Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure

Datura Bloom

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Jack Elliott

Datura in bloom on the Carrizo Plain, San Luis Obispo County, California.

“In their quest for visions and for supernatural power, the Chumash of the Santa Barbara region were one of many tribes throughout North and South America that resorted to the use of hallucinogenic plants. Datura was one of the most widely known of these hallucinogens.”

—Richard B. Applegate, The Datura Cult Among the Chumash, Journal of California Anthropology (1975)

The Chumash believed Datura provided a pathway to the spirit realm and a means to interact with the supernatural world and they used it for a wide variety of ceremonial and religious purposes. The broad-leaved, large-flowered plant was also used medicinally in many ways.

According to anthropologist and ethnobiologist, Jan Timbrook, Curator of Ethnography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Datura was “probably the single most important medicinal plant of the Chumash.” It is featured prominently in Chumash myths, and whereas numerous animals are attributed human characteristics in their oral narratives, Datura is the only plant to be described in an anthropomorphic manner.

“In general, toloache (Datura) was taken for three principal purposes: to establish contact with a supernatural guardian who would provide protection, special skill, and a personal talisman; for clairvoyance, such as contacting the dead, finding lost objects, seeing the future, or seeing the true nature of people; and to cure the effects of injury, evil omens, or breaches of taboo, and to obtain immunity from danger.”

—Jan Timbrook, Chumash Ethnobotany: Plant Knowledge Among the Chumash People of Southern California (2007)

A friend once told me a story about a guy he knew who ate Datura. The guy’s quest for a good time ended abruptly one afternoon when his neighbors called the police after seeing him in his front yard acting erratically and repetitively stacking something for a prolonged period of time. When the authorities arrived they found a naked man traipsing around his front yard jabbering loudly to himself, while stacking cardboard boxes that nobody else could see.

(Datura is a poisonous, coma inducing, deadly plant. If you’re looking for a cheap thrill you’d be well advised to avoid experimenting with it. The serving size needed to cause hallucinations and intensified sensory affects is not much less than the amount that can induce a coma or kill a person. Death was not unknown among the Native Americans that used it. If you successfully guess the correct dose and avoid fading into a subconscious state for several days or sending yourself to the morgue, you may still experience continual hallucinations for several weeks afterward. The mention of Datura on this blog is done out of historical and anthropological interest only.)

Gladiator Games of Bulls and Bears: Recollections of Jacinto Damien Reyes (1880)

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Jack Elliott

This post is the second entry in a series of four:

First: Gladiator Games of Bulls and Bears: A California Blood Sport (1800s)
Third: Gladiator Games of Bulls and Bears: Lassoing Grizzlies (1904)
Fourth: Gladiator Games of Bulls and Bears: Sport of Roping Grizzlies (1911)

“When I came here this country was a howling wilderness. It was infested with wolves, coyotes and grizzly bears; and they did a lot of damage to our livestock.”

—Jacinto Damien Reyes referring to his arrival in California’s upper Cuyama River valley around 1887

Born in 1871, J.D. Reyes lived most of his life in Ventura County’s upper Cuyama River valley. He spent over 30 years working as a US Forest Service ranger patrolling the Cuyama District of what was then known as the Santa Barbara National Forest.

During this time grizzly bears inhabited the forest and many of the few people that lived, worked or recreated in the area respected them mostly out of fear and considered them little else but a nuisance.

In 1939, the Automobile Club of Southern California published an interview with J.D. Reyes in which he recounts memories of growing up in the unpopulated and wild hinterlands of Ventura County. His anecdotes reflect the prevailing social attitude toward grizzly bears in nineteenth century California.

Reyes tells of his three uncles who “could all ride like burrs in a horse’s tail.” He elaborates on the adventures of his uncle Ramon Ortega in particular, who was the best vaquero of them all, and whose “favorite sport was tying up grizzly bears.” A pastime he came to appreciate because of the damage they inflicted to the family’s livestock.

Ramon would ride after every bear whose trail he crossed, track it down and “just rope Mr. Bear and plug him with a six-shooter.” Once after a grizzly had killed three horses he rode out the following day on the hunt with rope and a six-gun. Several hours later he returned with “one of the biggest grizzlies seen in the Cuyama country.” He had lassoed the bear and hobbled and muzzled it by himself.

