115
THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS*
No. XI. Various Tribes. Achomawi, Yana, Sierra Maidu
The Pit River Indians may be divided into three principal tribes--the Achoma-
wes, in the Fall River basin; the Hamefcuttelies, in Big Valley; and the Astakaywas or
Astakywich, in Hot Spring Valley. The first name is derived from achoma, "the river;"
and the last from astakay, "hot spring." Another tribe on the south side of the river,
Opposite Fort Crook, are called Illmawes. Pit River is simply and preeminently
"The River;" other streams have their special names. In accordance with that minute-
ness of geographical nomenclature so common in California, they are not content with
designating the river as a whole, but every reach, every cataract, every bend, has
a name to itself. Thus a little rapid above Burgettville is "Chotokeh;" the next bend
below, "Lokalit," etc.
There is a remarkable difference between the physique one sees in Hot Spring
Valley and that in Big Valley, only twenty miles below. It is partly caused by the meagre
supply of aboriginal food in the former valley; partly the deplorable result of generations
of slave-wars and slave-catching prosecuted against them by the Modocs and the Muckalucs,
and partly the result of the awful scourging given them by General Crook, and the
deportation of the heart of the tribe to a distant reservation. The Hot Spring Valley
Indians are the most miserable, squalid, peaked-faced, mendicant, and mendacious
Wretches I ever saw in California. Frequently their teeth project forward into a point,
and when their lips are closed, they are wrinkled tight over them like a drawn purse.
When eating, there is often the same rapid, mumbling motion one may observe in the
lips of a squirrel. Squatted on their haunches in their odious tatters, they grin, and
grin, and lie. Nibbling at a piece of bony fish with those puckered, prehensile lips
Of theirs, they look like nothing in the world so much as a number of apes. Their faces
are skinny, foreheads very low and retreating, bodies lank, and abdomens protuberant.
I dismounted and stood fifteen minutes, watching a group of them eating one of those
execrable Pit River suckers; and never in my life have I seen so saddening and so
Piteous a spectacle of the results which come from seizing out into bondage year after
Year all the comeliest maidens and bravest youths of a people. All the best young blood
of the nation is filched out of it, and instead of physical advancement by the Darwinian
Principle of IIselection, " here is steady embrutement by the propagation of the worst.
But the tribe on the south fork (whom I did not see) were made of better stuff,
besides which they ate plenty of fat deer out of the mountains, and escaped the slave-
raids of the Modocs. It was these whose "nasty" fighting indirectly gave the name to
Port Damnation--a place well christened, where Crook got them at last against the
Wall. There is a high, steep canon into which they had escaped as a last resort, and,
* Overland Monthly, Vol. 12, pp. 412-424, 1874.
barricading themselves with shards of rock and debris, at the foot of the canon walls,
they made it death for any man to show his face at the mounth of the canon. A subaltern
officer came back to report the situation to his superior, and demurred against further
fighting. To him said the grim soldier: "We were sentheretofight Indians. When you
are all killed, I am going in there to fight them myself. "r Two detachments were sent
out, and by making a long detour, they succeeded in reaching the brink of the canon
on opposite sides. Then their bullets shot slanting down, and came crashing upon the
heads of the savages, while plenty of leaden legcutters were slung up the canon with an
infernal yelling, and the Indians found it getting hot. This was their last fight.
Let one remount at the Hot Spring, and ride an easy day's journey down to
Big Valley, where the mountains helped to keep out the thieving Modoc slavers, and
what an improvement in the forms we meet!' The faces are broad and black and calm,
and shining with an Ethiopian unctuousness; the foreheads are like a wall; in those
solid, round-capped cheek-bones, standing over against one another so far apart, and
in those massive lower jaws, there is unmistakable strength, bred in the bone through
tranquil generations. They laugh with a large and placid laugh, which comes all the
way up from their stomachs, sourdless, but agitating their well-fed bodies with slow
and gentle undulations. Here is a hearty and a lusty savagery which is pleasant to see.
There was one custom of the Pit River nation wherein they differed from all
other California Indians, and that was their custom of digging pitfalls for the trapping
of game. Selecting some trail where the deer passed frequently, they vwould, with no
other implements than fire-hardened sticks, excavate pits ten or twelve feet deep, and
carry all the earth away out of sight in baskets. Then they would cover the pits with
thin layers of brushwood and grass, sprinkle earth over all, scatter dead leaves and
twigs on the earth, restore the trail across it, and even print tracks in it with a
deer's hoof; then back out and conceal their own tracks. Such an infinity of trouble
would they give themselves to capture one deer--a fact which shows them to have been,
as we otherwise know they were, indifferent hunters. These pitfalls were very numeroU0
along the river banks, where the deer came down to drink; and the early settlers lost
so many cattle in them, and fell in so often themselves, ta t they compelled the Indians
to abandon the practice. It is these pits which named the river.
