University of California, Los Angeles. Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Archaeology Collections Facility

History

The Paipai Indians of Baja California are linguistically related to a number of Yuman language speaking bands known collectively as Kumeyaay or Tipai-Ipai (meaning "people"). The Spanish referred to them as Diegueno, after the Mission San Diego (literally meaning "little people of Diego.")

In the sixteenth century at the time of first European contact, the Tipai-Ipai occupied nearly the entire southern portion of present state of California and portions of northern Baja California Mexico. These autonomous, semi-nomadic bands were comprised of over 30 patrilineal, named clans, some hostile to one another, but with no single tribal name. Each band had a clan chief and at least one assistant chief. Positions, where inherited, went to eldest sons, or if none, to brothers or, rarely to widows. The chief directed clan and inter-clan ceremonies, admonished people on behavior, advised about marriage, family differences, and appointed a leader for an agave expedition or a fight.

The Paipai band, the southern most band in the tribal territories, continue in present day living in Baja California, Mexico in an area south-east of Ensenada.

Landscape shaped the travel of the traditional bands with seasonal changes from valley and canyon floors to mountain slope. The region is arid or sub-arid with winter rains, mountain snow, and summer drought. A band's seasonal travel followed the ripening of major wild plants that provided varied food and raw materials.

Campsites were chosen for access to water, drainage, boulder outcrops or other natural protection from weather and ambush, and abundant flora and fauna. Summer villages needed a windbreak, trees, or a cave fronted with rocks. Winter villages were well sheltered at lower elevation, with a cluster of dwellings separated for privacy, belonging to a man and his married sons. The dwellings had slightly sunken floors with a dome or gable set on the ground. The pole framework had brush thatch covered with grass and earth.

Two or three families would arrive at a campsite, joined later by others, to gather, process, and cache seasonal vegetal foods. Their diet consisted traditionally of wild plants which included cactus fruits, agave, mesquite pods, seeds (sage, acorns, pinon pine nuts), grasses (pigweed, peppergrass, flax, and buckwheat), berries (manzanita elderberry, juniper) and wild plums; supplemented with game such as hare, rodents, birds, and occasionally deer.

Through historic times, the Paipai retained their ancestral boundaries during successive Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American control. The community first formed as a permanent settlement in 1797 when the Dominican order established the mission overlooking a wide valley near a permanent stream.

The Dominicans attempted to settle the Paipai into a permanent settlement based on an economy of agriculture and livestock. Of all mission tribes in the Californias, Tipais and Ipais most violently resisted Franciscan and Dominican control. When the mission regimen disrupted their semi-nomadic routine and familiar microhabitats, uprisings were staged. The Santa Catarina mission was destroyed in 1840 by an alliance of Indian groups.

Agriculture and livestock however remained an important part of Paipai subsistence along with wage labor and utilization of natural resources. The nucleus of today's Paipai community today is centered around the former Dominican mission site, with outlying ranches located around permanent streams or springs throughout the 67,828 hectares of high plain, mountain and desert terrain. A growing number of artisans in the community generate a significant amount of income through the making of traditional paddle and anvil coil pottery.

Materials in the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History's Paipai collection were field collected 1955 - 1959, by UCLA Department of Anthropology and Sociology research teams directed by Thomas Hinton and Dr. Joseph B. Birdsell. Dr. Birdsell's multi-disciplinary project involved: ethnology (Roger Cory Owen); archaeology and ethno-history (Frederick Hicks); linguistics (Judith Joel); and physical anthropology and serology (Ernest Goldschmidt).

Roger Cory Owen's UCLA dissertation (The Indian of Santa Catarina, Baja California Norte, Mexico: Concepts of Disease and Curing; January, 1962) documents, "The field camp consisted on two wattle and daub huts and two large tents. Our camp was visited by all of the Indians at one time or another, and many came daily for at least brief periods. Mealtimes frequently included one or more Indian guests. We served as hosts for dances and barbecues, and our camp became one of the point of interest in the village which an otherwise unoccupied Indian might visit to pass time. ... I was welcomed at tribal council meetings and was asked to speak at a few. I was also invited to curing ceremonies, to go on hunting trips, and was generally made to feel welcome at any gathering or people. I had friendly relations with all of the men over thirty most of the time, but little rapport with adolescents and the younger men. One of my principal informants was a woman over sixty, and though I had frequent contact with females of all ages, their reticence with anyone not of their immediate family generally precluded very much with them.

