re. Merriam thought there were 260,000. Kroeber,
in the Handbook of California Indians, (1925, p. 882) reduced it to
133,000. I myself in an earlier work (1943, pp. 161 _et seq._) reviewed
the evidence and raised Kroeber's figure by no more than 10 per cent.
It appears to me that the trend toward assessing the native population
in continually diminishing terms is due to the operation of two
factors.

The first is a tendency on the part of subsequent generations to adopt
a highly skeptical attitude toward all statements and testimony derived
from earlier generations. Inherent in this point of view is the
feeling, consciously expressed or unconsciously followed, that all
human beings contemporary with an event either lie deliberately or
exaggerate without compunction. This failing, so the argument runs,
becomes most apparent when any numerical estimates are involved. Thus
the soldier inevitably grossly magnifies the force of the enemy, the
priest inflates the number of his flock, the farmer falsifies the size
of his herds, the woodsman increases the height of the tree--all just
as the fisherman enlarges upon the big one which got away. That these
individuals are frequently subject to an urge to exaggerate cannot for
a moment be denied. Nevertheless, under many circumstances most men
lack a desire to do so or, if they feel such desire, know how to curb
it.

To maintain explicitly or by implication that every observer without
exception who reported on the size of Indian villages or the numbers of
Indians seen was guilty of inflating the values is no more justifiable
than to accuse every man who makes a tax return of having cheated the
government. Under our law each person is innocent until proved guilty.
Similarly, within the range of his intellect and the scope of his
senses a traveler or a settler or a miner or a soldier of one hundred
years ago should be credited with telling the truth unless there is
clear evidence from outside sources that he is prevaricating. Evidence
of falsehood should be looked for and, if found, the account should be
discounted or discredited. Otherwise it should be admitted at face
value. It need not be stressed, of course, that the acceptance or the
rejection of a given datum because it does or does not conform to a
preconceived theory constitutes a major scientific crime.

In the assessment of the California population it may have come about
through the years that the disinclination to agree