Part 58 (1/2)
The Lower Californians are well formed, robust and of good stature, with limbs supple and muscular; they are not inclined to corpulence; their features are somewhat heavy, the forehead low and narrow, the nose well set on, but thick and fleshy; the inner corners of the eyes round instead of pointed; teeth very white and regular, hair very black, coa.r.s.e, straight, and glossy, with but little on the face, and none upon the body or limbs. The color of the skin varies from light to dark brown, the former color being characteristic of the dwellers in the interior, and the latter of those on the sea-coast.[852]
[Sidenote: COCHIMi AND PERICuI DRESS.]
Adam without the fig-leaves was not more naked than were the Cochimis before the missionaries first taught them the rudiments of shame. They ignored even the usual breech-cloth, the only semblance of clothing being a head-dress of rushes or strips of skin interwoven with mother-of-pearl sh.e.l.ls, berries, and pieces of reed. The Guaicuris and Pericuis indulge in a still more fantastic head-dress, white feathers entering largely into its composition. The women display more modesty, for, although scantily clad, they at least essay to cover their nakedness. The Pericui women are the best dressed of all, having a petticoat reaching from the waist to the ankles, made from the fibre of certain palm-leaves, and rendered soft and flexible by beating between two stones. Over the shoulders they throw a mantle of similar material, or of plaited rushes, or of skins. The Cochimi women make ap.r.o.ns of short reeds, strung upon cords of aloe-plant fibres fastened to a girdle. The ap.r.o.n is open at the sides, one part hanging in front, the other behind. As they are not more than six or eight inches wide, but little of the body is in truth covered. When traveling they wear sandals of hide, which they fasten with strings pa.s.sed between the toes.[853]
Both s.e.xes are fond of ornaments; to gratify this pa.s.sion, they string together pearls, sh.e.l.ls, fruit-stones and seeds in the forms of necklaces and bracelets. In addition to the head-dress the Pericuis are distinguished by a girdle highly ornamented with pearls and mother-of-pearl sh.e.l.ls. They perforate ears, lips, and nose, inserting in the openings, sh.e.l.ls, bones, or hard sticks. Paint in many colors and devices is freely used on war and gala occasions; tattooing obtains, but does not appear to be universal among them. Mothers, to protect them against the weather, cover the entire bodies of their children with a varnish of coal and urine. Cochimi women cut the hair short, but the men allow a long tuft to grow on the crown of the head. Both s.e.xes among the Guaicuris and Pericuis wear the hair long and flowing loosely over the shoulders.[854]
Equally Adamitic are their habitations. They appear to hold a superst.i.tious dread of suffocation if they live or sleep in covered huts; hence in their rare and meagre attempts to protect themselves from the inclemencies of the weather, they never put any roof over their heads. Roving beast-like in the vicinity of springs during the heat of the day, seeking shade in the ravines and overhanging rocks; at night, should they desire shelter, they resort to caverns and holes in the ground. During winter they raise a semi-circular pile of stones or brushwood, about two feet in height, behind which, with the sky for a roof and the bare ground for a bed, they camp at night. Over the sick they sometimes throw a wretched hut, by sticking a few poles in the ground, tying them at the top and covering the whole with gra.s.s and reeds, and into this nest visitors crawl on hands and knees.[855]
[Sidenote: LOWER CALIFORNIAN FOOD.]
Reed-roots, wild fruit, pine-nuts, cabbage-palms, small seeds roasted, and also roasted aloe and mescal roots const.i.tute their food. During eight weeks of the year they live wholly on the redundant fat-producing _pitahaya_, after which they wander about in search of other native vegetable products, and when these fail they resort to hunting and fis.h.i.+ng. Of animal food they will eat anything--beasts, birds, and fishes, or reptiles, worms, and insects; and all parts: flesh, hide, and entrails. Men and monkeys, however, as articles of food are an abomination; the latter because they so much resemble the former. The gluttony and improvidence of these people exceed, if possible, those of any other nation; alternate feasting and fasting is their custom. When so fortunate as to have plenty they consume large quant.i.ties, preserving none. An abominable habit is related of them, that they pick up the undigested seeds of the pitahaya discharged from their bowels, and after parching and grinding them, eat the meal with much relish. Clavigero, Baegert, and other authors, mention another rather uncommon feature in the domestic economy of the Cochimis; it is that of swallowing their meat several times, thereby multiplying their gluttonous pleasures.
