Reports of the

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY

No.72

UKIAH VALLEY POMO RELIGIOUS LIFE,

SUPERNATURAL DOCTORING, AND BELIEFS

OBSERVATIONS OF 1939-1941

Birbeck Wilson

Edited by Caroline L. Hills

University of California Archaeological Research Facility

Department of Anthropology

Berkeley
May 1968

REPORTS OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY

NO. 72

UKIAH VALLEY POMO RELIGIOUS LIFE, SUPERNATURAL DOCTORING, AND BELIEFS

OBSERVATIONS OF 1939 - 1941

Birbeck Wilson

Edited by Caroline L. Hills

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH FACILITY

Department of Anthropology

Berkeley
May 1968

PREFACE

Following the death of Dr. Birbeck Wilson in 1946, his
sister, Mrs. Ellenere Doudiet, offered, in January 1963, to

deposit in the archives of the Department of Anthropology of
the University of California at Berkeley the ethnographic
field notes on the Pomo Indians collected by Dr. Wilson.

Several years later a student in the department, Miss Caroline
L. Hills, accepted the commission to organize the field notes,
and support for her work during the academic year 1966-67, as
well as a subvention for the present publication, was made

available in the form of a gift to the Regents of the University
of California by Mr. Sturgis S. Wilson, Mrs. Ellenere W. Doudiet,
and the Castine Scientific Society.

We have provided guidance for the work and believe that

publication of this portion of the field data, accompanied by

Miss Hills' annotations, represents a solid contribution to the
ethnography of the Pomo.

Dr. Wilson's ethnographic notes are not published here in
their entirety. The complete collection is on deposit in the

Department of Anthropology and is available for study by quali-
fied students.

Elizabeth R. Colson
Robert F. Heizer

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION  .     .      .      .      .      .      .     1
MEMORIES OF PRE-EUROPEAN RELIGIOUS CULTS        .            3

OLD GHOST CEREMONY                                         3
THE KUKSU CULT                                             7
THE IDAM DANCE    .                                        9

TUE MARU CULT AND TRANSITION TO CHRISTIANITY    .      .    15

THE MARU CULT     .      .     .      .      .      .     15
TRANSITION TO CHRISTIANITY     .      .      .      .    41
HEALING IN THE MARU      .      .     .      .            50

POISONING AND DOCTORING    .      .                         53
APPENDIX I: TABUS    .     .      .      .                  71
APPENDIX II:  DANCE AT UPPER LAKE, JULY 29, 1939 .          72
END NOTES     .      .     .      .                         86
BIBLIOGRAPHY  .      .     .      .                         91

INTRODUCTION

Caroline L. Hills

The research for this report was carried out by Birbeck Wilson

during the summers of 1939, 19440, and 1941, while he was working in the
field school conducted by New York University in the Ukiah Valley of
northern California. Dr. Bernard W. Aginsky was the director of the

Social Science Field Laboratory, and Dr. Ethel G. Aginsky was the asso-

ciate director. Dr. Wilson died in 1946, before he had time to write up
all the material he had organized and started to analyze, and his data

have been supplemented by those of other members of the field school who
have most kindly given permission for their publication.

Several problems have been encountered in dealing with Dr. Wilson's
material.  First, no list of informants, giving age, birth-place, and

family relationships was included, and it has not been possible to extract
a full list from the available notes. Second, the statements by the many
informants differ greatly in style. No precise record is available to

account for these differences; that is, whether an interpreter was used,

or the report was verbatim or paraphrased. Third, regarding orthography,

I have transcribed the words exactly as Wilson wrote them, since my knowl-
edge is too limited to justify making changes.

An effort has been made to present Wilson's material in the sequence
in which he would probably have reported it, and with as little alteration
as possible, so that it can be used by persons interested in working with
original data gathered from the American Indians, more particularly the
Pomo. Among Wilson's notes there are descriptions of the 1939 four day
dance at Ukiah and Upper Lake, and the 1940 Sulphur Bank dance which

occurred just before hop-picking. The record of the 1939 Upper Lake dance
is reproduced here in Appendix II as an example of this kind of record
data.

To protect the Pomo informants, and also in those cases cited in

the notes, all names have been suppressed. A simple letter code has been
substituted in place of names. To differentiate men from women, an "F"

is used as the final element in the case of a female informant, an "M" as
the final element in the case of a male.

On Birbeck Wilson's behalf, I wish to acknowledge the contributions
of the Pomo informants, and express appreciation to the directors and

membersl of the field school for the notes they contributed. My thanks
are also due to Dr. Elizabeth R. Colson who was a member of the field
laboratory, and to Dr. Robert F. Heizer, who together supervised and
guided me in this effort.

1 See p. 86 for End Notes.

- 1 -

3

POMO MEMORIES OF PRE-EUROPEAN RELIGIOUS CULTS

Only the older Pomo remembered the Old Ghost Ceremony and the Kuksu
Cult for they had not been performed for many years. When compared with
earlier descriptions, their memories provided material for a study of
acculturation.

Old Ghost Ceremony

The most ancient religious rite recalled by the Pomo in 1940 was the
Old Ghost Ceremony. Barrett (1917a:403-423) states that its origin goes
back to mythical times when birds and mammals had human characteristics.

Held in a subterranean house, the ritual was conducted by a secret society
and took place in the spring. Loeb (1926:338) lists the distinguishing
elements as "(1) the return of the dead; (2) the initiation of novices;

(3) the use of the bull roarer,' and points out that the ceremony was more
complex among the Northern and Eastern Pomo than among the Coast Central.
Women and children were barred from the performance during the four days
it lasted, although the women brought food to the men. Thus the men were
set apart from the rest of the community by their knowledge and participa-
tion in spiritual matters, and as the young boys grew up they too were
initiated into this world of men.

Four informants had seen the ceremony at Pinoleville and Yokaya;
others had heard about it being performed in Lake County and at Yokaya

rancheria. Their accounts agree with the material gathered by Loeb and

Barrett, but at the time the informants saw the dance, initiation was no

longer always in the traditional sequence and healing sometimes took place,
although the latter was always subordinate to the dance of the ghosts which
remained the focus of the ceremony. Many details had been forgotten.

As the following account by TLM shows, the bull-roarer is no longer
remembered as a vital part of the ceremony, and the initiation of young

boys is only briefly recounted as compared to the description of the ghost
dance itself.

[The performers] were supposed to be the ghosts of men

who had died. The leading men of the village knew these
men were not ghosts. The main idea was to deceive the
women and the common people.

These men would quietly sneak into the brush unseen.

Out there in the brush these men would paint their bodies.
They made themselves up horribly. The make-up was not

intended to be beautiful. It was their idea of a ghost.

They'd tie brush or something around their heads to partly
conceal their faces.

4

There was a man who would stand over the entrance to
the dance house and call the ghosts. He would do this
four times and some ghost would give an answering yell

out in the brush, down by the river, within hearing any-

way.  These ghosts usually came out in pairs, seldom singly,
but not more than two together.

North

O = smoke hole

West  (East                 over fire place,

WetQEs                   about 2-l - 3 feet

across.

z, z

About 80-100 yards                             Pathway about

from the entrance                              300 yards long,
were two runners,                              wide enough for
one on each side of                            two men abreast.
the path, at Z.

x    x

Dance house

The first two ghosts would stop and line up beside
each other at X. They came in one behind the other.

The caller would stand over the entrance and again call

four times. On the fourth call there would be answering
yells and two more ghosts would appear and line up on

each side of the path at X. This was repeated until the

eight or ten had come, usually in pairs. Once in a -wfhile
just one ghost. There was no stated number. The man

giving the calls knew how many there were, and who they
were, and all about it. When all were arranged in line

this caller would call again. And the pair who was first
at X would start off at a slow trot, one behind the
other.

These ghosts were selected with a view to making the
people who had lost someone in the last eight or ten
years think they were the dead [returned]. The man

calling would announce the names of the people who had

died in the last ten years, maybe saying whose ghost was
coming in now. Men were picked who resembled the dead
as nearly as could be remembered. And the painting was

to make the women and the people believe it was actually
the ghost of this dead person.2

5

As the ghosts approached the dance house everyone was
outside watching them come. There were two runners

stationed at Z, one on each side of the path. When the
first two ghosts reached them, the runners chased them
in [to the dance house]. They did this to the other

ghosts when they reached their station at Z. They were
two of the best runners. When these ghosts came run-

ning in, their relatives--mothers, sisters and others--
would fall on the ground, cry, and pull their hair, and
carry on something awful.

Some of these ghosts fixed it so smoke was oozing
out from the top of their heads. It used to be said
that they had pitch fixed to the top of their heads,

and they would light this just before they started their
run, so it would be smoking. Sometimes one of the

ghosts, and one only, carried a live coal in his mouth.
Sometimes another carried a firebrand in his hand. And
one would probably carry just a plain stick about four
feet long. And always one of the ghosts was supposed

to run up the side of the house, and dive headlong into
the smoke hole. And while this was going on all the

ghosts who had already arrived were making all kinds of
noises you would expect ghosts to make, yelling, scream-
ing, and making a good deal of noise.

After the last ghost entered they allowed the people

to enter the dance house. Then there was some more cry-
ing. The relatives of the dead cried, but they were not
allowed to touch the ghosts. Then the ghosts stood

around and talked ghost language,3 and told the crowd

where they'd been, where they had to go, how tired they
were, and similar things.   They acted foolishly.  They

made foolish remarks. Some ghosts ate fire and told the
crowd how good it was.

After they got through telling stories, eating fire

and acting foolish in general, they started to dance the
ghost dance. This was always in the daytime. They

lined up in one line on the east side of the fire; then
they circled over and danced on the other side. They
always faced the fire. In circling counterclockwise

they passed in front of the center pole. The singers

were on both sides of the center pole, just back of it.

After they got through dancing they went out as they had
come and disappeared. Meanwhile the crying had stopped.
That is the ghost dance proper.

tfter the ghosts had departed, some of the leading

men would get up out of the crowd, and these initiates
would circle around counterclockwise at the edge of the

6

crowd, no particular number of times. They'd grab a boy
or young man--no girls--and toss him in the air, catching
him on their outstretched hands. Then someone would pre-
tend he saw another one. They pretended to be looking

with hands shading their eyes and peering forward. Then
they'd grab another and do with him as with the first.
No designated number of boys were seized.

The Old Ghost Dance, known also as 'ja-di-wil-ke' ("devil dance"),
was a four-day ceremony held continuously through day and night. The men

who represented the ghosts were called 'guya,' and to make their performance
more realistic they took care to dress5 and paint themselves--decorating
their heads with flowers and painting their bodies with different colors:

black, white, and red--at some distance from the village. The ghosts were
then called four times by a man on top of the round house. They answered
and came in, singly or in pairs, some through the smoke hole and others

through the door. Each had his rules for entering. The 'guya' might have

smoke coming out of their heads, live coals in their mouths, or a firebrand
in hand. Onlookers who were related to someone recently dead cried and
tore at their hair when the dancers arrived, but a contrasting mood was
sought after a short dance. The performers tried to make people laugh.

Those who did so were punished by taking away their hat, shirt, or handker-
chief.   They also threw ashes and dirt on anyone who dared to laugh, and
even dragged the transgressor out onto the dance floor, and "that would be
quite a jolt to an Indian," remarked one man. Payments in beads could be

exacted, or else the dancer would get angry and scatter the fire around the
house, putting hot coals in the hands of those who made fun of the antics

of the ghosts. Music was provided by singers who stood near the center pole
of the house, and also by a drum made of wooden boards over a hole in the
ground.7 A Fire Dance was included in the four-day sequence in which
dancers "ate" fire.8

Healing was sometimes included in the dance. [Wilson's notes indi-

cate this report is part of the Old Ghost Ceremony, but it closely parallels
Barrett's (1917a:430-431) description of the Kuksu healing ceremony.] In
1940, CHM, a man in his sixties, gave this account:

In the Devil Dance they pick six to eight very active men
in uniform down toward the creek. They have a stick

about five feet long, about as big around as the wrist:

a black, burnt stick. When they come in with the stick,
in uniform, if anyone has trouble with his head, back or
other part, he lies down on his belly with his face on
his arms on a blanket which they had put down.

A man comes along with a stick, and with a whistle in
his mouth. He turns four times, points the stick four
times. Then he runs and jumps on them. Some holler.

When you get up you feel light. It does away with all

7

the pains you have. This part is very strict. It used
to be the main dance of the whole thing.

I remember when I was a boy of twelve.   They did it
on me. I know how rough they are. I had trouble with

my back. They were rough. Sure it made me better, fine.

This report of doctoring during the performance is not found in

published accounts, but a ceremony celebrating the recovery of a patient

in fulf'illment of a vow was part of the Ghost Dance among the Eastern Pomo
according to Loeb (1926:350-351.  It consisted of the ritual stabbing of
the patient with a spear or shooting him with arrows. A further purpose
of this act was to ward off disease from the community.

The close of the ceremony was not mentioned by informants.   Loeb
(1926:339) remarks that at the end of each day's performance the ghosts

would take off their ceremonial clothes in the dance house and then go out

to the river to wash; on the final night the dancers disrobed, danced briefly,
and left their sacred things in the house. According to Barrett (1917:

421-422) a feast followed during the day to finish the four-day ghost dance
cycle.

The Kuksu Cult

9

The Kuksu Cult  included some elements and functions of the Old Ghost
Ceremony, but there were also innovations which distinguished it from the
earlier ritual. Those who took part in both ceremonies were members of a
secret society. All those in the Kuksu Cult were called 'yomta,' whereas

only the leading member of the ghost religion was given the name. Both men
and women were admitted to the society for the Kuksu. Loeb reports (1926:

355-364) that among the Coast Central Pomo healing and initiations were the
principal parts of the ceremony, which was held over a four-day period in

the spring. The gods Kuksu and Calnis were impersonated during the initia-
tions of the young boys and girls.  The initiations consisted of cutting

them on their backsl followed by their rebirth.l1 Furthermore, Loeb (1926:
364-384) states that the Kuksu cycle was more elaborate among the Eastern

Pomo than among the Coast Central Pomo. Initiations were less important and
impersonations more complex.  The purpose of the cult was for health and

good fortune. During the four days devoted to the proceedings a series of
ceremonies were performed, involving among other things the climbing of a
pole outside the Round House and the imitation of thunder by using bul-l-
roarers and drums, as in the Coast Central ghost dance.

Little was remembered in 1940 about the leading 'yomta' and his activi-
ties, less still about the Kuksu Cult. The 'yomta' was known to have been a
man of power who played tricks that appeared to be supernatural when they

were not, but his connection with religion and the Kuksu Cult was virtually
forgotten.  TLM commented, "There was a 'yomta' society.   Some women were

supposed to belong but I don't know what they did. This was a strict secret

8

society.  I think the 'yomta' understood the Kuksu. The lidam 12 was the

'yomta's' kind of dance. This was not danced more than once in forty years.
If the 'yomta' had not had the 'idam' here, I would not have known anything
about it."

Certain aspects of the Kuksu ceremony were remembered by informants

but their connection with the religion had been forgotten. Memories were vague,
like this, "The Kuksu was long ago. My great-grandfather used to say it was 1
before he was born. He said they had a long spear; they used to stick people.13
They used to beat the women and children. They used to have a big time--the
Kuksu. It seems like the kind they used to have in the brush house in the
summertime. "

The Pole Ceremony outside the Round House, which began the four-day
sequence of dances and rituals among the Eastern Pomo, was remembered by a
few people. Women and children were permitted to attend. Members of the
society who climbed the pole (called 'ma-d-haiti food pole) were allowed

neither meat nor water during the four days of the performance. The purpose

of the ceremony was said to have nothing to do with curing, but 'it did good 14
and was considered medicine.  It was so they could have a good time forever.

TLM remembered initiation into the society in these terms, "ty old

grandfather said the last time they did the Kuksu was when he was a boy. He
said he was one they stuck. They didn't do that to everyone, only to the
Captains and great men."t This statement is contrary to the recorded fact

that both boys and girls were initiated in the Kuksu, and may refer to initia-
tion into the secret society which ran the Old Ghost religion. Impersonations
of the gods, to put fear into the novices at this point in the ceremony, were
totally forgotten.

Loeb (1926:375-6) reports that a rattlesnake dance by members of the
'yomta' society of the Eastern Pomo was performed on the second of the four
days. The purpose of pretending to swallow the rattler was to deceive the

initiates and gain power over them. Informants had seen a rattlesnake cere-

monry, but its connection with initiation had been lost and instead the purpose
was to heal the sick. It was held in springtime during a four-day dance

(perhaps the Kuksu, but this was not specified in the notes). A group of men
and women went up into the hills, "they sang and sang and the rattlesnake
crawled out of his hole. The old lady [NDF, perhaps 80 years old in 1940]

just put out her hand palm up and the rattlesnake crawled on it and coiled up."
On their way to the Round House where the rest of the community was waiting
for them, the group sang and danced four times round the snake (cf. Loeb
1926:375; the same is reported for the Kuksu snake ceremony). Inside the
house the snake crawled over a sick man lying on a blanket. Beads were

thrown to the snake, who ate them while the performers danced. Since the

snake was considered sacred, it was returned to its hole unmolested.  A tabu
on meat had to be observed for this ceremony. NDF broke this restriction

once and had difficulty breathing until a doctor cured her; since then "she

makes a noise in her throat like a hoot owl when she is sick" because she ate
meat before the four days ended.

9

A ceremony in which bull-roarers were whirled around the dance floor
was also vaguely remembered. People wore ordinary clothes but in more

ancient times were practically naked during the performance. A drum was
played for accompaniment. The noise represented thunder. Probably this

was what Loeb (1926:378) calls the Thunder Ceremony, which was part of the
Kuksu cycle.

Old dances, which were often performed during the four days of Kuksu
ceremonies but were also danced at other times, were still remembered by
the older informants who had actually danced them. The names given were

'Gilak,' 'Lole-ke,' 'pa-k6-ma-ke,' and 'ma-ta-ke.'15  The Gilakl1 was danced
by both men and women, generally in the sweathouse. It was sacred and could
not be given without a feast afterwards. The dancers were not to eat meat.
Beads, which the fire-tender picked up and kept, were thrown on the dancers

as payment. "The gilak was a very evil monster in the legends. This is his
dance. In the gilak dance they put on a severe look to personify and act as
the gilak would'" In the spring the 'lole-ke' was danced and was said to be
wild, and crazy. Generally just women danced it but sometimes men joined in;
they put flowers in their hair and shook their heads. Women put flowers in
their hair for the 'ma-ta-ke' too, but only they danced while the men sang.

Another dance, the 'pa-k6-ma-ke,' was performed by a single woman accompanied
by men who sang standing by.

The lack of clarity about the Kuksu was due to the informants never
having seen a complete four-day ceremony, and their reliance on their memo-
ries of what they had been told.

The Idam

A dance led by the 'yomta' and not part of the Kuksu religion was
mentioned by several informants, and cal ed the 'idam-ke. '17  'Idam' was

translated as "white feather" and "duck with white wings," (cf. Loeb, 1926:

388-389, "damaxai took its name from the dam or down headress, and the sitai,
a large basketry framework filled with buzzards' down").   The ceremony was
held in the spring, in a sweathouse especially built for the occasion, and
people from as far away as the Coast were invited. Since the house was

sacred, the first pole to be put in the ground was accompanied by chanting
and dancing by the head 'yomta.' He blessed the place where the fireplace
would be, chanting 'hai-I la-ho-ho.' The ceremony was described by TLM as
follows,

In the 'idam-ke' the part with the poles is the most
sacred. I saw it. The centerpole was made of pine,
pretty slick and smooth. It was about ten inches in

diameter at the base, eight at the top. It went to the

roof. It was part of the support. There were eight poles
in addition to the center pole. These radiated from the

center pole horizontally. They came only to within about
one-and-one-half feet of the centerpole, the big ends did.

10

They were suspended from the dance house roof by wild grape
vines, one on each end of each pole. That's the construc-
tion.

They selected eight athletic lively young men something
like this. The leading men and the chiefs got together
and decided on who was going to do the dancing. They

always selected very prominent men.   And they said, "You
will be one of the dancers, and you will take the first

pole." And to another, "You will take the second pole."
And so on. "You will be the one to climb up and down on
the pole."  "You will be the one to collect the feathers"
('K?ai chil'). This means a bunch of woven feathers.

It is understood that these men will not dance them-
selves, but they hire young men to dance in their stead.
Those chosen are all oldish, prominent men. It is con-
sidered a great honor to be appointed. They pay many
beads to the young men to dance.

The dancers wore small beads in two or three circles

snug around their necks. The only costume was the head-
gear; the headgear of the ordinary dance put on differ-
ently. The band that goes around the head in the

ordinary dance, they put over the head from the bridge

of the nose back to the neck, with the back end loose and
flapping. They put four horns ('ka tds') on each side,

two being pointed forward, and two sloping slightly back-
ward. These were the slender rods seen on the men's

headdresses at the powwow dances. They wore no other

costume except a G-string, a little cloth. Their bodies
were all painted. That's where they use the white and
black alternately. Each followed his own notion. Some
had it in bands, some up and down. The whole body was
striped up.

Two women singers came out from in back of the center
pole and several men did also. They stood there in a

circle and one of the women started to sing. After she
started to sing, the eight men came out from the back

part of the dance house. They came out on the west side
of the center pole and on to the dance floor. They came
out squatting one behind another, their hands within an
inch or so of the floor. They went back and forth that

way four times, always facing forward. They came out as
far as the fire, and back to the rear as far as they

could. Of course, the leading man could not go all the
way back.

On the fourth time the leading man turned and went in
the same manner toward the center pole, turning squarely

11

to the left and starting for the pole. They didn't go so
far front this time. When he reached the pole he started
to climb it. The other men stayed where they were but
put their fingers on their shoulders near the neck by
bending the elbow up and the arms toward the head. As

the women sang they swung their shoulders and arms back
and forth from side to side.

