Cochimí
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The Cochimí were the indigenous inhabitants of the central part of the Baja California peninsula, from El Rosario in the north to San Javier in the south. Information on Cochimí customs and beliefs has been preserved in the brief observations by explorers but, above all, in the writings of the Jesuits (Aschmann 1959; Laylander 2000; Mathes 2006). Particularly important and detailed are the works of
Miguel Venegas Miguel Venegas (1680–1764) was a Jesuit administrator and historian. He is most known for his book ''Noticia de la California'', a standard geographical, historical, and ethnographic description of Baja California, Mexico—a region he never pers ...
(1757, 1979) and
Miguel del Barco Miguel del Barco ( Casas de Millán, 1706– Bologna, 1790) was a Jesuit missionary in Baja California, Mexico and wrote major contributions to the peninsula's history and ethnography. Del Barco was born at Casas de Millán in Cáceres, Extremad ...
(1973).


History

The Cochimí were first encountered by Spanish seaborne explorers during the sixteenth century, including Ulloa, Cabrillo, Vizcaíno, and others. Sporadic encounters continued until the
Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
established missions on the peninsula in the late seventeenth century.
Eusebio Francisco Kino Eusebio Francisco Kino ( it, Eusebio Francesco Chini, es, Eusebio Francisco Kino; 10 August 1645 – 15 March 1711), often referred to as Father Kino, was a Tyrolean Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer and astronomer born in ...
made an abortive foundation at
San Bruno San Bruno (Spanish for " St. Bruno") is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, incorporated in 1914. The population was 43,908 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is between South San Francisco and Millbrae, adjacent to Sa ...
, to the north of Loreto, in 1683-1685.
Juan María de Salvatierra Juan María de Salvatierra, S.J., (November 15, 1648 – July 17, 1717) was a Catholic missionary to the Americas. Life history Salvatierra was born Gianmaria Salvatierra in Milan, then the capital of the Duchy of Milan, a part of the Holy Rom ...
began the first successful mission in 1697 at Loreto among the Monqui, who were southern neighbors of the Cochimí. This was quickly followed by Francesco Maria Piccolo's Cochimí mission at San Javier in 1699. Over the next seven decades, the frontier of Jesuit control over the Cochimí gradually extended northward, with missions at
Mulegé Mulegé is a city in Mulegé Municipality, Baja California Sur, situated on the Gulf of California. Located on the Gulf of California, the population was 3,821 according to the Mexican census of 2010. History Indigenous peoples had lived in t ...
(1705), Comondú (1708), La Purísima (1720), Guadalupe (1720), San Ignacio (1728), Santa Gertrudis (1751), San Borja (1762), and Santa María (1767). After the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from Baja California in 1768, the
Franciscans , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...
under
Junípero Serra Junípero Serra y Ferrer (; ; ca, Juníper Serra i Ferrer; November 24, 1713August 28, 1784) was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Order , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size ...
established an additional mission at San Fernando Velicatá (1769) on their way north to Alta California. The Franciscans' successors in Baja California, the Dominicans, created the final new mission among the Cochimí at El Rosario (1774). Decimated by epidemics of Old World diseases, the Cochimí population declined, until sometime in the nineteenth or possibly the early twentieth century their language and traditional culture became extinct.


Culture

The Cochimí were hunter-gatherers, without agriculture or metallurgy. Pottery-making may have reached the northern Cochimí before Spanish contact (
Rogers Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...
1945). Their material culture was generally simple, but it suited their arid environment and mobile lifestyle. The highest level of social organization was the autonomous local community, and inter-community conflicts appear to have been frequent. Among the unusual cultural traits noted for the Cochimí and some of their neighbors were the second harvest of the pitahaya, the ''maroma'', wooden ''tablas'', and human-hair capes: * The fruit of
pitahaya A pitaya () or pitahaya () is the fruit of several different cactus species indigenous to the Americas. Pitaya usually refers to fruit of the genus ''Stenocereus'', while pitahaya or dragon fruit refers to fruit of the genus '' Selenicereus'' ...
cactus provided a highly valued but short-lived
seasonal food Seasonal food refers to the times of year when the harvest or the flavour of a given type of food is at its peak. This is usually the time when the item is harvested, with some exceptions; an example being sweet potatoes which are best eaten qui ...
resource. Subsequent to the pitahaya harvest, Baja Californians winnowed undigested pitahaya seeds from their own dried excrement and then roasted and ate this "second harvest". * Another unusual food trait was the ''maroma''. A valued morsel of meat was tied with a string, swallowed, then pulled back up and passed to the next person in a circle of consumers, until the meat finally disintegrated. * ''Tablas'' were wooden tablets with painted designs and/or drilled holes, used in religious ceremonies. Some of these artifacts have been found archaeologically (Massey 1972; Hedges 1973; Meigs 1974). * Capes made from donated human hair were worn by shamans on ceremonial occasions (Meigs 1970).


