Pericúes
Encyclopedia
The Pericú were the aboriginal inhabitants of the Cape Region, the southernmost portion of Baja California Sur
, Mexico. They have been linguistically and culturally extinct since the late 18th century.
group known as the Cora. Subsequent reexamination of the ethnohistoric evidence suggests that Cora was synonymous with Pericú (Laylander 1997).
The status of the La Paz
area is uncertain. Massey assigned it to two Guaycura groups, the Cora and the Aripe. W. Michael Mathes (1975) argued that it had belonged to the Pericú in the 16th and 17th centuries but was taken over by the Guaycura some time between 1668 and 1720. An alternative interpretation is that it was disputed ground between the Pericú and Guaycura throughout the early historic period.
, about 10,000 years ago, and perhaps into the late Pleistocene
(Fujita 2006). The distinctive hyperdolichocephalic
(long-headed) skulls found in Cape Region burials have suggested to some scholars that the ancestors of the Pericú were either trans-Pacific immigrants or remnants of some of the New World's earliest colonizers (González-José et al. 2003; Rivet 1909). DNA testing has shown that "the group had just the normal haplogroups found in the modern Native American Indians suggesting the possibility of processes of in situ differentiation for this extinct group. The distinctive Las Palmas burial complex
, involving secondary burials painted with red ochre and deposited in caves or rockshelters, was particularly noted (Massey 1955). The continued use of the atlatl and dart alongside the bow and arrow as late as the 17th century, long after their replacement in most of North America, has been used to argue for an exceptional degree of isolation in southern Baja California (Massey 1961).
Harumi Fujita (2006) has traced the changing patterns in the exploitation of marine resources and in settlement within the prehistoric Cape Region. According to Fujita, after about AD 1000, four major centers of socioeconomic and ceremonial importance emerged in the Cape Region: near Cabo San Lucas, at Cabo Pulmo, at La Paz, and on Isla Espíritu Santo.
and mutineers from an expedition sent out by Hernán Cortés
, the conqueror of central Mexico, reached La Paz, followed shortly afterwards by an expedition under Cortés himself (Mathes 1973). Sporadic encounters, sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile, linked the Pericú with a succession of European explorers, privateers, missionaries, Manila galleon
s, and pearl hunters throughout the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries.
The Jesuits established their first permanent mission in Baja California at Loreto in 1697, but it was more than two decades later that they felt prepared to move into the Cape Region. Missions serving the Pericú, at least in part, were established at La Paz
(1720), Santiago
(1724), and San José del Cabo
(1730). A dramatic reversal came in 1734 when the Pericú Revolt began, resulting in the most serious challenge the Jesuits experienced in Baja California. Two missionaries were killed, and for two years Jesuit control over the Cape Region was interrupted (Taraval 1931). The Pericú themselves suffered most, however, with combat deaths added to the already devastating effects of Old World diseases. By the time the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from Baja California in 1768, the Pericú seem to have been culturally extinct, although some of their genes may survive in local populations of mixed descent.
The Pericú were one of the few aboriginal groups on the California coasts to possess watercraft other than tule balsas, making use of wooden rafts and double-bladed paddles. Nets, spears or harpoons, darts, and bows and arrows were tools for procuring fish and meat. Bags, baskets, and gourds were used for carrying, since pottery was not made. The requirements for shelter and clothing were minimal, although the women wore skirts of fiber or animal skins and both sexes adopted various forms of adornment.
claimed to be able to effect supernatural cures of the sick. Mortuary and mourning observances were particularly elaborate.
Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur , is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state on October 8, 1974, the area was known as the South Territory of Baja California. It has an area of , or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico and comprises...
, Mexico. They have been linguistically and culturally extinct since the late 18th century.
Territory
The southern edge of the Baja California peninsula, from Cabo San Lucas east to Cabo Pulmo, together with the large Gulf of California Islands of Cerralvo, Espíritu Santo, La Partida, and San José, have been recognized as aboriginal Pericú territory. William C. Massey (1949) thought that the eastern portion of the Cape Region, including Bahía de las Palmas and Bahía Ventana, were occupied by a GuaycuraGuaycura
The Guaycura were a native people of Baja California Sur, Mexico, occupying an area extending south from south of Loreto to Todos Santos. They contested the area around La Paz with the Pericú....
group known as the Cora. Subsequent reexamination of the ethnohistoric evidence suggests that Cora was synonymous with Pericú (Laylander 1997).
The status of the La Paz
La Paz, Baja California Sur
La Paz is the capital city of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur and an important regional commercial center. The city had a 2010 census population of 215,178 persons, but its metropolitan population is somewhat larger because of surrounding towns like el Centenario, el Zacatal and San Pedro...
area is uncertain. Massey assigned it to two Guaycura groups, the Cora and the Aripe. W. Michael Mathes (1975) argued that it had belonged to the Pericú in the 16th and 17th centuries but was taken over by the Guaycura some time between 1668 and 1720. An alternative interpretation is that it was disputed ground between the Pericú and Guaycura throughout the early historic period.
Language
Evidence concerning the language spoken by the Pericú is limited to a handful of words plus fewer than a dozen place names (León-Portilla 1976). Jesuit missionaries recognized Pericú as a language distinct from Guaycura. Massey (1949) suggested that Pericú and Guaycura had together constituted a Guaycuran language family, but this seems to have been based purely on their geographic proximity.Prehistory
The archaeological record for Pericú territory extends at least as far back as the early HoloceneHolocene
The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...