The man climbed the pole by reaching his hands around
it, with the palms on the opposite side of the pole flat
against the pole. Then he put one hand over the other

and climbed, using his toes to grip. When he got to the
horizontal poles, he grabbed the first pole on the west

and climbed out on it. As he did this the 'yomta' stood
there with his right arm pointed up at him, and chanted
in his magic language. The 'yomta' was in front facing
north at the center pole. His magic language at this

time was supposed to be so potent that this man climbing
could not have any mishaps. When the man got on the

pole he hung by his hands and legs with his back toward the
ground, and his head toward the center pole.

The other seven men followed in the same way, one at
a time, from where they had stopped, and took the other
seven poles in clockwise order from the first. This is
not the usual direction. This dance is different from
everything else.

After the last man was up the pole, a ninth person
came out from the back in the same way, but he moved

direct to the center pole from the rear. He only came
out once, and climbed the pole in the same way. Only,
when he got to the line of horizontal poles he gripped
the center pole with his legs, head dmon.

Then the other eight men let go their hands and all
eight put their fingers on their shoulders and twisted
about (as they did with shoulders and hands when they

were on the ground) in time while the women were singing;
and the men around them, "the Rocks1tl8 were saying "huh,

huh; huh, huh;" in time.   Those swinging also said, "huh,
huh" in time. They did this four times while the man on
the center pole, who also had his hands and fingers as

the others did and who twisted in the same way but with
his body bowed out a little from the pole, slid down the

pole in four stages or stops, just gripping with his legs.
The fourth stop brought him within a couple of feet of a
band of cloth twisted like a rope tight around the pole,
about three feet from the ground. Then he climbed up

again and this was repeated three times more, four times
in all. That made sixteen dances. The others hung by
their feet all this time.

12

When all nine men were climbing the pole the 'yomta'

sang in the same way. He quit after all got up, then he
walked in a circle about the dance hall, rolling a stick
between his palm and talking his magic talk. He walked
four times clockwise, then four times counterclockwise.
This is the opposite of the usual sequence.

When the man on the center pole came down the fourth
time he worked back to the rear of the hall, squatting

in the same way as when coming out. He faced awfay from
the center pole. All the other eight men climbed d-wn
just as they had gone up. The first up was the first

down; the others just hung until it was their turn. Each
of these eight men had a little bunch of feathers at the
nape of his neck. They took these off before coming

dmon. They each had a little sharp stick to pin this on
their back. They pinned the feathers with this to the

knot in the grapevine and left them up there, at the big
end of the poles, the end toward the center pole.

Then they worked their way to the rear, and went back
as they came out, but they faced away from the center

pole. They just went back straight, squatting as they
came out. There was no going back and forth.

When they got to the rear, a single man came out,

decked out as the other were.   This man hadn't appeared
before. He didn't stop. He came out, squatting as the

others did, but he moved directly to the center pole and
climbed it. His business was to collect the feathers

left up there. He didn't stop. He didn't dance in any
way.  He climbed out on the first pole, took the bunch

of feathers, and attached it to his belt--he wore a loin

cloth--in some way with the pin. Then he climbed onto the
center pole. Then he climbed onto the second pole and so
for all the eight in a clockwise sequence. After he had
collected the last he went down as he went up, with his

head upward. When he got to the ground, he moved away as
the others did, squatting, with his back to the center

pole. He disappeared in the rear. When he reached the

first pole, the 'yomta' stood with his right hand raised,
and chanted as before. He kept this up until the man

came down.  The 'yomta' faced as he did before when the

other men climbed down. Then the 'yomta' turned left and
walked toward the fire. He walked back and forth between
the fire and the center pole chanting this: "hi hi la ho
6."  He walked back and forth four times, turning to the
left each time. That ended the dance. At this time he

rubbed his stick between his two palms. Then the singers
stopped and it was over.

13

There was no noise, no laughing, no applause during

this dance. This dance was extremely sacred. I saw it.
It is supposed to be a very ancient dance. In their
legends they tell of dances of that kind."

The dancers had to observe a tabu on meat and water, as did the
'yomta' who led the performance.

15

THE MARU CULT AND THE TRANSITION TO CHRISTIANITY
The Maru Cult

In the years 1939-1941 the Ukiah Valley Pomo remembered the Maru cult,
an offshoot of the 1870 Ghost Dance, although they had not held Maru cere-

monies for about sixty years.19 Many Pomo had taken part in the cult before
1894 or had been told about it by participants. They also knew of current
Maru activities on the coast at Stewart's Point, as well as of Maru dances
in Lake County., where they visited other Pomo communities. Both Coast and
Lake County Pomo took part in Pomo activities in the Ukiah Valley.   In

spite of the fact that the Maru beliefs had fallen into disrepute in the

Ukiah area long before 1940, the accounts the informants gave are particu-

larly interesting since they refer to a time when Indian society was disin-
tegrating under the stress of Whites encroaching on their land. They had

to find new ideas to deal with a fundamentally different experience. It was

an era of transition from independence to subservience. The ways of settlers
and missionaries clashed with those of the Pomo Indians.

According to Du Bois (1939:1), the Ghost Dance originated among the

Paviotso of Walker Lake in Nevada and spread contemporaneously in two direc-
tions, the second of which followed a course via "the easternmost Achomavi,

across Achomavi territory to the Northern Yana, the Wintun, and Hill Patwin."
The dance began in 1869, but diffusion did not begin until 1871. Du Bois
points out that it was among the Wintun and Hill Patwin that the emphasis

of the dance changed from the return of the dead to a stress on the end of
the world, and she calls the new movement the "Earth Lodge cult" since

believers built subterranean houses which were to protect them from the

disaster. It was this branch of the 1870 Ghost Dance which diffused to the
Pomo, who built seven earth lodges.

But the end of the world did not come. Like the Patwin, the Pomo

developed another cult: the Maru, and gave to the new religion the concepts
of a life after death and the existence of a single God. The time sequence
given by Du Bois is as follows:  "By the end of 1871 or early in 1872,20
the Earth Lodge cult was already in existence. In the spring of 1872 the
Earth Lodge cult reached its climax among the Pomo. By the end of that

same year it had diffused over most of northeastern California and the first
forms of the Bole-Maru had already been created. " The Maru is known as the
Bole among the Patwin, whose prophet, Lame Bill, started the new cult. The
1890 Ghost Dance never reached the Pomo (Du Bois, 1939:1-51).

Let us now turn to the memories of the Ukiah Valley Porno in 1939-41.
There was general recognition that the Maru did not originate in their own

valley, but entered from Lake County in the east. Sulphur Bank is mentioned
specifically by informants as the closest point of origin. KLM stated:

The first time was at Sulphur Bank, and the leader's

name was Salvadore.21 He seems to have been the head of
the whole Maru--of the others. Must have been Salvadore
about sixty years ago. Salvadore was first. Those here
took it from him, it seems.

Another man, TLM reported from hearsay:

The Maru came here from Lake County. It came into Lake
County from Cache Creek; probably entered there from
farther east. Bunkash was the Cache Creek Maru.22 A

man named Pengrave told me about him. He knew Bunkash.

Then many sprang up almost simultaneously here [at Ukiah]
and at Hopland. It traveled like wildfire when it got in
here.

The Cache Creek Indians were a branch of the Wintun

tribe of Indians who occupied both sides of the Sacramento
River up into Shasta County and beyond. Bunkash was a
member of the Cache Creek tribe who lived near the Lake

County and Colusa County line. They lived right this way
from the border. They were mountain people.

The new cult was called Maru among the Pomo of Lake Coumty, and Maru
and Matu by the people of Ukiah Valley. Loeb (1926:395) mentions that the
Coast Central Pomo used the form 'batu' and says, "The name 'maru' appears
to be an old East Pomo word. It is given as the word for 'myth'; and

'Marumda,' the name for the creator in the Eastern Pomo origin myth, appears
to be derived from it. Compare the word 'matu,' doctor." An informant
(TLM) gave a similar meaning when he said:

The old legends like the coyote story are called matu matu.
It is just as when the preacher tells you about God. You'd
say he matus that; that he is telling an old, ancient thing:
'matu.' When the priest came they said he is 'niatu'; he is

telling an old, ancient thing: 'matu'. So when these dreamers
began, they said he's 'matu', not a doctor or a hunter.

The year when the Maru was introduced was not remembered exactly, but
the Pomo usually set it back about sixty, sixty-five or seventy years. Most
of them remembered that the cult was introduced after they abandoned the

Noyo reservation, where they were at one point forced to remain. The year
the Indians moved away from the reservation was 1867. The physical hard-
ships of the Pomo are illustrated by the account of BCF:

The Maru came in later than Noyo. Noyo was when the

whites came in and took the land and made treaty. Then

17

they take them to Noyo and starve them out, so they left
one at a time. They promised all kinds of eats--them

came by ocean.23 All were put in a big house. They only
gave the Indians a little, so they starved out. Then

they ran away. Noyo was a reservation. The Maru started
while they were leaving there.

Before the settlers came into Ulkiah Valley the Pomo tribelets had
separate identities and the boundaries of each group's land were clearly
defined. With enforced removal, people from different areas were brought

into contact. They resettled in the valley how and where they could, los-
ing their separateness as the following report by TLM shows:

After a few years the reservation at Noyo was abandoned

by an executive order. At about this time, the Maru cult

was just getting to California from somewhere to the east.
When the Indians returned from the Noyo reservation they
found that the whites had come in and settled all over

the valley,, and all their land and rancherias were gone.
It was then that the original village groups broke up;

there being no land for them to settle they separated and
squatted on the land of the whites. The whites were glad
to have them because they could get the Indians to work
for them. A man named Robinson allowed five families to
live on his ranch which was located in a valley to the
west of the old central rancheria on the Russian River.
In time other Indians moved there and soon a regular

Indian village grew up--the Boktca Rancheria. This was
between 1860 and 1863.

Eventually all the Indians moved down from the Boklca   25
Rancheria to the new rancheria on the land owned by Burke.
This ranch was south of the Bok'ca Rancheria, and was on
land owned by Burke, who had an Indian wife. When he

married her, her relatives would visit them, and gradually
all the Indians moved there.   It became the central

rancheria of the valley and was located abouit five miles
south of Ukiah on the main highway. In 1881 the Yokayo

people moved from the Burke ranch to their present location,
about seven milgs south of Ukiah on the east side of the
Russian River.29

During the process of moving around the Yokayo Indians

lost their identity as separate groups and are now all to-
gether in one group and call themselves Yokayo Indians.

The Maru movement served the purpose of uniting the Indians
after their unity had been disrupted by living on the

reservation. They all began to congregate for the purpose
of dying together.

18

The earliest Maru ceremonies centered around the belief that the end
of the world was imminent. The entrance of the cult and its concepts were
clearly stated by KKM, a Hopland Pomo, in his eighties in 1940:

It was about this time that we heard of the dream-power
called ma-tue. It originated in a tribe somewhere in

Sacramento Valley. We first heard of it through a tribe
of Indians at Sulphur Banks. The man that first talked
of it was from there. He was Ba-Hay-yoe. He was very
serious in his teaching, working day and night, and

traveling all over. He was known to help and direct the
building of many sweathouses.

When our people heard of it they became frightened

and thought the world was coming to an end. They built
their sweathouses under the ground like a cellar. Then
they gathered there to await the end. While they waited

they danced day and night. Whenever they stopped dancing
someone would preach for a while; the principal subject
being ma-tue.  Later, as the end did not come, they

returned to their homes but held these meetings very fre-
quently.

In contrast, the later Maru ceremonies were more elaborate and followed
a more or less consistent pattern.   The use of cloth costumes, the flagpole,

and the two major dances--the Ball Dance and Big Head Dance--were all central
elements of the Maru, but minor alterations were made by the individual

dreamers under whose authority the ceremonies were arranged. TLM gave a
full account of the later Maru dance which he saw when quite young:

People from Point Arena came in one after another, single

file, with four marus in the lead.   They had these beautiful
vests on, and the women had their dresses on. It was quite
a show. They came in that way when another tribe was in-
vited, with the chief in the lead. Here the Maru took
over the old patterns.

We kids thought that was fine; we didn't forget it at
all.

The leading Maru had some flag sticks about four feet

long, with a little flag on each stick.   After he got into
the dance hall he put one by each brace and one by the

center pole, making nine. He must have had more but he
used that many.

The informant continued with a description of the dance house which
was more or less circular:

19

WV          .            *    drum
.            0                 fire

poles

Dance House

They danced between the fire and the center pole. There
is usually a ridge of earth, just a slight one, between

the supports, except in front of the entrance. The space
bank of the ridges is bedded down with wild grass, six or
seven feet wide, and that's where the audience sits. The
outsiders camp and sleep right there.

That's the old style dance house and the Maru people
followed the same pattern. That's the Pomo system.

The whole building is excavated two feet or more. The

entrance is made circular where one enters--had to stoop--
and it then slopes upward and inward until it joins the

top of the house where all the timbers of the house meet

at the top on the center pole. On each of the eight poles
(four on a side) there are cross beams (the poles are
forked to hold these) to support the roof between the
ground and the center pole.

This house was built just north of [UNM's] 7 house,

almost forty yards west of the little cabin there.   This
was one of the old style houses, the last ever built in

California that I know of, and this is the house the train
of Maru came to, mentioned just before. Each one had a
clap stick [a split stick rattle] to keep time for the

dance. One old fellow, a little short man, had one split
at both ends. He grasped it in the center. It was four
or five feet long.

Every now and then they would turn counterclockwise
and rattle the sticks in the air. He, the short man,
made it rattle at both ends by jerking it forward and
back. It looked funny and we kids laughed. The other
three men had the usual sticks. No others rattled
sticks there.

20

When they got in front of the dance house they didn't

enter at once but danced four times; counterclockwise once
to form a circle for the dance--only this once. Then they
danced and they entered. When they entered there were

only women dancing. The women took two sides of the dance,
eight or nine on a side, with beautiful dresses, beautiful
headgear.  They held things in their hands.   Their hands
were in front and the things were hanging dawn, probably
of cloth and feathers. They moved their hands sideways.

Then the singers formed back of the center pole and started
to sing, and the women started to dance. It was a very

beautiful dance, no men, just all women.   One man who sang
there is still living, GCM from Point Arena.

That is the only band that pulled off this maru stuff

at that dance. The others danced ordinary dances.    The   28
Maru was fading out then. That was about fifty years ago.
I must have been ten years old or so.

The real Maru house, before my time, was always under-

grou.nd. That started in Maru times. In the real old times
they only excavated dance and sweathouses a little, two

or three feet. But the Maru was away down in the ground.
The top was supposed to be flush with the ground so the

wind would go over and do no damage.29 This was the wind
that was to destroy the world. All were expecting it.
The Maru told the people that when the wind started to
blow, wherever they were, to head for this shelter.

The dance house mentioned here was not Maru. It was just an old
fashioned dance house. The preceding accounts will serve as a basis for

the discussion of specific features of the Maru religion: the Maru leaders
and their authority; the dances, clothes, tabus, and rules; and finally,
a discussion of healing and doctoring by the Maru themselves.

The Maru religion was fundamentally different from the Old Ghost Dance
and Kuksu Cult in two ways.  First, the entrenched authority of the secret
society--the 'yomta,!' and its leaders--was undercut by new dreamers who

claimed authority for their religion from dreams in which they received mes-
sages from God or Marumda, brought by the spirits of people recently dead.

The older ceremonies were thought to have been established at the beginning
of the world, whereas the new cult was created spontaneously to fulfill the

changing needs of the people who were profoundly shaken by their new experi-
ences. The cult became less exclusive and more secular. The population had

been decimated during the period of contact with Europeans, and, consequently,
the system of training successors to carry on religious activities was broken.
Loeb (1926:394) states: "With the coming in of the new religion control

passed to new priests and dreamers, and ceremonial officiating passed to the
former controller of common dances, the Rock man. In fact the entire cere-
monial organization of the former common dances now became absorbed by the

21

new cult." Second, women took a larger part in the ceremonies, and there were
even woman dreamers.

The names of some of the Maru leaders were still remembered in 1940.
.As mentioned before, there was Bunkash, the Cache Creek man who introduced
the cult around the Lakes, and Salvadore from Lake County who was influ-
ential in bringing the movement into the Ukiah Valley. Most of the Maru

were men, but there were also women Maru. The information does not allow us
to cross check exactly how many Maru were active in the area and whether

different names refer to the same person or to two people. This problem is
further aggravated by the Pomo custom of avoiding the names of both the

living and the dead. Ohe informant mentioned the names of two women who were
dreamers in the Ukiah Valley:  'wi-low-wi' and 'i-go-ma-da,' and CWF gave
two similar names for Maru women, 'wi-la-we' (also called Marianne) and

*'i-ki-ma-da,' who were respectively the sister and niece of KRM. Another
informant referred to Kal-da-la, also called Pete Lamar, who was a Maru.

DNF remembered TLM's grandfather, a Maru who was active in her child-
hood, in the following terms:

TLM's grandfather had a long stick with a bJue flag and
a yellow moon-shaped cloth sewed on. We children used
to like to play there, the stick was so slick and the

ground, too. He chased us away. He used to go around

that pole all the time. [It was] the way he dreamed, I
guess.

Another account was given by GNM:

Here there was one old fellow who, they said, had a power-
ful voice. He was before my time. Then a fellow called
'mu_-sut-(cna-ta-dul).'  He pulled off some of these big
dances.  EKM's mother's father.   He lived with us some

time but he was not practicing then. Then came Monk Robin-
son.

These Maru held ceremonies at Yokaya rancheria.

The two best remembered Maru of the Ukiah Valley were Kalkom (Xalkom)
and Monk Robinson. Kalkom was a leader of the new movement before the time
of Monk Robinson, when the Maru was at its peak.

Monk Robinson was a dreamer when the influence of the religion was
waning, and consequently had few followers. TQM said of him:

22

Monk Robinson was of the Ukiah tribe.  He acted as a Maru
but I don't know whether he ever did anything. I guess

he started but couldn't make it. The people kind of quit
under him, I guess.

This is confirmed by another informant, TLM:

This Monk Robinson was a small Maru when things were
beginning to fizzle. He was the last Maru on this
rancheria. It died with him.

Following the usual pattern, Monk dreamed his dances, songs, and costumes,
saying that "the fellow up above" told him how. He used common clothes

rather than the elaborate costumes which were worn on the coast. One man
remembered him as follows:.

Monk Robinson danced just as they did at the powwow, but
he had old songs and different dances. Men and women

both danced lined up as at the powwow. They had singers
arownd the pole.  That's the style they had everywhere.
He had his meetings right here in the hop field.   This
ranch used to be a rancheria [ca. 1900].3?

Robinson's motives for being a Maru were caustically commented upon by
one informant (SLF):

The Maru started at Sulphur Bank and came here sometime

before Monk. I guess he thought that a good way to make
money, Indian beads.  I heard him talking about that at

hop-picking time. I was about twelve. [Ca. 1900] Monk
told at the camp when I heard him.  Before I came he used
to make up dances. That part I didn't see. He'd tell

the people to have dances, dinner. He'd call for beads,
1,000 etcetera because they didn't obey. The lowest
would be 400 or 800 or 1200 or 1600--always in fours.
When I heard him he was just telling about that.

Although many people did not take Robinson's activities seriously, he
was respected as a healer and also known to be a "foot racer." His life
history was given briefly by KLM:

Monk Robinson married a girl from Sulphur Bank and lived
there a long time. He followed his Maru business there

23

on a small scale before he died. The little band that

lived there believed in that stuff. Finally he died in
Lake County.

His death occurred about 1921-22.

The Tjkiah Valley Pomo were in contact with those living on the coast
and knew about the Maru leaders and ceremonies there. The best known

dreamer was John Boston (also called Boseton) from Point Arena who died in
the early 1930's and was buried at Santa Rosa. The Maru who preceded him

were also remembered; their names were 'ka-ba-kel,' 'tom-tel, ' and 'kvEcui.-'
The persistence of the cult was remarked upon by one informant who said that
at Stewart's Point the Indians still dance the dream dance, Matu-ke, and
that two women still carry on the Maru there. At Point Arena there were

believers but no leader during 1940, but the following year brought changes
which TLI commented upon:

They are going to have such a [Maru] dance at Manchester
[about 4 miles from Point Arena]. A young girl, a high-
school graduate, is becoming a dreamer. She's having

the women make differently designed dresses for that, and
the men are making shirts. When all is completed they are
going to have a four night dance. I don't know what kind
of songs she is going to dream.

The Maru became leaders through divine revelation in dreams. They
were bothered by dreams in which someone or something appeared to them and

forced them to be a Maru, whether they wanted to be or not. The dreamer and
his family would be in danger if the instructions were not carried out, and
usually refusal to obey meant death. According to many of the informants,
one must become a Maru because of disbelief, or breaking rules, or doing

something bad. In the past it was probably not considered a punishment but
a privilege to be chosen to dream. Generally, the dreams consisted of how

to celebrate a ceremony; that is, the songs to be sung, the different dances,
the costumes and decoration to be worn for the occasion, and what to tell the
people who came. Just as the dreams recur in those destined to lead the

cult, so do they continue to dream while the Maru power is upon them. If a
person did not wish to obey the dreams, an Indian doctor would be called in
to cure him. Doctoring was not always successful, and some said that dream-
ing was too powerful to be stopped. In 1940 the Pomo still had what they

regarded as Maru dreams, but thought the dreamer should be cured rather than
start new Maru ceremonies.

BCF recounted a friend's personal dream experience as follows:

She dreamed she was a Maru and she refused it and that's

all. Her husband was sick at the Lane Hospital where he was
having radium treatment.

24

For two years she had had very little sleep. She used
to keep a light on in her room because she had to care for
her husband.

One night it was raining very hard and the wind was

blowing. Finally it turned into a beautiful song. She

said she did not know whether she was asleep or awake, or

dreaming; whether it was from exhaustion or whether she was
crazy.  She saw three women, each in a corner of the room,
old women, and they were talking among themselves. The

gist of the talk was that if she did not have the holy water
on the table next to the bed, and if she did not have a

rosary and crucifix above the bed, they would come to her

and "give her the Matu." But they just couldn't do it. And
the song of the wind and the rain was her doctoring song so
that she could cure people. And it was beautiful. But she
refused. She woke up and there was nothing there.

