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bajalera
Super Nomad
Posts: 1875
Registered: 10-15-2003
Location: Santa Maria CA
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Second Harvest
A fellow Bajaficionado and I are having a friendly difference of opinion about the term "Second Harvest," as it is applied historically in Baja
California.
One of us says, "Most people who tune in to the Nomad board know what this refers to."
The other says, "Oh no they don't"
If you can spare time to take part in a little survey with no importance whatsoever and no redeeming features at all, we'd appreciate your posting a
Yes if you know what the Second Harvest was, or a No if you don't--or being wordier than that, of course, if you happen to feel like it.
Lera
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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elgatoloco
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4342
Registered: 11-19-2002
Location: Yes
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Like recycling, only different. 
MAGA
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 65150
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Yes, sort of a what goes in must come out, with an encoure!
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Mike Humfreville
Super Nomad
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Registered: 8-26-2003
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Second Harvest
The first time I heard the term it was used in Jesuit Fra Baegerts book written in the mid 1700's after he has spent 17 years living across the
peninsula.
His "second harvest" was a term reflecting habits of Cochimi Indians (Inhabiting approximately the central desert region of Baja), and indicative of a
habit they employed to keep themselves alive.
Unfortunately, our copy of this 300 year old book died in the fire that destroyed our home in 1997, but having read the details, they're difficult to
forget.
The "rancheros" (nomadic tribes) of Cochimi wandered throughout the central desert during the difficult times of the year for the purpose of gathering
food (Agave, lizards, snakes, rabbits, whatever). Assumedly they were territorial and used their familiar camps as they wandered and used the same
locations to defecate. Then, during the early spring, the leanest part of the yearly cycle foodwise, when they returned to these same sites as their
previous yearly cycle, some of them (young and elderly assumedly) were literally starving.
They would return to the sites of their year-old defecations, locate their own tribes droppings, pick the undigested seeds out of the filth, grind
them up and cook and then eat them.
Hey, it kept them alive. I was going to say it kept them going but that might have conjured up another notion. I bet Neal Johns knows about Fra
Baegerts book. Perhaps, if fact, they were friends!!!
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Skeet/Loreto
Ultra Nomad
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Good Morning Mike:
It was referred to in "Black Robes of Lower California" which I first read in 1981.
Your question has given me cause to read it again.
Skeet/Loreto
"In God We Trust"
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academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
Registered: 9-7-2003
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Second Harvest
The term originally came from Baegert's book, originally published in exile following the Jesuit expulsion in 1767/1768. He served at San Luis Gonzaga
in the Magdalena Desert, and the natives were the Guaycuros and not the Cochimi (actually a linguistic group). Baegert also directed the construction
of the Church with two towers that still survives at the site.
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academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
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Petroglyph from Big Bend
I previously posted several photos from a rock overhand in Big Bend State Park with petroglyhs dating bacj around 4,000 years. I found in one of my
files this photo from that series, that I had forgotten about. It looks to me like a couple of sun/star symbols, and a human figure.
[Edited on 3-18-2004 by academicanarchist]
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Baja Bernie
`Normal` Nomad Correspondent
Posts: 2962
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: Sunset Beach
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Mood: Just dancing through life
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PITAHAYES FRUIT
A long while ago 'Jesse' posted a thread on harvesting the PITAHAYAS FRUIT from the cactus--The seeds of this plant are the ones recycled by many
Indians in Baja Sur. Often they did not wait for the next year. The Padres took a dim view of this survival technigue. I should point out that the
harvesting or re-harvesting is no longer in use.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 65150
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Yah, specially since the Indaians are all gone!
I think 'Lera wanted to see how many here knew what the 'second harvest' was... but we couldn't restrain ourselves from answering...
AA may know for a fact, but I did read that there really was no 'second harvest'... The missionairies thought the natives were so primitive, they
invented the Second Harvest in their reports to show disgust for the primitive people... who wanted to remain naked, eat fruit, fish, and have
orgies... (something wrong with that?)
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academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
Registered: 9-7-2003
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Second Harvest
The Baegert account says that it did take place, and he was the guy on the spot writing about it. Unfortunately, as David points out, the natives are
gone, and they did not leave their version of things for us.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 65150
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Robert, how would you describe Baegert's opinion of the naitive Californian's?
