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Vol.15. Southern California Shoshoneans. The Diegueños. Plateau Shoshoneans. The Washo.{view image of page i} The North American Indian VOL. xv-a {view image of page ii} ChTrd 0E1tiot iId ximitlr to tibe 3unlreWt Set% of bWhifcft tFid it tju mbe.......... {view image of Frontispiece} Andres Cañon [photogravure plate] {view image of page iii} THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN BEING A SERIES OF VOLUMES PICTURING AND DESCRIBING THE INDIANS OF THE UNITED STATES, THE DOMINION OF CANADA, AND ALASKA WRITTEN, ILLUSTRATED, AND PUBLISHED BYEDWARD S. CURTIS EDITED BY FREDERICK WEBB HODGE FOREWORD BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT FIELD RESEARCH CONDUCTED UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF J. PIERPONT MORGAN IN TWENTY VOLUMES THIS, THE FIFTEENTH VOLUME, PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX {view image of page iv} i, i t-: COPYRIGHT, 1926 BY EDWARD S. CURTIS THE PLIMPTON PRESS * NORWOOD ~ MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA {view image of page v} Contents of Volume Fifteen ALPHABET USED IN RECORDING INDIAN ILLUSTRATIONS..... INTRODUCTION..... SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS The Luisefios The Cahuilla... THE DIEGUENOS..... PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS... The Mono..... The Paviotso... THE WASHO. PAGE TERMS...... vi.......... 21vii.......... xi........~ ~ ~ ~ ~- 5.......... 2I.......... 39.......... 55.......... 55.......... 66 ~ ~........... 89 MYTHOLOGY TaqLih (Luisenb).............. Suskia, the Giantess (Luiseno)... Temet.'awi', the Magic Hunter (Luiseno).. The Creation (Cahuilla)..... The Creation (Cahuilla)..... The Creation (Diegueno) Creation of the World and the Animal People (Mono) The Origin of People (Mono)..... Origin Myth (Paviotso)...... Origin Myth (Paviotso)...... Hainanu, the Transformer (Paviotso)... Taviuu, the Transformer (Paviotso).. Origin of the Belt of Orion (Paviotso).. Origin of Pine-nuts and Death (Paviotso). Origin Myth (Washo)..... The Monster Bird (lYasho) How the Animals Were Named (Yasho).. Tamalili and G6ji (lfasho)........ The Women Who Married Stars (WYasho). IOI IOI I03 I05 Io6 I1O 121 123 I28 129 134 I35 I43 I47 I48 I49 * 50 I5I ISI I54 APPENDIX TRIBAL SUMMARY...... The Luisenos............. The Cahuilla...... The Dieguenos............. V ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ I59 I59 i6i i66 {view image of page vi} vi CONTENTS PAGE TRIBAL SUMMARY - Continued The Mono................... 167 The Paviotso.................. 169 The Washo.................7I VOCABULARIES.............. 173 Southern Shoshonean (Cupeno, Luiseno, Cahuilla)..73 Yuman (Diegueno)........... I79 Plateau Shoshonean (Mono, Paviotso)....... I82 W asho........... 88 INDEX......................... 195 Alphabet Used in Recording Indians Terms [The consonants are as in English, except when otherwise noted] a a ai e e i I o 6 6 oi u fi u u h gh as in father as in cat as in awl as in aisle as in they as in net as in machine as in sit as in old as in how rounded e as in German bose as in oil as in ruin as in nut rounded u as in French peu as in push as ch in German Bach the sonant of h k a non-aspirated k k velar k q as kw ll the lateral surd of 1 n as in canion n as ng in sing n nasal, as in French dans p a non-aspirated p t a non-aspirated t r alveolar s approaching sr fh as in thin sh as in shall a glottal pause! stresses enunciation of the preceding consonant superior vowels are voiceless, almost inaudible {view image of page vii} Illustrations Andres Canon - Cahuilla Frontispiece Moriar Pits - Cupeno 6 Sandstone Vessels from Santa Catalina Island 8 Streatite vessels from Santa Catalina Island 10 Basketry of the Mission Indians (a) 12 Basketry of the Mission Indians 14 Southern Shoshonean 16 A Cupeno Woman 18 A Cupeno Female Type 20 Site of Prehistoric Village - Cahuilla 22 Ancient Shore of Salton Sea 24 Remains of ancient fish-pounds - A 26 Fiesta camp - Cahuilla 28 A Cahuilla child 30 Remains of ancient fish-pounds - B 32 A desert Cahuilla woman 34 Desert Cahuilla home 36 Modern rancheria at Santa Ysabel - Diegueño 38 A Santa Ysabel woman - Diegueño 40 A southern Digueño woman 42 Monkey Face - Mesa Grande Digueño 44 A northern Digueño type 46 A Campo female type - Diegueño 48 Communal ceremonial shelter at Capitan Grande - Diegueño 50 Summer shelter at Campo - Diegueño 52 An Owens Valley Mono 54 A Mono type 56 Mono house near Independence 58 A Lake Mono basket-maker 60 Mono basketry 62 Mono summer shelter 64 {view image of page viii} Mono summer kitchen 66 Pavaish - Pyramid Lake Paviotso 68 The ancient shore of Walker Lake 70 Western shore of Walker Lake 72 Paviotso basketry 74 Modern Paviotso beadwork 76 Paviotso house at Walker Lake 78 Paviotso woman of Pyramid Lake 80 Su-donii - "Osier-willow blossom" - Pyramid Lake Paviotso 82 Volcanic mud formation at Pyramid Lake 84 Bob Lowry - Pyramid Lake Paviotso 86 Phallic rock painting at Walker Lake 88 Washo house 92 Washo cradle-baskets 94 A Washo gem 96 Captain Pete, Namina - Washo 98 Scraping a deerskin - Washo 100 Primitive Chemehuevi dwelling 104 Chemehuevi house on Colorado River 106 Chemehuevi granary 108 Chemehuevi basketry and pottery 110 Cahuilla house in the desert 112 Modern houses at Palm Springs - Cahuilla 114 The harvester - Cahuilla 116 Palm fruit 118 Under the palms - Cahuilla 120 A desert Cahuilla female type 122 Marcos - Palm Canon Cahuilla 124 A man of Palm Springs - Cahuilla 126 A woman of Palm Springs - Cahuilla 128 Modernized house at Capitan Grande - Digueño 130 Modern house at Mesa Grande - Digueño 132 A Capitan Grande man - Digueño 134 A Capitan Grande woman - Digueño 136 A Mesa Grande man - Digueño 138 A Santa Ysabel man - Digueño 140 {view image of page ix} A young woman of Campo - Digueño 142 Paviotso female type 144 Pahu-Kumaa - "Sunflower Edge" - Walker Lake Paviotso 146 A Paviotso woman of Walker Lake 148 A Pyramid Lake matron - Paviotso 150 Washo burden-basket and trinket-basket 152 Washo basketry designs 154 A Washo woman 156 {view image of page x} I {view image of page xi} Introduction THE Indians treated in the present volume are representatives of three linguistic stocks -the Luisefios and the Cahuilla of southern California, the Mono of the east-central part of that state as far south as Owens lake, and the Paviotso who live in scattered groups in Nevada and California, especially about Pyramid and Walker lakes in the former state, all belonging to the Shoshonean family, while the Dieguenos of extreme southern California are Yuman, and the Washo at the elbow of the CaliforniaNevada boundary form a distinct linguistic family known as Washoan, although some students prefer to class them as a part of the farflung Hokan family. In addition to the Luisefio-Cahuilla division, which includes also the Juanenos and the Cupeio, the Southern California Shoshoneans comprise the Serranos and the Gabrielinos; but all these groups were so nearly alike in culture and in physical features that to treat them individually would result in little more than repetition. Living for the greater part in a vast region that may be characterized as semi-arid, one would suppose that, like Indians of similar environment elsewhere, they would have acquired at least the rudiments of agriculture. On the contrary, they seem to have been contented to gain a livelihood by the least possible exertion, taking whatever a none too prodigal Nature had to offer in the way of the smaller mammals, together with reptiles, insects, larvae, and the seeds and fruits of desert or mountain growths, while the more northerly of the tribes, living in a region of extensive lakes, gathered fish and waterfowl in quantities as an important part of their food supply, as did the Southern California Shoshoneans and the Dieguefios whose territory reached to the coast. All in all, the culture of these groups, and especially of the Mono-Paviotso, or Plateau Shoshoneans, was as little developed as that of any tribes within the limits of the United States, if not in North America. In one respect, however, they manifested esthetic taste and ability to a marked degree, for the basketry of some of their women gave and still gives expression to a high artistic sense. While