“They eat everything unsalted, though they might obtain plenty of salt; but since they cannot dine every day on roast meat and constantly change their quarters, they would find it too cumbersome to carry always a supply of salt with them.
“The preparation of the aloë, also called mescale or maguey by the Spaniards, requires more time and labor. The roots, after being properly separated from the plants, are roasted for some hours in a strong fire, and then buried, twelve or twenty together, in the ground, and well covered with hot stones, hot ashes, and earth. In this state they have to remain for twelve or fourteen hours, and when dug out again they are of a fine yellow color, and perfectly tender, making a very palatable dish, which has served me frequently as food when I had nothing else to eat, or as dessert after dinner in lieu of fruit. But they act at first as a purgative on persons who are not accustomed to them, and leave the throat somewhat rough for a few hours afterwards.
“To light a fire the Californians make no use of steel and flint, but obtain it by the friction of two pieces of wood. One of them is cylindrical, and pointed on one end, which fits into a round cavity in the other, and by turning the cylindrical piece with great rapidity between their hands, like a twirling stick, they succeed in igniting the lower piece if they continue the process for a sufficient length of time.
“The Californians have no fixed time for any sort of business, and eat, consequently, whenever they have anything, or feel inclined to do so, which is nearly always the case. I never asked one of them whether he was hungry who failed to answer in the affirmative, even if his appearance indicated the contrary. A meal in the middle of the day is the least in use among them, because they all set out early in the morning for their foraging expeditions, and return only in the evening to the place from which they started, if they do not choose some other locality for their night quarters. The day being thus spent in running about and searching for food, they have no time left for preparing a dinner at noon. They start always empty-handed; for if perchance something remains from their evening repasts they certainly eat it during the night in waking moments or on the following morning before leaving. The Californians can endure hunger easier and much longer than other people; whereas they will eat enormously if a chance is given. I often tried to buy a piece of venison from them when the skin had but lately been stripped off the deer, but regularly received the answer that nothing was left; and I knew well enough that the hunter who killed the animal needed no assistance to finish it. Twenty-four pounds of meat in twenty-four hours is not deemed an extraordinary ration for a single person, and to see anything eatable before him is a temptation for a Californian which he cannot resist; and not to make away with it before night would be a victory he is very seldom capable of gaining over himself.”
Clavigero’s account of the food-habits of the California Indians is similar, though generally less explicit. According to him the seeds forming the “second harvest of pitahayas” are extracted carefully while fresh, and are afterward roasted, ground, and preserved in the form of meal against the ensuing winter. Of the reswallowing habit, he says:
“The savages living in the northern part of the peninsula have found the secret, unknown to mortals in general, to eat and re-eat the same meal repeatedly. They tie a string around a mouthful of meat dried and hardened in the sun. After chewing it for a while they swallow it, leaving the string hanging from the mouth. After two or three minutes, by means of the string they draw the meat up again to be rechewed, and this they repeat as many times as may be necessary until the morsel is consumed or so softened that the string will not hold it any longer. In extracting it from the throat they make such a noise that to one who has not before heard it it appears that they are choking themselves.
“When many individuals are gathered together to eat in this manner it is practiced with more ceremony. They seat themselves on the ground, forming a circle of eight or ten persons. One of them takes the mouthful and swallows it, and afterwards draws it up again and passes it to the next one, and this one to another, proceeding thus around the circle with much enjoyment until the morsel is consumed. This has astonished the Spaniards who have seen it, and indeed it would not be credible if it had not been unanimously testified to by all who have been in that country. Several Jesuits who did not believe this, notwithstanding that sincere and prominent persons confirmed it, having afterwards gone to California saw it with their own eyes. Among those Indians who have embraced Christianity this loathsome and dangerous method of eating has been abandoned in consequence of the continual reproofs of the missionaries.” (Historia de la Antigua ó Baja California, obra postuma del Padre Francisco Javier Clavijero; Mexico, 1852, p. 24.)
The records of Clavigero and Baegert indicate fair correspondence in the food habits of the California Indians and the Seri, though there are certain noteworthy differences, e. g., the tabu of the badger among the former and of the ground-squirrel among the latter; it would also appear that the Californians were the more largely vegetarian and the better advanced in culinary processes. The customs of the Seri throw light on the genesis of “re-eating”, for the process would appear to be but an extension of the repeated mouthing and swallowing of tendonous strings still attached to the bones of larger animals.
[284] Cf. Scatologic Rites of all Nations, by Captain John G. Bourke, 1891, especially chapter LI, pp. 459-460. The Seri custom, resting, as it does, on an evident economic basis, tends to explain the scatophagy of the Hopi and other tribes described by Bourke.
[285] About 200 turtle-shells were noticed about the rancherias at Punta Tormenta and Rada Ballena alone in 1895, all being less than two years old, as judged from the degree of weathering.