Provides an overview the daily lives of California's native peoples, profiling their arrival in the area, survival in harsh times, relationships with the environment, rituals, customs, and beliefs.

Traces their customs, family life, history, and culture, as well as relations with the U.S. government.

This classic of American Indian ethnography, originally published in 1877, is again available in its complete form. In the summers of 1871 and 1872 Powers visited Indian groups in the northern two-thirds of California. A journalist by profession, he was untrained in ethnography, but was nonetheless an astonishingly intelligent observer who had a gift for writing in a spirited manner. He reported faithfully what he heard and portrayed accurately what...