Tying to a string a piece of well-dried meat, one of their number masticates it a little, and swallows it, leaving the end of the string hanging out of the mouth; after retaining it for about two or three minutes in his stomach, it is pulled out, and the operation repeated several times, either by the same individual or by others, until the meat becomes consumed. Here is Father Baegert's summary of their edibles: ”They live now-a-days on dogs and cats; horses, a.s.ses and mules; item: on owls, mice and rats; lizards and snakes; bats, gra.s.shoppers and crickets; a kind of green caterpillar without hair, about a finger long, and an abominable white worm of the length and thickness of the thumb.”[856]
Their weapon is the bow and arrow, but they use stratagem to procure the game. The deer-hunter deceives his prey by placing a deer's head upon his own; hares are trapped; the Cochimis throw a kind of boomerang or flat curved stick, which skims the ground and breaks the animal's legs.
Fish are taken from pools left by the tide and from the sea, sometimes several miles out, in nets and with the aid of long lances. It is said that at San Roche Island they catch fish with birds. They also gather oysters, which they eat roasted, but use no salt. They have no cooking utensils, but roast their meat by throwing it into the fire and after a time raking it out. Insects and caterpillars are parched over the hot coals in sh.e.l.ls. Fish is commonly eaten raw; they drink only water.[857] It is said that they never wash, and it is useless to add that in their filthiness they surpa.s.s the brutes.[858]
Besides bows and arrows they use javelins, clubs, and slings of cords, from which they throw stones. Their bows are six feet long, very broad and thick in the middle and tapering toward the ends, with strings made from the intestines of animals. The arrows are reeds about thirty inches in length, into the lower end of which a piece of hard wood is cemented with resin obtained from trees, and pointed with flint sharpened to a triangular shape and serrated at the edges. Javelins are sharpened by first hardening in the fire and then grinding to a point; they are sometimes indented like a saw. Clubs are of different forms, either mallet-head or axe shape; they also crook and sharpen at the edge a piece of wood in the form of a scimeter.[859]
Their wars, which spring from disputed boundaries, are frequent and deadly, and generally occur about fruit and seed time. The battle is commenced amidst yells and brandis.h.i.+ng of weapons, though without any preconcerted plan, and a tumultuous onslaught is made without regularity or discipline, excepting that a certain number are held in reserve to relieve those who have expended their arrows or become exhausted. While yet at a distance they discharge their arrows, but soon rush forward and fight at close quarters with their clubs and spears; nor do they cease till many on both sides have fallen.[860]
[Sidenote: IMPLEMENTS IN LOWER CALIFORNIA.]
Their implements and household utensils are both rude and few. Sharp flints serve them instead of knives; a bone ground to a point answers the purpose of a needle or an awl; and with a sharp-pointed stick roots are dug. Fire is obtained in the usual way from two pieces of wood. When traveling, water is carried in a large bladder. The sh.e.l.l of the turtle is applied to various uses, such as a receptacle for food and a cradle for infants.
The Lower Californians have little ingenuity, and their display of mechanical skill is confined to the manufacture of the aforesaid implements, weapons of war, and of the chase; they make some flat baskets of wicker work, which are used in the collection of seeds and fruits; also nets from the fibre of the aloe, one in which to carry provisions, and another fastened to a forked stick and hung upon the back, in which to carry children.[861]
For boats the inhabitants of the peninsula construct rafts of reeds made into bundles and bound tightly together; they are propelled with short paddles, and seldom are capable of carrying more than one person. In those parts where trees grow a more serviceable canoe is made from bark, and sometimes of three or more logs, not hollowed out, but laid together side by side and made fast with withes or pita-fibre cords. These floats are buoyant, the water was.h.i.+ng over them as over a catamaran. On them two or more men will proceed fearlessly to sea, to a distance of several miles from the coast. To transport their chattels across rivers, they use wicker-work baskets, which are so closely woven as to be quite impermeable to water; these, when loaded, are pushed across by the owner, who swims behind.[862]
Besides their household utensils and boats, and the feathers or ornaments on their persons, I find no other property. They who dwell on the sea-coast occasionally travel inland, carrying with them sea-sh.e.l.ls and feathers to barter with their neighbors for the productions of the interior.[863]
They are unable to count more than five, and this number is expressed by one hand; some few among them are able to understand that two hands signify ten, but beyond this they know nothing of enumeration, and can only say much or many, or show that the number is beyond computation, by throwing sand into the air and such like antics. The year is divided into six seasons; the first is called Mejibo, which is midsummer, and the time of ripe pitahayas; the second season Amaddappi, a time of further ripening of fruits and seeds; the third Amadaappigalla, the end of autumn and beginning of winter; the fourth, which is the coldest season, is called Majibel; the fifth, when spring commences, is Majiben; the sixth, before any fruits or seeds have ripened, consequently the time of greatest scarcity, is called Majiibenmaaji.[864]
Neither government nor law is found in this region; every man is his own master, and administers justice in the form of vengeance as best he is able. As Father Baegert remarks: 'The different tribes represented by no means communities of rational beings, who submit to laws and regulations and obey their superiors, but resembled far more herds of wild swine, which run about according to their own liking, being together to-day and scattered to-morrow, till they meet again by accident at some future time. In one word, the Californians lived, _salva venia_, as though they had been free-thinkers and materialists.'