earthenware was also manufactured to some extent, it was in no way comparable with that of the Pueblos xi {view image of page xii} Xii INTRODUCTION of New Mexico and Arizona. All the groups were inclined to be peaceable, largely because they had little to tempt the avarice of other Indians, and the only pretense at hostility exhibited among themselves was the result of petty bickerings which rarely resulted fatally. The Dieguefios were among those gathered into missions by the Spanish friars of the seventeenth century; indeed the first mission established in California, that of San Diego, founded by Fray Junipero Serra in I769, was for the purpose of christianizing the Dieguefios, who took their name from this mission seat. The Luisefios, Gabrielinos, and Juanefios in similar manner were named respectively from missions San Luis Rey, San Gabriel, and San Juan Capistrano, whose neophytes met practically the same fate as those of the mission establishments northward as far as San Francisco bay. So extensive is the area occupied by the native inhabitants considered in this volume, and so scattered are they, that the material has required a much longer time in the gathering than was found to be necessary in the case of some of the more populous tribes with a highly developed culture involving an elaborate ceremonial system. In all this work, as during many years, I have been fortunate in having the continued and valued collaboration of Mr. W. E. Myers. EDWARD S. CURTIS {view image of page 1} Southern California Shoshoneans VOL. XV - I {view image of page 2} {view image of page 3} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS HE great Uto-Aztekan family includes the Shoshonean, Piman, and Aztekan stocks, the essential unity of which, originally affirmed by Brinton, has more recently been given convincing proof by Kroeber.l It is by far the most extensive of all North American stocks, and even the northern subfamily, the Shoshonean, is surpassed only by the Algonquian and the Athapascan. Roughly defined, Shoshonean territory was the greater part of the vast extent of the Great Basin between the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada, and a generous stretch of country east of the Rocky mountains. In the north it extended into central Oregon, central Idaho, and southwestern Montana; in the east, to central Wyoming and Colorado, with an outlying area in eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas; in the south, to northern New Mexico and Arizona, and almost to the California-Mexico line; and in the west, to the sagebrush plains in northeastern California, beyond the crest of the Sierra Nevada in the south-central part of the state, and in southern California to the coast itself and even to the islands of Santa Catalina, San Clemente, and San Nicolas, twenty to seventy-five miles off shore. The Shoshonean area in California alone is about fifty-five thousand square miles, or slightly more than one-third of the state. Within the Shoshonean stock we find sea-going islanders, mountaineers, reptile-eating desert-dwellers, root-digging inhabitants of the semi-arid plateaus, buffalo-hunters of the northern plains, the warlike Comanche of Texas, the agricultural Hopi living in stone houses and weaving beautiful fabrics of cotton gathered in their cultivated fields - a far greater variety of life than any other stock of North America can boast. 1 The reader is referred to Dr. A. L. Kroeber's Shoshonean Dialects of California, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 4, I907, pp. 65-I65, and to the later discussion of the subject by Dr. Edward Sapir in his Southern Paiute and Nahuatl, a Study in Uto-Aztekan (Pt. I, Journal de la Societe des Americanistes de Paris, N. s., Tome X, I913, pp. 379-425; Pt. II, American Anthropologist, N. s., Vol. I7, No. 2, April-June, 1915). 3 {view image of page 4} 4 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Of the four main branches of the Shoshonean stock language, as determined by Kroeber, two, the Kern River and the Southern California, belong exclusively to California, and representatives of the widespread Plateau branch also are found in the eastern part of that state. The fourth branch, the Hopi, is confined to Arizona. The Kern River Shoshoneans are the Bankalachi and Tubatulabal, small and unimportant groups on upper Deer creek and upper Kern river respectively, in the region of Sequoia National Park and southward. Aside from linguistic specialization they are principally interesting as being one of the two Shoshonean groups that have pushed beyond the crest of the Sierra Nevada; the other being the western Mono, immediately northwest of them. The divisions of the Plateau linguistic group in California are these: I. The Paviotso, in the northeastern corner of the state, but 'far more extensively in western Nevada and southeastern Oregon. 2. The eastern Mono, locally called Paiute, in the Sierra Nevada foothills and the country eastward, including Mono county and the northern half of Inyo county. 3. The western Mono, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in Fresno and Madera counties. 4. The Koso, locally called Panamint, in the country that includes Coso, Panamint, and Death valleys in Inyo county. 5. The Chemehuevi, in the eastern half of San Bernardino county and the eastern end of Riverside. 6. The Kawaiisu, or Tehachapi, on both sides of the northerly part of Tehachapi mountains. All these people formerly lived in widely scattered rancherias and led a semi-nomadic existence. None were tribes in the proper sense. The Southern California branch of the Shoshoneans includes three linguistic groups: Serrano, Gabrielino, and Luisefio-Cahuilla. The Serranos (Spanish, "mountaineers") occupied San Bernardino valley, San Bernardino mountains, a portion of Mojave desert north of that range and east of Mojave river, the mountainous country north of San Bernardino and Pomona, and San Gorgonio Pass as far east as Whitewater, where they gave way to the Cahuilla. Speaking the same dialect, the Vanyume held the country along Mojave river, and the Kitanemuk the southerly part of Tehachapi mountains, where they extended over to the streams flowing into Tulare basin. The Gabrielinos (a Spanish term from Mission San Gabriel) held {view image of page 5} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 5 the coast between Santa Monica mountains and Alisos creek in Orange county, with the country back to the summit of the Sierra Madre; as well as the three islands off the Gulf of Santa Catalina. The Luisefio-Cahuilla group is composed of six divisions: I. The Juanefios, centering about Mission San Juan Capistrano (whence the name), in the southern part of Orange county from the coast to the crest of Santa Ana mountains. 2. The Luisefios, named from Mission San Luis Rey, which is in their territory, in the northwestern corner of San Diego county, extending eastward to San Jacinto mountain. 3. The Cupefio (from Kuipa, one of their former villages), also called Aguas Calientes and Warner's Ranch Indians, tucked away in the mountains of north-central San Diego county at the head of San Luis Rey river. 4. The Palm Caion Cahuilla (a Spanish form pronounced and sometimes spelled Kawia), directly east of the Luisenios, south of San Gorgonio pass, east of San Jacinto mountain, and in the region from the easterly end of San Gorgonio pass at Whitewater to the beginning of the desert west of Indio. The Palm Canion district, at the eastern base of San Jacinto mountain, is the most important centre of this group. 5. The Mountain Cahuilla, in the mountainous country between the Cupefio on the south and Cahuilla peak and Lookout mountain on the north. 