A Soapstone Olla

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NOTICIA5 QUARTERLY BULLETIN OF THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

A SOAPSTONE OLLA A few years prior to 1890, there came to Santa Barbara a man by the name of Joe Hildreth. He acquired a few horses and often went hunting in the mountains north of the Town. In 1891-, he filed on 160 acres in Mono Canyon for a homestead. There were no roads in this area and so everything had to be taken in by pack animal either by way of the Romero Canyon Trail to the Santa Ynez River and thence some eight miles up Mono Canyon or from the north foot of the San Marcos Pass Road eastward up the Santa Ynez River about ten miles to the mouth of Mono Canyon and thence north ward to the Hildreth claim. Either way, it was a long trij) for heavily laden pack animals.

One day, when Hildreth was setting a corner post of the the fence around his pasture, his shovel struck a rock. Digging it up, he was surprised to discover that the supposed rock was a large olla. one that seemed to have been made by Indians many years earlier. Hildreth put the olla on the porch of his cabin and more or less forgot about it until some visitor, seeing it. told him that it was a soapstone olla from Santa Catalina Island. Another story told to him was to the effect that the famous bandit, Joaquin Murietta, had used it as a cache, or hiding place, for his loot. Hildreth repeated these stories to Dwight Murphy and, more than a half-century later, Mr. Murphy, in turn, repeated them to the officers of the Historical Society. After a con1

siderable search, the now famous olla was found. It now resides in an honored place in our Museum.

As visitors look at this very interesting specimen of Indian handicraft, several questions leap to their minds. The first has to do with its symmetry: How were these native workmen able to make so nearly perfect a sphere?

A second one is: Where did the original block of soapstone come from? A third one is: How did so very heavy a utensil eventually arrive at so remote a place as was the Hildreth claim in Mono Canyon?

In an effort to answer, at least in part, these speculations, knowledge able men in this area have been consulted. Their more or less formal reports of their findings, made after careful examinations, follow this brief introduc tion. In informal discussions with them we have learned that the soapstone of which this olla is made is of a rather unusual type. The flakes of mica in it, for example, lie in an arrangement different from those of the soapstone usually found on Catalina Island. The uncracked size of the block from which the olla obviously was made tits diameter is about 16 inches) was so large that its original source is not easy to fix. Its weight, 66 pounds, made it a difficult vessel to transport for people who w'ere without large beasts of burden and who were not possessed of the wheel. And so there still is much to be learned about it. This paper, at best, must be accepted as a beginning of our search and not as the final conclusion.

We are deeply indebted to each one of the generous men who have helped us prepare this special issue of Noticias for our members.

'k January 18, 1966 Dear Mr. Murphy: Replying to your letters of January 6 and 12: Mrs. Griffiths, at the Historical Society, put Tom Dibblee on the phone at the time he was examin ing the olla, and we talked briefly about it. He suggested that he take some scrapings from it that I could examine microscopically, and I agreed to do so. When Tom arrived at the University, however, I was in another room and unfortunately I missed seeing him. Your letter of January 12 reminded me that I had not yet found time to examine the scrapings under the microscope, but the end of this semester brought such a flood of work that I decided to have one of our graduate students, Mike Higgins, do the microscopic work.

This he completed yesterday, and we went over his findings today. Mike did a fine job, and his complete and thorough identification of the minerals will at least add precision to the identification of the kind of material of which the olla is composed, even though it still leaves the exact source of the olla in doubt. The mineralological detail is something that the museum may wish to keep on record, so I have typed it on a separate sheet of paper.

Now for some speculations as to what the microscopic determinations mean in terms of the possible source of the olla: The three important minerals in the olla are, in order of abundance, (1) chloride, (2) antigorite, (3) talc.

All three of these minerals indicate that the olla comes from the alteration and recrystallization of serpentine, a common rock in the Coast Ranges of California. Hot water, percolating through serpentines underground, causes partial solution and recrystallization of the original rock into patches, veinlets, and irregular masses of completely intergrown crystals of chlorite and anti2

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gorite. The sparse and very small flakes of laic fill the spaces between the predominant chlorite and antigorite.