Mention has been made of the meagre diet enjoyed by the dwellers on the
upper reaches of the river. They have very few pinon nuts, no acorns, no salmon
(they do not ascend the Pit to the mounth of Fall River), no manzanita berries, no
sunflower seeds, and very few rabbits or squirrels. They have what deer and sage
hens they can shoot or snare (which is little enough), grasshoppers, crickets--very
large and juicy--cammas, the miserable suckers, and a few trout from the river, pine
bark, a little clover, and the sickening, disgusting bear-berries. After the vast
crystal volume of Fall River enters and overcomes the swampiness of the snaky Pit,
and it begins to descend over rapids, there salmon are caught, although the Americans
assert that salmon do not ascend above a certain tremendous cataract which is said
to exist on the lower river. When the salmon- season arrives, a band of aged priests
or "medicines" abstain from fresh fish, flesh, or fowl for certain days, which they
117
believe will induce a heavy run and a bountiful catch. Even the women and children
at this time, if they wish to eat fresh salmon, must carry it back in the forest out of
sight of the river. Like the Meidoos, on the Sacramento, they call the salmon, by
sitting in a circle on some overlooking promontory, while a venerable "medicine"
stands in the midst and earnestly addresses the finny multitudes for two or three
hours, urging them to ascend the river.
Probably the squaws in this nation occupy as degraded and servile a position
as in any other tribe in the State. A man's daughters are considered simply as his
property, his chattels, to be sold at pleasure. He owns them not only when maidens,
but when widows--either the father or the brothers. A widow does not pass into the
Possession of her husband's brother, as in some tribes, but of her own brother, who
sells her      and her children to her second husband. An intelligent squaw told me
they were often cruelly beaten, and had no redress. If a wife deserts her husband's
lodge and goes back to her father, the husband may strike her dead if she refuses to
return. A squaw is seldom held responsible for adultery, even with an American.
Polygamy prevails when the man is rich enough to buy wives. Tyee John, for instance,
had three. When a man marries, he gives presents to all the male members of his
brides family, but none to the female. Yet even here there were some mitigations to
her position. A widow retains all the articles which she herself made, also sometimes
a horse which she paid for out of her own earnings. A widower can not keep his wife's
Personal property, such as baskets, etc.; but her relatives come and take them away.
Though a slave herself, bought and sold, her right to these little personal articles is
inviolable. There are many female "medicines, " and the rights and modesty of a woman
in childbirth are sacredly respected, as they are not among civilized nations. Moreover,
there is once in a while a good, healthy, natural instance of a thoroughly henpecked man.
The Indians tell with great glee of a terrible termagant in the tribe, called "Old Squally."
One day she quarreled with her husband when they were fishing, whereupon she faced him
about toward the water, and kicked him into the same with violence, telling him to
"go in swimming."
Not withstanding their occasional ebullitions of brutality toward women and
children, they are a race with strong affections. William Burgett relates that he has
frequently seen them carry the aged long distances on their backs, to bring them to a
Physician. An Indian employed by him once lost a cousin to whom he was much attached,
and he wept and mourned for him daily for more than six months, refusing food to such
a degree that he was reduced to a living skeleton. An aged Achomawe lost his wife,
to whom he had been married probably half a century, and he tarred his face in mourn-
inig for her, as though he were a woman--an act totally unprecedented, and regarded
bY the Indians as evincing an extraordinary affection.
A woman speaking good English gave me some interesting glimpses of
Ildian social life on Pit River. An Achomawe mother seldom teaches her daughters
any of the arts of barbaric housekeeping before their marriage. They learn them by
iblitation and experiment after they grow old enough to perceive the necessity thereof.
118
The parents are expected.to establish a young couple in their lodge, provide them with
the needful basketry, and furnish them with cooked food for some months, "hich
indulgent parents sometimes continue for a year, or even longer, so that the young
people have a more -real honeymoon than is vouchsafed to most civilized people. As
children are taught nothing, so they are never punished, but occasionally cuffed or
banged. It is a wonder that they grow up with any virtue whatever, for the conversation
of their elders in their presence is often of the filthiest description. But the children
of savages far less often make wreck of body and soul than do those of the civilized,
because when the great mystery of maturity confronts them, they know what it means
and how to meet it. In case of the birth of twins, one is almost always destroyed, for
the feeling is universal that two little mouths at once are too great a burden. But
infanticide prevails in no other instance but this. It is a singular fact that the Indians
have no word for "milk, " generally. They never see it, for they never extract it
from any animal, because that would seem to them a kind of sacrilege or robbery of
the young. Hence, an Indian frequently sees this article for the first time among civi-
lized people, and adopts the Spanish name for it. The squaws spend a good deal of time
in visiting each other, when the conversation runs on their youngest children, on how
many strings of shells Halomyche paid Sdemeldy for his daughter, on the last dance
they--the squaws--had around the bloody head of a Modoc, etc.
