364 THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF 



tions, moreover, which are necessary to render this phmt eatable, require much 

 time and kibor, as will be mentioned hereafter. 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 

 Borts in pods that grow on shrubs and little trees, and of which there are, ac- 

 cording 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 twelve 

 bushels.* 



It can be said that the Californians cat, without exception, all animals they 

 can obtain. Besides the different kinds of larger indigenous quadrupeds and 

 birds ah-eady mentioned,! they live now-a-days on dogs and cats ; horses, asses 

 and mules ; ifc7n, on owls, mice and rats ; lizards and snakes ; bats, grasshop- 

 pers 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 fnid 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 a hundred families three hun- 

 dred deer are killed in the course of a year, which is a very fiivorablc estimate, 

 they Avould supply each fiimily only with three meals in three hundred and 

 Bixty-fivc 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, espe- 

 cially, are a favorite sort of small game, and thousands of them find annually 

 their way into the stomachs of the Caliibrnians. 



In catching fish, particularly in the Pacific, which is much richer in that re- 

 spect than the gulf of California, the natives use neither nets| nor liooks, 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 mannei-. 



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 raw 

 hide with which a fence was tied together for years ; item, the bones of poultry, 

 s'.ieep, 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. Por 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 tlie 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 



* One multer, in German, wliich is about equivalent to twelve bushels. 



tin the intioduction. 



t Venegiis mentions fishing-nets made of the pita plant, (Noticia de la California, vol. i, p. 

 52.) According to Baegert, (Appendix i, p. '.V2-^,) no such plant exists in Calii'oniia, and iho 

 word "pita" only signifies the tiuead twisted from (he aloe. • In refuting Venegas, Father 

 Baegert hardly ever refers to the original t^panish work, nor mentions the name of its author, 

 but attacks the French translation, wliich was published in Paris in the year 1/(37. lie 

 probably acted so from motives of delicacy, Venegas himself being a priest and brother 

 Jesuit. The effect of this proceeding, as can be imagined, is comical in a high degree. 