6. The Desert Cahuilla, from above Indio to and around the northern end of Salton sea. Of these Southern California Shoshoneans the Luisenios and the Cahuilla will be discussed. The Luisenos THE Luisefios, so named in reference to Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, which was established among them in I798, were the southwesternmost of the Shoshonean family. Their territory was the drainage of San Luis Rey river except its very headwaters, which were controlled by the Shoshonean Cupefio and the Yuman Dieguefios. On the coast their range extended from Juaneiio territory below San Onofre creek southeastward a distance of about twenty miles, and it ran back into the mountains for thirty to nearly fifty miles. Roughly defined, it was what are now the northwestern corner of San Diego {view image of page 6} 6 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN county and the southwestern corner of Riverside, a region generally mountainous, with pleasant valleys here and there. Through it run two river systems: San Jacinto in the north, without an outlet into the sea, and San Luis Rey in the south, debouching into the Pacific. Most of the streams are dry, or practically so, during the rainless summer. With the single exception of the Yuman Dieguenios on the south, all the neighbors of the Luisefios were other Shoshoneans: the Cupeio (otherwise known as Aguas Calientes and as Warner's Ranch Indians) and the Mountain and the Palm Cafion Cahuilla on the east, the Serranos on the north, the Gabrielinos on the northwest, and the Juanefios (Mission San Juan Capistrano) on the west. With all these Shoshoneans except the Gabrielinos the Luisefios were linguistically and culturally very closely affiliated. They were known as Kawika-wichuim, "Westerners," to the Cupeno, who called the Cahuilla Tamika-wichuim, "Easterners." 1 Situated in a fertile valley on San Luis Rey river, with numerous cultivable valleys within easy distance, and surrounded by a large population of docile Indians, San Luis Rey de Francia rapidly became one of the most prosperous of all the California missions. In 1826 it had nearly three thousand communicants, a fact that argues a very considerable population for the Luiseiios of that time. Although, after the missions were secularized in I834, the Luisefios suffered rapid diminution in prosperity and number, nevertheless they were estimated by Government officials to aggregate twentyfive hundred to twenty-eight hundred in I856. The Census of I90o enumerated fewer than five hundred Luisefios living on several small reservations in their former habitat. The permanent villages of the Luisenios were situated in the valleys, and each of the numerous groups held a well-defined tract in the mountains where its members had exclusive right to harvest acorns and other food products. Luisefio houses were conical, partially subterranean, brushthatched structures. Over a circular excavation two or three feet deep were erected several crotched poles, which converged at the top. No central post was used. Against these main supports were leaned numerous lighter poles, and the framework was ready for thatching with tules, or bark, or arrow-weed (Pluchea), according to the resources of the locality. A vent for smoke was left at the Singular, Kawika-wis, Timika-wis. Kawika is probably the original form of "Cahuilla." See page 2I. {view image of facing page 6} Mortar pits - Cupeño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 7} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 7 apex, and the entrance was either an unprotected opening in the wall, or a low, covered approach, which sloped from the level of the ground to the subterranean floor of the hut. The sudatory was approximately elliptical, and the framework consisted of two forked posts connected by a timber, which supported the upper ends of pole rafters sloping from the ground. The brush thatch was covered with earth from the excavation, and the low entrance was in one of the longer sides. Heat was produced directly by fire, not by steam, and the hut was not used as sleeping quarters. Except when cold weather demanded a deerskin or a rabbit-fur robe about the shoulders, men wore no clothing at all and women only a small apron of Apocynum or Asclepias fibre before and a similar one of cottonwood-bark or willow-bark behind. Hemispherical basketry caps were worn by women when carrying burdens with the pack-strap. Deerskin moccasins were used occasionally, when rough footing was encountered by travellers. Here, as generally in California, acorns were the vegetal staple. Among half-a-dozen species those of the black oak, Quercus Californica, and of the coast live-oak, otherwise known as the hollyleaved oak, Q. agrifolia, were considered the best. The nuts were stored in basketry granaries, and in preparation for food were first cracked one by one with a stone and exposed to the sun until the shells commenced to open. The kernels, removed from the shells by means of a bone instrument, were made into meal with mortar and pestle, and the excess of tannic acid was removed by spreading the meal on a slightly concave bed of sand and leaching it with warm water. The moist meal was recovered by pressing on it the palm of the hand. It was sufficiently glutinous to adhere in small quantities, and such sand as was lifted with the last of the meal was flicked off with more or less success. Unlike the natives of central and northern California, who boiled acorn mush in baskets by means of hot stones, the southern Shoshoneans used earthen vessels, which they placed on the fire. The mush was eaten either hot or cold, and was not congealed in cold water, as was the custom of the more northerly Mono. Acorns are here, as generally in California, still an important food. In high esteem were the seeds of several species of sage, particularly those of chia, Salvia columbarie, as well as those of numerous unidentified composites and of a species of oat. All these were parched by adding embers and shaking the mixture in a basketry tray, and were then ground into meal. {view image of page 8} 8 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Mesquite-beans, so important to the desert-dwellers beyond the mountains, were a purchased luxury for the Luisefios. The fruit of two species of Opuntia, or prickly-pear cactus, was used fresh or dried, and the seeds, as well as those of the cholla, another Opuntia, were made into meal. The green scapes and fleshy leafbases of agave were prepared for food by roasting in earth-covered, pre-heated pits. This is the food commonly called mescal. The scapes of Yucca Whipplei were roasted and chewed for their sugar content, and the leaf-bases were cooked in the same way as was mescal. The flowers also were eaten. Chokecherries, blackberries, gooseberries, and currants were eaten fresh, elderberries either fresh, cooked, or dried, and wild grapes cooked. The berries of the California holly, or toyon, Heteromeles arbutifolia, were parched; those of manzanita, Arctostaphylos pungens, and of aromatic sumac, Rhus trilobata, were dried, crushed, and mixed with cold water. Numerous liliaceous bulbs were eaten raw or cooked, and various plants, including peppergrass, watercress, pigweed (Chenopodium), and clover, were used as pot-herbs. Because of the comparative ease with which they were captured, the most important animals used for food were rabbits, jack-rabbits, ground-squirrels, woodrats, and mice, all rodents. Rabbits and hares were killed with arrows and with flat, slightly curved throwingsticks, and were driven into long nets, where other hunters lying in ambush despatched them with clubs. Snares sometimes were set in their runs. Woodrats were dislodged from their huge nests of sticks and grass, and were killed with clubs, and they were taken also, as were ground-squirrels and mice, in stone deadfalls. A flat stone was propped above another by means of an acorn kernel, and when the bait was gnawed through, the stone crushed the rodent. For rats and squirrels it was necessary to place a short stick above the acorn, in order to give room for the animal to enter the trap. Deadfalls of this kind are still used by some of the Wintun in Glenn county. Deer were abundant, and antelope fairly plentiful, but the Luisefos were not skilled hunters. Deer were stalked with the aid of a disguise made of the stuffed skin of a deer's head with natural antlers, in the same manner as in northern California, and were then killed with arrows. They were also caught by horns or neck in noose snares hung in their trails. Bears, mountain-lions, and wildcats were occasionally killed {view image of facing page 8} Sandstone vessels from Santa Catalina Island [photogravure plate] {view image of page 9} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 9 and their flesh was eaten. Mountain-sheep also