The Old Franciscan Missions Of California

is original condition was one of the most miserable and

t and independent dialects as there were tribes, having no laws and few definite customs, cruel, simple, lazy, and--in one word which best describes such a condition of e

to show that in some regards it is a mistaken one. I do not believe the Indians were the degraded and brutal creatures the padres and

ted in a day. Brains cannot be put into a monkey, no matter how well educated his teacher is. There must have been the mental quality, the ability to learn; or even the miraculous patience, perseverance,

lled and made their weapons, mortars, and steatite ollas, their rude mosaics of abalone shells, and their manufacture of pipes, medicine-tubes, and flutes give them high rank among savages." The mortars found throughout California, some of which are now to be seen in the museums of Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc.

cially the chapters on Fo

n 1542-1543. In 1539, Ulloa sailed up the Gulf of California, and, a year later, Alarcon and Diaz explored the Colorado River, possibl

known as San Clemente, Santa Catalina, Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Cruz), were superior to those found inland. They rowed in pine canoes having a seating capac

interesting things in this account, some of importance, and others of very slight value. He insists that there was a great difference in the intelligence of the natives north of Santa Barbara and those to the south, in favor of the former. O

copying the ways of the white men, "whom they respect as beings much superior to themselves; but in so doing, they are c

na says there was great diversity, finding a new

the several instruments used in making baskets, and also constructed nets, spinning the threa

ooking, as well as all the household duties. They made

rs, leaving the rest of the body exposed, but the women wore a cloak and dress of twisted rabbit-skins. I

called pivat (still used, by the way, by some of the Indians of Southern California), and the final branding of the neophyte, which Boscana describes as follows: "A kind of herb was pounded until it became sponge-like; this they placed, according to the figure required, upon the spot intended to be burnt, which was generally upon the right arm, and sometimes upon the thick part of the leg also. They then set fire to

the girls was by

end to their household duties; such as procuring seeds, and cleaning them--making 'atole' and 'pinole,' which are kinds of gruel, and their daily food. When quite young, they have a sm

disgrace either her husband or her parents. Children of tender years were sometimes betrothed by their parents. Padre Boscana says he ma

ild, walk half a mile to a stream, step into it and wash both herself and the new-born babe, then return to her camp, put her child in a yakia

wives were suffering their accouchement, would abstain from all flesh and fish, refrain fr

aring, that he is the monster Tauguitch of the Sabobas and Cahuillas described in The Legend of Tauguitch and Algoot.[3] Th

lk Lore Jo

nce, all immediately acquiesce in their demands." They also had physicians who used cold water, plasters of herbs, whipping with nettles (doubtless the

als, or sweat-baths, their surgical abilities, as displayed in the operations that were performed upon skulls that have since been exhumed; the

preciated by the Missionaries as to be named Yerba Santa, or Holy Plant. The second, the Rhamnus purshiana, gathered now for the market in the upper portions of the State, is found scattered through the timbered mountains of Southern California. It was used as a laxative, and on account of the constipating effect of an acorn

facture, they gathered all kinds of wild seeds, and after using a rude process of threshing, they winnowed them. They also gathered mesquite beans in large quantities, burying them

ted, ground, and used as a food by being mixed with water. Thus prepared, it soon develops into a mucilaginous mass, larger than its original bulk. Its taste is somewhat like that of linseed meal. It is exceedingly nutritious, and was readily borne by the stomach when that organ refused to tolerate other aliment.

rillo by signs that such was the case, and the supposition is confirmed by the presence at various points of vestiges of irrigating ditches. Yslay, the fruit of the wild cherry, was used as a food, and prepared by fermentation as an intoxicant. The seeds, ground and made into b

e mortars were hewn from steatite, or soapstone, others from a rough basic rock, and many of them were exceedingly well made and finely shaped; results requiring much patience and no small a

mony of all careful observers of every class that as a rule the aborigines were healthy, vigorous, virile, and chaste, until they became demoralized by the whites. With many of them certain ceremonies had a distinct flavor of sex worship: a rude phallic

ys of the India

m of worship, no priests, no philosophical conceptions, no historical traditions, no p

. Jeremiah Curtin, a life-long student of the Indian, speaking of the sa

escape from the presence of those powers who had made the first world.... The most important question o

author gives the names of a number of divinities, and th

te put upon man, when unaided by divine, uncreated power. In In

re untrue. Whence came all the myths and legends that recent writers have gathered, a score of which I myself hold still unpublished in my notebook? Were they all imagined after the arrival

s series of tests; such as would dismay many a white man. As to their

lies, moreover, in the fact that it is primitive; that it is the thought of ages long anterior to those which we find recorded in the ea

ught more or less under the influence of the Franciscans, we find a mass of beliefs, deities

ten represented to be. He thought, and thought well, but still originally. He was religious, profoundly and powerfully so, but in his own way; h