The Downey Patriot

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Early Americans were a peaceful people

DOWNEY--The Indians who first occupied this area were Shoshoneans, cousins on the Comanches of the Great Plain and the Hopi farmers of the Arizona mesas.

Their ancestors had trekked across from Asia to North America by way of the Bering Straits.

When the European-American westward movement encountered them, they were referred to as "Diggers" because they often dug in the ground for edible roots. The Americans apparently failed to consider that they themselves rooted in the ground for leeks and potatoes.

The local enclave of "Diggers" was surrounded by a tribe known as the Hokans. To the south, near San Diego, were a separate tribe known as the Yuma. To the north, near Ventura, was another Hokan tribe known as the Chumash.

How the Shoshoneans settled on this prized piece of real estate is a mystery. They didn't seem to win it by warfare. But once here they were happy to stay. Their villages had such classic characteristics that anthropologists classify them as separate tribes.

On the arrival of the Franciscan Fathers, missions were established about a day's walk from each other. Eventually the tribes took on the names of the missions they were near. Those near the Mission San Gabriel were the Gabrielinos, those near the Mission San Juan Capistrano the Juaneros, those near Mission San Luis Rey the Luisenos, those near Mission San Fernando the Fernandenos.

The most interesting locally were the Gabrielinos. They seem to have noticed very early that the white man's coming was a cultural threat. They promptly drifted away before much of their lore could be recorded.

But the outer tribes held together long enough to provide more insight. In Juanero legend, the San Juan Capistrano tribe tells of its origin in the great village of Sehat in Gabrielino country. This was the area known as Los Nietos (Downey).

A Scots trapper named Hugo Reid married a Gabrielino woman and listed her village as "Carpenter's Farm" in 1837. He referred to Lemuel Carpenter who journeyed west from Kentucky and took a Spanish wife. Carpenter later acquired most of the huge Los Nietos Spanish Land Grant. The village that bore his name was swept away in the great flood of 1867.

The remains of Indian villages have been found where the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe rail road tracks cross, as well as Jaboneria on the west bank of the Rio Hondo River south of Telegraph Road. Other village remains are found near the old Pico Crossing of the San Gabriel River.

Gabrielino villages dotted much of greater Los Angeles Basin. When Cabrillo arrived in San Pedro Bay in 1542 he called the land the "Bay of Smokes" because he saw so many village fires inland.

It was a good life for those early Indians. Father Geronimo Boscana who lived at Mission San Gabriel and Mission San Juan Capistrano from 1812 to 1831 compared their life to the legend of Creation and a Book of Genesis and Mosaic Law.

Close relatives in the tribes were not allowed to marry. The Chief's duty was benign. Gifts were brought to him which he in turn distributed to the poor and unfortunate. The respect he drew from the tribe was based on his condition of poverty. Since he gave away all he had he was allowed more than one wife to gather acorns for him. Other than this, it was a monogamous society.