Even though she saw it with her own eyes she can't be-
lieve it.

The impact of Christianity had clearly influenced the dreamer, who

felt the spiritual forces vying against each other to claim her allegiance.

The year in which this occurred was not given, but is clearly long past 1900.

The identity of the dream visitor who instructs a Maru is not always
clear. It was frequently stated, "someone comes in dreams" or, "someone

keeps coming and telling them things"; otherwise informants insisted that each
Maru had a god who always appeared to him though they were not certain whether
all dreamers saw the same god or not.

After a Maru had received his dream instructions he set up dances with
his followers. Before the dance, during the intermission, and after the dance
was over, the Maru would address the people about his dream message. In the

early phase of the movement the new dreamers taught that the world would come
to an end; later they began to stress the existence of life after death for
those who took part in the religion. The Maru referred to the god in their

dreams as "Our Father," "God" and "the Lord."   This Christian terminology and
the idea of heaven were borrowed by the Pomo from the people around them, but,
they welded them into their own framework of thought. One man thought that
heaven was "just like a rainbow shining," and TLM discussed it like this:

I don't think the Indians had any conception of a heaven

as the white man had. "The home of the Thunder," I think,
is similar to Hell. I think the Indian thought that when
dead you are gone. So the Marus tried to create out of
Christian ideas something to fit the Indian's way of
thiiking. So the thing is confused.

25

They implied the afterworld was a nice place, probably
a flowery place.31 Kalkom used to call himself the flower
man. He was sort of a lady's man, he was woman crazy.

Monk said the real god lived above four skies.

DNF spoke of what would happen to you if you did not belong to the
movement:

I heard that something thick like a cloud came down and

tried to grab their relations--one Matu used to say this.
I think that's true. I don't know which one was telling
that. There is a place they go, a place they burn, a

bad place. That's why everyone prepares for the dance.

The idea that god was in heaven was believed by some; others thought
along more traditional terms of him being in everything, as the next two
statements show. First, the Christian-influenced version by SLF:

When they die if they do certain things they go to heaven,
if not they stay around. In the old days there used to
be lots of ghosts. Even today they give a dinner and

dance [for them]. They claim the ghosts are still around
waiting for that. Then they go to heaven. They never go
to the other place, they always go to heaven.

Their heaven has only one man there and a great big
house. That was their heaven where they went if they
did what they should.

Next the traditional view, from the same informant:

They talked to trees and rocks, the stars, the moon and
the sun. That was their god when they talked to the

people. They said the stars, the rocks, the trees had
eyes, so people should do good; not do anything wrong.

The only chant remembered was one sung by a Maru from Point Arena
and given by TLM:

T om-tat sang a song, just a chant--a prayer, I guess:

"In the house of the'yomta,' in the house of the ghost."

It was not a dance song, it was just a holy song with him.

26

In contrast, the following prayer and comments by TQM, also from
Point Arena, come from a later period and indicate how the Pomo borrowed
from Catholicism in creating their religion:

My uncle said one was dreaming for Christ and one for the
devil. That devil got everything backwards. It is best
to pray. He prayed a cross. He said to pray to Christ

for help. One must be careful about eating, not to upset
one's cup, not to get mad. One should not swear when

eating, or help the devil. One should make a cross of a
knife and fork before eating, for the devil is afraid of
that.

In cutting wood one makes a cross atop to keep the

devil away for the day. And one prays to keep the devil
away. Tell it to him [Christ]; he is there like a wind.
He is father and mother; pray to him. I'd pray, "Help
me through the day, through the night, whatever I do,

help me. Don't let me speak bad language; don't let me
shame. l"  I did it.  I had no trouble.

I prayed ";padre leho sjpirito santo, amen. " Four times.
God taught us; I don't know what it means. I say this as
long as I want to say something. It is like a prayer in
English. I say, "Father help us through the day, through
the night, be with us, don't let us speak bad words, bad
language.  0 Father be with me, and my people.  They

don't know, be with them all through the day, the night."
EaTh person has a different wording. Like a prayer meet-
ing, each has a different prayer.

It is clear from this account that some Maru leaders sought to teach
their people the values of the dominant white society around them. They
preached conformity rather than rebellion.

According to two informants, tattooing was connected with the Maru

cult. In the early years of the movement they believed that half-breeds had
to be tattooed in order to go to heaven, and that later this applied to full
bloods. However, most informants denied the connection with remarks that

tattooing was done because "they liked it" or "the whites stole girls [and
it was done] so they wouldn't take them," or "so that when a woman sleeps

with a man she wilL look different lying down." In the Ukiah Valley, tattoo-
ing was practiced by women only, though in more recent years a few men have
also done it. The procedure was described by BCF:

They get poison oak stick four or five inches long and
burn it, and get coal. When they get coal they put the

fire out, mash it between the hands, put it in a cup with

27

water. Then they put it on the face or other parts, and
wipe it off with green grass. If it doesn't look as if
it is going to get sore they work it over again. One

can onLy eat solid foods at this time. When it comes off
it [the skin] looks blue.

Another method of tattooing involved the use of coal or pitch from
pine trees, worked into designs on the skin with a needle or sharp object.
Designs varied, but were usually created on the face. Marks were made on
the chin, up and down, or horizontally outwards from the corners of the

mouth. Other parts of the body were sometimes tattooed, such as the lower
arm or breasts.

Although certain ideas and values of white society were eventually
absorbed through the Maru, during the initial years of the religion there
had been a time of categoric rejection of white people. The dreamers
taught that the intruding whites would die off and the Indians would

regain their land (cf., Du Bois 1939:1), and attempted to break up mar-

riages contracted between Indian women and white men. KLM said: "'There

were some Indian women married to old white settlers.  The Maru male them
leave them.  It is a sin, they said." The young people were instructed

not to go with or have babies by white people, and were taught that those
who married whites would not go to heaven and that mixed blood children
'would not come out well." The position of half-breeds regarding their

salvation was precarious within the Indian concept of heaven. Some Maru
preached that if these people were light-complexioned they could not go
to heaven and "made them take off all their clothes and get in the hot
sun." Others claimed that their dancing in the Maru ceremonies would
grant them salvation.

The Maru meetings were originally held in ,mderground houses which
were constructed to save believers from the destruction of the world.

Later ceremonies were held in timber dance houses, when the MIru teachings
stressed life after death and the house-type was no longer an integral
part of the religious doctrine.

Underground houses were built in the spring of 1872 at 6 different
centers in Pomo territory (Du Bois 1939:79): Sulphur Bank, Clark Ranch
on Kelsey Creek, Upper Lake, Potter Valley, Robertson Creek in southern
Jkiah Valley, and Hopland. Powers (1877:164-165) visited the one near
Ukiah at Robertson Creek and described it as follows:

I paid a visit to their camp four miles below Ukiah, and
finding there a unique kind of assembly-house desired to
enter and examine it, but was not allowed to do so until
I had gained the confidence of the old sexton by a few
friendly words and the tender of a silver half dollar.

The pit of it was about fifty feet in diameter and four

28

or five feet deep, and it was so heavily roofed with earth
that the interior was damp and somber as a tomb. It looked
like a low tumulus, and was provided with a tunnel-like

entrance about ten feet long and four feet high, leading
down to a level with the floor of the pit. The mouth of

the tunnel was closed with brush, and the venerable sexton
would not remove it until he had slowly and devoutly

paced several times to and fro before the entrance. Pass-
ing in, I found the massive roof supported by a number of
peeled poles painted white and ringed with black, and
ornamented with rude devices.

Informants in 1939-41 remembered the underground houses and the specific
purpose for which they were built.32 They were described as bigger than the
ordinary sweathouses used for other meetings than those of *the Maru. The

building was circular, the floor excavated, and the top roofed with poles,
brush, and earth. One man had seen the ruins of two of these early Maru

houses in the 1890's and gave the dimensions as fifty feet in diameter, with
the floor dug out to a depth of twelve feet, in spite of the winter rains
which had washed material into the depression. The entrance was on the

south side and sloped down four or five feet. There were no steps. Radiat-
ing from the center pole were other poles to support the roof, and on the
south side of the center pole was the fire.  One informant remarked:   "In
these underground places they built platform! around the walL in circles,

and then two decks, one on top of the other.     The method of decorating the
house was forgotten; some informants said they thought there had been no

decorations at all. This is in direct contradiction to the information given
by Loeb (1926:396), "All the interior walls and poles were decorated by a
painted triangle design of red, black and white, in the same style as the
dance costumes ."

The dance house on the Ukiah rancheria wghich was still standing in
1941 had been built about forty years previously, when Mornk Robinson was

leading the Maru cult. It took the place of the underground house and was
called a "Round House" by the Pomo. At old Pinoleville a similar building

hai been used when the Maru cult was practiced.   The Ukiah round house stood
above ground and was constructed of timber. Shaped octagonally, the internal
structure maintained the center pole and supporting poles of the older Maru
houses. The roof sloped upward from the outside edges to the center. The
positions of the entrance, on the south, and the fireplace, between center
pole and door, followed the traditional pattern.

In contrast to the rest of the structure of the dance house, the cen-
ter pole was decorated, and was considered important in the Maru cult by
some of the Pomo. It was stated that dreamers talked to the center pole.
KLM said:

Kalkom is the one who used to talk to the center pole,
ask it whom he was going to marry.

29

CHM gave a general statement on the subject:

The Maru sits there. He gets more as if in a trance, and

he speaks to the center pole with his head down, more as if
talking to a ghost.

Yet another informant, TLM, gave a skeptical interpretation of the Maru
leaders ' action:

There was one of these Maru people got so bold that he

pretended to be talking to the center pole in the dance
house. You see, every Indian dance house has a center
pole. It is the main support of the whole structure.

This particular Maru used to walk up to the center

pole, and slap the pole with his right hand, addressing
it as 'Mu-14-le.' Then he pretended to be holding con-
versation with this pole.   On one occasion he pretended
'Mu-l1i-le' advised him to marry two of the prettiest
women of the tribe.

Informants gave no indication of when this innovation occurred.   How-
ever, it may well have been during the decline of the cult, since the Maru
appears to have been using a device for individual gain, unlike the teach-
ings of collective safety and spiritual well-being of the early years.

TQMJ, from Point Arena, gave information on the same phenomenon. It

is ambiguous, and brings in the new element of God speaking beside the center
pole. He said:

They [informant's uncle and another man] said lots of

people were listening to me in heaven. They were sitting
dowm. Smoke [i.e., God] appeared in the east and moved
and stood by the center pole. He stands there and tells

you. You can't see his face. He goes out the other side
and you can't see him.34

The form of decoration on the center pole was not always the same be-

cause the Maru dreamed up different colors and designs. X)M remembered that:

They stripe the center pole. They call that a captain.
'Tja-ka-lE, I they call it.

30

Yellow clay and coal were used to stripe the center

pole in the 'ca-n4.' That's 'matd-w4ye'; it's got noth-
ing to do with the old time ways. I believe there were
four stripes of yellow clay and four of coal, four each.

I used to see some in other places. They stripe the
door. Some Matu do that, they dream differently--black
and yellow.

Another description, by SLF, states:

There are decorations in four places on the center pole,
black and white, and sometimes on the side poles.   In

late years they used paint, I guess, or something.   In
early years I don't know, coal, I think, charcoal and
gum.

Outside the dance house stood a flagpole, from which hung a flag dur-
ing Maru ceremonies. A variety of designs were remembered by informants for
decorating the flagpole; red and white stripes,35 four black stripes. The
flags could be blue with red designs, "of yellow cloth with tiny cross de-
signs usually of white cloth sewed on," white and red or blue and white.

Other descriptions were of more complicated designs--a flag from the coast
was "two and a half by three feet with a big star in the center and little

ones about, black stars on a white field." Yet another one was said to have
stars and moons for the Big Head dance.

Both flag and flagpole were considered sacred. The Maru warned the
people not to harm them because they might die if they did. BCF reported
that, according to DXM, Captain Tack died in a year after the abandonment
of the center pole on the Foster Ranch in Hopland, because he did not put
up a round house and give a dance as he had promised.

More specific information was given by TLM:

Monk Robinson had a pole that stood about thirty feet high,
painted in alternate stripes of white and black, right

here at the round house on the Yokia Rancheria. On top was
a wooden cross striped black and white.

The reason for the black and white was that they used
to use those colors in the old days in dances. They used
charcoal from the fire and white clay. Later they used
paints.

There were no flags in the old days. That was just

somebody's invention. They got the idea from the white
people, and the flags too.

31

There is a woman at the head of the Maru cult at

Stewart's Point. In front of the dance house there is
a colored painted pole about fifteen feet high, with a
colored flag attached. This is generally true of all
the Maru.

Other informants besides TLM remarked that the flags came from white
people.  The colors and cloth used substantiate their views.  Yet another
influence of the settler community was the cross, symbol of the Christian
Churches, which Monk Robinson put on top of the flagpole. In the Ukiah

Valley an "Old time Maru" used a looking glass and a bell, at a time when

the Indians were not acquainted with these things, claiming that Jesus gave
them to him. Also borrowed from the whites was the tablecloth used at

Point Arena for the feast when the Mtru dance was over. TQM described this
as eighteen feet long, of black cloth, with points "like those of a saw

blade" sticking out around the edge. Before putting it on the table eight

girls- danced with it counterclockwise four times, and then four times clock-
wise.

The meetings held in the dance houses included dancing as well as

preaching by the Maru. Dances belonging to the Old Ghost Dance and the Kuksu
Cult, and also the common dances, were perpetuated for a while by being in-
corporated into the new religion. The common dances, in which both men and
women took part, survived the Waru, and two totally new dances were created,
--the Big Head and Ball dances--as part of the ceremonies.

Informants recognized the similarity of the dance patterns in contem-
porary [1939-41] years to those followed at the turn of the century in the
Maru cult. In theory, these dances were dreamed, and perhaps individual

leaders made slight changes, but these were not remembered by the Pomo. Both
men and women danced. Sometimes the women danced alone, often in two rows

facing each other; sometimes the men danced alone; or they danced together.

Women did more of the Maru dancing than men. Patterns of four were basic to
the dances. CHM said:

They dance counterclockwise. Some dance on the left, some
on the right. Then they give a signal and change sides.
There are so many sets. On each side they repeat four
times, and they dance four times on each side.

Mostly women take part. This is more a woman's dance
than anything else. The men do the singing. There are
five or six of them by the center pole. It is just an
ordinary dance with rules.

The songs were dreamed by the M1ru,36 who was the leader since he knew
the songs better than anyone else. Accompaniment was provided by a drum,

32

clapsticks, whistles and rattles. Dancing was led by the Rock man, who tra-
ditionally organized the common dances.

The Big Head dance was remembered as part of the Maru ceremony, and as
a separate entity which survived the cult. Informants had seen it danced at

Old Pinoleville as part of the Maru, and again at the new site of Pinoleville
when a group of Pomo from Sulphur Bank put on the dance by itself. Only one
man maintains that the Big Head was put on by the Yokaya Pomo, others dis-
agree with him.37 People's familiarity with the Big Head dance was due in
part to its being performed at Sulphur Bank contemporarily.

The name of the dance came from the large headdresses worn by the

dancers. Some people called it "old Hesi" because the dance originated from
the Patwin who gave the name "Hesi" to it, but everyone considered it had
been created from dreams.

Two eyewitness accounts of the dance at Old Pinoleville follow.
First, that of GNM,

Two fellows dance in that. It is a strict dance. I know this

fellow (pointed north) here who made headdress, feast. He made
headgear with long feathers. He had two split stick rattles.
He marked himself with stripes. But at Sulphur Bank they

have it quite different from these fellows. Most that dance
over there come from Grindstone, aw.vay up there. At Sulphur
Barnk they go out and fix themselves up and come in. They

have a rather short way of dancing. We have a longer way of
dancing than they have. They danced in the Round house.
Just two danced the Big Head. That's all that danced it
around here.

Next, the report of XXM:

I saw the Big Head dance. The first time I was about eight
years old at Pinoleville. They had a very long something
with feathers at the ends, about 16-17 inches long. It
looked good. They danced hard. That's a lively dance.

They hop around quick and then they start dancing cna-ma-
tot, Big Head dance. They have to have lots of room,

circling about, so only three or two dance. They didn't
allow women to take part; to one side but not among the
men. That's the only Indian dance I like. They don't

wear the big feathers hanging behind, that would be in the

way. There is a band across the forehead and the Big Head.
There is nothing behind here [no skirt in back] as in the
common dances. The forehead band is of yellowhammer
feathers.

33

A more detailed description of the headdress was given by TLM:

Sometimes in the Maru the men wore the same heaidresses
as the old ones of the old dances. This is not true of
the Big Head of the Maru, where they wore twig baskets

fitting the heads, with twigs sticking out in all direc-
tions and upward. There might be fifty of these twigs.

On these were tufts of feathers, and on the ends a bunch,
usually of white feathers, a kind of tassel.     Today

they use little stiff wires. I saw one about eight years
ago in Lake County where they used paper instead of
feathers.

The way the headdress has changed, using any available materials, was re-
ported by KLM:

The Big Head which is still danced was danced in the
Maru. They danced a different style in that dance.
They danced running around the fire. They wore a

basket hat-like headdress with feathers in it. They

used turkey feathers, anything. It didn't matter what.

At that time they probably used wild buzzard. Now the 8
get turkey feathers at Christmas.   Those at the powwow
were of turkey feathers sewed on sacking. They are not
going to take the time to get buzzard or other kinds of
feathers.

More information was given by NTF, from Yokaya, without any indication
of when the dreaming took place:

One girl in Mission rancheria was being Maru. I guess
she dreamed that. She got a plain green dress. When

they have the Big Head they have a flag with stars and
moons, etc. The flag is put on the Round house. Have

a tule skirt and a fine tule band over the head and face,
and sticks with crepe paper all over the head stuck into
a tule band. Some are over the face so you can't see the
face. Two dance that, and a leader.

From Sulphur Bank came another description at a time when it was sepa-
rate from the Maru, this by CGM:

I don't know how many heads they have here, probably four,
and one flathead. My dauaghter has four and one flathead.

34

Those are given by God. They dance four days and four

nights. They dress east of the sweat house. They have

a hole where they fix up and come to the sweat house, one
at a shot, four of them. 39

They dance four sets for each head. Then they go out
and a new dancer comes in. The one inside dances four

sets. Then another comes in till the last one. As soon
as one comes out of the sweat house he takes off his rig-
ging and gives it to some other dancer.

If an outsider comes they fix up six or seven heads.
Then they go in file and people follow.

That woman has five heals. She got them through dreams.
She is also said to have 13-14 balls. She dreamed the
Ball Game.

The Ball Dance mentioned above was also part of the Maru cycle and was
dreamed by its initiators.  The origin was not known by the Pomo of Ukiah
Valley,, although they remembered that a Maru named Charlie Wathan led the

dance at Pinoleville. The last time it was performed was about 1920, when it
was done outside the Maru which was no longer being practiced. One woman had
learned the dance by watching it in Pinoletown, she said,

In this dance they had headdresses, both men and women.
The men danced on one side, the women on the other, and
they threw balls back and forth. They danced and sang.
The Ball Dance is called Ball 'k4-ma-ne..'

Another informant (XXM) remarked:

The Ball Dance is a dream dance. There are about four

on each side throwing balls across to each other. They

danced sometimes hopping around, sometimes standing still.
They laughed when they missed the ball.

I saw it up here at Pinoletown. Charlie Wathan used
to do the Ball Dance. He was killed on the highway.

Since then there has been no Ball Dance.40 IHe did it at
Pinoletown and I think at the hop camp. They never had
it at the Ukiah rancheria.

A resident of Yokaya, DiNF, saw the Ball Dance at El Robles where she was

visiting a man who was sick. Charlie Wathan led the dance and chose four

men and four women, two men and two women to each side. She described it:

35

I don't know what kind of a song he was singing. He

said to watch out so the ball wouldn't hit you, when you
would get sick. They say he had all kinds of things in
that ball, blood, etc. He had eight balls, two balls to
two persons, I think. He had a whole lot in a sack. He
picked out some. 'P-k6-ke,' Ball Dance, that's from way
up north, Oregon, I guess. He's from up there.

The costumes worn for Maru meetings and dances differed from place to
place, since the leader dreamed them for the occasion. These clothes be-

longed to individuals, but they were made according to the dreamer's direc-
tions.

Monk Robinson, in the Ukiah Valley, was not very concerned about

costumes. One informant remarked:   "Mvonk Robinson, my mother said, used to

have the single women dance without a dress on, just a short skirt. Whoever
dances like that is not going to die." Women generally wore clothes similar
to those of the white community, but added headbands and feathers.

On the coast the women's costumes were more elaborate. Abalone pen-
dants were worn by both men and women, and the cross was a favorite among

the designs used. The women's costumes had white trimming on a black dress,
or vice versa.

When John Boston was a Maru, according to one woman (STI),

They also had sacred dresses. There were certain women
who owned those. They wore them when they danced that.

The first time I saw those dresses eight women had them.
They were of red flannel with white trimming like stars,
and they had beads -with narrow abalone pendants on the
ends. The strings were about eight inches long.

One woman was buried in this dress. I guess all the

rest were also. There is only one woman left out of all
that. These eight are the only ones I saw dance in these
dresses.

Little was said of the men's costumes. Feather skirts, headdresses
of yellowhammer feathers, and abalone shell were mentioned. Monk Robinson
dreamed up decorated vests for the men. Otherwise the clothes of the
period copied and bought from the white community were worn.

When the dances were over the objects used--the musical instruments
and headdresses--were carefully put away. TLM gave a description as fol-
lows:

36

Each Maru had his own way of putting up outfits.    He

would sing, chant, go around in circles.   Each person
took his things home. The clap sticks and the cocoon

rattles which were found mostly on manzanita and tied in
a cluster on a bunch of quills and used to rattle with;
these were kept in a special place. They also kept the

Big Head costumes in this place at the back of the dance
house.