Here, as among all other important tribes, I sought to get a vocabulary of
words, but was obliged to come away without anything satisfactory. The language is So
hopelessly consonantal, harsh, and sesquipedalian, so utterly unlike the sweet and
simple languages of the Sacramento, that to reduce it to writing one must linger for
weeks, and cause the Indians to repeat the words many times. The reader may wonder
at this, but I have only to say, let him make the experiment. The personal pronouns
show it to be a true Digger Indian language.
A mixed cuistom prevails as to the disposition of the dead. Mr. Burgett
affirms that they burn only those bodies which died of an unknown disease, as a
sanitary measure, burying all others in a sitting posture; but this imputes to them more
philosophy and more freedom from superstition than they are entitled to, I opine. one
fact is peculiar: the Jlhmawes never have burned the dead at any time in their historYo
though belonging to a nation that did. It is probable that burning prevailed amost eXCJU
sively before the Americans arrived. They believe that the spirits of the departed
walk the earth, and behold the conduct of the living. The good reach the Happy WeSt-
ern Land quickly; the wicked go out on the same road, but walk forever and never reach
it. To walk forever--perpetual motion! --could anything be a fitter painting of hell to the
indolent California Indians?
Some years ago, an aged chief related to a settler on Fall River an ancient
tradition respecting an extraordinary phenomenon which once befell on Pit River. All
the atmosphere was filled with ashes, so tlu t the heavens were darkened and the 5SU
was blotted out, and the Indians wept with fear and trembling as they who stand before
great Death. The birds of the air were stilled, and all the sweet voices of nature were
119
hushed. This phenomenon continued for days, insomuch that some of the Indians
attempted to find their way to another country by creeping along the ground, in hope of
beholding the sun once more. After they had crept on their knees for many miles,
the ashes began slowly to disappear, and the sun shone again, but at first it was like
blood for color. This evidently refers to some volcanic eruption, and argues for the
Indians a high antiquity.
LEGEND OF CREATION.
Our earth was created by the coyote and the eagle, or rather, the coyote
began, and the eagle completed it. First, the coyote scratched it up with his paws
Out of nothingness, but the eagle complained that there were no mountains for him to
Perch on. The -coyote had made hills, but they were not high enough, so the eagle fell
to work on it and scratched up great ridges. When he flew over them his feathers
dropped down, took root, and became trees, and his pin-feathers became bushes and
Plants. But in the creation of animals and man the coyote and the fox participated;
the first being an evil spirit, the other good. They quarreled as to whether they
Should let men live always or not. The coyote said: t"If they want to die, let them
die;" but the fox said: "If they want to come back, let them come back." But nobody
ever came back, for the coyote brought fire into the world, for the Indians were
freezing. He journeyed far to the west, to a place where there was fire, stole some
of it, and brought it home in his ears. He kindled a fire in the mountains, and the
Indians saw the smoke of it, and went up and got fire; so they were warmed and com-
forted, and have kept it ever since.
One of the most dreaded enemies of the great Wintoon nation was the little
tribe called Nozes, or Noces--a whale pursued by a sword-fish. Though themselves
inferior to the terrible Pacamallies, of Hat Creek, they were a constant terror to the
effeminate dwellers in the rich and sweltering valley of the Sacramento, and kept them
hemmned in all along from Battle Creek nearly up to Pit River, on a margin only about
a mIile wide. Indeed, with this fierce and restless little tribe forever on their flank,
always ready to pounce upon them, it is singular that the Wintoons maintained such a
long and narrow ribbon of villages on the east bank, isolated from the main body of
their nation on the west bank, especially when they had no means of communication but
rafts. Every year during the salmon season, June and July, their days were spent in
dread and their nights in sleeplessness, on account of the tormenting Nozes, who were
'low making frequent dashes down on the river. Not content with the limited run of
Salmon up the creeks whose banks they occupied, they made forays under their
Celebrated chief, Polillis, on the Sacramento, and though coming for fish, they never
'leglected an opportunity to carry away women and children into the foot-hills for slaves-
POr several years before 1849, Major Reading, living on the west bank, was largely
engaged in trapping for furs, and the Nozes gave his trappers endless harassment.
