33
THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INDIANS*
No. IV. The Hoop|j
To indicate correctly the Indian pronunciation of "Hoopa," it should be spelled
"Hoopaw;" but I follow the common orthography. The habitat of this tribe is in Hoopa
Valley, in the lower Trinity River. Next after the<Cahrocs, they are the finest tribe in
all that region round about, and they even surpass them in their astute state-craft and
the singular, magnetic influence they exercise over the vicinal tribes. They are the
Romans of northern California, in their valor and their wide-reaching dominion; they are
the French, in their subtile influence, their intolerance, and their haughty refusal to
learn any exotic language. They hold in a state of vassalage all the tribes around them,
except their two powerful neighbors on the Klamath, exacting from them annual tribute
(they did, before the Whites interfered); and they compel all their tributaries to this
day, to the number of some half-dozen, to speak the Hoopa langauge in all communica-
tions with them. Although they occupied only about twenty miles of the lower Trinity,
their authority was acknowledged at last nearly a hundred miles up that stream, on
New River, on South Fork, on Redwood Creek, on a good portion of Mad River and Van
Dusen's Fork; and there is good reason for believing that their name was scarcely less
dreaded on the distant Eel River, if they did not actually saddle the tribes of that valley
With their idiom.
Although each of their petty tributaries had their own tongue, so vigourously
Were they put to school in the language of their masters that most of their vocabularies
were sapped and reduced to bald categories of names. They had the dry bones of nouns;
but the flesh and blood of verbs were sucked out of them by the Hoopa. Mr. White, a
tnan well acquainted with the Chimalaquays, who once had an entirely distinct tongue, told
IMe that before they became extinct they scarcely employed a verb which was not Hoopa.
In the Hoopa Valley Reservation, in the summer of 1871, the Hoopas constituted not much
Over a third of the Indians present, who, taken altogether, represented some six languages;
and yet the Hoopa was not only the French of the reservation--the idiom of diplomacy and
of courtesy between the tribes--but it was in general use, inside of each rancheria, as
Well as intertribally. I tried in vain to get the numerals of certain obscure remnants
of tribes: they persisted in giving me the Hoopa, and indeed, they seemed to know no
Other--so great was the influence and the dread of this masterly race. While they did
lbt equal the famous Six Nations in their capacity for confederation and government, they
Were scarcely inferior to them in prowess, and even their superiors in that certain some-
thing of presence, of mental gifts, which renders one man a born captain over another.
As an illustration of the knack of affairs, the tact for management displayed by
the Hoopas, may be mentioned the chief herdsman of the reservation--a member of that
tribe, and the only Indian who was at the head of any department. He had under him some
* Overland Monthly, Vol. 9, pp. 155-164, 1872.
dozen or more herders, and exercised control over an amount of stock which constituted
fully half the whole wealth of the reservation, for which he received a salary of $750 a
year.
They appear to be somewhat like the Mussulmans, who are forbidden by the
Koran to learn any foreign language, except Arabic. As the Sultans, for four hundred
years, had no interpreters save the versatile Greeks of the Phanariotic quarter of
Stamboul, so among the tribes surrounding the Hoopas I found many Indians speaking
three, four, five languages, always including Hoopa, and generally English. The Hoopas
not only ignored the tongues of their vassals, but contemptuously refused to recognize
even their tribal names, giving them such as suited themselves. But this custom is
quite general in California.
Whiile the Hoopas were valorous when need was, they also knew to be discreet,
They were quick-witted enough to perceive the overshadowing power of the Americans,
after trying their hands on them briskly a couple of times; and after that they refrained
from butting out their brains against a stone-wall--as some of the fool-hardy tribes
farther up the Trinity did. True, they had not the provocations the latter received, for
the Americans mined very little on the lower Trinity, and the water muddied farther
up nearly clarified itself by the time it reached Hoopa Valley: so that it did not interfere
with salmon-fishing as it did above.
