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Jean-François de la Pérouse (1741-88) http://tinyurl.com/Perouse

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Inexpressible Patience

From The Journals of Jean-Francois de la Perouse [1787], 1989.

Reader: Wm Leslie Howard

Europeans—among them Spanish missionaries—were often dismissive of native Californian culture. Other Europeans were sometimes more discerning.

In 1786, French navigator Jean-François de la Pérouse—on a mission of scientific and commercial inquiry—visited Monterey. There, he was impressed by the skills of the native people he met there.

"Indians of the Tcholovoni Tribe Hunting on the Shores of the Bay of San Francisco," 1816. Larger.

These Indians are extremely skillful with the bow and killed before us the smallest birds. Their patience in approaching them is inexpressible. They conceal themselves and slide in a manner after their game, seldom shooting until within fifteen paces.

Their industry in hunting larger animals is still more admirable. We saw an Indian with a stag's head fastened on his own, walking on all fours and pretending to graze. He played this pantomime with such fidelity, that our hunters, when within thirty paces, would have fired at him if they had not been forewarned. In this manner they approach a herd of deer within a short distance, and kill them with their arrows.

Jean Francois de la Perouse was killed in a shipwreck in 1788; his journals appeared as Voyage autour du Monde.