Round Mountain and the valleys of Oak Run and Clover Creek were their prin-
elPal habitat, though it is pretty certain that they formerly extended as far south as
Jattle Creek. The handful of them still living can give no information on the subject,
btit the above are their territorial limits as described by the pioneers.
120
Though living at a little higher altitude than the Wintoons, they are not quite
so tall as they, but are several shades lighter colored.  They are rather under-sized,
even for California Indians, and are quite a delicate, small-limbed, handsome race.
With their hazel complexions, smooth, polished sins, smallish, ovoid faces, and lithe,
well-knit frames, they present a race-type different from any other to be seen in
California. Pweessy, the present chief, a very polite, innocent, little man, who had
never been away from Oak Run in his life, as he stood in the hay-field at the head of
his mowers, in his neat, well-fitting garments, leaning in a picturesque attitude on his
scythe, presented a very pleasing view. His eye was soft and gentle, his voice was
mild, his manners much more refined than, is the wont of the hay-field, so that he
seemed the farthest possible removed from his warlike progenitors whom the pioneers
describe.
As the stature of the Nozes is short at best, so the children are slow in attain
ing it. They often remain mere dwarfs until they are ten or fifteen years old, when
they start and shoot up suddenly eighteen inches or so. They have a reputation for
honesty above their neighbors. A ranchman states that he has frequently known them
to bring in strayed cattle on their own motion. They adapted themselves early to the
necessities of labor and the usages of civilization. Many years ago--so early in the
history of the State that they were obliged to content themselves, master and man, with
the primitive repast of boiled wheat and beef--John Love had sometimes a hundred
Nozes in his employment at once. And they wrought faithfully, as they do to-day.
As the Nozes were so early civilized, and are so nearly extinct, it is not
easy to learn much concerning their aboriginal usages. The principal interest attaching
to them is the question of their origin. There is an ancient tradition, related by thenm'
s elves to Major Reading many years ago, that their ancestors came from a country
very far toward the rising sun. They journeyed a great many moons, crossing forests$
prairies, mountains, plains, deserts, and rivers so great, according to their descriPti?n
that they could have been found nowhere else except in the interior of the continent. At ed
length, they came to a delightful land, and to a timid and feeble folk, where they conquer
for themselves a dwelling-place, and rested therein. The narrator of this story state$
that Major Reading once showed him an old flintlock musket which he had found in
possession of the Nozes, and which had been so worn by being loaded with gravel that
it was as thin as paper at the muzzle. It was not known how they could have obtained it
unless they had brought it with them from the Atlantic States; and it was Major Reading
conjecture that they were the descendants of the remnant of King Philip's tribe, of New
England. I know not if this story is of any importance. Pweessy knew nothing whatever
concerning  it, but his information was very limited on all subjects. The one crucial ,f
test would be that of language. I have at hand nothing from which I can obtain a vocable
of King Philip's nation. The Noze numerals are very peculiar in their formation, uXI
like anything I have found in California. For the benefit of anyone who may have the
means of making a comparison, I subjoin them. All are accented upon the penult:
One, pykeemona;  two, omichemona; three, pulmichemona;  four, taumemona; five, g
manmona; six, purhanmona; seven, chumeenamona; eight, taumhanmona; nine, peit
121
schomatana; ten, hachhenmona.
In writing of the Mill Creek Indians, I am compelled for once to relax the K
rule observed in these papers, and to forego the aboriginal name. It is not known to '
any man living save themselves, and probably it will not be until the grave gives up
its dead. If the Nozes appear to be foreign to California, these are doubly foreign.
They seem likely to present a spectacle which is without a parallel in human history--
that of a barbaric race resisting civilization with arms in their hands, to the last man,
and the last squaw, and the last papoose. They were once a numerous and thrifty
tribe; now there are only five of them left--two men, two women, and a child. No
human eye ever beholds them, except now and then some lonely hunter, perhaps,
Prowling and crouching for days over the volcanic wastes and scraggy forests which
they inhabit. Just at nightfall he may catch a glimpse of a fain campfire, with figures
flitting about it; but before he can creep within rifle-range of it the figures have dis.-
appeared, the flame wastes slowly out, and he arrives only to find that the objects of
his search have indeed been there before him, but are gone. They cooked there their
hasty e-vening repast, but they will sleep somewhere else, with no camp-fire to guide a
lurking enemy within reach. For days and weeks together they never touch the earth,
stepping always from one volcanic stone to another. They never leave a broken twig
or a disturbed leaf behind them. Probably no day of the year ever passes over their
heads but some one of this doomed nation of five sits crouching on a hillock or in a
tree-top, within easy eye-shot of his fellows; and not a hare can move upon the earth
beneath, without its motions being heeded and recorded by the watcher's eye. There
are men in and around Chico who have sworn a great oath of vengeance that these five
Indians shall die a bloody death; but weeks, months, and years have passed away, and
brought for their oaths no fulfillment. There is now wanting only a month of four years
since they have ever been seen together so that their number could be certainly known.
