Kostromitonov, “Notes on the Indians in Upper California,” 7; S.A. Barrett, Material Aspects of Pomo Culture, 300-302.

the seen and unseen worlds: the old ghost ceremony (as opposed to the revivalist ghost dance movement of the 1870s) and the Kuksu ceremony. Forms of both rituals were practiced by Kashayas as well as other Pomoan people in Northern California.

The ghost ceremony, in particular, is believed to be one of the oldest Kashaya practices. It has been described as a component of a secret society, in which only men were allowed to participate, and information about the ceremony was typically limited to initiates. During the ceremony, which was held in a round dance house, elaborately painted and ornamented ghost dancers impersonated the presence of deceased spirits.

Participants sang songs, obeyed the opposite directions of the ghost dancers (who, representing deceased spirits, acted disoriented and did everything backwards), and gave offerings or paid fines in beads for violating taboos. Dancers were assisted by “ash- devils” who held, walked on, and even swallowed hot coals. They were also responsible for enforcing ghost dance rules and providing comic relief of sorts through exaggerated antics and wild gestures. The ceremony lasted for four days, during which participants were subject to dietary restrictions. Ghost-dancers could only be appeased through proper participation in the ceremonies but ultimately brought good will, health, and prosperity to the community.17

The Kuksu ceremony lasted for six days and was open to men, women, and children. Like the ghost ceremony, its purpose was to bring health, healing, and prosperity to the people. In Kashaya cosmology, Kuksu is one of the principle spiritual beings of the west, one of the six cardinal directions. Dancers impersonated Kuksu by

17 S.A. Barrett, Ceremonies of the Pomo Indians (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1917), 423.

painting themselves in red, white, and black and wearing feathers that resembled Kuksu’s long nose. The opening ceremony was marked by the appearance of Kuksu dancers from the woods and the scarification rite. Two cuts were made on the small of children’s back by a respected leader. The cuts were thought to help children grow, be healthy, and live a long life. It was also believed that Kuksu dancers had the power to remove sickness or injury by blowing a whistle or moving a staff over an affected person. Once the sickness was removed, the Kuksu healer carried it away from the village. Attributes of both the ghost and Kuksu ceremonies would later reemerge in the new Ghost Dance ceremonies beginning in the 1870s. 18

Impersonation of powerful beings and animals, as in the ghost and Kuksu ceremonies, was associated with great power, including the ability to heal people, poison enemies, gain invincibility, and move quickly from one place to another. Secret societies formed around shamanistic practices such as the bear doctor, who wore a bear skin, and walepu, who wore a robe of condor feathers.19 These shamans were distinct from healing or sucking doctors, who performed healing services, but did not poison or do harm to others.20 Healing practices included both the use of special herbs or medicines and spiritual rituals. Moreover, spiritual abilities often led to additional influence within the tribe.

18 Ibid., 423-429.

19 Essie Parrish, “Description of Walepu II,” Kashaya Texts, 191; Herman James, “Human Bears,” Kashaya Texts, 207.

20 Violet Chapelle, “Kashaya People Yesterday,” lecture attended by author, 20 January 2012, Sonoma County Museum.

Leadership roles existed over small kinship groups and larger bands. A person could gain influence based on the size of his family, spiritual powers, or proven wisdom.

While men usually held such roles, it was possible for women to lead as well. Leadership was loosely organized and hierarchies were relatively shallow. No one person ever had power to command the rest of the group, leadership truly involved leading and gaining consensus from the group. Governing cultural beliefs and a bountiful environment made rigid organization and hierarchies unnecessary.

In conclusion, prior to contact with Europeans or Americans, the Kashayas’ possessed a rich material and immaterial culture. They knew how to navigate the biological and political environments they lived in and had no need of European “aid” or trade goods. They also maintained an oral history, had time for play and religious activities, and created a great variety of tools and other cultural implements for both survival and leisure. Moreover, they imbued hundreds, if not thousands, of landmarks, including trees, rocks, ravines, and various bodies of water with historical or spiritual significance. Taken together, these environmental and cultural clues leave confusion as to why the Kashayas would have welcomed, accepted, or benefited from Russian settlement on their land, but they also provide a better understanding of the tools the

Kashayas could utilize in order to survive two centuries of colonization.

Chapter 2

A Gamble on the Russians

Beginning in the eighteenth century, the Kashayas began to witness signs of a tsunami that would forever change the cultural and physical landscape of their homeland

– namely, European colonization. California’s geological features and geographic location protected its inhabitants and their societies from European exploitation for hundreds of years. Yet, by the seventeen hundreds North America had become a war zone, as Europeans and Indians fought for control of the continent. In 1769, in response to the threat marked by the Russian presence in Alaska, and at the urge of Franciscan missionaries eager to win new converts, the Spanish made the fateful decision to colonize

California. Meanwhile, the Russians were trying to make a profit from sea otter furs in

Alaska, but a war against the Tlingits compounded food supply problems. In order to remedy their food shortage, the Russians decided to establish a settlement further south.

Situated just north of the Mission of San Francisco, Spain’s furthest reach, the Kashayas’ homeland appealed to the Russians for use as a trade outpost and agricultural settlement.

Exploitation of native labor was crucial to the success of both colonial projects, and by the nineteenth century, the Kashayas were already hearing rumors and witnessing the effects of the Spanish mission program. With Spanish colonization in sight and the

Russians pounding at their door, the Southwestern Pomos weighed their options and took a calculated risk against the threat of becoming forced laborers.

Signs of Change

The Spaniards’ use of force to “convert” California Indians and use them as laborers at their missions is a known fact, and by the late seventeen hundreds Spanish colonization was uncomfortably close to the Kashaya homeland. Forced conversions of the Kashayas’ neighbors probably began shortly after Mission San Francisco de Asis was founded in 1776. The Kashayas lived only about thirty miles north of the San Francisco mission, a distance easily traveled by land or sea. News of Spanish conquest would have spread quickly among neighboring tribes and along existing trade networks.21 Moreover, displaced people groups would have caused alarm and provoked new hostilities. A story from the Kashayas’ oral histories describes the displacement of people that were perhaps fleeing Spanish aggression:

It was over here at Metini, long, long ago before the white men arrived. The Indians didn’t know what that could be coming over. They were suddenly coming over where the ridge slopes down at Metini. It was daybreak, when the sun was just rising, that they started to come over. Some were riding mules. …They came down the mountain endlessly.22

This account recalls a migration that took place before Russian settlement; however, the reference to mules indicates it took place sometime in the eighteenth century, after the

Spanish brought horses to California in 1769.23 Moreover, such a large group of Indians would not have traveled through potentially hostile regions in the course of their usual

21 Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Openchancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown, (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005), 53.

22 Essie Parrish, “The Ayash Expedition,” in Kashaya Texts, Robert Oswalt, 247.

23 James J. Rawls and Walton Bean, California: An Interpretive History, Eighth Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 34-37.

seasonal rounds – theirs was a relocation caused by a major disruption to traditional patterns. Given this occurrence, in combination with what they might have learned through trade with their neighbors, the Kashayas were undoubtedly aware of some pending threat.

In retrospect, Spanish and Russian accounts further confirm just how close

Spanish colonization reached. Spaniards’ began exploring Bodega Bay, an area just south of the Kashayas’ most southern village, as early as 1775.24 In fact, the name

“Bodega” derives from the name of the first Spaniard to explore the area. The Spanish sent expeditions to the Bay from 1775 to 1794 with the hopes of establishing a port.

Exploration was carried out on land and sea with the help of Indian guides, but the area was determined insufficient for their purposes.25 A few years later, however, the

Russians decided it was the perfect spot for a port, as it was only one day’s travel from

Metini (the heart of the Kashaya homeland and home to the new Russian settlement) and could accommodate large ships.

The Spaniards’ use of violence to secure Indian laborers and accomplish their colonial goals is admitted in their own reports. In a letter from an anonymous soldier to

Mariano Vallejo about territories near Fort Ross, the recorder notes:

24 Fred Kniffen, Pomo Geography, 384.

25 Clinton R. Edwards, “Wandering Toponyms: El Puerto de la Bodega and Bodega Bay," Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 33, No. 3 (August 1964): 253-272.

It can be observed that the natives have been misused and deceived by the soldiers, but mostly by the missionaries with their detestable ways. The missionaries have no policies for presenting Christianity to the Indians, but instead tear them away from their homes to be taken to strange lands to be forcibly baptized. …Under these principles are the missions of Alta California founded.26

The author goes on to describe acts committed by other Spaniards before his and

Vallejo’s administration. “Before our arrival, others have persecuted them ceaselessly.

…It is mandatory that the Commanding General recognize the incredible cruelties and injustices perpetrated by those who are in charge of capturing the Indians.” 27 Although the letter is dated 1833, the year Vallejo became the commander of the San Francisco

Presidio, the contents indicate that violent tactics were used from the founding of San

Francisco in 1769. Therefore, it is not improbable that raids for converts/laborers were made as far north as Bodega Bay beginning with the first exploration to the area in 1775, thirty seven years before Russian settlement.

Moreover, Russian sailors were quick to point out both the Spaniards’ forceful

“recruitment” tactics and Indian responses early on. In 1818, Fyodor Matyushkin, a

Russian navigator, stopped at Fort Ross during an around the world voyage aboard the

Kamchatka and recorded a conversation with Fort Ross manager, Isaac Kuskov.

According to Kuskov, “It was only the natives’ attachment to the Russians that encouraged him. The Spanish had expanded their hunt for people to Tomales Bay itself.

By now all the Indian bands fled for safety under the guns of Fort Ross or to Port

26 “Report to Mariano G. Vallejo: Confidential Information Concerning the Ross Settlement,” translated by Michael S. Tucker and Nicholas Del Cioppo, MS C-A53, 98-112, Bancroft Library (Berkeley, CA), 2.

27 Ibid., 4.

Rumiantsev.”28 In 1833, Admiral F.P. Wrangell explored the area and found “some

Individuals of the same tribe also had attacked and pillaged the nearby Spanish mission of San Francisco”29 – indicating that Indians other than the Kashayas resented Spanish occupation and took active steps to resist it. During the same trip, he crossed paths with an Indian woman he said was “fearing to fall into the hands of Spaniards who quite often go out to hunt Indians in order to convert their prey to Christianity.”30 These observations by Kashaya, Spanish, and Russian witnesses support the argument that Spanish colonization was both an imminent and apparent threat to the Kashayas from 1775 at the latest.

Under normal circumstances Kashayas were fully capable of defending their land.

If needed, traditional hunting implements doubled as weapons against enemies. Spiritual powers and poisoning techniques were additional weapons in the Kashaya repertoire.

Kashayas often directed small acts of hostility against a specific person or group of people in revenge for harm towards a loved one. When full-scale warfare occurred, it was usually between Pomo communities that spoke different languages and was over land or resource use. For example, between 1830 and 1835 there were hostilities between the

Yokaia and Komlii Pomos over land in the Ukiah Valley. According to Yokaia Pomos, they allowed Komliis to inhabit the north end of the Valley, but a dispute arose over

28 Fyodor F. Matiushkin, “A Journal of a Round-the-World Voyage on the Sloop Kamchatka, under the Command of Captain Golovin,” in Leonid A. Shur, K Beregam Novogo Sveta. Iz Neopublikovannykh Zapisok Russkikh Putesheshtvennikov Nachaia XIX Veka (To the Shores of the New World: From Unpublished Writings of Russian Travelers in the Early Nineteenth Century), (Moscow: Nauka, 1971), 4.

29 F.P. Von Wrangell, “Some Remarks on the Savages on the Northwest Coast of America. The Indians in Upper California,” in Ethnographic Observations on the Coast Miwok and Pomo, 1.

30 Ibid., 2.

hunting and fishing rights. The Yokaias subsequently drove the Komliis out of the

Valley and into the Clear Lake area.31 While such hostilities were rare, warfare was not outside the Kashayas’ range of options for defending their homeland against intruders, whether Indian or European.

Yet, by the time the RAC showed up in 1812, the Spanish mission program had thrown off the ancient equilibrium between California tribes. Human displacement and environmental destruction interfered with the Kashayas’ ability to defend themselves.

Furthermore, in light of rumors about the enslavement of other Indians by use of powerful new weapons and horses, the effectiveness of traditional weapons was thrown into question. The Kashayas may have wondered if the gods of the six cardinal directions had been angered. Perhaps performing dances and seeking the spirit world would provide power and answers in a difficult time?

Prior to Spanish colonization and their encounter with the Russians, the

Southwestern Pomos were safe and fully self-sufficient. The founding of Mission de San

Francisco Asis, however, marked the beginning of change. Thereafter the signs and messages were clear; danger was approaching and the stakes were high. The Kashayas, being expert gamblers, immediately employed their cultural survival tools and carefully analyzed their opponent’s moves. When the Russians showed up with the same weapons as the Spanish, the Kashayas saw an opportunity for defense and perhaps an answer to their prayers. Attractive trade-goods, such as kettles, beads, tobacco, and tools made the

31 Kroeber, Pomos Indians, 235-236,

gamble of accepting the Russians’ presence that much more appealing.32 The presence of

Aleut Indians may have also eased fears about the Russians’ disposition towards non- whites.33

Learning to Play by the Indians’ Rules

Before meeting the Kashayas in Alta California, the Russians of the Russian

American Company (RAC) faced a few challenges of their own in Alaska. Like other

Europeans involved in the North American fur trade, the Russians exploited indigenous labors whenever they could, but, as historian Richard White points out in The Middle

Ground, when several European powers were present at once, it became more difficult for Europeans to impose their will, as Indians were able to leverage competition between colonists to their advantage.34 Thus, when British and American sailors arrived in Alaska, the Tlingits were able to mount resistance against the Russians by forming alliances with other traders. In California, the Kashayas’ took advantage of the Russians’ desire to avoid the mistakes they made with the Tlingits, in order to maintain their freedom and secure protection against the Spanish. Furthermore, even when the Kashayas chose to offer their labor or live at the Russians’ settlements, they were able to preserve their traditional practices. Historian Steven Hackles has argued that even when Indians were

32 F.P. Kostromitonov, “Notes on Indians in Upper California,” 9.

33 Kyrill T. Khlebnikov, Colonial Russia America, Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports 1817-1832, translating and editing of the 1861 original by Basil Dmytryshyn and E.A.P. Crownhart-Vaughan (Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1976), 109.

34 Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 120, 208.

held captive at Spanish missions and forced to adapt new customs, they continued to practice many aspects of traditional culture and even to influence the mission system.35

Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Kashayas preserved most of their culture when they worked for Russians voluntarily.

Following Captain Cook’s exploration of the Pacific Ocean in 1776, English and

American Fur traders flocked to the Northern Pacific, offering better and more goods to

Indians in exchange for furs than what the Russians could offer.36 To compound Russian consternation, Bostonians and King George‘s men (as the Americans and British were known) traded guns and powder for furs with the Native Alaskans who attacked the

Russians. To stymie illicit trade in their waters and establish a foothold for further expansion, the RAC established their New Archangelsk (Sitka) headquarters on Baranov

Island in 1799. Baranov Island and the surrounding area, however, were inhabited by the

Tlingits, a well organized and well armed (thanks to British and American fur traders) group of Native Alaskans.37

Moreover, the Tlingits were determined to not meet the same fate as their

Aleutian neighbors, who encountered Russian power before British or American traders arrived and weakened the Russians’ ability to impose their will. Russian fur trappers and explorers, called “promyshleniki,” excelled at hunting land bound animals such as

35 Steven W. Hackle, Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California, 1769-1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 165-170, 220-234.

36 James R. Gibson, Imperial Russia In Frontier America: The Changing Geography of Supply of Russian America, 1784-1867 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 9.

37 P.A. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, translated by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978), 61-99.

beaver, but when it came to sea-mammals, they were at a loss. To overcome this shortcoming, the RAC took Aleut women and children hostage and used them as leverage to force approximately half the men between the ages of eighteen and fifty to hunt sea- otter.38 When the Russians arrived on Tlingit territory and tried to implement the same plan to obtain food supplies, the Tlingits offered fierce resisted.

In 1801 the Tlingits successfully captured and burned a Russian fort on Baranov

Island, confirming the Russians’ worst fear: Indian collusion with encroaching fur traders.39 A Russian account of the event states, “Baranov, believes the Bostonian ships and crews of skippers […] were responsible for this disaster, for they not only incited the islanders but gave them gunpowder and guns.”40 Even after the Russians returned to the island and launched a successful retaliation, the Tlingits maintained their power and independence in the region. Armed Tlingits forced the Russian to stay within the immediate vicinity of their fortifications, prohibiting them from obtaining adequate food supplies by means of hunting, fishing, or farming. As a result, Tlingit hunters, rather than

Company managers, set prices for the food supplied to employees of the Russian

American Company.41

38 James R. Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America, 8.

39 P.A. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, 67-68.

40 “April, 21, 1808: A Statement from the Directors of the Russian American Company Regarding Problems Caused by the Incursion of Bostonians Into Waters and Territories Claimed By Russia,” in Dmytryshyn, Basil, E.A.P. Crownhart-Vaughan, and Thomas Vaughan, eds., To Siberia and Russian America, Three Centuries of Russian Eastward Expansion, a Documentary Record, Vol 3. The Russian American Colonies, 1898-1867 (USA: The Oregon Historical Society, 1989), 160-161.

41 James Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America, 109-110.

Shortly after receiving its first charter from the Tsar, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Russian American Company was in the worst condition of its existence. Between 1799 and 1820 over half of its newly bought or constructed ships were shipwrecked; the Tlingits destroyed an important fort; its colonies were short on food, and the demand for furs was down.42 In response to these challenges, the Company correspondent to the Board of Directors, Nikolai Rezanov, visited the American Colonies and created a plan of action.43 Securing trade with Spain and establishing a settlement in

California were two of the main components of his plan. By establishing a settlement in

California, Rezanov hoped the Company would be able to obtain more sea-otters, trade for wheat and beef with the Spanish, and eventually establish a thriving agricultural center.44 Doing so, however, required overcoming several obstacles.

Indian resistance and the threat of competing claims in California weighed heavily on the minds of the Russian officials. The Russians realized establishing a settlement in California could only be accomplished with careful planning and extreme cautiousness. In 1808, the Company employees secretly hid a number of bronze plaques along the California coast in order to provide proof for future “rights of discovery.” The final location for the first settlement, however, would be determined through further

42 Ibid, 13-14.

43 Nikoklai Petrovich Rezanov, The Rezanov Voyage to Nueva California in 1806: The Report of County Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov of His Voyage to that Provencia of Nueva Espana from New Archangel, translated by Thomas C. Russell (San Francisco: The Private Press of Thomas C. Russell, 1926), 5.

44 Kyrill T. Khlebnikov, Colonial Russian America,106; Nikoklai Petrovich Rezanov, The Rezanov Voyage to Nueva California in 1806, 26, 43-35.

exploration.45

Ivan Kuskov, the Company’s number two in Alaska, was the man for the job, but his explorations and the events surrounding them were marked by hardship. Before determining the site for settlement, the RAC experienced three substantial Indians attacks within a short period of time: in 1801 the Tlingit destroyed a fort in New Archangelsk; in

1805 Indians destroyed a settlement in Yakutat Bay, killing all the settlers and burning the fort; and in 1810 Kuskov‘s crew was attacked near Queen Charlotte‘s Islands.46

Realizing they were not powerful enough to force their will, the Company’s administrators determined the best policy for future success was one of friendly, rather than antagonistic, relationships with the Indians. This approach is exemplified in instructions from Company Manager Aleksander Baranov to Ivan Kuskov about a hunting trip off the coast of California:

You must strictly prohibit even the slightest exploitation of the local natives either by Russians or by members of the hunting groups; they must not be either insulted or abused. You personally and your subordinates must make every effort to win their friendship and affection.47

The Indians’ power to resist forced occupation, whether armed with guns or bows and arrows, was plain and required an appropriate strategy.

45 S.B. Okun, The Russian-American Company, translated by Carl Ginsburg (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), 121; “October 14, 1808: Instructions from Aleksandr A. Baranov to His Assistant, Ivan A. Kuskov, Regarding the Dispatch of a Hunting Party to the Coast of Spanish California,” in The Russian American Colonies, 166-168.

46 “April 21, 1808: A Statement From Directors of the Russian American Company Regarding Problems Caused by the Incursion of Bostonians Into Waters and Territories Claimed by Russia,” in The Russian American Colonies, 161; S.B. Okun, The Russian-American Company, 122.

47 Aleksander Baranov, “October 14, 1808: Instructions from Aleksandr A. Baranov to His Assistant, Ivan A. Kuskov, Regarding the Dispatch of a Hunting Party to the Coast of California,” in The Russian American Colonies, 168.

The ideal California settlement would be suitable for farming and free of

European or American claims, but, most importantly, it would be established based on good relations with the local Indians (who would hopefully provide labor). Therefore, the terms were set for an agreeable gambling game between the Kashayas and the

Russians. Both hoped to secure benefits from the other, especially support against the power of Spanish colonialism. And, while the Kashayas ultimately had more to lose, the risks were calculated and the most desired reward was survival.

The Relationship’s Beginning (1812-1820s)

When Kuskov’s choice of location for the RAC’s California outpost proved workable, it was because the Kashayas determined they had something to gain from the

Russians’ presence. When the Russians landed at Metini in 1811, Spanish colonization and the fragmentation of California increasingly threatened the Kashayas’ sovereignty at

Metini and surrounding villages. At the same time, the Russians were desperate for food supplies, wary of Indian resistance, and concerned about the legitimacy of a California settlement in the eyes of European and American powers. These culminating circumstances made it possible for the Kashayas to leverage the presence of a colonial power for the protection of their culture. Similar situations were possible in other parts of

North America, where several European powers competed over the fur trade, but these conditions were rare in California, where colonization was primarily successive rather than simultaneous.48

48 Richard White, xxx-xxxi.

The Kashayas, like the Indians on the Charlotte Islands, could have responded to

Russian settlement with armed resistance, rather than with peaceful diplomacy. Given the Russians’ recent experiences, armed resistance would have forced the Russians to choose a different location. This alternative was completely feasible, as the Kashayas were armed with traditional weapons, had at least as many warriors as the crew accompanying Kuskov, and could have secured additional allies if resistance was determined to be the best course of action.49 The Kashayas decided, however, that it was in their best interests to accept the Russians’ proposal and leverage it for their own ends.

The Kashayas’ willingness to cooperate with the Russian settlers, and not with the

Spanish, resulted from the different modes of colonization used by the two groups and is evidenced by the treaty between the RAC and “tribal” leaders, as well as the nature of the relationship following the agreement.

While the Russian-produced treaty that marked the relationship’s beginning lacked Kashaya signatures, the evidence as a whole indicates that Kashaya leaders willingly participated in the agreement. The Kashayas’ alliance with the Russians was an intentional act of self-preservation against new enemies and was marked by traditional acts of reciprocity. During the initial treaty meeting in 1812, Kuskov gave manufactured goods to Chu-gu-oan, the chief elder of the band that inhabited Metini, in exchange for permission to settle on Chu-gu-oan’s land.50 Pomo speakers sometimes allowed another

49 S.A. Barrett, Pomo Material Culture, 183-191; Mary Jean Kennedy, “Culture Contact and Acculturation of the Southwestern Pomo,” Ph. D. diss. (University of California Berkeley, 1955), 9-10.

50 Kyrill T. Khlebnikov, Colonial Russian America, 129-130.

group limited or temporary access to their land with certain stipulations, and the

Kashayas likely viewed their agreement with the Russians in this context.51

The Russians were so concerned about establishing legitimate title in the eyes of fellow Europeans that they reaffirmed the treaty in 1817 by inviting Kashaya leaders to a formal gathering. According to the 1817 document, three “chiefs,” Chu-gu-oan, Amat- tan, Gem-le-le, and others expressed satisfaction with the RAC’s settlement, because the

Russians’ presence provided protection from other Indians (That Kashayas were happy about protection from the Spanish might have been intentionally left out in order to save face with the European powers).52 Gifts were again exchanged for the right to settle on the land, and a medal of alliance was presented to Chu-Chu-Oan, the “chief” of Metini.53

Some scholars have pointed out, and it is stated in RAC documents as well, that a rigid hierarchy did not exist in Kashaya society, nor did powerful chiefs who could enforce their wills.54 Rather, the Southwestern Pomos were organized in loose kinship groups of about twenty to fifty people. Within each group likely one or several influential, though not authoritarian, members served as leaders.55 These facts, however,

51 A.L. Kroeber, Pomo Indians, 235-236.

52 Diane Spencer-Hancock, William E. Pritchard and Ina Kaliakin, “Notes to the 1817 Treaty between the Russian American Company and Kashaya Pomo Indians,” California History, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Winter 1980), 310-313.

53 “September 11, 1817: A ‘Treaty’ Between the Russian American Company and the Kashaya Pomo Indians, Ceding Land for Fort Ross,” in The Russian American Colonies, 296.

54 E. Breck Parkman, “Fort and Settlement: Interpreting the Past at Fort Ross State Historic Park,” in California Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Winter, 1996/1997): 360; Mary Jean Kennedy, “Culture Contact and Acculturation of the Southwestern Pomo,” 18-19.

55 Peter H. Kunkel, “The Pomo Kin Group and the Political Unit in Aboriginal California,” The Journal of California Anthropology, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1974): 11-13.

did not preclude the ability of Kashaya “chiefs” to influence and obtain a majority consensus from their communities for an agreement with a foreign people. Leaders of families and bands had significant sway and represented territorial matters in their communities.56 Moreover, the Russians did not make an agreement with one, all- powerful chief but made an agreement with several influential leaders in the presence of the community. The presence of three “chiefs” along with “others” at the treaty agreement indicates that RAC leaders accommodated Kashayas’ organizational structure.

While the RAC tried to consolidate power by giving an alliance medal to only one

“chief,“ and eventually the RAC did cause a change in Kashaya culture, the legitimacy of the treaty appears to have been based on community agreement and cultural precedents.57

From 1812 through the 1820s, the Kashayas and RAC employees at Metini continued to reinforce and provide evidence of mutual accommodation. The records indicate that while the Russians would have maximized their use of Kashaya labor if possible, they were forced to complain about the Kashayas’ “laziness” and acquire additional labor elsewhere. The Kashayas never stopped observing their opponent or delineating their expectations for the relationship. It is also telling that after six years of

Russian settlement, the Kashayas still maintained their traditional subsistence and cultural practices.58 The Russian settlement did not disrupt Kashayas’ seasonal rounds

56 E.M. Loeb, Pomo Folkways (New York: Kraus Reprint Corp, 1965), 235-236.

57 “September 22, 1817: A ‘Treaty’ Between the Russian American Company and the Kashaya Pomo Indians, Ceding Land for Fort Ross,” in The Russian American Colonies, 296.

58 Friedrich Luetke, “Account of a Visit to Bodega Bay and Fort Ross, September 1818: Excerpts from Friedrich Luetke’s Diary from Voyage on the Sloop Kamchatka,” translated by S. Watrous, 1992, Fort Ross Interpretive Association Library (Fort Ross State Park, CA), 1.

for natural resources but was instead incorporated into it.

With even more freedom than possessed by the Mission Indians described by historian Steven Hackel, who continued dancing, gambling, and practicing native religion despite conditions of captivity, forced labor, and daily indoctrination, Indians at Metini managed to preserve their culture and leverage their labor for their own purposes.59

Instead of working whenever and for whatever the Russians told them to, the Kashayas worked at Fort Ross in exchange for goods like tobacco, beads, or kettles that had value for traditional uses. For example, exotic glass and metal beads provided excellent stakes for gambling. The Kashayas’ passion for such games was well noted, and the amount of time tribal members devoted to gambling and leisure caused the Russians to consider the

Kashayas idle or lazy.60 What the Russians failed to recognize, however, was that

Kashayas worked by gathering acorns, hunting deer, fishing, and making baskets. At any rate, RAC leaders were frustrated that Kashayas only worked when they wanted to, but were powerless to do anything about. If the Russians did try to impose their will, other colonial powers might have questioned their tenuous legitimacy of settlement, or the

Kashayas, along with other local Indians, might have put the Russians’ military strength to the test.

Kashayas and employees of the Russian American Company agreed to enter a game of chance, so to speak, with one another, but both opponents took steps to protect their interests. The RAC, for one, immediately fortified its settlement with a tall palisade

59 Steven W. Hackle, 165-170, 220-225.

60 F.P Kostromitonov, “Notes on Indians in Upper California,” 8, 12.

constructed of thick redwood planks, and its massive square was replete with two cannon-mounted blockhouses on opposite corners. The fort was intended to provide protection against hostile Indians and aggressive Spaniards. The construction of palisades was a common protocol in Russia’s Alaskan colonies, where defense against enemies like the Tlingits was vital. Reinforced outposts also provided employees a sense of security in strange and unknown lands. 61 Yet, the fort at Metini was undoubtedly an imposing sight to the Kashayas. The chiefs Chu-gu-oan or Gem-le-le may have wondered, “Why are these “undersea people” building such a fort if they have peaceful intentions?”

Archaeological evidence indicates that after the Russians built their fort at Metini, the Kashayas took measures to ensure their safety and autonomy. While some Kashayas continued to live near the fort, several villages located on a ridge nearest the fort were moved to a ridge several miles away, a place where other Kashaya villages were already located.62 This offered several advantages: For one, it removed their people out of the range of cannon-fire. It also prevented foreigners from gaining too many insights into the group’s cultural practices and, therefore, lessened the potential of violating taboos.

Relocation also provided a buffer zone from unwanted interactions or cultural influences, a strategy that would be employed again later on. Finally, geographic isolation gave

Kashayas the ability to choose when and where they interacted with the Russians and how often they worked for them. Overall, village relocation was a skillful move by the

61 E. Breck Parkman, “Fort and Settlement: Interpreting the Past at Fort Ross State Historic Park,” 355-359.

62 Kent Lightfoot, Thomas A. Wake, and Ann M. Schiff, The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Fort Ross, 115-120.