Serpentine is widespread on Figueroa Mountain; also near Gaviota Pass, and at various points along the north base of the Santa Ynez range. Mr. George Walker tells me that small bodies of serpentine are found along two prominent faults (the Hildreth Fault and the Pine Mountain fault) which cross Mono Creek. (I should explain that faults are major fractures in the earth’s crust along which the rocks are squeezed and deformed during earth quakes, and along which hot water often circulates.) Tom Dibblee can doubt less point to other occurrences of serpentine within 245 miles of the point where the olla was found. Farther north, serpentine is abundant near New Idria, and in many other parts of the Coast Ranges.

So far as I know (and Tom Dibblee will please correct me if I am wrong), serpentine does not occur on the Channel Islands. Therefore the evidence, admittedly inconclusive, indicates that the Indian who carved the olla probably found this material on the mainland, not on the Channel Islands, and very likely somewhere in the Santa Ynez Valley region. He might actually have picked it up from the bed of Mono Creek, but to check this last assump3

tion, I would wish to examine the boulders carried down the Mono Creek channel by floods before getting any deeper into such speculations.

At any rate, it is a beautiful object, carved from very pretty and unusual derivative of serpentine.

Let me also take this opportunity, Mr. Murphy to thank you for the copy of Noticias which you enclosed. I was delighted with the article and pictures of the palaminos; also with John Gorham’s drawing of the White

Oak.

Sincerely Aaron C. Waters Chairman, Department of Geology University of California at Santa Barbara

THE WATERS REPORT

; Mineral Composition of Olla from Mono Creek, Santa Barbara County Scrapings from the Olla obtained by Tom Dibblee during his examina tion of the object on January 5, 1966, were submitted to me for study by means of the petrographic microscope. Identification of the minerals was made by Mr. Mike Higgins, graduate student in the Department of Geology, UCSB, and confirmed after further petrographic examinations made by me on January 18, 1966.

Two minerals made up most of the olla: Chlorite, (Mg, AI, Fe)u-[ (Si, Al)„0,-o](OH)i(i is the most abundant mineral. It is in pale green flakes, which bleach to white chalky mica-like particles that deform permanently when bent, instead of springing back elastically like mica. This appears to be an aluminous magnesium-rich chlorite, poor in iron. It is biaxial, positive, 2V about 20°, with the b index 1.609.

Anligoritc, Mg:i [Si-O:,] (Oil) is also a prominent mineral, making up about 30-40% of the scrapings. It is biaxial, negative, with a very low 2V. The b index is 1.592; a is about the same. It occurs as nearly color less flakes closely intergrown with the chlorite.

Talc, Mg,i [SinOo,,] (OH).| is sparsely present in such tiny flakes that the optical properties could not be accurately determined. Its identitication rests chiefly on its flaky form, and on higher birefringence than that of the closely similar flakes of antigorile.

These minerals are magnesium silicates, and the rock from which the olla was carved originated by the recrystallization of serpentine (a common bluish-green rock found in many parts of the Coast Ranges of California).

Hot water, circulating along faults or fractures at some depth underground, was probably the agent that caused recrystallization. Very likely the re crystallized rock was then uncovered by erosion and the piece shaped into this olla could have been a loose boulder lying in a stream bed.

Large masses of serjjentine are found on Figueroa Mountain, and in many parts of the Northern Coast Ranges. Smaller masses occur along the

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Santa Ynez, Hildreth, and Pine Mountain faults in the Santa Ynez valley All three minerals in the olla are soft and can be easily carved with a sharp stone, such as flint, chert, and basalt—materials commonly used by the Indians for scrapers and projectile points. The stone from which the olla came could also be shaped by stone flakes broken from hard pebbles along any stream bed. The soft, non-elastic minerals could also be hammered loose by percussion from fire hardened sticks.

This rock combines properties tliat do not often appear in one stone.

It is soft and easily carved, but tough and tenaceous instead of brittle. The softness makes it easy to shape, the tenacity allows it to be carved into a large object without breaking or cracking.

Aaron C. Waters January 18,1966

THE DlBBLEE REPORT Most likely source of rock of olla from Mono Creek, Santa Barbara County, California

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The soapstone from which the olla was carved is most unusual because none of this kind of rock has been seen in any of the mountain ranges of Santa Barbara County that I have geologized. Tlie nearest occurrence of soap stone seen is in Sierra Pelona ridge between Saugus and Palmdale in Los Angeles County, and in the Tehachapi Range in Kern County. In both these ranges soapstone is associate with mica-chlorite-actinolite schist rock, none of which is present in Santa Barbara County. Schist rock of this type is exposed also on the north slope of the Mt. Pinos Range in Ventura County, but no soapstone was seen there. 1 here is no serpentine rock in any of these ranges.

