Chinigchinich is an ethnographic account of the culture and (notably) religious beliefs of the native Californians in the vicinity of the famous mission San Juan Capistrano. This is the mission where the swallows, legendarily, return every year. There is nothing, however, about the returning swallows in this book. Boscana was one of the few Spanish missionaries who, like Bishop Landa in the Yucatan, actually took an interest in the culture they were destroying. (Quote from sacred-texts.com)
About the Author
Friar Geronimo Boscana (1776 - 1831)
Geronimo Boscana (Jeronimo Boscana) was an early nineteenth-century Franciscan missionary in Spanish and Mexican California. He is noted for producing the most detailed ethnographic picture of a Native Californian culture to come out of the missionary period, an account that "...for his time and profession, is liberal and enlightened" (Kroeber 1959:282). Born at Llumayor on the island of Mallorca, Spain in 1776. Boscana was educated at Palma and jointed the Franciscan order in 1792. He traveled to Mexico in 1803 and to California in 1806. He served at the missions of Soledad, La Purisima, San Luis Rey, and San Gabriel. For more than a decade (from 1812-1826) he was stationed at Mission San Juan Capistrano. He died at San Gabriel in 1831, and is the only missionary to be interred in its cemetery among over 2,000 former inhabitants.
Boscana's first ethnographic contribution resulted from an 1812 questionnaire sent by the Spanish government to the missionaries of Alta California (Geiger 1976). The task of preparing a response on behalf of San Juan Capistrano may have stimulated the missionary's latent interest in the native culture. While at San Juan Capistrano, Boscana composed two versions of a detailed ethnographic sketch of t
About the Author
Friar Geronimo Boscana (1776 - 1831)
Geronimo Boscana (Jeronimo Boscana) was an early nineteenth-century Franciscan missionary in Spanish and Mexican California. He is noted for producing the most detailed ethnographic picture of a Native Californian culture to come out of the missionary period, an account that "...for his time and profession, is liberal and enlightened" (Kroeber 1959:282). Born at Llumayor on the island of Mallorca, Spain in 1776. Boscana was educated at Palma and jointed the Franciscan order in 1792. He traveled to Mexico in 1803 and to California in 1806. He served at the missions of Soledad, La Purisima, San Luis Rey, and San Gabriel. For more than a decade (from 1812-1826) he was stationed at Mission San Juan Capistrano. He died at San Gabriel in 1831, and is the only missionary to be interred in its cemetery among over 2,000 former inhabitants.
Boscana's first ethnographic contribution resulted from an 1812 questionnaire sent by the Spanish government to the missionaries of Alta California (Geiger 1976). The task of preparing a response on behalf of San Juan Capistrano may have stimulated the missionary's latent interest in the native culture. While at San Juan Capistrano, Boscana composed two versions of a detailed ethnographic sketch of t