One day, when J.D. Reyes was nine, Ramon brought a grizzly back to the ranch and began prodding Reyes’ father by saying the bear could whip one of his famous fighting bulls. Reyes’ dad bred them for bull fights in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles. The argument ended with a bet and a plan to match the grizzly against a Reyes fighting bull in the upcoming fiesta. People came from miles around to see the animals attack each other and cheer them on.

“At first, the bull did not seem to realize what it was all about. He danced around the corral shaking his head and horns at the bear until the bear began to take it seriously and made several clumsy swings at him. That seemed to anger the bull a bit, and he made several vicious lunges at the bear without doing any serious damage. Finally the bear got in a jab with his forepaw that took the bull down the face. His claws started the blood. There were wild cheers from the audience and cries of “Sangre! Sangre!” For a moment the bull stood there licking the blood from his nose. Then the blood got into his eyes and he was furious! With a bellow that was almost a squeal of rage he lunged at the bear. The bear met this charge standing erect, and it rolled him flat on his back. Like a streak of lightning the bull was astride the fallen bear with his forelegs, and with lowered head ripped a horn into the bear’s chest. That was the end of the bear.”

Posted in Ventura County | Tagged Bear Baiting, Bears, Cuyama, Fiesta, Grizzlies, History, J.D. Reyes, Jacinto Damien Reyes, Non-fiction, Vaqueros | Leave a comment

Gladiator Games of Bulls and Bears: A California Blood Sport (1800s)

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Jack Elliott

This post is the first entry in a series of four:

Second: Gladiator Games of Bulls and Bears: Recollections of Jacinto Damien Reyes (1880)
Third: Gladiator Games of Bulls and Bears: Lassoing Grizzlies (1904)
Fourth: Gladiator Games of Bulls and Bears: Sport of Roping Grizzlies (1911)

“Bull-and-bear fighting became Spanish California’s most popular sport by far, a much bigger deal there, thanks to the plentiful supply of combatants, than it had ever been back home in Spain. … The Californians played several games with the grizzly that were worthy of their bloody Spanish heritage. One of the boldest was to go out only with machete and reata, and lasso a bear—which only the crazier vaqueros dared try. The craziest of them all undertook to slay the grizzly with a light sword, and on foot.”

—Thomas McNamee, Grizzly Bear (1982)

Bull and bear fights were a popular form of entertainment in nineteenth century California, a blood sport brought to the shores of the New World by Spanish settlers and enjoyed by men, women and children. Bears suffered relentless pursuit to fill the makeshift fighting arenas, as well as from recreational hunters and ranchers seeking to protect their livestock. The more courageous or crazy young men, fueled by machismo, bravado or lack of intelligence, sought to slay grizzlies on foot with a machete or sword like Roman gladiators.

These activities eventually inflicted a devastating toll on the California grizzly population. In a land of increasing human population the fearsome and deadly bear found itself on the receiving end of a campaign of slaughter in one form or another that eventually drove the species to extinction in the state. Purportedly, the last known California grizzly bear was shot dead in 1922. By today’s standards such blood sport is anathema to society at large and historical accounts provide striking proof of how cultural mores have radically changed.

“A bull and bear fight after the sabbath services in church was indeed a happy occasion. It was a soul-refreshing sight to see the growling beasts of blood tied with a long reata by one of its hind feet, so as to leave it free to use its claws and teeth, to one of the bulls feet, leaving it otherwise free for attack or defence. The fight usually took place inside of a strong wooden fence, behind which, and at a short distance, was erected a high platform for women and children, most of the men being on horseback outside the ring, with reatas ready, and loaded guns, in case the bear should leap the barrier, or other accident occur. The diversion was kept up for hours, or until one or the other of the animals succumbed, and it often happened that both were killed.”

“‘We used to make bears and bulls fight’ remarked Blas Pena, ‘for which purpose we tied the bull and bear together, the bull having one of his fore-legs strapped, and the bear one of his hind-legs. Sometimes the bull came off victorious, and at other times the bear, the result depending somewhat upon the ages of the beasts. The bears were caught on Mount Diablo with reatas made by the native Californians, of four strings of ox-hide, the skin being first dried in the sun and then soaked in water. When they began to exhale a bad odor, they were cut up in strips of about half an inch in width, and braided.’ Arnaz thinks that in bear and bull fights the bear generally obtained the victory. ‘I was present,’ he says, ‘when a bear killed three bulls. The animals were tied by one foot; sometimes they were tied to one another, with plenty of loose rope. The bull was generally left free, and was the first to attack. The bear stood on the defensive, and either put his paw in the face of the bull or seized him by the knee, which made the bull lower its head and bellow, whereupon the bear seized its tongue. They were at this juncture usually separated to save the bull.'”

