Sacred Texts  Native American  California  Index  Previous  Next 


A Mission Record of the California Indians, by A.L. Kroeber, [1908], at sacred-texts.com


Santa Ynez38

When the rancherias were still inhabited by unconverted Indians, there could be seen in various places bunches of feathers or plumes attached to sticks, which might be called their idol-temples (adoratorios). There they cast seeds and beads in order to obtain good harvests of acorns and other seeds which the fields produce of themselves, and which were their daily nourishment.

They neither knew or used any other musical instrument than a tube of wood resembling a flute, open at both ends and producing a buzzing quite disagreeable to hear; also a whistle (pito) of a limb-bone of some bird.


Footnotes

16:38 The missionaries at Santa Ynez about 1811 or 1812 were Jose Antonio Calzada and Francisco Javier de Uria.


Next: San Luis Obispo