The Native Races (Complete 5 Part Edition). Hubert Howe Bancroft

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 brandishing 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

      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 shell 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 washing 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-shells 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

      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 Pericúi 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 courtship 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 Cochimís some hold a plurality of wives, it is not so common as with the Pericúis, for in the two first-mentioned tribes there are more men than women. A breach of female chastity 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 sexual intercourse. Childbirth is easy; the Pericúis 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 breasts growing like a woman's, which they consider a deformity. For a cradle the Cochimís 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

      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 amusements; at such times feats of strength and trials of speed take place. The most noted festival among the Cochimís 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 assembled; 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 repartition 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 Pericúis.867

      When they have eaten their fill they pass 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 СКАЧАТЬ