The primitive dre ss and implements of this tribe are about -like those of the
Klamath River Indians. Their ancient mode of building a wigwam was as follows: TheY
first dug a circular cellar, about three feet deep and ten feet in diameter, walled up the
side of it with stone, and leaned up a notchedpole against the side for a ladder. Then,
around this cellar, at a distance of a feww feet from it, they erected another stone-
wall on the earthts surface. On this wall they leaned up poles, puncheons, and broad
strips of bark, the whole assuming a conical shape. Sometimes the stone-wall, instead
of being on the inside of the wigwam, was on the outside, around the bottoms of the poles
and serving to steady them. Shiftless Indians neglected to wall up the cellar, leaving ol
a sloping bank of earth.
The Hoopas closely resemble the Cahrocs in physique, only they have not
such bright and prominent eyes, and are a trifle darker. These and the Eurocs are the
only tribes in their neighborhood whom they acknowledge as equals; and with them they
sometimes intermarry. They are on cartel with them, sending deputations to their
great annual dances, and receiving others in return. Weitspeck, being at the mouth of
the Trinity, and the point of rendezvous for the three greatest tribes of northern
California--the Hoopas, Cahrocs, and Eurocs--sometimes witnesses the assembling of
considerable fleets of canoes, and solemn sederunts, wherein important businesses of
state-craft are negotiated by dusky Solons of grave and majestic demeanor.
In governmental matters the Hoopas are nearly as democratic as the Euroc5
There is no one Chief with absolute power, but a Captain in each village, with only
advisory authority; and, in general, every man does that which seemeth good in hiS OW0
35
eyes. They do not scalp a fallen enemy, but simply decapitate him--like the Klamath
Indians. Murder is generally compounded for by the payment of shell-money; but they
have a singular punishment for adultery committed by a benedict. One of his eyes is
Pricked, so that the ball gradually wastes away by extravasation. The Hoopas appear
to be ashamed of this; and they will not admit that it is done for punishment, explaining
the large number of one-eyed men among them by saying that they lost their eyes when
children,through their carelessness in shooting arrows at each other's eyes by way of
Youthful practice. But it is not easy to perceive, on this explantion, why one-eyed
individuals should more abound in this tribe than in others (which is the case); and the
beholder acquires a strong suspicion, that, as old pioneers affirm, the eyes have been
Pricked out for the reason above stated. Among the Hoopas--as among most of the
tribes in northern California--the wife is very seldom, if ever, punished for this offense.
The woman seems to be regarded as entirely irresponsible for her misdeeds, and all
her dishonor, as well as her glory, attaches to her husband.
As with a Cahroc, the more shell-money a Hoopa pays for his wife, the more
distinguished is his rank in society. They push their abhorrence of bastardy even further
than the tribe Just- mentioned, which is superfluous. A bastard is a slave for life--a
kineikil. His unhappy and despised mother has not eve n the consolation left to Hester
13rynne when she was condemned to wear about on her bosom the flaming emblem of her
crime, for her child is not her own. A bastard is the property of some one of the
1otherts male relatives--her brother, cousin, or uncle--who, as soon as the child is
Old enough to be separated from the mother, takes it into his service. He is condemned
to do the menial drudgery of a squaw. If he is industrious and ambitious, he sometimes
accumulates enough shells to purchase his freedom; otherwise, he remains a slave
.inperpetuum. He suffers contumely and hardship; he is loathed and spit upon.
Marriage is impossible with him or her, except with another unfortunate of the same
description.
The Hoopa language is worthy of the people who speak it--copious in its
Vocabulary; robust, sonorous, and strong in utterance; of a martial simplicity and
rudeness in construction. Of the richness of its vocabulary, a single specimen will
Suffice: to wit, the words that denote the various climacterics of human life. These
are, hoocheia, mechayeta, killahuch, conchwilchwil, hoesteh, hoostoei, and coowhean,
Which denote, respectively, "boy baby," "child" (of either sex), "boy," "youth,,"
tan, a   "married man," "old man." The Hoopa shows the Turanian feature of
agglutination--that is, the pronoun is glued directly to the noun to form a declension; and
herein consists one element of its simplicity and crudeness, for the Wintoon and other
SOUthern languages have possessive pronouns. Thus, hwe is "I, " and hoota is "fathert"
and to express "my father," these two words are simply joined together--hwehoota:
as if we should write "Ifather. "   The word for "you" is ninc; and, in this case, both
Words suffer elision in uniting--nineta, which is the same as "youfather. "   The possessive
caSe is formed by setting the two words together--thus, necho is "mother,"" and chee-
h      is "death;" whence, "your mother's death' is nincho cheechwit. But in another
respect the language departs from the Turanian simplicity, and that is, in having
irregular forms. For instance, tuchwa--"to go"--in the first person singular of the
present, imperfect, and future, and in the second person singular of the imperative,
is a s follows: tuchwa (same as infinitive), wilch tan testa, holische tucha, tach. It
will be perceived that the pronouns are omitted, whereas in Wintoon they are expressed.