The basic techniques employed during the year were participation, observation, and informal and formal interviews. Additional data were collected by a thorough house-to-house census, through genealogical research, and by means of other standard techniques."

The collection at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History consists of ethnographic, as well as archaeological pieces. The ethnographic collections include carved wooden objects (cradle boards with mule deer skin; pottery tools; warfare and hunting clubs; a prickly pear harvesting stick; a throwing stick for hunting rabbits); hand built ceramics (water jars or ollas; a seed jar; bowls; a water dipper; a cream pitcher; a cup; an anvil); a hand woven yucca fiber (a carrying net; baskets; a bag; a lariat with twined cow hide); and multi-media (sewn stuffed, assembled dolls). Artifacts from pre-historic and Hispanic times include spindle whorls, bone awls, scrapers for harvesting agave fiber, and ceramic pottery shards (fragments). Other objects in the collection show the influence of outside cultural contact. The lariat shows the influence of the Mexican cattle ranching. The Paipai dolls and cradle boards show the Spanish influence during the Mission period.

From the guide to the Baja California (Paipai) Indian Archaeological and Ethnographic Collections, 1955-1959, (University of California, Los Angeles. Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Archaeology Collections Facility)

History

The UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History's collection includes baskets made by California American Indians in the 19th and early 20th century. The baskets represent works from the Panamint Shoshone (Timbisha Shoshone Tribe), a western division of the Shoshonean peoples, located east of the Sierra Divide in Central California; the Pomo Indians located on the Northern coast of California; the Shasta Indians located on the Oregon border of California; and the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk tribes in Northwestern California.

Native Californians made baskets traditionally for a variety of functional and ceremonial purposes. Most baskets in the Fowler Museum collections were made in the early to mid 20th century when basket-making became a significant source of income, for sale to tourists and collectors. Trading posts and hotel gift shops might have hundreds of baskets for sale at a time, without ever asking for the name of the maker. The unfortunate result is that it is now difficult or impossible to determine exact tribal affiliation of the maker, let alone the actual weaver's identity.

The majority of the Fowler Museum's Native California basket collections were made by Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk peoples living in small villages in an area of Northwestern California bisected by the Trinity and Klamath Rivers. These baskets are intricately woven using twining and open twining techniques and "false embroidery." Basket types include: acorn bowls, women's ceremonial caps, men's work caps, storage and large burden baskets, and gift / trinket baskets. Bowls used for serving and eating acorn soup are watertight. The acorn bowl and ceremonial caps, though similar in design and size can be separated by one defining factor: the acorn bowl has a raised stitch around the middle made with bear grass. Trinket baskets were made for trade only to non-Indian peoples and served no functional purpose. Either California hazel, willow sticks, or pine root were used in the construction of the baskets. Willow or spruce roots served to weave the sticks together. Woodwardia, maidenhair fern (also known as black fern) dyed with alder root, elk horn, and bear grass provide color and design. Traditional designs represented include motifs such as: flint, obsidian blade, friendship, snake nose, snail's trail, God's Eye or Morning Star, and stacked wood. Due to the popular demand and exposure to new products over time weavers created new and innovative designs, such as borrowing designs from the linoleum flooring in their homes.

Shasta Indians lived near Mount Shasta in Northern California. Their basketry is made of tule, dyed tule, bear grass, and cane with nettle or flax cord starts. Dyed porcupine quills, yarn, and glass beads may adorn the baskets. Twined baskets are their specialty. Traditional basket types include cooking baskets, storing baskets, ceremonial gift baskets, gambling trays, cone shaped burden baskets, and hats.

The Pomo Indians were traditionally comprised of over seventy-two independent tribes living in Northern California along the Mendocino and Sonoma County coastal region. Their especially elaborate twined and coiled type baskets were made from sedge (white), redbud (red), willow sticks, and bulrush (black) were often adorned with feathers and clamshells. Among the Pomo, men as well as women wove baskets. The historic Shoshone Indians occupied territory in California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. The ancestors of the Panamint Shoshone, also known as the Timbisha Shoshone, came into their homeland in present day Death Valley, California over a thousand years ago. Men made bows and arrows and hunted bighorn sheep, rabbits, and lizards. Women harvested fruits, seed, and plants such as pinyon pine nuts and mesquite beans, and made baskets.

From the guide to the California Indian Baskets, ca. 1800s-1900s, (University of California, Los Angeles. Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Archaeology Collections Facility)