382 THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF 
tives, on the other hand, which act elsewhere as checks upon the conduct of 
the people, and keep them within the bounds of decency, are not at all under- 
stood or appreciated by the Californians, for which reason the teachings of 
religion can make but little impression upon their unprepared minds; and bein 
thus unrestrained by any considerations, they easily yield to the impulses o 
their character, in which a strong passion for illegal sexual intercourse forms a 
prominent feature. In all bad habits and vices the Californian women fully 
equal the men, but surpass them in impudence and want of devotion, contrary 
to the habit of the female sex in all the rest of the world. There were certainly 
some among the Californians who led edifying lives and behaved in a praise- 
worthy manner after having embraced the Christian faith; but their number 
was very small; the reverse, on the contrary, being the general rule to such a 
degree that the wicked and vicious formed the great majority of the natives. 
CHAPTER VI.—THEIR CHARACTER, CONTINUED.—AN ACCOUNT OF THE ASSASSI- 
NATION OF THE JESUIT FATHERS TAMARAL AND CARRANCO.* 
To all other bad qualities of the Californians may be added their vindictive- . 
ness and cruelty. ‘They care very little for the life of man, and an insignificant 
cause will stimulate them to commit a murder. Among other cases which 
happened while I lived in their country, I will mention that of the master of a 
small ship loaded with provisions for two poor missions. ‘This man had scolded 
a number of natives for some cause or other, which they resented by breaking 
his skull with a heavy stone, while he was eating his supper on the shore. His 
ship they abandoned to wind and waves. In the year 1760, a boy of about 
sixteen years stabbed another of the same age with a knife in the abdomen, and 
struck him on the head with a heavy club, almost within sight of the whole 
tribe, and only a stone’s throw from the church and the house of the missionary. 
The murderer had already selected a horse on which to escape, and intended to 
save himself within a church thirty leagues distant from the place where the 
crime was committed; but he failed to effect his flight. t 
Up to the year 1750 the Californians had revolted at different times and 
places, and compelled several missionaries to abandon their stations, and to seek 
safety in other quarters. The natives were stirred up to these insurrections 
either by their conjurers or sorcerers, whose influence had been considerably 
reduced, or because it was requested of them to keep those promises which they 
had made when receiving the holy baptism. 
The most extensive and dangerous revolt of all began in the year 1733, in the 
southern part of the peninsula, among two tribes called the Pericwes and Coras, 
who are to this day of a very fierce, unruly, and untractable character, and who 
gave much trouble to Father Ignatius Tirs, from Kommotau, in Bohemia, the 
last Jesuit missionary who resided in their district.{ 
In the year 1733 there existed in that part of the country, which was inhab- 
‘ited by several thousand natives, four missions, with three priests, who had in 
all only six soldiers for their protection. The missions were the following: 
La Paz, without a resident priest, and guarded by one soldier; St. Rosa, under 
Father Sigismund Taraval, a Spaniard, born in Italy, protected by three sol- 
diers; S¢. Yago, over which Father Lorenzo Carranco, a Mexican, of Spanish 
* This episode in the missionary history of California forms a separate chapter in the third 
part of our author’s work; but as it throws much light on the temperament of the natives, I 
have inserted it in this place, y 
t This church was probably considered as an asylum or place of safety, 
¢ He was one of those who shared with the author, in 1767, the fate of banishment. At 
that time there were in all sixteen Jesuits in Lower California—fifteen priests and one lay 
brother. Six of them were Spaniards, two Mexicans, and eight Germans. The names of 
the latter are given on page 312 by the author, who omits, however, his own name in order 
to preserve his anonymous character. 
