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Dogs in California Aboriginal
Cultures
by John Ensminger
2017
CALIFORNIA CULTURES : A MONOGRAPH SERIES. VOLUME 5. 2017
Most of the tribes of California had dogs, though there
was considerable variation as to whether and how they were
used in hunting, what prey they might find and pursue,
whether they were given training, which was most common
for dogs used in driving deer and elk, whether they were never
eaten, eaten occasionally in certain ceremonies, or eaten
regularly as a matter of course, whether they were fed or
relegated to eating refuse and waste, if and how they were
sheltered, whether they were sacrificed and buried on the
death of their owners, whether they received separate burials
with grave goods, and whether the tribe had a breeding
population of dogs or received them in trade. Although
frequently compared to wolves, coyotes and even foxes by
early travelers, interbreeding with other canids was likely far
less frequent than initially supposed. Both large and small
dogs are found in archeological digs and during the historical
period, with some tribes having dogs of both sizes. Two
different morphotypes of small dogs are attested for some
areas. They had roles in myths, and creation stories often
indicate that they and humans descended from the first
beings and that they could at one time talk with and even
mate with humans. After the arrival of European cultures
they began to disappear as distinct types.
ii
Abstract
CHAPTER 2
Physical
Characteristics,
Genetics, and
Distribution of
Aboriginal Dogs
Dog of the North American Indians,
by Charles Hamilton Smith (1840: Plate 8).
SECTION OVERVIEW
1. Overview of Physical Characteristics
2. General Absence of Breeds and Breeding
3. Genetics of Aboriginal American Dogs
4. Interbreeding with Wolves and Coyotes
5. Regional Distribution of Dogs in Pre-Contact
California
6. Trade and Movement of Dogs in Aboriginal
SECTION 1
Overview of Physical
Characteristics
Data on what aboriginal dogs looked like and how they
behaved can be obtained from (1) aboriginal depictions, which
for pre-Hispanic California consists primarily of rock art and
a few carved objects, (2) archeological materials, including
dog skeletons and bones, as well as dog skin and bone
products, found in various contexts, (3) accounts of early
explorers, missionaries, traders, and other travelers, (4)
linguistic analysis, (5) ethnographic research beginning in the
early 19th century and increasing in sophistication to the
present, and (6) genetics research on living animals as well as
on excavated bones and mummified remains. Genetic
research in particular continues to tell us much we would
never have guessed about the history of dogs.
Although various pieces of information from one set of
sources can be correlated with that from other sources, in the
end it is not possible to reduce the information in such a way
as to provide a specific set of visual images to tell us exactly
what the aboriginal dogs of California looked like, nor
precisely how many different types there may have been. As
Valadez has noted, summarizing such information for Mexico,
sources differ considerably in describing the types of dogs
present in aboriginal cultures, with one 16th century
Franciscan writer identifying 13 types of dogs in Mexico, while
Valadez himself, relying on a broad range of sources and
materials, but particularly osteometrics, feels that perhaps
only type was aboriginal, with subsequent development
beginning from this Common Mesoamerican type (Valadez
1994:3). Valadez and others have argued that the common
Mesoamerican type can still be found, particularly in more
remote locations (Rodriguez and Gomez 2003:51; Padilla et
al. 2009:135). Curiously, recent genetics analysis on the
common Mesoamerican dog indicates that it was not derived
from the common pre-Hispanic American dog generally
located further north (Valadez and Mestre 2009:68; see van
Asch et al. 2013:3, Witt et al. 2015:114). Valadez describes the
common Mesoamerican dog as flop-eared (Rodriguez and
Gomez 2003:51), which is consistent with some 16th century
depictions (Dibble and Anderson 1981:15-16, Illustrations
30-28, showing canids from the illustrated manuscript of Fray
Bernardino de Sahagun). The shape of the ear appears to
distinguish the common Mesoamerican type identified by
Valadez from dogs found among some northern Mexican and
border tribes (such as the dogs shown in Figures 5 and 10
herein).
The earliest description of aboriginal dogs in southern
California was made by Father Antonio de la Ascension, who
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California Cultures: A Monograph Series. Vol. 5, 2017
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California Cultures: A Monograph Series. Vol. 5, 2017
Table 2. Descriptions of Dogs of Specific Tribes in California (by John Ensminger primarily from Berkeley
anthropological publications).
Table 2. Descriptions of Dogs of Specific Tribes in California (by John Ensminger primarily from Berkeley
anthropological publications).
Tribe (source for Informant)
Description of Dog Type
Tolowa (Drucker 1937b)
Big, with pointed ears, slim belly
Yurok (Voegelin 1942)
Prick ears, short tail, short hair, about 18 in. high, varicolored.
Shasta (Voegelin 1942)
Small variety, large prick ears.