“expert gamblers” to keep the Russians guessing and to leverage the benefits gained from their presence.

One of the most effective ways the Kashayas’ maintained sovereignty and peace in the presence of a power that hoped to benefit from their labor was by establishing intermediaries between their people, “the people who belonged to the land,” and the

“undersea people” (the Kashaya description of the Russians).63 Among Pomo speakers traditionally two types of intermediaries helped to establish peace between any particular group and its neighbors or trade partners: chiefs made agreements with chiefs from other tribes and smoothed-over disagreements with gifts, and women intermarried with men from other groups and served as important liaisons or messengers in matters of trade and peace agreements.64 When the Russians arrived, the Kashayas continued these precedents, along with at least one major adaptation.

In addition to monitoring the Russians’ actions and maintaining the relationship, many questions needed to be answered: What did the Russians and Aleuts want? Were they really trustworthy? What would it take to keep them happy? How could we obtain more of the goods they gave us? Answering these questions involved experimentations, probing, and miscommunications, for which few or no records exist. What is known is that a number of Kashaya women married Russian and Aleut men, and by the time

Americans arrived in the 1840s and 1850s, Kashaya leaders had become more

63 Herman James, “Tales of Fort Ross,” Kashaya Texts, 277.

64 Lowell John Bean and Dorothea J. Theodoratus, “Western Pomo and Northeastern Pomo,” Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 8, ed. by Robert F. Heizer (Washington, D.C.:Smithsonian Institute, 1978), 296.

centralized. Through these and other strategies, Southwestern Pomos successfully preserved traditional culture and avoided becoming force laborers.65

In North America it was common for Russians and other European colonists to enforce European understandings of hierarchy in native societies. They did so by working with only the most agreeable Indian leaders instead of with all the community- established leaders. It can be expected, then, that the Kashaya “chiefs” who were favored by the Russians accommodated the new hierarchies when doing so helped them reach their desired ends. And in fact, an adaptation in hierarchy is evidenced by the leadership structure that remained when the Russians abandoned their settlement in 1841.

According to Kashaya oral history and early observers, the Kashayas had one principal chief (rather than the multiple “chiefs” that originally treaty. The chief’s name was

“Toyon,” which is also the Russian word for chief.66 An undesired consequence of this adaptation may have been the alienation of the leaders and villagers who remained skeptical of the RAC’s intentions. At least initially, however, the Russian American

Company attempted to recognize and accommodate the Kashayas’ multifaceted leadership.

Intermarriage was another way the Kashayas asserted their expectations, but, while intermarriage benefited the larger society, it also created new strains and posed challenges for the individuals involved. Kashaya women were intermarrying with

65 Mary Jean Kennedy, “Culture Contact and Acculturation of the Southwestern Pomo,” 18-19.

66 Stewart Omer Call, Notes on Pomo Ethnogeography, in University of California Publication in American Archaeology and Ethnology, Kroeber, A.L., R.H. Lowie, E.W. Gifford, T.D. McCown, and R.L. Olson, eds., Vol. 39 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945), 49.

promyshleniki and Aleuts as early as 1818. In fact, by this time, one woman had already learned Russian, divorced her Russian husband, and returned to her village. Yet, after returning to her village, she continued to return to Fort Ross.67 That she was able to leave her marriage and still come and go as she wished indicates that she was not forced into her previous marriage but was a willing participant. The Kashaya woman’s voluntary marriage indicates that it must have offered one or more perceived benefits.

In other borderlands and fur trading societies, such as the Pays d’en Haut or the

Texas borderlands of the eighteenth century, Indian women often acted as intermediaries of peace and accommodation.68 While the evidence is limited, it seems probable that

Kashaya women played such roles at Metini. Intermarriage was common between

Kashaya women and Russian and Aleut men, and most marriages were voluntary.

Moreover, there is no known shortage of Kashaya or other Indian men that would have caused Kashaya women to look to the “undersea people” for marriage. Instead, intermarriage was appealing because it provided Kashaya women and the larger tribe certain benefits. Kashayas who intermarried learned to speak Russian or Aleut, gained information about Russian intentions and military capabilities, and could act as interpreters or mediators between the two groups.69 The use of intermarriage to fortify relationships and secure benefits was a traditional practice among the Kashayas and their

67 Friedrich Luetke, 8.

68 Richard White, The Middle Ground, 15-19, 60-75; Juliana Barr, Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 157, 251-257.

69 Friedrich Luetke, 8.

neighbors, and was therefore not a significant adaptation. Intermarriage with powerful foreigners, however, created new difficulties.70

Kashaya oral histories portray the challenges of intermarriage, as well as the measures taken by the RAC to ensure Kashayas’ fair treatment. One story, entitled the

“The wife-beater,” recounts the marriage of a Kashaya woman to an RAC employee who cut his wife’s head with an ax during a fit of rage. The woman’s family reported the incident to the Ross sheriff, and the husband was subsequently locked up for a week and whipped for half a day, until he fell unconscious.71 This story reveals both that the

Russians did not tolerate unsanctioned violence, and the Kashayas retained the power to assert their expectations for their relationship with the Russians.

In another incident, an undersea man threatened to kill his Kashaya wife. After the man left, however, the woman committed suicide by throwing herself down a nearby cliff, landing on the gravely beach below. The woman’s daughter then reported the incident to her people, who presented the matter to the Russians. As a result, the Russian widower was given similar consequence to the wife-beater; however, after being locked up for a week, he was whipped for an entire day, causing him to die.72 These stories make it clear that the Kashayas’ gamble on a relationship with the Russians was not without consequences, and should not be romanticized as such. Allowing the Russians on their land and making accommodations to mediate their expectations of the

70 Dorothea J. Theodoratus, “Identity crises: changes in lifestyle of the Manchester Band of the Pomo Indians,” PhD Diss., Syracuse University, 1971, 344.

71 Herman James, “The Wife-Beater,” Kashaya Texts, 269.

72 Herman James, “The Suicide of a Wife,” Kashaya Texts, 271.

relationship took tremendous sacrifice.

The births that resulted from these marriages would have further cemented and complicated the ties between the two groups. Census records indicate that a number of offspring resulted, and many children were not even enumerated.73 While intermarriage could create conflicting loyalties, evidenced by Aleuts or promyshleniki abandoning their posts to be with their Kashaya partners, it had the greater effect of connecting the RAC to

Kashayas and reinforcing their agreement with one another.74 Moreover, the Russians were already worried about Indian hostility and maintaining the legitimacy of their settlement; the ties created through intermarriage would have provided another reason for the Russians to maintain peaceful relations.

Thus, while the beginning of the Kashayas’ relationships with the RAC required accommodation, shrewdness, and adaptation, it served the purpose for which the agreement was entered into. The Kashayas obtained protection against Spanish colonization and hostile Indians, and the Russians maintained legitimacy of settlement and access to sea otter. While the Russians engaged in limited trade with the Padres at the nearby missions, trade with Russia was not officially sanctioned by Spanish authorities, and neither the Russians nor the Spanish were willing to give an inch of settlement or advantage to the other. Both were suspicious of the other’s motives and kept a close eye

73 Frederick Petrovich Wrangell, Baron Ferdinand Von Wrangell’s Report: To the Main Administration, No.61, April 10, 1834 from Russian-American Company Papers, National Archives, Vol. 11, Roll No.36, translated, Fort Ross Interpretive Association Library, Fort Ross State Park, CA, 59-78.

74 Kyrill T. Khlebnikov, “Travel Notes in California and Fort Ross on the Brigs Baikal and Kiakhta in 1824,” in The Khlebnikov Archive: Unpublished Journal (1800-1837) and Travel Notes (1820, 1822, and 1824), Falk, Marvie W., ed. (USA, The University of Alaska, 1990), 194.

on the other’s actions.75 As a result of their proximity to the Spanish, the Russians were entirely unable to force their will on the Kashayas by making them forced laborers; had they attempted to, other Indians or the Spanish could have seized the opportunity to expel the RAC, or, at minimum, the Russians would have endangered the legitimacy of their settlement. Nevertheless, after the RAC exhausted California’s sea-otter population and switched its focus to farming, Company mangers started to lose track of their most important imperative.76

The Agricultural Years (1820s -1841)

From the 1820’s through 1841 the Kashaya-Russian relationship was marked by its durability as well as by new tensions that resulted from the RAC’s push to develop a successful agricultural system with which to supply its Alaskan colonies. The promyshleniki and Aleuts who composed the majority of Fort Ross’ population were inexperienced at such pursuits and loathed farm work to being with. Even if they had enjoyed farming, there were still far fewer of them than what was needed to work the hilly, virgin lands of Metini and surroundings areas.77

The first attempt to solve the labor shortage was carried about by recruitment efforts directed towards the Kashayas, who earned food and other goods in return for

75 Kent Lightfoot, Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants: The Legacy of Colonial Encounter on the California Frontiers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 126-127.

76 Herman James, “Hunting Sea Otter and Farming,” Kashaya Texts, 265; Kyrill T. Khlebnikov, Colonial Russian America, 116-117.

77 S.B. Okun, The Russian American Company, 141-143; James Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America, 125-130.

their labor. To the Russians’ frustration, however, such efforts had dismal results.

Kashayas were not accustomed to the grueling work of agriculture, nor were they highly motivated by the meager Russian remunerations. While Aleuts and Promyshleniki received an actual wage, Indians workers were paid primarily in wheat, beef, tobacco, and beads, and when Kashayas acquired the amount of goods they wanted or when they considered themselves finished working, they simply stopped.78 Like other jobs at the fort, Kashayas incorporated agricultural labor into traditional patterns of subsistence and, thus, did not devote to it the rigor and commitment RAC leaders hoped for.

Frustrated by poor results and sinking profits, RAC managers became desperate and reverted to old strategies for accomplishing their goals. In 1834, chief manager of the RAC described the agricultural quandary caused by labor shortages and natural protagonists, such as gophers and field mice:

After this, no one will expect good results from agriculture at Fort Ross and cannot be surprised by the fact that from 1826 through 1833 (inclusively), that is, over an eight year period, about 98 metric tons of wheat and barley were sent to Sitka, which averages about 12 metric tons per annum, a very insignificant amount!79

At some point during this time period, after having little success by their own efforts or with the help of poorly compensated Kashaya laborers, the Russians decided to acquire laborers the way they acquired Aleut laborers in the past - through force and

78 James Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America, 118, 130-131; F.P. Kostromitonov, “Notes on the Indians in Upper California,” 8-9; Kyrill T. Khlebnikov, “Travel Notes in California and Fort Ross on the Brigs Baikal and Kiakhta in 1824,” 193-194.

79 Frederick Petrovich Wrangell, Baron Ferdinand Von Wrangell’s Report, 59-78.

enslavement.80 For fear of their own safety, however, and in light of their established relationship, the subjugation of Indians was directed towards tribes outside Kashayas’ territory. In the same report referred to above, Von Wrangle further elucidates the matter:

Not only humanity but common sense as well demands that the Indians be treated more kindly: due to poor food and meager pay they have stopped coming to the settlement for work, whereby the office has had to seek them out forcefully in the backcountry, to seize them unawares, and to bind their hands and drive them to the settlement like cattle to get them to work. While I was there, a party of 75 people - men, women, children – was brought to the settlement from a distance of 45 miles from here, where they must stay, without supervision, for a month or two. Is it really understood what the consequences of such actions towards the Indians should become over time? Are we really making friends with them?81

Scholars have often lumped the RAC’s treatment of the Kashayas together with the treatment of other Indians near the Ross settlement. A closer look, however, indicates that the Kashayas accurately read the Russians’ capabilities and intentions in their bet for survival. Wrangell’s self-critical accounts admit to the enslavement of Indians but states that it was of Indians in the backcountry and, in at least one instance, of people forty-five miles away from Ross. The Kashaya villages, by contrast, were only about four miles away.82 When Kashayas stopped showing up for work, rather than use violence against the people they were intermarried and loosely allied with, the RAC looked elsewhere for additional labor.

Needless to say, by this time both Kashayas and other laborers were exasperated

80 S.B. Okun, The Russian American Company, 193-201.

81 Frederick Petrovich Wrangell, Baron Ferdinand Von Wrangell’s Report, 59-78.

82 Kent Lightfoot, Thomas A. Wake, and Ann M. Schiff, The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Fort Ross, California, 61.

by Russians pressuring or enslaving Indians to work and alarmed at the Russians’ aggressiveness. A few laborers decided to supplement their insufficient pay by helping themselves to some of the RAC’s wheat and sheep, a crime the Russians penalized with service on the windswept Farallon Islands and sometimes execution.83 It is unknown whether the Indians who committed these crimes were Kashaya or not; however, punishment in this fashion towards the Kashayas would have been risky. Von

Wrangell’s report about the Indians who were captured forty five miles away from Ross reaffirmed the RAC’s commitment to preserving friendly relations with the Indians and warned about the consequences such actions could bring about. Fort Ross was situated on the outermost peripheries of the Russian empire and was vulnerable to Indian attack.

The RAC’s Alaskan settlements had been successfully attacked by Indians in the past, and there was nothing preventing an attack on their Ross settlement if they overstepped their bounds in California.

In their oral histories Kashayas do not paint their relationship with the Russians in an overly positive or negative light. Take, for example, an excerpt from the “Tales of

Fort Ross” about after the Russians landed in 1812:

They turned out to be the undersea people - we Indians named those people that. Having landed, they built their houses close to where the Indians were. After saying for a while, they got acquainted with them. They stayed with them. The Indians started to work for them. They lived there quite a while; having lived there for thirty years, they returned home.84

In this brief history the author makes no mention of enslavement or hostilities, simply

83 “Report to Mariano G. Vallejo: Confidential Information Concerning the Ross Settlement,” 6.

84 Herman James, “Tales of Fort Ross,” Kashaya Texts, 277.

that Kashayas became acquainted with the undersea people and worked for them. The same cannot be said for what occurred immediately after the undersea people left: “Then the white people [literally ‘miracles’] arrived. They, they white people, took over the land where all the Indians had been living. But the Indians stayed. Then they put them

[the Indians] to work.”85 The Kashaya historian makes sure to mention that after the white people arrived, the Kashayas’ land was taken over. There is also a subtle but important difference in the phrases about Indian work. When the Russians left, whites were the ones putting Indians to work; the options for Kashaya agency were diminished.

During the Russian era, however, the Indians “started to work for them,” suggesting

Indian agency and choice.

The Gamble’s Outcome

The final outcome of the Kashayas’ gamble with the Russians was mixed. The choice to cooperate with their presence was difficult from the beginning. The Russians had no right to occupy their village site at Metini, and Russian occupation was immediately recognized as a threat to their land, resources, and culture. The Kashayas demonstrated their mistrust of the Russians by relocating their villages and refusing to provide detailed cultural information to inquisitors. Taboos against giving information to outsiders and customs regarding land use were centuries old cultural survival tools that were scarcely compromised. Ultimately, however, the majority of the Kashayas decided that accommodating the Russian and Aleut presence, while it would require tremendous

85 Ibid.

sacrifice and adaptation, was a better option than facing the violence of Spanish colonization.

When representative leaders, Chu-gu-oan, Amat-tan, and Gem-le-le, agreed to the

Russian presence, they could not have known all the potential consequences. In the end, however, neither party had the other’s best interest in mind. While the Kashayas’ actions were mitigated by cultural taboos and survival as a people, Russian actions were governed by a different set of standards: profit and Orthodox Christianity. When the

Russians’ no longer recognized a need to maintain good faith, they exposed their true imperial colors.

After forty-one years of lost profits at the far end of Russia’s imperial reach, the

RAC’s administrators decided to abandon their Ross settlement. During most of their time at Metini, the Russians carefully accommodated and maintained their relationship with the Kashayas in order to avoid any Tlingit-like resistance. The opportunity to maintain this positive representation of Christian Orthodoxy or Russia’s “enlightened monarch” was eclipsed when they sold the Kashayas’ land to John Sutter and kidnapped

Kashaya women. The Kashayas’ agreement with the Russians included the right to use their land only as long as the Russians occupied it, not permanent title with the rights to sell to whomever they wished. Moreover, Kashaya understandings of marriage were not rigidly patriarchal or possessory. The Russians knew this but violated previous understandings because they were in a position to do so. Kashayas fully protested both actions, but their agency was limited due to their decreased numbers and impotency

against an unrestrained colonial power in flight.86

In addition to the theft of their land and the violence sustained by some of their women, during Russian occupation many Kashayas died from the introduction of new diseases. A number of diseases spread across California during this period, including malaria, syphilis, tuberculosis, and small pox. Syphilis and tuberculosis were the two sicknesses known to have affected Kashayas. Syphilis was passed from Russians and

Aleuts to Kashaya women, who then spread the disease to Kashaya men. Eurocentric observers attributed tuberculosis to the Southwester Pomos’ “slovenliness;” it is more likely, however, that the conditions for bacterial infection were created by Russian influence. Aleuts and Kashayas built a number of permanent dwellings around the

Russian settlement that would have compounded unsanitary conditions traditionally mitigated by mobile dwellings and seasonal rounds.87

Overall, the Kashayas’ decision to cooperate with the Russians was a tremendous sacrifice; the costs barely seem to have been worth it, but the alternative prospect was even bleaker. By accommodating the Russians, the inhabitants of Metini and the surround region succeeded at preventing Spanish colonization and avoided forced labor.

Yet, by the time the Russians departed in 1841, with Kashaya women in tow, the

Kashaya population had dropped significantly from the pre-contact estimation of 550. A census of the Indians near Fort Ross taken in 1848 enumerated a total of 162 people.88

86 Eric Wilder, “Kashaya People Yesterday,” 20 January 2012.

87 Kennedy, 153.

88 “Census of Indians at Rancheria in 1848,” Vallejo Documents Vol. XII, C-B 12, photocopy of typed manuscript in Bancroft library, Sonoma County Library.

While tribespeople may have lived on other small ranches or nearby villages, they clearly suffered a significant loss. If the Kashayas gained anything in their bet on the Russians, the gains were only moderate compared to what they might have faced with Spanish colonization.

The group’s experience with the Russians exemplifies the possibilities for

California Indians during the Spanish era of European colonialism. Like most of their neighbors to the south, Kashayas fought an uphill battle against European diseases, theft of land, and gender specific violence.89 Nevertheless, by leveraging their strengths against the Russian American Company’s weaknesses, the Kashayas successfully protected themselves against the more drastic acculturation, violence, disease, and forced labor that were part and parcel of the Spanish mission program. Although the Kashayas lost much, they also retained use of traditional foods, language, religion, and other cultural practices. In so doing, they laid a foundation for the continued contestation of the ever changing expectations of power.

When John Sutter’s representatives arrived at Fort Ross to transport Russian goods to Sutter’s Fort in 1841, the Kashayas retained a healthy demographic base and a strong historical identity. Russian occupation undoubtedly influenced the Kashayas’ culture, but it also reinforced their unique history as a people. Accommodation also equipped the Kashayas with the cross-cultural communication skills and European agricultural knowledge that would undergird Kashaya agency and cultural priorities under the heavy weight of the Gold Rush and early ranching era.

89Albert Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California Frontier (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 212.

Chapter 3

Maintaining Community against All Odds

Stolen Territory

When the Russians abandoned their California settlement in 1841, they pulled the rug from under the Kashayas’ feet on the way out. Yet, despite the fraudulent dealing, the Kashayas were not about to leave the land that provided a home for their communities or neglect the living history embedded there. They had confronted the Spanish challenge through shrewd negotiations with the Russians, and they managed to assert their sovereignty in the presence of Russian power – now it was time to use the winnings from these gambles in a bet against a new opponent. Shortly after the Russians departed,

California became the fiftieth state in the Union, which was achieved and accompanied by a process of violent colonization and exploitation. Though remaking communities on land transformed by European-American settlement would be difficult, it was not an insurmountable problem. By using centuries-old strategies, such as migration and matrilocal or patrilocal settlement, in combination with their knowledge of the land, the

Kashayas succeeded at preserving and remaking their communities despite the heightened constraints and violence that accompanied the Gold Rush and Ranching eras.

White Americans and European settlers, the Kashayas’ new opponents, attempted to justify their violence by ascribing their conquest to “Manifest Destiny,” or by characterizing their victims as inhuman, uncivilized, or helplessly ignorant. The

Kashayas contested these narratives and asserted their humanity by simultaneously

adapting to white society and maintaining their “Indian-ness.” From the 1840s through the 1860s the possibilities for Indian agency were slim, but Kashayas subverted the dictates of power at every opportunity by quickly confronting the realities at hand, leveraging the tools of the imposed system, and, as they had during the Russian era, by staying out of power’s way whenever possible.1 The remaining Kashayas, somewhere from 100 to 200 strong, spread out over their traditional land and found refuge on isolated village sites or on land that came under the possession of semi-hospitable ranchers.2

Toyon was the last chief during the Russian occupation. He died shortly before the Russians left Metini and was succeeded by his son, Tehanu. By this time, the

Kashayas’ leadership structure was the product of Russian influence, Kashaya culture, and basic pragmatism. Prior to contact with Europeans, every small kinship group had its own loosely defined leaders; some leaders acquired greater influence over the Kashaya community than others, but there was no single chief. By practicing European style negotiations, the Russians contributed to the concentration and titular aspect of the new structure. Population loss and uncertainties about the future also contributed to the transition from loosely defined leadership roles to a solely appointed “chief.” Following

1 Albert Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California Frontier, 72-75.

2 In 1848, 162 Kashayas lived at Fort Ross, not including surrounding areas. According to Kelsey’s census in 1907 there were 75 Indians at Stewart’s Point, and another source indicates that only half of the Kashayas lived near Stewart’s point, while the other half lived at Haupt’s Ranch. Given these numbers and the Kashayas’ practice of using multiple village sites, it is likely that the Kashayas’ population at the time they left Benitz’ ranch was between 100 and 200 people; “Census of Indians at Rancherias in 1848;” C.E. Kelsey, Census of California Indians Tribes, 3; Mary J. Huffman, “An Examination of the Kashaya Pomo Community at the Haupt Ranch, Northwestern Sonoma County: A Case Study for Preservation and Planning.” Master’s diss., (Sonoma State University, 1995), 46.

one chief alone provided clarity of direction in difficult times.3

Despite the concentration of power, the Kashayas retained traditional criteria for leaders. Most importantly, one could only become a leader if he was respected in the community. Respect was gained primarily by belonging to an already respected family or by possessing supernatural abilities, such as healing, doctoring, prophesying, or dreaming. Tehanu, for example, met at least one of these qualifications as the son of a previously established leader. While these standards sometimes contradicted clearly defined hierarchies, and, in-light of European and American dictates, could lead to internal conflicts, they continued to remain a defining mark of Kashaya culture.4

Tehanu began his leadership during a period of rapid change and new hardships.

The first four years after the Russians’ departure were marked by particular vulnerability to outside attacks. Following Mexican independence in 1821, the mission system was secularized and replaced in importance by ranchos. The Mexican elites who owned the ranchos exploited California Indians for cheap labor, and the Kashayas were among those targeted for exploitation. John Sutter sent a succession of employees to Fort Ross to manage the property and transport his “purchased” goods to New Helvetia, but these employees provided the Kashayas limited protection from the theft, kidnapping, or violence perpetrated by Mexican cowboys from nearby ranchos, and in fact, John Sutter

3 Mary Jean Kennedy, “Culture Contact and Acculturation of the Southwestern Pomo,” 18-19.

4 Omer Call Stewart, Notes On Pomo Ethnogeography, 50; Edwin M. Loeb, Pomo Folkways, University of California Publication in American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 19, Kroeber, A.L. and R.H. Lowie, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1926), 242-243.

was himself a major perpetrator of using forced Indian labor for profit.5

In 1845, just before William Benitz, the last of Sutter’s managers at Fort Ross, started leasing the land for his own use, Kashayas living at Fort Ross and nearby were attacked by a group of Mexicans cowboys tasked with kidnapping Indian laborers. The attack was carried out while Benitz was away on business, but not without a fight from the Kashayas. Presumably it was Tehanu who led his men in a fight against the armed

Mexicans, using Fort Ross’s palisades as a defense while hurling whatever objects they could find against the pillagers below.6 The Kashayas’ effort, while valiant, only forestalled what they attempted to deter. When all was said and done, the Mexican raiders severely beat someone they identified as the chief, raped two Kashaya women who were hiding in one of the buildings within the palisades, enslaved several dozen

Kashayas, and stole items belonging to Benitz and his ranching partner.7

After the raid in 1845, the Kashayas took advantage of the protection and limited opportunities presented by working for Benitz, who ranched their land for the next twenty years. Benitz’s permanent presence and rights under California law provided the

Kashayas the same protection against marauding whites that the Russian presence provided against Spanish colonization. As Indians, the Kashayas had limited rights under

California law, but they leveraged Benitz’s rights in their favor and used whatever legal

5 Albert Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California Frontier, 34-38; F. Kaye Tomlin, “The Ranch Era,” http://fortross.org/app/download/6576770204/The+Ranch+Era+by+F+Kaye+Tomlin.pdf, The Fort Ross Interpretive Association, accessed on 7 May 2012, 2-3, 16.

6 Erik T. Hirschman, “Empires in the Land of the Trickster: Russians, Tlingit, Pomo and Americans on the Pacific Rim, Eighteenth Century to 1910s,” Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 1999, 456.

7 Hirschman, 458; William Benitz to Thadeus Benitz, 22 September 1856,” The Benitz Family Papers and Other Information, 1852-1899,” Sonoma County Library.

protection they had to their maximum advantage. The situation was by no means ideal, but it was the lesser of two evils.

The threat Mexican raiders and the rancho system posed to Kashayas was short lived, however, and was quickly replaced by an Anglo version of the same threat, though even more violent and widespread. In 1846 a group of American settlers followed the cue of their Texan compatriots and revolted against Mexican rule in California. The Bear

Flag Revolt, as it became known, was soon followed by the discovery of gold in the

American River. These two events culminated in a wave of mass immigration of white settlers from east of the Mississippi. These settlers arrived with several consequential views about themselves and the world. They believed they were part of the inevitable uniting all of North America under the American flag and the fulfillment of “Manifest

Destiny.” Coupled to these worldviews were underlying beliefs such as white supremacy, the right to private property, the superiority of white civilization to that of

Indian civilizations, and the importance of capitalism and free labor. All of these beliefs and expectations directly conflicted with the Kashayas’ millennia-old way of life and land claims.8

In the hostile environment of the late eighteen hundreds, possibilities for Indian survival were slim, but the Kashayas managed to exert agency and make the most of every available option. They used their extensive knowledge of their homeland to safely navigate the terrain in the presence of hostile forces, to gather traditional foods when paid low wages, to renew ties to their history and religion, and to discover which ranchers

8 Albert Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California Frontier, 77-78.

were the most amiable towards Indians. The Kashayas were also fortunate that their homeland lacked rich metal deposits, as mining was almost always accompanied by near annihilation or removal of Indians. Yet, while the land lacked mineral resources, it was rich in other resources and, thus, quickly incorporated into what historian Grey Brechin has called a contado. Rapid population growth in the surrounding cities caused an increased demand for food, clothes, lumber, and fuel that were necessarily supplied by the countryside or contado. Only thirty miles north of San Francisco, the Kashayas’ homeland became the city’s pastureland, garden, and lumberyard, and Kashayas became the forced laborers.9

Like every empire before it, America’s economic growth depended on state- sponsored violence and access to cheap labor. Both of these elements were present during the colonization of California. In the South, planters used indentured servants and

African slaves; and in California, miners and ranchers used forced Indian labor.

Beginning in 1850, immediately after gaining statehood, the California state legislature passed a number of laws that regulated and legalized the Indian labor market. From 1850 through the late 1860s, a few California Indians evaded capture and others entered the market as wage earners, but up against the brute forces of racist colonizers most Indians had only two options: death or slavery.

The first California law to reinforce this system was the Act for the Government and Protection of the Indians of 1850. The law allowed white citizens to indenture

“orphaned” Indian children, to arrest Indians that were found “loitering,” and to bail out

9 Gray Brechin, Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), xxiii, 29-40.

jailed Indians for use as indentured laborers. In other words, the Act provided white ranchers and miners a legal means by which to enslave Indians. It only offered any form of “protection” in so far as Indians complied with the dictates of power.10

Indians who resisted or lacked perceived usefulness to local white settlers were subjected to state-sponsored extermination or forced removal, and many did resist. The hilly and mountainous regions of California were pocketed with displaced Indians that resisted forced labor, exploitation of their women, and colonization of their land. Those who refused to accept the colonizers’ terms, along with any other indigenous people white settlers felt like killing, were targeted for extermination by local militia groups. In addition to the motivation provided by their own racism and greed for land and laborers, the violence perpetrated by these groups was incentivized by the state, which paid cash for Indian scalps. In 1851 and 1852 the federal government stepped in and gave a weak attempt at protecting Indians from the whims of local passions by establishing reservations, much as it was establishing on the Great Plains. The Senate, however, cowed to the interest of California’s leaders and secretly agreed not to ratify the sixteen treaties that would have secured 8.5 million acres for Indian reservations. Instead, the government established seven temporary military reservations that primarily served as work camps to remove unwanted Indians to.11

10 Hurtado, 129; “Act for the Government and Protection of the Indians,” 22 April 1850, California Statutes, Chapter 133.

11 Hurtado, 135 -141.

The Benitz Era

It was in the context of state-sponsored oppression that the Kashayas found themselves fighting for the survival of their communities. The stakes were the same as they had been since the Spanish arrived, but the new opponents were more powerful. It was also in the context of heightened violence that working for Benitz appeared to be the best bet for preserving their culture. By all accounts William Benitz treated Indians with more equity than most settlers in California did during the mid 1800s. Perhaps, as a

German immigrant and a Catholic, he was familiar with a certain amount of American prejudice himself and, therefore, sympathized to a degree with the local Indians. It is also doubtful, being German, that Benitz ascribed to the American concept of Manifest

Destiny. He also had his family with him and sought to maintain a stable environment.