However, it seems unlikely (hat the soapstone rock of this olla is from any of those ranges, because of (1) their distance over rugged terrain from Mono Canyon, and (2) soapstone from lliose areas contains actinolite (a magnesium-aluminum silicate mineral) rather than antigorite, the principal mineral of which serpentine rock is composed.

It seems mostly likely that the soapstone from which this olla was carved was probably a small gob or vein within or near a local mass of serpentine rock. Serpentine forms numerous intrusians or injections into the Franciscan f ormation, the oldest rock formation in Santa Barbara County, and which is exposed very extensively in the San Rafael Mountains north westerly from Camuesa and Oso Canyons. In Mono Canyon there are only two small outcrops of serpentine rock, both in a tributary canyon within 2 miles northeast of the place where the olla was found.

Small gobs or veins, only a few inches or feet wide, of strange or rare rocks, such as this soapstone, or even jade, are associated with serpentine rock in a few places. Most of these rocks are very coherent and tough, and when dislodged from their outcrops may form boulders or cobbles that may be washed long distances down stream beds without breaking. This olla may have been carved from such a boulder. It might have been found by an Indian right in Mono Creek, or possibly in some other stream bed farther west in the San Rafael Range or in the. Santa Ynez River bed, or possibly in one of the gravel terraces adjacent to any of these stream beds.

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Dear Mr. Spaulding: In this drawing I’ve tried to show the Chumash technology and also indicate the

love they had for the sea and the mountains.

This is a feeling still shared in Santa Barbara.

Russell A. Ruiz

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February 25, 1966 Mr. E. S. Spaulding, 720 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara, California.

Dear Selden: As I recall it was In the summer of I905 that a friend and I went into the Mono and Buckhorn Canyon on a camping trip.

We stayed at the Hildreth Ranch In Mono

Canyon for two days.

I noticed quite a large stone olla

near his cabin, and. In asking Hildreth about it, he stated he had unearthed it on the ridge at the north end of his hay field while digging a post hole for a fence.

He said

he had been told that the material the olla was made of was soapstone and that it had come from Catalina Island.

When Hildreth sold his property to Carl Stoddard the olla was brought to Stoddard's home in Monteclto on Cold Springs Road and for several years was to be seen on the front porch.

Subsequently, the late Francis Price

acquired the olla and after several years it was given to his son, Francis Price, Jr., who presented it to the Santa Barbara Historical Society late in 1965At the time you asked me if I would write what I remembered about Joe Hildreth for Notlclas I mentioned having seen the olla Hildreth found, and your interest in it has brought about this special issue of Notlclas.

Best regards.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Reported by Edward Selden Spaulding Listening, as I have clone, to the informal and impressively conservative discussions that have been held over the now famous olla, which, for the moment, stands in the corner of the first room of our Museum, it has be come evident that we listeners have been the beneficiaries of much infor mation of a secondary sort that does not appear in the formal reports— information that, because of its nebulous character and in spite of the fact that it is of great interest to us, could not be included properly in the reports.

Much of it leads the inejuisitive mind so tantalizingly into that wonderful region that goes by the name of “As Yet Unkown,” liowever, that we feel that it should be made a part of the permanent record. Obviously, it would be wholly unfair to attribute to Dr. Waters or to my friend of long standinD’ Tom Dibblee, or to Russell Ruiz or to any other of the good men who so helpfully have interested themselves in this search, this or that scrap of observation, any casual remark made as an aside, or the mention of a |)ossibility, to say nothing of a probability. And so 1 set down here what I iieard not as fact but as extraordinary bits that lie within my understanding of what has been said by these so knowledgeable men.

First of all, as far as the well known deposits of soapstone on Santa Catalina Island are concerned, the mica flakes in much of them lie more or less in layers parallel with one another; while the mica flakes in our olla, as seen through a strong glass, do not so lie. Rather are they in every possible position in relation to each other. This fact makes it appear to be less likely that Catalina Island was the source of the large block from which our olla was cut, or scraped. By the same token, it makes it less likely that our heavy olla was carried in a plank canoe from Catalina Island to some point on the mainland, say, to one of the several Indian villages that were located about the Goleta Slough; and that it was traded there for asphaltum or some other valued commodity.

