Ohlone Quotes

The Ohlones seem to have lived at a time and in a spiritual place before the imagination was cast away and isolated from “mainstream” consciousness. Since dreams were real, when an animal-god appeared in the hollows of the dream mind, it was not mere illusion: it was divine revelation.

A balanced (rather than exploitative) relationship with the environment; an economic system based on sharing rather than competing; a strong sense of family and community; social moderation and restraint; the opportunity for widespread artistic creativity; a way of governing that serves without oppressing; a deeply spiritual sense of the world: these are the very things many of us are currently striving to attain in our own culture. The irony is that while we look forward to a dimly-perceived future when such values might be realized, we have failed to understand that they existed in the not-so-distant past as the accomplishments not only of the Ohlones, but of Stone-Age people the world over.

Some 310,000 Indians lived within the boundaries of the present state in 1769. Approximately 60,000 lived in the coastal region between San Diego and San Francisco where Serra hoped to establish a series of missions.84 The Luiseño and then the Acjachemen resided to the immediate north of the Kumeyaay. The Gabrielino occupied the coastal plain of Los Angeles, the Chumash inhabited an expanse from Malibu to San Luis Obispo, the Yokuts lived in the Central Valley, and the Salinan and Ohlone settled the central coast between Santa Barbara and the Golden Gate. The Pomo, Coast Miwok, Wappo, Patwin, and Eastern Miwok lived in the regions immediately north and east of the San Francisco Bay Area.85 Although Alta California successfully supported a large human population, it was hardly disease-free. Even before the Spaniards arrived, a wide variety of infections were common, all of which led to high mortality

The Ohlones lived in a world where people were few and animals were many, where the bow and arrow were the height of technology, where a deer who was not approached in the proper manner could easily escape and a bear might easily attack--indeed, they lived in a world where the animal kingdom had not yet fallen under the domination of the human race and where (how difficult it is for us to fully grasp the implications of this!) people did not yet see themselves as the undisputed lords of all creation.

The southern end of San Francisco Bay is an insalubrious marshland with ideal conditions for salt making. Not only does it have more sun and less rainfall than San Francisco and the north bay, but it has wind to help with evaporation. The intensely hot air from central California comes over the mountains, and the temperature difference sucks in the cool sea breeze. This is why centuries and perhaps millennia before the California and Nevada silver strikes, a people called the Ohlone made annual pilgrimages to this area for salt making. At the water's edge, the brine slowly evaporated in the sun and wind and left a thick layer of salt crystals. They had only to scrape it.

For as we stretch & strain to look through the various windows into the past, we do not merely see a bygone people hunting, fishing, painting their bodies, & dancing their dances. If we look long enough, if we dwell on their joy, fear, & reverence, we may in the end catch glimpses of almost forgotten aspects of our own selves.

Her father is dead. . . . Now she must never mention his name again. No one will ever mention his name. She must try not to think about him. He is dead.

The Ohlones seem to have lived at a time and in a spiritual place before the imagination was cast away and isolated from 'mainstream' consciousness. Since dreams were real, when an animal-god appeared in the hollows of the dream mind, it was not mere illusion: it was divine revelation.

The spiritual power sought by the Ohlones was not the pure, abstract kind of power such as modern religions offer. . . . In addition to its good qualities, it had erratic and often malevolent aspects as well.