His ultimate goal, however, was to make a profit, and, like the Russians, he sought to use the Kashayas’ labor to the fullest extent possible.12

Through their previous decision to accommodate the Russians, the Kashayas gained important skills that proved useful for obtaining employment with Benitz and other ranchers. By obtaining employment the Kashayas were able to remain on their land. Most Kashayas lived and worked on Benitz’s ranch on a consistent basis; some worked in the fields and orchards, other milked cows, women worked as maids in his home, and some men rode horseback and managed the cattle along with Benitz’s

Mexican cowboys. Historical accounts depict Benitz’s ranch as an orderly place.13

12 “The Benitz Family Papers and Other Information, 1852-1899.”

13 Mary Jean Kennedy, 76.

Kashayas continued to adapt to colonial expectations for Indians, but they did so in order to remain on their homeland and preserve their culture.

The bet on Benitz proved to be generally safe, but it was not without its own risks.

Kashaya oral histories recount the ongoing threats Kashayas faced from white trespassers and even Benitz’s own hired help. One story recounts an incident when two white men rode up to the ranch on horseback and assaulted a Kashaya woman and her daughter.

The events of the story indicate that the men planed to either rape the woman’s daughter, kidnap the daughter for use as an indentured laborer, or both. They rode to the where the

Kashaya women were standing and kicked the mother (who was trying to protect her daughter) with their spurs. The woman’s daughter tried to escape, but one of the men grabbed the girl’s hair, wrapped it around his saddle horn, and dragged her off into the bushes. The girl’s grandmother was nearby and cried for help. Fortunately, the men eventually released the girl, but it was a narrow escape. After the incident, the women who suffered the attack decided to move closer to Benitz’s house. There they obtained increased protection, but it came at the cost of their privacy and freedom.14

The Kashayas migrated to the safest places and accommodated the friendliest people they could find, but during the Gold Rush and early ranching period even the safest places were dangerous. In addition to attacks from outsiders, Benitz’s own workers were a threat. Kashaya women avoided going anywhere alone for fear of encountering Bentiz’s Mexican cowboys. If a Kashaya woman was alone she was

14 “Tales of Fort Ross”, Kashaya Texts, 277-279.

vulnerable to the real threat of being raped.15 Avoidance, rather than retaliation or reliance on justice, was the most viable option for self-protection. If a white man committed a crime against an Indian, the Indian was legally powerless to give testimony; whites could testify against Indians, but Indians could not testify against whites. Also, as

Indians became outnumbered and surrounded by hostile forces, they were increasingly powerless to retaliate without incurring crushing defeat.16

Kashaya men tested the limits of their own power during this period and quickly discovered that they were out scaled and would therefore have to resort to other tactics for survival. Sometime during the 1850s, two of their men killed a white man, presumably in retaliation for one of the many offenses he or other white men had carried out against their people. This event occurred near a Kashaya village called Flattop Rock, located on the coast about eight miles north of Metini.17 As soon as the dead man’s neighbors discovered his death, they sent a posse in search of the two Kashayas (who also happened to be brothers).

When the posse first found the brothers, it was evening, and they were playing the grass game while sitting on top of their victim in victory. The white man’s body was covered up, so the posse missed it and continued on in their search. The next morning, however, the group returned to the Kashayas’ camp and spotted the body in plain day.

The two Kashayas fled and, being familiar with the terrain, were able to outrun their pursuers. They became split up during their flight, however, and the older brother

15 Kennedy, 78.

16“The 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians.”

17 Kashaya Texts, 340-341.

mistakenly thought that his younger brother was captured. When he went to the white people’s settlement to investigate, he was arrested. After the younger brother found out about his brother’s arrest, he too went to the town, either to try to free his older brother or to stand with him courageously in defiance, but he too was captured. Rather than wait for the sheriff, the white townspeople took the law into their own hands and lynched the

Kashayas in a nearby tree. When the sheriff arrived he apparently rebuked the onlookers for “hanging them like animals without permission” but did nothing else.18 The law existed for the protection of whites, not of Indians.

When one of their relatives discovered the brothers had been hanged, he devoted his life to revenge. According to the Kashayas, he kept killing white men in the area until he became sick and died in the 1860s. Around that time, the remaining group of

Kashayas that lived at Flattop Rock decided to move a few miles south, to a place they called Chitonaw. According to oral history, the white people were becoming too numerous to defend or retaliate against, so it was better to move. 19 While the story of the man taking revenge against local whites may or may not be exactly true, it provides an insight into the broader experience of Kashaya resistance against white settlement.

Cooperation with ranchers like Benitz was less risky than direct resistance, but was only one option for survival, and even then cooperation was often subversive, rather than servile.

Working for Benitz was a good option for survival but only as long as the benefits outweighed the costs. The Kashayas’ land provided a powerful and daily reminder of

18 Herman James, “A Lynching,” Kashaya Texts, 281.

19 Ibid.

their history, religion and traditional lifeways. By contrast, Fort Ross and the structures built by Benitz and other ranchers, provided daily reminders of colonization; foreigners, whose expectations were inimical to the Kashayas’, occupied the land by force. This conflict of interests was not resolved, as European and white settlers hoped it would be, through neat and tidy treaties or land titles; it was a lived struggle.

In 1855, through a costly legal battle, Mr. Benitz gained California title to the

Kashayas’ land.20 While title provided the aura of legality and perhaps camaraderie with other California landowners, California law, as in the rest of the United States, enforced prosperity and superiority for a select few, which did not include Indians.21 Moreover, soon after gaining title to the land, there was either a shift in Mr. Benitz’s relationship with the Kashayas or he simply gained a new tool with which to impose his will. In 1856 he wrote a letter to T.J. Henley, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in California, stating, to the effect, “it would be better if the Indians were removed to a reservation and forced to learn how to farm in order to provide for their needs.” He also mentioned the Kashayas’ continued use of traditional foods, described a few of their religious practices (such as that of shamans who believed they could transforms themselves into bears), and accused them of being disinclined towards work.22 While the Kashayas helped enriched Bentiz through their labor, Benitz’s letter indicates that at least some of them prioritized their own cultural standards and contested European work patterns whenever possible. As

20 William Benitz to Thadeus Benitz, 22 September 1856.

21 Tomas Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 133; “Act for the Government and Protection of Indians.”

22 Kennedy, 81-82.

sympathetic as he might have been towards Indians, Benitz did not allow just any Indians on his land, only Indians that worked according to his standards.

The nearest option for removal was the military reservation at Mendocino, about eight five miles north. Whites settled the town of Mendocino in 1850 after a small ship crashed off the coast, resulting in the “discovery” of a wealth of redwoods and ranching land. It was clear that the land was already occupied, but rather than respect or cooperate with the Indian communities that lived there, the settlers sought to exploit their land and labor. In 1855, they wrote a letter of complaint to the local Indian Agent, Richard White, that accused Indians of petty thefts of potatoes and small livestock, which were described as “depredations.” If the Superintendent failed to act, the fifty-one white settlers who signed the petition threatened to carry out a “war of extermination.”23

When it came to accusations of Indian “depredations,” however, Superintendent

Henley was not one who needed convincing. He had previously planned to remove all

California Indians to a giant reservation east of the Sierras, in order to “finally rid the state of this class of population.” Thus, when the founding citizens of Mendocino petitioned for his assistance, he was quick to respond – an approval for a reservation, a military presence, and a large budget was given the following year.24 After the reservation was established, Indians were gathered from as far south as Fort Ross and as far away as Chico in order to teach them how to farm “to meet their own needs,” but the reality was most Indians obtained little more than a place to camp and even less food than

23 Robert Winn, “The Mendocino Reservation,” The Mendocino Historical Review, Vol. 7 (Fall/Winter, 1986): 9-10.

24 Ibid., 15-16.

they had before. The majority of Indians brought there ran away. The reservation was both mismanaged and underfunded, and in 1866, after eleven years of failure, it was finally closed.25

Rather than face removal to such a distant and dismal reservation, Kashayas sought to preserve their communities by moving from Benitz’s place to another ranch a few miles inland. Around 1857, a female yomta (a Patwin word adopted by Kashayas that meant “dreamer”) named Holputokmen led a group of her people to the Kashaya villages of P’otol and Dukasal, which would later become two principal villages.26 While the majority of Kashayas lived at Benitz ranch, several small groups, such as the one that lived at Flattop Rock, settled on traditional village sites throughout their homeland, working for local ranchers, and making a living wherever possible.

Kashayas established good relationships with the owners of Porter’s Ranch,

Haupt Ranch, Kruze Ranch, and Fisk’s Mill.27 Other ranches where they found work included, Noble’s Ranch, Ohlson Ranch, Richardson Ranch, German Ranch, McClellan

Ranch, and Williams Ranch.28 Many of the ranchers on the Kashayas’ homeland were

German immigrants who purchased land from William Benitz and Ernest Rufus, the original German recipients of the Muniz and German Ranchos, sold by the Mexican government after the Russians’ departure.29 Like Benitz, his compatriots tended to

25 Ibid., 1-18.

26 Mary J. Huffman, “An Examination of the Kashaya Pomo Community at the Haupt Ranch,” 45.

27 Kennedy, 83.

28 Huffman, 45.

29 Tomlin, “The Ranch Era.”

towards less violent forms of colonization than that used by Mexican and American contemporaries. While the German settlers did not hesitate to occupy the Indians’ land or use their labor, the Kashayas’ willingness to work and live on their ranches indicates that cooperation with the Germans was preferable to relocation to the Mendocino

Reservation.30 The large number of privately owned ranches also provided the Kashayas a moderate number of options in terms of whom they could work for or where they could live. This flexibility increased the possibility for remaking and preserving traditional communities.

Most Kashayas continued living and working on Benitz’s ranch until he sold it in

1867. Until then, Kashayas experienced limited but significant acculturation by retaining most of their traditional culture while adapting new work habits and foreign languages.

Kashaya men learned Spanish by working with Mexican cowboys, and the women learned from Benitz’s family members, who used Spanish to communicate with both

Kashaya and Mexican workers. The Spanish influence left a permanent mark on the

Kashaya language, which incorporated hundreds of Spanish loan words like, “mesa”

(table), “vaca” (cow), and “cochina” (pig). During the 1800s, Kashayas quickly learned both Russian and Spanish in order to assert their own expectations. Language learning, however, was not a new skill. Kashayas were multilingual long before Europeans arrived; they had to be in order to communicate and trade with their Indian neighbors.31

30 Erik T. Hirschman, “Empires in the Land of the Trickster,” 466 - 467.

31 Mary Jean Kennedy, 156.

During the Benitz period Kashayas also started supplementing their traditional diet with new foods and beverages. They were introduced to domestic grains by the

Russians, but while living at Benitz’s ranch Kashayas adopted additional foods, like tortillas, coffee and alcohol – items that are still incorporated into Kashayas’ diets today.

First encounters with foods were particularly memorably. One woman received a sack of whole coffee beans from a white man and tried cooking them like acorns, boiling them whole and waiting for them to become soft. When they never soften, she determined that they must have been bad because they were just like rocks, and she threw them out.32

New foods that had appeal were gradually incorporated, but Kashayas attributed sickness to poisoning and were careful about using foods from foreigners or people they did not trust. One Kashaya’s account of her people’s first encounter with white people’s food illustrates this point, “Never having seen white men’s food before, they thought that they were being given poison. Having given [the Indians] their food, they left and returned home but [the Indians] threw it in a ditch.”33 Kashayas had good reasons for questioning novel foods and other changes. Their own way of life adequately sustained them for as long as they could remember, but the newcomers brought death and destruction.

Legacy of the Benitz Era

If during Russian settlement the Kashayas leveraged cooperation with the

Russians against the threat of Spanish colonization, then during the early ranching period

32 “The First Encounter with Coffee Beans,” Kashaya Texts, 251.

33 Ibid., 251.

the Kashayas leveraged friendships with ranchers against attacks from hostile whites. In order to do so they made use of their intimate knowledge of the land, their multilingual capabilities, and the agricultural skills learned from the Russians. As during the Russian period, the Kashayas prioritized their own customs, strategically and carefully adapting those aspects of the foreign culture that were attractive or deemed necessary for survival, while rejecting those deemed contaminating or contrary to traditional beliefs.

The costs of survival were high and the options were few, so the Kashayas gambled on the safest and shrewdest options. Direct physical resistance was only resorted to under extreme conditions, such as when Mexican cowboys raided Fort Ross.

Physical resistance, however, resulted in tragic losses. Revenge killings proved to be dangerous business as well; by the 1860s the threat of white retaliation was too high to continue such practices. The Gold Rush brought a flood of white immigrants, who quickly surrounded the Kashayas on every side. The tribe’s best option to maintain their culture and protect their people was to engage in limited accommodation and maintain mobility through modified versions of traditional seasonal rounds.

Even limited accommodation, however, required tremendous sacrifice. Stories of

Benitz ringing a bell to call “his Indians” to work every morning point to the rigid schedule Kashayas were forced to adapt to if they wanted to survive. Plowing fields, pruning hundreds of apples trees, harvesting thousands of tons of potatoes, and ranching cattle all required tremendous amounts of labor. For all his work, a Kashaya was paid a meager eight dollars per month, about a third of the amount paid white laborers, and permitted to remain on his own land (now controlled by Benitz). As stated in their oral

histories, Kashayas were truly “put to work.” Submitting to white ranchers was not their first choice for existence, but the reality was they had to labor for someone. The question was for whom? They could work for Benitz and other amiable ranchers or expose themselves to the violence legalized by the Act for the Government and Protection of the

Indians.

The time from the Russians’ departure in 1841 to Benitz’s departure in 1867 was a tenuous and dangerous one for the Kashayas. The twenty five years following the Gold

Rush were a devastating period for all California Indians. While the Kashayas did not experience the population loss suffered by other California Indians, they were still subjected to the violence, fear, labor, and restriction of movement attributed to the racism of the time. The Kashayas expended large sums of labor with little in return for themselves but great profits for Benitz.

Benitz’s profits were compounded, when in the 1860s he decided to try his luck at gold mining. According to Kashaya accounts, Benitz struck it big somewhere to the east and returned to Metini with bags of gold. Once again, Benitz’s profits came at Kashayas’ expense; several Kashayas helped Benitz dig for gold and led the mules on the arduous three week’s journey to and from the source. Upon their return, Benitz stationed Kashaya men to guard the gold until he could properly process it.34 Shortly after his gold strike, either because he wanted to avoid paying taxes or because he was tired of experiencing prejudice for being a German immigrant, Benitz moved his family to Argentina and used his profits to buy a new ranch

34 Allen James, Chief of the Pomos: Life Story of Allen James, Ann M. Connor, ed., (Santa Rosa: Ann M. Connor, 1972), 1.

Before he left, William Benitz sold his California ranch to James Dixon and

Charles Fairfax, neither of them German and both wealthy. Dixon was an Irishman with considerable experience as a millwright, while Fairfax was a California official from

Virginia. The two men purchased the land together and started one of the first logging ventures in the area. Dixon was in charge of the logging operations, and it is unknown if

Fairfax even visited the property.35 Apparently Dixon had little need for Indian labor though, or at least not for the Kashayas’, as immediately after Benitz sold him the land he evicted the rightful inhabitants from their millennia-old home at Metini. This time the

Kashayas not only lost hope for sovereignty on their land, they lost the right to even be there.

Even in one of the most hospitable environments for Indians in California at the time, there were many barriers to maintaining traditional communities. The Kashayas received little to no reward for their efforts – even though they helped Benitz amass a fortune with their labor. Like the Russians, Benitz ultimately had little concern for the

Kashayas’ families, land, or survival.36 When Benitz decided it was time to leave and make his next fortune elsewhere, he sold the land that rightfully belonged to Kashayas without hesitation. It is hard to imagine the pain of being torn from a homeland deeply infused with cultural memory and significance, and perhaps it was this pain that contributed to what some Kashayas have described as a “falling away” or moral decay

35 Tomlin, “The Ranch Era,” 5-6.

36 Ibid.

following the eviction from Metini. 37

Since most Kashayas were congregated at Metini, where they gathered over the previous twenty-six years to obtain protection from Benitz, the next location needed to be able to accommodate a large group (there were about 100 Kashayas), but with so many logging companies and ranchers in the area, land was difficult to come by. During the

Russian settlement, Kashaya women who married Aleut and Russian men served as intermediaries and promoted peace between closely situated groups. During Benitz’s tenure a Kashaya woman married Benitz’s ranching partner, Charles Meyers, and their marriage likely facilitated open communication between the Kashayas and the German ranchers. Now that the Kashayas needed to find a new home in the midst of a heavily settled area, once again, a woman would play an important role in helping the Kashayas survive.

Beginning with the Russian settlement at Fort Ross, Kashaya women gained increased influence as mediators, a trend that continued through the Ranching era, and would eventually culminate with Kashaya women becoming powerful leaders. Up against white patriarchal power, women had the ability to subvert expectations when man-to-man negotiations could incite new hostilities or threats. Kashaya women used white understandings about gender and marriage, even when they contradicted Kashaya cultural norms, to the advantage of their people. Theoretically, though not always in practice on the “frontier,” whites considered marriage a permanent institution that granted certain rights to the spouse. While for Kashayas marriage was a more fluid institution,

37 Allen James, 8-10.

Kashaya women leveraged the respect for marriage and the relational rights of the spouse to obtain personal protection and prosperity through wealthy ranchers, as well as to petition for the welfare of their people. In this way a Kashaya woman named

Pashikkoya, who was known to her German husband as “Molly,” provided her people a place to live after Dixon and Fairfax evicted them.38 Charles Haupt, a German rancher owned land that was home to two traditional Kashaya village sites, P’otol and Dukasal.39

At some point prior to the move, the Kashayas’ principal chief, Tehanu, stepped- down or was replaced and, while the exact circumstances are unknown, was succeeded by his cousin, Sam Ross. Based on Kashaya custom and a few references to Sam’s visionary gifts, it is likely that Sam gained influence due to his abilities as a spiritual leader.40 After Mr. Dixon evicted the Kashayas from his property, Sam sent a runner named Pishmon (which means fisherman) to tell Molly and her husband Charles about their situation. Upon hearing they had no place to live, Charles and Molly invited the

Metini Kashayas to stay on their land. According to a former Kashaya chief named Allen

James, Mr. and Mrs. Haupt said, “Come and live on our land. We have 1,500 acres.

There is room for everybody. We have plenty of good timber from which you can make lumber and build your house.”41 And so, the families at Metini began their journey over the coastal hills and along the well-traveled ridge tops to their new home about four miles

38 E.W. Gifford, Ethnographic Notes on the Southwestern Pomo, Anthropological Records, Vol. 25. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967),1; Juliana Barr, Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands,1, 157.

39 Omer C. Stewart, Notes on Pomo Ethnogeography, 49-50.

40 Mary Jean Kennedy, 19, 101,

41 Allen James, 8.

north and two inland. A few Kashayas stayed in the employment of whites in the area, but most would only ever be able to return Metini as visitors, foreigners on their own land.

By the 1860s, the Kashayas’ homeland, like the rest of California had undergone major transformation, but these were only preparations for even more change to come.

By incorporating the southern Sonoma Coast into the capitalist system and the contado of

San Francisco, Benitz and Meyers, like other early white settlers, opened the doors to continued settlement and rapid exploitation of people and natural resources. For the

Kashayas, this meant increased pressures of assimilation, as well as new opportunities for agency. They would soon face new opponents and make new gambles for survival.

By the time of Benitz’s departure, the region was primed for the economic expansion that followed completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Benitz connected his remote coastal outpost to the surrounding areas by sea. He built a schooner dock on the cove near Fort Ross which he used to ship goods to and from San

Francisco. His dock was only one of a network of docks up and down the coast that mills and ranchers used to conduct business with urban areas. According to Benitz, he sent out about fifty shipments per year. Benitz also contributed to the navigability of the land by building a twelve-mile wagon road across his property. During the same time, lumberman bought a few of Benitz’s parcels and built the first mills in the area, the beginnings of an industry that would drastically alter the ancient landscape and do near irreparable damage to the environment.42

42 William Benitz to Thaddeus Benitz, 8 March 1855, 22 September 1856, “Benitz Family Papers.”

The terrible irony was that Kashayas played an essential role in the transformation that further eroded their own cultural independence. Without Kashaya labor, Benitz would not have made the large sums of money he did or accomplished his infrastructural projects. The Kashayas’ continued existence was paradoxically linked to taking part in the processes that also undermined their existence. The contradictions inherent in this paradox, this risk, as well as the possible outcomes, would be would be played out at

Haupt’s Ranch.

At Haupt’s Place

Kashaya bands migrated to Haupt’s Ranch and the villages located there in waves. In their efforts to preserve and rebuild community Kashayas made use of ancient village sites spread throughout the traditional homeland. While they lost Metini, one of their most important villages sites, they continually occupied several other important sites during Russian settlement and through the Ranching Era. Some of the villages they inhabited included P’otol and Dukasal (inland from Salt Point), Danaka (just west of Salt

Point), and Chitonaw (located on the coast, half way in between Metini and Danaka).

The Kashayas’ knowledge and connection to traditional sites bolstered their ability to remake communities and maintain their connection to the past. At Haupt’s Ranch, P’otol and Dukasal, in particular, were uniquely situated to allow access to vital resources and protection from outside intrusion.43

43 Stewart Omer Call, Notes on Pomo Ethnogeography, 50; S.A. Barrett, The Ethnogeography of the Pomo and Neighboring Indians, 220-232.

At least one group moved to the Ranch as early as the 1850s, while the largest group moved from Metini during the years immediately following Benitz’s departure in

1867. The final group arrived from Porter Ranch sometime in the 1880s after being pushed of the land by other ranchers.44 Haupt’s ranch provided a number of benefits. For one, the village sites on Haupt’s ranch were in good locations for carrying out traditional practices while also participating in the capitalist economy. Also, Charles Haupt was someone that the Kashayas could work with. At Haupt’s place, Kashayas’ danced, wore traditional clothing styles, gambled, and gathered foods with limited interference from

Haupt or other ranchers. As a result, Kashayas regained freedom of religion and culture that was largely hampered during the 1850 and 60s, yet they also increasingly engaged in activities that exposed them to powerful forces of assimilation.45

The decision to migrate to Haupt’s place was made through careful consideration of the opportunities that existed there, and access to food was a key consideration. The two villages at Haupt’s place, P’otol and Dukasal, were situated near prime fishing and other food gathering sites. Sewell, Graveyard, Blue Slide, Haupt, Tobacco, and Elk Creeks were all within walking distance and ran plentifully with trout and salmon.46 The surrounding land was also filled with many of the Kashayas’ usual vegetable foods, such as wild grains and acorns. Grains were gathered by shattering the grain heads into woven

44 Cora Du Bois, The 1870 Ghost Dance, Anthropological Records, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1939), 99.

45 Stephen Powers, “The Pomo,” Tribes of California (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government, 1877), 184-194.

46 Allen James, 9.

baskets with a mallet. The chaff was then removed by passing over it with firebrand, and, finally, the remaining grains were pounded into meal and used for porridge or bread.47 Acorns, however, remained the Kashayas’ primary staple, as white and tan oaks were plentiful in the area. When food ran short during the winter, the Kashayas could also access caches of acorns stored in trees by birds during the fall. Wild potatoes, called hipo, were found in the depressed, well-water areas, such as near Gualala Creek. At

Haupt Ranch, the Kashayas also continued gathering seafoods. While they were denied access to the coast at Metini, the Kashayas established a relationship with the Richardson family, a local white ranching family, who permitted the Kashayas to use the coast at Salt

Point to collect clams, mussels, seaweed, and other seafood.48

Besides being a good location for food gathering (though their diet was increasingly supplemented by white man’s food), Haupt Ranch was also a place the

Kashayas could call home. The villages at Haupt Ranch bustled with the activities that reflected Kashayas culture. A passerby might see or hear Kashayas smoking tobacco in front of their bark huts, joining their friends in the sweat lodge, dancing in the round house, or gambling around fire pits. Activities like gambling were not only a means of entertainment, but of wealth sharing, cultural preservation, and community reinforcement. Fortunately for the Kashayas, Haupt was amiable towards these activities, which his Kashaya wife took part in. In fact, Molly gambled with her people on such a regular basis into the late evening that Mr. Haupt grew accustomed to preparing

47 Stephen Powers, 187.

48 Ibid., 188.

himself and the children breakfast every morning, even though it was theoretically his wife’s responsibility.49

In this non-hostile environment, the Kashayas were free to establish a community sanctuary that helped preserved their culture. At the time, conditions were starting to improve for Indians all across California. In 1865 the Act for the Government and

Protection of Indians was overturned, which ended legalized enslavement of Indians.

Indians increasingly obtained jobs as paid laborers on ranches and farms, where they cared for animals or picked hops and fruit. Yet, while Indians became more integrated in the capitalist system, by no means did whites consider them equals. Indians were typically relegated to the lower-paying, labor-intensive jobs, while the higher-paying, skilled-positions were reserved for whites.50 California’s indigenous peoples were also refused U.S. citizenship, except in rare cases, and were not permitted to testify against whites in court. They had also just survived genocide and the worst demographic decline they had ever experienced: from 1845 to1860 the California Indian population dropped from 150,000 to 30,000.51 A reprieve of hostilities in the late 1860s marked an opportunity for revitalization, but it was also a time for mourning past losses and reckoning with new dangers.

The Kashayas had a slightly higher survival rate than other California Indians, but they suffered many of the same loses and dealt with them in similar ways. Between 1811

49 Ibid., 191-192.

50 Khal Schneider, “Making Indian Land in the Allotment Era,” The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Winter 2010): 433-435; Tomas Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines, 101.

51 Hurtado, 1.

and 1867 the Kashayas’ land was stolen, their women raped, their culture insulted, and their resources destroyed. In all, disease or directly inflicted violence reduced their numbers by 73 percent.52 It was out of the despair associated with similar circumstances across North America that a nativisitic revival was born in 1870. A Paviotso Indian prophet named Wovoka from Western Nevada, taught that the world was ending and that all who followed white man’s ways would be destroyed. The revivalistic cult he founded was centered on a new Ghost Dance ceremony, and it spread like wild fire to the east across the Great Plains, and to the west, engulfing all of California.53 When the Ghost

Dance revival reached the Wintun and Patwin tribes in California, it transformed into the subterranean Earth Lodge Cult.

Introduction of the Earth Lodge Cult and Bole Maru

At Lake County, near Clear Lake, the first encounter with the new Ghost dance was particularly impactful because it coincided with several out of the ordinary events.

First, after years of meager acorn harvests and small salmon runs, 1871 was marked by bountiful harvests. In response to the surprising abundance, Pomo Indians held large celebrations with dancing and feasting, and the news of these celebrations spread to

Indians throughout Northern California. Also, around the same time as the abundant

52 California’s pre-contact population is estimated to have been 250,000 and reduced to 30,000 by the 1860s – a twelve percent survival rate. The pre-contact Kashaya population is estimated to have been 550 and reduced to approximately 150 by the 1860s – a twenty-seven percent survival rate; Hurtado, 1; “Census of Indians at Rancherias in 1848;” C.E. Kelsey, Census of California Indians Tribes, 3; Mary J. Huffman, An Examination of the Kashaya Pomo Community at the Haupt Ranch, 46.

53 Clement W. Meighan and Francis A. Riddell, The Maru Cult of the Pomo Indians: A California Ghost Dance Survival, Southwest Museum Papers, No. 23. (Los Angeles: Southland Press, Inc., 1972), 9.

harvest, a large earthquake too place. Subsequently, a number of dreamers in the area predicted that another, even more powerful, earthquake would take place that would destroy all white people.54 In 1872, an Indian man from named Frank from Lake County traveled to the Haupt Ranch and spread the message of “the great earthquake” and the

“end of the world” to Kashayas His message frightened many , and a group of them set out for Clear Lake where they hoped to find refuge from the earthquake’s destruction.55

The Kashayas’ firsts experience with the new Ghost Dance religion, however, was a negative one. The road to Clear Lake was over eight miles long and crossed steep mountains, treacherous ravines, and many waterless stretches, and the Kashayas traveled the entire way by foot. Archaeological and oral history indicates that the trip would have been made previously in order to acquire obsidian, magnesite and other trade items or to visit the spiritually important Mt. Konocti, but this trip had a special urgency to it.56 The moderate relief that marked the end of a particularly violent period of California history, was followed by a period of reaction to the devastation, a time of reformulating strategies for community survival. After four weeks of traveling, the Kashayas finally arrived at

Clear Lake, hungry and exhausted. Hundreds of Indians from all around the region were gathered at the site, and while other Indians shared their food with the hungry travelers, the strange mush offered was not what the Kashayas were used to. The Kashayas

54 Stephen Powers, “The Pomo,” 209-210.

55 Allen James, 2; Herman James, “When the End of the World Was Forecast (1872),” Kashaya Texts, 283.

56 Lightfoot, The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Fort Ross,” 76-77; Kniffen, Pomo Geography, 359.

endured the unappetizing fare for about a month, waiting for the great earthquake, but instead of witnessing the destruction of all whites, a white militia showed up and threatened to attack the gathered tribes, including the Kashayas.

A Kashaya woman named Lukaria (the grandmother of a future chief, Herman

James) saved the day by presenting an old paper that she brought stating that they were under the protection of William Benitz – a shrewd maneuver considering that Benitz was already in Argentina by this time.57 With this paper and at the Kashayas’ insistence that their intentions were guileless, the militia eventually let them go. Disheartened and feeling deceived, however, the Kashayas left for home, and the return trip seemed even more arduous than before. To add to the misery, one of their older women became seriously ill on the way and had to stop. Without extra supplies or the aid of horses, the group had no choice but to leave her on the side of the road to die.58 Exhaustion, threats of violence, and death were the Kashayas’ first experience with the Earth Lodge Cult.

