Supposed Indian Traditions of Drake’s Visit
Professor George Davidson was the second investigator to use an Indian tradition as evidence of the Drake’s Bay location of the 1579 visit.111 The source of the tradition is in J. P. Munro-Fraser’s History of Marin County,112 and is stated as follows:
First of all comes an old Indian legend which comes down through the Nicasios to the effect that Drake did land at this place [Drake’s Bay]. Although they have been an interior tribe ever since the occupation by the Spaniards and doubtless were at that time, it still stands to reason that they would know all about the matter. If the ship remained in the bay thirty-six days it is reasonable to suppose that a knowledge of its presence reached every tribe within an area of one hundred miles and that the major portion of them paid a visit to the bay to see the “envoys of the Great Spirit,” as they regarded the white seamen. One of these Indians named Theognis who is reputed to have been one hundred and thirty years old when he made the statement, says that Drake presented the Indians with a dog, some young pigs, and seeds of several species of grain.... The Indians also state that some of Drake’s men deserted him here, and, making their way into the country, became amalgamated with the aboriginals to such an extent that all traces of them were lost, except possibly a few names [Nicasio, Novato] which are to be found among the Indians.
Wagner feels that there is no reason or evidence to indicate that the Nicasio Indian tradition refers to Drake,113 a conclusion with which I agree. If any early expedition did leave pigs with the Coast Miwok, it could have been the Spanish one of 1793, which attempted unsuccessfully to form a settlement at Bodega Bay. Felipe Goycoechea, in 1793 specifically mentions seeing some pigs and chickens which the Spanish had left earlier in the year with the Indians at that place.114 With Wagner’s statement that, if any credit can be given to the pig episode, Cermeño may have been the donor,115 I cannot agree, mainly for the reason that Cermeño’s crew were hungry and would not have given the Indians any pigs if they had had them. The story of the dog is interesting since neither the Pomo nor Coast Miwok had dogs in pre-Spanish times, and the evidence indicates that dogs were introduced shortly after 1800.116 Aside from these facts, the supposed Nicasio tradition does not have a true ring—it is not the type of story that Indians are accustomed to tell.
A belief among the Coast Miwok117 and some Pomo118 tribes that the home of the dead is associated with Point Reyes should perhaps be taken into account. The belief is that this seaward projection is associated with the dead, who follow a string leading out through the surf to the land of the dead. It is barely possible that this belief, which is quite clearly of Coast Miwok origin, is a legendary reminiscence of Drake’s visit which seems to have been, in part at least, interpreted by the Indians as the return of the dead. It may be superfluous to mention that no Indian has ever stated his idea of the origin of this legend,119 or of its association with the visit of Drake’s party; yet there remains the possibility that the occurrence made an impression so deep that Point Reyes became in this way associated with the home of the dead in the west, from which the English were supposed to have come and gone. If this tradition were associated with Drake, it would, of course, signify that his anchorage was behind Point Reyes in Drake’s Bay. On the other hand, this remarkable point which juts far out into the ocean is a prominent feature of Coast Miwok territory, and by reason of its unique topography might have been associated with local ceremonial beliefs.120
I may conclude this discussion by saying that no direct evidence of Drake’s visit in 1579 is to be found in recorded local Indian traditions. In view of the long time that has intervened, no native legendary evidence is to be expected. Euhemerism is ordinarily rather an unproductive and hazardous approach for the historian.