were sometimes shot. Tortoises and lizards were eaten, and dogs were sacrificed in time of famine. Ducks were killed with arrows or with rabbit-sticks. Quails were abundant, and were knocked down in numbers with sticks when they flew in toward fires built at night for the purpose of attracting them.1 Venison was either broiled, boiled, or roasted in earthen pits. Rodents and birds were usually broiled, but sometimes were roasted. Occasionally roasted meat was crushed in a mortar and stored, a process resembling the manufacture of pemmican. Fish were of little importance to most of the Luisefios, who, living inland, had only the small fish, principally mountain trout, occurring in the creeks. The usual method of taking trout was to narcotize them by throwing into a pool, above which the stream had been temporarily diverted, a quantity of the crushed leaves of tdvahaat, a plant found in the canions. The coast bands depended very largely on fish and shell-fish. They fished with hook and line, with dip-nets, and with seines. Curved fishhooks were made of abalone-shell, and the line was agave-fibre. Luisefio men, besides hunting, fishing, and performing some of the labor of harvesting acorns and other foods, were occupied more or less with the manufacture of weapons, tools, cordage and nets, and numerous miscellaneous objects. The women, in addition to their ordinary household duties, made clothing, basketry, mats, and pottery. Bows were of mountain ash, elder, or willow, and lacked the sinew reinforcement employed by many other Indians. The bowstring was the twisted fibres of milkweed, nettle, or Indian hemp, or three-ply sinew. Arrows usually had a cane shaft and a foreshaft of greasewood hardened by fire. Those intended for hunting large animals and for war were stone-tipped, others had simply the pointed foreshaft. Arrows were made also of self-pointed arrow-weed (Pluchea). Foreshaft, stone point, and feathers were held in place by sinew wrapping and by mineral pitch or vegetal gum. Arrow-points were shaped in the usual way by flaking with the tip of an antler 1 The statement of Sparkman in The Culture of the Luisefio Indians, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 8, No. 4, I908, that pigeons, doves, and tree-squirrels were not eaten, was not confirmed by any informant interviewed in the present investigation. Personal taboo may be the explanation. It also may account for Kroeber's listing of turtles as inedible. VOL. XV - 2 {view image of page 10} IO THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN tool. The instrument used in straightening shafts was a heated stone with a transverse groove along which the shaft was repeatedly drawn until its irregularities had been removed. The quiver was the entire skin of a wildcat, fox, or other small mammal. A chisel, which was used also as a wedge, was made of a straight piece of antler, and it was driven by means of a stone hammer without a handle. Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum), milkweed (Asclepias eriocarpa), and nettle (Urtica), supplied the fibres used in making the two-ply cordage from which nets were fashioned. The burden-net, for carrying heavy objects on the back by means of a tump-line passing across the forehead, a small-mesh net for carrying acorns, a very long one used in driving rabbits, and a dip-net (and on the coast a seine) were all made by men. Netted aprons were made by women. The commonest mortar was simply a depression gradually worn in a bowlder until it became inconveniently deep, when a new one was started. This was the practice also of the Miwok of central California. The pestle was an elongate stone not artificially shaped. Transportable mortars were made of stone. The clay tobacco-pipe was short and tubular, without a mouthpiece, so that the smoker necessarily threw back his head lest the tobacco be spilled. The musical instruments of the Luisefios included the bullroarer, a wooden slat suspended at one end on a double twisted cord. As a summons to assemble for a feast it was swung rapidly above the head, the combined whirling and the rotary motion caused by the untwisting of the cord producing a loud hum. The flute was a section of elder with four holes, and cane whistles were used in the * A distinct culture existed on the Santa Barbara islands off the coast of southern California. The three southern islands, Santa Catalina, San Clemente, and San Nicolas, were inhabited by Shoshoneans; the northern group, comprising San Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz, by members of the now all but extinct Chumash family. Asphaltum washed ashore after breaking off from subaqueous pools played an important role in this island culture. It formed handles for obsidian cutting edges, heads for clubs, which probably were used for killing fish, adhesive material for fastening points to arrow-shafts, and material in which small shell disc beads, or wampum, were inlaid on stone implements and ornaments so as to produce artistic designs. Among the Chumash it was employed to calk the seams of unique canoes of boards. There were numerous figurines of various animals, particularly the killerwhale, and small stone canoes, the purpose of which is unknown. Large numbers of vessels cleverly made of steatite and of a close-grain stone have been recovered from all the islands. The stone mortars shown in the next succeeding plate are about two feet in diameter at the top, and the labor required to hollow out a hard-stone vessel of this size, securing almost perfect symmetry and leaving a shell as thin as one inch, must have been enormous. Steatite was quarried by the natives on Santa Catalina in early times. {view image of facing page 10} Streatite vessels from Santa Catalina Island [photogravure plate] {view image of page 11} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS II ceremony of initiating boys. Rattles were made of tortoise-shells and of gourds. The fire-drill was of the usual type, a wooden hearth with a notch at the edge for conveying the hot dust from hole to tinder, and a pointed spindle. The coastal bands used water craft, both dugout canoes and tule balsas. The principal product of feminine activity was basketry. Rough, open-mesh baskets were made by twining strands of a rush of the genus Juncus. Of this sort were burden-baskets for acorns, cactus fruit, and fuel, and sifting trays. Coiled basketry was made of the grass Epicampes rigens for the foundation, or horizontal coils, and Rhus trilobata for the wrapping material. Patterns in black were effected by boiling the sumac strips in water containing black marsh mud. Of coiled work were trays for winnowing and parching seeds, food vessels, small containers for trinkets, and caps for women. Mats used principally as mattresses were manufactured by stringing sedges on parallel cords. Large, cylindrical granaries of interlaced willows were placed on platforms of poles or on large bowlders for the storage of acorns. These were the product of masculine hands. Unpainted pottery was made by coiling a rope of clay upon itself and smoothing the sides with a wooden paddle while a smooth pebble was held on the inner surface. The kiln was a pit partially filled with dry bark, in later days with cattle-dung. The forms of pottery made by the Luisefos included fairly wide-mouth water-jars, small-mouth jars for carrying water on a journey, bowls and dishes for serving food, and pots for cooking acorns. Marriages were arranged by negotiation between the heads of the interested families, and a stipulated price was paid for the bride. Men of means usually married in succession two or more sisters. A widower had prior rights in the unmarried sister of his deceased wife, and a widow was bound to marry her deceased husband's brother if he desired her. The only social barrier to marriage was bloodrelationship, however distant; but since all members of a clan were held to be of the same blood, this amounted to a law of exogamy. Sociologically the Luisefios consisted of a large number of localized patrilineal clans, that is, family groups confined to definite localities, a system sharply differentiated from that of the Yuman tribes on Colorado river, where the clan names have totemic connotation and may occur in all bands of a given tribe, regardless