In hunting and war they have one or more chiefs to lead them, who are selected only for the occasion, and by reason of superior strength or cunning.[865]
[Sidenote: MARRIAGE.]
Furthermore, they have no marriage ceremony, nor any word in their language to express marriage. Like birds or beasts they pair off according to fancy. The Pericui takes as many women as he pleases, makes them work for him as slaves, and when tired of any one of them turns her away, in which case she may not be taken by another. Some form of courts.h.i.+p appears to have obtained among the Guaicuris; for example, when a young man saw a girl who pleased him, he presented her with a small bowl or basket made of the pita-fibre; if she accepted the gift, it was an evidence that his suit was agreeable to her, and in return she gave him an ornamented head-dress, the work of her own hand; then they lived together without further ceremony. Although among the Guaicuris and Cochimis some hold a plurality of wives, it is not so common as with the Pericuis, for in the two first-mentioned tribes there are more men than women. A breach of female chast.i.ty is sometimes followed by an attempt of the holder of the woman to kill the offender; yet morality never attained any great height, as it is a practice with them for different tribes to meet occasionally for the purpose of holding indiscriminate s.e.xual intercourse. Childbirth is easy; the Pericuis and Guaicuris wash the body of the newly born, then cover it with ashes; as the child grows it is placed on a frame-work of sticks, and if a male, on its chest they fix a bag of sand to prevent its b.r.e.a.s.t.s growing like a woman's, which they consider a deformity. For a cradle the Cochimis take a forked stick or bend one end of a long pole in the form of a hoop, and fix thereto a net, in which the infant is placed and covered with a second net. It can thus be carried over the shoulder, or when the mother wishes to be relieved, the end of the pole is stuck in the ground, and nourishment given the child through the meshes of the net.
When old enough the child is carried astride on its mother's shoulders.
As soon as children are able to get food for themselves, they are left to their own devices, and it sometimes happens that when food is scarce the child is abandoned, or killed by its parents.[866]
[Sidenote: LOWER CALIFORNIAN FEAST.]
Nevertheless, these miserables delight in feasts, and in the gross debauchery there openly perpetrated. Unacquainted with intoxicating liquors, they yet find drunkenness in the fumes of a certain herb smoked through a stone tube, and used chiefly during their festivals. Their dances consist of a series of gesticulations and jumpings, accompanied by inarticulate murmurings and yells. One of their great holidays is the pitahaya season, when, with plenty to eat, they spend days and nights in amus.e.m.e.nts; at such times feats of strength and trials of speed take place. The most noted festival among the Cochimis occurs upon the occasion of their annual distribution of skins. To the women especially it was an important and enjoyable event. Upon an appointed day all the people collected at a designated place. In an arbor constructed with branches, the road to which was carpeted with the skins of wild animals that had been killed during the year, their most skillful hunters a.s.sembled; they alone were privileged to enter the arbor, and in their honor was already prepared a banquet and pipes of wild tobacco. The viands went round as also the pipe, and, in good time, the partakers became partially intoxicated by the smoke; then one of the priests or sorcerers, arrayed in his robe of ceremony, appeared at the entrance to the arbor, and made a speech to the people, in which he recounted the deeds of the hunters. Then the occupants of the arbor came out and made a repart.i.tion of the skins among the women; this finished, dancing and singing commenced and continued throughout the night. It sometimes happened that their festivals ended in fighting and bloodshed, as they were seldom conducted without debauchery, especially among the Guaicuris and Pericuis.[867]
When they have eaten their fill they pa.s.s their time in silly or obscene conversation, or in wrestling, in which sports the women often take a part. They are very adroit in tracking wild beasts to their lairs and taming them. At certain festivals their sorcerers, who were called by some _quamas_, by others _cusiyaes_, wore long robes of skins, ornamented with human hair; these sages filled the offices of priests and medicine-men, and threatened their credulous brothers with innumerable ills and death, unless they supplied them with provisions.
These favored of heaven professed to hold communication with oracles, and would enter caverns and wooded ravines, sending thence doleful sounds, to frighten the people, who were by such tricks easily imposed upon and led to believe in their deceits and juggleries.[868]
As to ailments, Lower Californians are subject to consumption, burning fevers, indigestion, and cutaneous diseases. Small pox, measles, and syphilis, the last imported by troops, have destroyed numberless lives.