They were blessed before being used for each meeting, and when a Maru died
his personal outfit used for the cult could be destroyed by being sunk in
deep water, never burnt. It used to be considered dangerous to disobey
this rule, any transgression would court ill fortune or result in death.

After the Maru cult lost power over the people, the costumes were
no longer cared for. As one man, TLM, said:

My brother [KLM] and I lived on the coast a few months at
one time. I found an old dress of my mother-in-law's to
clean my rifle with. It was one of the old ceremonial

dresses. She had discarded it. She no longer believed

in the Maru. I should have died according to the old be-
liefs.

Another account was given by the same man:

They had all their Maru stuff packed in a little granary
when they stopped the cult here [Ukiahi. We kids used to
look in through the cracks. The old firetender who lived
neax by used to chase us away.   They probably rotted.

That's when the Indians became strong on the white man's
church.

The teachings of the Maru dreamers changed through time. Originally
they were prophets who announced that the end of the world was near and that
only those who joined their religion and sought protection in underground
houses with them at the time of destruction would be saved. TLM said:

These Marus, they preached that a great wind was going to
blow over the earth, sweeping away all living things.

And when the wind started to blow, the Indians were to
assemble in these underground chambers. That was for

protection against the great wind. But while waiting for
the great wind to come along, the Indians gathered in

these chambers and danced and had a good time. And these

37

dances were not the old, ancient Indian dances, but were
new dances that the Maru had been taught in his dreams.

The exact manner in which the world would end was predicted by the Marus,
but their prophesies differed. Kalkom taught that a great wind would
destroy the earth. A general statement about the Maru teachings was
given by SLF:

Some of them said there was going to be a big wind,

thunder, and the end of the world.  On the Burke Ranch
they built this underground house. They told them when
the wind or thunder came, they were to dance where they
were; then to come home to the sweat house. They were
to dance four times right there and then go toward the

main place. All the Matu said the end would be by wind
or thunder. They never said it would be by fire that I
know of. It was supposed to be soon.

This picture is the most common one. However, other informants men-
tion earthquakes as the cause of destruction, and one woman spoke about her
uncle, a Maru, who preached that the end would come through wind, snow,
rain and water. Fire was also predicted. BCF said:

They said the world is going to be destroyed by seven
suns--those Lake County people. I never heard of any

other way. But it never came. That's why we don't be-
lieve now. But the old time people believed.

The Pomo in 1940 remembered nothing about the return of the dead be-
ing a feature of the Maru religion. Most state that nothing was said about
it, although one informant made the following ambiguous remark:

The Maru didn't say anything about the dead. They said
the best thing people could do was join the Maru. They

said the dead would come back here. They never mentioned
heaven or where they would go if they were good.

In contrast to this information Loeb (1926:394) states that the

return of the dead, which was part of the Old Ghost Religion, "became an
essential, although still esoteric, portion of the new cult [Maru]." The
discrepancy between the lack of data on this concept in the movement and
Loeb's assertion is accounted for by Du Bois (1939:84) as follows:

38

It is very possible that the Patwin and Pomo rejected as
sacrilegious the Ghost Dance concept of a mass return of
the dead, since the summoning of a few ghosts had always
been for them a fearsome and esoteric ceremony. There-

fore they chose to stress, as more suitable, the concept
of a catastrophic destruction of the world--a concept

which their cosmological myths prepared them to accept.

An account of an early Maru meeting at Sebastopol which clearly shows
the initial excitement and ensuing disbelief was given by BCF:

They said the world was going to end. They never said
when. But all the people went over to Lakeport. There
is a big field before you get there--Big Valley. There

they all ganged up with people from Yorkville, Cloverdale
--not from Ukiah, Pinoleville. They had another part in
Hopland, I think. They took just as much as they could
pack and went to Lake County.

They have all kinds of law to go to heaven. If you
don't follow that law you go to hell. That's what they

claim. And pretty nearly all the men had a horse apiece

--saddled but no wagon. They can't take horses over there
or they won't go to heaven. So they sold all the horses
to Jim Burra [a Spaniard] for a dollar or two apiece;

good saddle horses. It was like giving them away. So
they walked over.

They waited maybe a year for the world to end. They
got hungry so they walked out; one family, two, three--
all going out. They no longer believed.

And at that time that Madru [a variant of name Maru]

said that even a little baby born that day must be married.
If they don't do that they say they won't go to heaven.
Everyone had to be married. But some don't like it.

That's where they had trouble and broke up. They just
were doing dancing. That's all. Everyone was doing a

dance, Indian dance. They danced night and day along for
maybe a year. Then some found it was not true and left.

They left everything they had put away: acorns for a year
and seeds to make pinole--wild barley, oats, used for

pinole after the Spanish. They used buttercup seeds for
pinole and wild sunflower seeds.

After that generation we don't believe that kind [of
man, i.e., the marul. It doesn't come true.

39

Although lack of understanding about the new cult between the Ukiah
Pomo and the white population did not result in disaster, the Indians were

aware of what had happened to Maru believers. At a meeting in Sonoma County
and Humboldt County, TLM gave the following report:

There was another thing that crept into this Maru business.
These great gatherings of the Indians for the Maru dances
often caused the whites to thinki the Indians were gather-
ing for the purpose of going on the war path.

At Cloverdale in Sonoma County the Indians had gathered
for one of these big dances,7 and the word got out among
the whites that the Indians were preparing to make an
attack upon the whites. The white people gathered to-
gether, armed themselves and surrounded the rancheria.

They were getting ready to massacre the Indians when some-
one convinced the whites that the Indians meant no harm.
The whites withdrew and allowed the Indians to continue
their dance.

On an island up in the Humboldt Bay, Humboldt County,
the Indians were holding one of these big dances when

under cover of darkness many of the white people slipped
over from the town of Eureka, and while the Indians were
in their dance house, dancing and having a good time,

these whites attacked the Indians and slaughtered them

almost to a man. A Wiyot Indian from Humboldt County has
a book that describes this massacre, and he himself is
the son of a man who was a baby when the massacre took

place. Albert James' father, he was an infant, and after
the massacre they found him lying by the side of his dead

mother who was killed by the whites--sucking on her breast,
trying to get milk out of his dead mother's breast. The

excuse was they thought these Indians were making prepara-
tions to attack the whites. So the Maru bupiness did not
work out so well for the Indians after all.41

When the Maru was at its height there were large meetings in which

a number of neighboring groups were called together. The Pomo from Hopland,
Lake County, and Point Arena came to the Yokaya dances, and the people from
Yokaya visited other groups in turn when dances were being given. The

announcement of the meeting seems to have come from the chief of the group
rather than from the dreamer himself.

There were also smaller meetings when only the local people were
present. As the cult waned in popularity it was this pattern which

prevailed, since large gatherings were no longer possible. It was usual

for the meetings to take place at night, but there was dancing during the
day as well and certain dances could only be done in the daytime. The

40

proceedings lasted for four nights. 2 The formal pattern of dances in 1939-

40 among the Ukiah Pomo was still the same, with a longer dance on the fourth
night.

)44

The Maru leaders decided when the dances should be held.     Favorite
times were in the spring when the flowers were in blossom, around Christmas,
and in the fall. When the dancing was over a feast of Indian food was
served. DNF said,

They always put up a dinner. Sometimes they invited

other rancherias but not always.   Monk Robinson did that.
They did that lots for him. They had the old-fashioned
kind of food, our kind. Four women would go out and get
clover, etcetera. The Matu called for that. Maybe two
baskets of acorn mush, two baskets of acorn bread. The

men would get fish in four baskets; get deer meat and put
in basket. That's the way they used to put up dinner.
They divide up the baskets in four places and they all
sit around and eat. They used flat plates made of tule

in Lake County. Fish with bones removed and mush; that's
good.  I haven't had it for a long time.

Since the feast was part of the ceremony, the food was blessed to emphasize

its distinctiveness from everyday meals. The insistence on making traditional
dishes stresses the Pomo desire to keep their religion separate from the white
world. The food was blessed in a variety of ways, as this account by SLF
indicates:

They had to bless the food. Some of them take food,

Indian food, pinole, deer meat, acorn bread, acorn mush.
Sometimes they burn it. Sometimes they throw it in the
four directions. They only took four kinds of food,
Indian food.

45

The way ODF   does is to take a teaspoonful of every-
thing, and then to burn it.   My grandfather, John Boston
used to throw it away, or if the river was full he used
to throw it in the river and let it float away. If the
river was not full he used to put it in the fire. When
one threw it away in the four directions one would just
stand there and throw it the four ways.

The sequence in which a Maru would throw the food was given by another inform-
ant, XXM

If there are ten kinds of food they get a pan and take
some of each kind of food and throw them in the four

41

directions; first to the south, th,e to the east, then
north, then west. They do it now.4t The Matu had a

dinner. He was a real fellow. He had a dance and put
up a dinner.

A recollection from fifty years prior to making a statement was given
by GNM in the following terms:

When they eat he blesses the food. He picks up certain
food from the table and throws it away. And he talks

there but no one knows what he said. He goes around four
times, I think. That is around here, Maru all do that.
The last one was the one I saw down there [i.e., Old

Pinoleville]. We moved from there in 1893. I don't know
how long before that I saw this Maru, but not too far off.

Yet another variation waS given by the same informant:

The Matu has to doctor the food, going around four times.
He puts a little bit of all kinds of food on this flat

tule plate and goes off alone to the north and offers it
to someone. No one hears him. He goes off alone. He
goes around four times counterclockwise and stops each
time by the food. Then he takes the food and goes off
and says his prayer there. They say, everything goes
good there when they do that; my old man says nothing
happens.

Transition to Christianity

The Maru religion gave a temporary unity to the Pomo, and enabled

them to retain a unique Indian identity before Christianity was established
in their commIunities. However, the people were disillusioned when the pre-
dicted end of the world did not arrive and gradually fewer came to the

ceremonies. In 1940 the Valley Pomo no longer believed in the Maru, al-
though the Pomo on the coast still held Maru meetings.

The Maru had already passed the height of its power before a con-
certed effort by both Catholic priests and nuns was made to convert the

Pomo to Catholicism.  By 1940 most of the Ukiah Valley Pomo were baptised
and considered themselves Catholics but their allegiance to the Church was
nominal. Attendance at church services was meager and the only ceremonies
to which most people went were funerals.

The Ukiah Pomo remembered that the Catholic church was established

at Hopland, south of their community, by the Spanish and that a mission was

built there. The Maru leader Salvador brought the first priest among them.
The initial impact was spoken of by TIM:

The Maru started here and in Lake County before the Cath-

olics. The Catholics were first here probably about sixty
years ago47 [1880]. I was baptised in Hopland. Cathol-
icism was in Hopland before it entered here. There were

many Spaniards in Hopland. The Spaniards never penetrated
here. There was a Spanish settlement in Hopland that goes
back quite a long way but there was none here.

In time the Indians here dropped the Maru and took over
Catholicism.  The Maru fizzled out, became abhorrent, it
predicted things that never came true. At first not all
of the Indians fell for the white man's religion. The

chief here earl 8became a Catholic, and he influenced the
others to join.

Early contact with Christianity was through individual priests and
ministers who came to preach among the Pomo and teach them Western faiths.

In the 1890's a Methodist minister named Burchard lived with the Indians at
Pinoleville for a few years but his work was not followed up.   The first
Catholic priest was called Williams according to SLF.   Another informant,
JLF stated:

In the old days there was no church house, so they would
sit around outside, and teach them. The early priests
would teach the Indians to pray in the Spanish way.

The teaching function of the Catholic Church was carried on in an in-
creasingly organized fashion in later years, both in religious and secular
subjects. The first school on Yokaya rancheria was a Catholic one run in

conjunction with St. Patrick's Catholic Church by a group of nuns.49 It was
set up in 1903 and subsidized by the Federal government for a while. When
subsidization was discontinued TIM talked with the priests about getting

another school, "because the Indian children had no school to go to." The
Indian Bureau in Washington was contacted and arrangements made for a new
school to be erected on the rancheria. Construction began in 1917.

In 1940 the nuns still visited the rancheria churches to teach cate-
chism and prayers to the children, and they ran a convent school to which a
few girls went.  Little was said about the conflict between traditional Pomo
religious thinking and that of the Catholic Church; perhaps this was because
adherence to the new religion was not profound enough. WBF said:

They are told not to believe the old Indian ways. Some
still believe in the old ways.

43

Informants were aware that missions had been set up elsewhere, such
as that in Lake County, and that churches were built in the town of Ukiah
before they were constructed on the rancherias. TLM made the following
remarks:

You see, Mexican people built no missions up here, so the
Indians were allowed to live pretty much as they had been
before the Mexicans came, and the Indians were given
certain areas of land to use to grow things for them-
selves.

The Sisters caxae in about 1897--around then somewhere.

The Sisters were teaching the school. There were churches
on the rancherias quite a while before that.

One man's view of -the failure of the Maru was clearly influenced by
Christian thinking regarding indigenous religions.  DCM put it like this:

The Indians are dying out. And it's because they are
being punished for belief in the Maria doctors. At the

time of the 1906 earthquake, people believed that stuff,
and they danced day and night in the sweathouse.   "World
coming to an end,," they said.  Now God punishes them,

because they danced all the time, didn't sleep, and said
the world was going to end.  That was a lie.   The Indians
are being punished for lying.

Different reasons were given by SLF for the change of religion:

It [the Maru] didn't last, they said,, because the priest

came along and the priest took them over.   Some were working
for the whites and alrea&y had got away from the Maru. The
priest used to preach in the round houise and they all be-
came Catholics and were ba;ptised.

The round house, center of previous religious ceremonies, was probably
the largest and most convenient place for the priest to use. His preaching
there symbolized the Church's desire to replace previous cults. TLM judged
the penetration of this alien faith in the following terms:

The Indians seemed to mix the dream stuff with the Catholic
religion. The Indians embraced the Catholic religion

rather readily. Some of the early settlers felt that it was
no good to bring these missionaries in. I think it's bad

to try to change the Indians too fast--it breaks down their

culture, the foundations of their culture.   They're neither
white nor Indian.   My father [a white man] said that the

Indians would have been better off if the missionaries had
not come.

KLM gave another account, summing up the coming of Catholicism and its
effect on the Maru:

Today they are Catholic here.   There used to be first

Catholics at Hopland, then here. On the coast they don't
believe in any church. They're Matu there. They believe
that pretty strong. Captain John (a Matu) died five or

six years ago. They buried him down at Santa Rosa. His

name is I?s-l1w.t  There were Spaniards at Hopland.   They
all spoke Spanish there. The Spanish raised the old

timers. Then it spread here. Captain Lewis was raised
to speak Spanish. He was the only one around here who
could speak Spanish. Catholicism has been here about

thirty-five years.50 It was earlier in Hopland; they
used to pray in Spanish there. The Catholics must have

been in Hopland sixty or seventy years ago. I know they
said they were there before I was born. The priests used
to go bare-footed. They came from the coast, they say.

The Maru--like Kalkom, must have been here seventy years
or so; it was before I was born. It was as far back as
they could recollect, said my old people.

Let us now look at the position of the Christian churches and the

place of Christian beliefs and practices within the Pomo community in 1940.
Of the many sects in Ukiah, only three had members among the Indians of the
rancherias: the Methodist, Pentacostal and Catholic. One family from
Pinoleville belonged to the Methodist church, and less than ten Pomo

attended Pentacostal services. The Pomo Catholics very seldom went into
the town to church, both because they felt unwelcome there and because

there were churches on the rancherias. The multiplicity of sects led some
Indians to disbelieve in Christianity for they could not see why there

were "groups like Baptists and Catholics when they all had the same gods."
The presence of both Japanese and Chinese residents in Ukiah who did not

profess any western faith further confused the religious complexity in the
town. KBM remarked, "[You] can't tell me this fellow have one Christ and
that another!"

In 1940 there were three Catholic churches on the rancherias which

held services in rotation once a month. At Pinoleville only Indians attended
mass at St. Dominic's on the first Sunday of the month; mass was celebrated
on the second Sunday at St. Joseph's, Guidiville, where a few Italians

attended as well as the Indians. Both Italians and Filipinos joined the

Pomo Catholics for mass on the fourth Sunday of the month at St. Patrick's,

45

Yokiah. Informants made a distinction between whites and Italians by say-
ing that no whites ever came from the town to their services but that

Italians did. For three months in the summer St. Patrick's was closed,5

but the Indian congregation preferred not to attend church services in town.

Attendance at church services was poor and limited mostly to children
and a few middle-aged people. Both the very old and the young avoided the

church. The lack of faith in Catholicism was recognized by most informants.

KLM remarked:  "They all supposed to be Catholic, but they don't believe it."

BCE said:

Not many go to the church here [i.e., Pinolevillel. Lots

go at Christmas time. The Indians claim they are Catholics
but don't go. Even down at Hopland they don't go.

Young people don't got to church so much as the old

people. When they are small they go all right, but when
they grow up they don't seem to go so much.

Her statement was confirmed by TLM, who was brought up a Catholic:

Not many Indians go to church when it is held. Mostly
children go and not many anyway. Most people probably
have the idea they should start the children off right.
They don't care much for themselves. The Indians care
more for dances, movies. They don't care so much for

this Christian stuff anymore. I don't know whether its
their fault or the fault of the times.

Christmas, Lent and Easter were observed by the practicing Catholics.
The customs of decorating the house with a tree and holly, and having a

special meal of turkey on Christmas day were mentioned by members of three
families. The observance of food tabus--no meat on Fridays and fasting

during Lent--were acknowledged as being inoperative among the Pomo, since

it was hard for the people to get meat and they considered they should eat
it if and when they had it, regardless of church rulings.

The Pomo accepted the role of the church in both the sacraments of

baptism and confirmation. Neither ceremony conflicted with past customs and
were not resisted, although some informants were skeptical about the good

they did. In contrast, marriages and funerals were marked by the retention
of old ways of thinking and behaving in spite of the teaching of the church
to the contrary.

Informants differentiated between modern marriage, which could be
both consecrated in a church by a priest and legalized by the State with

46

a license, and traditional marriage, sanctioned by an exchange of gifts be-
tween the parents of the couple. They recognized the authority of both

church and state over marriage contracts, and often preferred to live to-
gether without the formal sanction of either institution, so that if the
arrangements did not work out, they could separate without outside inter-
ference. Other marriages developed through two stages, first living

together for a few or many years, and then being married by a priest. The
Catholic church does not permit divorce. The effect of this rule was
revealed by BCF when she said:

Well, you don't want to be in a hurry to get a man. Got

to know him pretty much first before you marry him. They
act different maybe when you first know them than when

you're married to them. That's what I tell my grandchildren,
but they won't listen. That second man of mine, I lived

with him ten years before I married him by Catholic way. I
lived with him, got to know him pretty well, got acquainted
with him. Then we got married by the church. You see I
didn't want to lose my religion. If I'd married him and

then left him and found another man I couldn't have stayed
with my religion. So I thought this way was better. I
had to find out for myself about men like that.  Nobody
ever told me about it. But that way I stayed with him
and kept my religion.

DNF said she was married by Burchard, a Methodist minister first, and
then added: "A year after that we got married by the Catholics. After my
baby was born and baptised. We were married by the priest that time.

The dual heritage of Christian and Indian beliefs was apparent at
funerals. Since the intrusion of Western people, not only has the Pomo

population been severely reduced by diseases brought by the foreigners, but
burial practices and regulations regarding deaths have been imposed on the

community by the dominant white society. The traditional custom of dispos-
ing of the dead was by cremation at a burning ground near the village, and

during the ceremony the chief made a speech. 52 In 1940 the priest officiated
at funerals, and the dead were buried in graveyards attached to the church.
Where once the responsibility for expenses lay solely with the relatives of

the dead, either the county or state helped pay for the funerals of the very
poor in the community. Only one informant specifically linked the discon-

tinuance of the custom of cremation with the entrance of the Catholic church.
She was probably correct, since the Church teaches that the dead should be
buried.

The oldest people in the community could still remember seeing the
dead being cremated. It used to be the custom to keep the corpse in the

house until it was burned three or four days after death. After cremation the
dust and remains were put in a basket with blankets and beads and buried

47

carefully by relatives because other people were afraid to touch skeletons,
which they considered poisonous. When CWF was a little girl she saw the
ceremony:

I saw my grandfather [i.e., mother's father] burned. Put
on great big fire. Wrapped up with blankets, baskets,
beads, throw it on fire. I just hollered loud.

In contrast, WQM described a contemporary burial:

I went to ?DF's funeral [Q,DF's baby]. They buried lots of
things, baskets, beads, blankets. My mother brought a
blanket. She was buried in the Catholic cemetery--the
priest was there. He just makes part of the ceremony,

then he goes home. The others stay to finish burying the
baby. They didn't cry much. Not many people came. They
start crying, then they stop, then they cry again. Some

groups would stop crying together and start together later
--but others might still be crying. The burial started at
two in the afternoon and wasn't over till five o'clock.

The traditional custom of burying wealth with the dead had persisted.
With the disappearance of such items as beads, blankets and baskets, substi-
tutes were found in the form of money, watches and flowers. SILF said that
the first instance of flowers at a funeral was about 1915, at her sister's
funeral. The reason given for these offerings was generally that they
showed respect for the dead person and his family. CLM added:

About the only thing they do now with beads is bury them
with someone who dies. They think that is an honor, for
both the person who puts them in and for the dead person.

An individual might prepare for death by making sure there would be
beads for his grave; TLM mentioned this practice:

If a person who had many beads died they would put on him
the beads he reserved for himself. He would have desig-

nated some for other members of the family. The old widow
Lucy has a lot of beads. She is saving those to be placed
on her body when she dies. An Indian doesn't like to think
that when he dies he will have nothing on his body. It is
a disgrace to die and have nothing of value on your body.

48

It used to be the custom to burn the house and belongings of the dead
man. KCM, from Upper Lake, made the following comments on this subject:

In the old days, when a man died, all of his possessions
were destroyed. They broke up his wagon, killed his

horses, broke his gun and things like that. They buried
some of the things with him. All of his things except

his house were destroyed, and in the old days, when they
had grass houses, they used to burn them also.

