THE STORY OF THE LAST YANA INDIAN


The glory and romance of archery culminated in England before the
discovery of America. There, no doubt, the bow was used to its greatest
perfection, and it decided the fate of nations. The crossbow and the
matchlock had supplanted the longbow when Columbus sailed for the New
World.

It was, therefore, a distinct surprise to the first explorers of
America that the natives used the bow and arrow so effectively. In
fact, the sword and the horse, combined with the white man's
superlative self-assurance, won the contest over the aborigines more
than the primitive blunderbuss of the times. The bow and arrow was
still more deadly than the gun.

With the gradual extermination of the American Indian, the westward
march of civilization, and the improvement in firearms, this contest
became more and more unequal, and the bow disappeared from the land.
The last primitive Indian archer was discovered in California in the
year 1911.

When the white pioneers of California descended through the northern
part of that State by the Lassen trail, they met with a tribe of
Indians known as the Yana, or Yahi. That is the name they called
themselves. Their neighbors called them the Nozi, and the white men
called them the Deer Creek or Mill Creek Indians. Different from the
other tribes of this territory, the Yana would not submit without a
struggle to the white man's conquest of their lands.