2 SIMITHSO.N'IAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 92 



hand, the hand already familiar to me through working with the church 

 records at San Juan Capistrano. An introduction, written in very 

 fervent tone, is followed by 15' chapters devoted respectively to the 

 subjects of origin, creation tradition, history of the traditional leaders 

 Ouiot and Chinigchinix, instruction of children, marriage, general 

 manner of life, chieftainship, description of the native temples, feasts 

 and dances, calendar, extravagancies, burials and funerals, beliefs of 

 immortality, origin of the inhabitants of San Juan Capistrano Mission, 

 and list with etymologies of 15 rancherias inhabited by these Indians. 

 A halftone reproduction of page i of the manuscript is shown in 

 plate I (frontispiece). 



Boscana was born May 23, 1776, at the country town of Llumayor 

 on the island of Mallorca off the coast of eastern Spain. His native 

 tongue was, of course, the Catalonian language, very different 

 from Spanish. He was ordained at a Franciscan college at Palma, 

 capital of the island, and was sent as a missionary to Mexico, and 

 thence to Alta California, now the California of Americans. He was 

 missionary at San Juan Capistrano from 181 2 to 1826, a period of 

 14 years, and died, still a middle-aged man, at the nearby mission of 

 San Gabriel, Calif., in 1831. The only picture of Father Boscana 

 known to be extant is the reproduction of what was evidently a pencil 

 drawing published in Robinson's book, here republished as plate 2. 

 It shows the father in the latter years of his life, probably when he 

 was stationed at San Gabriel. 



The San Juan Capistrano Indians which the Historical Account 

 describes are a northwestern subdivision of the so-called Payom- 

 kawish or San Luiseno Indians of San Luis Rev Mission, who 

 occupy the San Luis Rey River drainage in northern San Diego 

 County, Calif., and adjacent regions. The dialect which they speak 

 belongs to the great Aztecan family of languages. 



The religion of the Indians described by Boscana centers about the 

 revelations of a prophet named Chinigchinix, as it is spelled in this 

 version, the x being pronounced as in Catalonian, that is, equal to 

 English sh. The prophet was known by three sacred names : Saor, 

 meaning common person, noninitiate ; Tobet, medicine man, initiate ; 

 and Quoar, a name too sacred to pronounce aloud. These three names 

 apply to three successive periods in the prophet's revelatory life. The 

 prophet was born at the rancheria of Pubu in Los Angeles County, 

 Calif., only a couple of miles inland from Alamitos Bay, there accom- 

 plished his principal teaching, and when he died, was from there 

 merely translated to the heaven of the stars, leaving no earthly bodily 

 remains. From above and everywhere he watches our deeds and 



