Kiliwa
Encyclopedia
The Kiliwa are an aboriginal people of northern Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
, Mexico. They occupied a territory lying between the Cochimí
Cochimi
The Cochimí are the aboriginal inhabitants of the central part of the Baja California peninsula, from El Rosario in the north to San Javier in the south....
on the south and the Paipai
Paipai
The Paipai are an aboriginal people of northern Baja California, Mexico. They occupied a territory lying between the Kiliwa on the south and the Kumeyaay and Cocopa on the north, and extending from San Vicente near the Pacific coast nearly to the Colorado River's delta in the east...
on the north, and extending from San Felipe
San Felipe, Baja California
San Felipe is a town on the Gulf of California in the Mexican state of Baja California, 190 km south of the United States border and within the municipality of Mexicali. It also serves as a borough seat of its surrouding area....
on the Gulf of California
Gulf of California
The Gulf of California is a body of water that separates the Baja California Peninsula from the Mexican mainland...
to San Quintín
San Quintín, Baja California
San Quintín is a coastal town on the west coast of the Mexican state of Baja California, in the municipio of Ensenada. San Quintín has beautiful beaches and several places for tourists to stay. Tourists can enjoy fishing, camping, bird watching, surfing, and clam digging...
on the Pacific coast. Their traditional language is the Kiliwa language
Kiliwa language
Kiliwa is a Yuman language spoken in Baja California, in the far northwest of Mexico, by the Kiliwa people. It may form part of the hypothetical Hokan linguistic phylum. Kiliwa is the southernmost representative of the family, and the one that is most distinct from the remaining Yuman languages,...
.
The Ñakipa have sometimes been distinguished from the Kiliwa as a separate ethnolinguistic group within the southwestern portion of what is here considered Kiliwa territory. The limited linguistic evidence that is available for the Ñakipa indicates that they spoke the same language as the eastern Kiliwa.
Prehistory
Little archaeological research has as yet been done within Kiliwa territory. A partial exception is a sampling program of systematic survey along the west coast between El Rosario and San Quintín by Jerry D. Moore.Radiocarbon dates and Clovis point
Clovis point
Clovis points are the characteristically-fluted projectile points associated with the North American Clovis culture. They date to the Paleoindian period around 13,500 years ago. Clovis fluted points are named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where examples were first found in 1929.At the right...
s from farther south on the peninsula suggest that the initial occupation to the north must have occurred prior to 11,000 years ago.
Aboriginal lifeways
Information about the cultural practices of the precontact Kiliwa comes from a variety of sources. These include accounts of early explorers, such as Juan Rodríguez CabrilloJuan Rodríguez Cabrillo
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was a Portuguese explorer noted for his exploration of the west coast of North America on behalf of Spain. Cabrillo was the first European explorer to navigate the coast of present day California in the United States...
and Sebastián Vizcaíno
Sebastián Vizcaíno
Sebastián Vizcaíno was a Spanish soldier, entrepreneur, explorer, and diplomat whose varied roles took him to New Spain, the Philippines, the Baja California peninsula, the California coast and Japan.-Early career:...
; from late eighteenth and early nineteenth century observers, such as Luis Sales
Luis Sales
Luis Sales served as a Dominican missionary in Baja California, Mexico, between 1773 and 1790. He is most notable for three long letters in which he described the history of the peninsula and the lifeways of the native peoples in its northwestern region.Sales was born in Valencia, Spain in 1745...
and José Longinos Martínez
José Longinos Martínez
José Longinos Martínez was a Spanish naturalist whose account of his travels through Baja California Sur, Baja California, and California in 1792 provided an important early account of the region, its fauna, flora, minerals, and native inhabitants....
; and from twentieth century ethnographers, including Peveril Meigs
Peveril Meigs
Peveril Meigs, III, was an American geographer, notable for his studies of arid lands on several continents and in particular for his work on the native peoples and early missions of northern Baja California, Mexico....
, William D. Hohenthal, and Jesús Ángel Ochoa Zazueta.
