Born: 1870 (circa), United States
Died: 25 January 1947
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Maggie Howard
The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
In the 1930s, the National Park Service (NPS) hired a handful of Native Americans to demonstrate their crafts, cooking methods, and other traditional skills for visitors. The first cultural demonstrator at Yosemite National Park was Ta-bu-ce, a Paiute woman also known as Maggie Howard. Contradictory stories and confusing dates shroud some aspects of her story but her determination, talent, and character were witnessed by many.
A 1910 article in the Hayward (CA) Daily Review recorded that she was born at Mono Lake in 1867. Other authors suggest that she was at least 90 years old when she died, which would place her birth around 1857. However, US census records from 1920 and 1930 record that she was born near Bridgeport, California, in 1870. It’s said that she lived there until her mother died and then went to live with her father Kosana, also known as Joaquin Sam, near Mono Lake. It’s unclear how old Ta-bu-ce was when her mother died, but it seems certain that she was young.
Her elderly father died of exposure in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when a snowstorm trapped his group returning home from Yosemite Valley after gathering acorns and trading with other Native Americans there. This is said to have happened in 1875. If that date is correct, and she was born in 1870, Ta-bu-ce was five years old when she was orphaned.
She went to live in the Indian Village at the mouth of Indian Canyon, presumably with family. Yosemite historian Shirley Sargent reports that Ta-bu-ce started working as a cook and housekeeper for the Sentinel Hotel in 1877. If that date is correct, she would have been just seven years old. She worked for the hotel for a few years before working as a cook and maid for area families.
There is also confusion regarding her husbands. In his 1966 book, The Ahwahneechees: A Story of the Yosemite Indians, John Bingaman put the order of her husbands as Jack Lundy, Billy Williams, and Daniel Howard. Based on the years her sons were born, that order is incorrect. It’s not known when Ta-bu-ce married Williams, but they had a son William, known as Willie Mike, around 1892. It’s not clear when or why her marriage to Williams ended, but she later married Lundy. Their son Simon was born around 1898 so Lundy must have been her second husband, not her first.
Bingaman describes an incident when Ta-bu-ce, Willie Mike, her 14-year-old niece May Tom, and others were camped in upper Indian Canyon after the park’s Indian Festival. As he wrote it,
Maggie, after much dancing, was tired and went to sleep early. A high windstorm came up and blew down a large pine tree. Her niece May Tom was killed by this fallen tree. Maggie had her collar bone broken, her ankles and feet badly injured, and the bones in her right leg fractured. Her sister took her daughter [May Tom] to the Valley, and left Maggie for dead beneath the tree all night. The next day Charlie Dick and other Indians came for her. She doesn’t remember what happened during that long night. A doctor in the Valley set the bones. All summer she lay in a cast, barely able to move her right hand to shoo away the flies. In the fall she was able to walk a little. She never fully recovered from this, always walking with a decided limp.
In High Country Women, Chris Enss dates the storm to May 1899, but it’s not clear where he got that date. Some details of his story are different. For example, when her family came, she was taken to the doctor and not left overnight, and he makes no mention of Willie Mike being there.
It’s not clear how long her marriage to Lundy lasted, but by 1920 she was married to Daniel Howard, who was 20 years her junior. All three of her husbands were Native American. The 1920 census documents that Daniel, Willie Mike, and Simon worked as laborers at Yosemite National Park. Daniel is also listed as a park laborer in the 1930 census. No occupation was listed for Ta-bu-ce in either census. Both records indicate that she couldn’t read or write.
It was as Maggie Howard, working with the Yosemite Museum, that Ta-bu-ce began to build a reputation with park visitors. At least initially her salary was paid by the Yosemite Natural History Association. The July 1930 Oakland Tribune reported that she was hired to “grind acorns, prepare acorn mush, and other such delicacies.” From November 1 to 29 she was also a National Park Service (NPS) employee. Her official title was laborer, and she earned $2 per day. It’s unclear exactly what her NPS job entailed at the time; it seems unlikely she was doing cultural demonstrations that late in the tourist season. The 1930 Superintendent’s Annual Report described the program using language that reflects how the NPS saw early cultural demonstration work:
A very popular innovation was our so-called “live Indian exhibit” featuring Maggie Howard, a life-long Indian resident of Yosemite Valley, who demonstrated behind the museum such Indian activities as basket weaving, cooking, songs, games, Indian art, and Indian lore. This excellent service was made possible by use of funds of the Yosemite Natural History Association.
