Francis Drake and the California Indians, 1579 — John Shaqi
Francis Drake and the California Indians, 1579Heizer, Robert F. (Robert Fleming)
History
Francis Drake and the California Indians, 1579
Heizer, Robert F. (Robert Fleming)
Drake, Francis, approximately 1540-1596 -- Travel -- California; Indians of North America -- California
By inference, the native house described by Fletcher has been identified
as a Yurok house. I do not think this claim will hold, since the house
in Fletcher's account is described as semisubterranean, circular,
conical-roofed, covered with earth, and with a roof entrance, whereas
the Yurok dwelling (_not_ the sweathouse), built wholly of planks, is
rectangular, is a surface structure except for an interior rectangular
pit, has a round door entering just above the ground and through the
side wall, and bears a double-ridged roof with two slopes.[29] Thus, the
house described by Fletcher cannot be a Yurok house of Trinidad Bay. On
the other hand, as will be shown in detail later, the house described by
Fletcher is the central California earth-covered dwelling, typical of
the Coast Miwok of Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay.
Wagner, in his attempt to show that Drake landed at Trinidad Bay, makes
a further point. He says: "An additional indication that Drake was in
this bay [Trinidad] may be gleaned from the finding there of knives in
1775 by Bruno Heceta.... It seems probable, then, that the knives found
at Trinidad by Heceta were relics of Drake's expedition."[30] It is
scarcely credible that numbers of iron knives, sword blades, and such
implements could have been preserved through two centuries of use. Since
the wooden-sheathed knives were expressly stated to be ill-made, and in
view of Fray Miguel de la Campa's statement in 1775 that "one of them
[i.e., one of the Indians] made his [knife] from a nail which he had
found in a piece of wreckage and had beaten out with a stone,"[31] it is
more than likely that the Trinidad Indians' knives were pounded out of
pieces of iron found imbedded in local sea-borne wreckage.[32] Logic and
probability lead inevitably to the conclusion that there is nothing in
the fact that knives were found at Trinidad Bay in 1775 from which to
suspect or to postulate Drake's presence in that place two centuries
earlier.
Now for a brief comparison of some specific Indian culture elements and
examples of the language, as reported in _The World Encompassed_ and in
Richard Madox's narrative, with those of Yurok Indian culture. Madox was
chaplain on Edward Fenton's expedition of 1582, and in his diary are
some notes on California which he jotted down after conversation with
some members of the crew which had sailed with Drake two years earlier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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