The god of the San Juan Indians was Chinigchinich, and it is possible, from similarity in the ways of appearing and disappearing, that he is the monster Tauguitch of the Sabobas and Cahuillas described in The Legend of Tauguitch and Algoot.[3] This god was a queer compound of goodness and evil, who taught them all the rites and ceremonies that they afterwards observed.

[3] See Folk Lore Journal, 1904.

Many of the men and a few women posed as possessing supernatural powers—­witches, in fact, and such was the belief in their power that, “without resistance, all immediately acquiesce in their demands.”  They also had physicians who used cold water, plasters of herbs, whipping with nettles (doubtless the principle of the counter irritant), the smoke of certain plants, and incantations, with a great deal of general, all-around humbug to produce their cures.

But not all the medicine ideas and methods of the Indians were to be classed as humbug.  Dr. Cephas L. Bard, who, besides extolling their temescals, or sweat-baths, their surgical abilities, as displayed in the operations that were performed upon skulls that have since been exhumed; their hygienic customs, which he declares “are not only commendable, but worthy of the consideration of an advanced civilization,” states further: 

“It has been reserved for the California Indian to furnish three of the most valuable vegetable additions which have been made to the Pharmacopoeia during the last twenty years.  One, the Eriodictyon Glutinosum, growing profusely in our foothills, was used by them in affections of the respiratory tract, and its worth was so appreciated by the Missionaries as to be named Yerba Santa, or Holy Plant.  The second, the Rhamnus purshiana, gathered now for the market in the upper portions of the State, is found scattered through the timbered mountains of Southern California.  It was used as a laxative, and on account of the constipating effect of an acorn diet, was doubtless in active demand.  So highly was it esteemed by the followers of the Cross that it was christened Cascara Sagrada, or Sacred Bark.  The third, Grindelia robusta, was used in the treatment of pulmonary troubles, and externally in poisoning from Rhus toxicodendron, or Poison Oak, and in various skin diseases.”

Their food was of the crudest and simplest character.  Whatever they could catch they ate, from deer or bear to grasshoppers, lizards, rats, and snakes.  In baskets of their own manufacture, they gathered all kinds of wild seeds, and after using a rude process of threshing, they winnowed them.  They also gathered mesquite beans in large quantities, burying them in pits for a month or two, in order to extract from them certain disagreeable flavors, and then storing them in large and rudely made willow granaries.  But, as Dr. Bard well says: