The Paipai 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 Kiliwa

Kiliwa

The Kiliwa are an aboriginal people of northern Baja California, Mexico. They occupied a territory lying between the Cochimí on the south and the Paipai on the north, and extending from San Felipe on the Gulf of California to San Quintín on the Pacific coast...

 on the south and the Kumeyaay

Kumeyaay

The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai, Kamia, or formerly Diegueño, are Native American people of the extreme southwestern United States and northwest Mexico. They live in the states of California in the US and Baja California in Mexico. In Spanish, the name is commonly spelled...

 and Cocopa

Cocopa

The Cocopah or Cocopa are Native American people who live in Baja California and Sonora, Mexico, and in Arizona in the United States. The Cocopah language belongs to the Delta–California branch of the Yuman family. In Spanish, the Cocopah are termed Cucapá...

 on the north, and extending from San Vicente near the Pacific coast nearly to the Colorado River

Colorado River

The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...

's delta in the east. Today they are concentrated primarily at the multi-ethnic community of Santa Catarina

Misión Santa Catarina Virgen y Mártir

Mission Santa Catarina was founded on November 12, 1797 in the present-day Valle of El Álamo in the municipio of Ensenada, Baja California, México, by the Dominican missionary José Loriente....

 in Baja California's northern highlands.

Language

The Paipai language

Paipai Language

Paipai is the native language of the Paipai peoples. It is part of the Yuman language family. There are very few speakers left because most Paipai now live in Kumeyaay villages....

 was documented by Judith Joël and Mauricio J. Mixco, who have published texts and studies of syntax.

Paipai belongs to the Yuman language family, which may form part of the hypothetical Hokan

Hokan languages

The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California, Arizona and Mexico. In nearly a century since Edward Sapir first proposed the "Hokan" hypothesis, little additional evidence has been found that these families were related to each other...

 linguistic phylum. Within the Yuman family, Paipai belongs to the Pai branch, which also includes the Upland Yuman language, dialects of which are spoken by the Yavapai

Yavapai people

Yavapai are an indigenous people in Arizona. Historically, the Yavapai were divided into four geographical bands that considered themselves separate peoples: the Tolkapaya, or Western Yavapai, the Yavapé, or Northwestern Yavapai, the Kwevkapaya, or Southeastern Yavapai, and Wipukpa, or Northeastern...

, Walapai

Hualapai

The Hualapai or Walapai are a tribe of Native Americans who live in the mountains of northwestern Arizona, United States. The name is derived from "hwa:l," the Hualapai word for ponderosa pine, "Hualapai" meaning "people of the ponderosa pine"...

, and Havasupai of western Arizona. The relationship between Paipai and Upland Yuman is very close; some observers have suggested that Paipai and Yavapai are mutually intelligible (i.e., that the Paipai and Upland Yumans spoke dialects of a single language), while other observers have claimed that they are not.

The controversial technique of glottochronology

Glottochronology

Glottochronology is that part of lexicostatistics dealing with the chronological relationship between languages....

 suggests that the Pai branch of Yuman may have separated from the other two branches of Core Yuman (River Yuman and Delta–California Yuman) about 1,000-1,700 years ago. Paipai may have separated from Upland Yuman 1,000 years ago or less.

Aboriginal lifeways

Information about the cultural practices of the precontact Paipai comes from a variety of sources. These include the accounts of the maritime expedition led by 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:...

; reports by 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 the studies of twentieth century ethnographers, including Edward W. Gifford

Edward Winslow Gifford

Edward Winslow Gifford devoted his life to studying California Indian ethnography as a professor of anthropology and director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley....

, Robert H. Lowie

Robert Lowie

Robert Harry Lowie was an Austrian-born American anthropologist. An expert on North American Indians, he was instrumental in the development of modern anthropology.-Biography:...

, 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....

, Philip Drucker, William D. Hohenthal, Roger C. Owen, Thomas B. Hinton, Frederic N. Hicks, Ralph C. Michelsen, Michael Wilken-Robertson, and Julia Bendímez Patterson.

Population

Meigs suggested that the aboriginal populations associated with San Vicente

Misión San Vicente Ferrer

Mission San Vicente was founded in August 1780 by the Dominican missionaries Miguel Hidalgo and Joaquin Valero among the Paipai Indians of northwestern Baja California, Mexico....

 and Santa Catarina

Misión Santa Catarina Virgen y Mártir

Mission Santa Catarina was founded on November 12, 1797 in the present-day Valle of El Álamo in the municipio of Ensenada, Baja California, México, by the Dominican missionary José Loriente....

 missions were respectively 780 and 1,000 individuals. Hicks estimated 1,800 for the aboriginal population of the Paipai, or a density of 0.3 persons per square kilometer. Owen argued that these estimates were substantially too high.

Subsistence

Aboriginal Paipai subsistence was based on hunting and gathering of natural animal and plants rather than on agriculture. Numerous plants were exploited as food resources, notably including agave

Agave

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....

, yucca

Yucca

Yucca is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40-50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flowers. They are native to the hot and dry parts of North...

, mesquite

Mesquite

Mesquite is a leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in northern Mexico through the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Deserts, and up into the Southwestern United States as far north as southern Kansas, west to the Colorado Desert in California,and east to the eastern fifth of Texas, where...

, prickly pear

Opuntia

Opuntia, also known as nopales or paddle cactus , is a genus in the cactus family, Cactaceae.Currently, only prickly pears are included in this genus of about 200 species distributed throughout most of the Americas. Chollas are now separated into the genus Cylindropuntia, which some still consider...

