Death
Just seven weeks after arriving on the mainland, Juana Maria died. Modern analysis suggests she contracted dysentery, but Nidever claimed her fondness for green corn, vegetables and fresh fruit after years of little such nutrient-laden food caused the severe and ultimately fatal illness. Before she died, Father Gonzales baptized and christened her with the Spanish name Juana Maria. She was buried in an unmarked grave on the Nidever family plot at the Santa Barbara Mission cemetery. In 1928, a plaque commemorating her was placed at the site by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
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. Her cormorant feather dress was apparently sent to the Vatican, but it appears to have been lost.
Read more about this topic: Juana Maria
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“...here he is, fully alive, and it is hard to picture him fully dead. Death is thirty-three hours away and here we are talking about the brain size of birds and bloodhounds and hunting in the woods. You can only attend to death for so long before the life force sucks you right in again.”
—Helen Prejean (b. 1940)
“The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“An “unemployed” existence is a worse negation of life than death itself.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)