of locality. The {view image of page 12} I2 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Luisenio system is like that of the Yuman Dieguenos, their southerly neighbors, but differs again from that of the Cahuilla, Serranos, and Cupeio, on their east and north, in that these latter Shoshoneans have their localized clans divided into two exogamous groups called Wildcats and Coyotes. There is no evidence however that the conception of descent from these animals was ever entertained, or that they were considered to be guardians of the groups named for them. There are thus three sociological systems in southern California: the totemic clans of the Colorado River Yumans; the non-totemic localized clans of the Diegueios and the Luisefios; and the localized clans with moieties of the Cahuilla, Serranos, and Cupefo. In central California is another system, the animal-named, but nontotemic, moieties, without clans, of the Miwok, the Yokuts, and the western Mono.1 In each locality there were several social divisions which had to do with the conduct of religious rites. Many of these are still active. Each "party," as they are called in the local vernacular, is headed by a chief (not), and normally consists of all, or nearly all, members of one clan or family, and members of other clans in greater or lesser number. Children of certain clans, on coming of age, are expected as a matter of course to join a certain party, but they may exercise their choice or even change their affiliations at any time. It appears probable that the party was originally simply the religious fraternity of a clan, to which in time numerically weaker clans attached themselves. The system is so like the fraternity organization of the Hopi that it can scarcely be doubted that it came, along with the clan system, from the Pueblo culture area to southern California. Party chieftainship is hereditary in the male line, another fact which indicates that the party was originally the clan, the party chief the hereditary clan chief. The office of assistant to the chief also is hereditary. The assistant, paha',2 notifies the people of an impending * The baskets shown in this and in the succeeding illustration are in the collection of the Southwest Museum, Los Angeles. Their provenience is not accurately known. 1 See Volume XIV, pages I38-140, 159. The author is indebted to E. W. Gifford's Clans and Moieties in Southern California, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 14, No. 2, I918. Gifford describes the Cahuilla-Serrano-Cupeiio moieties as totemic, a term which the present writer avoids as hardly justified, although admitting its convenience. In the case of the Colorado River Yumans, all females of a given clan bear the same name, that name is associated in the native mind with some certain animal, plant, object, or phenomenon, and the mythologists definitely aver that there was an original male ancestor bearing the name of the animal or thing connoted by the modern clan name. And this seems to be a more reasonable basis for the use of the word totemic. 2 A Rincon informant gave the title as aya, and said that the official was appointed by the not to act only in the ceremony at hand. {view image of facing page 12} Basketry of the Mission Indians - A [photogravure plate] {view image of page 13} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 13 ceremony and in general assists the chief. The leader of the rabbitdrive, kumukat,l occupies his position for life, and the best informants describe this as an hereditary office. There were apparently never any political chiefs among the Luisefios. The head of each patriarchal group was distinguished by the title kikat.2 The favorite amusement of the Luisefios was gambling at tepa'nih, the local variant of the hand-game. Each of four players had a looped string with a bit of white bone attached to the end, and another with a similar bone distinguished with a black band. The strings were for the purpose of preventing juggling after the guess had been made. Concealing his actions beneath a blanket, each of the four on the defensive quickly slipped a loop about each wrist and clasped a marker in each hand. All four then extended their clenched hands, and one of the opposing four guessed which hands concealed the unmarked bone. For every wrong guess his adversaries took one of the fifteen tally-sticks, and those who had not been "killed" concealed the markers again. Not until the last one had been correctly guessed did the inning change hands. Possession of all the tally-sticks by one side determined the wager. The game is still played at ceremonial gatherings. The Luiseiios did not engage in war. Trespass by hunters and food-gatherers caused occasional brawls, the result of casual encounter rather than of a premeditated plan. A very old woman at Rincon never heard of anyone being killed in these quarrels. Sickness not obviously the result of natural causes was ascribed to the sorcery of some malevolent shaman, and only another shaman could break the spell. Men became shamans by dreaming of some animal or person or natural feature, and receiving songs from it. They regarded their tobacco-pipes as indispensable in treating disease. Like many other primitive people, the Luisefio shamans believed that in order to inflict a wasting sickness on a victim it was necessary to make an image of him or to obtain some portion of his body, such as hair, nail-clippings, blood, or sputum, and over this to perform his sorcery. The method of treating sickness was to suck the affected part of the body and pretend to extract something from it, such as greenish or red fluid, a pebble, or a black, wormlike object. Rubbing, blowing the breath, and spurting water on the 1 Kumu, starting-place of the rabbit-hunt; kat, a suffix indicating the actor; hence, "starter of the rabbit-hunt." Cf. amu, to hunt; acmukat, hunter. 2 From kicha, house; "house-er," that is, householder. Cf. Hopi kik-monwi, houses chief. The Hopi name, however, refers to the village watchman and peace-officer. {view image of page 14} 14 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN body, and waving a bunch of hawk-feathers over the patient, were usually parts of the treatment. As elsewhere in this region, the Luiseiio dead were cremated. The spirit, which was identified with the heart, was believed to rise to the sky, and when death occurred the people would blow upward thrice in order to waft it on its way. Widows, and sometimes close female relatives, wore the hair shorn as a symbol of their grief. A few weeks after the rite of cremation, whenever the supplies of food necessary for any public occasion had been accumulated, there occurred Tuvigh, a ceremonial washing of the clothing of the dead person. Inside the wamki.h, a circular enclosure of brush a few feet high with an eastward opening, the people assembled after dark. A song-leader with a tortoise-shell rattle conducted the singing of a large number of songs by a group of old men and women, and in the intervals one of the old men would recite briefly a portion of the myth regarding the origin of death and the funerary and mourning customs. The songs themselves referred frequently to the same subject. Occasionally the women would dance without progressing from their respective places, flexing the knees, and the men at the same time repeatedly struck the ground with one foot while emitting a groan ending with a forcible expulsion of the breath. This last action was to keep the ghost away, and was doubtless prompted by the same psychology that was responsible for the custom of blowing upward to assist the spirit on its journey. At some time during the progress of the ceremony, which lasted until well after midnight, the clothing of the dead person was brought to the fire and was symbolically washed with water. About a year after a cremation occurred Chiyih,1 another similar "sing," at which time this washed clothing was burned, not by the ceremonial chief of the group to which the deceased person had belonged, although he had charge of the rites, but by another chief selected by him. Various articles were given away by the members of the party of the chief in charge. As in central California, the purpose of the burning ceremony was to terminate the period