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academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
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Baegert's Opinion of native peoples
Pretty consistent with the opinion of most missionaries towards native peoples in Baja California, California, and other areas where European
missionaries tried to elevate and bring culture to peoples they considered to be inferior and child-like savages, pretty denigrating. Given the
prevailing attitude of the missionaries towards the natives, based on assumptions they went to the missions already believing, and also given that
Baegert was writing for people with like mentalities and attitudes towards native peoples, I do not believe that he had to make up things about
native practices such as the second harvest. If you have seen the movie Black Robe, there is a scene that is very telling. LaForgue is a young priest,
and talks with a Jesuit who had just returned from Canada. The natives had disfigured the Jesuit. LaForgue asks what has happened to him, and his
response was the the "savages" did this to him. If you read the early Jesuit reports on the Baja California missions, and particulalry the 1744
reports, you get a clear sense that there was a collective disparaging of the Baja California natives by the missionaries. this mentality was also
codified in Spanish colonial law that governed the Indians. They were legally defined as "ninos con barbas," or children with beards, meaning that
although they were physically mature adults, the underlying assumption was that they were intellectually inferior children.
[Edited on 3-19-2004 by academicanarchist]
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bajalera
Super Nomad
Posts: 1875
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Location: Santa Maria CA
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Baegert was a complex man, who wrote in bitterness (and as a Jesuit was, I think, entitled to be). There's a definite pattern to his writing style--he
opens a discussion with a lot of negatives, then often mellows out--but in statements that are easily overlooked unless you read carefully.
For example, he describes peninsula Indians as stupid, awkward, rude, etc., but in the middle of the next paragraph says, "They are endowed with
reason and understanding like other people, and I think that, if in their early childhood they were sent to Europe, the boys to seminaries and
colleges, and the girls to convents, they would go as far as any European in mores, virtues, in all arts and sciences. Many good examples of that can
be found in different American provinces."
For the era of Euro-centrism in which it was written, that statement is practically heretical.
Baegert describes the Second Harvest in the usual picking-out-the-seeds terminology (which I'm convinced is not applicable), and adds, "Whether all
this happens because of want, voracity, or out of love for the pitahayas, I leave undecided." That last option, I think, also indicates an unusual
degree of understanding for its time.
The detailed Second Harvest process Miguel del Barco describes in his Historia natural y cronica doesn't look to me like stuff he would have made up.
One of the interesting things about Baegert, to me, is that the only place his name appears in del Barco's book--except on a list of Jesuits who
worked in Baja--is in Miguel Leon-Portilla's footnotes. The guy apparently did something to pee off del Barco.
bajalera
PEE OFF? Let's make that p*ss off!
[Edited on 3-19-2004 by bajalera]
[Edited on 3-19-2004 by bajalera]
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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marv sherrill
Nomad
Posts: 464
Registered: 11-18-2003
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second harvest
I recall from a book on Islands of Baja - small paperback - that the pitahya is quite nutritious but causes extreme bloating and swelling of the face
to such an extent that some could not see. The only reason for eating the seeds a second time is that they took on hallucinogenic properties after
passing through the human intestinal tract - so the second harvest had a specific purpose... probably the only reason anybody would do it....
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academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
Registered: 9-7-2003
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DelBarco and Baegert
You have to keep in mind that both men were in exile when they wrote their accounts, and DelBarco was writing primarily to correct the errors he
believed were in Venegas's official history. Pitahaya Fruit is very nutricious, as is all cactus fruit. In terms of causing hallucinations, you may be
confusing it with Peyote.
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bajalera
Super Nomad
Posts: 1875
Registered: 10-15-2003
Location: Santa Maria CA
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The bloating description comes from Baegert, who said he didn't recognize some of his converts after they'd been pigging out on pitahayas for a couple
of months.
Baegert wrote in protest of the Venegas/Burriel book as well.
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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Baja Bernie
`Normal` Nomad Correspondent
Posts: 2962
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: Sunset Beach
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Mood: Just dancing through life
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Still wish Jesse would chime in with his story about harvesting the seeds.
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bajalera
Super Nomad
Posts: 1875
Registered: 10-15-2003
Location: Santa Maria CA
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more pitahayas
Okay, I lose the argument: most bajaficionados apparently don't know about the Second Harvest. But those who do have interesting things to say, and I
thank you all. "The Second Harvest Revisited" is Chapter 7 of a book I'm writing, and I'm grateful for the input.
And Jesse, up there in TJ: sign me on with Bernie--I wish you'd re-share your pitahaya experiences.
Marv, if you remember the name of that book I'd sure like to know what it was--I haven't heard of that particular slant before.
bajalera
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
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Tell Us About Your Book
Tell us about your book project. Chapter 7 sounds interesting. The second harvest was a rational response to cycles of abundance and dearth in a
hostile environment.
[Edited on 3-20-2004 by academicanarchist]
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Stephanie Jackter
Senior Nomad
Posts: 566
Registered: 11-3-2002
Location: Arizona
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| Quote: |
AA may know for a fact, but I did read that there really was no 'second harvest'... The missionairies thought the natives were so primitive, they
invented the Second Harvest in their reports to show disgust for the primitive people... who wanted to remain naked, eat fruit, fish, and have
orgies... (something wrong with that?) |
.....only for Republicans.......- Stephanie
When the goin' gets tough, the wierd turn pro
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