Language

The Cochimí spoke a set of dialects or closely related languages that have been classified in a variety of ways. The most prominent division, between Northern Cochimí and Southern Cochimí, has generally been put to the south of San Ignacio (Mixco 1978, 1979, 2006; Laylander 1997). At one time designated "Peninsular Yuman", Cochimí bears an evident relationship to the
Yuman languages The Quechan (or Yuma) (Quechan: ''Kwatsáan'' 'those who descended') are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the Mexican border. Despite the ...
of northern Baja California, southern California, and western Arizona. Mauricio J. Mixco (1978, 2006) reassessed this relationship and judged it to be too distant for Cochimí to be included within the Yuman family proper. He placed Cochimí as a sister language to the Yuman family, thus forming the Yuman–Cochimí family.


References

* Aschmann, Homer. 1959. ''The Central Desert of Baja California: Demography and Ecology''. Iberoamericana No. 42. Berkeley, California. * Barco, Miguel del. 1973. ''Historia natural y crónica de la antigua California''. Edited by Miguel León-Portilla. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City. * Hedges, Ken. 1973. "Painted tablas from northern Baja California". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 9(1):5-20. * Laylander, Don. 1997. "The linguistic prehistory of Baja California". In ''Contributions to the Linguistic Prehistory of Central and Baja California'', edited by Gary S. Breschini and Trudy Haversat, pp. 1–94. Coyote Press, Salinas, California. * Laylander, Don. 2000. ''Early Ethnography of the Californias: 1533-1825''. Coyote Press, Salinas, California. * Massey, Lee Gooding. 1972. "Tabla and atlatl: two unusual wooden artifacts from Baja California". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 8(1):25-34. * Mathes, W. Michael. 2006. "Ethnohistoric evidence". In ''The Prehistory of Baja California: Advances in the Archaeology of the Forgotten Peninsula'', edited by Don Laylander and Jerry D. Moore, pp. 42–66. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1970. "Capes of human hair from Baja California and outside". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 6(1):21-28. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1974. "Meigs on tablas". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 10(1):37-38. * Mixco, Mauricio J. 1978. ''Cochimí and Proto-Yuman: Lexical and Syntactic Evidence for a New Language Family in Lower California''. University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 101. Salt Lake City. * Mixco, Mauricio J. 1979. "Northern Cochimí Dialectology and Proto-Yuman". ''Journal of California and Great Basin Papers in Linguistics'' 1:39-64. * Mixco, Mauricio J. 2006. "The indigenous languages". In ''The Prehistory of Baja California: Advances in the Archaeology of the Forgotten Peninsula'', edited by Don Laylander and Jerry D. Moore, pp. 24–41. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. * Rogers, Malcolm J. 1945. "An outline of Yuman prehistory". ''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' 1:167-198. * Venegas, Miguel. 1757. ''Noticia de la California y de su conquista temporal, y espiritual hasta el tiempo presente''. 3 vols. M. Fernández, Madrid. * Venegas, Miguel. 1979. ''Obras californianas del padre Miguel Venegas, S.J.'' Edited by W. Michael Mathes, Vivian C. Fisher, and Eligio Moisés Coronado. 5 vols. Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur, La Paz. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cochimi People Indigenous peoples of Aridoamerica Pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico Ethnic groups in Mexico Indigenous peoples in Mexico