THE ANCIENT CALIFORNIANS DID NOT BUILD HOUSES. THEY LIVED OUTDOORS.

 

Author: Sealtiel Enciso Pérez.

Something that always intrigued the first anthropologists who arrived in our ancient California, the Jesuit missionaries, was the total lack of constructions by the indigenous people. Some of them threw various hypotheses about the cause of this, and to this day they remain current in the historical investigations of these primordial groups.

Juan Jacobo Baegert, one of the few Ignatian priests who lived in original California for almost 17 years and who lived very closely with the Cochimi indigenous groups, tells us in a very pleasant and above all objective way, how these people lived and what was the reason for it. He left his musings and conclusions for posterity in a book he wrote years after he was expelled along with his other brotherhood members from Spanish territories. He called this book: "Noticias de la península americana de California" (News of the American Peninsula of California).

Baegert affirms that the Cochimi indigenous people (with whom he lived in the San Luis Gonzaga mission, where he remained for 17 long years), like to carry out their daily activities such as eating, hunting and even sleeping "under the open sky", without anything between their bodies and the surrounding universe. Only in the winter seasons, the indigenous people build small walls or screens with dry branches to protect themselves from gusts of wind, and only place them on the side where the wind blows. They do not construct anything more over their heads or around them. Occasionally, they dig cavities in the ground or in small earthy mounds and huddle in them to conserve heat and protect themselves from the wind, but that is all.

Baegert attributed this precarious and primitive situation to the fact that the indigenous people had to constantly move through very large territories in search of water and food, that is, they were nomadic. Juan Jacobo said, "I am not greatly mistaken when I assert that the majority of these men change the place of their nightly camp more than a hundred times a year and do not sleep three consecutive times in exactly the same place, nor on the same terrain, except when they spend the night at the mission." The indigenous people devoted their day, from when they woke up in the morning, to procuring some kind of food. To do this, they covered great distances, even doing so separately, the father, mother, and children. Whatever they found was immediately devoured without thinking that their relatives might have any needs or hunger because they had not found sustenance that day. The indigenous people covered so much distance on their journeys that Baegert assures us, "Only God, who counts all our steps, even before we are born, will know how many thousands of leagues a Californian traveled when he reached the age of 80 or when he found his tomb, which during his entire life, certainly, was never more than a finger's length away."

In various parts of his book, Baeger refutes the fanciful beliefs that were beginning to circulate in Europe about the mysterious land of California. He comments that it is a great lie to assert that the indigenous people rest in the shade of trees because, according to his observations, he never found trees throughout California. What did abound were bushes and a myriad of cactus plants with spines so large and dangerous that no indigenous person would venture to place themselves near them. He also classified as lies the assertion that the indigenous people constructed shelters or hideouts underground, since during the time he lived among these groups, he never knew or saw this type of custom or people who constructed this type of place to inhabit.

The observations made by this Jesuit priest led him to assert that he incidentally saw, only for short periods, indigenous people living in hollows or crevices in rocks, either on a hill or on the ground. However, they only resorted to this extreme action in case of a torrential rain or extreme cold and wind. He also pointed out that such geographical accidents were few and did not exist everywhere on the California peninsula.

Baegert observed that sometimes, especially when the indigenous people had a sick relative, and they had to stay with them for some time, they built small rooms. They made them out of branches cut from the surrounding shrubs, and occasionally built small stone walls. They covered the rooms with more branches to shield the patient and caregivers from the sun and inclement weather. These types of rooms were very small, to the point that as Juan Jacobo recounts, "the entrance to this refuge or 'jacalito' is usually so low that one has to crawl; and, moreover, the whole structure is so small that one cannot stand up or sit down on the floor to confess or comfort the sick person." These types of shelters were devoid of any furniture or amenities.

The Jesuit claimed that the reason why the Cochimí people attached little importance to the construction and embellishment of these spaces was that "Californians know nothing about standing close together or having a conversation while standing, much less walking inside or outside a room." Therefore, the function of these modest and primitive constructions was temporary and only while the sick person recovered or died. These customs were so deeply ingrained that when he saw the sufferings of elderly indigenous people who arrived at his mission, he would place them in small rooms that he built for these cases so that they could spend the cold night covered, but he was amazed to see the next day that more than half of these guests would sleep on the ground and under the starry sky.

Finally, Baegert vehemently replied to those Europeans who asked him about the houses, palaces, and even cities that were thought to have been found on the California peninsula in the legends of Quivira and Cíbola, saying that the only constructions he had seen in all this land were those built by the colonizers.

Reading the texts left to us by those who firsthand knew and lived among our first ancestors, the Californians, gives us a real and close idea of historical truth. Southern California holds many amazing stories, and knowing them makes our love for this land grow even more.