San Jose

A Mission Record of the California Indians, by A.L. Kroeber, [1908], at sacred-texts.com

San Jose. ⁶⁴

Only in war do they obey the most valiant or successful one, and in matters of superstition their wizards and magicians. Beyond this they admit no civil, political, nor even domestic subordination. In their quarrels they have no appeal, except to force, whence it follows that even those of the same family sometimes kill one another for nothing at all. ⁶⁵

It is said that only one village or nation, of the many that composed the population of this mission, adored the sun when it retired to the southern pole. They considered it angered, made a dance for it, and offered it seeds, until they knew that it had turned and was again approaching.

Footnotes

26:64 Mission San Jose, which was not at the present city of San Jose, but some distance to the north, was in Costanoan territory, but included in its population Indians of the Miwok and perhaps other families. Nearly all of the few descendants of the Indians once at this mission are Miwok. Fathers Buenaventura Fortuni and Narciso Duran were at San Jose in 1811.

26:65 It looks as if this passage and the preceding paragraph from Santa Clara had had a common origin.