That the olla came originally from a quarry near the top of Figueroa Mountain, in the San Rafael Range, certainly is a possibility; but, if it did so come, of necessity it was carried a considerable distance to about the middle of Mono Canyon over very rough terrain.

All of these speculations make necessary at this point a brief discussion of the methods of trading and of the amount of moving about that W'ere inherent in the customs of the Indians of this region in the days an un determined number of years before the coming of the Europeans. That there was definite movement of information and of goods over definite routes in those days, whenever they were, is well established. Juan Rodriguez (Cabrillo) for example, was told by the natives of the now-called Ventura Area, when he came to that place during his cruise up our Channel, that there were Spaniards (probably members of the Coronado Expedition) seven days journey to the east, that is, in the general neighborhood of the Colorado River. Viscaino, sixty years later, was shown by members of these same Canalino villages bits of woven cloth and other small articles that could have been made only by Europeans. Obviously this information 10

and these small articles had been brought into the Channel Area in one way or another from some far off place or places. Native artifacts, of course are known to have been traded widely and over long distances from the earliest times. By this statement I do not mean to imply necessarily that the traders carried any article the whole way that it traversed at one time, or, on the other hand, that years, sometimes even very many years, may not have been required before some of the linal transactions were accomplished.

To be specific as possible, should it be determined finally, at some later date, that our olla in fact was made on Santa Catalina Island, it does not follow necessarily that it was placed in a canoe unmediately upon being finished and then carried directly to the Indians of the Goleta Slough, that it was then carried directly over, or through, the notch that we now call the San Marcos Pass to the Santa Ynez River, then eastward up this river to the mouth of Mono Canyon, and then, finally, up this canyon to the ridge where it was discovered by Joe Hildreth. The long journey could have been made, in fact, it j)robably was made, in many more or less aim less, short wanderings, some of them, perhaps, wanderings of only a mile or two in length, as the family in whose possession it was moved about from place to place over a period of many years. Or it could have been traded equally well from one family to another, and then to another, and then to a fourth; and so on, almost ad infinitum.

Several things definitely are known that have bearings on this dis cussion, and these must be kept in mind clearly. One of these is that the Channel Indians made very fine plank canoes. In these seaworthy craft they traveled back and forth between the rancherias of the mainland and those of the islands at will. Another is that there was a large concentration of natives about the Big Slough, and there were smaller villages, or ranch erias, on many of the flats cf the Santa Ynez drainage basin. Still another is that there was a much used trail, or route of travel, from the Goleta Slough over the Santa Ynez Range either by way of the San Marcos Notch or by Blue Canyon to the River. From the Santa Ynez River this route ran up Mono Canyon and the little creek that we now call “The Don Victor” to a notch in the divide a short distance to the east of Madulce Peak, and then on and into the Cuyama Valley. Eventually, of course, this trail led to “The Tulares.” Incidentally, it was over this route that the ten men, left as a garrison for Santa Barbara by Fremont, escaped from the rebellious Californios and rejoined Fremont in Monterey.

Why this particular soapstone olla was buried on a ridge can not be known surely, it seems. Sometimes, the Indians of Colorado buried such containers filled with food on windswept ridges because, during the winter months, when the snow lay thick on the more nearly level ground, it was much easier for them to find the containers there than it would have been had tliey been !)uried elsewhere. There also was less danger of water spoilage there. As the Chumash people depended largely on acorns and other seeds for sustenance, it is at least possible that they, too, made caches of food on ex posed ridges; and so our olla may have been a receptacle for food of some Chumash family.

As of the present writing, no outcropping of soapstone is known to us throughout the length of Mono Canyon. It is easily possible, of course.

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that there is such an outcropping that has yet to be discovered by present day searchers. The fact that this large and heavy olla was found in this canyon makes this interesting speculation somewhat the more plausible.

That our natives would recognize a soapstone boulder for what it was, had they come upon it in the Mono creekbed, is all but certain. And so, at this writing and until other indicators point more strongly to some other answer, it seems reasonable to suppose that our olla was worked into its present shape at some place not too far distant from the ridge on which it was found by Indians who, at that time, were living in Mono Canyon.

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