Originally posted by El Vergel
Gator eyeteeth scrapings for an antidote. Interesting.
Here's some beauty described:
Chapter Eight— Of the Character, Nature, and Customs of the Californians
The daily pattern of life of unbaptized California Indians always runs like this. In the evening, when their bellies are filled, they lie down or sit
together, talking until they are tired of it or cannot think of anything more to say. In the morning, they sleep till hunger or the lust for food
makes them get up. As soon as they are awake, they start to eat, if anything edible is around, and immediately the laughing, chatting, and joking is
resumed. After this kind of morning prayer, when the sun is already fairly high, the men reach for their bows and arrows, and the women tie their
yokes or turtle shells around their foreheads. Some go to the
right, others to the left, here six, there four, over there eight or two, or sometimes just one alone. The chattering, laughing, and joking continue
all the way. They watch for a mouse, lizard, snake, hare, or a deer to appear. One of them tears up a yucca or some other root, another cuts off half
a dozen aloe heads. They rest a little, sitting together or lying down in the rare shade if any can be found; all the while their tongues keep
wagging. At length they rise again, play or wrestle to find out who is the strongest man or woman among them and who can throw his opponent to the
ground. Finally they start on their way back or walk for another few hours. At the nearest water place they stop and begin singeing, burning,
roasting, and grinding the food they found during the day. Constantly chattering, they eat as long as something is left and there is still space in
their stomachs. After more childish or indecent prattling, they go to rest again, as they did the night before. In this manner they spend the day,
month, the whole year. Their talks or chatterings are about eating, childish nonsense, and all kinds of mischievous tricks. They still adhere to
almost the same manner of living if they are not or cannot be put to some useful work at the missions, which is in many ways to their advantage.
Who would, under these circumstances, expect to find even a little spark of religion among such people? They discuss the course taken by a wounded
deer that escaped at nightfall, with an arrow in its side, and how they are going to pursue it the next morning, but they never think about the course
of the sun and the other heavenly bodies. They talk about pitahayas long before they are ripe, but never bother to discuss or dream about the origin
and the creator of the pitahayas and all other things. They never take pains to reflect. |
