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 Cochimís 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 shells. 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 surpass 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 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]