The Cochimí were the indigenous inhabitants of the central part of the Baja California peninsula, from El Rosario in the north to San Javier in the south. Information on Cochimí customs and beliefs has been preserved in the brief observations by explorers but, above all, in the writings of the Jesuits (Aschmann 1959; Laylander 2000; Mathes 2006). Particularly important and detailed are the works of Miguel Venegas (1757, 1979) and Miguel del Barco (1973). The Cochimí were first encountered by Spanish seaborne explorers during the sixteenth century, including Ulloa, Cabrillo, Vizcaíno, and others. Sporadic encounters continued until the Jesuits established missions on the peninsula in the late seventeenth century. Eusebio Francisco Kino made an abortive foundation at San Bruno, to the north of Loreto, in 1683-1685. Juan María de Salvatierra began the first successful mission in 1697 at Loreto among the Monqui, who were southern neighbors of the Cochimí. This was quickly followed by Francesco Maria Piccolo's Cochimí mission at San Javier in 1699. Over the next seven decades, the frontier of Jesuit control over the Cochimí gradually extended northward, with missions at Mulegé (1705), Comondú (1708), La Purísima (1720), Guadalupe (1720), San Ignacio (1728), Santa Gertrudis (1751), San Borja (1762), and Santa María (1767). After the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from Baja California in 1768, the Franciscans under Junípero Serra established an additional mission at San Fernando Velicatá (1769) on their way north to Alta California. The Franciscans' successors in Baja California, the Dominicans, created the final new mission among the Cochimí at El Rosario (1774). Decimated by epidemics of Old World diseases, the Cochimí population declined, until sometime in the nineteenth or possibly the early twentieth century their language and traditional culture became extinct.

Cochimi Indians (ko-chi-mi’). A term originally used to designate a Yuman dialect supposed to have been spoken from about lat. 26° to the north limit of Lower California. It is doubtful, however, if any single dialect was spoken over such an extended area. It is here employed as a collective or divisional name embracing many former tribes of the Californian peninsula from lat. 31° southward to about lat. 26°, including the settlements around Loreto. The tribes of this division were the most populous in the peninsula, though it would be difficult now to define their limits to the north and south in a strictly ethnologic or linguistic sense. According to Hervas 1 there existed in 1767 the following missions at which Cochimi dialects were spoken: San Xavier de Biaundo (pop. 485); San Jose Comondu (pop. 360); Santa Borja (1,500 neophytes); Santa Maria Magdalena (300 neophytes and 30 catechumens); La Purísima Concepcion (130 neophytes); Santa Rosalia de Mulege or Muleje (pop. 300); Santa Guadalupe (530 neophytes); San Ignacio (pop. 750), and Santa Gertrudis (pop. 1,000). A few of these Indians are said to survive. Duflot de Mofras 2 states that in his time (about 1842) the Cora, Edu, Pericu, and Cochimi were no longer distinct from one another, but Buschmann regards this as doubtful. The following are classed as Cochimi tribes or rancherias: Adac, Afegua, Aggavacaamanc, Amalgua, Amaniini, Ametzilhacaamanc, Anchu, Avolabac, Caamancijup,Caddehi,Cadecuijtnipa, Cadegomo, Cadeudebet, Cahelca, Cahelejyu, Cahelenthil, Cahehmet, Camancnaccooya, Camanocacaamano, Cunitcacahel, Eguiannacahel, Gabacamanini, Gamacaamanc, Gamacaamancxa, Hualimea, Idelabuu, Idelibinaga, Ika, Jetti, Laimon, Liggige, Menchu, Mokaskel, Paviye, Paya, Piacaamanc, Piagadme, San Athanasio, San Benito de Aruy, San Francisco Borja, San Ignacio, San José de Comondu, San Juan, San Miguel, San Sabas, Santa Aguida, Santa Lucia, Santa Maria, Santa Marta, Santa Monica, Santa Nynfa, San Pedro y San Pablo, Santisima Trinidad, Tahuagabacahel, Temedegua, Uacazil, Vaba, Vabacahel, Vajademin, Vazacahel, Vinatacot.

