Juana Maria
In late November 1835, the schooner Peor es Nada ("Better than Nothing"), commanded by Charles Hubbard, left southern California to remove the remaining people living on San Nicolas.
A strong storm arose, and the crew of Peor es Nada, realizing the imminent danger of being wrecked by the surf and rocks, panicked and sailed toward the mainland, leaving her behind.
The second, and what appears to be the original account, from George Nidever states that Father José González Rubio paid one Thomas Jeffries $200 to find Juana Maria, though he was unsuccessful.
[9] The tales Jeffries told upon returning managed to capture the imagination of George Nidever, a Santa Barbara fur trapper, who launched several expeditions of his own.
Four words and two songs recorded from Juana Maria suggest she spoke one of the Uto-Aztecan languages native to Southern California, but it is not clear to which branch it is related.
Knowledge of this song came from a Ventureño man named Malquiares, an otter hunter who had joined Nidever's expedition to the island and who had heard Juana Maria sing it.
[9] The following text was published by an anonymous writer in Sacramento's Daily Democratic State Journal on October 13, 1853: The wild woman who was found on the island of San Nicolas about 70 miles from the coast, west of Santa Barbara, is now at the latter place and is looked upon as a curiosity.
Nidever claimed her fondness for green corn, vegetables, and fresh fruit after years of little nutrient-laden food caused the severe and ultimately fatal illness.
Juana Maria's water basket, clothing and various artifacts, including bone needles which had been brought back from the island, were part of the collections of the California Academy of Sciences, but were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
[14] In 2009, University of Oregon archaeologist Jon Erlandson found two Nicoleño-style redwood boxes eroding from a sea cliff, covered by a whale rib and associated with several asphaltum-coated woven water bottles,[17] and threatened with destruction from winter storms.
The boxes, salvaged by Erlandson, René Vellanoweth, Lisa Thomas-Barnett, and Troy Davis, contained more than 200 artifacts, including bird-bone pendants, abalone shell dishes and fish hooks, soapstone ornaments, sandstone abraders, red ochre, a Nicoleño harpoon tip, glass projectile points and metal artifacts, and several Native Alaskan toggling harpoon tips.
In 2012, Navy archaeologist Steven Schwartz, working with Vellanoweth and his students from California State University, Los Angeles, found and uncovered the buried remnants of the long-lost Indian Cave, where Juana Maria may also have lived.
[19][20] Archaeological research at the cave has been halted at the request of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, which claims cultural affiliation with the island's ancient residents.