The new religion had many appeals, but between the treacherous journey to Clear

Lake and the Kashayas’ overall success at survival, the Earth Lodge Cult did not immediately catch on. The nativistic revival was attractive because it contested the narratives of power tied to the genocide of California Indians, and the Kashayas hoped, with their other native brothers, that God would punish the whites for their crimes and establish a new world. Yet, unlike most California and North American Indians, the

Kashayas remained isolated from intensive acculturation programs until at least the

57 “When the End of the World Was Forecast (1872),” Kashayas Texts, 285.

58 Ibid., 287.

1920s. Thus, while the Earth Lodge Cult appealed in the hope it offered for retribution,

Indian sovereignty, and renewed cultural practices, it did not gain significance beyond the

Kashayas’ traditional religious beliefs until the turn of the century, after Kashayas experienced increased acculturation pressures of their own.

The Kashayas maintained their customary religious practices during the Russians’ presence and all through their stay at Haupt Ranch. At Haupt’s place the Kashayas were observed performing both the traditional Kuksu and old ghost dance ceremonies.59 Yet, while the Kashayas rejected the supremacy of the Earth Lodge Cult and notions of the world coming to an end, they did incorporate some aspects of the Earth Lodge Cult into their belief system, particularly the adherence to teachings of recognized dreamers and an increased interest in the afterlife. Also, many beliefs within the Earth Lodge Cult were similar enough to the Kashayas’ traditional beliefs that they were easily adapted, and the revelatory power of dreamers was appealing because it offered hope and direction in times of difficulty. Further, the nativistic revival sparked at Clear Lake (and in Nevada before that), provided the energy and impetus needed to sustain traditional practices. In order to best navigate the changing world, Kashayas adapted what they perceived as the strengths and truths of the Earth Lodge Cult without abandoning their own practices. The syncretistic blend of old and new beliefs comprised what became the Bole-Maru ideology.

59 Powers, 193-194.

From the time the weary group of Kashayas returned from their journey to Clear

Lake in 1872 through 1979, an ongoing line of yomtas (dreamers) served as spiritual leaders and guides for the Kashayas. Yomtas and healing doctors existed before the influence of the Earth Lodge Cult -- for example, chiefs Toyon and Sam Ross were both credited with supernatural abilities -- however, beginning in a 1872 a distinct system of beliefs emerged from the yomtas’ teachings that contributed to the Bole-Maru tradition.60

A man named Christobal was one of the first yomtas and practitioners of the

Bole-Maru at the Haupt Ranch, but little is known about him or any of the other yomtas during the Haupt period. It was taboo to share information about spiritual practices, so much of what is known about the religious beliefs of the time was either considered unimportant information, and therefore appropriate to share with inquisitive whites, or was gained from observation. Local whites seemed to think that Christobal was one of the less important yomtas, yet Kashayas credit him with teaching that the world was not going to end, building a dance house at Haupt’s ranch, and adding several adaptations to the ghost dance ceremony, including the use of a flag to let people know a dance was in session.

Another, perhaps more important, yomta was Big Jose. His influence began after he moved to Haupt Ranch from Annapolis in 1880. Big Jose implemented a unique form of what was called the “Big Head Dance” that involved the use of four Big Head dancers, who wore large head dresses. These were accompanied by a row of female dancers on either side. Big Jose also taught that in order to avoid “going below the earth” at the end

60 Kennedy, 101.

of the world everyone should be married, including children and the elderly. This teaching may have been part of a strategy for maintaining the group’s population, though it is unknown how many Kashayas took this admonishment seriously.61

Rigid rules were never established regarding who could be a dreamer or what could be dreamed, and this loosely formed structure would become both a source of social discord and a flexible means for cultural preservation. In addition to the two yomtas mentioned above, there were several lesser dreamers that led the Kashayas at

Haupt’s ranch, including Humbolt Jack and Old Anton. Their influence likely overlapped with Big Jose’s. After Big Jose either died or moved away, Humbolt Jack became the chief yomta and was the last to serve the Kashayas during their period of settlement at Haupt’s ranch. It was during his tenure that the Kashayas transitioned from selective supplementation with the provisions obtained from the market economy into more full-fledged participants in the quickly encroaching capitalist system.62

Dreamers acquired their spiritual influence by gaining respect from the community, and Kashayas were not always unanimous about who they respected or acknowledged as yomtas. Disagreement over who to follow, or simply divergent choices, may account for the archaeological evidence indicating that the Kashayas built more than one dance house at Haupt Ranch, as usually Kashayas built only one dance house per dreamer, or per succession of dreamers. The historic capacity the Bole-Maru religion presented for both unification and division is an important aspect of Kashaya

61 Cora Du Bois, The 1870 Ghost Dance, 100.

62 Huffman, 48; Kennedy, 128-130.

history and can also help explain the origins of religious factions that would take place among the Kashayas during the mid-twentieth century. At Haupt’s place, however, religious factions were the least of the Kashayas’ concern. The seed of nativistic revival planted in 1872 would be watered by the antagonism of heightened acculturation pressures and rapid destruction of their land base. At first these pressures led to religious dissolution, but they would eventually lead to true renewal.

Capitalistic Transformations of Community

William Benitz and other German ranchers engaged primarily in agricultural pursuits, like dairy farming, ranching cattle, and growing orchard or vegetable crops – industries that were highly compatible with communal working efforts and the practice of seasonal rounds. When the Central Railroad was completed, however, the “Paris of

America” increasingly demanded a raw material that fueled an industry that was more individualistic than agriculture and further reduced the Kashayas’ access to traditional resources, thereby increasing a crisis for community cohesion. Benitz opened the door to further exploitation by participating in a system of trade that linked the coastal towns of

Northern California to San Francisco by means of schooner. He also sold a few parcels of the Kashayas’ land to men that established the first saw mills in the area.63 During the

Haupt period, the timber industry would grow by leaps and bounds, and in the following hundred years virtually all of the large redwoods would be chopped down. Logging companies would also purchase thousands of acres of land from local ranchers. The

63 Hirschman, 466.

environment that historically enveloped, sustained, and protected the Kashayas’ communities was quickly undermined.

The Gualala Mill Company was particularly aggressive and purchased thousands of acres from several German ranchers, including William Bihler, James Boyd, and

Henry Platt. These purchases encompassed nearly the entire coastline of the Kashayas’ traditional territory. Once owned by a corporate entity rather than a family or individual, the land entered the next phase of capitalist development. The lumber companies did not act as neighbors but as barons. The Kashayas were restricted from accessing the coast for traditional gathering purposes everywhere except for a small strip of coast owned by

H.A. Richardson at Salt Point.64 Richardson managed to hold on to some of his ranching land where he also ran the only general store in the area. The Kashayas established a working relationship him there, both frequenting his store and working as hired hands on his ranch. H.A. Richardson’s land was one of the Kashayas’ few islands in a sea of land owned by wealthy businessmen.65

In the gamble to survive as a people, the logging industry was the Kashayas’ next major opponent. Logging further transformed a land that had already undergone major transformation. By the 1870s the physical environment at Metini or P’otol would have been visibly different than it was even thirty years prior, built up as it was with new buildings, extensive ranches, and well-traveled roads. Many of the Kashayas’ food supplies were already diminishing. Vast stands of wild grains and other plants gave way to foreign weeds or grazing livestock. Yet the arrival of the logging industry was

64 Ibid., 484.

65 Ibid.

followed by a transformation that made previous changes seem almost insignificant. In addition to transforming the physical environment, logging companies further diminished available food supplies by denying the Kashayas access to gathering sights and by damaging the ones that remained. Though the exact extant of the damage is unknown, the consequences of clear cutting and harvesting old growth timber are not.

Unsustainable logging practices, as carried out all across California’s redwood belt, destroyed animal habitats, eroded priceless topsoil, polluted water systems, and disrupted marine animal lifecycles.66

Where lumbering activities took place, massive damage ensued. Accounts of nearby milling operations provide a picture of what might have happened on the

Kashayas’ land. At the Mendocino Reservation, Superintendent Henley permitted a local citizen named Alexander Macpherson to build a sawmill on the mouth of the Noyo River.

The mill provided lumber for buildings on the reservation as well as for houses for the growing white population. With few options but to participate in the exploitation that undermined their own society, reservation Indians worked at the mill for fifty cents per day.

Redwoods once adorned the ancient coast with more glory than what the greatest feats of many could impart to San Francisco, but they were cut down and thrown with oil, saw dust, and floating debris into the mouth of the Noyo River. The floating quagmire, accompanied by the noisy buzz of saws, disturbed fish and sea mammal habitats. Where

1356 lbs of salmon were caught in 1857, a year later fishing at the mouth of the Noyo

66 Andrew C. Isenberg, Mining California: An Ecological History, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005), 82-96; Dusan Zachar, Soil Erosion, (Bratislava: ZEDA, 1982), 107, 304-306.

came to a complete halt.67 The Kashayas continued fishing in local streams and rivers into the twentieth century and beyond, but there is little doubt that mills at Gualala and other locations had similar effects on the environment and contributed to an increased dependence on commercial food products as early as the 1860s and 70s. All communities rely on stable food supplies to survive. These disruptions caused by the logging industry required taking new risks with the encroaching capitalism system in order to ensure survival.

The capitalizing process called the sacred into question by depersonalizing and demystifying the natural world, and the market economy was connected to an understanding of the world that contradicted the Kashayas’ worldview in almost every way. White settlers brought a perspective that atomized the natural world and people into the smallest “useful” parts, and usefulness was defined in terms of how an object or person could help reach a future goal. For the Kashayas, however, usefulness was defined in terms of how something could help maintain spiritual balance or communal cohesiveness in the present. Therefore, when whites described Indians as lazy, they were making a cultural judgment based on the value they placed on moving “forward,” rather than on the value Kashayas placed on working within cyclical time and preserving continuity. This collision of values was a painful one for the Kashayas, and it took time for tribespeople to learn how to navigate the new value system.68

67 Robert Winn, “The Mendocino Reservation,” 17-22.

68 Lance Greene, Timothy K. Perttula, Mark R. Plane, American Indians and the Market Economy, 1775-1850 (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press), 2-10; Nancy Shoemaker, A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth Century North America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 15-18.

Some of the Kashayas’ cultural understandings could be adapted to mesh with

American culture, but it was often like bending a piece to fit the wrong spot in a jig saw puzzle. In such circumstances what usually resulted was what historian Richard White calls a middle ground: instead of coming to a true understanding, Indians and whites came to a mutual misunderstanding that allowed both parties to obtain what they were seeking from the interaction. Such mutually beneficial misunderstandings only existed, however, when Indians possessed space to exert agency, and when whites did not take what they wanted by force, or vice versa.69 Immediately after the Russians left, the

Kashayas faced powerful opponents against whom they could only hope not to lose all their stakes. During the Haupt era two types of opponents emerged: large business interests that offered limited space on the middle ground and individual members of the white community who presented the Kashayas with opportunities to regain some of their losses and assert their expectations for the changing world.

The Kashayas’ first priority was to maintain community whenever possible, which meant maintaining freedom of movement and access to shareable space. By obtaining employment with individual ranchers such as H.A. Richardson near P’otol,

Dukasal, or Danaka, Kashayas could work as needed and still live at important villages where they could survive by combining the use of traditional food sources with what could be purchased using supplemental income in the market economy. Tribespeople found the supplemental strategy increasingly difficult to maintain, however, when large

69 Richard White, 51-53.

businesses restricted their movement across the land and damaged their food supplies.

Following the rapid growth of the logging industry, the Kashayas lost the ability to meet all their needs through hunting, fishing, and gathering. The foundation for their sustainable practices was shaken. In order to survive Kashayas would have to work for the very logging companies and large farms that undermined their independence.

Kashayas were long familiar with trading and giving payment, but it was of a different nature than the calculated exchange of dollars for manufactured goods.

Exchanges were always governed by taboos, trust, negotiation, and relationships, not by the invisible hand of supply and demand or an objective currency value. While Kashayas used shell money for exchanges among themselves and other Indians all the way until the twentieth century, set prices were not the norm.70 Exchanges were based on gift giving, the parties’ needs, relationships, and reciprocity, rather than impersonal monetary enumeration.

The Kashayas’ own stories reveal the tension and possibilities for Indian agency during the capitalistic transformation. Essie Parrish, an important Kashaya yomta from the 1950s through the 1970s, remembered an incident that occurred when she went to

Salt Point with her aunt to purchase goods at H.A. Richardson’ store and to collect seaweed at the beach: One day, after purchasing a few things at Richardson’s store, a white man approached her and her aunt while they were eating their lunch of fish and bread. Neither Essie nor her mother spoke English very well, but from what they understood, the man wanted to purchase their lunch. They thought he must have been

70 Allen James, 9; Powers, 177-178.

very hungry, because he gave them a sizable amount of money for their simple meal.

On the way home from camping on the beach and collecting seaweed for two days, Essie’s aunt used the money to purchase a new Dutch oven and a large frying pan.

From the time of Russian settlement through WWII, the European and American goods that Kashayas adopted were usually used to supplement or support, rather than replace, traditional lifeways. For example, when the Russians were present, Kashayas re-crafted new materials, such as glass, ceramic, and metal, into traditional projectile points, beads, and gaming accoutrements.71 Cast-iron cooking equipment acquired during the ranching period was used to cook traditional foods like acorn mush.72 In the twentieth century, even automobiles, which likely seemed extravagant to white on-lookers and were sometimes used as objects of prestige by Kashayas, were used in order to continue practicing seasonal rounds and maintain community in an environment that required increased mobility.73 Making use of new goods during a time of transition, however, could be risky.

It was not long after Essie and her aunt reached their village at Haupt’s Ranch that the white man and a few of his friends showed up and accused the Kashayas of being lying thieves and threatened to have Essie and her aunt “hauled up to the Justice of the

Peace.” The men were belligerent in their demand for the money that Essie already spent. In order to get them to calm down and leave, Haupt’s son had to give the man

71 Kent Lightfoot, Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants,168.

72 Powers, 188-189; Allen James, 9.

73 Philip J. Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 148-155; Kennedy, 95.

even more money than what he paid Essie’s aunt for the fish and bread.74

The conflict that surrounded the exchange of money for foodstuffs was more than a consequence of the language barrier; it was a case of conflicting expectations and cultural misunderstandings. While the Kashaya women thought the amount of money paid for the fish and bread seemed a bit high, they accepted the payment and justified the amount based on the man’s need, not on the actual value of the food. It is difficult to know exactly what the man expected, but it is clear that he wanted more than some fish and bread. Perhaps he was hoping to secure additional fish or other foods, as it was common for whites to purchase game and wild foods from Indians, but Essie’s aunt had her own plans for their labor (and the newly acquired money). Instead of using her money to purchase something from her Kashaya relatives, she used it to purchase cooking instruments from a white man. Capitalist currency could be used to purchase white men’s goods that had value for native uses, but among Kashayas, traditional forms of exchanged prevailed.

The Kashayas favored food gathering, trade with other Indians, gambling, and use of shell money, and resisted capitalist influences that contradicted Kashaya practices whenever possible. For example, during the late nineteenth century a growing demand for Indian baskets arose among white collectors. Charles Haupt noted that Kashaya women made particularly beautiful baskets, intricately woven with colorful feathers, especially red feathers from woodpeckers. These baskets had both practical and spiritual importance. They were used as containers for foods and other items, but they were also

74 Peri, D.W., “‘On Justice’ – A Personal Reminiscence as told by Essie PinolaParrish,” Ridge Review (Vol 1, No. 3, 1987): 52–4.

prayer baskets and vessels of spiritual power. While some California Indians capitalized on traditional basket making skills by selling their baskets to white collectors, the

Kashayas heeded traditional taboos and generally refused to let whites see or use their baskets. Haupt mentioned that one basket could take months to create and required the persistent collection of rare materials. To him these qualities had an obvious monetary value, but the Kashayas were more interested in the spiritual and cultural value of these artifacts.75

Resistance to capital incentives also affected Kashayas’ work habits. Many

Kashayas worked for white employers, most because they needed to, others because they bought into the system, but many refused to all together. In the late 1800s, H.A.

Richardson trained and employed Kashaya laborers and encouraged Kashaya children to attend school at Salt Point, yet towards the turn of the century many Kashayas stopped showing up for work. Instead, they were found at Haupt Ranch, gambling, dancing, and drinking alcohol.76 Both white and Kashaya observers gave special attention to the drinking problem at the ranch, but there are important points to make about these observations. First, it is unlikely that the Kashayas’ drinking habits were much different than the drinking habits of the average white person in California during that time.

Contrary to the promulgation of the “drunken Indian” stereotype, following the Gold

Rush alcohol, especially beer, was widely consumed among both white and Indian males.

Despite restrictions against selling alcohol to Indians, it was regularly sold throughout the

75 Powers, 186.

76 Allen James, 10.

state.77 Secondly, while Kashayas purchased alcohol from traders or store owners using non-Indian money, like other manufactured products, they put it to use for their own purposes, whether as a coping mechanism, for general enjoyment, during dancing ceremonies, or as method to avoid the pressures of employability. Thus, while alcohol would ultimately have a negative effect on their community, the Kashayas interacted with the encroaching capitalist system and adapted to it on their own terms.

The Kashayas’ perspective towards material goods was always based on traditional cultural values, especially relationship protocols and spiritual beliefs, rather than pure economic pragmatism. This perspective had everyday consequences at Haupt’s ranch and continues to influence many aspects of Kashaya culture and historic memory.

A story told by Herman James illustrates this point: One day in the 1930s, he set out to go fishing but ended up catching a deer instead. After winning his epic battle against the deer by drowning it in a creek with his bare hands, he carried it back home and shared the meat with everyone in the community, who, in turn, were expected to share their food with him.78 The timeframe for this story’s occurrence testifies to the durability of

Kashaya culture against the influence of “rugged individualism” from the Haupt period into the twentieth century. Yet, the battle to preserve community values against the

“pulverizing machine” of assimilation was a difficult one.79

At Haupt’s ranch the Kashayas faced quickening change – between the years

77 Gilman M. Ostrander, The Prohibition Movement In California, 1848-1933 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), 1-5.

78 Herman James, “How I Drowned a Deer,” Kashaya Texts, 291-295.

79 D.W. Meinig, The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Volume 3: Transcontinental America, 1850-1915 (Binghamton: Yale University Press, 2000), 175.

1863 and 1920 decisions made regarding adaptation and resistance to white culture were pivotal. Once resources became scarce and capitalistic influences became more pronounced, traditional patterns of sharing broke down. Sharing became more difficult when foodstuffs and other goods could only be acquired on the capitalist market rather than through traditional means. In this respect, gambling, a frequent practice at Haupt’s ranch, served as an alternative redistribution system and a means of reinforcing communal cohesiveness. With foods and goods in short supply (both traditional Kashaya and white goods), gambling provided everyone in the tribe equal access to wealth and eased tensions related to economic disparity.80

Gambling games, often played well into the night, also provided opportunities to reinforce community through the practice of traditional rituals, language, and spirituality.

These opportunities were important, as the arrival of the “white miracles,” (who were immune to consequences of taboo violations), the dissemination of Christianity, and the initial let-down of the Earth Lodge Cult disrupted traditional Kashaya spiritual practices.

According to the Kashayas’ oral history, the disruption was marked by acts such as drinking alcohol in the dance house and domestic violence.81 Dancing ceremonies continued, but new adaptations made up for perceived cultural failures; gambling and drinking initially helped fill the gap left by religious and cultural disturbances. These responses were crafted from within the Kashayas’ culture but also utilized available resources and elements of white culture. The threats posed by syncretism, the decline of

80 Eileen M. Luna-Firebaugh and Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox, “The Sharing Tradition: Indian Gaming in Stories and Modern Life” Wicazo Sa Review, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring 2010): 75-78.

81 Allen James, 10.

spiritual practices, and alcohol abuse would, in turn, provoke a spiritual and cultural revival that would combat assimilation.

Family Legacies and Living History

Maintaining family heritages and preserving historical memories were essential to the Kashayas’ ongoing survival. The last generation to live at Haupt’s ranch laid the foundations for the tribe’s successful adaptation to the modern world. The social cohesiveness and culture that developed at Haupt’s ranch resulted from the effectiveness and adaptability of the matrilocal tendency of community formation as traditionally practiced among the Southwestern Pomos. According to Anthropologist Peter Kunkel,

Pomos organized their communities based on residential kin groups, which could be either patrilateral or matrilateral, rather than on rigid linear hierarchies. Kunkel states,

The Pomo area was characterized by constantly shifting political alignments with residential kin groups the most stable elements in the system. Tribelets were important but somewhat fragile political entities, breaking up fairly often into 82 their component parts—the kin groups—which then recombined in new ways.

While some Pomo kin-groups gravitated towards the husband’s father’s family, Kashaya families often settled near their mothers. Consequently, the flexible and matrilocal nature of the Kashayas’ kinship groupings allowed them to relocate and “recombine” their communities on what had become white property.

By marrying white men, Kashaya women were able to reconnect their people to ancient village sites and recreate community. The risks and cultural adaptations associated with these intimate, intercultural relationships, however, could conflict with

82 Peter H. Kunkel, “The Pomo Kin Group and the Political Unit in Aboriginal California,” The Journal of California Anthropology (Vol. 1, no. 1, 1974): 11.

what it meant to survive as Kashayas. In order to maintain a link with the past, the

Kashayas created new meanings and practices for the modern world out of elements and memories from the Kashaya culture of old. All cultures change over time – their elements are defined, contested, and redefined by members of the community in response to and in anticipation of the changing world. The Kashayas’ culture was no exception; it too changed over time, but it was always defined but its community members. Kashayas were “the people from the top of the land,” and they continued to be so even after most of their land was stolen by Russian traders, German ranchers, and, finally, by large corporate logging companies.

Among the kin-groups that survived European diseases and the violence of white settlement, certain families, whether because of their numbers or the leadership abilities and spiritual giftings of one or more of their members, gained greater influence over the decisions and directions of larger tribelets. As a result of colonization, however, the tribelets essentially merged into one tribe. In between kin-groups and tribelets, extended family networks provided the committed support and flexibility needed to survive difficult times. While traditionally Southwestern Pomos intermarried with members of different tribelets and sometimes with Indians not part of their language group, during the

Ranching era, a number of Kashayas married German land owners. These unions could bring advantages to both the individual and the tribe as a whole.83

According to Albert Hurtado, in Indian Survival on the California Frontier,

83 Kunkel, 10-15.

Indian household arrangements during the Gold Rush (1849-1860) tended to disrupt

Indian community formation and exacerbate population decline. Regarding female

Indians’ intermarriage with white males, he states:

To our understanding of Indian death and survival we may now add the limiting effects of household arrangements that discouraged Indian marriage and child rearing. Ironically, economic and social integration created conditions that permitted individual Indians to survive, but also contributed to an overall decreased in native numbers.84

While Hurtado’s thesis likely reflects the most common scenario for California Indians during the 1800s, the Kashayas’ particular case contradicted this trend. As a matrilocal people they were able to recreate community on white land, engage in fruitful relationships with white Germans, and preserve their political organization.

On Haupt’s Ranch, kin-group and extended families formed the foundation for preserving and re-establishing a political and spiritual leadership structure. During the

Russian era tribal leadership was concentrated in the hands of fewer people, but it was still gained through spiritual influence and heredity, a trend that continued into the early ranching period. Tehanu, for instance, became the next principal chief after his father

Toyon and led the Kashayas at Bentiz’s ranch. Tehanu’s cousin, Sam Ross, became the principal chief after him, and maintained influence at Haupt’s ranch. After Sam Ross died, however, a new era of leadership began. New dynamics in hierarchy were influenced by the Kashayas’ revivalistic movement and the power that could be acquired through relationships with whites.85

The Kashaya families that secured connections to white families through marriage

84 Hurtado, 209.

85 Call, 50.

often had significant influence within the tribe. Whether or not these families gained influence through their connections with whites or established connections with whites because they already had influence is a bit of a “chicken or the egg” scenario, but it is likely that both are true to various degrees. When the Russians were present, the chiefs who gained power already had influence in the tribe. Chiefly influence was simply heightened as a result of population decline and the Russians’ practice of only negotiating with a few representatives from the entire language group. Based on what is known about the families and leadership dynamics that existed following the Russian departure, it can be inferred that the Kashayas leadership structure was influenced in similar ways at

Haupt Ranch, where spiritual giftings, family heritage, and connections to white ranchers were associated with leadership roles in the tribe.

The life of one of the Kashayas’ matriarchs named Lukaria provides a perfect example of the correlation between association with white colonists and hereditary influence in the tribe. Lukaria was part of the small group of Kashayas who lived near the Russians and Aleuts directly outside the Russian palisades and one of even fewer who were baptized into the Orthodox Church. Whether or not she ever married a Russian or

Aleut man is unknown, but she eventually married a German man named Meyers,

Charles Benitz’s ranching partner, and, therefore, served as intermediary between the

German ranchers and the Kashayas during one of the most difficult times in their history.

The influence Lukaria gained as an intermediary was also translated to her descendants.

Her daughter, Marie, gave birth to a son named Allen James, who became a Kashaya

chief, and Herman James, and important Kashayas elder.86

The overlapping factors that contributed to influence and significance in the tribe were also present in the life of Pashikkoya (Molly Haupt) and those tied to her through marriage. The meaning of Pashikkoya’s name is related to the cocoon that was used on the end of shamans’ rattles, indicating that she had an association with spiritual power.

Such an association would have contributed to her significance in the tribe and to her marriageability. Over the course of her life, Pashikkoya married three different men, two

Pomo men and then Charles Haupt, who let the Kashayas live on his land. 87

In addition to providing a safe haven for her people at Haupt’s ranch, several of

Pashikoya’s descendants and their spouses became influential members in the tribe.

Rosie, Pashikkoya’s daughter from her second marriage, married Tom Smith, who was an important Miwok yomta for both Miwoks and Kashayas. Rosie and Tom gave birth to

Robert Smith, the first elected chief after Sam Ross. That he was elected was a minor deviation from the hereditary and spiritual qualifications that usually elevated one to a position of leadership, but the genealogical record indicates that his selection was still influenced by traditional Kashaya values. Robert Smith, in turn raised his niece, Essie

Pinola, who would become the most influential spiritual and tribal leader following

Annie Jarvis.88

86 E.W. Gifford, 5-6.

87 E.W. Gifford, 1.

88 Mary J. Huffman, Chart 2; “Kashia Indians – Stewart’s Point, 28 December 1927,” Handwritten genealogical document, File “XIII Koshia Band (Stewart’s Point Rancheria),” Box 4, Decimal Files, 1934- 1971, Sacramento Area Office, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco), 4.

Annie Jarvis was arguably the most influential and important person in Kashaya history, and based on her family lineage, she was a well qualified candidate for leadership. For one thing, she married a grandson of the influential Tom and Rosie named Frank Jarvis. For another, Jarvis’ grandfather, Peter Antone, was a powerful yomta at Haupt Ranch during the late 1800s (He was eventually rejected as a spiritual leader, however, because he had a criminal record. Apparently he killed a man.).89 As a result of her family heritage, Jarvis had opportunities to learn about the Kashayas’ spiritual traditions as a young child. When the opportunity presented itself, she used her family influence in combination with her knowledge and spiritual gifts as a yomta to lead her people.90

At Haupt Ranch, as a result of their matrilocal community pattern, the Kashayas were able to preserve powerful memories, reinforce family identities, and adapt new leadership structures that would help them survive and fortify their community into the twentieth century. By carefully reading their white opponents, as they had the Russians, they made skillful gambles that helped them preserve their culture. Women rose to positions of influence and established strategic relationships, while men like Tom Smith,

Big Jose, and Peter Antone continued to provide spiritual guidance. At Haupt Ranch, following the congregation of most Kashayas to one location, a more cohesive Kashaya identity emerged and family lineages were established that remain important to this day; family names like Antone, Maruffo, Pinola, James, and Smith are embedded with

89 Allen James, 10.

90 Cora du Bois, 100-101; “Kashia Indians – Stewart’s Point, 28 December 1927,” 3.

memories and significance. Members of these and other families led their community in both adapting to and contesting an imposed society. Individual responses to acculturation varied, but led by unifying leaders, diverse responses formed a distinguishable Kashaya whole.91

The turn of the century was a monumental time for White Americans and

American Indians alike. For white Americans it was a time of progress, modernity, and the “close of the frontier,” a time to celebrate the triumph and growth of great cities, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.92 For most Indians, however, the turn of the twentieth century was their nadir. Indian populations were at the lowest they had been in all of known history. Moreover, following the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, white elites ran the “pulverizing machine” of assimilation at full throttle, parceling and privatizing Indian lands so that they could be absorbed into the capitalist market.93 To survive, Indians had to quickly adapt to the market economy and increase their ever- growing knowledge of white man’s laws.94 The situation was similar in California, except California Indians did not have reservation lands to parcel. Their land was already stolen. The federal government never ratified the 1850 treaties that were supposed to establish California reservation land. California Indians were forced to take the imposed economy on in full force, and by the turn of the century many were already well adapted

91 “Kashia Indians – Stewart’s Point, 28 December 1927,” 1-6.

92 Frederick E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2001), xx-xxi.

93 Meinig, 175.

94 Hoxie, 239-244.

to the capitalist system. Instead of losing land, many Indians were using the tools of capitalism to purchase land for their communities.95

Kashayas lived throughout Mendocino and Sonoma Counties, on ranches or farms where they picked hops or took care of livestock, others lived in the Bay Area, but most lived at Haupt’s Ranch, a place they could gather and call home when not working on local farms. From their first contact with Europeans, female intermediaries were of central importance to survival. As long as Molly and Charles Haupt were married and alive, the Kashayas were welcome, but their situation was tenuous. To make matters worse, the pressures of acculturation were increasing and traditional spiritual practices, central to Kashaya cultural identity, were waning. In response to these threats, the

Kashayas rallied behind two movements, one spiritual and one physical, that helped lay the foundations for the tribe’s survival and rejuvenation for the next hundred years.

