An Account of the Indians of tbe Santa Barbara Islands in California. 17 



village at the cape .is called Xeno, and another province is called 

 Xucu. They hâve their houses rounded and coveied very near down 

 to the ground. The Indians eat acorns and another grain which is 

 large as maiz and white, of which they niake tamales. It is good for 

 food. They say that inland there is much maiz. Indians came on 

 bord with water and fish, and showed much good disposition. They 

 hâve in their villages large public squares, and they hâve au inclo- 

 sure like a circle, and around the inclosure they hâve many blocks 

 of stone fastened in the ground which issue about 2 palms (hands), 

 and in the middle of the inclosure they hâve many sticks of timber 

 driven in the ground like masts, and very thick; and they hâve many 

 pictures on these same posts, and we believe that they worship tkeni, 

 for when they dance they dance around this inclosure." 



Half a Century later Viscaino found the same conditions on the 

 mainland. Of the San Diego Indians he says that they were a fine 

 looking race, clothed in sealskins and that they received the Spani- 

 ards with extreme kindness. They had large dwellings and numerous 

 ranches. made excellent canoës, and were expert fishermen and hunt- 

 ers. Higher up on the mainland somewhere near Santa Barbara, he 

 found that the country was governed by a chief who offered them hos- 

 pitality, and who even went so far as to offer every Spaniard ten 

 wives if they desired to remain with them. 



Vancouver who visited the coast two hundred and fifty years 

 later, found the Indians very much the same. He has e very good 

 idea of the Indians „which behaved themselves with much décorum, 

 much sensibility and much vivacity, and with good order, very nn- 

 like that inanimate stupidity that marks the character of the northen 

 Indians we hâve seen under the Spanish juridiction at San Francisco 

 and Monterey." But some change had taken place since Cabrillo's 

 and Viscaino's time. Father Vincente told him how the Indians were 

 suspicious and regardée! all strangers as enemies and refusée! to visit 

 other „societies". 



The narrative of Don Miguel Costansó has already been 

 referred to. The following is an extract from the same. I hâve 

 excluded everything which does not directly concem the Indians 

 and the paragraphs follow each other in the same manner and orcler 

 as in his narrative. At the fiïût arrivai in the port of San Diego: 

 „they discovered at a little distance a troop of Indians armed with bows 

 and arrows; to whom they made signs with white cloths calling them 

 to a parley. But they setting their steps by those of our folk, for 



Sitzb. d. kön. böhm. Ges. d. Wiss. IL Classe. 2 



