This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II THE ABORIGINAL PERIOD Whence and whither? This query comes naturally to the mind when we consider the aboriginal people who met the first white visitors to the shores of Santa Barbara County. Here, from the testimony of those early navigators as well as from the evidence left in mounds and kitchen-middens, was found the most dense population, not only of California but of any portion of the United States. Whence came they, why did they congregate here in such great numbers and what has become of them? When Cabrillo in 1542 went ashore at what is now the town of Naples, some sixteen miles west of the city of Santa Barbara, attracted perhaps by the plentiful supply of wood and water"or perhaps by the highest peak in the Santa Ynez range which he is said to have climbed, he found on each side of the beautiful creek that flows down from the slopes of Mt. Santa Ynez, a large village, each village occupied by a strikingly different tribe. On the west side of the stream the people were of the northern or Shoshone type while those on the east side, bore a striking resemblance to the Aztecs of Mexico. Why this narrow stream should be the boundary between two almost distinct races, will ever be an unsolved problem. In fact the origin of all the aborigines of California goes so far back into the misty past as to preclude any thing more than a guess as to whence they came. If we hazard such a guess it may be that these people were the degenerate descendants of Asiatics who by way of Bering Strait, or, perhaps by junks from China or Japan, had found their way thither. This guess has some basis in the fact that these natives resembled the Esquimaux and the Kamchatkans rather than the Indians of the eastern portion of the United States. But...