95 Khal Schneider, “Making Indian Land in the Allotment Era,” The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Winter 2010): 429-432.

Chapter 4

Annie Jarvis and the Revival of Indian Religion

During the 1900s, Kashaya women gained increasingly vital roles as intermediaries; at the same time, traditional male spiritual roles were weakened by the pressures of acculturation. These two trends culminated in the rise of Annie Jarvis to a position as one of the most important and influential yomtas in Kashayas history. Jarvis used Indian religion, specifically Bole Maru, to revive and protect Kashaya culture. Prior to the beginning of Annie Jarvis’ leadership in 1912, yomtas were usually men. At the introduction of the Earth Lodge Cult, a man named Kristowa became the first Maru dreamer and several male dreamers followed, including Big Jose, Kolota (who was considered a false prophet), and Jack Humbolt. None of them, however, had enough charisma to unify the Kashayas for the preservation of their culture.1 Jarvis became the

Kashayas’ first prominent female leader, and her influence through the Bole Maru religion exemplified the power of Indian religion to reinforce traditional culture and protect against further assimilation into white society. While the Bole Maru itself was an innovation, it was a combination of old beliefs and reinterpretations of Christian teachings that helped reinvigorate traditional Kashaya religion and strengthen the community.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the Kashayas faced mounting threats to their survival. The People From the Top of the Land had a nearly non-existent land base

1 Cora Du Bois, 99-100.

as it was, but to make matters worse, the death of Charles Haupt in 1905 endangered the

Kashayas’ access to what little land remained. For the previous forty years Charles and

Molly (Pashikkoya) Haupt allowed the Kashayas to freely come and go from the village sites on Haupt Ranch, but when Charles died, the relationship between the Kashayas and

Charles’ son were strained. At the same time, alcohol abuse became widespread and was accompanied by domestic violence and violation of taboos.2 With important aspects of the Kashaya community undermined, the forces of fragmentation were heightened.

Kashaya men left their homes to find work on white ranches and farms, but what did they have to return to? Would they have anything to return to? In 1911 a young nineteen- year-old Kashaya woman named Annie Jarvis provided the morale that would help them find the answers.

Jarvis acquired her spiritual giftings while she and her people still lived at Haupt

Ranch. Her dreaming and healing powers were preceded by a prolonged spell of muteness, after which she reinitiated dances at the dance house previously used by Big

Jose. Jarvis immediately began to reinforce traditional Kashaya spirituality, culture, and connection to the land. She gained influence (in addition to her family ties) by making use of the recently elevated role of women in the tribe, by emphasizing the threat of outside influence on Kashaya spirituality and culture, and by drawing on Earth Lodge

Cult practices. Moreover, in addition to making good use of both opportunities and challenges, Jarvis was a charismatic leader and gifted yomta. She is also remembered as a powerful speaker and beautiful singer. Jarvis reinforced community by throwing large

2 Kennedy, 96-97; Allen James, 10.

100

celebratory picnics, and she restored faith in traditional spirituality by healing the sick and sharing her dreams, which contained messages of hope and warnings against assimilation. Jarvis took a non-compromising position against white society and warned her people that an epidemic would follow any further abandoning of Kashaya practices.3

Jarvis’ teachings restored the foundation for Kashaya cultural survival and set the pace for assertive Kashaya agency over the next 100 years. Two of her most influential teachings included a strict prohibition against alcohol and against associating with white people. For Jarvis, alcohol not only disrupted communal life, it was something that came from white people. White people were the ones who stole Kashaya land, insulted

Kashaya culture, profited at the Kashayas’ expense, and introduced new teachings, such as Christianity. Jarvis permitted her people to work for whites seasonally, but they were not to associate with whites outside of work.4 Under Jarvis’ influence, Kashayas’ participation in celebrations and dances gained new importance, and in two years time from 1911, the tribe was unified and invigorated by her teachings. According to Herman

James, “There’ll never be another Annie Jarvis. She was, and always will be the most renowned Indian preacher in the history of the Kashaya tribe.”5

Anthropologist Cora Du Bois and American Indian literature professor Greg

Sarris have pointed out that the Bole Maru religion was more of a renewal of old practices than a composite of innovations. Du Bois and Sarris both confirmed, however,

3 Cora Du Bois, The Ghost Dance 100.

4 Kennedy, 131-134.

5 Allen James, 10.

101

that one of the primary differences between the old and new religion was that before the introduction of the Earth Lodge Cult, multiple cults and cult leaders existed within every

Pomo group, while after its introduction each group became unified under one spiritual leader.6 Thus under Annie Jarvis’ leadership, Bole Maru gained an enduring connection with Kashaya identity.7

Through the nativistic Bole Maru movement, Kashayas simultaneously asserted their own cultural distinctiveness and refuted white dictates; this was accomplished by renewing old practices and reinterpreting new knowledge within a Kashaya frame of reference. For example, Jarvis promulgated the teachings of previous dreamers and forbade Kashayas from attending Christian churches, but at the same time she integrated aspects of Christian religion into her teachings and traditions, including Christianity’s moralistic aspects and Biblical terminology. At certain times she even instructed everyone in the community to hang wooden or stuffed-cloth crosses in almond-shaped frames over the doorframes of their homes. While Du Bois interpreted these assimilations as ultimately leading to a decline in Kashayas culture, Sarris argues, and history attests, that these adaptations “laid the foundation for a fierce Indian resistance that exists in many places to this day.”8 Jarvis used Christianity’s symbols and vocabulary in specifically Kashaya ways and therefore subverted its influence.9 The real novelties of Jarvis’ teachings were the emphasis she placed on isolation from white

6 Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive, 67.

7 The Maru Cult of the Pomo Indians, 6.

8 Sarris, 67.

9 Du Boise, 100.

102

society and the value placed on Kashaya distinctiveness. Just a hundred years earlier such messages would have been completely unnecessary and unthinkable.

During the late eighteen hundreds at Haupt’s ranch, initial disappointment with the Earth Lodge Cult, disruption caused by Christian missionary efforts, and the destruction and segmentation of the land at the hands of capitalist interests undermined important foundations of the Kashayas’ community. The Kashayas temporarily adapted to these setbacks by centering their community on gambling, which also provided a means of economic redistribution. Unfortunately, alcohol abuse caused discord within the basic family units, and gambling did not adequately reinforce Kashaya cultural identity against powerful forces of acculturation. The Bole Maru movement, led by Mrs.

Jarvis, met these shortcomings by revitalizing the Kashayas’ spiritual foundation and putting an end to alcohol abuse. Next, under Jarvis’ leadership and with the unification gained from practicing Bole Maru, Kashayas confronted their tenuous land situation and the catch-22 of participating in the white man’s economic system.

Moving to a Permanent Home

In 1920, after eight years of leading her people at Haupt Ranch, Annie Jarvis governed the relocation of the center-pole from the dance house at Haupt’s ranch to the

Kashayas’ new reservation at Huckleberry Heights, where it served as the center-pole for a new dance house. The circular imprint of the old Haupt Ranch dance house, its earthen floor compacted by thousands of hours of dancing around the center fire, can still be seen

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today.10 The Bole Maru religion renewed the roundhouse as an important symbol of the community’s cohesiveness and vitality – therefore its relocation had great significance.

In addition to overseeing the accompanying ceremonies, Jarvis had an important role, along with Chief Robert Smith, in approving Huckleberry Height as the Kashayas’ new home. For Jarvis, along with other Kashayas, it was crucial that the location they moved to was on the Kashayas’ traditional homeland and isolated from white influence. Jarvis’ approval of the new location, however, was only part of the reason that Huckleberry

Heights became the Kashaya reservation.

During the period immediately preceding the tribe’s move to Nobel Ranch, several developments were in progress relating to the Kashayas’ land situation. The group was able to take advantage of these changes in order to secure a permanent home during a time when they were unwelcomed by white Californians, except as expendable laborers, and all but ignored by the federal government. Federal policy makers were in the middle of forty-year long campaign to completely assimilate the Indians by allotting their land, and thus had little interest in the already landless California Indians. Most of the assimilation efforts against California Indians came from Christian missionaries and local citizens who sought to integrate Indians through education. From California’s founding, state politicians emphasized state rights and resisted the faintest federal oversight. While this approach was profitable for white citizens, it had negative results for Indians. From the time the U.S. Senate secretly ignored land treaties signed with

California Indians in 1852, fifty-four years passed before Indian land rights were

10 Mary J. Huffman, 22, 61.

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reconsidered, and this only at the insistence of concerned citizens, a rare occurrence at the time. Yet, while some whites pursued land for the “homeless” Indians, others sought to conserve land for its intrinsic environmental value.

Conservationism versus Indian Rights

In the late 1800s, Indians and Americans contested each others’ narratives and defined the value and rightful use of the land in religious and mythological terms.

America’s honeymoon with industrialization was over, and the call for a return to nature catalyzed a movement to preserve land that was once unquestioningly exploited. In the course of the previous fifty years, it had become apparent that the accumulation of wealth

- made possible by new technologies and conglomerations of people - was inseparable from overcrowding, filth, smoke, and stench. In this light, the supremacy of the city, and even of civilization itself, were questioned. Educated city dwellers started looking to nature for alternative forms of wealth (such as fresh air and health), and what has been dubbed as the “wilderness movement” was born. It was not embodied by a particular group of people but was evidenced in art, writing, with such novels as the Tarzan (1912) or White Fang (1906), and the formation of political groups (such as The Sierra Club).

Yet, while the wilderness movement was marked by a nearly religious devotion to nature, its ideologies were steeped in the context of colonialism and white supremacy.11

Nature was conceived in terms of its value for the colonizers, not for the colonized: a commodity to be bought and hoarded for use by whites as a place of solace

11 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, (New Have: Yale University Press, 1973), 141-160.

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from the city, something to be protected for the nation’s posterity. Though white

Americans once conceived of Indians as part of nature or the wilderness (which to

Indians was not a wilderness at all), by the twentieth century Indians were pigeonholed into a strange no-man’s land, called the reservation. Participants in the wilderness movement went to great efforts and spent vast sums of money to preserve open spaces from the harm of civilization, but for the most part, Indians were left to fend for themselves. According to the dominant narrative, Indians were neither civilized enough to be part of white society, nor wild enough to be true Indians.

At the same time, Indians asserted their own narratives through the new Ghost

Dance movement and other nativitistic revivals, which were at their zenith. The movements’ leaders emphasized Indians’ rightful place on the land and prophesied the earth’s inevitable revenge against colonizing whites, which was said to come in the form of an earthquake or flood. Tribes, such as the Kashayas under Annie Jarvis, reasserted their age-old connection to traditional lands by practicing native religion and making demands on the federal government. The Massacre at Wounded Knee, however, was the epitome of how violent white resistance against Indian claims could be. In 1891, 300 members of a Sioux band (including women and children) under the leadership of Big

Foot were murdered by the US Calvary with a Hotchkiss machine gun. The Indians’ alleged crimes were threatening locals with their practice of the Ghost Dance and failing to return the government appointed reservation. The Kashayas’ struggle against an eroding land base and new forms of assimilation followed in the coattails of extreme hostility and resistance.

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While not all American’s resisted Indian claims with physical violence, the turn of the century was marked by new national myths that elevated Americans’ place on the continent while disenfranchising Indians. According to Frederick Turner’s landmark

Frontier Thesis of 1893, Americans were a strong, yet refined, people because of their experience taming the mythical “frontier,” which the Census Bureau declared officially closed in 1890. Of course, from the start, this “frontier” was only so for European-

American colonists who believed it was their destiny to settle the continent from coast to coast. Their memories of crossing the frontier and settling California became an important part of national and local myths.

With the continent securely settled, land that was previously colonized and exploited was preserved or reborn in service of American patriotism, and the

“inevitability” of Indian assimilation or demise was reasserted. Wealthy capitalists such as William Hearst reinforced these views by purchasing select historic sites for preservation and by funding scholarly studies of Indians who were “quickly disappearing.” In 1906 these trends struck the heart of the Kashayas’ homeland when

William Hearst purchased Fort Ross and the surrounding land from the Call family for the “preservation of historic landmarks in California.12” With this purchase one of the

Kashayas’ most important villages was enshrined as a memorial to the feats of European colonists and early Californian settlers, while the Kashayas, in the wake of Charles

Haupt’s death, were left wondering if they were going to have a place to live.

12 California State Parks to E.O. Essig, 1933, File: “Letters to E.O. Essig from California State Library and California Dept of Public Works Concerning Fort Ross Property Deeded to the State by William Randolph Hearst, 2 letters,” Papers Concerning Fort Ross, California, 1927 – 1948, BANC MSS C-I 17, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

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Shortly before the Kashayas were given their eviction notice, an organization with different goals than those embodied by William Hearst, but still governed by its own agenda, took actions that multiplied the possibilities for Indian agency in California. The organization, called the Northern California Indian Association (NCIA), was based out of

San Jose and created for “benevolent, charitable, and missionary purposes for the benefit of the Indians of California.”13 After the NCIA was founded in 1895, its members spent nine years engaging in efforts to enculturate California Indians – by sending missionaries, planting churches, establishing schools, and providing aid – before writing a letter to

Congress in 1904 requesting land for the “landless” Indians of California. While many

Indians already owned land and had successfully engaged in the market economy to purchase it, the assertions made in the NCIA’s letter, that California Indians’ land was stolen and that most were landless, were generally true.14

When members of the NCIA discovered that treaties were signed with California

Indians in 1852 but secretly left unratified, they brought this injustice to Congress’ attention. While their ultimate goal was Indians’ full inclusion into white society, their petition reveals a fairly modern view toward Indians and culture. For example one of the goals is stated as, “preventing all oppression of Indians and securing to each and every

Indian the same rights, protection, and privileges under the laws, whether national or

13 “Memorial of the Northern California Indian Association, Praying that Lands be Allotted to the Landless Indians of the Northern Part of the State of California,” in Federal Concern about Conditions of California Indians, Federal Concern about Conditions of California Indians 1853 to 1913: Eight Documents, Robert F. Heizer, ed., (Socorro, NM: Ballena Press, 1979), 95.

14 Hurtado, 134-148.

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state, as are secured to all citizens and inhabitants of the United States of whatever race or color.”15 They also went on to critique civilization for the devastation caused to

Indians, stating, “The vices and diseases imported with civilization have been fatal to the majority, and the mortality has been so great that it is estimated that their number today is not more than 12 or 15 percent of their number sixty years ago.”16 Compared to their contemporaries, the NCIA’s members had an elevated view of Indians, but at the same time, the NCIA pursued objectives that were caught up within the dominant culture.

The NCIA’s letter to Congress reveals that their primary goal was the

“civilization” and conversion of Indians, which they hoped to accomplish by purchasing small home sites for individual families. According to the NCIA, Indians did not need large pieces of land, as they “would not be able to handle large farms.” Instead, the

NCIA hoped that by establishing permanent Indian residences, their organization would have better success at their proselytizing and educational efforts. Northern California

Indians (including the Kashayas), however, leveraged the tools of the market economy to sustain Indian religion, culture, and community, not to further assimilate into white society. For example, Pomo communities in the Russian River valley worked collectively on hops farms and pooled their money together to purchase tribally-owned land and residences.17 Important considerations for the Kashayas included, maintaining access to traditional gathering sites and securing a land base large enough to

15 “Memorial of the Northern California Indian Association, Praying that Lands be Allotted to the Landless Indians of the Northern Part of the State of California,” 95.

16 Ibid., 96.

17 Schneider, 430.

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accommodate the entire tribe. They were not interested in acquiring individually owned parcels.

While perhaps with the best of intentions, the NCIA asserted white beliefs about what was best for Indian welfare without any apparent consideration of the Indians’ own goals. The organization’s members had somewhat progressive views towards Indians, but it was likely their fundamentally “civilizing” aims that allowed them to successfully gain the federal government’s attention. The NCIA’s secretary, C.E. Kelsey, made a strong argument for the gravity of the Indians’ situation by presenting a rough census of

California’s landless Indian population (Indians without a government assigned reservation). After receiving the NCIA’s letter and Kelsey’s census, Congress commissioned Kelsey, as Special Agent for California Indians, to take an official census of the state’s entire Indian population.

The enumeration was a two-year project, and the final count, completed in 1906, revealed that 11,800 Indians in California lived off of reservations, without any government aid, while only 5,200 lived on government reservations. Of the 11,800, the

Kashayas at Stewart’s Point contributed seventy individuals. The surnames of Indians listed in surrounding areas indicate that approximately fifty to seventy additional

Kashayas lived throughout the surrounding region, in places like Dirigo, Ocean District, and Olivet. Several Kashayas are also listed as owning land, including Frank Jarvis,

Marie Myers, Joe Ross, and John Antone.18 Clearly, the Kashayas and other Indians were capable of surviving, even against horrible odds, without the aid of the government, but

18 C.E. Kelsey, Census of Non-Reservation Indians California Indians, 1905-1906, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 107-110.

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the findings of the investigation resulted in Congress making appropriations for the purchase of Indian lands (The Homeless Indians Appropriation Act of 1906), and the

Kashayas would receive a small share.19

Though the NCIA’s and federal government’s goals were different than the

Kashayas’, the Kashayas still leveraged the NCIA’s efforts and the Appropriation Act for their own purposes. The Appropriation Act was passed shortly after the Kashayas discovered they were no longer welcome at Haupt Ranch. In 1903 Charles Haupt’s property passed to his son (who was married to a Kashaya woman named Julia Patton), and in 1912, Charles Haupt Jr. decided to sell the land. The ever-growing demand for new lumber sources increased the land’s real estate value, and Charles Jr. hoped to make a profit on land sales, rather than depend on the prices he could get for produce on the fickle agricultural market, but first he needed to vacate his land. Charles Jr. began corresponding with the federal government about finding the Kashayas another home, and a representative from Indian Office was sent to purchase a piece of land.20 Thus, while Charles Haupt Jr. was married to a Kashaya woman (like his father was), his economic priorities outweighed his community loyalties. 21

In the process of looking for an ideal place for relocation, the Kashayas took a number of factors into consideration and refused to sit idly by while local whites or federal agents tried to determine their fate. The Kashayas first option was to simply stay

19 House, “Annual Reports of the Department of the Interior,” House Documents, Vol. 15, 59th cong., 2nd sess., 3 December 1906 – 4 March 1907, 126-127.

20 Hirschmann, 485.

21 Ibid.

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at Haupt’s ranch. They had been at Haupt’s place for over half a century, and for many it was the only place they had ever lived. Up until 1912, Haupt Ranch provided a safe refuge from white encroachment, racism, and acculturation. Moreover, important structures were located on the property, such as family residences, fire pits, sweat lodges, and the dance house. The threat relocation posed to the Kashayas’ community may have contributed to Annie Jarvis’s reasons for taking initiative as a leader.

Jarvis was known for preaching a strict message against association with whites, while zealously encouraging Kashayas to remain faithful to their culture and spiritual practices. She even went so far as to say that “half-breeds” were at risk of punishment in the afterlife. When Jarvis came to power, she held a special rededication of the dance house at Haupt’s Ranch during the same year the Kashayas were informed they would have to leave. Instead of looking elsewhere for land, she advocated that the federal agent,

J.J. Terrel, use the appropriation money to purchase land from Charles Haupt Jr. Terrel followed her instructions and made multiple offers over the course of two years, but

Haupt continually turned them down. As a result, the Kashayas’ friendship with Haupt was damaged, and they started looking elsewhere for land. According to Jarvis, it had to be far away from whites. 22

Not all Kashayas agreed with Jarvis’ admonitions to remain isolated, but due to

Jarvis’ persistence and a lack of funds for other alternatives, the Kashayas moved to a location only four miles from Haupt Ranch. Some Kashayas hoped to relocate somewhere near Healdsburg or Santa Rosa, where they would be closer to employment

22 Hirschmann, 485.

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opportunities and family members who found it more convenient or practical to live near the larger towns. Others thought a location on the coast, somewhere they could collect seafood would be ideal, but property was too expensive at both locations.23 Even the low-quality land the Kashayas eventually settled on was over their budget, but relationship, rather than money, ended up providing a solution.

Hemmed in by white landowners on every side, once again a Kashaya woman served as an intermediary to help the Kashayas preserve their connection to the land. In search for land that met all their qualifications, the Kashayas found a willing partner in

Hiram Noble, who was married to a Kashaya woman and periodically employed

Kashayas on his ranch. At first Nobel asked $1,250 for the property the Kashayas wanted, but Agent Teller insisted that the government would not pay that much. After a

Kashaya elder appealed to Nobel based on their relationship with him, Hiram agreed to sell his property for $1,100, so that the Kashayas would have a home. The outcome of the situation was that the Kashayas gained a permanent reservation in a location that was relatively isolated from outside influences and situated on their traditional land, instead of somewhere near Santa Rosa or Healdsburg.24

The 1916 purchase of the land on Noble’s Ranch was not inevitable but reflected the intersection of Kashaya agency, strengthened by revived spirituality, and the dictates of the dominant culture. To be sure, there were factors beyond the Kashayas’ control, such as the power of the lumber companies, Haupt’s decision to evict them, and the

23 Kennedy 96.

24 Ibid., 97.

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government’s lack of funds, but the Kashayas played an important role in choosing the final settlement. Had they unified in the pursuit of a different opportunity, leveraged relationships elsewhere, or allowed the final decision to become a point of division, the outcome would have been quite different. Under Annie Jarvis’s leadership, individual

Kashayas compromised in order to make a unified and safe risk for their survival as a group. The land on Noble’s Ranch, Huckleberry Heights, as it was known, was by no means ideal; it had poor soil, an exposed hillside, and very little access to water, but it was a place to gather and practice Kashaya ways and, thus, to ensure the continuation of

Kashaya culture. For all practical purposes, and from the government’s perspective as well, the site did not make sense, but for the Kashayas, autonomy and connection to the land were more important considerations than farming or job opportunities.25

From the time the property – known today as Stewart’s Point Rancheria – was purchased, it took four years before most of the Kashayas moved there. Haupt Jr. allowed Kashayas to continue living on his ranch during the relocation process, and others chose to live and work on H.A. Richardson’s ranch at Salt Point, or in surrounding towns, working at sawmills, farms, or other ranches. In 1920, however, Annie Jarvis organized a ceremony to relocate the dance house that at was at Haupt’s ranch to the new reservation. Her official recognition of the new property and approval for the construction of a new dance house helped solidify the permanence and legitimacy of the new home. As at Haupt’s Ranch, the dance house would be the central gathering place for the community and serve as a powerful symbol of Kashaya religion, culture, and

25 Superintendant Lafayette Dorrington to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs E.B. Merritt, 23 June 1927, U.S. Department of the Interior, Indian Field Service, Record Group 75, National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

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survival. Jarvis celebrated the sacred procession by saying special prayers, holding a large feast, and calling for a community-wide dance. Following the festivities, the large center pole from the dance house built by Jack Humboldt was transferred to Noble

Ranch. There it was used to build the new dance house that would facilitate the practice of the Bole Maru religion under Jarvis’ leadership, and act as a stronghold against further assimilation, for the next two decades.26

The Kashayas’ meager forty acres of land came previously planted with a couple hundred fruits trees and was studded with a few humble buildings. While the land was scarcely big enough for their population of over one hundred, the Kashayas set to work making it a home. Robert Smith, his family, and a few other respected leaders occupied the already existing buildings, and the rest of the Kashayas set to work building homes as they had the time and resources. Annie Jarvis resided in a house that was built next to the dance house (more commonly known as the roundhouse). The reservation quickly became a space to reinforce and reinvent Kashaya identity against the relentless pressures of the dominant culture. The Kashaya community at Huckleberry Heights was both static and dynamic, traditional and progressive. One foot was firmly planted in the past and in rich Kashaya traditions, while the other foot (if for no other reason than their own cultural space was shrinking) was increasingly planted in European-American society. Yet regardless of where their feet stood (or if they were barefooted or shod), they were always Kashayas.

26 Herman James, “When the End of the World Was Forecast (1872),” Kashaya Texts, 287.

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Schools, Churches, and Assimilation

Until the early twentieth century the Kashayas were outside the reach of the assimilating machine that affected other Indians across the continent. Kashayas experienced acculturation through contact with miners, ranchers, and lumbermen, but their isolated and rugged location kept them more or less out of contact with government officials or Christian missionaries. Following a boom in development at the turn of the century, however, including new railroad construction and improved wagon roads, the

Kashayas were increasingly subjected to white assimilation efforts. At times, the

Kashayas were ambivalent towards white culture – certain elements of white society where adopted or experimented with, while others were outright rejected. Often the cultural adaptations that were made were born out of necessity rather than preference, and all the little adaptations could add up. The quickening pace of change elicited a strong response from the likes of Annie Jarvis and other Kashaya leaders. Learning how to be

Kashayas in a transformed world was a difficult process for everyone.

The knowledge needed to navigate a white man’s world was learned through trial and error, which could be a painful process, but Kashayas also took a proactive approach towards acquiring knowledge. Essie Parrish’s experience with her aunt selling their lunch, only to have an angry group of men approach them at Haupt Ranch, is an example of trial by error. Experimenting with the use of white man’s liquor was another lesson learned the hard way. With the introduction of so many new elements, even subtle cultural practices, like not wearing shoes, could prove fatal.

Before the turn of the century it was customary that only men wore shoes, while

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women went barefoot. One day, while young Herman James was walking with his grandmother on a trail from the ocean to a meadow a few miles inland, his grandmother stepped on a rusty nail. Herman and his mother took his grandmother to a medicine man at Haupt Ranch, but the medicine could not help her. A few days later she died from a tetanus infection, her death a consequence of the harsh realities of change.27

“Civilization” brought large problems, like disease, and small problems, like rusty nails.

Kashayas women were no longer free to feel the cool earth, or the other textures that reflected the diversity of their homeland, beneath their feet. They started wearing shoes, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Wearing shoes was only one of hundreds of small adaptations that the Kashayas made, but it is also an intimate example of how one small adaptation could alter the way the Kashayas interacted with the world around them.

Rapid economic change and limited educational opportunities necessitated “on the job training;” Kashayas sought to improve the prospects for prosperity by learning about their white opponents and the evolving economy. The Kashayas were expert gamblers, which meant, while they would take calculated risks, they were not about to leave the stakes entirely up to chance. One of the ways the Kashayas gained knowledge about their opponents was through building and nurturing direct relationships, both business and personal. They also strategically sought and took advantage of all available educational opportunities. The first educational opportunity presented itself in the late

1800’s, when a group of Kashayas received job training from H.A. Richardson. Mr.

27 Allen James, 6.

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Richardson owned a small general store, established a local school, and owned a ranch at

Salt Point. Through the relationship established with Richardson and his family, the

Kashayas also gained the opportunity to send their children to school with white children at Salt Point. The Kashaya-Richardson relationship was an enduring one that benefited the Kashayas into the late twentieth century.28

At the turn of the century, the Kashayas were only all too aware of their increased dependence on white employers for employment. It was a vicious and subjugating cycle: the industrial economy damaged the Kashayas’ sustainable food gathering opportunities, which made it necessary to work in that same economy in order to purchase agriculturally produced food. The Kashayas had little choice but to engage in this expanding and dominating economy, but they tried to do so as strategically as possible. To better understand and leverage this encroaching system, many Kashayas believed it was in their people’s best interests to send their children to white schools to learn English, math, and white culture.

That the Kashayas sent their children to school voluntarily, without any federal involvement or compulsion, attests both to the skill with which the Kashayas leveraged their relationships with local whites and to the calculated risks they were willing to take in order to ensure survival. The risks of pursing white education were great, but the

Kashayas minimized them by consistently seeking to control the outcome of their educational experiences. From the 1880s through 1920s, Indians throughout the continent resisted white assimilation and tried to leverage forced educational programs to

28 Allen James, 9.

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Indians’ advantage in a number of ways. Parents resisted sending their children to distant boarding schools, such as the one in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, altogether. If they were compelled to attend, Indian children resisted by running away, by burning down school buildings, creating inter-tribal connections, or reasserting their “Indian-ness.” On many reservations parents successfully petitioned the Indian Office to establish day schools, which prevented them from having to send their children to distant boarding schools. In this way parents gained control over their children’s education and maintained the ability to teach them Indian culture in the face of white indoctrination.29

By the 1900s, Indians’ success at resisting the aims of the federal education program contributed to changing perceptions of Indian assimilability. Rather than admit the limitations of their own power, white decision makers started to believe that Indians were incapable of learning or fully adapting to white society. Of course, Indians were fully capable of learning English, math, and the manners of the dominant culture; it is just that many chose not to.30

While Kashayas were outside the purview of the forced education and boarding school programs, they carefully engaged the system for their own purposes. Their experiences were mixed, but they even managed to maintain significant control over the educational process. Herman James was among the first Kashayas to voluntarily attend the school at Salt Point. His story provides a vivid example of the foreignness of white

29 Special Agent C.H. Ashbury to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs T.J. Morgan, 1 May 1914, Investigative Records of Colonel L.A. Dorrington, Box 10, Record Group 75, National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

30 Hoxie, 92-96.

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education and the difficulties associated with adapting to white culture. In his autobiography Herman recalls his first day at school, saying, “I truly think if they had taken a jackrabbit to school that day it would have done about as well.”31

According to Herman there was nothing that could have prepared him for the difficult cross-cultural experience of starting school without knowing any English. His first day was a disaster. When the teacher, named Mrs. Richardson, had a difficult time communicating with him, she grabbed him by the hand and started leading him to her desk. This gestured either frightened or angered Herman, so he jerked his hand from the teacher’s grasp, ran out of the school house, and hid in the nearby bushes. He remained in his leafy hiding place until the end of the day and joined his peers on their return home. When his mother asked him how school was, he said, “I [don’t] know too much about it yet.” Yet, despite the difficulty of the first day of school, Herman decided to give it another try. In the subsequent days and weeks, he quickly improved in English, and his education became a point of pride. He recalls walking home so proud of his progress in English and math that his “little humming bird chest [was] sticking out there like a pigeon’s breast.”32 Yet, while he started adapting to the white educational process, the realities of a disrupted world hit home.

