Page 8 - zaglauer1995

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Remembering the Kawaiisu

The museum in the small town of Tehachapi, California

is in what long ago was the school library, an old building

with stucco walls, wood floors, and Spanish tile. One room,

approximately fifty by twenty feet, houses the entire

display of Tehachapi valley history. Photographs of the

town founders and their brief biographies line the walls

along with snapshots of important events in the town's

history. Display cases hold pioneer artifacts, old

clothing, old saddles used by local bandits, books, and
tourist souvenirs. One display case and a portion of a wall

are devoted to the original inhabitants of the Tehachapi
area who are now known as the Kawaiisu.

Books written by scholars describing the pre-contact
cultures of California Indians lie open in the display case

to the page or two written exclusively about the Indians of
the Tehachapi valley. There are a few artifacts,

arrowheads, rock mortar bowls and pestles, and a story or
two relating to the mystical spirit world of the local

Indians. The lack of biographies telling something about

who some of those people were makes it seem as though they

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