By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Historian
The Serrano Indians (Yuhaaviatam tribe) are the indigenous people of these mountains. They have many legends of their creation, with the Eye of God rock outcropping and the hot springs in the Big Bear area being very sacred to them. Metate Rock Camp, north of Lake Arrowhead, is also extremely special as it honors their history and ancestors. They used the hot springs at the base of the mountain for healing, too.
The Yuhaaviatam were living peacefully among the newly arrived lumbermen in the 1850s to 1860s, although the lumbering equipment was scaring the large game animals from the area. Fortunately, the Yuhaaviatam mostly hunted small game and ate fruits, berries and acorns. They were migratory, moving between their established campsites with the ripening of their favorite foods, resulting in them having the most varied diets of all Southern California tribes. During the winter, when in the valley or desert, they ate local foods, then in the spring, summer and fall, when on the mountain, they ate mountain foods, including a variety of healthy food year-round.
Without one permanent campsite, but with many kiichs (shelters made from branches and brush) all over the mountain, when the Mormon lumbermen arrived and set up seasonal water-powered sawmills in 1852, it was annoying, but the peaceful Yuhaaviatam chose to just relocate a bit, eliminating any conflict for almost two decades.
The Yuhaaviatam tribe had permitted the Paiutes to come to their mountain from the Colorado River to hunt large game, annually, for hundreds of years. The Paiutes used these grizzly bear and mountain lion hunts to provide their villages with meat each year.
The loud, steam-powered lumbermills scared many of the animals away so, when the Paiutes arrived in 1867 to hunt, they couldn’t find the big game they expected in their traditional hunting grounds. They were angered. The Paiutes were already having encroachment problems and conflicts with Americans in the 1860s at other locations on what they considered their lands.
A model of a Yuhaaviatam kiich hut on display at the Mountain History Museum. (Photo by Rhea-Frances Tetley)
When the Paiutes arrived in Little Bear Valley and saw lumberman Bill Caine’s cabin, it meant to them that Americans were living on their hunting grounds, so they stole Caine’s valuables and rifle and burned his cabin down. The Paiutes saw the Benson-Pine Lumbermill nearby; they also burning that encroaching sawmill and then stole Caine’s cattle. This is the 1867 episode where the term “Burnt Mill” comes from, in local history.
Francis Talmadge was furious, since the lumbermen had invested their money into the sawmills. The women and families were relocated to safety and a posse of 12 lumbermen went after the Indians.
The Battle of Indian Hill commenced the next day, when 50 to 60 Paiutes, intending to run the lumbermen out of the mountains, were discovered by the lumbermen. During that two-hour battle, more than 100 shots were fired, two lumbermen were wounded, one Indian was killed and six wounded. The Paiutes permanently retreated to the desert.
The sheriff came up to solve the “Indian problem,” initiating a 32-day “campaign of extinction” to kill or remove all the indigenous peoples on the mountain. That’s when Chief Santos Manuel led his clan off the mountain into the valley below to safety, saving them from certain death from the sheriff, who didn’t care about the difference between a peaceful Yuhaaviatam and a vengeful Paiute. At the end, fewer than 100 Yuhaaviatam survived.
The lumbermen, without Indian distraction, continued to cut down the forest.
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