Population
Meigs suggested that the aboriginal population of the Kiliwa was about 1,300 individuals, or a density of about 0.3 persons per square kilometer. He excluded the southwestern "Ñakipa" territory from his estimates, which would raise the total to at least 2,000. Meigs considered his estimate to be a "conservative" one. However, Roger C. Owen has argued that Meigs' population estimates were substantially too high.Subsistence
Aboriginal Kiliwa subsistence was based on hunting and gathering of natural animal and plants rather than on agriculture. At least two dozen different plants were food resources, and many others were used for medicine or as materials for construction or craft products. Pit-roasted AgaveAgave
Agave is a genus of monocots. The plants are perennial, but each rosette flowers once and then dies ; they are commonly known as the century plant....
(mescal; ječà) was the most important plant food. In the fall season, harvesting of acorns and pine nuts from the higher-elevation portions of Kiliwa territory was a major activity.
Rabbits and deer were the most important animal food sources, but a wide range of others were also hunted, including pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, medium-sized mammals such as mountain lions, many small mammal species, birds, reptiles, fish, and shellfish. Jackrabbits and quail were hunted communally, by being driven into nets. Treks were made to San Felipe on the east coast to harvest fish and shellfish and to collect salt.
Crop growing and stock raising were introduced during the historic period. Another highly valued food resource that was introduced during the historic period was wild honey.
Material Culture
The traditional material culture of the Kiliwa was not highly elaborate, as would be expected for a seasonally mobile group.- Structures included semi-subterranean houses with willow poles and thatching, ramadas, and sweat houses.
- Hunting equipment included willow bows; arrows with carrizo reed shafts, wooden foreshafts, and stone points; wooden throwing sticks; and agave fiber nets.
- Processing equipment included manos and metates for grinding seeds, wooden drills and hearths for making fire, and pottery and basketry for cooking, storing, and transporting.
- Clothing was generally lacking for men. Women wore deer hid aprons and reed caps. Both sexes wore agave fiber sandals. Rabbitskin blankets provided warmth, and human hair capes were used in ceremonies. Cradles were used to transport infants.
Social Organization
Traditional leadership roles in communities and kin groups were held on a hereditary basis, but subject to an assessment of the individual leader's competence. Leaders' authority does not seem to have been extensive.Kinship and community membership seems to have been defined to a large extent on the basis of patrilineal inheritance
Patrilineality
Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
. Two levels of patrilineages (or clans, sibs) were recognized, corresponding to the šimułs of other western Yuman groups. Maselkwa were the smaller, more strongly localized groups. Several maselkwa might collectively constitute an ichiupu. On the broadest level, all Kiliwa were believed to be descended from four mythic brothers, the sons of the creator.
Social recreations included a variety of games: racing with balls, shinny, top spinning, archery, dice, a guessing game, and, most importantly, peón. Music was produced by singing and by instruments, including flutes, rattles, clappers, and bullroarers.
Ceremonies
Shamans were believed to be able to effect magical cures of disease or injuries, or to cause them. They presided at some religious ceremonies, and they were thought to transform themselves into animals or birds and to bring rain.Most documented Kiliwa ceremonies were linked to rites of passage in the lives of individuals:
- Birth involved various taboos or special requirements, but it was primarily a private family matter. The father observed a couvadeCouvadeCouvade syndrome, also called sympathetic pregnancy or phantom pregnancy, is a condition in which a man experiences some of the same symptoms and behavior of an expectant mother. These most often include minor weight gain, altered hormone levels, morning nausea, and disturbed sleep patterns...
.
- Boys' Initiation for groups of boys aged around 15 years was marked by the nose-piercing ceremony (mipípŭsá) and other activities extending over two months.
- Girls' Initiation at the time of first menstruation involved being baked in ashes for five days, washed in cold water for five days, and made to observe various prescriptions and taboos.
- Marriage involved little ceremony, other than the groom giving gifts to the bride's parents. Marrying up to two wives was permitted, and divorce was easy for either party.
- Death was the focus of the most elaborate Kiliwa ceremonies, occurring both immediately after an individual's death and as subsequent collective mourning observances. Talking to the dead and burning his possessions are among the formal actions.