Although some authors report that she began working at Yosemite in 1929, that isn’t reflected in her employee record at the park or by the superintendent’s annual report. The 1929 report doesn’t mention her or the program, and the description in the 1930 report indicates that hiring her was an “innovation” that year.
The next two years she earned the same $2 per day salary as a laborer but worked about three months each summer. The 1932 Superintendent’s Annual Report noted,
The museum served a substantially increased number of park visitors, and interests in its exhibits was keen. One of the secrets of its increased usefulness and popularity was found to be the frequent addition of new exhibit materials, the cultivation of a friendly atmosphere, and the specializing in live exhibits. Indian cultural demonstrations in a special area of the Nature Garden drew large audiences.
According to her employee record, she wasn’t hired by the NPS in 1933 or 1934. In 1935 she was only paid for about two weeks in June (at $4 per hour) and November (at $0.50 per hour). The superintendent’s annual reports for these years don’t mention the cultural demonstration program. However, like some other early women, she may have worked as a day laborer for the NPS rather than under an official appointment; those hours were not recorded on employee record cards.
Ta-bu-ce shared some of her traditional skills, including basket weaving, cooking, grinding acorn meal, and baking bread. Most of her livelihood was gained from doing demonstrations in the park’s Indian Village, selling her baskets, and from tips from visitors who took her photograph. As Shirley Sargent said, “She learned to handle a microphone, lecture with composure, answer questions with dignity and pose for pictures patiently, though reluctantly. Her English was good, but speaking a rude, broken dialect to keep up an authentic atmosphere for tourists became almost habitual with her.” Clearly, she was savvy enough to give visitors the “Indian” they expected.
Although she wasn’t hired under an official NPS appointment after 1935, most sources say that she continued to work as a cultural demonstrator until 1942. In March 1939 she travelled to San Francisco for cataract surgery and then returned to her demonstration work after she recovered.
Yosemite Nature Notes recorded that in August 1941, Assistant Park Naturalist Beatty took a woman to “the demonstration Indian Village in the rear of the museum wildflower garden for a visit with Ta-bu-ce, the aged Indian woman. They found her seated under an Incense Cedar weaving an Indian ‘hickey’ or [baby] carrier. Ta-bu-ce was wearing bright calico with a gay bandana around her gray head, and as her callers approached, she lifted her wrinkled, brown face, and gave them a priceless smile of welcome. In her faulty English she explained that in the ’80s and ’90s, being a Mono Lake Indian, she frequented Yosemite Valley only in the summer and remained for the harvesting the acorn crop.”
World War II interrupted the park’s cultural demonstration program. Many of the Native Americans who participated in the programs—including Ta-bu-ce—left. In 1942 she retired and moved closer to her sons in Mono Lake. After visiting her in July 1946, Carl W. Charsmith wrote, “She greeted us with the same characteristic smile that has endeared her to many. Ta-bu-ce has aged considerably in the last four years.” He added,
The interest in Yosemite Indian ways which Ta-bu-ce aroused among the many visitors to Yosemite National Park was always of a very high order. Likewise, high is the respect and affection with which she is esteemed by those privileged to know her more intimately. Her ability to adapt herself to the mannerisms and difficulties imposed by throngs of people—many sincerely interested, others merely curious or perhaps unknowingly aggressive—was remarkable. To each of these her response was undoubtedly appropriate. She had a rare sense of humor and could turn a question she did not care to answer in such a way as to put the questioner ‘on the spot.’
Ta-bu-ce died in Bishop, California, on January 25, 1947, aged 77—although reports of her death noted that her true age was unknown.