“We know just where that is, don’t we?” laughed Mary.  “I think we must have followed them all along the river yesterday,” Jack added. “Yes and grandpa could tell you of finding many of their arrow heads along the river when he was a boy.  They used to have many battles near where the brick church is. The Lalas were a small tribe between them and Clements.  The Mokelkos made the Lelas belong to them at last.  The Machaccos lived from Clements to the hills.

“North of the Mokelumne River, where we now are and as far as the Consumnes River were the Cosos Indians.  The Cosos and the Yachecos fought the Mokelkos.”

“The Mokelkos had four chiefs when the Americans came here.  I have I have roughly marked on this map where each tribe lived.  I have written the name of the chief in smaller letters.  Loweno lived where Woodbridge now is.  Senato lived near Staples Ferry.  Maximo lived across the Mokelumne from him.  He lived near Benedicts Ferry.  That was about where the Victor Bridge now is.  Antonio lived on the Calaveras River.  He lived nearer to where Stockton is. Can you see where we got some of our names?  “Mokelumne River from the Mokelkos Indians,” said Mary.  “Cosumnes River from the Cosos Indians,” said Betty.  “Stanislaus River after the smart chief Estanislao,” said Jack.  “Nothing left for me,” said Raymond.  “The Calaveras River should have an Indian name.  That isn’t Indian is it, Uncle Jed?”

“No, the trappers called it Wine Creek, because there were so many wild grapes growing on its banks.  One night a Spaniard camped there.  In the morning he saw a lot of skulls on the ground near his camp.  He called the place skulls.  The Spanish word for skulls is Calaveras.

“These Indians fought with bows and arrows.  They always scalped the dead.  If they were not too lazy they sometimes shot a rabbit or a squirrel.  Once in a great while they shot a deer.  Sometimes they speared fish.  Often the caught them with their hands.  To them, roasted grasshoppers were as good as chocolate is to you.  When their wikiup became too dirty and smelly they burned it and built another.  I told you before that they did not worry about clothes.

“General Vallejo once asked an Indian if he was not cold.  “The Indian asked him, ‘Is your face cold?’ ‘No,’ answered Vallejo.  ‘Indian all face,’ the Indian then said.”  “Say, he was clever wasn’t he?” came from Raymond.

“Forty years after the traders came to Woodbridge, there were only about two hundred ninety Indians in our county.  When Jedediah Smith came through the country he thought there must have been about five thousand on the Mokelumne.  Just about the time that the trappers came here there was a terrible sickness among the Indians.  Many died from it.  After white people came the Indians learned to drink wine and whisky.  When they were drunk, they wanted to fight.  They beat their women.  They were not so healthy when they tried to live as the whites did.  They felt crowded out.  Many moved to the hills but the greatest number died.