The Heart of California by Aaron Gilbreath;

Author:Aaron Gilbreath; [Gilbreath, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS036140 History / United States / State & Local / West (ak, Ca, Co, Hi, Id, Mt, Nv, Ut, Wy), HIS036060 History / United States / 20th Century, NAT049000 Nature / Regional
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

If he tried to talk about his life in the mountains, the games he and his adopted family played, and the members he missed, people ridiculed him. In those days, many white settlers considered Native Americans savages, part of a primitive culture. Instead of respect or curiosity, settlers treated them with pity and suspicion, because people believed they’d steal your horses and equipment and even slit your throat. People who found out that Jeff lived with “the savages” treated him like an uncivilized “half-blood” and looked down on him. “From then on,” Jeff said, “I resolved never to speak of my life with the Indians. People in general had so many wrong notions about Indians and were so ignorant about their life that I was continually drawn into arguments about them. Everyone was so sure they knew all about Indians that I made up my mind I would never tell them any different.”

“But as he found that someone else was as much interested as he was,” Latta said, “and was willing to preserve what information he had without any changing or ridicule, he became as enthusiastic as a boy.”

Over their first six weeks, the men established a productive rhythm, talking and transcribing, questioning and answering. They worked at the table. They worked on the porch. When Jeff’s back ached from coughing, Latta transcribed by his bedside, where the cabin’s dry boards creaked and an oil lamp burned above Jeff’s bedpan and one of his two pairs of shoes. Latta often abandoned his list of subjects to let the old man’s stories go wherever they took him, covering the details of Yokuts hunting, fishing, house and raft construction, manners, ceremonies, language, fights with encroaching Mono tribes, the way Jeff’s father left for a year at a time, how a Mono man tried to choke Jeff in his cabin, how Jeff shot another intruder in the back with an arrow, and always stories of how his Yokuts family fed, loved, and taught him how to thrive in nature with no gun and no watch, only his wits, friendships, and the sun.

“His expression was good,” Latta said, “his understanding of what was wanted complete. He had an absolutely accurate memory and the mind of a scientist. When a question was asked about Indian life he was ready with a comprehensive answer. Those things he had studied for more than seventy-five years. No one with whom he came in contact had any understanding, or appreciation, of what he knew, and he had never discussed his life with the Indians. It was interesting to observe the change that came over the man as the work progresses.”

Talking was cathartic. Jeff finally felt appreciated. Sitting around the table, stuffing an oilcloth under the short leg to keep it from wobbling, both men came to life. Once Jeff started, Latta’s hand cramped from writing fast enough to keep up. “Wow,” Latta would say, “go on.” And they did. From May into August, Jeff talked and Latta listened. To

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