Modoc (Klamath) (Voegelin 1942)
Single small variety, prick ears, short hair, brown and black.
Hupa (Goddard 1904, following Gibbs
record of October 15, 1851)
Wolfish looking dogs that only make noise if kicked or engaged in fighting each other, bark resembling
coyote bark; color usually black and white or brown and white; bushy tails and sharp noses.
Wintu (DuBois 1935; Voegelin 1942)
Dubois: pre-white dogs looked like small wire-haired terriers; Voegelin: prick ears, short hair
Achumawi (Voegelin 1942)
Two varieties for Western Achumawi: small dog, 12 in. high, short hair, not used in hunting; large dog,
“pretty nearly as big as a calf” used in hunting; one variety for Eastern Achumawi: similar to coyote,
prick ears, short hair, tawny.
Coast Yuki (Kroeber 1925; Foster 1944)
Short-haired and sharp-eared, like a coyote.
Yana (Kroeber 1925)
Sharp-nosed, erect-eared, short-haired, of the shape and size of a coyote but gentle and definitely
domesticated as bred in a variety of colors.
Atsugewi (Voegelin 1942; Garth 1953)
About size of fox or coyote, small prick ears like coyote, short hair and long hair, fawn or brown colored.
Maidu (Dixon 1905; Voegelin 1942)
Dixon: good hunting dog looked like a coyote according to some, but others said was smaller; Voegelin:
dogs imported.
Konkow (Voegelin 1942, Northwestern
Maidu)
Prick ears, short hair.
Southern Pomo (Gallinomero) (Powers
1877)
Their small dogs are fat and churlish.
Southern Sierra Miwok (Barrett and
Gifford 1933)
Ancient dog of the Miwok was brindled, medium-sized, prick-eared, short-haired, had a curled tail, and
a muzzle like a coyote.
Yokuts (Gayton 1948)
Hunting dogs somewhat resembled coyotes: they had long tails, some had long, slightly woolly fur,
‘coyote color, pretty near yellow.’ There were also black, white, and spotted dogs. Some had short fur.
Some were as high as a man's knee.
Mono (Gifford 1932)
Western Mono dogs were gray, had small prick ears, and were both short- and long-haired.
Tübatulabal (Merriam 1967, vol. 3)
Native dogs were small, white, short-haired, but not obtained from Mexicans.
accompanied Sebastian Vizcaino along the California coast in
1602. He wrote that “the Indians have many dogs of medium
size and of good appearance like our spotted retrievers, only
they do not bark, but howl like coyotes” (Langenwalter
2005:30). The aboriginal dogs of California, unlike some dogs
further north and further south, did not survive in identifiable
groups. The degree to which their genetic traits may remain
in any extant canine population has yet to be clarified. The
anthropological records include the descriptions in my Table
2, though many came from informants who were relating
memories from childhood or what they had heard from elders.
Most of these descriptions come from the northern to the
central part of California and are generally of hunting dogs
(with the possible exception of the Southern Pomo and the
likely exception of the Tübatulabal, which may have been dogs
kept for eating). Some features were widespread: prick ears,
short hair, often tawny but also with colors such as brown,
black and white, frequently said to resemble coyotes though
sometimes compared to wolves and, further east, foxes (Butler
and Hadlock 1977:17). This generally fits within the type of
dog that Glover Allen in his foundational analysis of the dogs
of the Native Americans called the Plains-Indian Dog (Allen
1920:449), which Haag (1948:108) included in ten types that
he described as belonging to the “larger Indian dog.” Haag,
using detailed osteometric analyses, found a gradation in size
of dogs across North America, which he called a “biological
continuum,” that “rather than distinct races or subspecies …
may be best characterized as varieties” (Haag 1948:228).
One of the first naturalists to attempt to study North
American dogs, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith,
produced a color plate of what he called the Dog of the North
American Indians (Hamilton Smith 1840:159, Plate 8,
reproduced here as Figure 2) which he said “certainly
assimilates with the Caygotte” (coyote). Hamilton Smith
describes the animal he drew and its owner as follows:
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California Cultures: A Monograph Series. Vol. 5, 2017
Figure 2: Dog of the North American Indians,
by Charles Hamilton Smith (1840: Plate 8).
The specimen, of which we give a figure, was said to
be of unmixed blood; and this is in some measure
confirmed by his former owner's character, the
celebrated Tecumseh, who was inwardly hostile to the
white man. His dog was smaller than the Caygotte,
and about equal in size to a spaniel; but what struck
us as remarkable in his head, was the front view,
which formed an equilateral triangle, measured from
the nose to the tips of both ears, and thence from tip
to tip. The animal was not sullen, and seldom uttered
a howl; but his aspect was savage, and the colours of
his fur were those of a common wolf.
(Hamilton Smith 1840:159)
!