of mourning and to efface all feeling of sorrow. It was also in effect the final laying of the ghost, for it was thought the spirit would hover about until the clothing was burned. At irregular intervals the Luiseios performed T6chinlih in memory of all who had passed away since the last previous ob1 Chuytfh, burning clothes. The form chuchamYih (djudjamish) recorded by Kroeber is a future verbal form, equivalent to "going to burn clothes." {view image of facing page 14} Basketry of the Mission Indians - B [photogravure plate] {view image of page 15} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS I5 servance of the rite. The relatives of each such individual prepared a clothed figure of tules, representing the dead person, and the women made numerous baskets while the men accumulated shell beads and other forms of property. At the ceremony the effigies and part of the baskets were burned, and the remainder of the baskets with the beads and other objects were tossed at random among the spectators. This image ceremony sometimes included the whirling dance MarahiSh, and the entire ceremony was then called Ntigh. The chief in charge sent word to his colleague in another village that he would make Natish on a certain day, which usually was two or three weeks later, and stated that he would make a certain number of effigies representing that number of dead, requesting that the invited people bring a certain number of images representing so many of their own dead. In each village there was Marahfih dancing during the interval between the invitation and the opening of the ceremony, and it occurred also as a part of the actual rites. The host and his people provided a large amount of food, and whatever was left at the conclusion of the festivities was taken home by the visitors. The Marahifh dancer was called totuwYfh. This whirling dance, commonly known in the region as tatahuila (apparently a Mexican variant of totuwt{h), was performed also in honor of a deceased t6tuwiAh, but not in honor of a deceased chief unless he had been such a dancer. The face and body of a new t6tuwith were painted black; at subsequent appearances he was painted with red, white, and black. A good deal of latitude was permitted in the painting, but one essential was a black line starting at each side of the nose and curving outward under the cheekbone. This line was dotted with white. The white was gypsum, the black was graphite obtained in the mountains of Cahuilla valley and in San Ysidro mountains. The totuwrivh wore a skirt of dangling eagle-feathers and a head-dress of owl-feathers, and he danced by whirling rapidly as he circled about the fire. The whirling dance is now performed as an amusing feature of native gatherings. In memory of a deceased chief his successor held Aswuit-maknigh ("eagle killing"). As among the Hopi, who also had an eagle-killing ceremony, but not in memory of the dead, certain localities were the exclusive property of certain clans for the purpose of capturing eagles. The birds were caught in the nest before their flight-feathers were grown, and when a pair of eaglets were brought to the village the chief whose property they were announced a dance and a feast, {view image of page 16} i6 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN which continued for several days. One of the birds was then carried to another village, where the festivities were repeated, and leaving it with the local chief its former owner and his people returned home. His eaglet having been reared to maturity, he announced the eaglekilling ceremony, which was held in the usual brush enclosure at night. The men danced around a fire, one of them holding the bird in his arms and breaking a bone in its body, and at the shout "Hu! Hu!" passing it to his neighbor, who also broke a bone. This continued through the night, and finally one of the dancers killed the eagle by pressing his thumb into its breast over the heart. In the opinion of the spectators it was killed by supernatural power. Some informants say that only shamans participated in the ceremony. The attendant mourners then set up a loud wailing, and deposited clothing, baskets, shell money, and other objects on the body of the eagle, and all this, with the body itself, was given by the officiating chief to his colleague of another locality, by whom it was divided among his people. The eagle he burned after removing the wingfeathers, which were made into a dance-skirt. Condors were used in the same way. The so-called war-dance, TanniTh or Puilih, was performed as a supplication of numerous beings, such as the spirits of mountains, rocks, trees, and springs, for rain and for recovery from snakebite and pleurisy. It is said to have had no connection with war, and may have received this name simply because the participants, always men, wore feathers in their hair and performed in a manner more or less suggestive of the war-dance of other Indians. On the other hand the corresponding Diegueno dance is definitely mentioned as having been held with much enthusiasm after the killing of a Cahuilla chief in early mission days. Besides the mortuary rites, the most important of Luisefio religious practices were the puberty ceremonies for girls and boys. In the ceremony for girls, Wekeniih, several maids usually participated, though all need not have experienced their first menses. They were necessarily, however, members of the same ceremonial group, or party. The chief of their group, technically in charge of the affair, nevertheless did not himself actually conduct the ceremony, but engaged some other, usually but not necessarily a chief, to act for him. He himself merely acted as host to the assembled visitors. The rites were begun by causing the girls to sit side by side on the ground within the sacred enclosure of brush, and in front of them was deposited a large basket containing various ceremonial {view image of facing page 16} Southern Shoshonean pottery [photogravure plate] {view image of page 17} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS I7 articles, such as feather dance-skirts and head-dresses. The officiating chief, kneeling in front of them, rolled a ball of pulverized tobacco, and after thrice uttering a groan followed by an expulsion of breath, while at the same time thrusting forward his body with hand raised, he placed the pellet in the mouth of one of the girls and gave her a sip of warm water. These acts he repeated for each girl. If the tobacco was retained, it was regarded as a sign of the girl's virtue; if not, she was considered not to be a virgin. In the meantime a pit had been lined with stones, which after becoming properly heated were covered with a bed of green herbs. On this the girls, now somewhat narcotized by the tobacco pellets, were placed on their backs, and two flat, warm stones were laid on their abdomens. There, covered with mats or blankets and with a large basket inverted over the face, they remained until the fourth day, except that each evening they were taken out to be fed while the pit was reheated. During this period they drank only warm water, and they were prohibited from scratching with the nails, using instead bone scratchers attached by strings to their wrists. During the day there was dancing by women, at night by men. At the conclusion of their period of confinement in the heated pit the girls had their faces painted red, and circlets of hair were placed on their wrists and ankles, and bands of a certain plant about their heads. They wore these symbols for several months, and at the same time they abstained from meat, fish, and salt. The duration of this taboo was not fixed, but was left largely to the inclination of the individual. After their faces had been painted, the girls with their female attendants repaired to a large rock near the village, and painted on its surface certain geometric designs.l At the end of each month for an indefinite period their faces were repainted in a different fashion, and new designs were added on the rock. An important feature of the girls' puberty ceremony was connected with an earth mosaic. Some say it occurred a month after the dance; others, at the end of a year. A small hole was scooped out in the ground, and the material was heaped in a circle several feet in