In February, 1870, some hunters had succeeded in capturing the two remaining squaws,
whereupon they opened communication with the men, and promised them a safe-conduct
and the release of their squaws, if they would come in and promise to abandon hosti-
lities. The two men came in, bringing the child. It was the intention of the hunters,
as one of them candidly avowed to me, to have seized them and- secretly put the whole
five out of existence. While they were in camp, one of the hunters conceived an absurd
Whirnsey to weigh himself, and threw a rope over a limb for that purpose, at which the
Wily savages took fright, and they all bounded away like frightened deer and escaped.
But they had remained long enough for an American as eagle-eyed as themselves to
Observe that one of the two warriors had a gunshot wound in one hand, and many others
on his arm, forming an almost unbroken cicatrix from hand to elbow. Probably no
White man's eyes will ever again behold them all together, alive.
When they were more numerous than now they occupied both Mill Creek and
I)eer Creek; but nowadays they live wholly in the great volcanic terraces and low
1Oluntains west of Mill Creek Meadows. Down to 1858, they lived at peace with the
Alnericans, but since that time they have waged unrelenting and ceaseless war--cease-
less except for a casual truce like that above mentioned, who have sworn an oath that
122
they shall die. All these seventeen years they have warred against the world and
against fate. Expelled from the rich and teeming meadows which were their chosen
home; hemmed in on these great, hot, volcanic table-lands, where nothing can live
only a few stunted trees, and so destitute of water that this forms at once a security
against civilized foes and their own constant menace of death--a region accursed of
heaven, and spewed out even by the earth--they have seen one after another of the
craven tribes bow the knee and make terms with the enemy, but still their voice
has been stern and steady for war; still they have crouched and hovered in their almost
disembodied life over these arid plains, until all are gone but five. Despite all their
bloody and hellish treacheries, there is something sublime in this.
So far as their customs have been observed, they have some which are
Californian, but more which are decidedly foreign. They burn the dead, and are remark-
ably fond of bathing.
On the other hand, the customs which are foreign to California are numerous
and significant. First, they have no sweat-houses, and consequently no indoor dances,
but only circular dances in the open. The sweat-house is the one capital shibboleth
of a California Indian. Second, they did not erect the warm and heavily earthed lodges
which the Indians of this State are so fond of, but mere brushwood shelters; and often
they had no refuge at all but dens and caves. Third, they inflicted cruel and awful
tortures on their captives, like the Algonquin races. Whatever abominations the indi-
genous tribes may have perpetrated on the dead, the torture of the living was foreign
to California. Fourth, they had a mode of capturing deer which no other California
tribe employed, so far as known. Taking the antlers of a buck when they were green
and velvety, they split them open on the under side and removed the pith, which render-
ed them so light that an Indian could carry them on his head. Then he would dress
himself in the skin, and go to meet the herd, or rather, thrust his head out from the
bushes, taking care not to expose himself too much, and imitating the peculiar habit
which a buck has of constantly groping about with his head, lifting it up and down, nibbling
a little here and a. little there. At a proper time he would shoot an arrow into one of
them, and the stupid things would stare and step softly about, in their peering, inqui-
sitive way, until a number of them were knocked over. Fifth, their unconquerable and
undying determination to fight it out to the bitter end is not a California Indian trait.
Sixth, their aboriginal habit of singeing or cropping off their hair within an inch of
their heads contrasts strongly with the long locks of the Californians.
In view of all these circumstances, I am of opinion that, if Major Reading's
conjecture has any foundation in fact, it was the Mill Creek Indians who migrated
hither from the Atlantic slope, if any.
Several years ago, this tribe committed a massacre near Chico, and SandY
Y oung, a great old hunter of that country, with a companion, captured two squaws, a hey
mother and a daughter, who promised to guide them to the camp of the murderers.  Tb
set out at nightfall in the dead of winter. It was sleeting, raining, and blowing that
123
with great fury. But they pressed rapidly on, without halt or hesitation, for the squaws
led the way boldly. From nightfall until long after midnight they held on their dreary
trail, stumbling and floundering occasionally, but speaking scarcely a word; nor was
there a moment's cessation in the execrable, bitter sleet and rain. At length they came
to a creek which was swollen and booming. In the pitchy darkness it was manifestly
impassable. They sounded it in various places, and could find no crossing. While the
hunters were groping hither and thither, and shouting to each other above the raging
Of the torrent, the squaws disappeared. No hallooing could elicit a response from them.
