Note: Today we would find 8-year old Hilda’s characterization of Native Americans problematic. Rather than censor her work, I am choosing to present it in full with the understanding that she is reminding herself of the facts as they were presented to her by her teachers and the adults around her. When she offers an interpretation, she does so based on the experience of a child her age.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Tomorrow is the last day of school and Miss Cashen is taking us to see the Mission Dolores here in San Francisco, so today she read us all about it…
A long time ago California belonged to Spain but besides the Spanish people here, there were a lot of Indians. The Indians lived in tents that they called “Wigwams” and they didn’t keep them very clean but I guess it was pretty hard to because the floors were the ground and they ran in and out all day from hunting and working in the fields. Then Spain sent over the “Spanish Fathers” from the church to help them. They were very good men who came to teach the Indians about God and Jesus Christ and how to make bricks and learn to weave cloth and how to wash themselves. The Indians were very lazy except when they were having a war. They loved war. They were always having a war with a different Indian tribe. Then they would paint their faces with designs and stick feathers in their hair and put animal horns on their heads too, and they had war dances and they fought with bows and arrows and spears. The Indian women worked very hard and their husbands weren’t at all polite to them. None of the Indians had pretty table manners. They cooked everything all mixed up in a pot that hung over a fire and at dinner time all the Indians sat around it and just pulled out the food with their hands.
When I told Grandfather that, he said “Maybe Liebchen, they had finger bowls with pansies floating in them.” I know that he was just teasing me, but anyhow…
The Indians learned a lot from the Fathers. After they learned to make bricks, the Fathers taught them to make the California Missions. There are twenty-one Missions altogether and each is about a day’s walk on foot from the other, but I think you would have to get up very early in the morning and then maybe you would arrive at the other in time for dinner. The most beautiful Mission is called the “Mission of San Juan Capistrano.” It is in Southern California and it has such a lovely garden that every Winter the swallows from northern California, where it becomes cold and snowy, come to it to make their nests. They know that they will have a beautiful place to stay in the sunshine until it is time to go home again, and by that time their babies are old enough to fly.
The California elementary school curriculum didn’t change much throughout the 20th century. When I was in 4th grade, we learned about the missions. My mother drove us to visit many of them, and she was eager to see the swallows at San Juan Capistrano. If I recall, she was disappointed because there weren’t a lot of birds the day we visited.
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory