[283] An Account of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Californian Peninsula, as given by Jacob Baegert, a German Jesuit missionary.... Translated and arranged for the Smithsonian Institution by Charles Rau; Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst. for 1863, pp. 352-369. Baegert’s account of foods (pp. 363-367) is so apposite as to be worthy of quotation nearly entire:
“Notwithstanding the barrenness of the country, a Californian hardly ever dies of hunger, except, perhaps, now and then an individual that falls sick in the wilderness and at a great distance from the mission, for those who are in good health trouble themselves very little about such patients, even if these should happen to be their husbands, wives, or other relations; and a little child that has lost its mother or both parents is also occasionally in danger of starving to death, because in some instances no one will take charge of it, the father being sometimes inhuman enough to abandon his offspring to its fate.
“The food of the Californians, as will be seen, is certainly of a mean quality, yet it keeps them in a healthy condition, and they become strong and grow old in spite of their poor diet. The only period of the year during which the Californians can satisfy their appetite without restraint is the season of the pitahayas, which ripen in the middle of June and abound for more than eight weeks. The gathering of this fruit may be considered as the harvest of the native inhabitants. They can eat as much of it as they please, and with some this food agrees so well that they become corpulent during that period; and for this reason I was sometimes unable to recognize at first sight individuals, otherwise perfectly familiar to me, who visited me after having fed for three or four weeks on these pitahayas. They do not, however, preserve them, and when the season is over they are put again on short rations. Among the roots eaten by the Californians may be mentioned the yuka, which constitutes an important article of food in many parts of America, as, for instance, in the island of Cuba, but is not very abundant in California. In some provinces it is made into a kind of bread or cake, while the Californians, who would find this process too tedious, simply roast the yukas in a fire like potatoes. Another root eaten by the natives is that of the aloë plant, of which there are many kinds in this country. Those species of this vegetable, however, which afford nourishment—for not all of them are edible—do not grow as plentifully as the Californians might wish, and very seldom in the neighborhood of water; the preparations, moreover, which are necessary to render this plant eatable, require much time and labor.... I saw the natives also frequently eat the roots of the common reed, just as they were taken out of the water. Certain seeds, some of them not larger than those of the mustard, and different sorts in pods that grow on shrubs and little trees, and of which there are, according to Father Piccolo, more than sixteen kinds, are likewise diligently sought; yet they furnish only a small quantity of grain, and all that a person can collect with much toil during a whole year may scarcely amount to 12 bushels.
“It can be said that the Californians eat, without exception, all animals they can obtain. Besides the different kinds of larger indigenous quadrupeds and birds, they live nowadays on dogs and cats; horses, asses, and mules; item, on owls, mice, and rats; lizards and snakes; bats, grasshoppers, 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, which they find occasionally in old rotten wood, and consider as a particular delicacy. The chase of game, such as deer and rabbits, furnishes only a small portion of a Californian’s provisions. Supposing that for 100 families 300 deer are killed in the course of a year, which is a very favorable estimate, they would supply each family only with three meals in three hundred and sixty-five days, and thus relieve but in a very small degree the hunger and the poverty of these people. The hunting for snakes, lizards, mice, and field-rats, which they practice with great diligence, is by far more profitable and supplies them with a much greater quantity of articles for consumption. Snakes, especially, are a favorite sort of small game, and thousands of them find annually their way into the stomachs of the Californians.
“In catching fish, particularly in the Pacific, which is much richer in that respect than the Gulf of California, the natives use neither nets nor hooks, but a kind of lance—that is, a long, slender, pointed piece of hard wood—which they handle very dexterously in spearing and killing their prey. Sea-turtles are caught in the same manner.
“I have now mentioned the different articles forming the ordinary food of the Californians; but, besides these, they reject nothing that their teeth can chew or their stomachs are capable of digesting, however tasteless or unclean and disgusting it may be. Thus they will eat the leaves of the Indian fig-tree, the tender shoots of certain shrubs, tanned or untanned leather, old straps of rawhide, with which a fence was tied together for years; item, the bones of poultry, sheep, goats, and calves; putrid meat or fish swarming with worms, damaged wheat or Indian corn, and many other things of that sort which may serve to appease the hunger they are almost constantly suffering. Anything that is thrown to the hogs will be also accepted by a Californian, and he takes it without feeling offended, or thinking for a moment that he is treated below his dignity. For this reason no one took the trouble to clean the wheat or maize, which was cooked for them in a large kettle, of the black worms and little bugs, even if the numbers of these vermin had been equal to that of the grains. By a daily distribution of about 150 bushels of bran (which they are in the habit of eating without any preparation) I could have induced all my parishioners to remain permanently in the mission, excepting during the time when the pitahayas are gathered.
“I saw one day a blind man, 70 years of age, who was busily engaged in pounding between two stones an old shoe made of raw deerskin, and whenever he had detached a piece he transferred it promptly to his mouth and swallowed it; and yet this man had a daughter and grown grandchildren. As soon as any of the cattle are killed and the hide is spread out on the ground to dry, half a dozen boys or men will instantly rush upon it and commence to work with knives, flints, and their teeth, tearing and scratching off pieces, which they eat immediately, till the hide is full of holes or scattered in all directions. In the mission of St. Ignatius and in others further toward the north there are persons who will attach a piece of meat to a string and swallow it and pull it out again a dozen times in succession, for the sake of protracting the enjoyment of its taste.
I must here ask permission of the kind reader to mention something of an exceedingly disgusting and almost inhuman nature, the like of which probably never has been recorded of any people in the world, but which demonstrates better than anything else the whole extent of the poverty, uncleanness, and voracity of these wretched beings. In describing the pitahayas I have already stated that they contain a great many small seeds resembling grains of powder. For some reason unknown to me these seeds are not consumed in the stomach, but pass off in an undigested state, and in order to save them the natives collect during the season of the pitahayas that which is discharged from the human body, separate the seeds from it, and roast, grind, and eat them, making merry over their loathsome meals, which the Spaniards therefore call the second harvest of the Californians. [This statement is corroborated in all particulars by Clavigero in his Storia della California, Venice, 1789, vol. I, p. 117.] When I first heard that such a filthy habit existed among them I was disinclined to believe the report, but to my utter regret I became afterwards repeatedly a witness to the proceeding, which they are unwilling to abandon, like many other bad practices [probably because of the fiducial character of the custom—W J M.]. Yet I must say in their favor that they have always abstained from human flesh, contrary to the horrible usage of so many other American nations who can obtain their daily food much easier than these poor Californians.
“They have no other drink but the water, and heaven be praised that they are unacquainted with such strong beverages as are distilled in many American provinces from Indian corn, the aloë, and other plants, and which the Americans in those parts merely drink for the purpose of intoxicating themselves. When a Californian encounters during his wanderings a pond or pool, and feels a desire to quench his thirst, he lies flat on the ground and applies his mouth directly to the water. Sometimes the horns of cattle are used as drinking vessels.
“Having thus far given an account of the different articles used as aliment by the aborigines of the peninsula, I will now proceed to describe in what manner they prepare their victuals. They do not cook, boil, or roast like people in civilized countries, because they are neither acquainted with these methods nor possessed of vessels and utensils to employ for such purposes; and, besides, their patience would be taxed beyond endurance if they had to wait till a piece of meat is well cooked or thoroughly roasted. Their whole process simply consists in burning, singeing, or roasting in an open fire all such victuals as are not eaten in a raw state. Without any formalities, the piece of meat, the fish, bird, snake, field mouse, bat, or whatever it may be is thrown into the flames or on the glowing embers, and left there to smoke and to sweat for about a quarter of an hour; after which the article is withdrawn, in most cases only burned or charred on the outside, but still raw and bloody within. As soon as it has become sufficiently cool, they shake it a little in order to remove the adhering dust or sand, and eat it with great relish. Yet I must add here, that they do not previously take the trouble to skin the mice or disembowel the rats, nor deem it necessary to clean the half-emptied entrails and maws of larger animals, which they have to cut in pieces before they can roast them. Seeds, kernels, grasshoppers, green caterpillars, the white worms already mentioned, and similar things that would be lost, on account of their smallness, in the embers and flames of an open fire, are parched on hot coals, which they constantly throw up and shake in a turtle shell or a kind of frying pan woven out of a certain plant. What they have parched or roasted in this manner is ground to powder between two stones, and eaten in a dry state. Bones are treated in like manner.