In short, as the Hoopas remind one of the Romans among savages, so is their language
something akin to the Latin in its phonetic characterisctics: the idiom of camps--rude,
strong, laconic. Let a grave and decorous Indian speak it deliberately, and every word
comes out like the thud of a battering-ram against a wall. For instance, let the reader
take the words for "devil" and "death"--keetoanchwa and cheechwit. --and note the robust
strength with which they can be uttered. What a grand roll of drums there is in that long,
strong word, conchwilchwil !
The reader has probably observed that the epochs of life above mentioned are
not very accurately defined. The Hoopas take no account of the lapse of years, and
consider it a ridiculous superfluity to keep the reckoning of their ages. They sometimes
speak of so or so many "snows" passing since a certain occurence. As for their ages,
they determine them only by consulting their teeth--like a jockey at Tattersall's. A
story is told of a superannuated squaw, who had already buried three or four husbands-
omnes composuit--and yet was talking garrulously of remarrying. Some of her friends
laughed at her horribly for entertaining such a silly conceit, whereupon the old crone
replied, with spirit, showing her ivories and tapping them with her finger, "See, I have
good teeth yet!" A grim suggestion, certainly, when taken in connection with possible
connubial infelicities in the futures!
The Hoopas observe various dances, among which is the Dance of Friendship
(Iuguay), so called, from the word generally used in salutations. Men and squaws unite
in this, dancing in lively measures to suit the joyousness of the occasion, but not
observing any particular elegance of costume. Then there is the Dance for Luck, in
autumn, wherein only men participate, dressed and painted in the manner dear to the
aboriginal heart, and brandishing white deer-skins in their hands--if any are so happy
as to possess these articles of happy auspice. They set as much store by them as the
Cahrocs do by black ones. The notion seems to be, that, whereas a white or black deer
is an exception to the general rule, that animal is the marked favorite of the gods, and itS
possession will insure them good-fortune. Their greatest dance, however, is the Dance
of Peace, the celebration of which--like the closing of the Temple of Janus--signifies
that the tribe is at peace with all mankind. In order that the full significance of this
dance may be understood, it is necessary, first, to rehearse the ancient legend on which
it is said to be founded. One day I was riding with the Agent of the Reservation, Mr. D.
H. Lowry, and reminded him of a promise formerly made, whereupon he halted the carri
in the shadow of an oak and narrated the following--
LEGEND OF GARD.
About a hundred snows ago, according to the traditions of the ancients, there
lived a young Hoopa named Gard. Wide as the eagles fly was he known for his love of
peace. He walked in the paths of honesty, and clean was his heart. His words were
37
not crooked or double. He went everywhere, teaching the people the excellent beauty of
meekness. He said to them: "Love peace, and eschew war and the shedding of blood.
Put away from you all wrath, and unseemly jangling, and bitterness of speech. Dwell
together in the singleness of love. Let all your hearts be one heart. So shall ye prosper
greatly, and the Great One Above shall build you up like a rock on the mountain. The
forests shall yield you abundance of game, and of rich, nutty seeds and acorns. The
red-fleshed salmon shall never fail in the river. Ye shall rest in your wigwams in
great joy, and your children shall run in and out like the young rabbits of the field for
number. ?  And the report of Gard went out through all that land. Gray-headed men came
many days' journey to sit at his feet.
