Thursday, January 16, 2014

FRIDAY, MY TOWN SHOOT OUT

RUSTIC DETAILS
...things that are really old in my town or the history of my town.

(First a word of explanation.  My laptop is  out of commission and I am using our big PC  and it doesn't have all my 'stuff ' on it so I am a little limited as to what I can accomplish at the moment.
Looks like I will have to replace my beloved laptop as it is 10 years old, so a big transfer of info is in the offing).


The original inhabitants of my town are the Luispeno Indians. They lived in villages along the North San Diego coast and to about ten miles inland.



One of their villages, Paalimay, was located exactly where my park is located, that is between the Agua Hedionda and Buena Vista Lagoons. They were living here when the Spanish came and they were given their tribal name in honor of Saint Louis King of France, though they called themselves the Payomkawichum. In 1960 it was estimated that there were at one time 10,000 of these people in this area. Many are still located here and many are associated with the Harrah Casino, located inland from here.

At the southwest end of our park, out by the tennis courts and the RV parking/storage area a pile of rocks is located. They are known as the Indian Rocks. So my sister and I decided to explore there last week and see what we could find.

They really do look like just a pile of rocks until you move in closer.


Then you can see what looks like  the remains of a wall.


Moving closer still you can see many examples of pestle and mortar grinding holes.
These rocks are the grinding rocks where the Indians ground acorns and seed into meal. Over the generations deep holes were ground into the rocks.



These are quite deep holes, so I imagine the Indians lived in this particular area for many centuries. It is an ideal area for them, providing flat land, trees shrubs and water and of course rocks. The water would bring many kinds of animals for the Indians for food -small and large. We know that bear used to be found in this area and we still have mountain lions, deer and coyotes as well as numerous small mammals.

This must have been a fruitful and safe haven for the Luiseno Indians.

Perhaps on a different level, we who now inhabit this area have much in common with these Indians. We certainly have all our needs cared for and enjoy much beauty surrounding us.
This is my contribution for Friday, My Town Shootout. It isn't what you would call rustic, but it certainly is historical. To see more historical information about where others in our group  please click HERE

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting about the natives in your area. I think they must have all used large rocks like this as our museum has one too. I feel so sorry for the Native Americans. They must have felt like the settlers were terrorists as we seldom treated them very well.

Wanda said...

That's very interesting Chris. We have a small museum in our area that documents the Indians that lived in the Big Tujunga Canyon.

I have my own Indian roots, with my great grandmother being Cherokee.

Terra said...

Nice post with the info on the native peoples.

Unknown said...

Very interesting and a great job on the photography.

Mersad said...

A wonderful charming historic detail from your town. Thanks for sharing with us,

Mersad
Mersad Donko Photography

snafu said...

Interesting bit of history for the area. So many tribes you never hear about unless you visit a particuar part of the country.

Ruth Kelly said...

Nice to hear that those Indians still live in the area. I know we have Ute Indians in Utah but am unaware of where they live now.

GingerV said...

A perfect post. I think Indian ruins are as rustic as you can get in the USA. Love the old rocks.. I've not known of american indians, in north America, that used stones to construct; adobe brick, yes, and caves with Adobe, and TeePees, and grass and mud, not large stones. But they did in Mexico and south American so why not here. Very interesting.

Barb said...

Terrific post! I love anthropology and your history lesson and great pictures made my day.

Pauline said...

You nailed the topic beautifully, Chris. It's nice to have a little bit more detail about what we are photographing, isn't it? Great images, too.

J9 said...

I love that there are still artifacts that can be enjoyed outdoors on a nice day. Here, it is only by hapenstance that I might stumble across anything, and after something is determined to be of historical significance, it is moved indoors to a museum.

Unknown said...

Yes about as rustic as one can get. Great shots and interpretation.

claude said...

Very interesting, Chris !
In Utah we visited the Hopi country in the south of the state.
In 1996 my husband and I saw indians
probably Utes living free. Some of them lived in the same street of our friends. The next time we went over thre they lived in a reservation.