What was daily life like for Native Americans at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel? What did they eat? What jobs did they do? An introduction to life at Alta California’s 4th Spanish Mission.
Contents
- 1 Who Founded Mission San Gabriel?
- 2 Where is Mission San Gabriel Located?
- 3 What Native Americans Lived at Mission San Gabriel?
- 4 The Interrogatorio
- 5 Who Else Lived at San Gabriel?
- 6 What Languages Were Spoken at Mission San Gabriel?
- 7 Clothing at the Mission
- 8 What was Daily Life like at Mission San Gabriel?
- 9 What Jobs did People Do at Mission San Gabriel?
- 10 Other customs
- 11 To Learn More
Who Founded Mission San Gabriel?
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel was the 4th mission established in Alta California. The mission was founded on September 8, 1771 by Fr. Junípero Serra along with Fr. Pedro Benito Cambón and Fr. Ángel Somera. Frs. Cambón and Somera became it’s first resident priests.
Where is Mission San Gabriel Located?
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel is located about 20 minutes from downtown Los Angeles and was established near the San Gabriel River, where the Tongva people had multiple villages.
What Native Americans Lived at Mission San Gabriel?
The people who lived at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel were collectively known as Gabrieleños by the Hispanic population (Americans later used the term “Gabrielinos”). They were the original people of today’s Los Angeles and Orange Counties, as well as San Clemente, Santa Catalina and San Nicolás Islands. Although they had different names for themselves based on location, including Kizh (which means “house”). They have also been known as Tongva. Today, some use the name Tongva, and some use the name Kizh.
Along with the Chumash, they were the most numerous and prosperous Indian group in Southern Alta California.
Between 1788 and 1832, Mission San Gabriel had between 1,000 and 1,700 native people living within its boundaries.
The Interrogatorio
Some of the most important accounts of California Indian life at the missions come from the Interrogatorio (Questionnaire) that the Spanish government sent to the priests of the California Missions in 1813. The government wanted to know all about the customs and lifestyle of the people living at the missions.
Each mission answered the questions in more or less detail depending on the temperament and experience of the missionaries.
The padres recorded their observations of the life of the native people at the mission and often wrote down what they understood about indigenous customs outside the mission boundaries. For Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, Fr. Luis Gil and Fr. José María de Zalvidea sent in their responses on June 28, 1814.
Who Else Lived at San Gabriel?
The questionnaire also asked about who lived at the mission, and what castes they belonged to. “Castes” (or castas in Spanish) were the names for given to people based on their ethnicity or cultural origin.
Generally, all people who lived according to a Spanish or Latin American way of life were called gente de razón (“civilized people”) to distinguish them from Native Americans who still carried on much of their traditional lifestyle.
The padres answered that, although the mission was made up of Native Americans, they also had to attend to the spiritual needs of they people who lived on nearby ranchos.
“The general and distinctive population of this mission are only Indians. However from motives of charity and because a pastor has been wanting since its foundation we have to attend to a town of white people, who are known as gente de razón. In civil matters it is the headquarters of four ranchos composed of the same class of people. This mission also cares for another rancho belonging to the civil jurisdiction of Presidio of San Diego as well as for the families of the six soldiers who guard this mission. All the individuals who live in these places amount to 526. They are of various castes. How many these castes are and precisely which castes they are we do not know because, as we have said, they are all known as gente de razón.”
Read this article to learn about ranchos.
What Languages Were Spoken at Mission San Gabriel?
The questionnaire also asked about what languages were spoken at the mission. The padres answered that the native people at Mission San Gabriel spoke several different versions of the Tongva language, depending on where they came from. They also mentioned that the Spanish people in the towns spoke the Tongva language:
“At this mission four distinct dialects are spoken, corresponding to the four directions of its location. One is called Kokomcar; another Guiquitamcar; the third, Carbonamga; and last, Simbanga. Those who deal more with people of other castes speak Spanish. These latter [the people of other castes], chiefly those who live in the town, generally speak the Indian language and even better and with more facility than their native language, which is Spanish.”
Clothing at the Mission
As with most California Indians, the Tongva people traditionally wore little to no clothing. After joining the mission, they began to wear certain garments, which the padres described:
The clothing given them consists of a blanket, a short tunic which we call cotón, and a narrow cloth which serves as covering for the men called taparabo (loincloth). The women are supplied with a cotón, blanket and skirt.”
What was Daily Life like at Mission San Gabriel?
When asked about daily life for the Gabrielino people before entering the mission, the padres reported that the Indians did not follow a fixed schedule, but that on the mission they did.