Now, it chanced, on a time, that the young man Gard was absent from his
Wigwam many days. His brother was grievously distressed on account of him. At first,
he said to himself, "He is teaching the people, and tarries. " But when many days came
and went, and still Gard was nowhere seen, his heart died within him. He assembled
together a great company of braves. He said to them, "Surely a wild beast has devoured
him, for no man would lay violent hands on one so gently. " They sallied forth into the
forest, sorrowing, to search for Gard. Day after day they beat up and down on the
m1ountains. They struggled through the tangled chaparral. They shouted in the gloomy
Canons. Holding their hands to their ears, they listened with bated breath. No sound
came back to them but the lonely echo of their own voices, buffeted, faint, and broken
among the mountains. One by one they abandoned the search. They returned to their
homes in the valley. But still the brother wandered on. As he went through the forest,
he exclaimed aloud, "O Gard! 0 brother!, if indeed, you are already in the land of
Souls, then speak to me at least one word with the voice of the wind, that I may know it
for a certainty, and therewith be content!" As he wandered, aimless, at last all his
CoCmpanions left him. He roamed alone in the mountains, and his heart was dead.
Then it fell out on a day that Gard suddenly appeared to him. He came, as it
Were, out of the naked hill-side, or, as it were, dropping from the sky, so sudden was
his apparition. The brother of Gard stood dumb and still before him. He gazed upon him
as upon one risen from the grave, and his heart was frozen. Ga rd said: "Listen! I
have been in the land of soils. I have beheld the Great Man above. I have come back to
the earth to bring a message to the Hoopas, then I return up to the land of souls. The
Great Man has sent me to tell the Hoopas that they must dwell in concord with one another,
and with the neighboring tribes. Put away from you all thoughts of vengeance. Wash
YOU hearts clean. Redden your arrows no more in your brother's blood. Then the
Great Man will make you to increase greatly and be happy in this good land. Ye must
hlot only hold back your arms from warring, and your hands from blood-guiltiness,
but you must wash your hearts as with water. When ye hunger no more for blood,
aed thirst no more for your enemy's soul, when hatred and vengeance lurk no more in
Your hearts, ye shall observe a great danc e. Ye shall keep the Dance of Peace which
the Great Man has appointed. When ye observe it, y e shall know if ye are clean in
Your hearts by a sign. There shall be a sign of smoke ascending. But if in your hearts
there is yet a corner full of hatred that ye have not washed away, there shall be no sign.
If in your secret minds ye still study vengeance, it is only a mockery that ye enact, and
there shall be no smoke ascending. " Having uttered these words, Gard was suddenly
wrapped in a thick cloud of smoke, and the cloud floated up into the land of souls.
The name "Gard" has a suspicious look, though it seems to be related to the
Cahroc IIChareya," which is well authenticated; and at first I was doubtful of the genuiness
of this legend. But afterweard an old pioneer, named Campbell, told me that the sub-
stance of it existed among the Hoopas as early as 1853, so that it is sufficiently improbable
that they borrowed it from the Americans. It is possible that it may have come to them,
in a different shape from the early Jesuits; but of the probability of it the reader must
judge for himself. The fact that the Hoopas have founded on it by far the most important
and solemn of their ceremonial dances, makes strongly against the latter supposition.
And few things are more thoroughly contemptible than that purblind, besotted egotism
which accounts for most that the Indians know on the ground that they have learned if
from the Whites. That man who attributes every striking idea the Indians have to inter-
course with Americans, goes near to be lower than the savage himself, and is every waY
more despicable.
At any rate, they celebrate the great Dance of Peace which Gard authorized.
For nearly twenty years, it remained in desuetude, because during most of that period
their Temple of Janus had been open, as they were engaged in numerous wars, either With
the Whites or with the vicinal Indians. But in the spring of 1871, the old chiefs revived it,
lest the younger ones should forget the fashion thereof, there being then profound peace.
