390 THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF 
of these impostors was to obtain their food without the trouble of gathering it 
in the fields, for the silly people provided them with the best they could find, 
in order to keep them in good humor and to enjoy their favor. Their influence 
is very small now-a-days; yet the sick do not cease to place their confidence in 
them, as I mentioned in the preceding chapter. 
It might be the proper time now to speak of the form of government and 
the religion of the Californians previous to their conversion to Christianity; 
but neither the one nor the other existed among them. They had rio magis- 
trates, no police, and no laws; idols, temples, religious worship or ceremonies 
were unknown to them, and they neither believed in the true and only God, 
nor adored false deities.* ‘hey were all equals, and every one did as he 
pleased, without asking his neighbor or caring for his opinion, and thus all vices 
and misdeeds remained unpunished, excepting such cases in which the offended 
individual or his relations took the law into their own hands and revenged 
themselves on the guilty party. The different tribes represented by no means 
‘communities of rational beings, who submit to laws and regulations and obey 
their superiors, but resembled far more herds of wild swine, which run about 
according to their own liking, being together to-day and scattered to-morrow, 
till they meet again by accident at some future time. In one word, the Cali- 
fornians lived, salva venia, as though they had been freethinkers and materi- 
alists. t 
I made diligent inquiries, among those with whom I lived, to ascertain 
whether they had any conception of God, a future life, and their own souls, but 
I never could discover the slightest trace of such a knowledge. Their language 
has no words for “God” and “soul,” for which reason the missionaries were 
compelled to use in their sermons and religious instructions the Spanish words 
Dios and alma. It could hardly be otherwise with people who thought of . 
nothing but eating and merry-making and never reflected on serious matters, 
but dismissed everything that lay beyond the narrow compass of their concep- 
tions with the phrase aipekériri, which means ‘‘who knows that?” I often 
asked them whether they had never put to themselves the question who might 
be the creator and preserver of the sun, moon, stars, and other objects of nature, 
but was, always seut home with a vdra, which means “no” in their language. 
CHAPTER IX.—HOW THEY LIVED BEFORE AND AFTER THEIR CONVERSION. 
I will now proceed to describe in a few words in what manner the unbap- 
tized Californians spent their days. 
In the evening, when they had eaten their fill, they either lay down, or sat 
together and chatted till they were tired of talking, or had communicated to 
each other all that they knew for the moment. In the morning they slept until 
hunger forced them to rise. As soon as they awakened, the eating recom- 
menced, if anything remained; and the laughing, talking, and joking were 
likewise resumed. After this morning-prayer, when the sun was already some- 
what high, the men seized their bows and arrows, and. the women hitched on 
their yokes and turtle-shells. Some went to the right, others to the left; here 
six, there four, eight, or three, and sometimes one alone, the different bands, 
always continuing the laughing and chattering on their way. ‘They looked 
around to espy a mouse, lizard, snake, or perhaps a hare or deer; or tore up 
here and there a yuka or other root, or cut off some alots. A part of the day 
* According to Father Piccolo, the Californians worshipped the moon; and Venegas 
mentions the belief in a good and bad principle as prevailing among the Pericues and 
Cotchimies.—( Weitz, Anthropolegie der Naturvélker, vol. iv, p. 250.) These statements 
are emphatically refuted by Baegert in his first appendix, p. 315, where he says: ‘‘ It is not 
true that they worshipped the moon, or practiced any kind of idolatry.” 
t This is literally his expression. 