His mother and step-father actively encouraged his participation in school, but the tensions created by colliding cultures, poverty, and marital strife eventually caused

Herman and his brother Allen to run away from home. Herman and Allen were making great progress in school when they became targets of playground teasing for not wearing

31 Allen James, 18.

32 Ibid., 19.

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any shoes. To avoid further harassment, the boys decided they would not return until they had they proper foot attire. Herman’s mother, however, had recently married a man named George James (presumably white) who was a violent man, and neither of the boys approved of him. When the boys informed their mother and George that they refused to go to school until they had shoes, George said, “We’ll see about that, maybe this will persuade you a little bit,” and then proceeded to beat Arnold and Herman with the butt of his 22 caliber rifle three or four times each. After the beating, Herman and Arnold, though distressed to leave their mother, ran away from home. Fortunately for the boys, extended kinship networks remained an important feature of Kashaya culture, and they found refuge with their uncle, Harry Pinola, who supported them and sent them to a school near their new residence at Stingle Ranch. There the boys attended another interracial school, where seven Kashaya and nine white children learned English and math together despite their differences.33

At Salt Point and Stingle Ranch, among other places, California Indians pursued education without the prodding of the federal government. While representatives of the federal government tended to believe that Indians were educationally handicapped or uninterested in learning, the Kashayas and other Indians proved they were fully capable of and interested in European-American education when they had the opportunity to pursue it on their own terms. The Superintendant of the Round Valley Reservation,

Walter McConihe, seemed shocked when he discovered that Kashayas were attending the public school at Salt Point of their own volition.

33 Allen James, 19-20.

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In a letter to the Commissioner of Indians affairs, dated August 28, 1918,

McConihe wrote that he discovered twelve Kashaya Indians were attending the public school at Salt Point, while another seven were in attendance at the Horrick Public School.

He continued, “Mr. Richardson informs me that there is no objection whosoever to the

Indians attending the public school,” and that “Mr. Richardson also informs me that they had no pay for the tuition of these children for some years, and have never applied for any, not knowing how to do it.” Moreover, according to Mrs. McConihe, “Many of the

Indians of the Rancheria (referring to the Stewart’s Point Rancheria) [were] very eager to have a school house built, that they would build themselves if the material was furnished them.”34 The correspondence between the Commissioner and the Superintendant confirms the account provided by Herman James and demonstrates that the Kashayas and other California Indians actively sought to leverage new knowledge to their own advantage. They also sought to improve their access to education and their control over its influence by establishing a school directly on the reservation.

By acquiring reservation property in an isolated location at Jarvis’ prompting, the

Kashayas successfully avoided oppressive federal oversight. At times, their peripheral location resulted in a lack of resources, but it also helped them maintain their limited sovereignty. Correspondence between the Commissioner of Indians Affairs, the

Superintendant of the Round Valley Reservation, and the Superintendant of Schools in

Sonoma County (Louisa Clark), reveals that the Kashayas’ location in the coastal foothills, along with their ongoing practice of season rounds, greatly impeded

34 Round Valley Superintendant W.W. McConihe to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs Cato Sells, 28 August 1918, File 204, Box 59, Subseries 2 (1917-1919), Records of the Round Valley Agency, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

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government intrusion of the Kashayas’ community. It took years before the government even hinted at concern for the Kashayas, and if it was not for letters from interested whites, such as Mr. Haupt or Ms. Conover, it is difficult to say when the Kashayas would have attracted the government’s attention.

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs was initially notified about the Kashayas’ educational situation in a letter sent by a Miss Carrie Conover from San Pedro, CA in

1916.35 In response to Conover’s concern that the Kashayas did not have their own school (the reason for her concern is not known), the Commissioner instructed the

Superintendent from Round Valley to investigate, but poor road conditions, rugged terrain, and inclement weather prohibited him from making an investigation into the matter until after winter. When Mr. McConihe finally made his way to the Kashayas’ reservation in August of 1918, he found that most of them were gone, working on farms near Healdsburg, picking prunes, hops, and other crops, and was thus unable to make an accurate inquiry into the matter. In one of his letters he states, “I endeavored to get a census of these Indians with the assistance of Mr. Richardson, who is the postmaster and store keeper at Stewart’s Point. I was pretty mixed up I fear, and I had to defer its completion until they could [get] some of the Indians in there to identify the different families.”36 Thus, Annie Jarvis’ reasons for establishing the reservation at Noble’s Ranch had the intended effect.

35 Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs E.B. Merritt, to W.W. McConihe, 23 March 1917, File 204, Box 59, Subseries 2 (1917-1919), Records of the Round Valley Agency; Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

36 Superintendant of Round Valley W.W. McConihe to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs Cato Sells, 28 August 1918.

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In the government’s new zeal to assimilate the Kashayas through education, they actually played into the Kashayas’ hands, as building a school on the reservation gave

Kashayas more control over their children’s education. Due to the Kashayas’ location, however, it took seven years from 1917 before the school was finally built. In 1923 the school still was not built, and there were twenty three Kashaya children signed-up for school. Discussion took place about transporting the children to local schools, but it was finally decided that building a new school on the reservation was the best option. In order to do so, however, Sonoma County had to create a new school district especially for the Kashaya Reservation. The cost and transportation of the supplies to the reservation further delayed the project’s completion, but in May of 1924, Special Agent Dorrington arranged to have the lumber and other supplies needed for construction purchased from

H.A. Richardson. Kashaya men then built the one room schoolhouse with a residency for the teacher in time for the 1924-1925 school year.37

Mary McDermott was the school’s first teacher, and for the next fourteen years she and her husband became highly involved in daily life at the reservation. In addition to teaching Kashaya children on a daily basis, Mr. and Mrs. McDermott provided the

Kashayas shelter, food, and other supplies. As a government funded teacher she corresponded closely with Sonoma County officials and representatives from the Office of Indian Affairs about her activities. In letters to Special Agent Lafayette Dorrington she commented on the living conditions of some of the elderly and reported that she

37 Sonoma County Attendance Officer Wayne E. Smith, to Special Agent Lafayette Dorrington, 27 May 1924, Public School Records, Box 20, Sacramento Agency; Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco); Kennedy, 110.

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passed out rations to those in need. She also requested blankets and mattresses for some of the “old folks” who lived by themselves when the rest of the community worked on the surrounding farms during the growing and harvesting season.38 Mr. McDermott’s major contribution was helping build about a dozen houses for Kashaya families in need.

Together the McDermott’s made many positive contributions, but their overall legacy at the reservation was mixed.

While the McDermotts provided the education that the Kashayas’ wanted, along with material aid that they needed, they also encouraged further assimilation through cooperation with the Indian Office, by maintaining close ties to Christian organizations, and by encouraging Kashayas to integrate with local whites. According to oral history,

Mrs. McDermott arranged annual play days to bring Kashayas and white children together on the reservation. She also encouraged and recruited promising students to attend the Sherman Institute in Southern California, where the level of indoctrination was higher than that at local day schools. Moreover, Mrs. McDermott obtained much of the material aid she passed out by eliciting donations from members of a Christian church in

Santa Rosa.39

While the extent to which the McDermotts attempted to spread Christianity is unknown, their presence corresponded with the increase in Christian activities in the area during the 1920’s and 30’s. Records from the Sacramento Area Indian Office indicate

38 Letters between Mary McDermott and Special Agent Lafayette Dorrington, Public School Records, Box 20, File “Reservation,” Sacramento Agency; Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

39 Kennedy, 110.

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that Pentecostal missionaries started making inroads during this period. A number of organizations made petitions to the Indian Office, requesting permission to build churches on the Round Valley and other Northern California Indian reservations.40 The

McDermott’s efforts and aims closely resembled those of Christian organizations like the

Northern California Indian Association; they believed Indians deserved equal rights, but they were better off adapting white culture. While the Kashayas were willing to receive the McDermotts help, they were not willing to succumb to their intentions. In the end, the McDermotts provided valuable services and developed many relationships with

Kashayas, but misgivings about the McDermott’s assimilation activities led Annie Jarvis and others to petition for their replacement, and in 1938 the McDermotts’ years of service ended.41

The delicate balance the Kashayas maintained in their pursuit of and cooperation with the European-American style of education did not begin or end with the

McDermott’s tenure. Prior to European colonization, the Kashayas employed their own, distinct styles of knowledge acquisition and dissemination. Lessons about the natural and supernatural world were taught and learned through daily story-telling, active participation, community-wide rituals (such as dancing or coming of age ceremonies), and cross-cultural trade networks. These paths of knowledge acquisition were both formal (in the case of ceremonies) and informal (in instances like storytelling, food

40 Petitions for permission to establish churches, Box 173: Folder “417 – Churches – General,” Coded Records, 1910-1958 of program and administration, Records of the Sacramento Area Office, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

41 Kennedy, 111-112.

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gathering, basket making, and the like). The Kashayas understood that knowledge could become either a constructive or destructive force and were, therefore, intentional about the information they shared and/or acquired.

Beginning in the late 1800s, the Kashayas encountered a form of knowledge acquisition that presented particularly powerful threats to their community, as well as opportunities for asserting their narrative. The social sciences in the American college system were blossoming, and American anthropologists (and one journalist), such as

Stephen Powers, S.A. Barrett, and Alfred Kroeber began studying the Kashayas and other

California Indians who they believed were “endangered” or represented the last remnants of “true” Indian societies. In their reports, these academicians consistently comment on the difficulties they had obtaining information from the Kashayas..42 From their first cross-cultural encounters, the Kashayas intentionally harnessed both sides of the

European-American educational system by limiting their knowledge acquisition to that which they determined to be helpful for survival and their knowledge sharing to that which they believed was either powerless in hands of their opponents or useful for promoting their own views of history and society. The decision to engage the colonizing academic system was always a risky one, but by engaging it, rather than completely resisting it, the Kashayas gained a hand in shaping and using it for their own purposes.

The gamble was not without a few negative consequences, but overall it had positive results.

42 Du Bois, 99; Kennedy, 142, 163; Edward W. Gifford, Clear Lake Pomo Society, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1926), 350; Edwin Meyer Loeb, Pomo Folkways, 255.

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Jobs, the Great Depression, and the Indian New Deal

By the turn of the century the Kashayas learned well how to survive in what had become a white man’s world, and of primary importance was gaining the skills needed to become wage laborers. The harsh reality, however, was that while the Kashayas’ traditional skills always allowed them to obtain provisions from the plentiful land they tended, the new skills did not always procure jobs on the labor market. Scarcity ensued and, while the government eventually stepped in to try and make ends meet, the Kashayas continued to assert the primacy of the land and traditional practices as the best solutions for self-sufficiency.

During the Russian settlement, Kashayas learned skills pertaining to farming and ranching that remained useful into the nineteen hundreds. While the motley group of

Russian fur trappers were not the best agriculturalists, they did have a few trained farmers in their midst. Following the Russians, German ranchers like Benitz hired Kashayas to work the fields and care for his animals. At that time the Kashayas’ labor was essentially forced, because if they refused to work or were found “loitering” they could be easily arrested and forced to work for whoever paid bail. After the Act for the Government and

Protection of the Indians was repealed following the Civil War, the skills learned during the years of forced labor became valuable for obtaining jobs on the free market. The completion of the Central Railroad in 1869 brought a wave of immigrants seeking cheap farming land, which created an increase in the number of farms surrounding the

Kashayas’ homeland and an accompanying demand for cheap laborers.

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During the years at Haupt Ranch, and the early years at the reservation, most

Kashayas worked from July through December picking hops, prunes, apples, and other crops. Other Kashayas found jobs in local cities, such as Healdsburg, Sebastopol, and

Santa Rosa at processing facilities or as help for small businesses, but the most well- paying jobs were in the logging industry. Kashayas worked in nearby saw mills and local forests, as sawyers, lumberjacks, and other positions connected to the lumber industry.

Redwoods, Douglas firs, spruce, and other trees were harvested at an astounding rate.

Kashayas successfully learned and excelled at the skills needed to work in these growing markets, but in doing so they also took part in the ongoing destruction and transformation of their homeland.43

Whereas working in the fields or local orchards could bring in seven dollars a week, working in the forest could pay up to twenty dollars in a day.44 In the early 1900s,

Goodyear Lumber Company, which had logging operations up and down the West Coast, was one of several lumber companies that employed Kashayas in Mendocino and

Sonoma County. Allen James, a future Kashaya chief, sought employment with the company when he was only seventeen-years-old. Several of his relatives, including Steve

Pinola, worked in the Goodyear camps, and his connections helped him land his first job in October of 1921. The first camp Herman worked at was Camp 11, at Greenwood

Creek near Elk, California; it was one of the largest camps in Mendocino County, an area once renowned for its wealth in timber. Allen quickly excelled in the industry, and by the

43 Allen James, 83-90; “Sitka Spruce,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/usda/amwood/265sitka.pdf, accessed on 6/14/2012.

44 Kennedy, 95.

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age of twenty he was splicing cables, something many older loggers were unfamiliar with.45

Cable splicing was necessary for “high lead” logging, a new technology used beginning in the early 1900s that enabled logging companies to harvest larger and more difficult to reach trees. In the late 1800s “steam donkeys,” as these locomotives called, were used to pull felled trees to loading stations near bodies of waters. High lead logging technology made use of cables and pulley systems rigged in trees, sometimes up to one hundred and fifty feet above the ground, to effortlessly pull massive logs over rough terrain and up steep ravines to the landing stations. The logs were then transported to saw mills by means of the rapidly expanding rail system.46

The cables used in the rigging systems underwent great amounts of stress, resulting in frequent breakage. Riggers who were skilled in cable splicing, such as

Herman, who could repair broken cables in the field were vital to maintaining operations.

The acquisition of splicing and other logging skills, coupled with demands for lightweight woods for aircraft in World War I and World War II, created a many job opportunities for Kashayas and other Indians. Logging jobs providing living wages for

Kashaya families throughout the 1900s. In 2002, however, the Georgia Pacific Mill in

Fort Bragg, one of the last sizeable mills on the California Coast closed down.47 Since

45 Allen James, 85, 94.

46 “High Lead Logging On the Olympic Peninsula, 1920s-30s,” http://content.lib.washington.edu/curriculumpackets/logging/index4.html, University of Washington, , 4/12/2012.

47 City of Fort Bragg to State Clearinghouse, “Notice of Preparation of a Draft Environmental Report,” 6 January 2012, http://city.fortbragg.com/pdf/MillSiteDEIR_NOP_Jan2012.pdf, accessed on 5/10/2012.

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then, the logging industries in Mendocino and Sonoma County have greatly diminished.

Between wars, the Great Depression affected people from coast to coast, Indians included. Several of the principle industries Kashayas worked in suffered major setbacks: the Goodyear Redwood Lumber Company that gave Allen James and other

Kashayas their first start in the lumber industry went bankrupt in 1932.48 Also, due to the national Prohibition enacted in 1919, the California hops industry, which employed hundreds of Northern California Indians, virtually collapsed. During difficult times in the past Kashayas could turn to any number of naturally available resources or time tested strategies to acquire needed food or shelter, but survival in the market economy was a bit more difficult. In order to survive, the Kashayas learned to use a combination of traditional practices, such as communal living and gathering what they could from the land, with leveraging whatever aid was made available by the US government.

During the Great Depression thousands of Americans went hungry, lost their homes, and roamed the countryside looking for work with nothing but the clothes on their backs. From the Midwest, many affected by the dustbowl migrated to California, where they hoped to find employment or good fortune in the land of boom and bust. Kashayas migrated too, but they migrated out of the surrounding cities, where the job markets collapsed, back to their reservation. At the reservation at least they had a piece of land where they could set up makeshift shelters, harvest naturally available foods, and gather as a community. As a result, in the 1930s the Kashaya reservation was like a boomtown.

48 Allen James, 113.

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The population is estimated to have reached two hundred people.49 Perhaps the market economy was not what it was all cracked up to be. When the market failed, it was the

Kashayas’ traditional practices that helped them make it through. Jarvis’ leadership fostered adherence to the Bole Maru religion and Kashaya culture, which strengthened community cohesion and served as a safety net for those who ventured away from the reservation. Had community ties been severed or the reservation been located away from traditional village sites, the Depression would have damaged, instead of strengthened, the

Kashaya community.

The federal government took a different approach to help its citizens survive, and the Kashayas were uniquely positioned to take advantage of the benefits provided both by their community and by the larger American society. To ease the downturn caused by over speculation, drought, and the industrial lull following WWI, Franklin Roosevelt implemented the well-known economic reform called the New Deal. FDR’s social reforms had a wide ranging effect, and even a few Kashayas and other Northern

California Indians, despite their isolated locations in the foothills, benefited from the jobs and social security benefits that it created. Indians (eligible to vote in California after

1917 and declared U.S. citizens in 1924), along with other US citizens, gained access to old age pensions and Works Progress Administrations programs. In 1939, at least two

Pomo Indians, one of them a Kashaya from Stewart’s Point, applied for old age pensions

49 “Bobby Kennedy’s Visit to Kashia was a Great Day!” 12 June 1988, Press Democrat.

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at the Social Service Department in Santa Rosa.50

Kashayas also took advantage of locally created jobs. In 1940 several Kashayas and other Pomo Indians gained employment on a state-financed project at Point Arena.

Among those listed as working on the project included several men from the Pinola family. The project was slated to end in December, and an official letter regarding the job stated “These men will be available for any project you might have after that time.”51

Records of the social service jobs worked by the Kashayas are few, but those that exist indicate that the Kashayas and other Indians leveraged whatever New Deal benefits they could. The income obtained through federal programs, coupled with the support they received through communal living on the reservation, would have helped the Expert

Gamblers survive the Depression with more ease than many whites.

In addition to the services made available to all US citizens, John Collier’s Indian

New Deal had a more lasting, significant, and focused impact on the Kashayas and other

Indians. John Collier was a progressive man with an atypical view for the time regarding

American Indians. His efforts transformed the way the United States interacted with

North American Indians. With the Wheel-Howard Act (1934), Collier sought to restore

Indian sovereignty and end the fifty-year-old practice of assimilation (though much of the

Act’s original wording and intended effect was changed by Congress). While the

50 Campbell, Bessie W. to Roy Nash, 7 March 1939, File 724, Box 225; Coded Records, 1910-1958 of Program and Administration, Sacramento Area Office, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

51 Harold Brodhead (Farm Agent) to Mrs. Robinson (State Relief Administration), 27 December 1940, File 724, Box 225; Coded Records, 1910-1958, of Program and Administration, Sacramento Area Office, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

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Wheeler-Howard Act, also known as the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), was an attempt to restore tribal sovereignty at the federal level, it was also a response to Indians’ agency and success at contesting the narrative of extinction against what seemed like inconceivable odds.52

The principles of the IRA were consistent with the promotion of Indian sovereignty, but, as a federally imposed program, it had the consequences associated with any colonial program. Once again, it was up to the Kashayas, along with other American

Indians, to engage the new changes for the best possible outcome. Key goals of the IRA included establishing respect for American Indian cultures, allowing Indians to have their own governments, reversing the trend of allotment, recognizing American Indian sovereignty, and promoting Indian self-sufficiency.53 At the same time, the IRA imposed

European-American conceptions about self-government, organizational structures, and

“Indian-ness.” The tension between the IRA’s two major outcomes created difficulties for the Kashayas, as it did for other Indians, but in reality it only accentuated the previously existing challenges associated with being Indian in a changed world.

The Kashayas’ adoption of the IRA’s plan for tribal sovereignty on June 11th of

1935 was not a starting point for pursuing autonomy but merely a continuation.

Kashayas both on and off the reservation were permitted to vote. There were a total of 70

52 S. Lyman Tyler, A History of Indian Policy (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1973), 125-142.

53 John Collier, “Radio Address by John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 7 May 1934, Transcript, File “Indian Reorganization Act/ Wheeler-Howard Act.” Box 3 “Correspondence of Superintendent Nash,” Sacramento Agency, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco), 3.

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Kashayas of voting age; 51 voted yes, 10 voted no, and 9 abstained. 54 Though the IRA’s adoption formalized the Kashayas’ organizational structure, during Jarvis’ life it had no effect on the leadership structure. The official reorganization resulted in the formation of a tribal corporation (which allowed the tribe to do business as a group), with a constitution, by-laws, and board members. The positions open for election included,

Chairman, Vice Chairman, Treasurer, and Secretary. Initially, the leaders who had influence prior to the adoption of the IRA simply remained in power. The Kashayas had adopted the use of voting years before the IRA’s introduction, so the transition was relatively seamless. Robert Smith, the previously elected chief, was reelected, and, as the spiritual leader, Annie Jarvis continued to wield the greatest influence over the tribe’s decisions. Eventually, however, the rigidity of the new organization and its effect on the leadership structure and tribal membership would foster discord in the community.

Annie Jarvis’ Legacy

Annie Jarvis, though not elected to any formal position, had more influence among her people than anyone else and used her spiritual influence during the Great

Depression to instill Kashaya cultural values and maintain tribal unity and cultural fidelity during World War II. Kashayas flocked to the reservation during the Depression, seeking shelter and community support. Thanks to Jarvis’ efforts the reservation was established in an isolated location where Kashaya culture could be reinforced though

54 Voting record, “108784,” File “Indian Reorganization Act/ Wheeler-Howard Act.” Box 3 “Correspondence of Superintendent Nash,” Sacramento Agency, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco), 3.

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ceremony and communal living. The large gathering during the Depression provided the

Kashayas the opportunity to reassert their culture before facing the centrifugal forces of

WWII. During this time Jarvis stressed the importance of keeping true to Kashaya culture. While she helped lay the foundations for future cultural survival, in some ways she merely created a temporary dam against an impending economic and cultural flood.

When WWII ended the Great Depression, with it collapsed the Kashayas’ Depression-era boomtown. Military enlistment and war time job opportunities in the surrounding cities quickly diminished the reservation’s population. 55

Jarvis, however, managed to keep the community together by holding special dances and emphasizing taboos against acculturation. She even initiated a special dance for Kashaya servicemen, which she claimed could ensure protection for the children of parents who faithfully performed it while the children were away. Jarvis received the instructions for this dance, as for other dances, in a dream, and it included the use of several foreign cultural elements. Earlier yomtas made use of foreign elements, such as crosses, or incorporated Christian language into their prayers. Jarvis’ new dance, called the “Star Dance,” incorporated stars that closely resembled the American star insignia found on the side of WWII fighter jets, and dancers held the stars as they danced.56 By assimilating symbols from the dominant culture into their own cultural practices,

Kashaya yomtas like Jarvis turned assimilation on its head. Instead of being assimilated

55 Bobby Kennedy’s Visit to Kashia was a Great Day!” 12 June 1988, Press Democrat.

56 The Sucking Doctor, prod. and dir. William R. Heick and Gordon Mueller, 51 min., University of California Extension Media Center, 1963, videocassette; Vana Parrish, “Kashaya Pomo Dances” The Journal of California Anthropology (1975), Sonoma County Library, Special Collections, 37.

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into white culture, used Indians religion to selectively assimilate and appropriate foreign cultural elements into distinctively Kashaya practices.

From the late 1800s to the mid 1900s the bole-maru tradition, with its emphasis on individual dreamers, helped the Kashayas revive their spirituality, renew their unity, and preserve their culture. Yet, the bole-maru tradition had one significant weakness; its continuation rested heavily on the dreams of one dreamer, and when the dreamer died, no one was allowed to use that dreamer’s dance house, dances, or ceremonies until another dreamer stepped forward and received recognition from the community. Thus, when

Annie Jarvis died in 1943, the gatherings that held the community together came to a halt. Moreover, in 1939 Robert Smith either died or left the reservation, and his son who served after him, left his post to serve in the war.

Thus, Jarvis’ people were left without a unifying leader or someone to hold the ceremonies that brought them together and reinforced their culture, and, as a result, the community collapsed. Now that war time jobs were available, people left the reservation for work and shelter with few reasons or resources to return. For several years the reservation went entirely abandoned.57 The community slowly started to regroup after the end of the war, but the flood gates of assimilation were opened. Beginning in the

1950s the Kashayas faced new opponents and a fresh wave of assimilation that required new forms of cultural adaptation. Once again, the dominant narrative said that the

Kashayas were an endangered race, but the Kashayas, like other American Indians, used old and new strategies to survive as Indians in the modern world.

57 Kennedy, 138.

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Chapter 5

Risky Cultural Adaptations and Political Sovereignty

Over decades, the forces of colonization inflicted their toll on Kashaya culture and community, but they also prepared the Kashayas for survival against one of the most powerful forces of assimilation they had faced to date – World War II. By controlling their labor, preserving community, and reviving Indian religion, the Kashayas effectively preserved their culture and maintained at least a few of their possessions in the gamble for survival against European-American colonization. The pressures of assimilation that followed WWII, however, required even more divergent and riskier adaptations. When they deserted the reservation to take advantage of the of WWII economy, their gamble with selective assimilation was truly put to the test. The consequences of their initial strategies to reinforce community after Annie Jarvis’ death were mixed at best. Like other Indians across the nation, Kashayas experienced what the editors of Red Power:

The American Indians’ Fight for Freedom describe as the “detraditionalization” and

“retraditionalization” of Indians communities and individuals.1 Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, what started out as forces of assimilation – urbanization and education – were reinvented and turned into tools for acquiring political sovereignty in the twentieth century.

When Kashayas moved to surrounding cities they left the cultural refuge they once flocked to during the depression years and subjected themselves to nationalistic,

1 Alvin M. Josephy, Joane Nagel, and Troy Johnson, eds., Red Power: The American Indians’ Fight for Freedom (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 7.

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modern, and white supremacist propaganda.2 During WWII and the years immediately following, federal leaders and white citizens renewed their push for the assimilation of

American Indians, which was linked with a campaign to terminate federal recognition of tribal governments and reservation lands.3 In contrast to the earlier assimilation effort

(1880-1920), postwar assimilation was defended in terms of patriotism rather than in the so-called need to “kill the savage but save the man.” During the postwar era Indians were lauded for their faithful service during the War, and white Americans sought to integrate “Indian warriors” into the American myth. Through their experience serving on the front lines and working in manufacturing facilities on the home front, so the narrative went, Indians proved themselves worthy of “full integration into American society.4”

Thus, when Kashayas left their rural village for densely populated California cities, they were not only submerged in a foreign culture but in a culture that actively sought to assimilate them. Essie Parrish, who became one of the most influential yomtas after Annie Jarvis, was one of a number of Kashayas who found employment in the apple industry near the city of Sebastopol. To this day, the Sebastopol region is renowned for producing Gravenstein apples, a uniquely sweet type of apple that was first planted in the region by the Russians at Fort Ross.5 While Essie and other Kashayas needed the wages

2 Tomas Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines, 3-7; Power: The American Indians’ Fight for Freedom, 7- 21.

3 Roberta Ulrich, American Indian Nations from Termination to Restoration, 1953-2006 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2010). 3-9.

4 Donald L. Fixico, Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945-1960 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), 3-20.

5 Sebastopol’s Gravenstein Apple Industry (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing Company, 2011), 128.

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they earned at the apple plant in order to survive, in a roundabout way they were also continuing to reap the consequences of Russian imperialism. So there was Essie – daily reminded of the Russians’ colonial legacy, having to work off the reservation in order to survive, reflecting on the collapse of the Kashayas’ community – when Mormon missionaries knocked at her door and offered an opportunity for community and acceptance into white society.

It has been said that Essie converted to Mormonism because she was deceived by

“smooth-talking” Mormon missionaries, but this explanation misses the underlying subtleties of Mormonism’s appeal.6 The Mormon Church offered benefits that were particularly attractive to the Kashayas during their community crisis – a social and economic support network, a substitute to fill the spiritual and leadership voids following

Jarvis’ death, and validation of Indian culture in the rapidly expanding white society.

The Mormons who converted Essie also pointed out similarities between Kashaya and

Mormon spiritual beliefs. Little did Essie know that the Mormon missionaries’ initial amiability towards Kashaya culture would change once their message was more entrenched.

Mormon missionaries were well prepared with ways to relate Mormonism with

Indians cultures, which helped minimize the perceived risks of deviating from Bole

Maru. For example, Kashaya taboos regarding menstruation and seasonal celebrations were related to “Old Testament” laws given to the Israelites. Also, Jarvis’ restrictions against alcohol could be compared to Mormon teachings against the use of alcohol and

6 Greg Sarris, Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 109.

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other foods and drinks. The Mormons even affirmed the Kashayas’ belief that they were a unique people, “the People from the Top of the Land” in a sense. According to the

Mormon missionaries, American Indians were the special descendants of a group of people called the Lamanites, who, though dark-skinned, were held in higher esteem than

African-Americans (who were considered the descendents of Cain, marked with dark skin for past sin). Kashayas who accepted Mormonism were also guaranteed full privileges among the Latter Day Saints.7 Mormonism was appealing because it granted acceptance into white society without having to give up Indian distinctiveness.

Whether or not the above teachings were tactics of “smooth–talking” missionaries, Essie’s “conversion” to Mormonism was a response to the pressures of assimilation and community crisis, not a rejection of Kashaya culture. In many ways, her and other Kashayas’ conversions to Mormonism were further examples of Kashayas taking risks on controlled assimilation for self-preservation. After her conversion, Essie immediately began incorporating Mormon rites and teachings into Kashaya spirituality.

