File:Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean (1855) (14757763541).jpg

Identifier: reportsofexplora03unit_0 (find matches)
Title: Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean
Year: 1855 (1850s)
Authors: United States. War Dept Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878 Baird, Spencer Fullerton, 1823-1887 United States. Army. Corps of Engineers
Subjects: Pacific railroads Discoveries in geography Natural history Indians of North America
Publisher: Washington : A.O.P. Nicholson, printer (etc.)
Contributing Library: San Francisco Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: California State Library Califa/LSTA Grant

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
artof their toilet, all cutting squarely to the eyebrows iu front, and the men taking great pride inthe length and smoothness of the plaits that fall down upon the back. Vermin are destroyedby matting the hair with clay, which is worn for two or three days. The head is then sub-5 i 34 CALIFORNIA INDIANS. jectcd to a thorough washing in the river, and again appears in the superb covering whichnature has afforded. This people never become bald, and grey hair is seen only upon personsfeeble in old age. The men are remarkably tall and gracefully proportioned. The women, onthe contrary, arc short and thick ; their features, however, are regular, with an oval contourof face, and large, merry-looking black eyes. Plate 26 is a sketch of Cahuillas of California, as seen at Coco Mongo rancho. They aresqualid, miserable, and degraded. From children of the forest, as they had been before theSpanish conquest, they were by Jesuits led to an observance of the rites of the Christian church, Plate 20.
Text Appearing After Image:
Cahuillas: Peons, or domestic Indians of California. and became obedient to their teachers. Although instructed in labor, their duties were light,and they were sufficiently clothed and fed. Those, probably, were the palmiest days of thispeople. When the priests were divested of authority, their converts became peons or slaves ofthe rancheros. At length the system of peonage is nominally abolished in California, but theCahuillas are sunk in ignorance and sloth, and no provision has yet been made to lift them fromtheir destitute condition. CHAPTER III. Indian Traditions, Superstitions, and Pictographs. At the Delaware settlement, called Beaversville, we were visited by Jesse Chisholm, a Cher-okee. He is well known throughout the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw countries, and, as atrader, has been much among the wild tribes of the prairies. He speaks English and Spanish,and is so well versed in Indian languages, that at a late council of Comanches, Kaiowas, Huecos,Kichais, Cadoes, and Witch

Note About Images