The two men considered themselves betrayed, and prepared for treachery. Suddenly
there came floating out on the storm and the roaring a thin, young squeal. The party
had been reinforced by one. The hunters then grasped the situation, and, laughing,
set about collecting some dry stuff and making a fire. They were benumbed and half-
frozen themselves, and supposed, of course, the women would come in as soon as they
Observed the fire. But no, they wanted no fire, or if they did, their aboriginal modesty
Would not allow them to resort to one under these circumstances. The grandmother took
the new-born babe, amid the palpable blackness of darkness, the sleeting, and the
Yelling winds, and dipped it in the ice-cold creek. Again and again she dipped it,
While now and then the hunters could hear its stout-lunged protest above the roaring.
No t only did the infant survive this unparalleled treatment but it grew excellently well.
In memory of the extraordinary circumstances under which it was ushered into this
world, Young named it "Snowflake, ? and it is living to this day, a wild-eyed lad, in
Tehama.
Lastly, we have the Meidoos, a large nation, extending from the Sacramento
to the snow-line, anf from Big Chico Creek to Bear River. As usual in the case of an
extensive nation, they have no name of general application, except that they all call
themselves meidoo (people). Of separate tribes or villages there are very many. I
give what I could collect, presuming that the same name generally applies to the
Village and to the inhabitants of it. We say New York, New Yorkers; but they seem
Somnetimes to reverse our rule. Thus, there is a village on Chico Creek whose
infhabitants are called Otakey, and the village itself Otakumne. Beginning on Feather
River, we have, first, the Ollas, opposite the mouth of Bear River. Next above them,
011 the same side, are the Coolmehs, the Hoacks (usually spelled Hock) the Teeshums,
and the Yubas, the latter being opposite the mouth of Yuba River. Next, on the left
bank, are the Toamchas, and the Hoancuts (usually spelled Honcut), the latter being
just below the mouth of Honcut Creek. Then, on the right bank again, are the Bocas,
the Tychedas, the Biyous, and the Holoaloopis, the latter being opposite Oroville.
The Tychedas had a very large town, and their chief was Yahilum. On Honcut Creek,
as You go up, are the Totos and the Heltos; on Butte Creek, the Eskins; on Chico
Creek, the Michoapdos. In Concow Valley, are the Concows, once a large and power-
ful tribe, and probably the best representatives of this nation. On the Yuba, at Nevada
CitY are the Oostomas; lower down, the Panpacans. Bear River and all its tributaries
Were held by the Neeshenams, so that the real boundary between them and the Meidoos
Was on the plains, midway between Bear River and the Yuba.
124
They have two ingenious contrivances for snaring wild-fowl, that I have not
seen elsewhere. One of them is a loosewoven net, which is stretched perpendicularly
on two rods running parallel with the surface of the water. The lower rod is lifted
up a few inches, so that the net is not taut, but hangs down in a fold or trough. When
the ducks are flying low, almost skimming the water, they thrust their heads through the
meshes of the net, while their bodies drop down into the fold, which prevents them from
fluttering loose. The other contrivance is also a net, stretched on a frame projecting
up out of the water in a shallow place. The Indian fastens decoy ducks close by the net,
or sprinkles berries on the bottom, to attract the fowl. He has a string attached to the
feame, and leading to the shore, where he sits holding the end of it behind the bushes.
When the ducks are swimming about close to the net, he twitches it over them, and they
thrust their heads up through it, which prevents them from diving or flying away. The
Indian runs down quickly, treading at every step on the string, to hold the fowl securely
until he can reach them. With either of these contribances they m uld sometimes snare
a whole flock at once.
Of dances, the Meidoos have a large number, each being celebrated in its
yearly season. One of the most important of these is the Acorn Dance (cameeny can-
paa lacoam, literally, "the all-eating dance"), which is observed in autumn, soon
after the winter rains set in, to insure a bountiful crop of acorns the following year.