The influence and laws of the white community regarding property have
penetrated among the Pomo. The only instances of houses being burned which
KIM could remember were one in 1940 in Pinoleville, because the woman owner
had died of T.B., and another on Yokaya rancheria about 1920.

The traditional custom of exchanging gifts at funerals persisted in
1940, even when the Catholic priest officiated at the burial. It was done
to show respect to the dead and to the family of the dead. For a relative
of any of the parties closely related to the dead person to refuse to come
to the funeral or to exchange gifts was a great insult. It meant that the
offender did not like the dead man, or perhaps the dead man's family, and

wanted everyone to know it. The action indicated hatred; retaliation would
be in kind. Thus a family feud would be born. Ordinarily, friends and

relatives gave beads, baskets, blankets, or money to the family of the de-
ceased, which then attempted to make a return gift equal to that received.
FGF remarked:

If you take a blanket to the funeral, you get back beads
or baskets. If you take a basket, you get back beads or
a blanket.

Different views were expressed regarding the specific nature of the gift de-

pending upon who had died and the relationship of the donor to the dead indi-
vidual. SLF stated:

In case of death, if the deceased is connected with another
family through a male, the members of this family give

blankets to the relatives of the deceased; if through a
female, the family would give baskets.

Another practice was described by TLM:

When someone dies, friends and relatives give gifts and re-
ceive gifts in return.  It used to be baskets given when a

49

man died and beads when a woman. This was because women
were basket-makers and men bead-makers. They still give
gifts, but they don't adhere to the old way strictly.

There were no rules about the return gift. The value depended on the
gift received and how the people felt. NWM said:

To give something in return means friendship. Doesn't
look right not to give something in return.

The time of the return gift depended on when the family of the dead man had
enough to give. The exchange could be done on the day of the funeral, or a
week or month later. IDM stated:

They count everything carefully, never forget how much
or whom they owe. Then they pay back.

Changes were remarked upon by informants. For instance, that more

money was being used and that young people brought flowers since traditional
Indian wealth was becoming more scarce.

KCM noticed another trend:

Indians are starting to bring gifts which are useful to
the family of the deceased. Probably due to white in-
fluence.

The period of mourning varied with individual feeling for the dead
person. Traditional expressions of grief were remembered, but no longer
followed. Relatives used to cut their hair short, scratch themselves to
draw blood, and put clay on their head which remained until it fell off.
The custom of wearing black was borrowed from the white community.

In the past those who handled the corpse were required to cleanse

themselves with soaproot, angelica root or pepperwood leaves. The custom
of washing survived, as TLM pointed out:

Those that handle the body, not the mourners, wash them-

selves with ordinary soap upon returning from the funeral.

In 1940 many Pomo were reluctant to hear or to use the name of a dead person,
nor did they like to keep a photograph of someone who had died.

50

Healing in the Maru

The Maru leaders practiced as doctors among the Pomo; their power came
through dreams, as it did for the rest of the cult ceremonies. In KKM's

-words, the cult "started a great chain of doctors among our people." Inform-
ants made specific mention of John Boston, Monk Robinson and Ba-Hay-yoe as
doctors, and said that there were many others, many of whom were women.

Freeland (1923:57-58) distinguishes between two ty-pes of doctor in

Pomo society, the outfit or singing doctor and the sucking or dream doctor.
She goes on to say that, apart from these men, the Maru also healed, but

"they do not practice bleeding or sucking, but perform with elaborate mo-

tions, accompanying with cocoon rattles and split sticks the song which they
sing." According to Freeland's informant William Benson, a half-breed

Eastern Pomo of Lakeport and Yokaya rancheria, the Pomo name for the sucking

doctor is 'madu.' Both the name and the mode of gaining authority are similar
to the Maru doctor, and, added to the evidence given by informants, suggest

that the sucking doctors became established and may even have originated with
the cult itself. TLM made the following remarks on the subject:

And then there were the lesser men who had dreams like
that, and they didn't order a big dance like that but
they started to doctor, tell what was wrong. The big
Matu didn't do that. And they were both Matu. These

little dreamers became the sucking doctors. There were
no sucking doctors in the old days.

Some informants made a distinction between the Maru and the sucking doctors,
others did not. FGF stated:

Sucking doctor i-s different from the Maru dreamer. M;y

uncle, he wasn't sucking doctor, he was just Ma-tu. Suck-
ing doctor is Ma-ttu. Sucking doctor, he dreams too,
something bother him too, that way.

Informants recounted a nuimber of cases in which they were cured by
Maru doctors. TLM began with general statements before relating his own
cure:

They pressed the body up and dovmn, up and down with the
palms of the hands and chanted. This did not laost four

days, but parts of two days. Sometimes they only did it

once. They used the big single whistle and blew from the
head down to the feet (not very loud--whoo).  Four times
they did this the length of the body. They used a clap

51

stick and held the stick in the right hand and took both
hands of the patient, one in eazh of theirs, and shook
them and the stick at the same time. Then the doctor

would sing some of the medicine songs53 and he would take
a chip or flake off a bottle, etc., and cult the patient's
skin and suck the blood. He made the cuts wherever the
pain was. He might make a dozen little cuts and suck--

the suction would draw more blood. Then the patient was
supposed to get better. When the doctor pressed down

with his hands and handled your hands he was supposed to
have the power of healing in his hands.

I had a pain in my side when I was a young fellow. It
must have been an appendix. My grandfather made slits

and sucked. I've never had the pain since. I don't say
he did it. I've never believed in that. These doctors
got their instructions and power from some power. They
just doctored on the quiet. They didn't preach or pre-
dict.

SLF underwent a four-day cure given by her mother's uncle, John Boston,
and was healed. She said:

I was sick. He [John Boston] came in with four pepperwood
sticks. He stuck them over t'he south door of the camp.
Then in the evening he brought four more. He said, "I

can't sing over you because you don't believe. I don't
blame you because your mother don't believe." I told

[TLM] who said to ask him to sing. So he came four times
and sang. He said, "You don't believe, but you Indian
anyway." He came with four pepperwood leaves about two
feet long. He touched me with that.    He said I did not
obey the rules so I got that way. He said, "You won't
have any more trouble. '

On another occasion this same informant further clarified her sickness as
having been a "terrible feeling" in her head.

At a time when many people had whooping cough 'd?-w:>k?15' the Maru
doctors cured the sick. FGF, her daughter and granddaughter were all ill
and her uncle came to doctor them. She said,

YMy uncle doctor me. He was a Maru. He was living that
time yet. That how I got cured. He sing. They call1

that 'dzd-di-wil wldon' (devil make),--that mean doctor.
And he cure me.

52

Another cure was recounted by TQ.M,

My uncle doctored me when I had the tonsils. He would
not come until he was called--that was the custom. He

said don't talk, just say come and doctor me. I was ly-
ing there; I couldn't spit. He came there singing.

About the third song that thing broke, and the stuff
came out, and I never had any more trouble.

According to SLF, a practice was observed which was similar to bless-
ing the food eaten when Maru ceremonies were completed. She said,

Sometimes the Matu will be doctoring someone when the

table is out, and will take some food and throw it away.
Mty grandfather [John Boston] used to throw away food in
the four directions. An offering to god.

In contrast, GNM spoke of healing which was done solely during the
Maru ceremonies,

When anyone takes a fit when the Maru is dancing, the
Maru doctors them his way. He just sings and uses his

stick going around them always four times when he doctors.
They never doctor any other times but only when dancing
and something happen like that.

The Pomo ways of doctoring continue both in the Ukiah Valley and on
the the coast, and are discussed below. It should be noted that the Maru
doctors healed the sick both by singing over their patients and by sucking
the illness from the person's body. Thus, the practical division between

the two types of doctors drawn by Freeland blurs when considered against these
informants' statements. The main dividing factor is one of inheritance rather
than method.

53

POISONING AND DOCTORING

In 1940 the Pomo went to white doctors to be treated for most sick-
ness; however, they had their own doctors to whom they went as well. They
distinguished between traditional singing doctors and the more recent and
less respected sucking doctors, some of whom also cured with their hands
or with smoke.

Sickness could be caused by poisoning. Only Indian doctors understood
and could cure some cases of poisoning  since they had the power to heal and
knew how to and sometimes used poisonA64 TLM said:

The doctor could be a poisoner if he wanted to be. But

a poisoner was often not a doctor. He didn't necessarily
know the cures. I know old Indians who people said would
poison, who were not doctors. You had to have faith in
the doctors.  Some people would say so-and-so was a good
doctor, but they were afraid he would poison the sick

person instead of curing him. Some people didn't trust
the singing doctor because he could also poison. They
didn't want to offend the singing doctor. He was a man
to be feared and respected.

Maty informants remembered the time when everyone believed in poisoning, and
in 1940 the older and middle-aged Indians, especially women, still believed,
although some were not sure. Those who believed feared strangers and in-

sisted one should only visit among relatives. They said one should be wary
of accepting food or drink from anyone who did not first take some himself.
However, this has changed among the young, as SLF remarked:

In the old days we would never go around visiting all the
time like these younger people do. When I was young the

peop"le who did that would be able to be poisoned. That's
why they would never do that. All the families were to-
gether so you could see your relatives without going all
over.55

A poisoner could be either a man or a woman.    According to CWF,
poisoners sang when they were going to make poison and had

. a . a stone with four circles for pounding poison: . .

They don't touch their face for eight days when they make
poison. Never come home. Just stay away from home.

54

Over the poison they stretch out their hands three times,
turn the head to the left once, stretch out their hands

twice, turn the head left once, stretch out the hands one
time, turn the head left once more. Then pick up the
poison in the left hand.

The poisons57 mentioned by informants were plants, herbs, mushrooms,

"?rattlesnake juice in water," "pinole poison from lizards and snakes,"f "place
blood of waterdog on hand and rub against victim," "touch with coyote paw,"
"ipoison from rattlesnake grease put in mouth while sleeping," "gather oak

blossoms when in bloom and mix with human bones and all kinds of snake blood,"
"icould kill a woman through a bull snake." These poisons could affect some-

one by being put on their clothing,58 hair, nail, or spit, on money or beads,
on a person's shadow, on the basket material a woman was working with, or in
food or drink.

The cures for cases of poisoning varied and were known only to Indian
doctors; no white doctor could help. BCF said the doctor had to "use poison
to doctor with, try all kinds, the one affecting you is the one used to cuire

with, some Indian poisons don't affect you right away. Takes years." Another
woman (CWF) was more specific: "Waterdog is used to cure cases of pois(n--
the guts are placed on a big fire, the patient laid on for fifteen minutes." t

Informants spoke of their personal experiences of being poisoned and
those of their relatives. NTF mentioned a time when she was poisoned: her
face swelled and her head hurt until a singing doctor came and cured her;
KDM said he was cured by a doctor named Conway from Chico; JLF remembered

that her mother had been poisoned once when she was sleeping, and went on to
say:

Nowadays they poison babies by poisoning the baby's basket.
They break a stick off it. The mother never knows what
makes her babies die, but Indian doctors, they know."

In 19 4O the issue was still alive, for SLF spoke of a current case:

KNM has recently been sick on Yokaya rancheria.   He was
doctored by ODF, the woman doctor of Kelseyville.   ODF

said he was poisoned but that she did not know why or by
whom. He had lots of enemies, and people said that he

was poisoned because he had ditched a girl once, and that
she and her mother had put dope in his wine.   Then he

suffered from stomach all the time. Before that he had

been a big husky boy, but now he looks like bones covered
with skin.

55

Although the Pomo of all ages went to the white doctors in 1940, the
older people still believed in the power of their own doctors whereas the
young did not. A distinction was made between Indian and white sickness;
BCF pointed out,

Now the Indians get sick with white sickness--only a white
doctor can cure this. Now at sixty they are ready to go
underground. Long ago we had buckeye mush, manzanita

berry for pinole. Taste better than cake. And papernut.

This opposition of types of sickness accords well with the classification
of the causes59 of sickness and the appropriate doctor resorted to. Bar-
rett (1952:359-360) states that according to Pomo belief illness was

caused by violating a restriction or tabu, by poisoning, or could be due

to an ordinary cause. White doctors would only be effective in the latter
classification.

Cases were recounted of the failure of white doctors to cure Indians,
and one woman blamed the death of her niece in 1940 upon the Government
doctor. However, another point of view was voiced by NNF, who said:

The Indians blame the white doctor in practically all cases.
They don't call him until the case is pretty serious. It's
near the end and an Indian doctor usually hangs around. If
he dies they blame the white doctor.   If he lives they
credit the Indian doctor.

XXM remembered the cure of FGF:

She was given uap for dead by the doctor at the state

hospital and another doctor from town too. Her husband
said they ought to hire Bill Rice, an Indian [singing]
doctor. He said the white people don't know anything
about Indians. They did get Bill Rice, and she is

living. Rice gave her some remedy and sang old words.
He did a lot of singing. He sang four nights.

Although another informant remembered the cure in much the same sequence,

FGF herself stated that she was operated upon for a tumor in San Francisco
by white doctors after the Indian doctor had failed to help her.60

In spite of his skepticism over doctoring, in 1929 TLM upheld his
people's right to treat the sick in their own way. As President of the
Ulkiah Council of the Indian Brotherhood of California, he countered the

56

charges made by Lucy Keenan, a Government Indian nurse, that twg.'medicine
men" had hastened the death of a young girl by their practices.61

Let us examine the practices of the singing doctors, 2 all of whom

were men. TLM gave a clear and extensive account of the way in which these
doctors worked in relation to a specific instance of a chief being cured by
a man named Loho.  He said:

The singing doctor was the real doctor; the one they re-
lied on. They came from away back yonder. They were
supposed to have started with creation. This power
passed down through the family. This was learned, it
did not come from dreams. It was a real profession.

In Lake County there was an old man, Augustine, an old
chief.  He got sick and he was sick for a long time.   His
relatives hired all the big doctors around the Lake and
in Ukiah Valley but nobody cured him. There was an old

man, Loho, who was a big doctor, an Indian doctor, one of
the best.  The Indians wondered why they didn't hire L5ho'
to doctor Augustine, although some of them did not trust
him and were afraid he would kill him instead of curing
him.  But as a matter of last resort they did hire LoM.

So Loho went over to Lake County and doctored this fellow,
four days and nights. Four or five other old men went

along with him as helpers. The fall of the year following
this doctoring, Augustine was over here picking hops. He
was quite an old man. L5h6's fame spread far and wide

because of this cure. In that case he cured rather than
killed. It used to be said that some of these doctors

poisoned people to have the job of curing them afterwards.

These doctors were paid well for their work. They

did not ask for any special amount. The people used to
fasten one end of a string of beads on something on the

wall about seven feet above the floor and coil the other
end on the floor.  There were about 7,000 - 8,000 beads.

The reason for helpers was that all his songs were

sung in a series of four songs. They had a great bunch
of little sticks tied up in a bunch. They were a little

larger than big size matches. A little place was cleared
off for the sticks. When the doctor finished one song,

the helper would put down one stick and say this is one.
The doctor sang the same song four times and the helper
put down a stick each time, and announced it. When he

laid the fourth down he said, "That completes it." Then
a new song was sung four times with the sticks laid down.
Each song was sung four times until the pile of sticks

57

was all gone. Then he had completed the songs he was sup-
posed to sing. The reason for the sticks is to prevent

mistakes. It is very strict. Any mistake is bad for the
doctor. It would make him sick, and probably kill him.

This is repeated on the second day. They always started
the singing with one special song, sung four times while
they were sitting. All the songs were sung sitting down.
The doctor always has the cocoon rattle in his hand to
keep time with. After a few songs he sang this sack-
opening song (the same all over the Pomo nation), and

with it named every object in his sackf64 He had small

feather bunches65--probably a dozen different ones. Wood-
pecker feathers were used, not crow nor yellowhammer

feathers. They used a certain kind of hawk feathers, and
raven feathers. And he had various shaped rocks, some

flint knives, a dried coyote's paw, and various roots in
there, and he had a short little pestle, maybe six inches
long, and he had a little hollowed out rock--a mortar

about six inches in diameter. These were used to pound
his medicine. These doctors used medicine also. They

used tools. I have seen them put them in a cup and give
the patient a drink. The doctor would take them all out
and spread them out on the bare ground by the fire.   He
also had four or five of the yellowhammer quill bands

used on the forehead in the dance. These were larger than
the dance kind, and they were rolled up and tied. He had
two or three hairnets and three or four stickpins in the
sack. They were not all used in one doctoring, but the

doctor always took them all out. He left the things out
all the time of the doctoring-for the four days.

About the third day, if a person was apt to die, the
doctor tried all his arts, and would dance--not a real
dance, but just a shuffle back and forth. While he

danced the helper sang and shook the rattle. The doctor
never sang while he was up dancing. The helpers always

sat. They never took part in the actual doctoring, just
in the singing part. The doctor only danced if the per-

son was very sick, otherwise he only sang during the four
days.

They didn't always have a dance [to celebrate a cure].
Sometimes the doctor told them to give a small dinner.

The doctor never asked for a dance.  I saw L5ho many times.
I don't think he ever asked for a dance.

Another account of the singing doctor, given by CWF, agrees with the
preceding one. However, she called the doctor "rattle doctor" and named a
variety of different objects contained in the outfit sack.  She said:

58

The rattle doctor comes in and sits down and spreads out

his things on the floor. Before spreading out his things
he holds both hands out four times to the East, four

times to the South, four times to the West, four times to
the North, four times to the sky. Then four times he
aims to pick up things. No one walks on the rattle

doctor's things for the people are afraid. He sprinkles

his things with dope, with waterdog and snake blood. Men
and women and children, all get sick if they touch his
things. That is why, when he is through doctoring he

hangs his bundle where no one can touch it, in a little

special house. And if someone wishes to kill him he can
burn -that house and the doctor will die. Sometimes, they
say, the doctor will hide his things in the mountains
when no one can see him do it.

The doctor has in his bundle a rattlesnake head, a

bull snake head, angelica, flint, and a rock about eight
inches long with a hole in it like a pipe. There is a

long white flint, and a short flint, and a mole skin in
which is put something which sounds like water when it

is struck against the hand. There are all kinds of bones
--a human bone.

The rattle doctor comes in and sits down and takes a

rattle from the bundle and shakes it lightly and utters a
long drawn sound and starts praying to Coyote, to the

stars, to help so the sgk man will get well, and to the
sun, to the North Pole.    He doesn't mention the South

Pole: that is not right, if he mentions the South Pole he
is going to kill the sick person. He will kill the sick
person if he sings wrong.   Then the doctor starts sing-

ing. He sings one song for about an hour. He sings about
a dozen songs. He sings until dinner time, then eats with
the family, then sings till supper, eats, and then sings
half the night. He doctors for four days.

The power and the right to practice as a singing doctor was handed
down in hereditary lines from generation to generation. A great deal of
time had to be devoted to the learning of the profession; one informant

said that it took four years. The danger of making mistakes and the decima-
tion of the Indian population through contact with Europeans were both
factors in extinguishing the singing doctor tradition.

TLM elaborated on the destruction of the doctor's outfit and its inherit.
ance:

When a singing doctor died they didn't burn his things.

That's against the rules. They always threw themn in the

59

river in some deep place, provided someone in the family
didn't inherit the position. In that case they went to

him. Th inheritance of the position a nephew was preferred
--usually a sister's son. Next in line to the sister's

son would be a grandson. A brother's son did not mean so
much to him. If the person didn't show good sense, it
would go to some other relative.

The end of a specific line of doctors was remembered by CWF.

When Fred de Sheel died they threw his rattle in the
water because they didn't know how to handle it, the

songs, or the rules. That was six or seven years ago
in Lakewood.

In 1940 the Pomo still talked about the cures effected by singing

doctors, and how much more powerful they were than the dream doctors. Both
KLM and JLF claimed they were cured by Captain Bill, whose Indian name was
'mt-sf,' and NFF said she was cured by Billy Rice in Guidyville. Rice was

in his eighties in 1940 and was acknowledged as the last of the traditional
doctors of this type.

According to TLM sweat baths were sometimes used when curing the sick:

Some regular singing doctors did it. Sometimes it was
done by men who were not doctors. They used to make a
little excavation in the ground and build a big fire,

and put rocks in. Then when it was hot they bedded it
down with leaves, then wild grass. Theytd let you lie
down in that. You'd get steamed up good. You would be
covered with something to keep the heat in and youtd
sweat.67

In contrast to the singing doctors, the dream or sucking doctors re-
ceived their power and rules of practice in dreams. These doctors stemmed
from the Maru cult, the leaders of which claimed their authority through

dreams and sometimes doctored too. Both men and women became dDctors. If
they disobeyed their dreams they became sick or died. As SFM put it:

I know for a fact that some who went against it [i.e.,

dreamed about doctoring and then refused to doctor] and
didn't do as they were told, died. One of these was CEF
from Hopland.

6o

DNF, who said she cured FGF by rubbing her, spoke of how she began
having 'matu d.reams' and received the power to doctor people:

It was even before I had all that trouble that time.

Then I got sick and had a big sickness so that I almost
died. One night I came for a walk up here [guidiville
rancheria]. I looked back and it seemed as though I
could look into the house and there were two coffins
there. It meant some awful trouble, I knew, but I

wouldn't believe in it. Then after that I was up here
again and I could see a light streaming down from the

sky. It seemed to touch the ground over there near the
hospital. I stood up here looking at it. I knew that
it was a sign that I would get well. I told that old
woman about it, and about the two coffins too. She's
the only one I told about it--I didn't even tell this

man here [her husband]. Sure enough, my daughters died
within a year of each other.   But I got well.  After
that I had dreams all the time, almost every night.

The sucking doctors sang, and used herbs to cure their patients, and their
method might also include cutting the patient with a sharp flint or piece
of glass to let the blood bring the sickness out of the body, sucking the
pain out without cutting, or rubbing the afflicted area.

