AN EVENING WITH WINTOON INDIANS*

Geo. H. H. Redding

While angling for salmon and trout during a vacation, last summer,
in the Cloud River,  in Shasta County, I had an opportunity of seeing a

intoon Indian make a fire by the friction of two pieces of wood. The process
hdopted by him differs in some particulars from that used by the savages of

pther countries.  It will be of interest to the archaeologist who desires to
ireserve the evidence of all the habits and customs of man in his original

vage condition, and may be of service in showing some ship-wrecked mariner
DW easily fire may be made where he can obtain two pieces of dry wood.

Word came to the United States Fishery that there was to be an Indian
nce that evening at the upper rancheria, which is a beautiful spot on the

tght bank of the Cloud, about five miles above the fishery. Just before sun-
lt, with two companions, I crossed the river in a dug-out, where we found the
rail. The weather was perfect. The sun had descended below the hills that

rd the western bank of the river.    The narrow valley and its cold, hurrying
tream, fringed with alders and azalias, were sinking into shade and seemed

,-hed to sudden silence, broken only in the still reaches and quiet pools by

occasional heavy splash of a salmon at play, or the sudden leap of the

mgry trout intently busy in making entomological collections from among the
hemera, caddice and other flies, that spring into multitudinous and joyous
istence under the magic wands of the long shadows creeping over the water.

r trail led along the east bank among the talus from Mount Persephone, whose

ay limestone summits tower three thousand feet above the river. Our path was
X the shadow of the opposite hills; but, a few hundred feet above us, the

tting sun was bathing the somber rocks on our right in purple mist, while the
ftier peaks stood out against the deep blue sky-like minarets burnished with
fulgent gold.

After passi'ng the cliffs, the trail led through groves of mingled oaks
pines self-planted on the benches above the river.    How few Californians
ow that the particular region of the foothills of the Sierra in which both

k and pines intermingle, is blessed with a more delightful and health-giving

imate than any other portion of the State. The shadows now more rapidly darted
the mountain sides, and we were soon in the gloom of the forest, and found it
fficult to keep our way. This trail is the only one near this bank used by

Indians in going up and down the river.   Without doubt it has been used for
ousands of years; yet in all this time it has never occurred to one of them

remove from it a fallen tree, or roll away a bowlder.    I wondered, as we
tumbled on in the dark, whether man, when first emerging from his original,

vage state, commenced by the domesticationi of animals, cultivating the soil,

by clearing a path from his cave to the forest where he killed his game.

Wintoons have not yet arrived at any of these stages of civilization.     They
ye no domestic animals other than the horse and dog, obtained originally from

IThe Californian, a Western Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. 12, December, 1880,
pp. 563-566.                           -12-

I

;'

1 .

i?

from the Spaniards. The nearest approach to cultivation is not connected with
a supply of food, but with intoxication. All of their camps are "kitchen-

middens,"' in a state of slow but constant accretion, and the soil about them
becomes very rich.

Wild tobacco (Nicotiana Bigelovii) grows sparsely in favored spots

on the hills near the river.   When, by accident, the seeds are carried to the
rich and prolific soil of these kitchen-middens, it grows with added vigor to

increased size, and is much prized by the Indians for smoking. To the civilized
smoker of tobacco it has an intensely vile flavor, and is exceedingly nauseating
and stupefying. When the plant makes its appearance above the ground in the
spring they frequently loosen the earth about it with a sharpened stick, and
pile brush about each plant to prevent it being trodden upon or injured. It
has not occurred to them that the seeds could be saved and planted. While

cultivating no food plants, they guard with jealous care particular oaks of the
species Q. Chrysolepis, Kellogii, and Brewerii, and all the prolific nut-pines

(P. Sabiniana), as these supply them a large amount of food. They are learning
that the hog of the white man is their great enemy - that he eats the acorns as
they drop from the trees, that he destroys the grass in the small valleys, the
seeds of which they gather, and that he roots up and eats the camas (Camassia

esculenta) and other bulbs, that yield them food when the salmon have returned
to the ocean.

Filled, as these people are, with the densest ignorance and the most
weird and mythical superstitions, they yet have, in all that relates to their
supply of food, a knowledge of the natural history of their immediate vicinity
that seems wonderful.   No fish or crustacean of the river, no reptile, no

animal or bird, no tree or plant, but has a name; and every child is taught these
names, and given.the knowledge of what can be used as food and what would be
injurious.

In about an hour we arrived at the Government trout ponds, but found
all the attendants had left for the dance, except an Indian with his canoe to

ferry us again across the river. The village was about a mile above the cross-
ing.  On arriving we found a great many families had gathered, coming for many

miles up and down the river. There were, probably, three hundred and fifty, of

all ages. We learned that the dance and gathering was an annual meeting, partly
religious, and that it is given as an expression of gratitude for the return of
the salmon to the river.

The rancheria, or village, is on the right bank of the river, at a

beautiful bend, where the water sweeps around the base of a mountain. From what
could be seen at night, the spot had been occupied by the Indians for ages.

In the center of the rancheria was the temescal, or sweat-house. It
was constructed by digging a large circular, basin-shaped hole in the ground,
four or five feet deep.   Around the edge of this hole large posts are sunk,

at five feet apart, and which extend upward to the top of the ground.   In
'center are planted four large trunks of trees, with the original limbs
x them, extending a few feet above the surface, From these four trees

it limbs of trees are laid, reaching to the posts at the edge. These limbs
:fastened firmly by withes to the branches at the center-trees. The whole

lhen thatched with pine and willow brush, and covered with a layer of earth
it a foot in thickness. The entrance is a long, low passage, and is made by
i-tng short, thin pine posts side by side, about three feet apart, and

kred in the same manner as the house proper. To enter, one has to stoop quite
? and continue in this position until he comes into the sweat-house.   We
gred. All about us, crowded together, were the Indians, squatted on the

tht, the males in the foreground, and the mahalas, or squaws, with their pap-
its, in the rear. In the center a low, small fire was burning, quite near
Which sat the caller of the dances, smoking a pipe which looked like three

'e wooden thimbles placed inside of each other. This he held perpendicularly
|tie air, with his head thrown back so as to allow his lips to inclose the

tpiece. After puffing three or four times, he passed it to others of the

~.  Some of the Indians had similar pipes, but, so far as I could see, this
*as the largest and finest.

