The San Francisco call., 1897-02-14

p HERE has just been placed OF ex-
ssyS, hibition in the Aborigines room of
GkgS the museum at Golden Gate Park
collection of objects which were formerly
the property of certain individual mem.
bers OF the Cahroc tribe of California
Indians. The aggregation is the result of
nearly forty years of patient continuous
accumulation through purchase and gifts.
direct from the Indians, 6v John Daggett.
superintendent of the Mint who has
lately donated the collection entire to the
museum.
Mr. Daggett has long been a mine
owner within the territory of the original
habitat of these Indians, and from the
beginning of mis- mountaineering with
them he has been their friend. He has
employed them, advised them, assisted
them. He Is q great chief in their es-
teem. Sympathizing with his penchant
for the acquisition of objects of their use,
they exploited all sources in search of
them and brought them to him, some
times iof pay, when parting with the par
tcuiar thing would otherwise entail too
great draft upon their resources, but
often they were bestowed eagerly as a
tribute OF their regard.
The collection is believed to be the most
extensive in existence appertaining to
single tribe of Indians. Ii has the further
feature of not being body of hit and miss
curiosities, each without relation to the
other, but it is a mute, descriptive record,
"a consecutive chain of silent evidence re-
vealing all that obtains in the life of the
Z Cahroc Indian. Every utensil or tool or
article which enters into his domestic or
his tribal existence, the seeds of his food,
the weapons OF his chase, the fantastic
trinkets and habiliments of his festal
celebrations or his funeral solemnities, all
are mum bered among the five hundred or
more objects which comprise the exhibit.
Nor has this protracted and exhaustive
endeavOr to collate the i'm plements and
accouterments of this nation of savage
Californians been of worth greater than
the merit of the people would deserve.
3. The Cahrocs of all the California Indians
we're and are the most entitled 10 civilized
regard. To the miserable ''diggers" of
Central or Southern California they were
superior in every particular. In the vari-
Gus qualities in which as Indians they
.excelIed they approached more nearly the
Tuscaroras or the IroQuois of the Atlantic
slope or the Cherokees OF the middle
West. For in California there was usually
throughout among the native tribes
squalor, nakedness, darkness; they were
The human animal. Vary, indeed, they
did, for as you entered the zone of aridity
the environment of the poor human
creature became more scanty and barren,
and as you approached the we'll watered
and wood areas of the north his condition
correspondingly relaxed.
1t is TO the circumstance of natural sur
roundings, therefore, more than to any
ether cause that the superior qualities
> and characteristics of the Cahrocs were
due. Though they number now only
about 700 souls and are all resident upon
the Hoopah Reservation, yet in the days of
pastoral California they roamed the wide
country IN what is now Siskiyou County,
bordering on the south bank of the
Klamath and between the Trinity and
the Salmon rivers.
In this broad area, bounded upon three
sides by streams OF white froth and blue
crystal, III which swan the salmon and
the trout, the country surface broken by
mountains in which roamed in bands the
numerous deer and elk, this region was
the country of the Cahrocs; above them