As Christians however, the time of the day is so arranged that they labor with ease for five hours a day during the winter and from six to seven hours during the day in summer.”
For Indians on the mission, the church bell marked the rhythms of the day. Each day would begin with prayers and mass, then breakfast. After breakfast each person would go to work on his or her particular occupation until midday. At midday they would gather for prayers and lunch, followed by a break, which often involved a nap or siesta, as was common all over Spain and Latin America. After the break, they would return to work until about an hour before sunset, which was they end of the workday, unless they had already finished their tasks, in which case they could do what they pleased. At sunset, people once again gathered for prayers and then supper.
Sundays were reserved for rest and religious services, as were the special feast days of the Catholic calendar, which could be as many as 92 throughout the year.
What Jobs did People Do at Mission San Gabriel?
Most of the jobs on the mission involved planting and harvesting crops. Because each crop had its own season, the tasks the Indians carried out would change throughout the year. This was the case both before and after they entered the mission, as the padres pointed out:
In their pagan state, to the season of wild fruits, and in their Christian state, to the season of planting and harvesting our grain, they give the name of an herb or grain peculiar to that season. Winter is the season when they finish gathering the acorns and plant their wheat. Summer is the season when the maguey plant is cut which they call aco and when they plant corn. Summer is also the season when the pine nuts mature and when wheat is threshed. Autumn is the season when they gather a kind of sweet resin which they call guautta and when the peaches ripen.”
There were also other jobs to do at the mission, depending on the time of year. In April and May, it would be time for shearing sheep, branding cattle and other livestock-related jobs. June through September was spent harvesting the crops planted earlier in the year. During the rest of the year, there were plenty of maintenance tasks to take care of.
There were also more specialized workers who painted pictures, made soap, tanned leather, did weaving, or worked as blacksmiths year round. Some of these jobs were performed by men, others by women.
Men’s Jobs at Mission San Gabriel
The jobs of cowboys, shepherds, cobblers, masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, tanners and farmhands were common male chores at the California missions.
Women’s Jobs at Mission San Gabriel
Women often did chores such as washing, sewing or grinding wheat. Many of these more skilled tasks would be taught by artisans from Mexico, or Indians from missions in Baja California, who immigrated north.
Most work was done on a quota system. Each person would have a set amount of number of things to produce each day or week, like a certain number of adobe tiles to make or cloth to weave. Once they met their quota, the workers were free to spend their time as they wished.
Children’s Jobs at Mission San Gabriel
Even children did work at the missions, though not the type of work adults performed. Typical children’s jobs would things like keeping birds or small animals out of the gardens, or serving at Mass or other religious functions.
At Mission San Gabriel, as at other missions, the native people ate the produce and livestock that they raised. According to the padres,
The mission supplies them sufficiently with food so that they have three meals a day comprising corn, wheat, beans and meat. They are also given an abundance of cheese, milk, melons, peaches, and all sorts of fruits of Spanish origin peculiar to each season.”
At breakfast there would be a type of corn soup called atole, which is still very popular in Mexico. At lunch, people would generally eat boiled wheat, corn, peas, beans and vegetables, as well as seasonal fruit. At dinner they would have the same type of meal as at breakfast. Cattle were slaughtered regularly, so mission members also ate a great deal of beef throughout the year.
In addition to the communal meals offered at the mission, Indian families would eat in their own homes. They would often go hunting or fishing or gather their traditional foods. Pablo Tac, who grew up at Mission San Luis Rey, said it was common for men to go out hunting small game such as rabbits or squirrels.
Other customs
The Tongva people at Mission San Gabriel maintained many of their traditional practices at the mission, such as dances and other ceremonies, or the use of the temescal or sweathouse. According to the padres, they were fond of bathing in cold water.
This they do after having sweated profusely in the temescal. However, they do not exactly use this as an antidote for their ills but rather for pleasure and from custom.”
The padres’ answers to the Interrogatorio give us a snapshot of life at San Gabriel mission. But there is still so much to learn. The best way to do that is by visiting the mission and nearby museums, as well as reading books about it and the culture of the Tongva people.
To Learn More
- Mission San Gabriel Arcángel Facts
- Gabrieleño Tribe Facts
- Book: California Indians and Their Environment by Kent Lightfoot. An excellent overview of how Native Americans made use of the natural resources of California, and how they still do today.
- Book: Handbook of the Indians of California by A.L. Kroeber. The classic guidebook to Native American groups of California. Though some of the information is outdated, it is still useful for its encyclopedic information.
- Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. The website of the parish of Mission San Gabriel.