Directly opposite to the entrance, there had been a kind of fence

ted, behind which the dancers were getting ready. We did not have long to

, for soon the caller commenced yelling, and all the eyes of the audience
* turned toward the dressing-room. Out came the Indians --seven men and

it fifteen mahalas. The men were naked, except for a girdle of eagle feathers
b their loins and a narrow band of woodpecker feathers about the forehead.
hatter is very handsome, and brings a good sum when sold. In their hands

carried long, thin reeds, covered with small, fine feathers, which they blew
Shey ran around the fire, stamping the ground. The women wore calico dresses
Fight colors, and in their hands carried grasses, which they held up. As

n ran, the women formed a half circle about them, turning from side to
, all singing in a monotonous, low tone.   They were accompanied by the

cians, who consisted of three men - one blowing a reed, one pounding on an

tin pan, and the other stri-king a split stick against a piece of wood. The
p was perfect, and it was astonishing with what rapidity the men dancers got
* the ground. They put their whole strength into the dance, and keep it up

Wan hour at a time, only stopping at intervals to get breath and hear comments
their performance. When the dance is finished, the men cast off the feathers
run naked, reeking with perspiration, and plunge into the river, the water
ihich is rarely warmer than 450 Fahrenheit.

It is usually those who are sick who take part in the dance of this
t, and this treatment is supposed to cure; but, as a remedy or luxury, it
t to have been in universal use among -all the California Indians.

While the monotonous dance was in progress, we left the sweat-house,

meeting Sarah, the daughter of the old Chief Consolulu, I asked her to tell

-14-

her father that I wanted him to have an Indian make a fire as it was made before
white men came to the country. Sarah is one of the few members of the Wintoon
tribe who have any knowledge of the English language. When a child, she was

taken to live with a family at Shasta.   In a few years she became homesick, and
longed for the companionship of her own people, for their wild, free life, and
for the mountains where she was born. So Sarah turned her back to civilization
and its constraints, and joined her people, that she might live as they live,

and share their joys and privations. She retains, apparently, but little evi-

dence of the attempt at civilization except her Christian name and some knowledge
of the English language.

After long negotiations, and the exercise of considerable diplomacy,

an Indian came to me, bringing his beaver-skin quiver, filled with arrows.     From
among these he took a dried branch of buckeye (Aesculus Californica) about as

long as the shaft of an arrow, but much larger at one end.    From his quiver he

also produced a piece of cedar (Librocedrus de urrens).    This was about eighteen
inches in length, an inch thick, and two inches wide in the center, but tapering
to a rough point at each end.   Its general appearance might be described as boat-

shaped.  In the center of this piece of cedar, on one side, he had made a circular
hole a quarter of an inch deep, with a piece of obsidian, and from this hole he
had cut a channel extending to the edge of the wood. He now gathered a handful
of dry grass, and some fine, dry, powdered wood from a decayed pine. Each end

of the boat-shaped piece of cedar, with the side containing the hole and channel
uppermost, was placed on a couple of flat stones and held firmly by another
Indian.  The dry grass was piled loosely under the center, and on it was

scattered the fine powder- of the decayed wood.    The fine powder was also scattered
in the channel leading to the hole in the center of the boat-shaped piece of cedar,
He now took the branch of buckeye and placed the largest end in the circular hole,-
and, spitting on his hands, commenced revolving it back and forth rapidly be-

tween his palms, and at the same time bearing down with considerable force. This
constant exercise of pressure, while revolving the buckeye, caused his hands to
be rapidly shifted to the lower end of the stick, when he would remove them to

the top again and renew the process.   At the end of five minutes he was perspiring
from the exercise, and no fire had been produced. He stopped a few seconds and
said something.   I asked Sarah to translate his speech.   Sarah told me he was
saying,"Fire, why don't you come to me now as you did when I was a boy?"

This he repeated several times, and commenced work again.    In another

five minutes smoke made its appearance where the two woods were in contact.     In a
few seconds the powdered dust of the decayed wood took fire, and the fine coals
communicated this fire to the dust in the channel, and rolled down to the dust
scattered on the dry grass.   He now took the bundle of grass in his hands, and,

carefully blowing upon it, soon created a blaze.    Meanwhile, a great many of the
Indians came out where we were, and crowded about us, and seemed to take great
interest in the proceedings.   All1 manner of questions were asked of us, and

translated by Sarah; among which were: "Where you come from? Don't white man
have any more matches?" or, "You like this way better than white man's way?"

-15-

The buckeye is very much harder than the cedar; and I find it is
invariable custom among savage people, in making fire by friction, to
woods of different texture and hardness.

As soon as the fire blazed the crowd went back into the sweat-house,
we with them, but only to remain a short time, as it was already midnight,
we had a long distance to travel. Soon we were on our way to the fishery.
we were crossing the river, the moon came over the mountains and shone down

us. We made a weird looking picture in the canoes, with an Indian at

i end, paddle in hand. As the first gray streaks of dawn appeared in the
th-eastern sky, we arrived at the fishery.

-16-