, acorn

Acorn

The acorn, or oak nut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives . It usually contains a single seed , enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns vary from 1–6 cm long and 0.8–4 cm broad...

s, pine nut

Pine nut

Pine nuts are the edible seeds of pines . About 20 species of pine produce seeds large enough to be worth harvesting; in other pines the seeds are also edible, but are too small to be of great value as a human food....

s, and juniper berries

Juniper berry

A juniper berry is the female seed cone produced by the various species of junipers. It is not a true berry but a cone with unusually fleshy and merged scales, which give it a berry-like appearance. The cones from a handful of species, especially Juniperus communis, are used as a spice,...

. Many other plants served as medicine or as material for construction or craft products. Animals used for food included deer, pronghorn antelope

Pronghorn

The pronghorn is a species of artiodactyl mammal endemic to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is often known colloquially in North America as the prong buck, pronghorn antelope, or simply antelope, as it closely resembles the true antelopes of the Old World and...

, bighorn sheep

Bighorn Sheep

The bighorn sheep is a species of sheep in North America named for its large horns. These horns can weigh up to , while the sheep themselves weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates that there are three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered: Ovis canadensis sierrae...

, rabbit

Rabbit

Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...

s, woodrats

Pack rat

A packrat, also called a woodrat, can be any of the species in the rodent genus Neotoma. Packrats have a rat-like appearance, with long tails, large ears and large black eyes. Compared to deer mice, harvest mice and grasshopper mice, packrats are noticeably larger and are usually somewhat larger...

, various other medium and small mammals, quail

Quail

Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally considered in the order Galliformes. Old World quail are found in the family Phasianidae, while New World quail are found in the family Odontophoridae...

, fish, and shellfish. Crop growing and stock raising were introduced during the historic period.

Material Culture

Paipai traditional material culture included structures (rectangular thatched-roof houses, ramadas, and probably sweathouses), equipment for hunting and warfare (bows, cane arrows, war clubs, nets), processing equipment (pottery, basketry, manos and metates, mortars and pestles, cordage, stone knives, awls), clothing (rabbitskin robes, fiber sandals; buckskin aprons and basketry caps for women), and cradles.

Social Organization

Kinship was based on patrilineal

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....

, patrilocal

Patrilocal residence

In social anthropology, patrilocal residence or patrilocality is a term referring to the social system in which a married couple resides with or near the husband's parents. The concept of location may extend to a larger area such as a village, town, or clan area...

 šimułs. It is not clear to what extent communities coincided with šimułs prehistorically; in historic times, community membership was quite fluid. The existence of any formal community leaders was denied by some; if they were present, their authority was probably not strong.

Social recreations included a variety of games: shinny, kickball races, the ring-and-pin game, dice, peon, archery, spinning tops, juggling, and cat's cradle. Music was produced by singing and by instruments that included flutes, gourd rattles, and jinglers. Pets were kept.

Ceremonies

Shamans were believed to be able to cure disease or to cause it. They could also make or prevent rain. They acquired their powers through dreaming or by taking the hallucinogen Datura.

Among the most elaborated ceremonies were those relating to adolescence. Girls were initially individually roasted in pits and bathed, and later took part in group rites for several girls. Restrictions were applied during subsequent menstruation periods. Boys' puberty ceremonies involved nose-piercing, racing, and fasting.

Marriage was primarily at the couple's initiative and involved few formalities other than the payment of a bride price

Bride price

Bride price, also known as bride wealth, is an amount of money or property or wealth paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of their daughter to the groom...

 to the bride's parents. There is conflicting testimony as to whether or not polygyny

Polygyny

Polygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time. In countries where the practice is illegal, the man is referred to as a bigamist or a polygamist...

 and divorce were practiced.

There were prescriptions and taboos applied to both parents at the birth of a baby.

As with other Yuman groups, the greatest ceremonial elaboration seems to have been reserved for rites relating to funerals and the keruk mourning ceremony. The deceased was cremated and his property was destroyed.

Taboos were observed prior to hunting expeditions. There was also a taboo on a young man's eating of meat from his first kill.

Traditional Narratives

Traditional narratives are conventionally classed as myths, legends, tales, and oral histories. The oral literature recorded for the Paipai is rather limited but includes narratives that can be assigned to each of these categories. Paipai narratives such as the creation myth show their closest affinities with those of the Kumeyaay to the north.

History

The Paipai first encountered Europeans when 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:...

's expedition mapped the northwest coast of Baja California in 1602. More intensive and sustained contacts began in 1769 when 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 San Vicente

Misión San Vicente Ferrer

Mission San Vicente was founded in August 1780 by the Dominican missionaries Miguel Hidalgo and Joaquin Valero among the Paipai Indians of northwestern Baja California, Mexico....

 was founded near the coast in Paipai territory in 1780. It became a key center for the Spanish administration and military control of the region. In 1797 San Vicente was supplemented by an inland mission at Santa Catarina

Misión Santa Catarina Virgen y Mártir

Mission Santa Catarina was founded on November 12, 1797 in the present-day Valle of El Álamo in the municipio of Ensenada, Baja California, México, by the Dominican missionary José Loriente....

, near the boundary between Paipai and Kumeyaay territories. Mission Santa Catarina was destroyed in 1840 by hostile Indian forces, apparently including Paipai.

The main modern settlement of Paipai is at Santa Catarina, a community they share with Kumeyaay and Kiliwa residents.