Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

Although there is ample archaeological evidence to indicate that the desert area in and around Victorville, San Bernardino County, California, was occupied by prehistoric peoples (e.g.. Smith 1955, 1958, 1963; Steele 1976), a significant gap exists in the ethnographic record. Occasional remarks in scattered reports (Kroeber 1925; Strong 1929; Manners 1974; Steele 1976) lead one to the conclusion that any indigenous peoples had vanished long before the time of written records. However, research initiated recently by the author shows otherwise. By a careful examination of archival resources, including census reports, J. P. Harrington's (1986) fieldnotes, the Nicholson papers (at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California), numerous museum collection records, newspaper accounts, and interviews with native informants and knowledgeable "oldtimers," a picture of a late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century Indian community is beginning to develop.