This dance is performed in the following manner: They first construct a semicircular
wooden railing or row of palisades, inside of which the performers take their stations-
These consist of two maidens, who seem to be priestesses, and about twenty-five IndianS9
all of them arrayed in all their glory--the maidens in fur chemises, with strings of
glittering shells around their necks and suspended in various ways from their shoulders;
the men in tasseled deer-skin robes, and broad coronets or head-bands of the same
material, spangled with the scarlet scalps of woodpeckers, to the value of hundreds of
dollars on each coronet. A fire is built on the ground in the centre of the semicircle,
and the priests and priestesses then take their places, confronted by two, three, some-
times four or five hundred spectators. A slow and solemn chant is begun, in that weird
monotone so peculiar to the Indians, in which all the performers join. The exercise is
not properly a dance, but rather resembles the strange maneuvres of the howling der-
vishes of Turkey, only they do not whirl themselves around. They stretch out their arfl0
and brandish them in the air; they sway their bodies backward and forward; they drop
suddenly almost into a squatting posture, then quickly rise again; and, at a certain turnl
of the cermony, all the priests drop every article of clothing, and stand before the
audience perfectly nude. The two priestesses, however, conduct themselves with
modesty throughout. All this while the chant croons on in a solemn monotony, alter-
nating with occasional brief intervals of profound silence. It means nothing whatever.
By all these multiplied and rapid genuflections, and this strange, wild chanting, they
gradually work themselves into a fanatic frenzy, like that of the dervishes, and a
reeking perspiration, though they generally keep their places. This continues a matter
of two hours, and is renewed, day by day, until they are assured of the favor of the
Great Man Above by seeing Gard ascend from the ground in the form of a smoke.
39
On this occasion the dance was held in the valley, on the reservation, but an
old man was stationed on the distant hill-side, near the spot where Gard revealed himself
to his brother, to watch for the rising of the smoke. Day after day, week after week,
he took up his vigil on the sacred lookout, and eagerly watched, while the weird, wild
droning of the incantation came up to him from the valley below; but still the smoke rose
not until four weeks had elapsed. Then one day he saw it curling up at last! Great was
the joy of the Hoopas when the news was brought: now they had found favor in the eyes
of the Great Man. But the dance was prolonged yet two weeks longer, lasting six weeks
in all. Such is the patience of their priestly fanaticism, and the credulity of the spectators.
This Dance of Peace is probably the counterpart of the Cahroc Dance of Pro-
Pitiation; only the Sacred Smoke of the latter is kindled by the Chareya-Indian, while among
the Hoopas it is expected to be created by supernal power. Whatever may be the fables
on which these observances are founded, the dances are thoroughly genuine aboriginal
customs, nowise copied from the Americans. It seems hardly necessary to remark,
further, that they indicate, on the part of the more thoughtful Indians, an unmistakable
consciousness of a Supreme Being somewhere in existence, who holds them accountable
for their actions, and whom they think to appease by fasting and expiatory ceremonials.
No Indian would fast until he is a living skeleton (as Americans testify that the Cahrocs
do) merely to dupe the populace and wheedle them out of their money.
The Hoopas bury their dead in the civilized posture, and mourn for them in the
usual savage fashion. They have the same superstitious veneration for their memory as
the Cahrocs, and the same repugnance toward allowing any body to view their graves.
Most of the valuables are buried in the grave with the deceased, but his clothes they take
away into the forest, where they hang them high upon the trees, to remain until they
rot away. The Chinese of certain provinces have an absurd notion that when a man is
Inoribund, they can arrest the flight of his soul for a season by hanging his coat on a
balmboo-bough and holding it over him; but whether the Hoopas hang the clothes in the
forest from any similar belief, or Amnply from repugnance to the sight of any thing that
belonged to the deceased, I am not informed.
STORY OF NISH-FANG.
Once there was a Hoopa maiden, named Nish-Fang, who had left the home of
her forefathers, and was sojourning with a White family on Mad River. When that
1flysterious and momentous occurrence first took place which announced her arrival to
the estate of womanhood, she earnestly yearned to return to her native valley, in order
that she might be duly ushered into the sisterhood of women by the time-honored and
Consecrating ritual of the Puberty Dance. Without this observance she would be an out-
cast, a Pariah, dishonored and despised of her tribe. First, it was necessary that she
Should fast for the space of nine days. Three days she fasted, therefore, before setting
Out on her journey, and on the morning of the fourth day she started homeward, accom-
planied by a bevy of her young companions--Hoopa maidens. It was a long and weary
Journey that lay before them--over two rugged mountain-chains, across deep and preci-
l3itouos valleys, through wild, lonesome forests.
