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The Human Ecology of Baja California K)RREST SHREVE Desert Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Tucson, Arizona Baja California is one of the most thinly settled parts of North America south of the arctic region. Unfavorable natural conditions, together with political and commercial isolation have prevented the development of this detached Mexican territory. The population at the present times amounts to about twice the number of Indians estimated to have occupied the peninsula in the 18th Century. The people are not primitives, for the remnant of aborigines is small and the great majority of the inhabitants are Hispano-Americans in blood and culture. The area of Baja California is 61,000 sq. mi., or 38% of that of the state of California. According to the official Mexican census of 1930 the population was then 94,469, indicating a density of 1.69 persons per sq. mi., which was a substantial increase from the density of 1.14 in 1920. The number of inhabitants in the mining and border towns is subject to great fluctuations, which are important in relation to totals and density in such a small population. In the last five years the repeal of prohibition in the United States and the reduced scale of operation of the copper mines have induced many persons to leave the peninsula . My own estimates made in 1934 and 1935 indicate that the present population is scarcely in excess of 60,000, giving a density of slightly less than 1.0 per sq. mi. There are five towns with a population of more than 1000 (Tijuana , Mexicali, Ensenada, Santa Rosalia, and La Paz) and 17 other towns with more than 100 inhal> itants. The total population of the towns is approximately 38,000 and that of the rural districts and small villages about 22,000. The towns near the international border (Tijuana, Mexicali, and Ensenada ) and the mining settlements (Sta. Rosalia, El Marmol, El Arco, and Punta Prieta), are almost purely exotic in their dependence on outside capital and commodities. The older mining towns (Calmalli, San Antonio, and Triunfo) have dwindled from their maximum population but have become selfsupporting . The other 12 towns are indigenous, being like the rural districts in having a high degree of economic independence. Excluding the exotic towns and considering only the indigenous communities and rural settlements , the number of people actually rooted to the soil is only abou 't 34,000. As a student of plant life and its dependence on environmental conditions, I have been impressed with the fact that the people of the indigenous communities in Baja California are controlled almost as closely by their physical environment, in their occurrence, distribution, and activities, as are the plants themselves. The four principal conditions which have limited the settlement of Baja California are almost identical with those which control the plant and animal life. These are (1) low rainfall, exceeding an average of 5 in. only in the high mountains, (2) scarcity of sources of water (0) 4LTA (DALlfORNIAj — ^^—i -- . ^ _ iDiego Me-xicali -^ -^«* — ijuana i Descanso viöuacJalup»?-^X.' « ·„ Tocbs Santos Real del Castillo /—> 5anta Catalina' vSanf-oTbmas •\5an .Vicente WUE G??????? O S IO 15 Zd ZS ???£f\ TOWA1B ??/fJ'NG TOWNS O COASTAL TOWHS» /???????? TOWH& mate, soils, minerals, animals and plants. This knowledge is put to good use in seizing upon every available object or material that can be fabricated into some needed article for home, garden, ranch or pack outfit. Every article made at home helps to conserve the slender resources available for purchase or barter of items which can be had only by importation. Among the common necessities that must come from abroad are cloth, ready-made garments, and most articles of metal or glass. Even in this field rope and thongs are made to take the place of nails, wire, bolts, buckles and chains ; thorns do the duty of pins ; hard wood serves for making hinges, bolts and catches; and gourds and eaithern jars reduce the need for vessels of metal or glass. The number of articles made at home from domestic materials is innumerable. The craftsman is almost invariably familiar with the factory-made article for which he is making...

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