The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-09-14
CATHOLIC LIFE IN CALIFORNIA.

and in our own country have often
found occasion to note a rare refine
ment of character and manner which
the Catholic religion. Non-Catholics,
as, for instance the historian Lummis,
have learned to love the Spaniards
in the Americas because of the virtues
acquired through the benign influence
of the Church, and more than one stu
dent of history and ethnology has
praised the truly early Christian hos
pitality of these people and their won
derful tact and success in managing
the Indians and in educating the lat
ter to lives of peace and industry.
A fascinating description both of
the happy life and charming manners
of Spaniards in California in the six
ties and seventies of the last century
before the coming of the railroads,
and also of the skill and success with
which they cared for their Indian
charges, is offered incidentally in a
book written nearly fifty years ago by
a noted traveller, Charles Nordhoff,
who has written of California under
the title, California, for Health,
Pleasure and Residence" The whole
some mode of life of the Catholic
Spaniards of that time and place is
pictured by him thus, says an eX-
change:
g. The people are kindly and
amiable and though their pursuits
Chiefly cattle raising) might be
thought to tend to loud and rough
ways, and do so where our own people
manage cattle, here all went on quiet
ly, and decorously as though it was
Sunday. The animals are handled
firmly, but with great care and hu.
lnanity.
Spanish Californian houses, so far
as | have seen their interiors, are
always scrupulously clean; their life
has the merit of fitting the climate
and the pursuits of the people. There
remains in it, too, something which
is too often lacking in our Eastern
houses, a degree of trust and conf
dence and affection between master
and servant, with not the least famil-
iarity, however. I saw men-Indians
whose fathers had been in the same
service, and of whom the proprietor
told me that he would not hesitate to
trust one of them with $4,000 to car
ry to the nearest town. The Span
iards know how to manage the In
dams. Their self-restraint and cour-
l
addressed the master without either
touching or taking off his hat. Padrone
| is the masters title. There was never
any excited ordering about and the
work went on apparently OF its own
momentum. 81
In the evening, the major domo
and the older vaqueros gathered on
! the long yeranda. While a lady was
singing in the parlor, where the fam
lily and visitors were gathered, | no
ticed three or four old men-evidently
privileged Misunderstanding quietly.
listening, on long bench in the hall
At meal times, if the long dining ta-
BILE was not full, two or; three of these
privileged characters quietly took the
vacant places, far down--below the
| salt-ate and listened, or answered,
if they were addressed. Meantime
another long table was set, or had
been set, under piazza roof in the
quadrangle which every Californian
house encloses, and here others ate.
| In the day time this sheltered quad
rangle accommodated three or four
Indian women, who sat on the ground
! and did the family sewing" Up. 242)
The happy faculty, which the Span
| iards possessed of cultivating habits
of industry among the Indians, is IL
| Illustrated in the following sentences:
Life on one of the old Spanish
| ranches was, am assured, not so sim
| pie as we have been accustomed to
| think. Various handicrafts had been
introduced by the priests; and the
| Indians, who were the mechanics,
were employed not only at the mis-
| sion, but by the more substantial
rancheros. They MIXED cows and
made cheese; they dressed and tan
| ned sheep and calf skins for cloth
ing; they wove blankets; they made
wine; they raised grain enough for
their bread, and the Indian women
| ground this on stones; they preserved
! the hides of cattle for the Boston
ships; and at the San Fernando mis-
sion, near Los Angeles, l saw huge
| stone and cement tanks in which they
| melted down and kept the tallow,
which was also sold to the Boston
men,"
| The counterpart to this picture of
a wholesome and Industrious life-in
| which the Indians were a substantial
part, and from which they derived
| great benefits--is that of the beautiful
spirit of hospitality shown by the
| Spanish rancheros of those days.
Nordhoff has the following passage on
P. 244: In those days, said my
| friend Ca wealthy ranchero of New
| England-Spanish eXtraction) when
went out to see Don Tomas, he receiv-
ed me at the door; he showed me my
| room; and in few minutes he came
bearing in his own hands basin of
| water for my use. But behind him
| came half a dozen servants to show
me that what he did he did out of
respect and welcome to me, and that
servants were at hand to do it If he