Assembled together throughout their villages, from fifty to a hundred or more in a
sweat-house, men, women, and children, they dance standing in two circles, the men
in one, the women in the other. The former are decorated with all their wealth of
feathers, the women with beads, etc. After a certain length of time the dance ceases,
and two venerable, silver-haired priests come forward, with gorgeous head-dresses
and long mantles of black eagle's feathers, and take their stations on opposite sides of
one of the posts supporting the roof. Resting their chins on this, with their faces turled
up toward heaven, each in turn makes solemn and earnest supplication to the spirits5
chanting short sentences in their priestly language which is unknown to'the general,"
to which the other occasionally makes response. At longer intervals, the whole cOnf
gregation respond "Ho!'" equivalent to "amen," and there is a momentary pause of
profound silence, during which a pin could be heard to fall. Then the dance is resumed
and the whole multitude join in it, while one keeps excellent time by stamping with hi9
foot on a large, hollow slab. These exercises continue for many hours, and at intervals
acorn-porridge is handed about, of which all partake liberally without leaving the danceS
house. Of the religious character of these proceedings there can be no doubt.
Then there is the Clover Dance (hayln  cameeny, literally, "the great dance )
which is celebrated in the blossom-time of clover, in concentric circles, like the above'
but out-doors-, and not attended with anything that could be called religious ceremonieS
The men often dance with an almost fanatic violence and persistence, until they are
reeking with perspiration, and then plunge into cold water, or stretch themselves at
full length on the ground in a manner that would insure a White man the rheumatism.
Again, upon the ripening of manzanita berries comes the Manzanita Dance (weedCan
cameeen, "the little dance"),, which is about like that last described. Then there is
125
is the Great Spirit Dance (haylin kakeeny cameeny), which is held in propitiation of
the prince of the demons. The reader must not for a moment confound this Great
Spirit with the being so called by the Algonquin races, for he has nothing whatever to
do with their cosmogony; he created nothing, is not a good spirit, nor even powerful
except for evil, and is nothing more nor less than the chief of the imps or goblins
supposed to haunt certain hills or other localities. The Dance for the Dead (tseepy
cameeny, "weeping dance") is substantially the same as that described among the
Yocuts. There is another dance called walinhoopy cameeny, which is held in the open
air, at their pleasure, during the clover season. The maidens dance this alone in
the evening. They join hands in a circle, and swing merrily around an old man seated
Upon the grass, chanting to a lively step; then presently they break the circle with
screams and laughter, and flee in every direction. The young men waiting near pursue
and capture each his mistress, and kindly, liberal Night draws her sable curtain
over the scene.
Many of them believe in the annihilation of the soul, or, as Blind Charlie
expressed it to me, "that they will never live any more. ?  It is not annihilation pure
and simple, of which the Indians-are probably incapable of conceiving; but they think
that many departed spirits enter into inanimate forms, as the mountains, trees, rocks,
or into animals, especially the grizzly bear and rattlesnake. In this latter case it
is simply transmigration.
They have a distinct and, possibly, aboriginal conception of a Great Man
Qhaylin meidoq, who created the world and all its inhabitants. The earth was pri-
narily a globe of molten matter, and from that the principle of fire ascends through
the roots into the trunk and branches, whence the Indians can extract it by means of
their drill. The Great Man created woman first and then cohabited with her, and from
their issue the world was peopled. Lightning is the Great Man himself descending
Swiftly out of heaven, and rending the trees with his flaming arm. According to
another and prettier fancy, thunder and lightning are two malignant spirits, struggling
With all their fearful and incendiary power to destory mankind. The rainbow is a good
spirit, mild and peaceful, which overcomes them with its gentle sway, mollifies
their rage, and permits the human race to occupy the earth a little longer.
Besides the wholly unmeaning choruses which they have in common with all,
they possess also some songs which are really entitled to the name, having a body
of intelligible words and expressing sentiments. I heard an Indian at Oroville sing one,
called "a song of rejoicing" (solem wuktem tulimshim), which was a schottish, and very
Pretty. But it was still prettier when played on the flute by an American, and I deeply
regretted my inability to write down music from the ear. It was a most gay and
tripping little sprite, sweet, and wild, and wayward, with bold dashes across an
Octave, and seeming to be wholly out of joint, because of having hardly any two
consecutive notes on the same line. It was quite lengthy, requiring about two minutes
inl the playing. What would I not have given to be able to preserve for better musi-
cians this sweet, weird piece of savage melody!
126
LEGEND OF THE FLOOD.
