AN OHLONE VILLAGE
Michael Harney graduated from Pratt Institute in 1968. A painter and illustrator, his drawings of California Indians and their artifacts are part of the permanent history exhibit at the Oakland Museum. He has also worked on murals and done illustrations for the Academy of Sciences Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Other work includes illustrations for The Earth Manual, which he did with Malcolm Margolin in 1975
Within the rich environment of the Bay Area lived a dense population of Ohlone Indians. As many as thirty or forty permanent villages rimmed the shores of the San Francisco Bay -- plus several dozen temporary "camps," visited for a few weeks each year by inland groups who journeyed to the Bayshore to gather shellfish and other foods. At the turn of this century more than 400 shellmounds, the remains of these villages and camps, could still be found along the shores of the Bay -- dramatic indication of a thriving population.
What would life have been like here? What would be happening at one of the larger villages on a typical afternoon, say in mid-April, 1768 -- one year before the first significant European intrusion into the Bay Area? Let us reconstruct the scene....
The village is located along the eastem shores of the San Francisco Bay at the mouth of a freshwater creek. An immense, sprawling pile of shells, earth, and ashes elevates the site above the surrounding marshland. On top of this mound stand some fifteen dome-shaped tule houses arranged around a plaza-like clearing. Scattered among them are smaller structures that look like huge baskets on stilts -- granaries in which the year's supply of acorns are stored. Beyond the houses and granaries lies another cleared area that serves as a ball field, although it is not now in use.
It is mid-afternoon of a clear, warm day. In several places throughout the village steam is rising from underground pit ovens where mussels, clams, rabbit meat, fish, and various roots are being roasted for the evening meal. People are clustered near the doors of the houses. Three men sit together, repairing a fishing net. A group of children are playing an Ohlone version of hide-and-seek: one child hides and all the rest are seekers. Here and there an older person is lying face down on a woven tule mats napping in the warmth of the afternoon sun.
At the edge of the village a group of women sit together grinding acorns. Holding the mortars between their outstretched legs, they sway back and forth, raising the pestles and letting them fall again. The women are singing ...