As far as the central Baja California peninsula goes, the Cochimi were the original settlers of the area. The Cochimi language bears a resemblance to the Yuman language of the area. As far as the indigenous Mexican tribes go, the Cochimi were very unique in the food they ate and the practices they followed. The Yuman–Cochimí languages are a family of languages spoken in Baja California, northern Sonora, southern California, and western Arizona. Cochimí is no longer spoken as of the late 18th century, and most other Yuman languages are threatened. Cochimi was a Yuman language of Mexico, related to the living languages Kumeyaay and Cocopa. The Yuman languages are considered by some linguists to be members of the larger Hokan language family. Cochimi was once spoken in Baja California but has not been spoken since the 1800's, and the Cochimi people do not exist any longer as a distinct people (although their kinfolk the Kumeyaay are sometimes still referred to as "Cochimis" by other Mexicans).

Cochimi Rock Art

A few photographs of Cochimi petroglyphs
and pictographs in Baja California

Cochimi Tribe

Cochimi links

Wikipedia: Cochimí

Encyclopedia articles about the
Cochimi language and culture

Lengua Cochimí

Information on the Cochimi
language in Spanish

Cochimí was once the language of the greater part Baja California, as attested by Jesuit documents of the 18th century. It seems to have become extinct around the beginning of the 20th century (Modern "Cochimi"-speakers are actually speakers of Kumiai.) There were two main dialects, northern and southern; the dividing line was approximately at the Misión San Ignacio Kadakaamán, in the north of present-day Baja California Sur. The Jesuit texts establish that the language was related to the Yuman languages of the Colorado River region. It is thought to be the most divergent language of the family, which is generally called Yuman–Cochimí to reflect this. Based on glottochronology studies, the separation between Cochimi and the Yuman languages is believed to have occurred about 1000 BC. The Cochimí Indians inhabited a considerable part of the central Baja Peninsula, from north of Rosario to the vicinity of Loreto in east central Baja California. Like many of the other Baja tribes, the Cochimí Indians survived by fishing in the coastal areas and gathering fruits and seeds for sustenance in other areas.

Cochimí, the rebirth of an ancient culture

The Great Murals are the oldest cave paintings in the Americas, between 7,000 and 12,000 years old, according to carbon dating. They’re generally attributed to the Cochimí tribe and their ancestors. But like almost everything related to these ancient works of art, that’s impossible to prove with certainty. We have very few historical records of the Cochimí: semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers living in the central region of the peninsula at the time of European contact. According to writer and adventurer Harry W. Crosby: “Movement was the key to life for those inhabiting the central desert. No area could support numbers of people throughout the year, not even the seashore. . . . They were completely dependent on seasonally available fruits, seeds, stems and roots. In aboriginal times, the chief pursuit of the Cochimí men was hunting deer, sheep and antelope—their only source of meat.” The first detailed accounts come from the Jesuits, who established a fledgling monastery in Loreto in 1697. Some of these documents make for painful reading. Father Johann Jakob Baegert, for example, described the Cochimí as: “stupid, mendacious, thievish, and abominably lazy.” Baegert gives us no clue as to the tribe’s spiritual beliefs. Their “absurd and superstitious rites” were omitted “for reasons of decency.”

The Cochimí were the aboriginal inhabitants of the central part of the Baja California peninsula, from El Rosario in the north to San Javier in the south. They were first encountered by Spanish seaborne explorers during the sixteenth century. The Cochimí were hunter-gatherers, without agriculture or metallurgy. Pottery-making may have reached the northern Cochimí before Spanish contact. The Cochimí language was part of the Yuman–Cochimí family. Today there are estimated to be fewer than 1,000 Cochimí in Mexico. The Great Murals of Baja California have been attributed to the Cochimi, although on-going research aims to confirm this assertion. The Cochimí culture – located primarily in the central and southern parts of Baja California – also declined dramatically by beginning of the Nineteenth Century. By 2000, only 80 Cochimí speakers were registered as inhabitants of the northern Baja state, most of them living in the municipios of Ensenada, Mexicali, and Tecate.