CWF remembered a time when she was cured by a sucking doctor:

I felt a pain in my shoulder.  IvM mother said, "Maybe you
ate some meat or rabbit when you were sick." I laughed.
My mother brought an Indian doctor. She said, "You've

been eating rabbit. You've got a worm on your shoulder-

blade." She sucked four times on the shoulderblade. She
sang and sang. She tried to spit it out, and she choked
and choked. She tried to vomit but couldn't so my mother
put a poker on her back, and she spit it out. She took
it [the worm] in the palm of her hand and showed it and
put a hot coal on it. "This is the kind of worm in a

deer's heal. You ate deer, got worm. You young people
don't believe; Coyote make you sick that way."

In the above case sickness was caused by breaking the tabu against

eating meat while menstruating. Another specific case of breaking an extension
of the same tabu was mentioned by FGF. She remembered her uncle telling her
how he became sick from fishing while his wife was menstruating, and he saw
a big water snake in Blue Lake. A singing doctor cured him and afterwards
he became a Maru.

61

Sucking doctors were also reputed to be able to cure sickness caused
by poisoning. FGF related the following case:

My big grandson was taken to Lake County when he was

about nine months old. When we came back we were going
to bathe him. His mouth and eyes were all twisted.

The old man doctored him and said, "I think a screech
owl caught a snake and flew over the child.?" This did
good, but the boy got it again when about one year old.

So we got a sucking doctor. She said, "I think he touch
poison somewhere. Better get old Fred de Sheel from
Redwood Valley 6  He came. He called four times, and
dumped things.68 He said, "I know what is wrong. I

think I'll try with the poison. The boy went where some
poison is." He sang.   The boy got stiff and didn't know
anything. He sang, doctoring him four times. He sang

to make him wake up. He sang four songs and the boy woke
up. He doctored him and sang, and sang, and sang. That
old man cured him good and he never got sick again.

The relationship between the sucking and singing doctors is apparent
from the above. Although the informant's family believed that either could
cure a case of poisoning, the singing doctor was considered more effective.

A skeptical view of the doctors' powers was given by another inform-
ant, 12M:

Captain Bill was an old doctor. He died because he had
a broken fish hook lodged in his throat. He ate a fish

head which contained a broken fish hook and it got caught
in Bill's throat. I went to see him with Whispering
Charlie. I saw Whispering Charlie put a thorn in his

mouth which looked like a fish hook. Then he sucked the
fish hook out of Bill's throat. Whispering Charlie was
a fake doctor.

Although KLM said he did not believe in Pomo doctors because his

grandfather had told him all their tricks, both he and his wife claimed to
have been cured by Captain Bill on another occasion.

Sucking doctors specifically named by informants were QNM from Clover-
dale, and DNF,69 FQF, and ODF, all from Guidiville.

In the late 1920's a Wintun Indian doctor, about fifty years old,

came to work in the Ukiah Valley and provided a new influence on the already
established traditions of doctoring. A description of the way in which this
man practiced came from TLM:

62

Albert Thomas, this Indian doctor who came twelve or

thirteen years ago from Shasta County, sucked without

cutting and he sang. He used no rattle and had no dance.
He smoked. That is the new dream style in Shasta County,
and he almost introduced that here. He'd take a pipe and
smoke. About a year ago I was in Lake County: I heard
he was going to doctor, so I stayed to watch him.   He

started in by smoking. He had a young fellow there to

help him, and the young fellow lit the pipe. Both were
sitting on boxes. The patient was lying on the ground.
Then the doctor smoked for a considerable time with his
eyes shut. Finally he started to talk, in his own lan-

guage I imagine. And the young fellow interpreted to us
in English, "He say one time long ago this woman walk

around old spring side in the mountains some place round
here. That old spring always bad for woman. When woman
got monthlies it's pretty bad. Make 'em sick. Something
live in that spring make this woman sick." The doctor

was now supposed to be in a trance, and he was seeing all
these things. This doctor was quite an actor. He played
the part well. After he got through talking, he started
to sing, still with his eyes shut. He stopped singing

for a while, got down on his knees and started to suck on
this lady right on the chest. Then he rolled her head

over and sucked on one temple, then on the other. He was
only four or five minutes doing that. He sat upright and
started to strangle and cough, and acted as if he was go-
ing to choke to death. Then he held out his left hand
cupped, with his eyes still shut, and he spit a lot of
saliva into his cupped left hand. In this sputum there
was a small dark object. The interpreter said, 'He say

him suck it out.  Woman going to be all right now."   Then
he got back on his box, and he started to sing again.

After he sang a few songs he opened his eyes. He wanted
it to appear that he came out of his trance then. With-
out any further ceremony he quit.

People watched him, and some tried to imitate him when
he went away. ODF was influenced, but she didn't follow
him. Some sang Dr. Thomas' songs for a while. They imi-
tated him enough to tell just what ails a person. That

was his system. He had power. I think his power must have
come from dreams.

None of the doctors smoke here now. But in Modoc and
Shasta and Trinity Counties the Wintun doctors smoked.

Their method was to smoke when they doctored. This took
well in spots in the Pomo territory, but it didn't last.

Here there was only an influence on some individuals. No
one copied Dr. Thomas completely, but some imitated him
in part.

63

Payment for doctoring services was traditionally in beads, and some-
times the doctor asked for a feast or a dance to celebrate the cure of a

sick person. In 1'940 dollars were used, instead of beads, since the latter-
were becoming increasingly scarce. The amount paid to the doctor varied
according to the family's ability to pay; informants estimated that about

1,000 or 1,200 beads might be given, others said between $20 and $40 worth
of beads was an average payment. If the patient did not get better the

doctor returned half the payment to the family. Baskets, blankets or food
were also given. SLF spoke about the payment of doctors as follows:

In the old days a doctor was given both good and rouglh

beads. If they wanted the best doctoring for their own
person, they gave the best. When the doctor sees the

best, he does his best.  Otherwise he doesn't care if the
patient dies.

On another occasion the same informant elaborated on the subject:

A "real.." doctor works four days; then two days later he

comes and gets the beads which are hung up near the sick
--about 3,000 or 4,o00 beads.  "One day doctor" is paid
after he is through, about 1,000 beads. The reason the

four-day doctor gets more is because he goes without meat
so long. The doctor will return all the beads to themn if
the patient dies later. Then the people will give him
about half bank again.

Dances were given both to celebrate the recovery and to help cure a
person. They would be arranged by the relatives of someone who had been

ill. As TLM put it: If a person promises a dance he must go through with
it or he will die. This is true of any dance, whether ordered by a doctor
or not." The dance, held in the round house, lasted four days and was run
by the man who led the singing. NWM said of the dances:

There are thre s or four different kinds of dances with

different songs. You may dance one kind, then a differ-
ent set. All in one night if you wish. Not all people
know how to dance--there are four or five here yet who
can do this. There is still one old man who is a good
dancer in Hopland, KKM.

His wife, CWF, added:  t'A special man sings at the dances, and sometimes

dances. There are no singers here now but there are two in Lake County. "
During the dancing beads were thrown onto the floor, and later collected

as payment by the man who kept the floor clean and tended the fire. At the

end of the four-day period a feast or picnic was given for those who had par-
ticipated.

64

The use of herbs and other remedies to cure sickness were common

knowledge. Doctors could incorporate this in their practice; other people
claimed special power in these methods of curing from teaching in their

family and dreaming. Barrett (1952:360) states that anyone could learn how
to use the common medicines. The following list of treatments was given by
informants, none of which are mentioned in Barrett (1952:365-371):

Sickness

Arthritis

Treatment

Informant
Mrs. GNF

wormwood poultice

Eye sickness

Headache

Hemorrhage
Itch

Poison oak
Rheumatism

'Sick in stomach'
Snake bite
Syphilis

Whooping cough,

Measles

willow bushes boiled in milk,

put on eyes

acorns, or white rock
elder blossom leaf tea
scraped deer horn71

sheep faeces, boiled and

drunk

boiled manzanita leaves

applied to skin

bath in Keyser's Hot Springs,

near Cloverdale

suck stick of salt crystals
sugar pine nuts, rubbed on

bite

three varieties of plants

boiled to make infusion 72

sheep faeces, boiled and

drunk

KLM70

QJTM
NWM
NWM
DQW
EFF
BCF
BCE

ETF
FGF

Let us now take the case of an individual doctor, a woman called ODF,
who was practicing her profession during the 1930's. Both her mother's

brother and her grandfather had been doctors before her. Ever since she

could remember she had had dreams, though she never talked about who gave

her her power, and for eight years before she began to practice she kept the

65

fact that she was becoming a doctor secret. To become an acknowledged

doctor she had to go through a special ceremony, at which there was dancing.
An element of this ceremony was remembered by CWF:

There are four sticks with white stripes on them. These

are held in the hand and then the dancers dance around the
person [the one becoming a doctor] while holding these
sticks.

ODF claimed clairvoyance about who was sick, what rules they had
broken, and who would come to visit her. When doctoring she went into a
trance, and, as ETE put it:

When ODF is working on a patient she converses with a

spirit that directs her what to do, and if she were not
in a trance she would be unable to understand the lan-
guage with which she communicates with the spirit.

Informants called her "dream doctor," "sucking doctor,"t "lmaru doctor, ?
"hand doctor," and said she combined "a little of all."  Their reactions to

her ranged from considering her a good doctor to thinking she might hypnotize
people and was crazy and should be locked up. Others feared she might poison
them. SLF, who was afraid of ODF's power, had this to say:

ODF, the woman doctor of Kelseyville, is not a sucking
doctor. She just feels the patient for the pain, sings
four songs, and smokes a pipe. She can poison too, and
when she doctors she always claims that the patient has
been poisoned, but she never names the poisoner. She
claims that she learned a lot about doctoring from an
old relative who had been an old time doctor.

ODF started doctoring in about 1935. Her method of curing included
singing and pressing her patients with her hands. While doctoring she

smoked a pipe, or someone smoked constantly to keep the room full of smoke.

Any brand of tobacco or cigarettes could be used.  She treated a patient for
four consecutive days in the daytime, and observed tabus on meat, grease and
water during this period. She claimed to be able to curt cases of poisoning,
measles; influenza and double pneumonia. The latter she called a "spiritual
pain" and one she could deal with in a couple of days if she got the case
when the disease was in its early stages. The cure was generally effected
by removing an object from the patient's body, such as a burr or a snake.
However, she conceded that for operations and setting bones white doctors
were better than Indian doctors.

66

ETE once spoke of a cure she had witnessed:

Several years ago a man was taking water snakes out of a
well. He was unaware of the fact that his wife was giv-
ing birth to a new baby, and therefore unwittingly broke
the tabu which prohibits a man to be around water while
his wife is giving birth. Ever since then, the man had
been sick and he finally went to the hospital to try to
get relief.  The white doctors examined him, but could

do nothing for him. Finally the man resorted to ODF for
a cure. She took me along with her to smoke while she
effected the cure.

ETF said that ODF pressed the man, and took a small live snake out of
his arm. She actually saw the snake come out. She also saw what appeared
to be a larger snake crawling around inside the man's thigh, but ODF didn't

take that one out. Ever since the treatment described the man had been well.

Another informant (MMF), an old lady in her eighties, talked about
her current doctoring by ODF:

I am going to an Indian doctor, a woman doctor.   She is
a new doctor with a new style. I can get up a little

now. She is a good doctor, an Indian doctor.    [Informant
then showed how the doctor motioned with her hands and
touched the patient. ] She uses singing. This is for

four days in the daytime. She eats no meat, no grease

and she does not drink water, nor does the patient.   She
doctors the patient while the patient is in bed. A long
time ago I was swimming and saw something in the water--
when a woman is sick she does not go near the water.   I

used to wash for a white woman d.own there.  I didn't want
to wash [because she was menstruating and would break the
tabu], but the white woman told me to. I got my skirt in
the water, that made me sick. The water came up this way,
like a wave, and there was the sound of the ocean also.

I felt sick. I fell over. The white woman asked me what
was the matter.   I say, "Nothing."  I felt sick.  The

white woman did not see anything.   I saw a big horse which
went back into the water.   That made me sick. I almost

died then.  I was a young girl then.   I have been sick all
the time since.   I am old now. This doctor woman here

sings. We never go out when she doctors. She sang. My
whole body worked.   "What's the matter with me?" I say.

The doctor woman laughed.. She said, "You've got something
wrong in your body; you were sick a long time ago." She
found that out.  I didn't tell her till afterwards.   She

67

is not a sucking doctor. She treated me, something came
out. It looked like a snake. She said, "Water snake

got in you and made you sick.'   It came out the big toes.
I was asleep.  It was a big one.   She said, "Throw away
your shoes and stockings and you will feel better. " I

feel better--a little better. That was a month ago. I
paid her ten dollars in white man's money. There are
other doctors. This one is good. She smokes a pipe.
She smokes after doctoring.

ODF told MME never to wear shoes or stockings or they would make her sick
again.

During April, 1938, a four-day dance and feast were given for CNN who
was cured by ODE. The payment she received, according to SLF, was, "two new
blankets, a stick basket about eight inches high, and beads--rough and good,
and American money: both beads and greenbacks were in the basket. " Another

informant (CWF) commented upon the clothes worn by the dancers: the men wore
feather skirts from waist to ankles ('i?ci? '), on their heads they wore

yellowhammer feathers (so-la-pa), which were made into headdresses ('ga%t'as')
with wire; in the center, at the back of the head, were some small blue
feathers from the breast of the blue jay ('ga tse').  The men wore the

headdress over a hairnet. About seventy people were there for the picnic,
which consisted of American food: pies, cakes and stew. Before the feast
could begin ODF took a little bit of every type of food on the table on a
paper plate and then set it on fire.

In 1940 there was promise that the tradition of doctoring would not
end with ODE, for a new young woman doctor was given a special doctoring

dance in the spring of that year. The girl, a high school graduate (called
ETF), had been ill and both Indian and white doctors tried to help her. The
history of her sickness was recounted by ODF as follows:

ETE got sick, and although ODF knew all along what was
wrong with her, ETF went to a white doctor. She was

given hypodermics on her leg and the leg got very sore.73
ETF went to ODF, who thought it would be a very simple

matter for the white doctor to drain the leg.    ODE told
the white doctor what to do, but he didn't follow her
advice. They took ETF to the hospital.    It seemed as
though she had appendicitis. They didn't help ETF at

all in the hospital and finally she came home. She got
terribly ill, and her whole body shook as though she

were in constant spasms. ODF was called, and after hav-
ing a very difficult time with ETF, she cured her.

ETF had to spend time in the hospital twice, and in between was doc-
tored by her own people. Her dance took place before she returned to the

68

hospital the second time. Although ODF claimed to have cured the girl, other
Pomo doctors had doctored her too: many people considered DCM as the one who
had healed her. As DVE pointed out:

When ETF was sick, lots of doctors doctored her. She had
white doctors, but they didn't know what to do. One day

I went down to see her and told ETF's mother that maybe she
was sick with some Indian sickness that the white doctors
didn't know about. I recommended that they try DCM from

Pinoletown, a singing doctor. So they did. DQM came over
and doctored her too.

Those who did not believe in Indian doctoring considered the reason
for ETF's becoming a doctor was that her family were bad people and she was
being punished for it. In fact, ODE was a deciding influence. ETE did not
want to become a doctor, but was told by the older woman that if she kept

refusing to do so she would get sicker and die. Two Lake County Pomo doctors,
DVM and KBM, said they would cure the girl so she would not have to take up
their profession but ODF would not let them for she thought that they would
poison her.

The girl's mother talked about a day when both her daughter and ODF
were at the coast. A girl had drowned, and her body lay on the shore. A

crowd had gathered. She said: "Both ODF and ETF heard the girl groan, some-
thing which was inaudible to everyone standing around. Only doctors can hear
dead people groan." Another strange occurrence was recounted by CWF:

One day ETF was swimming and saw a fish with the head of
a woman and it frightened her. She was very troubled by
what she had seen and one night she began to scream and
say that if she didn't become a doctor, the fish would

come after her and kill her. Then she got very sick, and
DCM was called in to cure her.

ETF constantly told her nine-year-old niece, KCF, that she too would
one day be a doctor. ETF said the child was destined to become a doctor

because she saw things, such as a fish swimming on dry land and a 'cotton-

tail' standing on his hind legs carrying wood. ODF agreed with her protege,

saying that undoubtedly KCF would become very ill when she grew up, and "they
will have a hard time making her recover." Also she said that the little

girl was born with a veil (caul) which was another indication of her destiny.

During the first two weeks of April 1940, ETF had her doctoring dance
and shared it with SCE. It was given twice, each time for four evenings on
consecutive days. The repetition of the sequence was insisted upon by ODE

because too many mistakes were made the first time, and there were too many

69

drunk people around. CNM prepared the round house and built a new drum for
the occasion. Dancing began when people were ready, any time between 7.30
and 10 p.m. Spectators numbered up to a hundred people each night. ETF
wore a dress which she had dreamed about--it was made of white buckskin,

the skirt was almost down to her ankles and had a bordering fringe at the
bottom and on the jacket. The front of the dress was decorated with
abalone ornaments. On her feet she wore moccasins.

CHM was the chief singer, and at other times three different men

took over from him. On the last night there was a special dance to finish
the series of dances, and to doctor the feathers. A feast was held at the
CNM's house after the dance was satisfactorily completed.

ETF learned to dance by watching others and had only one night's

coaching in dancing from ODE before the event. On the first night of the
second series of dances ETF was ill; CWF explained this by saying that

she was not doing all she should do, for she was supposed to sing four songs
as well as dance, but she refused to sing so she was sick. A different ex-
planation was offered by ODF, who said it was a good sign,

There was someone in the round house who was sick and as
soon as ETF entered, in her doctor dance, she took that
sickness out of that person and into herself. When she

threw up it was that sickness she was vomiting. Once she
got rid of it, everything was all right.

Before entering the round house CHM led the dancers in a procession,
stopping everyone at four different places for a short dance, he kept time
with his split stick and sang. The singers and dancers entered from the

south entrance. The singers clustered round the center pole and sang four
short songs before the dancing began.  The first dancer to begin was CNW,
who entered backwards, bent over almost to the ground. His feather coat

showed first through the doorway. Once inside, he turned around and began
dancing around the east side of the fire. He was closely followed by ODF,
who also backed into the round house, turned around, and danced around

the fire. The singers continued singing until the dancers almost reached
them, then they stopped. The two dancers took their places with their

backs turned to the fire.  The singing resumed, and the second couple backed
into the round house. That pattern was followed by each couple: PEM and

ETF, UNM and FGF, 12M and CWF. Once all four couples were inside, the women
standing close to the south side of the center pole, facing it, and the men
standing just beyond them, also facing the pole, the singers started again
and four more short dances were completed. Then they all filed out of the
round house and through the south door. After the same sequence had been
repeated with different participants for the other young girl, there was
general dancing. It was nearly one o'clock when the dancing ended.

Each woman, in addition to the usual headdress over the forehead,

wore a tall bushy crown of turkey feathers on her head. All the men, except

CNM, had smeared their faces with charcoal, as well as their legs and chests.

The same sequence of dances was repeated each of the four nights,

until the last night at which a special dance to doctor the feathers for ETF
was done. Since in the first series of dances mistakes had been made, every-
one was most anxious that all should go well on the last night of the second
series. CHM sang. The men were led in by CNM and were followed by the

women. Facing south they all raised their bundles of feathers and lowered
them to the ground four times. With a half-dancing, half-walking step they

filed completely around the four beams supporting the roof of the round house,
back to the south. They stopped facing east where they raised the bundles
four times, continued another one-and-a-half circuits of the round house,

lifted the outfits to the north, moved round again, lifted them to the west,
then the south. The same pattern was followed and the outfits raised three
times to each point of the compass, then twice, and finally once. After the
final round the dancers returned to their starting point and faced south,
here they again raised their bundles of feathers and lowered them to the

ground four times. They left the outfits on the ground in front of the fire.
Then the entire group retreated towards the center pole where they all bent
forward, men and women, dancers and singers, and cried out four times

together. The dancers picked up their outfits, and everyone lef't. The dance
was over, and ETF was now acknowledged as a doctor in her own right.

71

APPEND IX I

TABUS

Among the Pomo, if tabus or rules were violated, death or other
misfortune such as sickness occurred. Fines, in beads, were collected

by some Marus for these offenses. The following tabus were specifically
mentioned by informants. Absence of a tabu on the chart may not be

significant, and may only represent the informants' failure to mention
it.

*t          t    Outfit and **    Doctor

Tabu               Maru      Kuksu     Maru Doctors     Dance      Poisoner

Meat                yes       yes           yes           yes        yes
Grease              yes       yes           yes           yes

Water               yes       yes           yes           yes        yes
Sexual relations    yes       yes            -             -
Husband of          yes        -             -             -

pregnant woman
could not be
present

Pregnant woman      yes        -             -             -

could not be
present

For the duration of ceremonies

Tabu extended to leader, singers, and dancers

For four days

72

APPENDDC II

DANCE AT UPPER LAKE RESERVATION, JULY 29, 1939

Ca. 10 pm. There were five singers gathered around the pole on the

dance grounds, and all but CHM,* the leader, wore hats. CHM sat on a chair

(which he had jokingly said he would not sell for five dollars), one man sat
on a small bench, and the others on boxes.

CHM and CWM ate angelica root; when NWA [B. W. Aginsky] was in back
later he saw them all, the young fellows (the dancers) and the singers too

so far as he could determine, eating the root. Then CHM and CWM rubbed their
hands together; later CHM rubbed his face and neck with both hands, then
spit or blew into his hands and rubbed them together.

Then there was a silent (although his lips moved) invocation from CHM
during which he raised his split stick rattle four times, shaking it so that
it barely sounded.

Then there was a song in four parts, during which CHM and three others
struck their split stick rattles (held in the right hands) against their left
hands which were palm up at about waist level. They struck them frequently
but lightly--very lightly. At times the song became louder and more rapid

and there were pauses between the parts. During these CHM called out to cer-
tain members of the audience. Once he said, "I'm glad you could come. I
stopped by but couldn't see you."

