October 22, 2004

In the beginning...

By Colleen Cortese
Special to the Times

During the early colonial period of Spanish rule, Governor Don Felipe de Neve found it necessary to establish a settlement to provide for the agricultural needs of the California Presidio in San Francisco and the community in Monterey.

On Nov. 29, 1777, Lieutenant Don Jose de Moraga sent nine soldiers with agricultural experience, along with two settlers and three laborers, to form California’s first civil community. Called “the Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe,” this farming community would soon number 66 individuals.

At this time, California as Spain’s possession in America consisted of a mere handful of soldiers who were placed here to hold the country against possible invasion by the Russians from the north.

The soldiers—along with a few friars whose only object was to save the souls of the “native inhabitants”—found this primitive and wilderness land lonely and isolated. With the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Sierra mountains to the east and the great arid desert to the south, there was virtually no easy way in or out except by sea. As exiles, the families awaited the day when they would return to the comfort of Mexico or old Spain.

Native California tribes
As the Spaniards began planting crops and building their adobe houses, the native Californian tribes watched with curiosity and wonder.

Come with me now down this path along the creek. We will sit under this oak tree, an ancient tree that holds many secrets of Evergreen’s past.

A long time ago right here next to this creek, a small Indian boy stopped to pick up acorns scattered under this old tree. Soon it would be evening and time for his meal of berries and rabbit. His family gathered around the fire. They were weary from a long day of hunting, gathering roots, acorns and berries.

Across the small valley a herd of antelope silently passed, while high on the mountain came the evening howl of the coyote as he called his family together. This was Evergreen, a valley secreted away, covered with the umbrella of live oak forests, valley oak, crossed by creeks, marshes and cold, fresh water from the many springs.

A valley covered with sumac and perennial grasses, while willows, reeds and heavier grasses bordered creeks and marshes. Wild flowers in the spring colored the hills and continue to do so today. This small valley, covered with forest, later became know as “Evergreen.”

Before the Spaniards arrived, more than 10,000 people between Point Sur and the San Francisco Bay populated this area. Much research has proven that there were different groups living within territories, speaking eight to twelve different languages. Each tribe was small with its own chief.

It was believed that each tribelet had one or more permanent village site. The tribe would move with each season as they fished, hunted and collected their plant foods. The local triblet known to be located in the closest vicinity to Evergreen was named “Tamyen.”

The population of the Tamyen triblet was estimated to have been 1,200 Ohlones that spoke about seven different languages at the time the Spanish began to settle in the Santa Clara Valley.

When the Spaniards first viewed the bay, from high on the San Bruno hills, they wrote how they saw smoke rise from hundreds of villages. It was here the Indians built their houses, cooked, ate, slept and buried their dead. As hunters and gatherers, they lived in peace with the land and their neighbors for almost 4,000 years.

With the many tribes and a language barrier, the Spaniards sometimes referred to them as Costenos, people of the coast. Over time the word changed to Costanoan. The descendants of the Bay Area Indians prefer to be called Ohlone, which is the name now used to identify all those who lived in the area.

These people of the coast did not ride horses, build wigwams, hunt buffalo or wear tall, feathered headdresses. They were not Sioux, Navajo or Hopi tribes.

Many diaries and journals describe the first encounter with the California people. Spanish explorers, missionaries, ship captains, traders and travelers left us their observations. Later the archaeologists came in time to meet many of the older descendants of the Ohlone, and from these documents, we thankfully get a better picture of the people of our valley.

Triblet villages
Triblet villages would have been located along the larger creek beds in Evergreen. They could comfortably live in the small pole and tule-thatched structures with dome roofs and centrally located fire pits built using the willows growing along the creeks.

The village might also include sweathouses, dance enclosures and assembly houses. The fire pits were known as “Kitchen Middens.” Most recent bulldozing of land around the Evergreen/Silver Creek development areas has uncovered more than 65 midden sites, as well as two known complete burial sites.

It has been written that the women dressed in skirts of tule reeds and deerskin. The women and men were muscular, with rounded, healthy features. Tattoos, mostly lines and dots, decorated their chins, and they wore necklaces made of abalone shells, clamshell beads and feathers.

When the weather turned cold, they draped fur wraps over their shoulders. The shells from the bay could have been a trade item for valuable stone-cutting tools. Routes and complex exchange systems grew where commodities, tools, food, clothing and basketry changed hands between and among the triblets, especially with the use of the tule boats along the mighty and wide Coyote River to the bay.

The Ohlone lived peacefully in Evergreen
If you take the time to see the depth cut by centuries of water along Thompson Creek, Yerba Buena Creek, Fowler, the southern Evergreen Creek, Silver Creek and many other tributaries, you may get some idea of how much water moved through Evergreen.

All along the hills surrounding the valley there are old and ancient springs that are even today filling pipes and reservoirs with clear, clean water. One old spring still brings water down Silver Creek even during the driest years. All the creeks eventually ended at what we now know as Lake Cunningham Park.