Traditional Narratives
Traditional narratives are conventionally classed as myths, legends, tales, and oral histories. The oral literature recorded for the Kiliwa includes narratives that can be assigned to each of these categories.The Kiliwa creation myth conspicuously diverges from those of the other Yuman-speaking groups. However, the Kiliwa name for the creator, Metipá, recalls similar figures in other Yuman myths.
Sources of Traditional Narratives
- Meigs, Peveril, III. 1939. The Kiliwa Indians of Lower California. Iberoamericana No. 15. University of California, Berkeley.(Myths narrated by Emiliano Uchurte and José Espinosa, ca. 1928–1936, pp. 64–82.)
- Mixco, Mauricio J. 1976. "Kiliwa Texts". International Journal of American Linguistics Native American Text Series 1:92–101.
- Mixco, Mauricio J. 1983. Kiliwa Texts: "When I Have Donned My Crest of Stars" University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 107. Salt Lake City. (Myths and legends narrated by Rufino Ochurte and Braulio Espinosa after 1966.)
- Mixco, Mauricio J. 1993. "Kiliwa Mountain Sheep Traditions". In Counting Sheep: Twenty Ways of Seeing Desert Bighorn Sheep, edited by Gary Paul Nabhan, pp. 37–41.
- Ochoa Zazueta, Jesús Ángel. 1978. Los kiliwa y el mundo se hizo así. Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Mexico City. (Ochoa's account of Kiliwa traditions is inconsistent with Meigs' data and other Yuman accounts, and its authenticity has been questioned by Mixco.)
History
The Kiliwa first encountered Europeans when Juan Rodríguez CabrilloJuan Rodríguez Cabrillo
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was a Portuguese explorer noted for his exploration of the west coast of North America on behalf of Spain. Cabrillo was the first European explorer to navigate the coast of present day California in the United States...
reached the San Quintín area in 1542. There were few subsequent contacts during the next two centuries. The Jesuit
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
missionary-explorer Wenceslaus Linck
Wenceslaus Linck
Wenceslaus Linck was the last of the outstanding Jesuit missionary-explorers in Baja California.Born in Bohemia , he entered the Jesuit order at age 18 and studied at Brno and Prague. In New Spain, he continued his studies in Mexico City and Puebla between 1756 and 1761...
came overland from the south into the eastern part of Kiliwa territory in 1766. The expedition to establish Spanish settlements in California, led by Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar de Portolà i Rovira was a soldier, governor of Baja and Alta California , explorer and founder of San Diego and Monterey. He was born in Os de Balaguer, province of Lleida, in Catalonia, Spain, of Catalan nobility. Don Gaspar served as a soldier in the Spanish army in Italy and Portugal...
and Junípero Serra
Junípero Serra
Blessed Junípero Serra, O.F.M., , known as Fra Juníper Serra in Catalan, his mother tongue was a Majorcan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California of the Las Californias Province in New Spain—present day California, United States. Fr...
passed through the western portions.
The Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
mission of Santo Domingo
Misión Santo Domingo de la Frontera
Mission Santo Domingo was founded among the Kiliwa Indians of Baja California, Mexico, by the Dominicans Miguel Hidalgo and Manuel García in 1775. It is located near Colonia Vicente Guerrero and northeast of San Quintín Bay ....
was founded in Kiliwa territory near the coast in 1775. It was followed by an inland mission of San Pedro Mártir
Misión San Pedro Mártir de Verona
Mission San Pedro Mártir was established by the Dominican missionary José Loriente in 1794, in the mountain range of the same name in northern Baja California, Mexico....
in 1794. By around the time of Mexican independence in 1821, the population at the Kiliwa missions had sharply declined.
In 1929, Meigs reported that only 36 adult Kiliwa were then living, primarily at three settlements around Arroyo León, at San Isidoro, and in Valle Trinidad. Twenty years later in 1949, Hohenthal found 30 adult Kiliwa living at four settlements, including Arroyo León, Agua Caliente, La Parra, and Tepí.
External links
- Kiliwa Swadesh vocabulary list (from Wiktionary)
- AULEX Spanish–Kiliwa dictionary