A South Fork Indian

charlie two crows said...
I wonder what it was like to be a native american on the south fork in the 1800's. Charlie two crows.

Charlie Two Crows. First, I want to thank-you for all of the fine contributions that you have made to this blog. Then I will try to answer your question.

I want to say that I am no expert. The things that I know about the Indian people are only things that I can scratch up from my childhood memories. Tales that I’ve heard, that were related by the Indian people to the early whites, and history that has been gleaned by surmising. Some that I have learned through this blog.

The 1800’s were a period of great change for the South Fork of the Eel Indian. The Indians started off as people that had maybe only heard rumors about the white man, to being almost completely exterminated by the white man. The 1800’s completely changed the life of the local Native American.

The early 1800’s had tribes that were not yet exposed to the new world diseases. Their culture was intact and functioning. They hunted, fished, dug roots, picked plants, and gathered nuts and berries. They truly “lived off the land”. They moved about within their tribal spaces, hunting and gathering. In the summer the coastal tribes lived along the seashore. In the winter they lived inland in the coastal valleys, like the South Fork of the Eel River.

As all American Indians were, they were highly spiritual people. They believed that animals were directly connected to the people and the land. Many of their stories related how people and animals could change shapes and become the other person or animal. Many of the stories that I heard as a kid were about “Whiptali”, who was a deer-human. Whiptali was very smart, and very evil. He liked to kill men with his horns if he could. The stories goes that Whiptali didn’t like noise or water. And, the big one… he could be invisible! When Whiptali was after you, the only thing that you could do to ward him off is make a lot of noise or scare him off with water.

My Uncle tells a hunting story about when he was a kid. He and a local Indian kid were hunting deer out near Covelo, My uncle said that he heard all kinds of yelling and screaming. As he watched the Indian kid came running down the hill, making as much noise as he could, yelling and beating the brush with a stick. He ran down the hill and out into the creek. My uncle caught up with him and asked him what was wrong. He proclaimed, “Whiptali is after me!”. My uncle jumped in the creek after him and asked: “Where!!!”

I often thought about my uncle's close association with the Indian kids. When he was growing up he believed a lot of the old Indian Spirit stories, much as other children being raised in any other religion or culture, he adopted the culture of the people he was closely associated with. I viewed the Indian Spirits and the Biblical myths as much the same, something to ponder, and wonder where these stories came from. But, I never really believed in them.

Another Indian Spirit story that my uncle talked about was ChinHaHa. He was a bear/man spirit, and just like all of the other spirits he could be invisible. All of the Newcomers tell me that I have my tales mixed up, and this is entirely possible, but I remember ChinHaHa as being a bear. The newcomers tell me that the spirit ChinHaHa should be “the trickster”, the Coyote. The Bear Spirit was “The Grandfather Spirit”. But, I’m used to being told that I’m wrong, so I will tell it they way I remember it, and you can twist it however you will. ChinHaHa was the one that takes things right out from under your nose while you are using them. Sometimes they disappear forever and sometimes he puts them back. That bear follows me everywhere. He hides my keys, the wrenches that I’m using, and sometimes even takes my glasses. Sometimes he returns them as a bigger joke. He is a very funny bear!

So, the Indian people were very spiritual, before the white man came along to tell them that they were wrong. They put the Indian people in school, taught them the white mans language and religion. The whites even beat the Indian kids that tried to stick to their religion or practice their culture. I think that the way they treated the Indian religion, and language, has a lot to do with why I resent the practice of Christianity. Christianity leaves no room for spirit or wonder, they claim that all of the answers are it their Bible. I don’t see how anyone with a truly open mind could believe totally in the Bible. I really think that any religion would have to include respect and wonder for the world around us, much as the local South Fork Indians did.

As the white man’s diseases came, the Indians died off. Many died of diphtheria and smallpox. The Indians would die from as simple a disease as the flu. So many of the Indians died of white man diseases before they even saw a white man. The Indian tribes were almost decimated from disease. The remaining were killed off when the white man showed up. The first of the whites came for the gold. The rest came for the land and the timber. The Indians tried to fight back, but they never had a chance. Some of the white people protected them. Proof of that is that some Indians remain. That would never be true if someone hadn’t protected them.

The Indians of the South Fork were well known for fighting amongst themselves. There is a “Great Battleground” up on the ridge just north of Bell Springs. There were many legends about Indian battles up there. There were many artifacts that had to do with fighting recovered there, so the legends must be true. As with many stories that I heard as a child, a lot of things went unanswered. I don’t know what they fought about. The best explanation that I got was that “they were bitter enemies, and enemies fight”. What they fought about I can’t began to say, but they fought to the death over what appeared to be a “sport”.

Another battleground was on the Valley in Laytonville. My uncle used to tell a story about a great Indian battle that the Indian people fought. Many people were killed. When one side ran out of arrows they would stand out in the open and dodge the enemy’s arrows until they had enough to shoot back. It sound like great sport and bravery to me. Maybe the fighting was to prove their prowess as a fighter or to prove their bravery. I don’t know. I asked my uncle who won. I got the impression that it really didn’t make any difference who won, it was more about the fact that they fought and proved themselves in battle. He said that if rained they would just go home. “You can’t fight in the rain”.

I’ve heard many stories of the things that the Indian tribes would do to provoke a battle with another tribe of Indians. They would taunt them by killing one of the elders of the tribe that they were trying to pick a fight with, and play with the severed head in front of them. Strangely, as civilized as we think that we are today, we can still see the same sort of things go on. The gangs, drug culture and turf battles today are much the same.

But, of course the white man did show up and ruin everything for the Indian, and much is known about history from that time forward. The thing that still bothers me, is how little we really understand about the motivation of people back then. Jack Farley of Laytonville killed many Indians. It is claimed that he said, “A white man’s life is worth twenty Indians.” He had a string of scalps to prove it. Yet, he was revered and protected by the local Indian tribe. He said, when asked what he credited his long life to, that it was the care from the Indian people, and their medicine that gave him his long life. He killed them, and they treated him like a God! Go figure.

So, such was the life of The South Fork Indian in the 1800's. Do you think that you would have liked to have been to be one???