The Cochimí lived in the central part of the Baja California peninsula. Their language was closely related to that of the Kumeyaay. The Cochimí were hunter-gatherers, who had not discovered the advantages of agriculture. They lived mainly on rabbits, kangaroo rats, raccoons, porcupines, skunks, lizards, squirrels, prickly pear cacti, and saguaro cactus fruit, seeds and flowers. According to the authors of The Natural World of the California Indians (1980): "These groups probably had the least developed material culture in North America, and their territories, which were among the largest in the state, were at the same time the most sparsely populated. We can still see a direct parallel in the human response to this desert region, where today the largest countries and the smallest populations of California occur." Junipero Serra, a Franciscan missionary, meet these people for the first time in May, 1769. He was amazed that they were able to survive in the conditions. There was little water and virtually no arable land or pasture. Serra and his fellow missionaries established the Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá. They made limited progress in converting them to Christianity and they suffered terribly from epidemics of diseases brought from Europe. The Cochimí population declined and became extinct in the 19th century.

The Cochimí are the aboriginal inhabitants of the central part of the Baja California Peninsula, from El Rosario in the north to San Javier in the south.They spoke a set of dialects or closely related languages that have been classified in a variety of ways. The most prominent division, between Northern Cochimí and Southern Cochimí, has generally been put to the south of San Ignacio. At one time designated "Peninsular Yuman", Cochimí bears an evident relationship to the Yuman languages of northern Baja California, southern California, and western Arizona. Mauricio J. Mixco reassessed this relationship and judged it to be too distant for Cochimí to be included within the Yuman family proper. He placed Cochimí as a sister language to the Yuman family, thus forming the Yuman–Cochimí family. The Cochimí were hunter-gatherers, without agriculture or metallurgy. Pottery-making may have reached the northern Cochimí before Spanish contact . Their material culture was generally simple, but it suited their arid environment and mobile lifestyle. The highest level of social organization was the autonomous local community, and inter-community conflicts appear to have been frequent.

They have their territory in Mission Santa Gertrudis, in the Ejido Independencia, the Huerta and Canyon of the Encinos, among others. Although the group had been considered as disappeared, in the 1990s, some descendants of the Cochinos asked to be recognized before the National Indian Institute of Mexico. All of the groups from the Cochimi south are gone. A few fragmentary records of their languages exist. Determining the relationships of these languages using these records has been attempted. Cochimi is related to the Yuman languages and the language family is now called Yuman Cochimi. The more southerly groups are less certain in their relationship. Guaicura may be related to the Yuman Cochimi and the Pericu language may be related to the Guaicura. The Seri in Sonora may be related to these languages as well but some people call it a “language isolate”–not related to any other known language. In southern Baja California they had no dogs and the spear thrower was used.

The Cochimí were the aboriginal inhabitants of the central part of the Baja California peninsula, from El Rosario in the north to San Javier in the south. They spoke a set of dialects or closely related languages that have been classified in a variety of ways. The most prominent division, between Northern Cochimí and Southern Cochimí, has generally been put to the south of San Ignacio (Mixco 1978, 1979, 2006; Laylander 1997). At one time designated "Peninsular Yuman", Cochimí bears an evident relationship to the Yuman languages of northern Baja California, southern California, and western Arizona. Mauricio J. Mixco (1978, 2006) reassessed this relationship and judged it to be too distant for Cochimí to be included within the Yuman family proper. He placed Cochimí as a sister language to the Yuman family, thus forming the Yuman–Cochimí family. The Cochimí were first encountered by Spanish seaborne explorers during the sixteenth century, including Ulloa, Cabrillo, Vizcaíno, and others. Sporadic encounters continued until the Jesuits established missions on the peninsula in the late seventeenth century. Eusebio Francisco Kino made an abortive foundation at San Bruno, to the north of Loreto, in 1683-1685. Juan María de Salvatierra began the first successful mission in 1697 at Loreto among the Monqui, who were southern neighbors of the Cochimí. This was quickly followed by Francesco Maria Piccolo's Cochimí mission at San Javier in 1699. Over the next seven decades, the frontier of Jesuit control over the Cochimí gradually extended northward, with missions at Mulegé (1705, Comondú (1708), La Purísima (1720), Guadalupe (1720), San Ignacio (1728), Santa Gertrudis (1751), San Borja (1762), and Santa María (1767). After the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from Baja California in 1768, the Franciscans under Junípero Serra established an additional mission at San Fernando Velicatá (1769) on their way north to Alta California. The Franciscans' successors in Baja California, the Dominicans, created the final new mission among the Cochimí at El Rosario (1774). Decimated by epidemics of Old World diseases, the Cochimí population declined, until sometime in the nineteenth or possibly the early twentieth century their language and traditional culture became extinct.