Smith held a position in the West Indies, during which
time his travels gave him an opportunity to visit various parts
of America and could have seen the dog somewhere in the
upper Midwest.
Before Allen’s more scientific analysis, it was commonly
assumed that the Indian dogs in the American West were
descended from or regularly interbred with coyotes. Packard
quoted an 1884 report by J.S. Wortman to the Geological
Survey of Indiana which states:
It is by no means uncommon to find mongrel
dogs among many of the Western Indian tribes,
notably among the Umatillas, Bannocks,
Shoshones, Arrapahoes, Crows, Sioux, which to
one familiar with the color, physiognomy and
habits of the coyote, have every appearance of
blood relationship, if not, in many cases, this
animal itself in a state of semi-domestication.
(Packard 1885:44)
Coues also found the coyote and the dog very similar and
noted that the differences between coyote and dog skulls were
well within the range of differences between many dog breeds,
concluding that there is “striking and unquestionable
evidence of relationship by direct descent of some Indian dogs
from the coyote” (Coues 1873:388). The distribution of the
Plains-Indian dog is given by Allen as “western North
American from British Columbia south perhaps to the
Mexican Boundary and eastward through the Great Plains
Region” (Allen 1920:449). Colton argued that the Plains-
Indian dog began spreading westward from the plains around
A.D. 800, and that before that there were “few, if any, large
dogs” in the Southwest (Colton 1970:158). This event is
roughly coincident with a late phase of Uto-Aztecan
migrations into California (Vellanoweth et al. 2008:3119;
Vellanoweth 2001:941; see Davletshin 2012 for linguistic
evidence).
Allen also identified the Short-Nosed Indian Dog, as to
which he accepted the Linnaean classification of Pachycyon
robustus used by J.A. Allen (1985:4), as including dogs found
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California Cultures: A Monograph Series. Vol. 5, 2017
in shell mounds on San Nicolas Island (Allen 1920:495). J.A.
Allen had identified a Virginia cave specimen as belonging to
this species, and Glover Allen felt that it was also the species
of the mummified dog, shown in Figure 3, that Guernsey had
excavated in Arizona, as described by Guernsey and Kidder
with the help of Allen (1921:44 and Plate 15a, publishing
material from earlier digs). Olsen describes this dog as “black
and white, about the size of a terrier, with a short-haired but
shaggy coat; the ears are erect, the tail long and bushy, and
the muzzle is noticeably shortened” (Olsen 1985:35-39).
Having viewed the dog at the Peabody Museum recently, I
would not call it black and white but rather dark brown and
white. This dog has been dated in a broad range from 2,000 to
800 years ago, but probably closer to the earlier part of this
range (Snyder and Leonard 2011:528; the Peabody Museum
identifies the mummy as belonging in a range between 500
BC to 400 AD) (Peabody Museum 1916).
A third type of aboriginal dog identified by Allen as
existing in the Southwest was what he called the Small Indian
Dog or Techichi (Allen 1920:481). He believed it was likely
the same as the Canis alco identified and drawn by Hamilton
Smith (1840:135 and Plate 4 reproduced here as Figure 4; see
also Valadez 1994:2, discussing the terminology of the Jesuit
Francisco Javier Clavijero, writing between 1770 and 1780).
The dog on the left is in a drawing that also depicted what
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California Cultures: A Monograph Series. Vol. 5, 2017
Figure 3: Short-Nosed Indian Dog (Pachycyon robustus),
(Allen 1920: Plate 6).
Figure 4: Alco and Carrier Dog of the Indians,
by Charles Hamilton Smith (1840: Plate 4).
Hamilton Smith called the Carrier Dog of the Indians. The
alco was described by Jose de Acosta (1590, 2002 translation)
as the native dog of the Indies.
There are no true dogs in the Indies, only an
animal similar to a little dog that the Indians
call alco; and the Indians are so fond of them
that they will go hungry in order to feed them,
and when they are walking along the roads they
will carry them on their backs or in their
bosoms. And if they are ill the dog must stay by
them, though they use them for nothing, only
good friendship and company.
(Acosta 1590, 2002 translation:231-232)
Allen noted, however, that Hamilton Smith rather
hopelessly confused his own terminology and identified the
Plains-Indian Dog with the Techichi (Allen 1920:451). As
discussed below, the two types may have differed only in size
(Valadez 1994:2). Gathering his discussion into an overall
perspective, Allen states:
In a very general way, three types of dogs may be
distinguished among the American aborigines:
(1) the large, broad-muzzled, Eskimo Dog, with
heavy coat and tail curled forward over the hip;
(2) a larger and (3) a smaller Indian Dog, from
which are probably to be derived several distinct
local breeds. Of the larger style of dog as many as
eleven varieties may perhaps be distinguished; of
the smaller, five.
