Learning about Baja California Indians: Sources and Problems

For the extinct but by no means forgotten Indians of the southern three-fourths of Baja California, there are three sources of data that can be used to construct a more accurate picture of the cultures that they developed in a difficult arid environment over many millennia. These are: (1) comparative studies of still surviving Indian neighbors to the north and also of hunters and gatherers in dry parts of the greater Southwest; (2) archaeological investigations, not only in the peninsula but in the wider southwestern region; and (3) reworking the fairly extensive literature from explorers and missionaries who could have observed the Indians when their cultures were still vital and exploiting new bits of this literature that continue to turn up in obscure archives and collections