The first four songs were followed by four more, or perhaps they were
all part of a series of eight for there was no particular pause between four
and five. After the fifth song JAM made comments and spoke, calling aloud
in Indian as he did at times during some of the pauses about this time in
the dance. CHM said in reply, joking, "I thought this was Upper Lake.

People don't talk like that [that dialect] here." After the fifth song there
was a longer pause.

During the sixth song I noticed that there were six singers; there

may have been for a while earlier. During the songs the singers moved as if
using a rattle, even those who did not.

About this time, during the seventh song, a piece of burlap was hung
from a rope to shelter the men dancers. After the eighth song there was a

long, long pause. At the end of most songs, probably all, CHM called "Ho - ho."

The usual informant code is employed here; underlined initials are those
of ethnographers.

73

An American flag was stretched westward from the top of the dance

pole. A smaller American flag was hung from a branch near the south side

of the dance floor, well above a person's head. Both flags had the stripes
horizontal to the ground. There was a felt hat hanging half-way up on the
south side of the dance pole which remained there throughout the dancing.

The floor of the dance hall was wet sand which must have been wet
shortly before. 1BWA said it was cold on the feet and hard on them.

The singers formed something of a semicircle to the south of pole,
and east and west of it. The singing at this time, and throughout the
whole night, dancing included, was informal in attitude insofar as CHM,
the leader, was quite willing to joke during the pauses, or to caLL to
members of the audience. George said they were "teasing each other."

10:44 pm. Singing started again with the striking of rattles
(always the split stick rattle was used). A pause; singing; a pause.

Then CHM said, "Ladies, ladies, ladies." After these two songs were sung,
sitting (all songs heretofore had been sung sitting), all the singers

stood and started singing, loudly, with the rapid and loud striking of

rattles. A slight pause was followed by a song and the appearance of two
women from the back (east) who walked out and stood facing the pole with
their backs to the audience. After a slight pause the singers started,
and three more women joined those before the pole. A sixth followed,

putting on the headdress as she came from the audience to the south. Most

of the others had the headdresses on. Pause; and then the fourth standing
song was sung while the women shoved each other around more or less and
formed a semicircle around the south side of the pole, to the east part.
The burlap was dropped, and from behind it appeared the men dancers who

started coming out in line one behind the other. They formed a line behind
the women, with their backs to the audience and facing the pole.

The leader had a complete headdress and white underwear under the
feather garment which was only in back and bare above the waist. Two

othersworea headdress, shirt, thin white trousers, and a feather garment.
A fourth had underwear instead of a feather garment, otherwise he was
similar to the two just mentioned.

After a pause, while the singing began again, the men circled twice
counterclockwise (or was the second intended to be erratic dancing?; this
is possible on the basis of the later pattern), faced the women, and then
men and women turned and faced the audience.

A slight pause; then the above movement was repeated except that

there was only one counterclockwise movement. During all these movements
the men faced the women very briefly. After another slight pause, the

fourth movement after the arrival of the men on the dance floor began. The
singers started first, and as the song quickened the men danced and the

women faced the audience. Then the men moved counterclockwise and lined

up facing the women for a moment. Then they also turned to face the audience

74

and dance. There followed a very slight pause (part of the movement above?)
and then the men moved counterclockwise very slowly. Then they lined up and
faced the audience, and so did the women. In all these movements, before the
men started their counterclockwise movement, both men and women would stand
facing the singers and the pole.

Then there was a pause, singing, and the men move counterclockwise

and face the women who turn to face them. Then the men face front and dance
in line. There were two whistles at this time. A slight pause; singing;

men go counterclockwise and dance as before. (Now there are three men with
double flutes. During the dances men hold feathers in their hands, not this
dance alone.) There were then three repetitions of the movement just de-

scribed, making four. During these the men first face the women, then the
audience.

A pause; then a movement similar to the above but with a slower,

higher step. (One woman laughed so hard that she stopped dancing and turned
her back on the audience.)

A pause; dancing repeated; noticed two flutes.  (The woman has re-
covered from laughter by now.) Another pause; dancing repeated with men

counterclockwise, then lining up to face the audience. A slow, high step, as
in the last few dances. A pause; repeated; now there are three flutes.

11:01. A pause; repeated except that the step is now a low one.

At 11:02 the dance broke up to be resumed later. The men went to the
west and back, and the women to the east and back, except for one who joined
the audience in front (south).

During this pause the singers left the pole and the burlap was put up

again to protect the men dancers. CHM's chair and one box were left in sight,
BWM said the others were shoved out of sight behind the burlap. The split
stick rattles were laid beside the pole with one leaning against it.

During this pause CWM said, "Don't get tired, folks. This is an all

night dance, till sun-up. About one-thirty, two o'clock, we're going to have
a little sandwich, acorn soup, and pinole." The Indians and we (about a

half dozen whites were at the dance, and they came early) talked and a few
people moved about. Children were all about, laughing; it all seemed very
informal. BWM guessed there were about sixty Indians there as spectators;
including the singers, dancers, and those out back, about 75-80 all told.

11:13. CWM came out and sat down and called, '"Helema, helema, helema,
[ladies], no sleep, no sleep." He was joined by CW and others. They

talked and laughed. CWM again called, "Helema, helema, helema." They were

joined by TSM and REM. All talked and laughed. They sat on the boxes which
had been brought back from behind the edge of the burlap.

11:16. Men's headdresses could be seen above and behind the burlap.
Then the singing starts on the second series of dances with the singers

75

seated. Only CHM sings (some of the others laugh while talking among them-
selves). CHM shakes his rattle lightly in the air at times; his voice

rises, falls, rises, and he strikes with his rattle on his left hand as the
others join in. Then they shout '!Ho" as they stop.

11:18. Singing starts again and all sing, striking their rattles

on their hands.  It stops, and BWA and others shout "Oh. "t (BWM says "Ho1
CHM says "Oh.")  CHM starts the singing alone, lifts and shakes his rattle
lightly, and then the others join in, striking their rattles against their
left hands. A slight break, and all start singing again, striking their
rattles on their hands. Then the singers and BWA shout "Oh."

CWM goes behind the burlap while the five others sing (one was

actually behind the burlap).  CwM used the drum for a few beats at this

time. It was north of the pole.  The singing stops, with "Ho."   CHM talks

with the singers and says, "We got to wait till daylight, till sun comes up."'

11:27. Singing starts again, with CHM alone at first, shaking his
rattle in the air at times. Then striking it on his hand as the others

join in. CWM is still absent. A slight break, and then all sing and strike
rattles on their hands.

There is a pause, during which the singers stand up, placing the

boxes up against the pole and standing behind them facing the pole. CHM
says to BWA, who was bent forward, "Doc., don't go to sleep.  No sleep on
grounds [or you will be] put with helema, helema, helema. "

Singing starts with singers standing. Two women appear from the left,
then one from the front who puts on headdress as she arrives (same one as

earlier). A pause; then the women line up east of the pole and facing it,
the men on the west, facing it. The men dance facing the pole and other

women straggle in. A pause; repeated. A pause; repeated. On the fourth
dance the men come forward, moving one behind the other counterclockwise,
and line up behind the women (south). All face the pole and dance.

There were eight women, and six men, two of whom were bare to the
waist, one wore an undershirt, and the others shirts, headdresses, and
feather garments, as before.

There is a pause; then singing; all face the pole. The men start

dancing first, moving counterclockwise. The women turn, and the men dance
out of formation and then front. All this time a woman on the east (she

came in and stood on the east part of the dance floor) threw beads at one
of the dancers. Then a short break; then the men move counterclockwise

and dance facing front. A slight break; repeated.  Men face women after
counterclockwise circuit and then immediately front; the women also face
front. In this part of the dance this seemed normal. A pause; singing;

the men face the pole, the women are slightly irregular. A pause; singing;
finally the dancers start, men and women facing each other. Then the men
move counterclockwise and line up facing the women; then front. Pause;

76

repeat (one flute). Pause. Singing. Then louder, and the dancers begin.

(One man dancer went backward through the line of women and returned. There
is a slight break; then the men moved counterclockwise; and then the men and

women faced the audience.   CHM said, "Give them a hand."  (Applause.) Repeat.
Pause. Applause.

CHM sings, then the other singers and the men and women dance facing
each other. A slight break. Men move counterclockwise, line up, and all
face forward. Pause. Repeat. Pause. Repeat. (Three flutes noticed.)
They leave the floor as before; put up burlap.

In the foregoing dances, to the best of my knowledge the men always

faced the pole in the pauses, most of the women doing the same but at times
being a little irregular in formation. Also, the men would face the women
briefly after their counterclockwise circuit and then turn to face the

audience (south). At this time (perhaps always) the women also turned to
face the audience.

The women in dancing rocked a bandana between two hands, an end held
in each. All the women had their hair hanging down. At times the men made
the feathers in their headdresses quiver. The men wore netted caps with

feather-like projections rising from them, usually two on each side in the

back. In the center back there was a bunch of brown feathers spreading out
like a small feather duster.

12:05 am. This set of dances started with four singers and three

rattles. CHM said, "Where are all the ladies?    This is a ladies' song. You
are supposed to sing." There was no response except giggles. When the first
woman appeared CHM said, "Now come on," and four women came out.   One sat on
the ground, one on the bench of the spectators, and two on a box. A fifth

woman finally appeared. Then the slxth and seventh women appeared and these
two sat on another box. Thirty seconds later an eighth woman appeared and

stood up until Tomashile (Tomashele?) gave her his box to sit on. The women
were talking, joking, giggling. Then the men were dancing behind the burlap,
their feet and headdresses visible.   This phase ended at 12:16 pm and BWA
thought that it consisted of three series of four dances by men behind the
burlap.

Now the women stand up and the burlap is removed. The women form a

straight line facing the pole. The singers are also standing now. The men
are dancing in place behind the burlap. One made a mistake and got ready to
come out but the music stopped. CHM said one more to go.

The women faced the singers in a close line. The men came out singly
and formed close behind. According to NWA the term "forty-nine dance" was
used as meaning old. Were these, he questions, pre-Maru?

77

Throughout the entire dance the women were in a row stretching east-
west, and the men formed a row south of them in parts of the dances.  There

were four men and five women now. A pause. The men and women danced facing
the pole. CHM said something about being supposed to face the other way but
no one did. Then the men moved counterclockwise, lined up for a moment be-
hind the women, all facing the pole, and then both men and women faced for-
ward .

A slight break; then men counterclockwise slowly. Men and women
faced each other and one of the women dancers came front then and threw

beads on (or near) one of the men dancers.  Then she went back. Then the
men went counterclockwise, and men and women danced facing front (south).

Slight break. Men counterclockwise, facing women. Same woman dancer came
front then and threw beads on the same man (JIMM), while keeping time to
the dancing. I think the dancers turned front here.

A sl ight break. Men counterclockwise, face women, then front. The
women remained in front through this.

In the preceding dances it was JMM's mother who first threw beads at
him. Then the woman dancer, who was not JMM's wife.   JMM's sister called
him "Butler. "

12:33 am. They started to sing and men started to dance. Stopped.
Started again. Stopped. (Were these mistakes, false starts?) Then they
started again and the men went counterclockwise and lined up, and men and

women all faced front, the men breaking line as they danced. Three flutes.
Ended with "Hoo, Hoo. ?" Applause.  CHM said, "Give them a hand. "

A pause; then movement as above three times repeated, making four.
In the second and third times two men went around counterclockwise during
the time the others danced more or less irregularly. In the fourth time
two men singly broke to the right (east).

12:39 am. A pause. Fifth movement similar. An Indian from the west
side joined for a moment (drunk?). SFM came and joined the dance a moment.

During the dances he often danced about eight feet from the pole, then moved
in close and called out loudly. CW said, "My god, look at him! A little
corn in this dance."

Then the dancers left and sat down in back behind the burlap which

had been left down. The singers sat and smoked. At 12:30 there were forty-
five Indian spectators (estimated).

During the intermission CHM talked with someone in the crowd about

the food--surf fish, etc.--they were going to have. "They want Ukiah dances
now. They want JMM, they want SFM. The Ukiah got no singer. I going to
do my best. When [at] Upper Lake I going to sing all bum songs.   CWM says
he is going to join the Ukiah dances He don't want to dance with Upper
Lake.t" CWM smiled.

78

At this intermission a young man came out and picked up what beads he
could. He also watered the floor a little from a pail (or something of that
nature).  CHM talked about the Gilak dance, ". . . always got to pay. We

don't dance that dance for nothing. That's the only dance we're superstitious
about. We don't want to make monkey out of that dance. We got to have money
for that dance." Then CHM put up the burlap shelter.

12:56 am. CHM called vigorously seven times; he sat in his chair

leisurely while he called, laughing and joking. The singers gathered. The
audience sits around during the intermission. The boxes (seats) are not
removed.

1:00 am. CHM starts singing; he strikes his hand with his rattle and
others join in.  All are sitting down. EC said, "[They] just sang the mid-
night song; there are different songs for different times."   Pause. Still

sitting, all sing and strike hands with rattles.   End with "Ho," and applause.
Pause.  CHM says, ?Halema, halema, halema. No fair, doc, going to sleep.

We have a certain kind of trial here if you go to sleep. You are fined or
dance." CHM sings, shakes the rattle in the air lightly several times.

Then louder as he strikes his rattle against his left hand, and all sing for
a very short moment. A slight break; then all sing and strike hands with
rattles. This was a group of four songs.

NW moved to the east side to watch. BG called out that the white
people could join in and rather urged it. RC, EA, and EC joined and one

Indian woman, then other women, four, all lined up on the east. There was
much applause for our dancers.

Singers stand.  Sing.  Four men dance on the west.   Men and women
both dance facing the pole. Pause. Twice repeated. BG says, "Watch the
chute, number one coming out." There is laughter at this reference to
dances at Ukiah powwow when man came singly from tule or redwood bark

conical shelters. Pause, and the movement above is repeated, four times.

Then the men dance out singly and line up behind the women, men and women
facing the pole and dancing.

1:16 am. Pause. Singers stand. CHM sings, then strikes his left

hand with his rattle and the other singers join in. The men and women dance.
There is a slight break, and the men move counterclockwise and the women

face front and dance. Repeated three times, making four. There is laughter
and much applause. A pause. The men and women dance facing each other.

Then the men move counterclockwise, and in a row they face the women momen-
tarily and then face front. There is laughter throughout and much applause
at the end.   "Ukiah got them beaten." Hurrah for Red Handkerchief [RCO."

1:21 am. Singing. Men and women face each other and dance. The men
move counterclockwise erratically, then face front. A slight break, then the
men move counterclockwise--erratic--then front. Women face front throughout
this. Pause. CHM sings, shakes rattle. Others join, rattles are struck on

79

hands. Men and women dance facing each other. A slight break.    Men counter-
clockwise, then dance facing women briefly, all face front. All the time
men danced holding feathers in both hands (see variants before).

1:25 am. Pause. Singing, men and women dance facing each other.
Then men counterclockwise, and finally all face front.  Pause.  Voice:

"Come on Lake County, Ukiah's getting away ahead of you." CHM sings, then
the others join, men and women face each other and dance. A slight break.

N$n counterclockwise erratically, and finally face front. Pause. Repeated
essentially. Men face women before facing front. Two flutes (was this

true before?). Pause. Repeated with two flutes.    (Did they face the women
momentarily before turning front?) During these dances the men dancers

hold feathers in both hands which are held in front with bent elbows, and
the men stooped slightly forward. Pause. Men counterclockwise. Then a
slow, high step--erratic--rather a hopping step. EAF dances it as it

should be. This was twice repeated, with much applause at pauses. At the
end of the third movement a woman's voice said, "Pretty good, isn't it?"

Intermission. A young man ran out and picked up some of the beads
not found in the previous intermission. The audience just sat around.
One drunk was noticed lying on the ground at the north end of the east
bench.

1:45 am. BG said, "Don't get impatient; singers got to have half an
hour recess; got to sing till sun-up. Dancers can change, but I got to
tough it till sun-up. If I had five, six singers. . . . [?] Expecting
someone from Ukiah but held up by American dance at Pinoleville. Think
have big crowd by two, two-thirty. The majority of my dancers will be
here. We doing pretty good. The whites nearly got the best of us."

2 am. BWA joined the singers and all sang, striking the hand with
the rattle. Four men had rattles. Pause. Repeat. Long, long pause

during which the singers joked and laughed.  Repeat.  Four rattles.  Pause.
Then CHM sang alone. Finally all joined for a moment and strike their

rattles against their hands. Break. Then all sing with rattles. Pause.
(During the preceding few minutes Indians helped men dancers to don head-
dresses. Feathers on head set in after the headband was put on. ) CHM

again sings alone, then others join with the striking of rattles. Pause.
All sing. Rattles. Drum. Pause. Singers stand and BG sings, shakes

rattles, drum. Behind burlap the dancers dance. Rattles struck on hand
and all sing. Pause. All sing; rattles; drum. Dancers dance behind

burlap. Pause. Repeat. Pause. Repeat. One woman from east side comes
and stands behind CHM who cries, "Lady, lady, lady, come on my ladies,

come on." Then he starts singing imnmediately. Pause. Two women come.

CHM calls, "Ladies, " etc.  Starts singing again and men come out on west
and from behind the women--three men and three women. Pause.  CHM sings
and shakes rattle. Then all sing and strike rattles and men and women

dance facing pole. Then a slight break and the men move counterclockwise.
Then irregular, and men and women face front. A slight break. Repeated.
(Women rock kerchief in both hands. Men are barefooted throughout the
entire dance, all night. One man at this time held a feather in both

8o

hands with the fingers of both hands together; one holds some leaves similarly;
one has a feather in one hand and in the other a feather also.)

Pause. Previous movement repeated. Longer pause. CHM sings and

shakes rattles. Men and women lined up, facing the pole. Others join and

strike hands with rattles. Men dance. Slight break. Men counterclockwise,
then men and women face forward. Pause. Men counterclockwise, face front
irregularly. Women also face front.

2:25 am. Pause. Singing starts. Men irregularly counterclockwise,

then face front in row. Women also face front. Two flutes. Pause. Repeat.
Women quite active. Pause. All face pole. Repeat as above.       (In the dances
here, as the men lined up behind them the women would turn front and the men
also. During all this time, the men and women faced the pole in the pauses.
Repeated with pauses seven times. Two flutes were noticed in the 2nd, 4th,
and 5th repetitions, none in the last two; uncertain about other two. Last
two movements had a higher hopping step. Throughout the dances men wore

feathers in back. At 2:30 am there were about 35 Indian spectators. SFM
danced and sang during this part, as did no other.

2:37 am. Break-up and dancers retired as before. A young man picked
up the beads that were left; some of them not picked up before.

CHM said, "Tired.  I got to take my medicine.   I got to sing till
sun-up.  I get a little rest, I all right."    "I like to try gilak dance,

but leader has to have nickels, dimes, make motions. A payable dance."     "Got
lots of new dancers. Got new dancer lying here (drunk). Don't think he'll
get up till sun-up."

2:45 am. CHM picks up drunk and gets him over to the bench. 11 ar-
rives and CHM announces a new dancer, "now lots of pep."   (BWM:   "because EH
somewhat stewed up.")  CHM starts singing, sitting. A short pause, then
others join with the striking of rattles (two others and BWA and man with
drum). Long pause.   CHM, "Ho, ho, ho, tell them" (that is, tell them to

call "ho, ho" at end of dances).   tHo, ho" from some of the crowd. CHM tells
BWA something in regard to striking rattle. All sing, strike rattles on

hands. Pause. Boxes placed close to pole. CHM shakes rattle slightly and

sings solo. The dancers dance behind the burlap and one of the singers also.
(Five singers.) Pause. Repeated, dancers also. Sounds of flutes behind

burlap. Pause. Burlap dropped by CHM. All sing standing striking rattles
on hands, men dance on west, facing pole. In semicircle. Repeated three
times with pauses. In third repetition one woman appeared and stood with
her back to the audience as the men danced. Two others joined her, fixing

their headbands on.   One at a time the men danced in file, came forward, and
stood behind the women, all facing the pole, both men and women.

3:13. Pause. CHM sings, shakes rattle, then strikes rattle on hand
as other singers join and the men dance. A slight break, then the men move

counterclockwise, break ranks., and finally face forward (south) in a row, as
do the women. Pause. Twice repeated. Pause. CHM sings, shakes rattles.

81

Then strikes rattles as others sing and the men dance. A slight break. Men
counterclockwise twice, then men and women face forward. The men line up

behind the women (south) and then all turn to face the audience, throughout
these movements. (The dancers were bent forward most of the time when they
danced (the men). MEn and women face the pole at times of pauses. Appar-

ently the women face front when the men line up. Pause. CHM sang. Shakes
rattle, then others sing, men dance, and flap feather out back. Slight

break. Mbn counterclockwise, face forward (imitate birds?). Pause. Counter-
clockwise, one man twice; face forward. Pause. CHM sings, shakes rattle;
others join and men dance. Men and women face pole. Slight break. Men

counterclockwise, broken ranks, and men and women face forward. Pause. CHM
sings. Then men and women face the pole. Break. Counterclockwise for men.
Then men and women face forward.  Three repetitions.   Pause.  False start.

Then counterclockwise. Then finally face forward. Pause. Counterclockwise.
Mbn irregular, finally all face foxward. Four flutes. Three times repeated.
In these last four movements all singers sang, there were four flutes (pos-
sibly none in third, feathers in headdress quivered at least in third). At
this time the dancers either held a feather in both hands in front, with
arms bent, or some feathers in each hard separately; one dancer had none.

3:33 am. Break up. Dancers back as before, men and women. Boy out
looking for any beads missed.

AP estimated 23 Indian onlookers at 3:15 am and about 15 between the
dance floor and road, etc. At 4:00 am, AP estimated 26, including singers
and dancers, with 10 more toward the road.

Intermission.  Drunk behind BWA talking to other Indian, swearing,

"I can get it, over there" (drink?). "You the god damnedest fool I ever seen.
You god damned old shit, where they gone? What they gone to do now?"

3:55 am. Singer sitting, man in dancer's headdress at drum (sitting),
and five others. Sing.  Strike rattle on hands.   Drum. Pause.    Repeat.
Pause. Stand and put benches close to pole. AG, "New kind of dance,

halema, halema, halema. Come on, Upper Lake. Don't let Ukiah fellows get
away with you now . " SFM said, "This is morning coming-up song. " A long
pause. BWM now on east side. Sing standing; three women come out. The

daybreak song. Pause. Sing. Women facing pole. Dancers behind screen.
Drum. Men also face pole.  Pause.  Repeated three times.   CHM, "Ladies,
ladies, ladies. t"

4:08. Once more repeated and two men come out, one after the other

and line up behind three women. All face pole and dance. Then stop, still
facing pole. There are six singers and one at drum. The two men dancers
were from Ukiah. Longer pause.  CHM sang.   Then the others, and then the
two men move counterclockwise twice and dance in front of the women. All
face forward. Twice repeated. In second movement of repetition twice

counterclockwise, in first, once. During all these dances men and women
faced the pole in the pauses.

82

4:12 am. Longer pause; stand and talk. CHM sings and strikes hand
with rattle and shakes it in air. Others join, and men move twice counter-
clockwise. Men and women both face forward. Twice repeated, but only once
counterclockwise. Then sang a little and stopped (false start?). Then

sang. Men counterclockwise, then men and women faced forward. (Two flutes.)
Four times repeated. Two flutes throughout. In last three times put flutes
in mouth as they turned to face the audience, having first faced women. At

end of next to last movement said, "Hi-yoh." Pause. Different step; a high,
rather slow step. Men counterclockwise; one puts a flute in his mouth as

they face forward. This was repeated three times.    Il the last two movements
two flutes were used, against one in the first two movements. During the
above dances the dancers faced the pole in the pauses.

4:41 am. CHM starts singing and shakes his rattle. Then the others
join and strike their rattles against their hands. Pause.    Repeated.   "Ho-
ho." (Five singers and a drummer.) Pause. All sing. Strike with rattles
on hands.  (One singer imitates a rooster.) Pause.

4:49 am. Stand boxes against pole. Sing. Dancers dance behind

screen. Five men come out. Pause. Face pole, women in front, men behind.
All dance. Three times repeated. On the third repetition two men came out
from behind burlap which was dropped, one after the other (not singly), and
lined up behind the women, all facing the pole. (In the pauses between

dances the men and women faced the pole, and the women faced forward when

the men lined up behind them and turned [after the counterclockwise circuits].)
BWA said one dancer had two bands of charcoal on his leg. CWM took some and
smeared it on first with one hand and then with the other. Longer pause.

Singers standing. CHM starts singing, shakes rattle. Then others join and

dance still facing the pole.   Break. Men move counterclockwise, then men and
women face front and dance. Pause. Men counterclockwise, and all face front
Pause. All sing. Men counterclockwise, irregular. Then men and women face
front.

4:58 am. Pause. Sing and men dance facing women, imitating birds.
Break. Men counterclockwise. Men and women face forward. Repeat. Drum
and rattles used for movements for awhile. Pause. CHM sings and shakes

rattle. No dancing yet. Other singers join with rattles and men and women
dance facing the pole. Break. Men counterclockwise, very irregular.     Then
men and women come forward. Pause. Repeated four times. The first two of
these very irregular; the second and fourth, three flutes; the third, flutes
(not certain of number); no flutes for first repeat. Pause. Men face pole.
One moves from west to east and all face pole. Pause. All face pole, then
front. Very irregular. Two front and crossing. One man went through the
row of women and pointed at singer and said ?hoosch" as they stopped. Two
flutes. Pause. In this dance the same dancer stayed back at first and

then came forward, all very irregular, but the men ended up facing forward.
One dancer pointed at me and said, "Hi, hoosch." Then he went through the
line of women and over to the singers. Pause. Face pole, three men in

front, one by pole coming forward, all face east and about and then front.

One man as before saying "Hi, haik," and the back to the pole by the singers.

83

Sometimes called "Hi, haik, hi, haik, hoosch, hoosch."   Pause.   Irregular,
face forward, one back to pole. Pause. One man near pole, then forward,
others already there, face east. H goes back to pole, "Hi, haik, hoosch,

hoosch," etc. Pause. H stayed at pole, then forward, irregular and widely
spread. Finally H goes back to pole.    (Three flutes.)

5:17 am. Breaks up as before. In the preceding dances I believe in
all cases the dancers ended up facing the pole (unless some exception was
noted). The flute is held between the teeth, one just puffs (information

from young dancer). During the intermission some of the feather capes were
hung on ropes; the burlap was down now and these were hung on the west side
behind its old place. The old dance house was visible nearby, some dis-

tance to the north. Too small, they said. One of the singers fell off a
bench (much laughter for he was not drunk) where singers sit.

5:30 am. Five singers plus one at the drum. CHM starts, others

join, drum, rattles. Pause. All sing. Drum. Rattles struck. CHM shakes
his rattle at the end. Repeated three times. In the last time CHM shook
his rattle lightly at several places; "Ho, ho" by the singers at the ends

of movements. Dancers can be seen getting ready in back during the preced-
ing; no screen now.

5:39 am. Long pause.    CHM starts and shakes his rattle very lightly.
Then-the others join, strike with rattles. The men dancers dance behind
drums. Pause. Repeat.    Pause. All sing, rattles, drum.     (No dancing.)
Pause. Stand. Put up boxes about the pole. CHM sings standing, shakes
rattle. Then others (six singers in all) and the one at the drum join

with the striking of rattles and the drum.   Pause. All sing.    Strike rat-
tles. Drum. CHM shakes rattle at the end. Last movement repeated three
times. Women came out at the beginning of these movements and faced the
pole. By the end, the men are dancing behind, maybe earlier.

Pause. CHM shakes his rattle at the beginning. All sing with the
striking of rattles. Three men come out one behind another and line up

behind the women and men and face the pole.   (One man carried a stick with
a notch at the top, held in both hands.   One held a feather so.   One

feathers, some in one hand, some in the other, held separately. Arms, etc..,
in position as before. ) Pause.  BG sings, shakes rattle.   Then others join
and men and women dance. All face pole.    Break.  Men counterclockwise.

Face back momentarily, then forward, and men and women dance facing forward

(south). Pause. Men counterclockwise, irregular, then forward. Three times
repeated. Pause. Dance facing pole.

5:53 am. Pause. Men counterclockwise, irregular; face forward.
Repeat movement above. Pause. Men counterclockwise, slow. Line up

facing women. Then dance, men and women facing pole. Pause. Men counter-
clockwise. Men and women turn front and dance. Repeat.

5:56 am. Sun just appearing over hills. Pause. Face pole, while
singers sing. A break. Men counterclockwise. Irregular. Face front.

More lively. Pause. Men counterclockwise, irregular, face front.      Pause.
CHM sings, all face pole. No dancing. Others join and all dance facing

pole. Break. Men counterclockwise, irregular, face front and dance. Both
men and women. Pause. Repeat.     (There are 7 women and 3 men dancers.)

Pause. Sing a very short while, dancers face pole.    Pause. Men counter-

clockwise. All face forward. Pause. Men counterclockwise. Twice (or part
of irregular dancing?) and irregular. Then face forward. Pause. Men

counterclockwise. Then forward men and women.    (In the above dances, unless
otherwise noted, the women would face forward when the men lined up behind

them [to the south]. Faced the pole in the pauses.) (APP estimated 29 Indian
spectators at 5:40 am.)   Pause.  BG sings, drum.  Others join, rattles, and
dancers dance facing pole. Break. Men counterclockwise. Then face forward
finally and dance. Pause. Sing. Men counterclockwise, variations and
finally forward.

6:07 am. Pause. CHM sings, shakes rattle. Then others join and

strike rattles on their left hands, and the men dance facing the pole. Pause.
Men counterclockwise, irregular, then all face front.   "Ho-ho." Repeat, maybe

more variable. Again repeat.    (Still 7 women, 3 men.) Pause. CHM, "We'll haveto
get the performance now. I want all the dance outfit now. Bring it in so some-
one can hold it if not dancing with the crowd." JAM, "We doctor soon now." He
accepted a cigarette at this time, so did CHM. About this time CHM laughed and
said, "I wish I dance that one." Another singer said he could go ahead and
dance for he would sing. CHM said, "Oh, no you don't."    Just before the last
set of dances, CHM said "One move. Sun getting pretty high now. One move."

6:13 am. Singers standing around pole. The men and women are in front
(south), and facing forward and holding outfits.   CHM sings, shakes rattle.

Then all join and the row moves forward with arms outstretched and then back-

ward a few steps (always facing south). This is done four times and each time
the arms are outstretched with the costumes held in them. Then they turn and

go counterclockwise around the pole and so come front and face east. Then they
step a few steps forward and back, with arms raised each time they come for-

ward. This is done four times. Then they move in line counterclockwise around
the pole and come front and line up facing north. The same procedure of step-
ping forward and raising the outfits is again repeated four times (here always
facing north). Then counterclockwise around the pole and front and then fac-
ing west by moving the row about in a counterclockwise manner (as in other

movements so far as necessary). Then forward and backward four times as in

preceding cases, and arms with outfits are raised each time they step forward.
(Strictly speaking, the arms with the outfits were stretched forward in all
these movements rather than upward.)

Again the line moves counterclockwise about the pole (after facing
around counterclockwise) and faces south. Then they step forward and back
four times, always facing south, each time they step forward they raised

their hands with the outfits (this time really up). Then they moved counter-
clockwise about the pole and lined up in a row facing south again. Again
they moved a few steps forward and back--four times,, and each time they

stepped forward they reached their hands with the outfits forward and down-

ward. Then the outfits were removed. Then they reached downward four times

85

to the south with the outfits in their outstretched hands and standing in
a row facing south as they had during the removal of the outfits, they

placed them on the ground at the fourth pointing. (Something which sounded
like, "Ho holding on hauya"' was sung during the preceding movements.) When
in a row the women went to the west of the men (when men faced south, etc.)
and in the circuits followed the men. There was a pause in the singing
here. Then they resumed and the dancers danced in a row facing south.

This was repeated three times. Flutes were used by some of the men during
all four movements.  'to, ho, ho." Then there was a pause.   "Iyee, iyeh,
iyeh.," was sung four times. Then there was a swishing sound and they put

their hands to their mouths and blew out (men only?). Then they picked up
their outfits and took them away (about 6:25 am). When EA, RC, and EC were

among the dancers (see above), some of the Indians shouted comments of which
the following was one, according to EA, "Come on Fifth Avenue; come on
Broadway; hurrah for New York. "

86

END NOTES

1. Members of the Field Laboratory were: Charles Brant, Stephen Cap-
panari, Elizabeth Colson, Charles Churchill, Enid Fenton, Ernestine Friedel,
Hiram Friedsam, Alice Gustav, Sol Hauser, William Henderson, Clara Lewis,
Abra Lloyd, Juliette Lombard, Alfred Parsell, Fred Robin, Robert Rohr,

Alta Schwartz, Joseph Shor, Al Li Sung, Linville Watson, and Helen Weinburg.

2. The presence of women at this stage is an inovation.    Loeb (1926:
339) writes, "The women were supposed to be in their houses mourning for the
dead."

3. Barrett (1917:411) states, "Ghost dancers used the same words in
speaking that ordinary people did, except that they inverted their state-
ments and reversed the meanings of words."

4. According to Loeb (1926:343), among the Eastern Pomo these men

were called "ash ghosts," and do not take part in the Ghost Dance itself but
perform in the Fire Dance and try to provoke the crowd to laughter.

5. See Barrett (1917a:407). The dress of participants was not speci-
fied by informants.

6. Informants did not distinguish between the ghosts who dance and
the "ash ghosts" who play with fire and clown around as is reported by
Loeb (1926:345) for the Eastern Pomo.

7. Barrett (1917a:413) mentions the use of cocoon rattles.

8. See Loeb (1926:345). The Coast Central Pomo are not reported as

having a special fire dance in the Old Ghost Ceremony; fire eating had special
emphasis only among the Northern and Eastern Pomo.

9. Descriptions of the Kuksu are to be found in Barrett (1917a),
Gifford (1926), and Loeb (1926., 1932, 1933).

10. Loeb (1926:364) suggests that cutting is an older type of initia-
tion ritual.

11. This is similar to Loeb's (1926:350-351) report of the Old Ghost

Ceremony death and resurrection ritual celebrating the recovery of a patient.

12. A fTull description of the 'idamx' dance follows the discussion of
informants' memories of the Kuksu (p. 9).

13. Sticking people probably refers to initiation.

14. This account gives the barest outline of the Pole Ceremony de-
scribed by Loeb (1926:372-4) and Barrett (1917a:425-6).

87

15. Barrett (1917:433-40) gives an account of all of these except
the 'pa-ko-ma-ke. '

16. The gilak was a cannibalistic monster, according to Barrett
(1933:25).

17. Barrett (1917a:439) states that the 'idam' was a common dance
but no one knew the details, except that only men performed. He suggests
the existence of an "esoteric society" connected with the 'idam-ke. '

Loeb (1926:387-391), on the other hand, describes a ceremony called by the
Eastern Pomo 'damaxai' (Down Ceremony) which is consistent with Wilson's

notes in all but name. Wilson reports his informants calling the ceremony
'idam.'

18. This name is given to leading singers.

19. Du Bois (1939:92) states, "The last dances were given about
1894."'

20. Loeb (1926:394) gives 1872 as the year in which the Ghost Dance
religion came to the Pomo from the Patwin.

21. Cf., Du Bois (1939:84, 92).

22. The term 'Maru' refers to the cult and its leader. Cf., Du Bois
(1939:85, 92). Bunkash was also known as Munkash and Lame Bill.  He was
the Hill Patwin prophet who brought the Maru to the Pomo.

23. The reservation was on the coast.

24. These dates conflict with that given for the abandonment of

the Noyo reservation, which was 1867. However, some Indians may have left
earlier and also, the informant's dates may not be exact.

25. The informant did not know exactly when this happened, but said
it was long before 1880.

26. Deed to this property was obtained by a group of Pomo Indians

on October 20, 1881. See Book of Deeds, Mendocino County, Book 26, p. 62.

27. On the Yokaya rancheria.

28. I.e., about the early 1890's; cf., Du Bois (1939:92).

29. Loeb (1926:396) gives a different description with a few

additional details. He elaborates, "All the interior walls and poles are
decorated by a painted triangle design of red, black, and white, in the
same style as the dance costumes. " Barrettt (1917:440) states that a

characteristic feature of Maru dance houses was that there were painted
designs on the walls.

88

30.  The Leslie Crawford ranch, which was west of the Russian River,
and south of Ukiah.

31.  A different informant spoke of heaven as a flowery place, but
in relation to Catholicism.

32.  For other information on Pomo semi-underground dance houses in
Central California, see Merriam (1962:105, Pls. 38-46) and Merriam (1966:
107-146, Pls. 6-22).

33. Loeb (1926:396) states: "A new feature of these houses is a

gallery about six feet above the ground which circles the entire house. It
is built of a close flooring of cross sticks an inch-and-a-half in diameter
supported by posts and interrupted by a small stairway on the west side."?

34. Wilson does not specify in his notes that this statement refers
to a Maru meeting, nor does he give a date.

35. For a picture of such a flag flying from a long pole set up in
front of an underground house at Stony Creek (Colusa County) in 1907, see
Merriam (1962:Pl. 9).

36. Loeb (1926:397) states, "All the dances were the same in step

and, with one exception, in costume, and in the fact that both men and women
take part in numbers anywhere from four to twenty.   The distinction lies
only in the songs and the number of the singers."

37. Du Bois (1939:93) implies, from information given by the same
man (TLM) who talked with Wilson, that the Big Head was danced at Yokaya.

38. The powwow referred to here was held in 1939 at Yokaya.

39. Du Bois (1939:82) speaks of only two dancers, a leader and a
Big Head, with sometimes a second Big Head.

Loeb (1926:397) writes that the dancing is done by two men,
one or both of whom carry split stick rattles and wear the Big Head.

40. The dance was revived in 1940 at Sulphur Bank.

41. The Wiyot Indian massacre on Gunther Island in Humboldt Bay oc-

curred in 1860. It is described by Lord (1918:330-331). There is no reason
to believe that the Maru cult was being practiced by the Wiyot at this time.
No indication of the years in which these things happened is in Wilson's
notes.

42. Loeb (1926:395) reports that the Maru dances lasted two or

three nights instead of the traditional four nights for older ceremonies.

89

43. Wilson noted that dances ended about dawn on Sunday morning,
the fourth day, at the time he was doing field work. A feast was held
later in the day when the people were free.

44. Loeb (1926:395) writes that ceremonies could be held at any
time of the year, unlike previous rituals.

45. ODF was an Indian doctor, and not spoken of as a Maru.    The
relation of healing to the Maru cult is discussed later.

46. This statement may refer to Indian doctors. Some informants
did not distinguish between the Maru and later healers.

47. On another occasion the same informant said that the Catholic
missionaries came in about 1860.

48. Who this chief was and exactly when his conversion took place
is not recorded.

49. The Pomo called these nuns 'sisters,' but did not distinguish
the order they belonged to from any other. Wilson does not specify the
name of the order in his notes.

50. The churches were built before 1900.

51. Information regarding the other two churches for the same
months was not recorded.

52. Loeb (1926:286) states, "Cremation was practiced prior to 1870
by all the Pomo. "

53. Loeb (1926:396 fn.) states, "Songs, while theoretically taught

in dreams, are actually taught by an older member of the family., especially
the maternal uncle."

54. For a discussion of poisoning among the Pomo, see Freeland
(1923:69-72) and Loeb (1926:329-334).

55. The importance of the family as protection against poisoners
is further noted in Aginsky (1940a and 1940b).

56. In contrast see Barrett (1933:100) who relates a myth in which
Coyote specifically created poison men.

57. Specific poisons are mentioned by Freeland (1923:67-72), and
Loeb (1926:329-334).

58. An example of this is given in Colson (1956:118).

90

59. Barrett (1933:87-88) gives an account of the origin of sickness
in a Pomo myth about Coyote who made people sick so he could cure them and
make money.

60. Colson (1956:142-148) records FGF's autobiographical statement
about this particular illness and its cure.

61. Reported in the Redwood Journal, May-June 1929.

62. Freeland (1923:59-63) and Loeb (1926:319-329) give additional
information on this subject.

63. Wilson notes that beads were worth about one dollar per hundred
at the time of his investigation.

64. Freeland (1923:59-60) lists objects found in outfit bags.
65. Wilson notes that these are called k?-at-chil.t

66. DCM, who claimed to be a singing doctor, prayed to "gushalnis,

yomta, dasun, and kuksu" to help him.  In contrast, TLM said that a singing
doctor called on the Supreme Being, whose name was 'Ma3sbu' (He-who-wove-
the-world).

67. Cf., Freeland (1923:62) and Loeb (1926:327,328).

68. Wilson notes that this means he "probably piled his things on
the floor."

69.  In Colson (1946:307-8) DNF states she cured a young girl, Elaine,
of a broken leg by rubbing her.

70. Informant added this might be a Spanish cure since there was no
milk before the Spaniards brought cattle.

71. No indication on how to use this was given by informant.

72. Three plants:   first, "like grass, and found on the hills on the
coast"; second, "like mint and found around the hills surrounding the

valley"; third, "found around Clear Lake, and looks something like morning
glory."

73.  Dr. Smith, of the Sonoma County Hospital, said she was given a
blood transfusion, and since something went wrong she was given many shots
of adrenalin, all in a small local spot on the leg which contracted the
blood vessels and cut off circulation, and gangrene set in. It was not
until the summer, after ETF's dance, that the doctors finally cured her.

91

B IBLIOGRAPHY

Abbreviations Used
BAE        Bureau of American Ethnology

-B        Bulletin

PMCM       Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee

-B       Bulletin

UC         University of California

-AR        Anthropological Records

-AS-R      Archaeological Survey, Report

-PAAE      Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology

Aginsky, B. W. and E. G. Aginsky

1955    Selected Papers of B. W. Aginsky and E. G. Aginsky.   New York:

Printing Unlimited.

Barrett, Samuel A.

1908    The Ethno-Geography of the Pomo and Neighboring Indians.

UC-PAAE 6: 1:1-332, Berkeley.

1917a   Ceremonies of the Pomo Indians. UC-PAAE 12: 10:397-441, Berkeley.
1917b   Pomo Bear Doctors. UC-PAAE 12: 14:443-465, Berkeley.
1933    Pomo Myths. PMCM-B 15:1-608.

1952    Material Aspects of Pomo Culture.   PMCM-B 20, Pts. I and II.

Colson, E.

1940    A Study of Acculturation Among Pomo Women.   (Master's thesis,

University of Minnesota.)

1956    Autobiographies of Three Pomo Women.   Primary Records in Culture

and Personality, Vol. I, No. 16, Microcard Foundation, Madison,
Wisconsin.

Du Bois, C.

1939    The 1870 Ghost Dance.  UC-AR 3: 1:1-151, Berkeley.

Freeland, L. S.

1923    Pomo Doctors and Poisoners.  UC-PAAE 20: 1:57-73, Berkeley.

Gifford, Edward W.

1926    Clear Lake Pomo Society.  UC-PAAE 18: 2:287-390, Berkeley.

92

Kniffen, F. B.

1939    Pomo Geography. UC-PAAE 36: 6:353-400, Berkeley.

Kroeber, A. L.

1925    Handbook of the Indians of California.  BAE-B 78, Washington.

Loeb, E. M.

1926    Pomo Folkways. UC-PAAE 19: 2:149-405, Berkeley.

1932    The Western Kuksu Cult. UC-PAAE 33: 1:1-137, Berkeley.

1933    The Eastern Kuksu Cult. UC-PAAE 33: 2:139-232, Berkeley.

Loud, L. L.

1918    Ethno-Geography and Archaeology of the Wiyot Territory.

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Merriam, C. H.

1962    Studies of California Indians.  University of California

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Stewart, 0. C.

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