From the beginning, Mormonism was interpreted according to the patterns established in the Bole Maru tradition. Raised by Robert Smith and mentored by Annie Jarvis, Essie was a recognized spiritual leader before she ever converted to Mormonism. Prior to her conversion, she dreamed that she would receive a book and a new revelation. Upon her encounter with Mormon missionaries, she declared that the book she dreamed of was the

Book of Mormon.8 The “new revelation” was then incorporated into Bole Maru

7 Kennedy, 145-146.

8 Ibid., 130.

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traditions, not as a complete replacement for previous beliefs but as an augmentation.

Although anthropologists, such as Mary Jean Kennedy, thought Mormonism was the final nail on the coffin for Kashaya culture, in the short-term it proved to bolster previously established methods of survival and cultural preservation. It can even be said that Essie’s adoption of Mormonism was simply the heightened use of syncretism seen in the Bole Maru tradition, another strategy to preserve traditional practices in the face of assimilatory pressures. Under Essie, Mormonism and Bole Maru were almost perfectly blended: Kashayas attended Mormon services in Santa Rosa, where they danced Kashaya dances; Mormon elders officiated at weddings in the round house; Kashayas were part of one of the “lost tribes,” and Essie continued her healing practices.9 One Kashaya was even married in Salt Lake City, went on a two year mission, and returned to the reservation to take part in Kashaya healing, dancing, and dreaming ceremonies.10 Yet while Kashaya cultural practices were initially preserved, adopting Mormonism was one of the most significant and substantial risks in Kashaya history and not with long-term positive consequences in terms of rebuilding the Kashayas’ community or culture.

When regulated by a recognized leader, such as Essie, a major cultural adaptation such as conversion to Mormonism could be used as a tool to reinforce Kashaya culture, but maintaining the authority needed to do so was a tenuous balancing act. During the

1950s about half the tribe converted to Mormonism, which is surprising considering how

9 Mary Jean Kennedy, “Mormon Church MIA meeting - Latter Day Saints Church, Santa Rosa - Jan. 14, 1953,” File 1:22, Box 1, “Mary Jean Kennedy Papers,” Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

10 Lisa Mertz, “Let the Wind Take Care of Me:” The Life History of Lorin Smith, a Kashaya Pomo Spiritual Leader, Ph.D. diss., The Union Institute, 42-43.

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faithfully the tribe once adhered to Jarvis’ highly selective assimilation protocols, but

Essie was the recognized yomta and was, therefore, highly influential.11 Some Kashayas, however, were skeptical; Essie seemed to be leading the tribe in the exact opposite direction that Jarvis led them.12 The substance of Essie’s decisions and her final experience with Mormonism, when taken as a whole, reveal that was not the case, but the stakes were high, so she took big risks. In order to successfully navigate the Kashayas’ cultural ark to safety, Essie had to assert control over the tribe and monitor the influence of Mormonism, while remaining within culturally established leadership boundaries at the same time.

Like Annie Jarvis before her, Essie’s success as a leader depended on support from men, but this time, rather than simply glean from those with previously established influence, she elevated a male leader using her own authority. Following Robert Smith’s term as Tribal Chairman during the beginning of WWII, Essie’s husband, Sydney

Parrish, was elected to the position. Many in the tribe felt that Mr. Parrish was only elected because he was Essie’s husband, rather than based on his own merits (he was not even Kashaya), and this caused discontent among those that did not vote for him.13

While Essie was supported by a few of the male elders, such as Herman James, there were those of the opinion that the Parrishes ran the tribe and reservation according to

11 Ibid., 109.

12 Kennedy, “Daily Life, 4-11 August 1953,” File 1:22, Box 1, “Mary Jean Kennedy Papers,” Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

13 Ibid.

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their own prerogatives.14 What came across as tight-fisted leadership to some, however, was necessary for establishing unity and direction during a time when community cohesion was threatened.15

Around the time that many converted to Mormonism, a much smaller group of

Kashayas took a different cultural risk by converting to Pentecostalism, a charismatic denomination of Christianity. Christian missionaries visited the area long before the

War, and other Christians were in contact with the Kashayas at the turn of the century

(including the McDermotts), but it was not until during or immediately after the war that several Kashayas converted to Pentecostalism and started holding meetings at the reservation. Those who converted to Pentecostalism faced the same pressures of assimilation as those who converted to Mormonism, but the Pentecostals were more up front about their rejection of Bole Maru traditions.16

Parrish visited the Pentecostal gathering several times before determining that conversion to Pentecostalism required giving up too much of what she held dear. For the

Pentecostals, most Kashaya spiritual practices were incompatible with Christianity – even small symbols on ceremonial dresses or baskets were considered “evil” or of the “devil,” let alone traditional dances and songs. According to Parrish, the Pentecostals even wanted to tear down the roundhouse.17 Due to these harsh critiques of Kashaya cultural elements, Pentecostalism was only accepted by a small but committed minority. Yet, the

14 Ibid.

16 Kennedy, “Culture Contact and Acculturation of the Southwestern Pomo,” 144-145.

17 Kennedy, “Filed notes, Southwestern Pomo,” File 1:23, Box 1, “Mary Jean Kennedy Papers,” Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

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Kashayas who became Pentecostals did not stop being Kashayas but, instead, adopted a different approach towards assimilation and cultural preservation. They rejected the Bole

Maru rituals but continued living on the reservation and reaffirmed their identity as

Kashayas through language, history and geography, which speaks to the plastic and enduring nature of culture and the variety of elements that contributed to Kashaya identity. While the Pentecostal Kashayas maintained regular contact with white

Christians from Santa Rosa, holding services on the reservation allowed them to control the nature of their interactions, which could also be used reestablish the uniqueness of

Indian culture by way of contrast.18

Beyond the Mormon and Pentecostal groups, a third group of Kashayas refused to make any drastic cultural adaptations and remained truer to older Kashaya beliefs and

Bole Maru traditions. This group consisted mostly of older people who lived on the reservation and encountered fewer forces of assimilation. They were also alienated by rapid change and the involvement of outsiders with tribal affairs. In May of 1953, Mary

Kennedy, a University of California, Berkeley anthropologist, interviewed a Kashaya elder named Steve Pinola who she noticed chose not to participate in a recent dance at the roundhouse. When asked why, he gave the following response:

18 Kennedy, “Daily Life, 4-11 August 1953;” Kennedy, “Culture Contact and Acculturation of the Southwestern Pomo,” 144-145.

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No, I don’t go to those anymore; I’ve seen those things for 50 years. They don’t know how to do it now. …My wife knew more songs than any of them. Once they were having a dance and they wanted a singer. Somebody said she knew some songs….So she sang, and I tell you, those old people had tears running down their face. Wife says that since she joined the Pentecostal church, ‘I forget all the old song.’ I think it was because when you joined the church you are born again.19

Change was painful, and though controlled assimilation could help preserve Kashaya culture and community, the strategy was not without sacrifice. Against powerful opponents, sometimes simply not losing all the stakes was all the Expert Gamblers could hope for.

Given the variety of beliefs about what it meant to be Kashaya, especially following Essie’s conversion to Mormonism, tensions on the Kashaya reservation ran high. In one sense, Mormonism helped unify the Kashayas who converted and provided an avenue to practice some Kashaya traditions, but it also alienated those who chose not to convert and failed to truly restore the value of Kashaya culture. Kennedy recorded the dire situation in her field notes:

I got the impression that not much will remain of this people as a distinct culture after the passing of another couple of decades. English already appears to be the preferred tongue. …The aboriginal form of religion underwent major changes under the influence of the Ghost Dance cult, and is only now temporarily kept from lapsing completely through the influence of Mormonism, which imposes a moral code which the old religion did not possess, and the determined effort of one person, the Dreamer, the leader of the cult.20

This was not the first time scholars thought that Kashaya culture was dying out, nor was

19 Kennedy, “Daily Life, 4-11 August 1953.”

20 Kennedy, “Dances Held at Kashia Roundhouse, 30 May 1953,” File 1:22, Box 1, “Mary Jean Kennedy Papers,” Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

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it the last. That Indians and their cultures were destined to diminish was the dominant narrative of the time, but the Kashayas, like other Indians, contested this interpretation by correcting failed attempts at selective adaptation and directing their energy towards successful strategies for preserving community and culture.

During the 1950s the Kashayas needed to divert two steams of assimilating forces in order to prevent the cultural flood gates from cracking. Mormonism was the first stream – while initial adherence to the new faith was monitored and controlled, pressures to abandon Kashaya traditions in favor of Mormonism began to mount. Essie was a dynamic leader, and for a time Mormonism worked as a means to facilitate community and gain acceptance in the face of modern pressures like urbanization and nationalism.

When Mormonism became more entrenched, however, Mormon leaders started demanding stricter adherence to Mormon teachings and placed restrictions on traditional

Kashaya ceremonial practices. These developments were like salt on the wound.

Mormonism already caused divisions within the tribe, and now it was beginning to attack

Kashaya culture. For Essie, who made the gamble on Mormonism because of its apparent compatibility with Kashaya spirituality, this was the last draw.21

Sometime in the 1960s, Essie completely renounced Mormonism and turned her focus entirely towards preserving Kashaya culture and establishing sovereignty through what proved to be more successful forms of cultural adaptation. Yet, after a decade of intimate involvement with the Mormon Church, the sudden rejection was as if Essie was driving the Kashayas in a Mormon bus, then abruptly slammed on the breaks and hopped

21 Lisa Mertz, “Let the Wind Take Care of Me,” 109.

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out – the effect was communal whiplash. Kashayas were married by Mormon elders in the roundhouse. Allen James was married in a Mormon temple in Salt Lake City.

Kashaya women were part of the Mormon women’s club. Hours were spent studying genealogy and praying for deceased relatives for salvation.22 Then, suddenly, Essie denounced its adherents, and prohibited Mormons from using the roundhouse. People were hurt and confused.

It took time for the community to recover. When Essie rejected Mormonism, many Kashayas rejected her leadership, while others rejoiced at the change. Both sides expressed hostility toward the other. Many of those who converted to Mormonism sincerely embraced it and saw no contradictions between their new found faith and traditional Kashaya beliefs. When Mormon Kashayas were barred from participating in

Essie’s ceremonies, several people vandalized the ceremonial flags that hung over the roundhouse.23 The division that existed before Essie’s renouncement worsened, rather than improved. A new foundation was laid for strengthening traditional Kashaya spirituality and culture in the coming years, but relational wounds were inflicted that would take decades to heal.

The second stream of assimilation that needed diverting was the federal government’s termination plan, which was enacted between the 1940s and the 1960s.

The government had several reasons for seeking to terminate their support and recognition of American Indian tribes. For one thing, as previously mentioned it was

22 Ibid., 114, 130.

23 Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to Native American Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 176.

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commonly believed by U.S. policy makers and voting citizens that WWII resulted in the full integration of American Indians into the dominant society. Termination also presented opportunities to minimize costs associated with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, reduce the appearance of reservations being communistic (thanks to McCarthyism), and ending the so-called failures of the Indian New Deal. For the Kashayas, other than the government’s contribution towards their small piece of reservation land in 1916, federal support was virtually non-existent. Yet, as inadequate as the Kashayas’ reservation was, it was still one of the most significant contributions towards the preservation of their culture, and now it was being threatened.

Towards the end of the 1950s, about the same time the government was making preparations to terminate California Indian tribes, the unity and cultural strength of the

Kashaya community was the weakest it had ever been. This weakness contributed to the view among Kashaya elders that assimilation was inevitable, which only increased their vulnerability to assimilation efforts. A sense of hopelessness, perhaps in light of the tribe’s disunity, a diminished population on the reservation, or the estrangement of the youth from Kashaya traditions, contributed to a momentary surrender.24 Of course, a spectrum of attitudes towards assimilation had always existed: historically some

Kashayas were glad to assimilate, while others were staunchly against it. The general sense during the 1950s was one of exhaustion. For example Allen James said, “I think it would be better to scatter out, mix with whites. Indian people don’t know their ways,

24 Kennedy, “Dances Held at Kashia Roundhouse, 30 May 1953,” “26 February 1953,” and “Daily Life, 24 August 1943,” File 1:22, Box 1, “Mary Jean Kennedy Papers,” Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

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would be better, Indian custom is being forgotten – that’s what keeps them together – be better if they scatter. If they live in group, that tradition holds. I don’t think it’s good for them.” The justification given for “mixing with whites” was that Indian customs were being forgotten. The underlying stance of surrender to assimilation marked a period of temporary disillusionment with the success of selective participation in white society and culture.25

The California provision for termination, H.R. 7491, was introduced in 1952. As early as 1953, a government representative met with the Kashayas’ voting members to find out if they were interesting in allotting their land, and most were in favor.26 It should be noted, however, that while in favor of allotment at the time, the Kashayas requested that the government provide additional land and homes for their members prior to termination. Thus, though at low point, as far as cultural preservation was concerned, they continued to exert agency to reacquire property in their historic homeland.27 Poor access to water on the reservation was another hindrance to termination and is listed in a government report as a needed improvement.28 Six years later, however, the Kashayas were still discussing termination and allotment during their tribal councils, which they again voted to approve with the caveat that the government would make the needed

25 Kennedy, “Daily Life, 24 August 1943.”

26 Kennedy, “Feb 22, 1953.”

27 “XIII Kashia Band of Pomo Indians,” 26 June 1953, File “XIII Koshia Band (Stewart’s Point Rancheria),” Box 4, Decimal Files, 1934-1971, Sacramento Area Office, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco), 4.

28 Ibid.

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improvements; however, the government failed to purchase any additional land as requested or supply the funds needed to improve the water situation.29 Kashaya leaders were at a low point in terms of the ability or desire to resist ongoing assimilation efforts, but they still had their limits. While they voted for termination, they were not willing to surrender federal recognition without first acquiring additional property to support their families on their traditional homeland. Community, family, and Kashaya culture were still important.

In the end, forty-one California tribes were terminated, but the Kashayas were not one of them. Percentage-wise, California and Oregon Indian tribes faced the greatest risk of termination in the nation, and a number of tribes in Sonoma and Mendocino counties were terminated, so the Kashayas’ situation was somewhat unique. Fortunately, Annie

Jarvis’s foresight in choosing an isolated location for the Kashaya reservation during a time of community vitality had long term consequences for cultural preservation. The reservation’s rugged and isolated location, small size, and lack of water, ultimately prevented the government from carrying through with its plan to sever its relationship with the tribe.30 Moreover, during the last few years of termination efforts, which lasted from the 1950s through 1964, Essie rejected Mormonism and initiated a return to

Kashaya traditionalism. This renewed interest in Kashaya culture and opposition to assimilation, or “retraditionalization,” played an additional role in preventing the tribe’s

29 Document listing Stewart’s Point Rancheria’s tribal government minutes, 10 May 1958, File, “Records of Minutes, 1962-1979,” Box 2, Subject files related to tribal operations, 1970-1986, Central California Agency, Record Group 75: National Archives and Records Administration – Pacific Region (San Francisco).

30 “XIII Kashia Band of Pomo Indians,” 4; Public Law 85-671,18 August 1958, 85th Cong.

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termination and would eventually merge with the influence of the Red Power movement to establish a modern Kashaya politics.

With aggressive Mormonism confronted and termination averted, the flood gates against assimilation were re-established, and the Kashayas started the recovery from cultural whiplash and re-asserted their identity as a people. Though Essie was the most highly recognized figure and cultural advocate from the 1950s until her death in 1973, other Kashayas had important roles in the tribe as well and pursued their own understandings of what it meant to be Kashaya. Lorin Smith, his sister Rachel, and

Rachel Jarvis, are examples of Kashayas who pursued Kashaya culture outside of Essie’s guidance. Lorin was part or the group that converted to Mormonism during the 1950s and, while he did not immediately follow Essie in abandoning the faith, eventually reverted to Kashaya traditionalism in the early 1970s and later became a yomta.31

During the 1960s and 70s Lorin’s family, along with a number of other Kashayas lived off the reservation, where they struggled with other Indians in urban areas to preserve their identities as Indians. Lorin lived in Sebastopol, while others resided in

Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, and towns throughout Sonoma County. After Essie’s split from the church, many had fewer reasons to visit the reservation as often, because Essie prohibited all Mormons from using the roundhouse. This action was in accordance with the fierce Indian nationalism associated with the Bole Maru religion, but it had the effect of alienating a large number of Kashayas who were not immediately ready, after ten or so years since conversion, to turn away from Mormonism. Yet, most of the Kashayas who

31 “Let the Wind Take Care of Me,” 84-85.

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practiced Mormonism continued to do with the syncretistic approach first used by Essie.

“Mormon” Kashayas even gathered in homes in the Sebastopol area, singing traditional songs and holding healing ceremonies.32

Despite living off the reservation and receiving opposition from Essie, Kashayas like Lorin found ways to maintain their cultural identity. While Essie took a hard line approach against Mormonism, other Kashayas sought a balance between controlled assimilation and the preservation of Kashaya culture by holding private Kashaya gatherings in urban areas. Holding sacred ceremonies off of their traditional homeland was truly a strategic adaptation for cultural survival. Since Mormon leaders did not issue the harsh edicts against Kashaya culture that they issued to Essie, the average Kashaya was free to continue practicing traditional ceremonies and had little reason to abandon

Mormonism or Bole Maru. Mormon leaders strategically confronted only the most prominent Kashaya leaders, those who actively promoted Kashaya spiritual traditions.

As Kashaya gatherings and commitment to traditions grew, simple living rooms gatherings no longer sufficed, and a movement towards “retraditionalization” emerged.

Lorin’s sister, Rachel, who claimed to receive spiritual authority from Annie Jarvis’ spirit, received instructions to build a brush dance house on Lorin’s cousin’s property on

Barlow Lane in Sebastopol. Rachel was a committed member of the Mormon Church.

She had traveled to Salt Lake City and even completed a mission, but she believed

Mormonism to be one and the same with “Indian religion.” She, along with Herman

James and Rachel Jarvis continued teaching many of the old spiritual practices under the

32 Ibid., 63.

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radar of the Mormon Church. It was through their teachings that Lorin learned about the

“old ways,” and his sister prophesied that he would become a yomta for those who did not have a spiritual leader. The group continued meeting at the brush house for a time, but they longed to be at the reservation, which was considered more sacred. Eventually

Rachel received instruction from Jarvis’ spirit to build a new dance house right next to the old round house being used by Essie and her followers. At the same time, Lorin, who had received the power of “weya” (a Kashaya word for “healing energy”) and become a yomta, received a design for the new dance house in a dream. Lorin and the others then proceeded to make the necessary preparations to build a new round house on the reservation.33

The move to the reservation was a difficult one. In addition to the presence of hard feelings between Essie’s group and the “Mormon” Santa Rosa group, minimal financial means were available for traveling back and forth to the reservation or purchasing the materials needed to build the new roundhouse. Lorin, Rachel, and others were anxious about how Essie would respond to their bold move. She was considered a very powerful woman, and they did not want to upset her or disrupt what she was doing, but they felt instructed by the spirits to build another dance house. According to Lorin:

More than challengin’ Essie, it was really a challenge to us, to see if we really wanted to do it. If we were afraid of her, we wouldn’t do it. …And it was scary, you could feel something there like the other people didn’t appreciate it – they were lookin’ at it like we were bringing different energy around on the reservation – like we were outsiders. And we felt like outsiders, like we didn’t belong on that reservation where we were born, partly because we didn’t live there at the time, and partly because the teaching wasn’t coming from her, from Essie, you know.34

33 “Let the Wind Take Care of Me,” 108.

34 Ibid., 114.

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The division and intertribal tensions that resulted from previous cultural adaptations were difficult to overcome, but Lorin and the other Kashayas who returned to build another roundhouse were willing to take risks for their culture. They also demonstrated the durability of their traditions and continuity as a people.

The time, energy, and sacrifice applied towards building the new round house, eventually paid off. Though the Kashayas’ culture was somewhat like a broken vase being carefully glued back together with a few extra pieces of American pottery, it was being reshaped into a distinctly Kashaya whole. The new round house took weeks to build. The builders had to return to their day jobs, and there was not enough shelter for everyone to stay on the reservation anyway, so construction required back and forth trips between the Sebastopol area and the reservation (a long, winding drive). To get things going, they held ceremonies in a basic brush structure without a roof. In their excitement for the construction of a more inclusive roundhouse, people gathered for ceremonies even when it rained, and the mud that formed did not keep them from dancing. An emphasis was placed on practicing in the “old ways,” among which, holding picnics was especially important. Family and community members that had not spent time together for years were reunited. According to Lorin:

They got closer together like they used to be in the old days. They were so happy about it, everybody cried when we started doing these things. ….They weren’t allowed to come to the roundhouse (supervised by Essie), and so when the culture was brought back, people cried a lot – especially when they heard the old songs of Annie Jarvis.35

35 “Let the Wind Take Care of Me,” 109.

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Though Essie’s approach was valuable in that it established a strong stance against assimilation, by making Kashaya traditions available for everyone Lorin and his sister

Rachel promoted a stronger sense of Kashaya community and a renewed interest in

Kashaya traditions.

It was not long, however, before Lorin was approached by a Mormon bishop about his role in promoting Kashaya spiritual practices and was forced to choose between traditions. The pressure to assimilate, given the strong message of damnation, the air of authority carried by the Mormon leaders, and involvement by other Kashayas, was a powerful one. In fact, when Kashayas were gathering in the Sebastopol area, a man that was mentoring a group of Kashaya youth in the old traditions was confronted by Mormon leaders, and, rather than oppose the church (like Essie), he suddenly stopped attending the

Kashayas’ gatherings. The Kashaya man told Rachel Smith that there was no more need for the “old ways,” and he completely assimilated into the Mormon Church.36 When

Lorin was confronted, he was invited to a meeting with a Bishop and other Mormon leaders at a Mormon church. They interrogated him about what he was doing and accused him of leading Kashayas away from the Mormon faith.

While the meeting was a traumatic experience, Lorin felt that the spirit of Tom

Smith, the once powerful yomta, was there giving him strength to resist the pressure to cave in. The bishop pressured Lorin to admit that he was wrong for teaching his people

Kashaya spiritual traditions – he said that in modern times, Indian ways were old fashioned and that Lorin’s tribe should “give it up, because they don’t need it anymore.”

36 “Let the Wind Take Care of Me,”85.

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Lorin, however, felt that “no non-Indian could tell him anything” about his culture.

Ultimately, Lorin parted ways with the church but took a less oppositional approach than

Essie. He determined that he would preserve Kashaya culture by educating the youth, but he would let them make up their own minds.37

In some ways, Rachel and Lorin revived Kashaya traditions that predated Annie

Jarvis. Before the initial encounter with the Earth Lodge Cult, Kashayas would have had several cult leaders at any given time, recognized by different or overlapping groups of followers. The Bole-Maru religion introduced the tradition of an all-inclusive cult with one yomta, but it was only under Annie Jarvis’ that this practice was fully carried out. 38

Essie Parrish started out as the solely recognized yomta, but following the tribe’s experience with Mormonism, by the 1970s Kashayas recognized Lorin and Rachel as well. Lorin and his sister sought to preserve Kashaya culture by teaching the old ways and making it possible for everyone to interact with the supernatural. For example, during a 4th of July celebration in 1988, Rachel presented three young men that she believed were destined to become spiritual leaders.39 By contrast, Essie believed that only one person was destined to become the dreamer after her. If the next dreamer was not forthcoming, however, then Kashaya culture was at risk. As a result, Essie took a different approach towards preserving culture and made a new gamble for survival by subverting the dominate culture’s educational and myth-building tools.

37 Ibid., 127-228.

38 Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive, 66.

39 “Let the Wind Take Care of Me,” 118.

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Leveraging Academia and Education for Cultural Survival

During the late 1800s and under Annie Jarvis’ leaderships in the 1900s, Kashayas made a calculated risk to participate in the dominant culture’s educational system. It was not that the Kashayas lacked their own education system, but they realized that if they wanted to survive in the transformed world, then they needed to acquire the tools that transformed and operated it. The risk was that some of the new knowledge would replace or contradict the old knowledge, and, to some extent, it did, but it also helped the

Kashayas obtain jobs in the new economy. With employment they earned the money needed to purchase the food, clothes, and shelter that could no longer be obtained from the land. Yet, while Jarvis permitted Kashayas to obtain basic education and to interact with whites for the same purposes, she never actively encouraged them to do so. Essie departed from Jarvis’ more isolationist approach and made a bold cultural adaptation by welcoming academic scholars to study and record Kashaya culture. She also actively encouraged Kashayas to pursue secondary and collegiate education. These strategies were timely and effective at establishing Kashaya political power, because they corresponded with the emergence of the Red Power movement and connected the

Kashayas’ rural and urban populations.

The main risk associated with these pursuits was the same as before – new knowledge might replace, instead of augment, old knowledge. Then there were the additional risks: young adults might abandon the Kashayas’ community during the pursuit of higher education; scholars who studied Kashaya culture might portray it incorrectly, or sharing sacred information with outsiders would violate taboos. It was the

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last that most concerned the Kashaya community, and even Essie acknowledged that her actions were dangerous. Yet, for Essie, preserving her teachings and Kashaya culture were more important, so she was willing to suffer the potential consequences.40

In the modern world, public education, whether intentionally or not, serves to reinforce the dominant narrative; thus, leveraging the education system to preserve

Kashaya culture and contest the dominant narrative required assertiveness and intentionality. It only helped that the Kashayas’ use of this approach corresponded with the Free Speech and Red Power movements of the 1960s and 70s. From the 1950s through the 1960s, Essie and other Kashayas cooperated with several University of

California Berkeley researchers and participated in the production of multiple films that documented sacred ceremonies and basket making. They also collaborated with archaeologists and anthropologists throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, making the Kashayas one of the most well-documented tribes in California. In addition to cooperating with studies completed by outsiders, Kashayas pursued higher education for themselves, which they used to assert their own perspective of Indian culture and history.

Kashayas were the subjects of four of five different studies before the 1950s, but the first study they actively participated in was completed by Mary Jean Kennedy from

1952-1953 for completion of her doctoral thesis at the University of California, Berkeley.

Kennedy’s study was performed in the context of the termination era, and her goal was to study the extent of the Kashayas’ acculturation and assimilation into the dominant

40 “Kashaya People Yesterday,” lecture attended by author, 20 January 2012; Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive, 63-64.

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culture. That Kashayas participated in the study to begin with indicates that a degree of assimilation had already taken place, but also points to their desire to share and assert their political viability. Kennedy, too, conjectured that the Kashayas maintained a distinct sub-culture (despite over a hundred years of acculturation efforts), but predicted, based on the Kashayas’ participation in the Church of Latter Day Saints, that acculturation would continue at an accelerated pace. Her narrative, though sympathetic towards Kashayas culture, ultimately differed little from the dominant narrative that described Indians as quickly assimilating. In retrospect, the evidence contained in her thesis and field notes reveal a more complex picture of the push and pull interactions between resistance to outside forces and assimilation.41 Moreover, for the Kashayas, participation in academic studies provided an opportunity to demonstrate their cultural distinctions and tribal sovereignty. Despite recent cultural adaptations, they still lived on their land, gathered traditional foods, maintained community, practiced Indian religion, and spoke their language.

From 1957 through 1961, the Kashayas participated in a study complete by

Professor Robert Oswalt, a linguist from UC Berkeley, who spent about eight months of field work studying and recording the Kashayas’ unique Southwestern Pomo language.42

In the process, he also recorded a wealth of cultural and historical information, primarily in the form of myths, historical stories, and dialogues. Yet, once again, the study was conducted with the assumption that the Kashayas were quickly assimilating and,

41 Kennedy, “Culture Contact and Acculturation of the Southwestern Pomo,” preface.

42 Kashaya Texts, preface.

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therefore, that their language should be preserved before it died out. In Oswalt’s words,

“Now that the group is scattering, the children are receiving more schooling, and the majority have joined an outside church, the retarding effect of the nativistic movement is in decline and the assimilation of the Kashaya is proceeding more rapidly to completion.”43 The Kashayas, however, had a different vision for Oswalt’s project and for their future.

The primary informants, Essie and Herman James, made an exception to normal cultural taboos and participated in the project, not to create a historic record of what used to be, but to create a living text book for the preservation of Kashaya culture and language. By participating in the study, Essie and Herman used the powers of academic research, which typically catalog and define the “others” according to the national myth, to redefine and preserve Kashaya culture for the Kashayas’ own posterity. Contrary to

Kennedy’s and Oswalt’s predictions, the Kashayas never “completely assimilated,” nor do they ever intend to. Today, because of the Kashayas’ will to remember and celebrate their culture, as well as Essie’s and Herman’s selective participation in Oswalt’s linguistic study, over fifty Kashayas are fluent speakers of their language, and more are learning. 44

Arguably, the most precarious cultural exception Essie made to preserve Kashaya culture and the Bole Maru tradition, outside of her conversion to Mormonism, was her participation in documentary films. Sharing information about cult ceremonies with

43 Kashaya Texts, 6.

44 “Kashaya People Yesterday,” lecture attended by author, 20 January 2012

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outsiders was always taboo in Kashaya culture, and it was believed that doing so could result in significant consequences for the informer, including sickness or death. Yet, despite the perceived risks, Essie agreed to participate in an American Indian film project led by an anthropologist from UC Berkeley named Samuel Barrett. Four films resulted from the project, including Dream Dances of the Kashia Pomo – The Bole-Maru Religion

– Women’s Dances, Kashia Men’s Dances: The Southwestern Pomo, The Sucking

Doctor, and Pomo Shaman.45

These videos helped preserved important Bole-Maru dances and traditions that, though recently developed, had their roots in ancient Kashaya traditions. Moreover, the documentary Pomo Shaman, filmed by William Heick, an award winning videographer and photographer, includes what is regarded as one of the best footages of a shaman healing ceremony ever recorded.46 While Essie’s participation in the films was a significant contribution to the furtherance of American Indian studies, it was also an efficient way to pass sacred information about traditional healing practices and dance ceremonies to future generations. Tragically, several years after the films were produced

(in the mid 1960s), Essie acquired a long-term illness that led to her death in 1979. Essie attributed her sickness to violating taboos but believed that her efforts were worth the consequences.47 Today her children and other Kashayas use her videos to remember and learn the sacred traditions she passed on while they await another yomta.

