The Luiseño Indian Tribe In Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona

“With every day that the intercourse between his people and the whites increased, he saw the whites gaining, his people surely losing ground, and his anxieties deepened” (Jackson, 52). Your people have resided throughout this area for centuries, and are now slowly losing it piece by piece like wild animals being pushed out their homes by the progress of modern society. In Helen Hunt Jackson’s historical novel Ramona, she paints a picture of the changing lives and culture of the Luiseño Indian tribe after the United States claimed California from Mexico. From early on in the book she characterizes this tribe as “helpless”, which can be observed when Father Salvierderra expresses to Alessandro “We are all alike helpless in their hands, Alessandro,

They possess the country, and can make what laws they please. We can only say, ‘God’s will be done’” (66). Also through words expressed by Alessandro, who is utilized to represent the Luiseño, this tribe is detailed as poor by Jackson; such as when Alessandro reveals to Felipe “my father and I have need of all the money we can earn. Our people are very poor” (98). A final depiction made of the Luiseño Indian tribe is that of an illiterate culture who was resistant to educating themselves, a notation of this can be made when Alessandro complains to Ramona:
“My father gets in despair with them, because they will not learn better. He gives them a great deal, but they do not seem any better off for it. There is only one other man in our village who can read and write, besides my father and me, Senorita; and yet my father is all the time begging them to come to his house and learn of him. But they say they have no time” (Jackson 119)
As implied by Alessandro, his Indian tribe was unwilling to learn to read and write despite great efforts by his father to encourage them. After comparing the way the Luiseño Indian tribe was portrayed by Jackson in Ramona to factual historical information found by personal research, I feel this tribe’s culture, lifestyle, and interaction with whites was represented both accurately and inaccurately throughout the book.
Jackson alludes to various cultural aspects of the Luiseño Indian tribe, both true and false, while the reader follows Alessandro through the story. Some of these can be found while revealing Alessandro’s lack of interest in taking a wife. The author is referring to the opposite sex when she writes, “For a dance or a game, or a friendly chat, for trips to the mountains after acorns, or to the marshes for grasses and reeds, he was their good comrade, and they were his; but never had the desire to take one of them for his wife, entered into Alessandro’s mind” (53). First, if you focus on the reference to Alessandro as a “good comrade” to women “for a dance” you can presume that to mean that he danced with other females from his tribe. However, in a first-hand account by Pablo Tac who is well-known for his writings about the Luiseño, he discloses credible information about the dances used by his culture. He states “we Luiseños have three principle kinds for men alone, because women have others, and they can never dance with the men” (qtd. in Bean and Vane 158). This reveals an inaccuracy to the way this particular Indian tribe was portrayed by Jackson in her book. Alessandro was next attributed in that quote as a “comrade” to females while playing “a game”. In the same first-hand account by Pablo Tac, he reports about a ball game that his Indian tribe enjoyed playing. While outlining the rules and how the game is played he reports, “The women play also, and this each Sunday with permission. The Luiseños know how to play well” (qtd. in Bean and Vane 163). As revealed by Pablo Tac, there was some accuracy in the author’s depiction of men and women of the tribe engaging in friendly competition through this game. These accurate and inaccurate portrayals also occurred in the way the lifestyle of the Luiseño was depicted in the book.
Jackson reproduced a likeness to the lifestyle of the Luiseño tribe, but not every detail portrayed in her book did I discover to be aligned with the documented facts about them.

In reference to the quote mentioned earlier by Alessandro which alludes to his tribe being illiterate, you are influenced to believe that most of the Luiseño were unable to read and write. However, in George Phillips book Chiefs and Challengers : Indian Resistance and Cooperation in Southern California, 1769-1906, a much different portrayal of them is found. The book refers to a letter written in July 1856 by Colonel Cave J. Couts, who was the Indian subagent appointed over the Luiseño and Kumeyaay the time, which states, “the Luiseños ‘require but little attention with proper management…Many of them can read and write’” (166). This proves the description used by Jackson about the reading ability of the people from Alessandro’s tribe was inaccurate. On the other hand, she does properly describe stone bowls that were made by southern California native tribes with only stone tools when she wrote “These bowls were of gray stone, hollowed and polished, shining smooth inside and out. They had also been made by the Indians, nobody knew how many years ago, scooped and polished by the patient creatures, with only stones” (17). The Luiseño have been well documented as skilled artisans for their profuse utilization of various stone tools, Jack Williams’s book The Luiseño of California provides this

insight:
Like most other early Native Americans, the Luiseños found that stone was one of their most important resources. They created dozens of different types of chipped stone tools, such as arrowheads, drills, knives, and spear points. These tools were made for cutting, drilling scraping, prying, and dozens of other uses. Some of the harder types of stone were ground into other types of tools. For example, every community had dozens of mortars and pestles (19).
Therefore, revealing an accurate account of the portrayal of this Indian tribe’s lifestyle by Jackson. Next, she refers to the Luiseño a second time as being poor when Alessandro explains to Ramona “There are many things we want to do for the village; most of our people are poor, and can do little more than get what they need to eat day by day” (119). The people of the Luiseño were continually recognized as being self-sufficient and hard workers, but in the book Chiefs and Challengers Phillips sheds light on the struggles of this tribe when he writes, “throughout 1857 the Luiseños suffered greatly from the drought that struck the region…Subagent J.J. Kendrick noted in October that ordinarily the Indians ‘raised not only a suffiency to support themselves’ but also had a ‘surplus to dispose of’. Cota told Kendrick that the drought had caused a poor harvest and that three of his villages lacked sufficient food” (169). So depending on the actual time Jackson’s story is taking place, there is a possibility to the accuracy of her portrayal of this tribe as being poor and in need of assistance. Accurate and inaccurate representations could also be found in the way Jackson portrayed the interactions of Indians and non-Indians.