diameter, and within were represented various celestial bodies. With ashes, charcoal, and powdered red paint the enclosing circle and the periphery of the central hole were made black on the inside, red in the middle, and white on the outside. The figure represented the universe, and a northward opening in the circle the road the 1 One informant said that the attending women painted the rock. As the rites have not been observed since about I890, discrepancies must be expected. VOL. xv-3 {view image of page 18} I8 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN soul takes in its flight. Having completed this work, the officiating chief walked thrice around it, and with a pellet of pulverized chia and salt he touched various parts of the body of a girl and ended by placing it in her mouth. This he did to each girl. He then made a speech enjoining good conduct, and the girls, kneeling beside the earth picture, expelled the chia pellets into the central hole. Other old men at once destroyed the picture and buried the pellets by pushing the earth into the hole. The significance of the pellets apparently is no longer known, but the purpose of the rites as a whole was to promote the health and moral well-being of the girls, and particularly to insure fecundity and easy parturition. Most boys at about the age of puberty were initiated into the toloache cult. These rites occurred not annually, but only when there was a sufficient number of uninitiated youths of appropriate age. The outstanding feature was the drinking of a narcotic solution of the crushed root of Jamestown-weed. Toloache is the Aztec name (toloatzin) of the Datura plant. The drug was administered at night within a brush enclosure. Each youth was accompanied by a sponsor, and the officiating chief, who was never the chief of the group being initiated, carefully held the forehead of each boy as he knelt to drink from the small stone mortar which contained the solution of the root, lest too large a draft be taken. It was desired that the boys should be in a state of partial stupefaction for two or three days. After drinking they were led by their sponsors to another brush enclosure, where the people were assembled, and there they danced around the fire to the accompaniment of singing, partially supported by their sponsors. After a time they became nearly or quite unconscious, and they were carried out and left in the other enclosure under the observation of a few old men. The people continued to dance through the night. The singing and dancing, but not the drinking of toloache, were repeated on the following night, and, according to some informants, every night for a month. At times the shamans exhibited their magic, swallowing wooden swords, shooting one another with arrows and inflicting apparently fatal wounds which soon disappeared, leaping into the fire and stamping it out. To test their fortitude the initiates were placed, one by one, in a pit, and ants were poured from a basket or jar over their naked bodies. After a time the insects were whipped from their bodies with nettles. A circular sand mosaic, representing the universe and various {view image of facing page 18} A Cupeño woman [photogravure plate] {view image of page 19} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS I9 dangerous animals, such as tarantula, bear, rattlesnake, mountainlion, and raven, played an important part in the initiation. It occupied the centre of the ceremonial enclosure. Its details varied greatly in different parts of Luisefio territory. Near the end of the initiation rites the candidates stood in a circle around the figure, each attended by his sponsor, and an old man made a long speech, enjoining in detail upright conduct and warning them that if they broke the moral law the avenging creatures represented before them would scourge them and give short life.' A bit of sage-seed meal mixed with salt was given to each initiate, and after chewing it he ejected the pellet into a small hole at the centre of the ground picture. The old man carefully observed each pellet, and if any were unduly moist he declared that the candidate concerned had not given heed to his counsel, whereat the spectators loudly voiced their displeasure. Three small, flat stones were then laid in a row, with a circular hole intervening between the second and the third. Each candidate, accompanied by his sponsor, approached cautiously, stepped on the first with the ball of the foot, hopped to the second, and leaped over the hole to the third stone. Failure to accomplish this properly was regarded as an omen of short life. Sometimes this ordeal took the form of jumping three times along a short length of rope laid next to the hole in the centre of the ground picture.2 In conclusion the brush enclosure was demolished and the material burned. During the entire course of these rites, which apparently occupied 1 A short time prior to the writer's visit in I9I4 a rattlesnake bit a dog near a house at Pichanga (Temecula reservation). As rattlesnakes are seldom encountered near the houses, this was regarded as a punishment inflicted on the people for their neglect of religious customs. The head of the household therefore on the following day held a ceremony for the pacification of the wild creatures. He called in the people, and they sat about the room while he knelt in the centre with a basketry tray containing acorn meal. Moving the shallow basket slowly from side to side, he chanted in a low tone, repeatedly, "Wiusaihayai, wusaihayai!" This was an invocation to the wild creatures, asking that they be kindly disposed. Then he raised the tray and blew upward across it as an invocation to Mukat, and food was distributed among the women, who departed with it. On the following night they brought it back cooked, and after the host had repeated the same chant, a feast was held. This was done on three successive nights. Mukat is the younger of the two creators in Cahuilla mythology. Except in the foregoing instance the name was not heard among the Luisefios. 2 DuBois, in The Religion of the Luisefio Indians of Southern California, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 8, No. 3, 1908, describes a rope figure called wanawut, or wanal wanawut, with three stones tied in it at intervals, the whole representing, according to one of her informants, "one of the First People born of the Earth-mother," and according to another, the Milky Way. This was placed in a trench and used in the test above described. Her informants were residents of Potrero reservation. No confirmation of this was to be had at Pala or at Rincon. Winal was a seine used in sea-fishing, and wana-wut is apparently "seine large." Wanal wanawut is an example of the ceremonial doubling of terms characteristic of Luisefio practice. {view image of page 20} 20 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN several weeks, the boys were restricted as to food and drink, and for some months thereafter they ate no meat. After initiation a youth was known as pumal ("initiate"). The drinking of toloache was a custom acquired by the Luisefios from the Indians of San Clemente island, some of whom were attached to Mission San Luis Rey. The inland Luiseios transmitted the ceremony to other tribes, including the Dieguefios. Certain elements of Luisefio religion and mythology are connected with the toloache cult, which are recognized as having come from the Coast Shoshoneans; others are quite unmistakably related to Yuman lore. Chiunfchnlih was the unseen, all-powerful being whose messenger Raven travelled about the earth observing the activities of the people. Detecting improper conduct, he circled thrice above the place, and the people, thus apprised that someone had transgressed, took steps to placate Chiunlchnigh before death overwhelmed them. Venomous reptiles and insects, beasts of prey, and Raven himself were his agents of destruction. Apparently there were no myths concerning this personage, which is good evidence, if any were needed, of the exotic origin of the Chuinfchnish cult and the attending toloache rites. Wiyot, next to ChunichniSh the most important name in Luisefio religious thought, appears to be related to Yuman mythology, as witness the following outline of his activities: Wiyot was the son of