(Allen 1920:503)
In 1985, Olsen quoted this paragraph and said that it had
initially governed his perspective:
Some years ago I grouped southwestern
prehistoric dogs into two groups, small and large,
fol low ing, m ore or les s, Alle n’s (1 920)
classification. The animals in the small group
were fox-terrier-sized and were further refined or
separated into small, short-faced, and small,
long-faced dogs. The animals in the large group
were long-faced and were comparable in size to
the local coyote but a bit heavier in overall
proportions…. This latter group was referred to
by Allen as the large Pueblo Indian dog, or the
Plains Indian dog.
(Olsen 1985:35)
By the time Olsen created his own overview of
southwestern dogs, however, he felt that the range of dog
types was more accurately conceived of as several sets of size
and shape gradients:
After examining later published reports and
newer finds and reexamining the older finds of
Allen’s time, it now appears that these groupings
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are, in a sense, artificial—particularly for dogs
from the southwestern United States. The groups
actually grade into one another in size, form, and
amount of morphological variation, if a large
enough collection is examined. The result is a
more or less single mongrel group of
southwestern Indian dogs. However, the entire
range of size and form variation is not found in
every archaeological site. It is still possible to
find representatives of only a part of the
spectrum—either small, short-faced or long-faced
dogs, or large Pueblo Indian dogs—at specified
sites. The overlap is at the extremes of each of
these size groups and is quite logical, since the
prehistoric Indian dogs were not registered
American Kennel Club breeds, but were, instead,
free-breeding, socializing mongrels.
(Olsen 1985:35)
Reynolds, also in 1985, found two smaller dog types in
the Southwest, “a small short-nosed form (Pachycyon)” and “a
small slender-nosed form (Techichi)” (Reynolds 1985:80).
Nine years later, Lupo and Janetski explain the three general
types as consisting of one large and two small types:
[M]ost aboriginal dogs in North America fall
within two size categories: large and small. Olsen
(1985) described large-sized aboriginal dogs as
being comparable in proportion to coyotes. These
specimens … are variously referred to in the
literature as large Pueblo or Plains Indian dogs,
and are smaller in size than Eskimo dogs. Small
dogs are represented by at least two variations;
one with a short muzzle (i.e., short-faced) and
one with a longer, but more narrow, muzzle. In
contrast to large-sized dogs, small-sized dogs are
proportionally comparable to a modern fox
terrier.
(Lupo and Janetski 1994:207)
Reynolds, in his discussion regarding a dog from about 9000
years ago excavated at La Brea, also accepts that there were
three types of aboriginal dogs in the American Southwest:
Measurements and cranial morphology of the
dog from Pit 10 fit Allen's (1920) description of
the Techichi. Its most distinctive features are
small size and delicate rostrum, giving it a fox-
like appearance. Techichi remains have been
identified from sites in the southwestern United
States, the Yucatan area of Mexico, and
northwestern South America (Allen 1920). This
variety of dog was encountered by early
explorers and others who reported seeing small
dogs of fox-like appearance. They were light-
limbed, of rather slender proportions, with
narrow delicate heads, fine muzzles, erect ears,
and well developed tails, which may have been
close-haired. Colors were reported as black,
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black and white, and brownish. The widespread
temporal and geographic range of the Techichi
testifies to its popularity as a companion or food
item of pre-Columbian Indians.
(Reynolds 1985:80)
Reynolds, much in line with Olsen’s argument quoted
above, states that these three types “were not true breeds but
merely mongrel morphotypes….” (Reynolds 1985:80).
Lawrence found that the two smaller types “occurred together
over much of their range and were referred to by travellers as
wolf-like and fox-like” (Lawrence 1966:55). She believes that
some differentiation was possible of similar types because of
the “tendency, in some areas, for dogs to form local, fairly
well-defined breeds…” (Lawrence 1966:55). In any case, as
will be discussed below, these various potential types have, as
of this writing, yet to be clearly correlated with genomic
analysis of pelts, teeth, and bones that can be identified as
coming from aboriginal specimens.
Vellanoweth et al., analyzing burials on San Nicolas
Island, concluded that the dogs were “between the Short-
Nosed Indian dog and the Plains-Indian dog, likely
representing a cross between those and other varieties of
North American dogs” (Vellanoweth et al. 2008:3119). They
also explain that this really means that the dogs probably
represent “variation within a single mongrel
group” (Vellanoweth et al. 2008:3117).
Olsen, describing the faunal remains at the Grasshopper
Pueblo in Arizona, indicates that two sizes of dogs existed in
the site during the century of its occupation around AD 1300
to 1400, the smaller of which conformed to Allen’s Small
Indian Dog or Techichi (Olsen 1990:110). The Techichi is
probably best seen, as indicated by Valadez, as the common
dog of small size (Valadez 1994:2).
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