California Interpretive History

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In the textbook “California: An Interpretive History” by James J. Rawls and Walton Bean introduces the way California Indians carried their everyday lives in chapter 2, The Original Californians. According to traditional Indian beliefs, Californian natives believe that they were created and have lived their entire existence in their ancestral homeland. However, anthropologists believe otherwise. They believe that they are decedents of people who made their way across from Asia to North America thousands of years ago when a now-vanished land bridge connected the two continents during the Pleistocene Era (11). These men and women along with their descendants settled into the North and South America continents, making possible the spread of various tribes throughout California along with their tradition. …show more content…

As a result, when the Spanish colonizers arrived they felt that the native race was inferior to their race. As the chapter continues, this false perspective of the Spanish colonizers proves to be wrong. The California Indians knew so well how to use their natural resources that they made it a success the adaption to their environment. They acquire a grand understanding of natural resources which aided them for their everyday survival. The state natives also were capable of inventing a system that would allow them to reuse and replenish their soil by burning the ground; presently a practice used in field plantation to renew the soil. Nourishment was also an essential part of their everyday life and just like in the Stone Age era, the natives were classified as hunter-gatherers. The hunting was mainly done by the men and the women would be in charge of the cooking and the collection of edible plants. However; these activities were not set in stone and sometimes men would do the cooking while women made the

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