Chapter Seven—
Of Diseases and Medicines, of Death and the Burial Customs of the Californians

In spite of their bad diet and many hardships, the California Indians are seldom sick.^[23] They are, as already mentioned, generally strong and hardy, much healthier people than many thousands who are served abundantly every day with whatever their hearts desire, even with what Parisian cooks prepare. It is very probable that most of them, after

having overcome the dangers of childhood, would reach a very old age if they were not at times so immoderate in eating, running, bathing, and certain other matters, and did not indulge in excesses. Except for consumption and that particular disease which was brought from America to Spain and Naples and thence spread over various countries, they are little subject to the epidemics common in Europe. Cases of podagra, apoplexy, dropsy, cold and petechial fever are neither heard of nor seen.

Their language has no word for "sickness," nor has it expressions with which to designate specific diseases. "To be sick," atembà-tíe , when literally translated, means "to lie" or "to be on the ground," though all healthy natives may be seen lying or loafing on the ground throughout the day unless they are eating or searching for food. When a sick man is asked what ails him, the usual reply is, "I have a pain in my chest"; that is all.

For smallpox^[24] the California Indians, like all other Americans, are indebted to the Europeans. This disease is as contagious as the worst kind of plague. In 1763 a traveling Spaniard who had just recently recovered from smallpox presented a shred of cloth to a native. Within three months this gift caused the death of more than a hundred people at a small mission, without mentioning those who were cured thanks to the untiring efforts and care of the missionaries. Not one of them would have escaped unharmed had not the majority run far away from the hospital as soon as they realized the contagious nature of the disease.

In April of the same year, 1763, a young, healthy, and strong woman of my mission suffered from eructations from the stomach through her throat. The eructations followed one another after an interval of a few minutes. The noise was heard at a distance of forty or more paces and resembled a thunder arising out of the body, each time lasting about half a minute. The appetite of the patient was good, and she complained of nothing else. A week later, however, she collapsed, and I thought she would forget to rise again. Yet these eructations, this thunder, these fits of falling and rising continued for almost three years until she was so weakened that on the twentieth of July, 1766, she was buried. A few days after the outbreak of her malady, her husband was taken ill with the same sickness. On my departure in 1768, I left him behind without hope for a longer life. Subsequently the woman's brother and his wife suffered in

like manner, and finally, after these, several other Indians, principally of the female sex. Neither the oldest of the natives nor missionaries with thirty years of experience in California had hitherto been acquainted with this extraordinary and apparently contagious malady.

The patience of sick Californians is really unusual. Hardly a sigh is heaved, though a patient may lie on the ground, a pitiful sight, and suffer torturing pains. They look without fear upon their boils and wounds and submit to being burned and cut. Yes, they even make incisions in their own flesh whenever they are stung by a thorn, as if they were without feeling or as if the operation were performed on someone else. It is, however, a symptom of approaching death when they lose their appetite.

Their surgeons and doctors finish their studies quickly, and their drugstores are permanently empty. The art of medicine is limited to one device. No matter what the disease, the ailing part of the patient's body, be it his chest, abdomen, foot, or arm, is bound tightly, if possible, with a cord or a coarse rope. At times a kind of bloodletting is practiced; that is, the patient is given several small cuts with a sharp stone in the middle of the face and in the center of infection in order to draw some blood from these wounds and thus force out the disease. Nowadays in nearly all cases of illness, they beg for tallow, with which they rub themselves, and for Spanish snuff as a cure for headaches and sore eyes. Except for the remedies just mentioned, they know of none, neither for snake bites, boils, wounds, and other external injuries, nor for internal disorders. Though they may repeatedly have seen the missionary using this or that kind of simple remedy according to circumstances, they will never, either from forgetfulness or from indifference, make use of it for themselves or their fellow men or their closest relatives. They will always prefer to trouble the missionary again.

Aside from the two natural and general remedies mentioned, they also resort to supernatural means against their diseases, although these quite certainly have not helped anyone. The fact is that many among them pose as healers although they are nothing but stupid impostors. Yet the simple Indians have such great faith in them that for any disorder they send for one, two, or more of these rascals. These quacks wash and lick the patient, or with a small tube they blow at him for a while. They make various grimaces and mumble something which they do not understand themselves. Finally, after much panting and laboring,

they show the patient a flint or something similar previously hidden about their person and announce, "The cause of the evil, which was this stone, has been eliminated, and the root of the pain torn out of the body." One day twelve of these impostors received their merited reward from me, and the whole people had to promise to keep away from them, or else—this was my threat—I would not preach to them any more. But as soon as one of the workers at the mission was taken ill a few weeks later, the blower was immediately called in to do his work. The sick man had been one of the first to swear off the devil in the presence of everyone!

It is to be feared that some of those who fall ill far away from the mission and who cannot be carried thither are buried alive, especially old people or those who have only a few relatives. The natives are in the habit of preparing the grave two or three days before the patient dies; and it seems tedious to them to sit with an old person, waiting for his end, a person who had meant nothing to them for a long time, who was a burden now, and who would not live much longer anyway. I know of a case where a girl was revived with a good dose of chocolate. She was already wrapped up in a deerskin, according to custom, and about to be buried. She lived many years afterwards. Some natives broke the neck of an old blind and sick woman on their way to the mission in order to be spared the trouble of carrying her a few miles further. Another was suffocated because the natives, in order to protect him from the many gnats, covered him up in such a manner that he could not breathe. To transport a sick person from one place to another, they bind him to a ladder made of crooked pieces of wood, and two carriers bear this stretcher on their heads. This is truly a bed of torture for any person who lacks Indian bones.

As far as I know, the natives, while sick, remain perfectly quiet, untroubled by their conscience or the thought of eternity, and they die as though they would not miss heaven. As soon as they give up their spirit, a terrible howling and crying is raised by the women present and by all the others when they hear about it. No one, however, sheds tears, excepting perhaps the nearest relatives, for all this is mere ceremony.

But who would believe that some of them show aversion and disgust toward a burial in the Catholic-Christian manner? I observed myself how some, still strong enough, though dangerously ill, refused to be led or carried to the mission in order to obtain there both spiritual and

material care. I demanded an explanation and was told that they considered it a mocking of the dead to bury them with the ringing of bells, chanting, and other Catholic-Christian customs.