March 2004 - Society for California Archaeology

12
Out of the Pits
Out of the Pits:
Guest Editorials on Problems and
Prospects in Professional Archaeology
—in California and Beyond
A Comment on Indian Pass,
Imperial County, California
Dr. Jackson Underwood
EDAW, Inc., San Diego
In the September, 2003 issue of the Newsletter, Courtney A.
Coyle, offered an update about the ongoing struggle
between environmentalists and the Quechan Indians on
the one hand, and the Bush Administration on the other, over
a proposed heap/leach gold mine west of Indian Pass, eastern
Imperial County, California. Coyle is an attorney for the
Quechan Indian Nation, and predictably, she used the
Newsletter article to forward her position. Unfortunately, she
included some factual errors. Coyle began (2003:14) by
stating that:
The Quechan Indian Nation has lived since time
immemorial at the juncture (sic) of what is now known
as the borders of California, Arizona and Baja
California (Coyle 2003:14).
This statement stands in stark contrast to the ethnohistoric
and ethnographic records and the oral tradition of the
Quechan.
The first Spanish entrada into the Lower Colorado area
began when Alarcón sailed, poled, and rowed his boats up the
river to perhaps as far as the Parker, Arizona area in 1540. In
the same year, Melchior Diaz marched from Sonora, Mexico
to the confluence of the Colorado and Gila. They noted a
number of very closely related Native American groups
living along the Lower Colorado River (Kroeber 1925:782;
McGuire 1982:68). However, the Quechan, often in the past
called the Yuma Indians (e.g. Kroeber 1925, Rogers 1936,
1945), were not noted at the confluence of the Colorado and
the Gila Rivers in 1540 by either Alarcón or Diaz (Forde
1931:98; Kroeber 1920:483). Likewise, the Quechan were not
mentioned by Juan de Oñate, who marched to the Colorado
River from New Mexico in 1605 (he would later become its
first Governor). At the confluence of the Gila and Colorado
Rivers, Oñate found a non-Yuman people whom he called the
Ozaras or Osera. Their identity is problematic. Kroeber
suggests, “The most convincing explanation is that they were
the Pima or Papago, or at least some Piman division, who
then lived farther down the Gila than subsequently”
(1920:483). At that time, the Matxalycadom or Halchidhoma
lived below the Gila (Kroeber 1920:483).
There are some plausible explanations of where the
Quechan were in 1540 and 1605 when the Spanish first
visited Colorado River.
Oñate’s failure to encounter the Yuman may be simply
explained by the assumption that they were at that time
living exclusively on the west bank where they have always
been most numerous. Oñate did not cross the Colorado and it
is expressly stated that the east bank people did not cross the
river “because those on the other side were enemies
although of the same nation” (Forde 1931:99, citing Zarate-
Sameron in Bolton 1916:277)
Another explanation relates to Lake Cahuilla. At the time
of the Alarcón and Melchior Diaz expeditions (1540), and
Oñate’s expeditions (1605) Lake Cahuilla may have been
full. For example, Waters (1980), suggests that the last
lakestand occurred from about 1430 to 1540; and recently
Schaefer (1994) suggests a final partial filling of the lake from
about 1516 to 1659. The Alarcón and Diaz expeditions would
have taken place at the end of Water’s proposed last filling
episode and in the middle of Schaefer’s; the Oñate
expedition would have taken place after the last lakestand of
Waters, but within that of Schaefer. Since the timing and
number of Lake Cahuilla lakestands is only poorly
documented at this time, it could be that the Quechan were at
Lake Cahuilla during the Spanish visits of 1540 and 1605.
A third explanation is offered by Forbes (1965:103-4),
who argues that the Quechan were just south of the Mojave at
the time of Oñate visit (1605). Oñate traveled from New
Mexico by way of Jerome, Arizona, arriving at the Colorado at
the Bill Williams Fork. He first visited the Mojave in that
area, then traveled south in their company past what is now
known as the Chemehuevi Valley, where at the time, the
Mojave also had settlements. South of the Mojave were
people Oñate called the Bahacecha or Vacecha. Forbes
argues that the Bahacechas were actually the Quechan
primarily because, in the Oñate account, the Bahacechas were
on very friendly relations with the Mojave, their language
was very close to the Mojave, and their head chief was known
as the Cohota, which corresponds to the Quechan term
Kwoxot or coxot (Forbes 1965:103). Forbes argues that
Oñate’s term for these people, the Bahacecha, may have
been a lineage term, Pa’vaxa’s, transformed into Bahacechas
by the Spanish (1965:104).
A fourth explanation is that the people the Spanish called
the Halchidhoma were actually a part of the greater Quechan