45 Clement W. Meihgan, “Film Reviews,” American Anthropologist, Vol. 62, Issue 2, 1967, 271- 272.

46 Ibid., 271.

47 Violet Parrish, “Kashaya People Yesterday,” lecture attended by author, 20 January 2012.

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In addition to participating in the studies completed by others, Kashayas took a proactive approach towards shaping their own narratives. The past sixty years are filled with examples of Kashayas who adapted the dominant style of education as a tool to retell and shape their story in collective memory. In the 1970’s Essie Parrish’s youngest daughter, Vana Parrish, attended Sonoma State University and wrote an article about

Kashaya Pomo Dances, outlining the uniqueness of the Kashaya culture and the importance of preserving it. She writes, “There are very few Pomo tribes which still uphold their traditional religion. The Kashaya tribe is one of these groups.”48 In recent years, Eric Wilder, one of Essie Parrish’s grandchildren, became a video game designer and used his graphic art skills, among other projects, to design a website for the tribe, illustrate a coloring book for Kashaya and other Pomo children, and create posters that depict aspects of Kashaya culture using modern symbols.49

One Kashaya, Otis Parrish, earned a master’s degree in anthropology from UC

Berkeley. Otis has written several journal articles and contributed to a book relating to

Kashaya and Indian culture. Much of his work focuses on analyzing the transformation of the Kashayas’ landscape, outlining the process of that change, and establishing a record of Kashaya knowledge relating to the biological environment.50 He has also served as a liaison between his tribe and the staff at the Fort Ross State Historic Park,

48 Vana Parrish, “Kashaya Pomo Dances,” The Journal of California Anthropology (1975): 1.

49 Violet Parrish, “Kashaya People Yesterday.”

50 Otis Parrish, “The People from on Top of the Land: A Kashaya Pomo Elder’s Journey,” ReVision, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Fall, 2002); Kent G. Lightfoot and Otis Parrish, California Indians and Their Environment (Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press, 2009).

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where he has supervised and participated in archaeological excavations and helped establish the Kashayas’ perspective on the history of Metini.51

Then there is Greg Sarris, who earned a doctorate in literature from UCLA, where he also lectured as a professor. Though a formal member of the Coast Miwok tribe,

Greg’s father was half Kashaya, and Greg maintains close relationships with members of the Kashaya tribe. Greg has written several books, including Grand Avenue, which was used as the basis of an HBO miniseries, that contest white ideas about what it means to be

Indian and assert the value of Indian traditions and worldviews. In his writings Greg presents the complex nature of culture and the challenges of being an Indian in a modern and urban world. In 2000, his education and understanding of California Indian history also helped him fight and win federal recognition for his formerly terminated Coast

Miwok tribe. Greg has since served six terms on the tribal council of the Graton

Rancheria of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo Indians.52

The above are just a few examples of how the gamble Essie and other Kashayas made on participating in the dominant culture’s educational system paid off with increased sovereignty over their history and language, but Essie’s strategy was only one of many that Kashayas used to transmit culture and assert self-determination. Though participation in the academic system resulted in recognition from white scholars and political leaders, traditional ways of transmitting knowledge remained important for

51 Katherine M. Dowdall and Otis Parrish, “A Meaningful Disturbance of the Earth,” Journal of Social Archaeology, Vol. 3, Issue 1 (2002), 21-22.

52 “Tribal Council,” Graton Rancheria website, http://gratonrancheria.com/tribalcouncil.htm, accessed on 11 May 2012.

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preserving that which was sacred or difficult to transmit in book form. Moreover, for the

Kashayas, language and knowledge were always about application and relevance for daily life. For example, by utilizing the repetition of present tense verbs, even the structure of their language emphasizes the importance of action.53 Knowledge, whether about the land, plants, animals, or the supernatural, was always meant to be acted upon.

The Kashayas ability to take decisive actions and make strategic adaptations for survival was evident as early as 1812. When Europeans arrived the Kashayas quickly acquired and used the knowledge needed to out maneuver a more powerful opponent.

Then – after years of acquiring knowledge about a new opponent and surviving the onslaught of white American colonization – the Free Speech and American Indian

Movements presented new opportunities for action.

The Kashayas’ Part in the Red Power Movement

Equipped with a revived sense of self and knowledge gained through higher education, the Red Power movement of the 1970s presented the Kashayas with new opportunities to proclaim their sovereignty. They would reclaim colonized land, oppose dominant narratives, and establish a distinct Kashaya politics that developed in urban areas but spread to the reservation and rural areas. Indians always fought for sovereignty and contested white domination, and they used a variety of strategies, from warfare to treaty making, to do so. Beginning in the late 1960s, however, Indians adapted a new strategy that came to be known direct action, which was sparked by precedents set by the

53 Kashayas Texts, 18-19.

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Civil Rights, Free Speech, and Black Power Movements. Of course, direct action was not really “new” for Indians, but ever since the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1891 and the government’s lethal use of the howitzer, physical resistance ceased to be a viable option. The 1960s marked a new era. Indians were educated, savvy about their rights as

U.S. citizens, and angry about the weak state of Indian sovereignty following the government’s recent assimilation efforts. In the battle for Indian rights, they had also grown impatient with the prudent legal tactics of organizations such as the National

Congress of American Indians. Direct action was successful in the Civil Rights and

Black Power movements, now it was time to reassert Indian agency with the same.54

Between the 1960s and 1970s, Indians across the nation, including Kashayas, adapted new strategies in the fight for autonomy and engaged in a wave of protests, marches, and occupations that effected real change. Between 1969 and 1971, several

Kashayas took part in the occupation of Alcatraz led by Richard Oakes (among others), which epitomized the pantribal, urban nature of the Red Power movement.55 The goal of the occupation was to create awareness of broken treaties and to establish an Indian cultural and educational center on the island. Oakes, a Mohawk Indian, was a student and leading Indian activist at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and had close ties to the Kashayas through marriage. Oakes met a Kashaya woman named Annie Maruffo at

SFSU and married her several years before occupying Alcatraz. During the occupation, however, Mrs. Oakes thirteen-year-old daughter (Richard’s step-daughter) fell tragically

54 Red Power: The American Indians’ Fight for Freedom, 1-9.

55 Ibid.

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to her death.56 The heartbreaking accident was partly responsible for the occupation’s end, but, while the federal government never granted Indians the island, the occupation inspired activism among Indians nationwide and promoted awareness of American

Indians’ plight at the hands of the government.57

In addition to inspiring Indians across the nation, the Alcatraz experience and

Richard Oakes’ dynamic leadership equipped a group of college-aged Kashayas with the protest skills and confidence needed to take new risks for sovereignty in their own backyard, leading to a local Kashaya political presence. On November 4th, 1970, a group of Kashayas and other members of the Native American Club at Santa Rosa Junior

College (SRJC) occupied an abandoned CIA property in Forestville, just north of Santa

Rosa. The students learned about the abandoned property in an anonymous tip from someone involved in the Pomo Indian occupation of Rattlesnake Island in Lake County.

The reason stated for the occupation was the misadministration of education funds from the Bureau of Indians Affairs. Like Oakes, who helped establish the first American

Indian studies department at SFSU, the Kashayas from SRJC were determined to take

Indian education into their own hands by using the property to establish an Indian educational center.58

56 Troy R. Johnson, The Occupation of Alcatraz Island: Indian Self-determination and the Rise of Indian Activism (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 142.

57 Red Power: The American Indians’ Fight for Freedom, 39-43.

58 “Indians ‘Invade’ U.S. Land Near Santa Rosa: Dozen SRJC Students ‘Tired of Bureaucracy,’” 5 November 1970, Press Democrat, 1.

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Kashayas and other Indians used newly learned direct action strategies to occupy various parcels of the 393 acre property for over a month. Physical occupation was then followed by several years of legal negotiations and community activism. While the local paper declared the occupation an “invasion,” the students asserted they were responding to injustices and merely reclaiming land that previously belonged to Indians. One of the students interviewed said, “We’re tired of bureaucracy, tired of everything the white man’s doing to us.” When Mr. Melo, a local man who leased the property to graze his cattle, told the group, “You’re trespassing, you know that,” an Indian youth replied,

“Don’t you know you have been trespassing for 300 years.”59 In the context of the Red

Power movement, Kashayas were empowered and emboldened to take risks for the return of Indian land.

The Indians’ persistence and willingness to make sacrifices, including arrest, successfully paved the way for novel use of the legal system to establish the land for

Indian use. To begin with, the occupiers endured cold and wet weather, but that was a small obstacle to overcome. One of the Kashayas pointed out the irony of a reporter’s question about the harsh conditions they endured: “Don’t worry –we’ll survive,” he said.

“Most of us were raised on the Kashia Reservation and we can live here just fine. We’re going to get more tents today and make this place livable.”60 The implication being that

Kashayas had endured harsh conditions on their small, undeveloped reservation for decades. Now they were going to take back some lost ground.

59 Ibid., 2.

60 Ibid.

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Despite a number of arrests, the protestors persevered by changing locations and gaining support from additional Indians and sympathizers in the community. A Press

Democrat article dated November 6, 1970, “More Indians Joining the Land Squatters:

Hands-Off Policy By the Government,” reported that many of those who participated in the Alcatraz occupation came out to support the CIA property occupation.61 By

November 8th, twenty-eight occupiers were on the land, and Mr. Melo filed trespassing charges on four of the leaders, including at least one Kashaya man. Upon their arrest the rest of the group scattered, but toward the end of the month several additional groups returned and continued the occupation. On November 27th the Press Democrat reported

“Indian Occupation Ends in 7 Arrests,” but two days later more Indians returned, and three more arrests were made. During their occupation, Kashayas and others asserted their Indian-ness by playing drums, singing songs, and dancing around bon fires.62 While

November 29th appears to have been the last incidence of direct occupation, the occupiers successfully created the passion and awareness needed to obtain the land through legal means.

In perhaps the first time in their history, the Kashayas proceeded to use the judicial system, which was historically a tool for white elites, in the pursuit of Indian sovereignty. The Kashayas thus had two new political tools for asserting self- determination: direct action and legal recourse. Two years after the occupation of the

61 “More Indians Joining the Land Squatters: Hands-Off Policy By the Government,” 6 November 1970, Press Democrat, 1.

62 “Indian Occupation ends in 7 Arrests” 27 November 1970; “Indians Return to Federal Property; Three Arrested,” 29 November 1970, Press Democrat.

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CIA property, as a result of the cooperation between Kashaya and other tribal leaders, as well as the Native American Organization and Lake County representatives of California

Rural Legal Assistance, the federal government granted the Kashayas and other local

Indians 125 of the 393 acres available acres, valued at $260,500. The junior college district was granted the other 273 acres for agricultural purposes, valued at $158,000. On

September 17th, 1972 a ceremony was held for transfer of title. John Trippo, one of the first four arrested for trespassing, accepted the deed. Despite the final validation of his efforts, his gamble was not without cost – at the time of the ceremony, Trippo was still on probation for trespassing. A jury had sentenced him to two years of probation along with a condition that neither he nor any of the others “trespassers” participate in public demonstrations on any land in Sonoma County. The government might return Indian land, but despite their strengthened political power, Indians were still subject to private property laws and a legal system that favored whites.

Also present at the ceremony were Sidney Parrish (the Kashayas’ tribal

Chairman), Congressman Don Clausen, and Mrs. Edna Seidner (who rallied support from minority organizations, politicians, and over sixty Indians groups to back the young

Indians’ efforts).63 A sample of the recorded dialogue between Parrish and Congressman

Clausen provides an insight into the history of conflict between the American government and American Indian nations, as well the struggle to assert opposing narratives. Representative Clausen stated that transfer of the property was evidence that the government can “do something besides promise.” To which Sidney replied, “The

63 “A Day for Deeds: Land for Indians, Youth,” 17 September 1972, Press Democrat, 2.

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Indian has lost out for the last 120 years from the white man’s promises and restrictions.

Now we have a foothold. …We’re going one step forward to better our Indian people with the help of the white man.” To that Clausen shot back, “…and the wisdom I hope.”64 Yet, it was thanks to two years of struggle against white man’s better “wisdom” that the Kashayas and other Indians established an Indian education center on the CIA property. The victors named their center Ya-Ka-Ama, which means “our land” in

Kashaya Pomo, and it provides educational and development services for Indians to this day.65 Kashayas successfully used the political and judicial tools of their opponents to achieve a victory for Indian sovereignty.

At the same time as the fight for the CIA property, Kashayas resisted encroachment and demonstrated their newly formed politics at their reservation. On

November 22, 1970 and the Press Democrat headline read, “Armed Indians Charge Toll on County Road.” Richard Oakes, along with his son Rocky and two Kashaya men,

Thorne and John Maruffo set up barricades on the public roads that ran through the reservation, Tin Barn Road and Skaggs Spring – Stewarts Point Road, and charged motorists a $1.00 toll to pass. Richard was quickly arrested for armed robbery and when question about his actions said, “The shoes on the wrong foot. They took our land up there at Stewarts Point.” The barricades were erected to protest the widening of roads through the Kashayas’ reservation, which they claimed absorbed three acres of land.66

64 Ibid.

65 “Ya-Ka-Ama Indian and Education Development, Inc, By-Laws,” http://www.yakaama.org/ByLaws.html, accessed on 11 May 2012.

66 “Armed Indians Charge Toll on County Road,” The Press Democrat, 22 November 1970.

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While at one point at least thirty Kashayas were participating in the blockade, not all Kashayas supported these actions; some of the older Kashayas including the Assistant

Chief, Allen James, preferred less direct forms of action to preserve their culture and land. He stated, “We have many friends in the area around the reservation. These blockades are a source of unnecessary friction and destroy our good relationship with our neighbors.” Indeed, the Kashayas did have good relationships with their neighbors, many of whom were important sources of local employment, so James’ concerns made sense, especially to the older generation. The younger generation, however, was willing to take a chance for survival on a more assertive form of politics than the commitment to

Indian religion or participation in the dominant education system.

At first, younger Kashayas agreed to pursue legal avenues to assert their sovereignty, but they would not sacrifice cooperation for power. According to Harold

Maruffo (one of the Kashaya activists), he and others considered protesting several months earlier but agreed to take the advice of the Indian legal counsel not to protest at the time, as they did not want to do anything that would keep the county from finally installing new water facilities for the reservation. After the long overdue water system was installed, however, the occupation of the CIA property provided the momentum and boldness needed to further assert their demands through direct action at their rural reservation.67

Overall, the early 1970s protests, inspired by the occupation of Alcatraz and

Richard Oakes’ passionate activism, jump started the Kashayas’ use of political protest,

67 “Indian Roadblock May be Put Back,” The Press Democrat, 23 November 1970.

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community involvement, and judicial activism for cultural recovery. The success Indians gained by working together also promoted increased cooperation among tribes for the improvement of conditions for Indians across Sonoma County. These experiences helped the Kashayas develop a distinct politics, which they would use to face new opponents in the modern era. Thus, as before, the Kashayas adapted to the changing tactics of their opponents and took advantage of every opportunity to reassert their rights to their land and their continued existence as a people. What began as “detraditionalization” in the

1950s was transformed into “retraditionalization” by the 1970s. The Kashayas had worked out a number of the difficulties associated with controlled assimilation and were beginning to master the skills needed to turn the tide of colonization.

The Kashayas’ Ongoing Opponents

From the 1970s into the twenty first century Kashayas regained their sense of direction following the confusing years of the 1950s and 60s. The most recent cultural adaptations, particularly the use of the education system and direction action to assert

Kashaya expectations, proved to be rewarding risks for tribal autonomy. Disagreements still simmered about what it meant to be Kashaya, especially regarding which spiritual practices to uphold, but Kashayas continued being Kashayas. They refused to fully assimilate into the dominate culture (despite the predictions of scholars) regardless of their differing spiritual beliefs. Besides, there were other elements that remained essential to their culture, including, their land, history, family heritages, language, and material culture. Over the next forty years Kashayas continued to preserve these

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important aspects of their culture and assert their presence at Metini, Huckleberry

Heights, Salt Point, and other places throughout their traditional territory, as well as in nearby centers of political importance, like Santa Rosa and Ya-Ka-Ama.

One of the most difficult challenges the Kashayas continued to face in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was erosion of their land base and the resources it contained. While most Kashayas became fully integrated into the capitalist economy, whether self-employed or working for wages, maintaining a connection with the land, by living on or visiting the reservation and utilizing the land’s resources, remained an essential aspect of Kashaya culture. Yet, with a population of over eight hundred people by 2012, the Kashayas had outgrown their forty acre reservation and the residential infrastructure that existed there.68 Of course, forty acres was never enough to truly sustain the Kashayas’ traditional way of life, but it was a foothold in a sea of encroaching colonization from which to maintain community and connection to the land.

From the late 1800s until the mid-1900s, Kashayas made extensive use of the natural resources available in areas outside the reservation. By incorporating work on local farms into their traditional seasonal rounds, Kashayas remained connected to the land despite not having legal title. Many of the orchards Kashayas worked on were located near the Russian River, and during the summers, Kashayas camped, fished, and gathered materials for basket-making at the water’s edge, By the 1950s, however, orchard owners started replacing manual laborers with industrial harvesting techniques and then restricted the Kashayas’ access to the river and its resources. Furthermore,

68 Violet Parrish, “Kashaya People Yesterday,” lecture attended by author, 20 January 2012.

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widespread logging during the previous century caused mass top soil runoff that contaminated the local watershed and destroyed fish populations. Due to these transformations, Kashayas’ ability to maintain traditional seasonal rounds and food gathering techniques was greatly hindered, and their land base was almost entirely restricted to their dry, hill-top reservation.69

There, at Huckleberry Heights, where only drought tolerant trees like gray pines and oaks survive the arid summer months, the Kashayas faced a problem most Americans would not think existed in mid twentieth century American, a lack of clean drinking water. Although the federal government provided a small sum of money to purchase land for the Kashia Reservation in 1916, little was ever provided for other needed improvements. While millions of dollars were spent on infrastructure in places like Santa

Rosa, the Kashayas had to truck water to their homes until 1968. It was only after the

Kashayas’ living conditions became a political issue that the government provided aid for a water system. In 1968, Robert Kennedy stopped by the Kashia Reservation during his visit to Sonoma County. While the Senator was visiting, Kashayas informed him about their water situation. Kennedy, the master politician, then immediately informed his aid to see if he could do something about the problem. At the Senator’s request, in conjunction with assistance from California Indian Legal Assistance, an adequate tank, pipe, and pump system (drawing water from the Gualala River) was finally installed.70

Beyond securing basic needs like water, the Kashayas also fought to maintain

69 Otis Parrish, “The People from on Top of the Land: A Kashaya Pomo Elder’s Journey,” 37-38.

70 “Bobby Kennedy’s Visit to Kashaya was a Great Day,” Press Democrat, 12 June 1988.

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access to sites off the reservation where they could continue to gather traditional resources. During the New Deal Era, new forms of government sponsored colonization renewed the pace of environmental destruction. Indians across North American confronted “development” programs, like the construction of enormous dams that – while they provided water for agriculture, hydroelectricity production, and to meet urban demands – damaged natural habitats and flooded valuable cultural sites.

In 1962, Congress authorized the construction of Warm Springs Dam, located about thirty miles east of the Stewarts Point Reservation. The new dam would block the flow of Warm Springs Creek and Dry Creek to create Sonoma Lake. Prior to construction, the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Parks Service completed a preliminary study of the area and determined that while Indian archaeological sites were present, they were not of significance. When the Environmental Impact Statement was issued in 1973, local Indians and archaeologists disagreed with the findings.71 In response, on March 22, 1947, Dry Creek Pomos, other Pomo Indians (including

Kashayas), the Society for California Archaeology, and a long list of others took to the courts again and filed an injunction against further work on the project.72

Following the complaint, the Court determined that the Environmental Impact

Statement was inadequate, and the project was suspended for three years for further

71 David W. Peri, Scott M. Patterson, and Jennie L. Goodrich, Ethnobotanical Mitigation: Warm Springs Dam – Lake Sonoma California (Penngrove, CA: Elgar Hill, Environmental Analysis and Planning, 1982), 5.

72 In United States Court of Appeals For the Ninth Circuit, No. 74-1968, Warm Springs Dam Task Force ... [et Al.] (plaintiffs-appellants) Vs. Lieutenant General William C. Gribble, Jr. ... [et Al.] (defendants-appellees) and County of Sonoma and Sonoma County Water Agency (intervenors-defendants- appellees), Sonoma County Library.

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investigation into its earthquake safety and cultural resource impact. During this time,

Professor Lowell Bean, from California State University, Hayward, completed ethnohistorical research pertaining to the Pomo Indians who lived in the affected area.

Bean’s studies were followed by ethnographic studies by two Sonoma State professors, and together they determined that though Pomo Indians no longer lived in the area (they were forced out by white settlers in the late 1800s), Pomo Indians still used the land for gathering important cultural resources, especially various plants for basket making, and also had strong personal attachments to the land.73

The final outcome of the investigations was mixed. The court found that the project met earthquake safety standards and provided a positive outcome for the larger community but also acknowledged the importance of the land for Pomo Indians. The proposed compromise was the implementation of an ethnobotanical mitigation project.

An American Indian Advisory Council was formed that consisted of important Pomo basket makers, including Mabel McKay, Essie Parrish’s spiritual sister, and Joann

Dempsey, a Kashaya Pomo, among others. Between the years 1978 and 1981, Kashayas and other Pomo Indians, with the assistance of ethnobotanists, identified and successfully transplanted, thousands of sedge plants for future basket making use.74 From the Pomo

Indians’ perspective it was tragic that the dam’s construction resumed in 1979, but through their petition against the initial Environmental Impact Statement and initiative in the ethnobotanical mitigation project, they successfully asserted their land’s place in

California Indian history and preserved important environmental resources for future

73 Ethnobotanical Mitigation, 6.

74 Ibid., 97.

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Indian use.

Unfortunately, government sponsored colonization of Indian land and resources did not end with the completion of Warm Springs Dam. From the 1800s through the twenty-first century, the assault on the Kashayas’ sovereignty has been nearly relentless.

This time the Kashayas’ investment in establishing good relationships with their neighbors, in combination with the recently learned direct action techniques, prevented further loss of traditional resources. In 1999, Governor Schwarzenegger passed the

Marine Life Protection Act, which seemed beneficial on the surface, but in 2009, an addition to the act incorporated the Kashayas’ last remaining coastal gathering site within a protected, aquatic wilderness zone. The effect of the act was that Kashayas (along with the general public) were prohibited from gathering mussels, clams, seaweed, and abalone from Salt Point, where they had been gathering such foods for the previous 12,000 years.

The Kashayas’ were barred from their other coastal gathering sites a hundred years earlier, but through their ongoing relationship with the Richardsons, the family that owned the point, they had managed to maintained access to a small stretch of coast at Salt

Point. Now even that was being taken from them.75

The Kashayas and their long-time friends, the Richardsons, however, protested the California Fish and Game Commission’s actions and raised awareness in the community. Arch Richardson noted, “If they take away food, they’re taking away their culture, they’re taking away their religion.” He also criticized the Commission’s failure to acknowledge the Kashayas’ right to the land – “I think [the Kashayas] got overlooked

75 “State Officials Allow Kashia Pomo Tribe Access to Stewarts Point,” McClatchy – Tribune Business News, 9 February 2011, 1-2.

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from the very beginning.” Though at first unresponsive, the public outcry soon caused the Commission to reconsider, and on February 9th, 2011 the Kashayas regained access to their traditional coastal gathering site. This was the first time the California Fish and

Game Commission made an exception for American Indian activities under the Marine

Life Protection Act.76 The Expert Gamblers were beginning to master the strategies used by their opponents.

Most recently, the Kashayas started reasserting their rights to other traditional lands as well. In the last few decades, thousands of acres of forests within the

Southwestern Pomos’ territory were chopped down to make room for vineyards. Some vineyards were even planted directly on ancient Kashaya village and burial sites without proper archaeological studies or Kashaya ceremonies. The fight against wealthy vineyard owners is an ongoing battle, but The People from the Top of the Land are raising awareness and pursuing legal action to put a stop to the ongoing destruction of their sacred homeland.77 In the gamble for survival since World War II, Kashayas have mastered the art of selective cultural adaptation and learned to use academic study, direct action, the legal system, and strategic relationships to contest and reverse the destruction of the physical and intangible elements of their culture.

76 Ibid., 3.

77 Eric Wilder, “Kashaya People Yesterday,” lecture attended by author, 20 January 2012; “Sonoma's 'Timberland-To-Vineyard' Project Pits Winemakers against Conservationists,” Huffington Post, 12 June 2011.

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Conclusion

This year the Fort Ross State Historic Park hosted a two-hundred-year anniversary celebration of the Russian settlement at Metini. Once again the Kashayas asserted their presence on the land, their history at Metini, and the fact that Metini was first relinquished out of necessity but later taken under threat of force. And, while state park authorities, archaeologists, and others often try to paint a rosy picture about the importance of Fort Ross and the history preserved there, the reconstructed palisades stand as a witness to the ongoing colonization of Kashaya land and the marginalization of the

Kashayas and other American Indians. No matter how it is depicted, Fort Ross State

Park sits on thousands of acres that previously belonged to the Kashayas, while the

Kashayas, with a tribal population of over eight hundred, only possess forty acres that were half-heartedly purchased for them by the U.S. government in 1916.

Like Indians throughout California and across the nation, the Kashayas played an active role in shaping the course of history, but their power to shape history was limited by the factors described in this thesis. For this reason, the meaning of the name Kashaya,

“expert gamblers,” is an apt analogy and departure point for discussing the Kashayas’ approach to confronting European-American colonization and preserving their culture.

As in a traditional gambling match, the Kashayas could not beat their opponents or take the stakes by force; in order to win, they had to use traditional skills and carefully read their opponents’ subtle motions.

Early on, the United States’ military was not much of a force to be reckoned with, nor did white Americans have supremacy over the Indians that spanned the continent.

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Beginning with Andrew Jacksons’ Indian removal policy in the 1830s, however, and culminating in the policy of assimilation or annihilation, as epitomized by the massacre at

Wounded Knee (1891), U.S. cavalry and American settlers spread across the continent bringing disease, racism, and violence wherever they went. Between population- decimating diseases, wide scale environmental destruction, and the unashamed use of powerful weapons, Indians had little chance of survival.

They did have some chance, however, and that chance was leveraged for the best possible outcome. In the Kashayas’ case, the first hints of colonization followed the founding of Mission de San Francisco in 1769. It was not until 1812, however, that the

Russians established a settlement at Metini, one of the Kashayas most important village sites. The two colonial powers both depended on forced Indian labor for success, but the

Expert Gamblers contested Spanish and Russian expectations by making a carefully calculated gamble on a relationship with the Russians. The Russians not only brought valuable trade goods, but they could help defend the Kashayas against Spanish labor raids. The natives of Metini had few reasons to put up with Russian dictates, but they further reduced the risk of aggression by allowing their women to intermarry with

Russian and Aleut men and by using their vast territory to avoid unnecessary contact.

During the violence that accompanied the Gold Rush and early ranching period, the Expert Gamblers managed to preserve traditional communities through the use of intermediaries, their knowledge of the land, and the practice of matrilocal political organization. Kashaya women preferentially selected German ranchers on the Kashayas’ homeland for marriage, and these unions formed the basis for the recreation of traditional

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communities. When the pressures to adapt to the market economy increased and cross cultural encounters cast native religion into doubt, Kashayas maintained their community at Haupt Ranch and retained gaming activities as occasions for communal gathering.

When gambling proved to be an inadequate force for holding the community together in the face of centrifugal forces like the overconsumption of alcohol and an eroding land base, the revival of Indian religion under Annie Jarvis strengthened the

Kashayas’ community and culture. While the Bole Maru religion was not a traditional

Kashaya practice, most of its rituals were based on ancient ceremonies, such as the Kuksu ceremony and old Ghost Dance. Annie Jarvis’ charisma as a leader and passion for preserving traditional culture, helped revive and protect Kashaya culture during the first half of the twentieth century. With Jarvis’ strong leadership and commitment to limited assimilation, Kashayas were empowered to taking cultural risks like sending their children to public school and fully engaging the market economy assured of their identity as the People from the Top of the Land.

Following Jarvis’ death, the Kashayas faced their greatest test of perseverance – survival demanded strategic cultural adaptations. Following World War II the pressures of assimilation were at an all time high, and when Jarvis died the community had very little to hold it together. In order to recreate community, the Kashayas took risks with new religions, such as Mormonism and Pentecostalism. While many genuinely adhered to these faiths, which offered forms of community and spirituality to fill the recently created void, reconciling these new beliefs with Kashaya culture proved to be a very difficult and divisive process. At the same time, the Expert Gamblers faced new forms of

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assimilation, such as the government’s termination plans and continued colonization of their land. After barely avoiding termination (thanks primarily to Jarvis’ foresight), beginning in the 1970s Kashayas adapted new strategies for asserting their sovereignty.

By taking calculated risks, using their culture’s traditional survival tools, and making strategic adaptations when necessary, the Expert Gamblers were able to survive two hundred years of colonization. Moreover, by remembering their stories and prioritizing community, the Kashayas contested the dominant narrative that said complete assimilation was rapidly approaching. Like the small mussel in one of the Kashayas’ gambling stories, the Kashayas did not pay attention to the songs of a more powerful opponent, nor did they run in fear, or deny who they were. Instead, they relied on the power of their own songs and their expert gambling skills to defeat their opponents.

Today the Kashayas are still singing their songs and continue to face opponents in a game of chance and skill. Their struggle for sovereignty is not over, but the People from the

Top of the Land are here to stay.

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