“We’d get all excited if we found one or two” arrowheads in a single outing, noted Baker, adding that many times the family never found what it was looking for, and had to settle for just enjoying a nice day outside, together.
But over the years, those “one or two” arrowheads they would find during an outing added up and the Baker family eventually wound up with a fairly good array of arrowheads of varying colors and sizes, and even chipping styles. Also in the collection are larger spear points, beads and other artifacts.
This past week, the family’s collection caused a good deal of excitement among the Bishop Paiute Tribal Council when Baker returned to Bishop and gave back to the tribe all the artifacts the family had accumulated over the course of a decade of arrowhead collecting.
The members of the Tribal Council interrupted their annual budget meeting to accept the gift of their ancestors’ handiwork, which included several specimens of historical and spiritual importance.
“They’re going back where they belong,” Baker said of the artifacts. “They certainly don’t belong in Oregon,” where she currently lives.  

Former Bishop resident Francis Baker with one of four display cases of arrowheads and other artifacts that her family collected in the 1960s and she recently donated to the Bishop Paiute Tribe. Photo by Jon Klusmire

The Tribal Council members, as an official body and individually, thanked Baker for returning the artifacts to their homeland. Tribal officials also noted that Baker’s decision might prompt other collectors to consider offering to make available to the tribe other artifacts or historically important or insightful objects representing the Paiute’s history in the Owens Valley and the tribe’s traditions and ceremonies.  
After the donation ceremony, Baker took time to recall her family’s time in Bishop, its arrowhead-hunting experiences and the reason she eventually decided that the arrowheads that had taken so many hours to find and display and store, should be returned to “their home.” She said the family’s arrowhead excursions were simply another way to spend time together in the outdoors  – “something to do when we got tired of going fishing.” During their searches, “we never dug around or disturbed anything.” Instead, the family would patiently and painstakingly search the same grounds over and again. Some days, they didn’t see or find anything.
“But it was always better after the wind blew,” Baker said. If they hit just right, the gusty Owens Valley winds would usually blow dust and dirt off artifacts that were buried just a little bit under the earth’s surface.
The Baker family moved to Bishop around 1960, and for that first decade in town the family would head out fairly regularly in search of arrowheads, she said.  
The time, effort, patience and persistence (not to mention good eyesight) resulted in the Bakers accumulating a fairly impressive collection.
The family’s findings were carefully installed in four, glass display cases. The larger specimens are surrounded by arrowheads and smaller artifacts with care and attention to detail.
The arrowhead collection remained with Francis and her husband John for decades, and wasn’t given a whole lot of attention until a little while ago.
In 1999, John and Francis moved from Bishop to Oregon, as their two sons had. Eventually, John and son Steve passed away.
“I was getting older,” Francis sort of admitted this week, with a smile that betrayed she didn’t think she was getting that old.
Anyway, she said she recently started to think about what she would do with the many possessions she had collected during her life. That’s when she came upon the arrowheads and the idea to give them back to the ancestors of the people who had made and used them.
She said her son, Mike, “agreed it was the thing to do,” and her granddaughter, who works for a tribe in Oregon, also thought it would be an appropriate and important gesture.
After contacting the tribe, she loaded up the arrowheads and headed back to Bishop.
A quick look at the artifacts revealed several pieces that were significant. For example, a set of beads in the collection was likely used in a burial ritual. A large, smooth rock amulet also holds ceremonial significance as a spiritual artifact, it was noted.
Baker said she wasn’t aware of the importance of some of the artifacts.
After donating the collection, Baker said she hoped that her action might spur other collectors  to realize, “I’ve got some of those, too,” which could prompt them to bring other Paiute artifacts to the tribe. (For more information about making a donation, call the tribe’s Historic Preservation Office at 873-3584.)
As Baker said of her family’s collection of Paiute artifacts that are now back in tribal hands, “it’s their home; they belong back where they came from.”