Osprey - 6-25-2011 at 02:25 PM
The Las Palmas People
I think most lay people like me perceive the lives of early Amerindians as very simple and almost animalistic. That may be true compared to modern
societies that filled the space they left but they were not animals, they were humans and their struggles were as complex, day to day as our.
We really can’t go back and take recordings, photos and movies so it’s all guesswork. I’m a world class guesser so I’ll go back, find the Las Palmas
people on our local beaches to paint a snapshot of what they faced, how they lived.
Life was not just all about water, food and shelter but those things loomed large and dictated the movements of groups of people working together to
stay together. Over time clans learned which mountain canyons closest to the shore held and kept fresh water. We take for granted now what was a
complex set of problems then about the transportation and storage of water and food items. They got most of their food from the sea but most of the
water was high in the canyons – they would have consumed fish and shellfish the day it was caught but if and when they traveled they would have to
carry water with them or risk dehydration and death.
Complex language allowed them to decide as a unit, move together, overcome obstacles together, pool their talents and meager resources. At the
seashore they used their knowledge and skills to capture and eat all manner of fish and shellfish – they learned to make and use rafts, nets, spears,
hooks and line and traps. In the mountains they had to work to catch lizards, snakes, badgers, deer, and birds. Only the stomachs or hides of a few
marine animals and deer could be made into water bags for transportation and storage.
Age dating of the micro-organisms that make up the brown-black glaze we call Desert Varnish, which cannot compete with lichens, tells us the climate
has changed little in the last couple of millennia so southern bands had available only seven inches of rainfall to keep them alive in years (like the
last four) where no hurricanes delivered more. That seven inches drops to three or less along the shore in drought years so when seaside water holes
dried up, it was time to move on or upward into the mountain canyons.
Fruit was abundant but much of it lacked the protein of our table fruit and much of it was hard to gather – if all you had at hand were ciruela or
zalate figs your body would lose fat and balance and vigor. Clans who made the wrong choices about habitat and water, food gathering and storage ran
the risk of dwindling numbers, early deaths caused by malnutrition and the diseases weaker bodies succumbs to. Groups had a vast knowledge of natural
medicine but it was a trial and error event when major sickness hit the clan.
Through all that the individuals laughed and played and loved and formed alliances, families, cliques; there were fights and celebrations, the drama
of our very modern lives were played out daily. Woven through the pattern of their lives was a rich and driving force of spiritual recognition we call
taboos. Taboos brought one man, not the other to the post of leader, sent some into exile, made slaves of others.
If you catch yourself thinking these primitive people were simple, sit down with me some day among the kitchen middens of the groups that lived along
the shore here and imagine building rafts and nets and line and traps with only a sharpened rock as a tool, your ideas as a plan, whatever woods and
reeds and bark and palms you could gather from the arroyos and canyons nearby. Then measure your success or failure in calories like all the birds and
animals and fish around you do – can you make your work equal to or less than the potential food value of the thing you seek to capture? They divided
the work – they explained what needed to be done to parts of the capture equipment, shared the work so each worker only expended so many calories.
They’re all gone now but science will continue to study them, learn all they can and preserve the knowledge so that in some ways they will always be
with us. Their spirits still work and chant and swim with me so it must be that they were and are a most robust and venerable bunch, as much a part of
the history of this place as any other visitors.
David K - 6-25-2011 at 03:08 PM
Thanks for your post!
Von - 6-25-2011 at 06:08 PM
Interesting!
dtbushpilot - 6-25-2011 at 06:13 PM
I'm sure Lynda can find something for you to do if you're bored Jorge
Interesting read Jorge, I'll be down in a couple of weeks, lets go sit by a kitchen midden and have a beer, we can open them with a rock to get in the
spirit....dt
[Edited on 6-26-2011 by dtbushpilot]
Udo - 6-25-2011 at 06:16 PM
And all of Nomads thought that George only wrote fiction. This is his best
research work for non-fiction writing!.
Well done buddy!
BajaBlanca - 6-25-2011 at 06:45 PM
wonderful read !!! I love everything Indian and I am in awe of all they accomplished ... there are arrowheads everywhere in la bocana. Most know I
like them, so every so often I get gifted an item someone has found.
thanks for a wonderfrul read.
Marc - 6-25-2011 at 06:46 PM
And then...my Castilian ancestors took it all away.