bajalera - 12-1-2009 at 10:04 AM
Captain Woodes Rogers, an English pirate who dropped anchor off Cabo San Lucas in 1710, said the Indians he met there had "large Limbs, were straight,
tall, and of a much blacker Complexion than any other People that I had seen in the South Seas [Pacific Ocean]. Their Hair--long, black, and
straight--hung down to their Thighs."
George Shelvocke, another English freebooter who arrived in 1721, agreed with Rogers on skin color, describing the Pericu as having "a much darker
complexion than any Indians I saw in these seas, these being of a deep copper colour."
The women, Shelvocke said, had "coarse black shaggy hair, which did not reach down to their thighs, as a late Navigator reports on his Voyage [he
means Rogers], or hardly down to their shoulders. (It apparently never occurred to Shelvocke that unlike eye color, hair style is not a permanent
feature. Peninsula Indians commnonly cut their hair, for example, to mourn the death of a relative.)
On noticing that the only Indians in sight were "old, and miserably wrinkled," Rogers figured the natives must have hidden away their young people,
fearing that exposing them to his sailors would put them in harm's way.
Such a fear was groundless, he said, "because of the good Order we kept among our Men in that respect." And to judge from the elderly Pericu ladies
he saw, Rogers also concluded that the young ones "could not be very tempting."
In the same year that Shelvocke saw Indians who had unusually dark skin at Cabo San Lucas, Jesuit missionary Ignacio Maria Napoli encountered natives
of a different hue at Bahia de Las Palmas: "I have not seen people as tall as these, of well-proportioned bodies, plump and very white and reddish.
"The children in particular appear to be English or Dutch, on account of their whiteness and ruddiness. I judge that some--especially the young, who
differ noticeable from the others--are children of Englishmen who wait for the Manila galleon" [off Cabo San Lucas].
Jesuit Miguel del Barco, a missionary who came to the peninsula 17 years later, disagreed with earlier descriptions of the Pericu, saying that the
"color of all the Pericu tribe is in general less dark, and even notably lighter than that of the other Californians."
The most likely source of a tall blond makeover would indeed be the DNA of fair-haired sailors from northern Europe, funneled into the Pericu gene
pool either by the rape of Indian women or with their consent. Perhaps the "Order" that Rogers claimed was kept among his men may not have been all
that effective, and Pericu women were more tempting to his sailors than he had realized.
Or the change of color may have resulted from the generosity of Indian honchos who offered visitors the "use" of women--a form of Good-Old-Boy travel
hospitality commonly practised in those days (and later days as well).
Visitors occasionally reported that Indian leaders offered to provide them with female companions, but no one seems to have got around to asking the
women how they felt about serving as a guest item. Was being loaned to passing strangers an esoterica experience that a womn could later brag about,
or punishment to be ashamed of? Voluntary, or forced?
More questions about the peninsula that will probably never be answered.
David K - 12-1-2009 at 10:12 AM
Good stuff Lee... Perhaps post this in the Nomad Historic Interests forum for future search ease?
Continue!
JESSE - 12-1-2009 at 11:11 AM
The features described still show up in locals here and there, i am putting togheter a small album of photos on these differences wich i will later
post on nomads.