Native Americans of East Kern

My mother Marion Deaver loved being a member of the Kern Antelope Historical Society and she made sure that she, my dad Paul, my brother Bill and I were all charter members of the group.

The meetings were held each month and there was always a guest speaker. The part I enjoyed the most were the field trips that took us all over East Kern and once even to Fort Tejon to see history first hand.

I found an article of my mom’s that she wrote about guest speaker Ruby Rogers, of Cantil. The meetings were always held at Tropico Gold Camp in the old Miner’s Hall.

Rogers had been a coordinator for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office. In that role, she developed a book to be used by third graders in county schools.

Her presentation was given in 1960 and she referred to the Shoshone as Indians. I have changed that to Native Americans to be correct in 2016. Her facts were also based on research that she conducted in the late 1950’s, and newer facts about these native groups may have been discovered since then.

Rogers explained that the Native Americans who resided in and around the Mojave Desert in East Kern were mostly nomadic and traveled constantly in search of food. Joshua tree blooms were toasted and eaten, and were considered a delicacy because the Joshua trees do not bloom every year, depending on rainfall.

Rattlesnakes were killed and their heads removed with very sharp knives fashioned from obsidian, and then consumed. Rabbits were thrown right into the pot without cleaning or skinning them, she said. After they were cooked everything was eaten but the skin and bones.

Desert tortoises were caught and roasted over hot rocks which were placed in a pit. When done the top shell was cracked and the meat was enjoyed right out of the shell.

A mush was made from mesquite beans. The mush was cooked by adding hot rocks right to the mush in the pot. Squaw cabbage, also known as Desert Candles was cooked or eaten raw, as a “side dish” with meat, she explained.

I have always loved when a rainy fall and spring produce Desert Candles. They are one of my favorite wildflowers, but I never thought about eating them.

The Native Americans enjoyed eating mountain sheep, which they hunted in the Black Mountains further north. Food was seasoned with salt gathered from what Rogers referred to as Saltdale, which is now known as Keohn Lake. Salt is no longer harvested professionally from there as it was in 1960 by a company who sold it for industrial uses.

The Native Americans put it on their food and used it to barter with other tribes. The desert tribes camped on Black Mountain and at Squaw Springs east of Randsburg. Rogers said there was evidence of campsites in those areas.

Like all of us who grew up in the desert, we needed some form of air conditioning to bear the heat. The Native Americans did not have such luxuries so they spent summers in the Piute Mountains.

I remember when it was just so hot in Mojave that we were miserable, with only a swamp cooler, my mom and dad would say “Load up-we are going to Tehachapi Mountain Park!”

I loved that, it was cool under the trees and I could get filthy in the black dirt. We would eat sandwiches or something and then load up in the early evening and go back to Mojave when it had cooled off some.

The Piutes provided cooler temperatures, more game, and of course pine nuts for the tribe. Water was also scarce in the desert and the tribe would mark spots where they had found water for other tribes to find. Sometimes they would do this with a rock that was a different color than the others.

I was 10 in 1960 and remember studying about Native American tribes of California, but do not remember the book that Rogers wrote. It probably came after I moved on to the fourth grade to study missions.

I am sure there have been more discoveries documented about tribes of the East Kern area. This is just a snapshot of what area historians of the time knew and shared with others.