Of old the Indians abode tranquilly in the Sacramento Valley, and were
happy. All on a sudden there was a mighty and swift rushing of waters, so that the
whole valley became like the Big Water, which no man can measure. The Indians
fled for their lives, but a great many were overtaken by the waters, and they slept
beneath the waves. Also, the frogs and the salmon pursued swiftly after them, and
they ate many Indians. Thus all the Indians were drowned but two, who escaped into
the foothills. But the Great Man gave these two fertility and blessed them, so that
the world was soon repeopled. From these two there sprung many tribes, even a
mighty nation, and one man was chief over all this nation--a chief greatly known in the
world, of large renown. Then he went out on a knoll overlooking the wide waters, and
he knew that they covered fertile plains once inhabited by his ancestors. Nine sleeps
he laid on the knoll, turning over and over in his mind the thoughts of these great
waters, andhe strove to think how they came upon the land. Nine sleeps he laid without
food, for he lived on his thoughts alone, and his mind was always thinking of this
only: ?"How did this deep water cover the face of the world?" And at the end of nine
sleeps he was changed. He was no more like himself before, for now no arrow could
wound him. Though a thousand Indians should shoot at him, not one flint-pointed arrow
would pierce his skin. He was like the Great Man in heaven, for no man could slay
him forevermore. Then he spoke to the Great Man, and commanded him to let the
water flow off from the plains which his ancestors had inhabited. The Great Man did
this; He rent open the side of the mountain, and the water flowed away into the Big
Water.
WOALOCKIE AND YOATOWEE.
Woalockie and Yoatowee were Concow Indians, brother and sister, and
young children when their tribe first became acquainted with the Americans. One
morning at daylight a foray was made on their native village, their parents put to
flight, many were killed, and these children with others were carried away into cap-
tivity. The boy had, in ten minutes' time, torn away a hole in the chaparral, and
hidden himself and his little sister therein so completely that they would not have
been discovered, if their dog had not followed and revealed their hiding-place. By
some good fortune they were not separated, but were carried, first, in a pair of huge
saddlebags, made for the purpose, one suspended on each side of the horse, with
their heads just peeping out; and afterward in a wagon, with a number of others, all
snugly packed on the floor, and covered with deer-skins, bear-skins, and other peltries,
In passing through a town, the wagon attracted suspicion, and was halted and slightly
searched by the officers of the law, but nothing was discovered contraband. With
the strange instinct of their race, the young captives did not cry out, or whimper, or
move a muscle, but laid as still as young quails lie in the chaparral when the hawk
is hovering overhead. The wagon was suffered to proceed, but in another town it
was halted and searched again, more thoroughly, and the young Indians brought to
light. For the vindication of the excellent majesty of American law, it was necessary
that there should be a prosecution of the kidnapper, and he was gently mulcted in the
127
sum of $100, and the good citizens of the place took away his captives from him, and  i
they became "apprenticed" unto them! It chanced that our little hero and heroine thus
passed into the possession of a great philanthropist of those regions, whose voice had
Often been mightily lifted up in denunciation of the infamies of this "Indian slave-trade."
lie kept them some time, and finally transferred them to a Negro barber in exchange
for a stove, did this philanthropist! The barber did not keep them long, but sold them
for twenty-five dollars apiece, the usual price of an Indian boy in those times. Thus
they passed from one to another, until seven or eight years had elapsed and they were
grown nearly to maturity; but they still remained unseparated.
At the end of this period they regained their liberty, and at once they set out
together to return to their native valley. It was many days' journey for them, for they
traveled afoot, but at last they arrived in sight of the village wherein they were born.
]By some means the news of their escape and return had preceded them, and the parents
110w learned for the first time that their long-lost children were still alive.
The wanderers now approach the village. They enter, and are guided by friends
to the paternal wigwam, for there are many changes since they saw the village last. As-
cending the earthen dome, they go down the well-worn ladder in the centre, and seat
themselves without a word. The father and mother give one hasty glance at them, but
110 more, and not a word is uttered. What the exceeding great joy of their hearts is,
heaven and themselves alone know; but from all the spectator can read in their stern,
Passionless faces, he would not know that they had ever borne any children, or mourned
them for years with that great and unforgetting sorrow that savages sometimes know.
An hour passes away, and still not a word is spoken, not even a single glance of recog-
t1ition exchanged. The returned captives sit in motionless silence, while the father and
1YlOther move about the lodge on their various duties. An hour and a half is gone. The
Parents turn now and then a sudden and stolen look upon their waiting children. Two
hours or more elapse. The glances become more frequent and bolder. It is now per-
haps three hours since the captives entered, and yet not a whisper. But at last all the
fullness of time of savage customandsavage etiquette is rounded and complete. The
Waiting hearts of the aged father and mother are full to bursting. Their eyes are filled
With tears. They turn and call their children by name, they rush to them, they fall
upon their necks, and together they mingle their tears, their strange outcries of joy,
and their sobs.
To the reader this may seem extravagant and impossible, but,with the excep-
tijn of minor particulars, it is a true story, illustrating a social custom of this most
1Singular race. In receiving a guest the Concows frequently wait more than three hours
before they address him. The substance of the above story was narrated to me by an
klerican, who was an eye-witness of the captives' return.