Native American ǀ American Indian
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.
Mexico – Baja California – Cochimi Indians population data are based on blood samples obtained from 26 unrelated individuals living in the Southwestern United States in 2016.
Source publication: Native American Population Data based on the Globalfiler autosomal STR PCR Amplification Kit, Forensic Science International, 2016, 12-13.
[Population 472]