Reference:

Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works, Volume XXXIV, 1700-1848, California Pastoral (1888)

Posted in California | Tagged Bear Baiting, Bears, Blood Sport, Bulls, Grizzly, History, Non-fiction, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura | 3 Comments

Viva la Fiesta! Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Jack Elliott

Today marks the start of Santa Barbara’s five day celebratory event known as Old Spanish Days fiesta.

An advertisement from the El Paso Herald in 1919.

Related Posts:

La Fiesta Pequena at the Old Mission

Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta (1915)

Posted in Santa Barbara | Tagged Fiesta, History, Old Spanish Days, Parties, Photos, Pics | 1 Comment

A Ramble through Aliso and Oso Canyons

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Jack Elliott

I went for a walk up Aliso Canyon and on over the ridge into Oso Canyon. I parked at the Aliso Canyon trailhead rather than the Oso Canyon trailhead. That added about four miles to my walk, but I wanted the exercise and needed the distance to help satiate my appetite for hiking.

And I didn’t feel like the hassle of haggling with the Adventure Pass gatekeeper at First Crossing, where Paradise Road first meets the Santa Ynez River. I didn’t have the patience to endure the rigmarole necessary to avoid being extorted by some corporate stooge based on an unjustified notion of prior restraint.

The Adventure Pass, recently ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has always, since its inception, been required for parked vehicles. Though that alone is offensive and I have never accepted it from day one, having collected around 30 unpaid tickets, the pass was not, by it’s own standard, established as a toll required to merely drive on a road. But that is exactly what the gate keepers at First Crossing have always tried to claim by virtue of stopping the free flow of traffic in order to collect a fee or verify one’s possession of a so-called Adventure Pass (Talk about cheapening the word ‘adventure’ to the point of meaninglessness!). I have never tolerated it. It’s unfortunate so many other people have accepted the fee or submitted to it and done so for so long.

Every time I’ve passed through the gate over the years since it was established as a check point I tell the person working the kiosk they have no legal basis to force me to pay anything. And, as it always goes, after several minutes of telling them kindly, yet forcefully, that I will not pay or show them squat, and listening patiently to their uninformed asinine comments, because they are used to willing approval or thoughtless submission to their demands rather than informed resistance, I drive on through. They usually write my license plate number down, at which point I tell them my name and where I’m going, and that if they have a problem they can tell the ranger to come find me and I’ll talk to them. I call BS. I win every time and they back down or they go through the motions but never follow through on their (empty) threats.

It was a hot day in the Santa Barbara backcountry, but a mite cooler than earlier in the week. Taking a peek at the Oso Canyon trailhead register on the hike up, I noticed a friend of the Condor Trail (CT on Facebook) had noted that she cut short a hike to Little Pine a few days before because it was over 110 degrees. That would indeed make for a punishing trudge up the south-facing slope of Little Pine!

On my way back down Oso Canyon in late afternoon I had overheated, due to my stubborn refusal to take needed long breaks in the shade through out the hot day. Knowing the necessity of cooling the human machine, but refusing to lay around in the heat of the dry hills even if shaded, I pushed myself on a forced march down to summer’s last remaining tiny pool in the creek below Nineteen Oaks Camp.

There I stripped down and lowered myself into the pool exhaling bubbles until I sunk to the bottom. I sat chest deep for some time letting the cool water suck the heat out of my body until my skin tensed up into goosebumps. Just enough water was trickling into the pool to keep it from being stagnant and to keep its surface free of pond scum and moss, but it stank with the musty odor of decomposing organic matter and moist, crusty hard mineral deposits.

Having lowered my body temperature, I felt refreshed and was able to actually enjoy the short hike out of several miles. I reached my truck as the last traces of daylight faded to the black of night. I somehow avoided being given yet another Adventure Pass ticket to add to my decade-old collection.

Aliso Canyon Trail