, about 10,000 years ago, and perhaps into the late Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
(Fujita 2006). The distinctive hyperdolichocephalic
Cephalic index
Cephalic index is the ratio of the maximum width of the head multiplied by 100 divided by its maximum length ....
(long-headed) skulls found in Cape Region burials have suggested to some scholars that the ancestors of the Pericú were either trans-Pacific immigrants or remnants of some of the New World's earliest colonizers (González-José et al. 2003; Rivet 1909). DNA testing has shown that "the group had just the normal haplogroups found in the modern Native American Indians suggesting the possibility of processes of in situ differentiation for this extinct group. The distinctive Las Palmas burial complex
Las Palmas Complex
The Las Palmas Complex is an archaeological pattern recognized primarily on the basis of mortuary customs in the Cape region of Baja California Sur, Mexico....
, involving secondary burials painted with red ochre and deposited in caves or rockshelters, was particularly noted (Massey 1955). The continued use of the atlatl and dart alongside the bow and arrow as late as the 17th century, long after their replacement in most of North America, has been used to argue for an exceptional degree of isolation in southern Baja California (Massey 1961).
Harumi Fujita (2006) has traced the changing patterns in the exploitation of marine resources and in settlement within the prehistoric Cape Region. According to Fujita, after about AD 1000, four major centers of socioeconomic and ceremonial importance emerged in the Cape Region: near Cabo San Lucas, at Cabo Pulmo, at La Paz, and on Isla Espíritu Santo.
History
European contacts with the Pericú began in the 1530s, first when Fortún XiménezFortún Ximénez
Fortún Ximénez was Spanish sailor who led a mutiny during an early expedition along the coast of Mexico and is the first European known to have landed in Baja California....
and mutineers from an expedition sent out by Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century...
, the conqueror of central Mexico, reached La Paz, followed shortly afterwards by an expedition under Cortés himself (Mathes 1973). Sporadic encounters, sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile, linked the Pericú with a succession of European explorers, privateers, missionaries, Manila galleon
Manila Galleon
The Manila galleons or Manila-Acapulco galleons were Spanish trading ships that sailed once or twice per year across the Pacific Ocean between Manila in the Philippines, and Acapulco, New Spain . The name changed reflecting the city that the ship was sailing from...
s, and pearl hunters throughout the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries.
The Jesuits established their first permanent mission in Baja California at Loreto in 1697, but it was more than two decades later that they felt prepared to move into the Cape Region. Missions serving the Pericú, at least in part, were established at La Paz
Misión de Nuestra Señora del Pilar de La Paz Airapí
Mission La Paz was established by the Jesuit missionaries Juan de Ugarte and Jaime Bravo in 1720, at the location of the modern city of La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico....
(1720), Santiago
Misión Santiago de Los Coras
Mission Santiago was founded by the Italian Jesuit Ignacio María Nápoli in 1724 at the native settlement of Aiñiní, about 40 kilometers north of San José del Cabo in the Cape Region of Baja California Sur, Mexico....
(1724), and San José del Cabo
Misión Estero de las Palmas de San José del Cabo Añuití
Mission San José del Cabo was the southernmost of the Jesuit missions on the Baja California peninsula, located near the modern city of San José del Cabo in Baja California Sur, Mexico....
(1730). A dramatic reversal came in 1734 when the Pericú Revolt began, resulting in the most serious challenge the Jesuits experienced in Baja California. Two missionaries were killed, and for two years Jesuit control over the Cape Region was interrupted (Taraval 1931). The Pericú themselves suffered most, however, with combat deaths added to the already devastating effects of Old World diseases. By the time the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from Baja California in 1768, the Pericú seem to have been culturally extinct, although some of their genes may survive in local populations of mixed descent.
Traditional culture
The Pericú are known primarily through the accounts of early European visitors (Laylander 2000; Mathes 2006). The most detailed of these were left by English privateers who spent time at Cabo San Lucas in 1709-1710 and 1721 (Andrews 1979).Subsistence and material culture
The Pericú are best known for their maritime orientation, harvesting fish, shellfish, and marine mammals from the waters of the southern Gulf of California. Terrestrial resources such as agave, the fruit of cacti, small game, and deer were also important. Agriculture was not practiced.The Pericú were one of the few aboriginal groups on the California coasts to possess watercraft other than tule balsas, making use of wooden rafts and double-bladed paddles. Nets, spears or harpoons, darts, and bows and arrows were tools for procuring fish and meat. Bags, baskets, and gourds were used for carrying, since pottery was not made. The requirements for shelter and clothing were minimal, although the women wore skirts of fiber or animal skins and both sexes adopted various forms of adornment.
Social organization
The division of labor among the Pericú was evidently based primarily or exclusively on sex and age. They were variously reported as being either monogamous or polygamous. Communities seem to have been politically independent. Leadership positions were hereditary and were sometimes held by women. Inter-community and inter-ethnic warfare seems to have been frequent, and conflicts with the Guaycura were chronic.Religion
Fragments of Pericú mythology were recorded in the early 1730s (Venegas 1979(4):524-525). ShamansShamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
claimed to be able to effect supernatural cures of the sick. Mortuary and mourning observances were particularly elaborate.