A marsh, the center of life, spread its fingers across what is now White Road and west to Eastridge. This marsh may have been where the people gathered to fish, trap the many migratory ducks and geese and “harvest” the tule to use for building material, rope, baskets and more.

Herds of antelope, elk and deer grazed the hillsides along the creeks where the wild blackberry grew, under the limbs of the dark oak forest. At the edge of the creeks, poplar, willow, alder, elm and sycamore grew.

A California bay tree would signal a sign of water. It was here and near the small village the grizzly bear watched, while the mountain lion lay sleeping in the sun. The last grizzly was seen in Evergreen around 1859. He was standing in the marsh west of Orval Benjamine Cottle’s home near what is now Old Silver Creek Road and Yerba Buena Road.

Rabbits were so thick on the ground that one could reach out to catch them. Foxes hid in the chaparral; rodents, opossum and chipmunks shared the small valley with lizards and snakes. The wolves prowled, while up above, the bald eagle and giant condors soared over all.

Topographically, the elevations on and around the Evergreen valley range from a high of 2,500 feet to a low of approximately 600 feet at the intersection of San Felipe and Old Silver Creek Roads. Most of the hunting, gathering, trapping and fishing would take place within the valley and foothills. Along the Coyote River, hunters caught salmon and sturgeon by net or fish spear. We know there was an old hunting trail used to cross over what is now Quimby Road and into the next valley.

This peaceful valley, with its temperate climate, was a perfect land for hunting and trapping game and fishing from the lakes and streams. Ducks and geese filled the sky like dark clouds.

Yet every once in a while, a shaking and quaking from one of the earthquake fault locations disrupted the beauty and solitude of the valley. Ancient earthquakes along the Quimby Fault Zone in the north, the Silver Creek Fault in the south or the Calaveras Fault along the Diablo Range on the east of the valley were just as frightening to the Ohlone People as they are to us today.

Acorns—A staple of early life
In late September, the chief sent word that the acorn gathering would begin. Woven reed and thatched structures, large basket graineries, were built in tree limbs or on tall legs to store the harvest. The acorn was essential to life.

Each successful harvest assured the tribe of survival throughout the winter.

Over the centuries, the first people living in California unlocked the secret of turning the bitter, tannic acid product of the oak into a “rich, nutritional food” which, as a soup, porridge or kind of bread, provided the mainstay of their diet.

The women cracked and shelled the acorns, removing the skin. Sitting with the mortar between their legs, they rocked back and forth, letting the pestle rise and fall to pound the acorns. The women sang many songs with the rhythm of the pounding until all the acorns were crushed to a fine, fluffy powder. This flour was then sifted on baskets and returned to the mortar and a sandpit was prepared for leaching.

The women mixed water with the flour and poured the mixture into the leaching basin. Branches covered the flour while water was carefully poured. This continued until the flour was “sweet” not bitter, and then the flour was rolled into balls. It is impossible to imagine the hours of the work, shared by the triblet, just to prepare the daily meal.

Perhaps the mortar and pestle were too heavy for the women to carry to the next village as they moved with the seasons. It is possible these valuable kitchen tools were stored next to a village tree. I always wondered about this, because many times I have seen the dozens of mortars sitting side by side next to old barns in Evergreen. One time I looked down, thinking I was walking on creek stones, and found to my dismay that the entire walkway was made with pestles.

The Ohlone spirit world of the eagle, coyote and hummingbird is a part of this valley and will be forever more:

“In the old times, this story was very long and very beautiful, and it took a long time to tell. Today, we only know this much. And we know that we were made from the earth. We were made from the earth and when we die we go back to the earth.”

Rumsien Ohlone Stories told by Linda Yamane
Yes, the Ohlone People were here in Evergreen and they are present today. I would like to acknowledge the East and South Bay descendants of Mission San Jose Indians, ancestral Muwekma, indigenous peoples of the Bay Area.

In addition to the Muwekma, meaning “The People” in the Tamien and Chochenyo languages, are two other Ohlone groups: the Amah-Mutsun of the Gilroy-San Juan Bautista area and the Carmel Band of Rumsen-speaking descendants in the Monterey region.

Thank you Alan Leventhal, Dolores Sanchez, Rosemary Cambra, the elected chairperson of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe. I also would like to say thank you to Evergreen’s own Muwekma Council Member and Elder, Hank Alvarez and his wife Stella and family.

For further information I encourage you, your family and friends to pack your lunch, wear your hiking shoes and head to the Coyote Hills Regional Park for a day you will long remember.

Contact the Ohlone Culture Programs Coyote Hills Regional Park at 8000 Patterson Ranch Road in Fremont by phone (510) 795-9385 or email at: Chvisit@ebparks.org. For more information, go to the Web at www.ebparks.org.

This on-going history series about the land we live on appears once a month in the Evergreen Times. Copyright 2004 by Colleen Cortese, Evergreen historian.