THE HISTORY OF SAN FELIPE, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO

CHAPTER V: EARLY INDIANS OF SAN FELIPE

I. WRITTEN ACCOUNTS OF THE INDIANS

Early explorers of the northern gulf were the first to make hasty contact with the inhabitants of northern Lower California. In the year 1540 Melchior Diaz, a captain under Coronado, found his way overland to the mouth of the treacherous Colorado River and promptly christened it "Rio de Tison".

In narration of the journey it is written:

...after going about 150 leagues, they [(Diaz and his escorts)] came to a province of exceedingly tall and strong men-like giants. They are naked...On account of the great cold, they carry a firebrand (Tison) in the hand when they go from one place to another, with which they warm the other hand and the body as well...On this account the larger river which is in that country was called the Firebrand River. [Arthur North, "The Native Tribes of Lower California," American Anthropologist. X. (October, 1908), 238.]

By the last quarter of the eighteenth century the Dominican friars, having succeeded to the peninsula field, established nine missions in northern Lower California. The missionaries found these people much more warlike than their southern neighbors. Mission records characterized their ungodly children as: "...unquiet, proud, fickle, quick tempered, treacherous, warlike, and difficult to govern. [Ibid., p. 239.]

II. THE KILIWA

The number of Indians in northern Baja California at the close of the eighteenth century has been estimated at 20.000. [Ibid.] The northern peninsula was divided among native groups, each having a specific land area. The Kiliwa, a subgroup of the California Yumans, occupied the area from the mouth of the Colorado River south to approximately Valle de Trinidad (fig. 8).

Figure 8. Native Groups in Northern Lower California.

The Kiliwa made their home on the timber-clad heights of the San Pedro Martir. No record has been made of the Kiliwa population, but Peveril Meigs made an estimate of 1300 based on population density at a little less than one person per square mile. [Peveril Meigs, The Kiliwa Indians of Lower California. Ibero-Americanca Vol. 15. Berekely: 1939 p. 20.] These people were primarily hunters and gatherers, but did engage in some agriculture. The mainstays of their diet were the pinon nut and dried seafood. Principal travels of the Kiliwa consisted of their annual treks to the pinon groves and to San Felipe for food. [Ibid., p. 21.] Warlike and implacable when injured, the Kiliwas had constant feuds with neighboring tribes. They especially fought with tribes to the west who restricted travel to the Pacific.

Fishing. The Kiliwa made annual excursions to San Felipe Bay in order to supplement their diet with seafood. The Indians gathered clams and mussels; also caught and dried fish to take back to their inland home. All fishing was done from the shore, none from boats. Because of the unusually high tides of the northern gulf, the Kiliwa were able to construct fish traps. Regarding fish traps at San Felipe, Edward Nelson wrote:

The north side is limited by a low, isolated, rugged mountain of uniform black color known as San Felipe Point, which projects as a bold headland into the gulf. On the bay side of this mountain is a little rounded tidal lagoon, which fills through a narrow channel at high tide. A low wall of stone had been built nearly across the entrance, and we learned that this lagoon has served as a natural fish trap since prehistoric times. When, at unusually high tides, the lagoon is full of water and contains many fish, the openings in the wall are closed across the entrance channel, and as the tide falls the water runs out between the stones, leaving the fish stranded. [Edward Nelson, Lower California and Its Natural Resources, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, XVI (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1921), P. 18.]

Fish were also caught on a barbless hook made of the horn of mountain sheep. Line was made of very strong mescal twine. Nets were not used for catching fish. [Meigs, op. cit., p. 29.]

Occupance of the bay site. Presence of drinking water and the availability of seafood made San Felipe a popular area for temporary settlement. Abundant molluscan remains reveal past occupation of the site by the Kiliwas and other transient Indians. Drinking water was easily reached. After exploring the area anthropologists Egbert Schenck and Edward Winslow wrote, " Our opinion is that wells were dug, as is done today behind the coastal sand dunes at San Felipe." [Egbert Schenck and Edward Winslow, "Archaeological Sites of Opposite Shores of the Gulf of California," XVII (American Antiquity, January, 1952), p. 265.]

San Felipe Bay was never a place of permanent settlement for any of the Indian groups. Fresh water was available at the bay, and the Indians needed an outlet to the gulf in order to supplement their diets with seafood. Thus, San Felipe Bay became a place of annual excursion. Under these conditions, the bay found its first utility by man.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: HISTORY OF SAN FELIPE SITE EVOLUTION, BY THOMAS ANTHONY TERICH

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