THE LAKE OF CALIFORNIA. AN INDIAN TRADITION.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 516, 13 July 1850, Page 4

THE LAKE OF CALIFORNIA. AN INDIAN TRADITION.

The aborigines of California, like those of every other portion of America, have long been fading away before the progressive march of civilization, or mixing with the Spaniards who conquered them two centuries ago, have lost their indentity as aborigines. Like their eastern brethren they are leaving their ancient hunting grounds, the homes and sepulchres of their fathers, and wandering they hardly know where, while the white man, as by some right divine, takes and calls their lands his own. But still they have their legends and their traditions, and even now they gather round their broken council-fires — a mockery of palmier days — and tell, the fathers to their sons, the tales of former times, which their forefathers had told to them. Among the traditions current among them is the following, which is certainly full of interest. They relate that where the Bay of San Francisco now is, was formerly a great lake, longer, and broader, and deeper than the Bay. According to their accounts this Lake was more than three hundred miles in length, with no outlet to the ocean except in the rainy season, when it would overflow its banks and a small stream would flow to the j ocean some thirty miles south of the present outlet to the Bay. The ridge of hills along the coast was then unbroken, and served as a dyke to prevent the waters of the Lake from escaping to the ocean. The level of the Lake was many feet above that of the ocean, and its waters extended far up the what is now known as Sac- i ramento Valley, and southward covering the valley of the San Joaquin. On the banks of this lake, centuries ago, populous tribes of Indians dwelt, whose villages lined its shores. Indeed, if credence is to be given to the tales of Indians, the population of California will never equal those ancient days, when the red men fished in the fresh waters of the lake, and hunted their deer undisturbed through the forests. The hills along the coast are formed of soft sand-stone, and through this, the tradition relates, the water began to make a breach, which yeaily grew wider, unul it burst through and among the hills with tremendous power, leaving steep cliffs and precipices to mark its way. And what was once a lake several hundred miles in length, is now a bay not forty miles long. This may have been the cause of such a change, but it would seem far more reasonable to attribute it to some volcanic commotion which in those days might have been as prevalent there as they are now in Mexico and Ceutral America. How far this tradition can be corroborated, must be determined by those who have the means. But no one who has witnessed the steep bluffs around San Francisco, or has passed the singular entrance of the Bay, called the Golden Gate, with its perpendicular walls, or has seen the no less singular bluffs of Racoon Straits, a few miles north of San Francisco, can for a moment doubt that they were formed by some powerful agency, either of fiie or water. On the hills around San Francisco fiesh water shells are found, and the small island of Yerba Buena, which lies directly opposite the town, rising out of the Bay, at least one hundred feet, is completely covered with shells, which facts go far to prove the truth of the tradition, which has no doubt been handed down from former generations as marking an era no less important in Indian tradition than the deluge is in sacred history. This event may have taken place a thousand years or even twenty centuries ago, as the tradition affords no data as to when it occurred. It is a subject well worthy of study, and which may throw some light as to the origin of the gold dust, and the manner of its distribution over so large a tract of country.