Already weak and faint from her three days' nearly total abstinence, Nish-
Fang set out to ascend the first mountain. No man might behold her countenance during
those nine days; and, as she journeyed, therefore, she buried her face in her hands.
Wearily she toiled up the great steep, along the rugged and devious trail, often sitting
down to rest. When she became so exhausted that she could no longer hold up her arms,
her young companions bore them up, lest some man might behold her face, and be stricken
with sudden death. By slow stages they struggled on, among the gigantic redwood-rootsg
where the sure-footed mules had trodden out steps knee-deep; through vast, silent forestS
where no living thing was visible, save the enormous, leather-colored trunks of the
redwoods, heaving their majestic crowns against the sky, shutting out the sunlight. Then
down into deep and narrow canons, where the overshadowing foliage turned the daylight
into darkness and dankness, where the owl gibbered at noonday, and the cougar and the
coyote shrieked through the black night. Every night they encamped on the ground,
safe under the forest from the immodest scrutiny of the prurient stars. Long pack-
trains passed her by day, urged on in their winding path among the redwoods by the
clamorous drivers, who looked and wondered if this woman had been stricken blind;
but, though these were the hereditary enemies of her race, and she might have destroyed
them with a glance, she lifted not her hands from her face.
At last they found themselves toiling  up the yet steeper and higher slope of
the second mountain, through tangled thickets of the huckleberry, the wild rose, the silver
leafed manzanita, and the yellowing ferns, with here and there a stalk of dry fennel
amid the coarse, rasping grasses, filling the atmosphere with a faint aroma. Near
the summit there is a spring, where the trail turns aside to a camping-ground beneath
a wide-branching fir-tree that stands solitary on the arid, southern slope. Here they
rested and drank of the cool waters. Then they rose to descend into the valley. But
Nish-Fang could go no farther; she sunk in a swoon upon the ground. And yet, with the
instinct of the savage superstition ever strong upon her, though insensible, her hands
still tightly covered her face. Then her companions lifted her in their arms, and bore
her down the long descent of the mountain, through the grateful coolness of the fir-treeS
and the madronos, past many a murmuring spring, down into the sunny valley of the
Trinity, straw-colored in its glorious autumn ripeness, and tinted with a mellow haze
of lilac. There, in the home of her fathers, when her nine days were fully accomplished
in the shadow of a little, thin-lea ved grove of oaks, the Hoopas danced around her, and
chanted the ancient choral of the Puberty Dance. Then the Chief lifted her by the hand,
and the maiden Nish-Fang became a woman of her tribe.
Of the numerous tributaries of the Hoopas, I will mention here only one tribes
the Kailtas, whose home was anciently on the South Fork of the Trinity. They have no
tribal name for themselves, or if they ever had one, they allowed it to be supplant",d bY
the one they now bear, given them by the Hoopas. They offer a good illustration of the
statements made in the first portion of thL s paper--that the arrogant and intolerant
Hoopas compelled all their dependencies to speak their language, just as all civilized
people are compelled, or think themselves compelled, to learn the prevailing idiom of
France. They are polyglots, perforce; and I saw a curious specimen of thi s class in aIl
Indian called Old One-eye. He was a funny old codger, truly. He had been facetiously
41
dignified by the Mhites with the title of "Mr. Baker," which title had elevated him to an
illustrious character in his own eyes; for the seemly maintenance of which he considered
an ancient and deplorably smashed tile hat and a cast-off regulation-coat with brass
buttons as absolutely indispensable. He wore his shirt persistently outside his trousers,
and spoke six languages, it was said, including English. He had one eye in his head, and
a Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup label stuck in his hat-band.
In justice to the California Indians, however, I must say, while it occurs to me,
that, however ragged they may be, they seldom ornament themselves with those fantastic
nedleys of civilized trumpery so dear to the hearts of many of our savage brethren.
