10 ETHNO-BOTANY OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS 



Established in 1776, it became one of the wealthiest and most pros- 

 perous of the missions. Twelve miles east of the present site of Los 

 Angeles was San Gabriel (1771), and thirty miles northward at the 

 upper end of the wide plain was San Fernando Rey de Espafia (1797). 



6. The Indians attached to the mission of San Diego, whose name 

 for themselves seems to have been Quemaya (Comeya, Comoyei), are a 

 branch of the great Yuma linguistic family of the Colorado and Gila 

 rivers, which thus extends from the Colorado across the desert to the 

 Pacific ocean. From their attachment to the mission, those about San 

 Diego bay and along the coast have become known as Diegenos, even 

 among themselves. Within the domain of the United States they 

 still number about six hundred souls and have several small reserva- 

 tions in San Diego county, San Pasqual, Santa Ysabel, Mesa Grande, 

 and others, while many more of the same family are scattered through 

 the rough country of Baja California, just below the line, a well-known 

 reservation being in the Jacumba pass, near the road from San Diego 

 to Yuma. The Indians about San Luis Rey mission and up the river 

 into the mountains are known as the "Luisefios." They number at 

 present about 850, and their villages are principally in the Pala valley, 

 Pauma, La Jolla, and Rincon. With these should also be included 

 the Temeculas at Pechanga, eight miles north of Pala. 



The Indians, once neophytes at San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel, 

 and San Fernando, are gone. A few grizzled descendants may be 

 still lingering in the shadow of the crumbling walls of the mission 

 ruins, but the former tribes have disappeared ; their survivors have 

 either mixed with the mestizo population or joined the Indians further 

 removed from civilization. 



The two Indian tribes still to be mentioned are the Serranos and 

 Coahuillas. The former live at a small reservation near San Berna- 

 dino ("Manuel's village") and on the Morongo reservation in the San 

 Gorgonio Pass, where they have intermarried with the Coahuillas. 

 The Coahuillas, the only tribe still designated by its Indian name, live 

 in the Colorado desert and the San Jacinto range of mountains. 



As was said above, there is no general account of these Indians that 

 offers a suitable basis for further research, either into the history of 

 those that have disappeared or the ethnography of those that are still 

 in existence. 



About twenty pages of Mr. Bancroft's first volume are devoted to the 

 "Southern Californians." 1 The account is of value for its references, 



i Native Races, Vol. I, pp. 402-22. 