A veteran pioneer and "squaw-man" among them affirms that they eat soap-
root when hard-pushed in the spring; but this appears somewhat doubtful, for no other
Indians eat it, and it is poisonous. He says they extract the toxical quality from it by
roasting, which operation they perform by heaping up a large quatity of it on the ground,
covering it over with green leaves, and building over it a large fire, which is allowed
to burn until the poison is roasted out, when it is said to be quite sweet and lickerish.
They also find a root growing in moist places which resembles the potato, and is called
the wild potato, which, when roasted, is sweetish and toothsome.The great amount of
roots in this State which are sweet when roasted, and especially the cammas--the digging
of which procured the California Indians the injurious appellation of "Diggers"--seems
to account partly for the sweet-tooth that every one of them has. Let a squaw get toge-
ther a few dimes, by hook or crook, and she will hie her straight to a trading-post and
invest every cent of it in sugar, when she grievously needs a few breadths of calico.
They are as fond of the article as the Eastern Indians are of whisky, and eat it as they
Would bread. The large amount of saccharine matter which the California Indians get
in the roots they eat seems to have somewhat to do with their remarkable obesity in
Youth, just as children are alway sucking candy, and have plump cheeks.
They gather, also huckleberries and manzanita-berries, which latter are
exceptionally large and farinaceous in the Trinity Valley. I have seen thickets of them
Wherein an acre could be selected that would yield more nutriment to human life, if the
berries were all plucked, than the best acre of wheat ever grown in California, after
the expenses of cultivation were deducted. The agriculture of the upper Trinity and
South Fork--heaven save the mark!--will never support a population one-fourth as
numerous as the Indians were, and I do greatly doubt if the placers, even in the good-
liest years of their dust, ever nourished as many as lived there of yore.
Like all savages, the Kailtas are inveterate gamblers, either with the game
of guessing the sticks or with cords; and they have a curious way of punishing or morti-
fYing themselves for failure therein. When one has been unsuccessful in gaming, he
frequently scarifies himself with flints or glass, on the outside of the leg from the knee
down to the ankle, scratching the skin all up criss-cross until it bleeds freely. He does
this "for luck," believing that it will appease some bad spirit who is against him. The
Siahs, on Eel River, have the same custom.
Their doctors profess to be spiritualists, not merely seeing visions in
dreams--which is common among the California Indians--but pretending to be able
to hold converse with spirits in their waking hours, by clairvoyance. An incident is
related, which is about as worthy of credence as the majority of ghost-stories narrated
by the gente de razon. There was a certain Indian who had murdered Mr. Stockton,
the Agent of the Hoopa Reservation, besides three other persons at various times,
and was then a hunted fugitive. The matter created much excitement and speculation
among the tattle-loving Indians, and one day a Kailta doctor cried out suddenly that he
saw the murderer at that moment with his spiritual eyes. He described minutely the
place where he was concealed, told how long he had been there, etc. Subsequent events
revealed the fact that the doctor was substantially correct, whether he drew on his
clairvoyant vision, or on knowledge which he had somehow smuggled.
They make a curious and rather subtile metaphysical distinction in the matter
of spirits. According to them, there is an evil spirit or devil (Keetoanchwa, a Hoopa
word) and a good spirit; but the good spirit has no name. The evil spirit is positive,
active, and powerful; but the good spirit is negative and passive--a kind of Manicheism.
The former is without, and ranges through space, on evil errands bent; but the latter
is within them: it is their own spirit, their better nature, their conscience. The HOOPa"B
have a word, honisteh, for "soul" or "spirit," generic in meaning; but these IndianS,
though they seem to proceed further in their analysis, have no expression for this subtile
principle. In conversation with the Whites they express themselves as nearly as they can
by calling it their "good think." This reminds one of Confucius, who calls the conscience
the "good heart." Like the great Chinese sage, the Kailtas seem to believe the nature
of man originally good, but he commits wickedness under the temptation of the evil
spirit without him.
When a Kailta dies, according to their poetical conceit, upon the instant the
breath leaves his body a- little bird flies away with his soul to the spirit-land. If he Was
a bad Indian, a hawk will catch him and eat him up, soul and all; but if he was good, he
will reach the happy spirit-land.