Tfikumit [night, or night sky] and Tamayawiut [earth great]. He was called father by the people who lived on the earth. Frog was the prettiest of all the women. One day Wiy6t saw her swimming, and he observed that her body was thin and not beautiful. She was repulsive to him. -Knowing his thoughts, she said to herself: "My father does not like me. I will kill him by magic." She secured the aid of Badger, Gopher, and other burrowers, and they made sorcery against him. He fell sick. Four shamans were called: Wasimal [a hawk], Sakapipi [titmouse], Pfiipi [roadrunner], and Chalaka [horned toad]. Sakapipi was the first to try. He cried, "Pipi, pipi!" 1 And then the people knew Wiyot had been stricken by sorcery. The other shamans tried their power in vain. Then Wiy6t called Chehemal [kingbird], and told him that after death he would appear in the sky. Soon he was dead. They placed the body on a pile of wood to burn it. Then came Coyote. He seized the heart and carried it away. Three days later the moon 1 It is assumed that Titmouse was trying to say piiAh, kill by magic. {view image of facing page 20} A Cupeño female type [photogravure plate] {view image of page 21} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 21 appeared in the sky, and Chehemal exclaimed, "Oh, there is my father, Mila [moon] Wiyot!" The birth of a creator from the union of earth and sky, his death by sorcery at the hands of Frog (the origin of death), the burning of his body (the origin of cremation and the mourning ceremony), and the theft of his heart by Coyote, are all features of Yuman myth.1 Both Chiunichnigh and Wiyot were discussed by Fray Ger6nimo Boscana, a priest at Mission San Juan Capistrano, in his Chinigchinich, a treatise on the religious customs and beliefs of the Juanenios.2 The Cahuilla THE Cahuilla Indians occupy three areas greatly differing in natural conditions: an elevated territory among the rounded, oakclad mountains between the head-waters of San Luis Rey and Santa Margarita rivers; the lower country bounded by San Gorgonio pass, San Jacinto mountain, and the desert; and the arid region, partly below sea-level, in the northwestern part of Salton sink. In spite of wide environmental differences, the three groups, whose population is about seven hundred and fifty, are much alike in language, customs, and beliefs. Only in certain phases of material culture is there noticeable variation. The following description applies specifically to the desert group. The name by which these Indians are known is of undetermined origin. Although the pronunciation is similar, it has no connection with Kaweah, or Kawia, the name of a Yokuts tribe formerly resident on the lower course of Kaweah river in Tulare county. In view of the fact that Indians of this region quite commonly designated their neighbors by directional names, Cahuilla is probably the Spanish rendering of Kawika, westward (literally "mountainward"). The Cupefio called the Luisefios Kawika-wichum ("westward those-of"). The Cahuilla dialect uses the same word for westward and the same termination in some of the terms for groups of people. It is easily conceivable that some Spaniard of long ago, travelling through the desert of Salton sink and making inquiry of the nature of the country and the people ahead of him, received Kawika-wichum as the name of the westerly inhabitants, and thereupon recorded the name Cahuilla. 1 See Volume II, pages 47, 56-57, 73-77. 2 See Alfred Robinson, Life in California, New York, Wiley and Putnam, I846. {view image of page 22} 22 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN The westerly and northerly neighbors of the Cahuilla were the related and friendly Serranos in and south of San Bernardino mountains and beyond that range in the Mojave desert. Also to the west, but farther south, were the Luisenos and the Cupeio. Directly south were the Yuman Dieguefios in the mountains of San Diego county and other Yuman bands south and southeast of Salton sea. East of the Desert Cahuilla were the Chemehuevi, another Shoshonean group closely allied linguistically to the Paiute of southern Nevada, and many generations ago residents of the latter region. The Cahuilla house was oblong, and the average size was about ten by twelve feet. Four forked corner posts of mesquite, and one in the middle of each of the two shorter sides, were set in the ground to a depth of several feet, and on these were laid three timbers, one connecting each pair of corner posts and the third the two middle ones. Short rafters were laid from the side beams, or eaves, to the middle one, or ridge. The nearly flat roof consisted of dry wormwood stalks (Artemisia), laid across the rafters (that is, the longer way of the house), slabs of dry mesquite-bark across the Artemisia, green wormwood with the tips directed toward the eaves, a thick covering of fallen mesquite-leaves, and finally a thin layer of earth, which was trampled down compact and smooth. In modern practice the covering of earth is generally partially or wholly lacking. The walls consisted of several courses of overlapping wormwood shoots, each course being bound to a long pole extending between the posts. An embankment of earth at the bottom kept out the wind. The doorway, at one end beside the middle post, was ordinarily open, but it could be closed with an unhung door made of mesquite-bark slabs held between a series of battens. The fireplace was in the centre. In the dooryard was a ramada, kis-vaihat (" house shade"), which was simply a thatch-roof extending out from the house and supported on posts and timbers. There was no celebration nor dedication of a new dwelling, and the individual built his own house without the assistance of the community. The occupants slept on the floor, and the furnishings were limited to cooking utensils and baskets. The sudatory was built by first excavating a circular hole six to eight feet in diameter and rather more than two feet deep, and setting up in it two forked posts, which extended five or six feet above the * This is one of the gorges in which, according to a Cahuilla tradition, five generations of people lived after Salton sink, their former habitat, was deluged. The foreground is below the ancient waterline. Numerous fragments of pottery are found at the head of the gorge. {view image of facing page 22} Site of a prehistoric village - Cahuilla [photogravure plate] {view image of page 23} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 23 bottom of the pit, one at the rear, the other a short distance from the front wall. They supported a beam, on which rested the upper ends of a series of poles extending from the ground at the edge of the excavation. Against the upper end of the front post, which stood back from the edge, leaned the tops of two sloping beams, the feet of which rested on the ground about thirty inches apart. These formed the entrance. The roof was covered with brush and earth. The occupants sat against the earthen wall, and two men just inside the doorway, one at each side behind a baffle-wall of clay which crossed the doorway, kept up a brisk fire in front of the post. The bathers remained with bowed heads until the fire died down enough for them to pass out. If water was available they took a plunge, otherwise they lay in the sun to dry. The sudatory was used principally to relieve slight physical ailments, such as headache, cough, fatigue. Songs and prayers were not a part of the treatment. The structure in which are held the memorial rites for the dead is called kis-amnawut ("house power-great"). The circular wall of arrow-weed brush is about four feet high and twenty to thirty feet in diameter, and the conical roof of beams and poles thatched with brush is supported on forked posts at the corners of a square and a fifth in the centre. Sometimes only a brush corral is built, and modern practice favors communal ceremonial dwellings surrounding an uncovered plaza, in which the dancing takes place. The subject of clothing could be ignored with little injustice to the Cahuilla. Robes made of strips of rabbit-fur with cord twining were the only garment in common use, and they were draped about the shoulders only as protection from cold. Men did not always wear a skin loin-cloth, nor women a short kilt of mesquite-bark fringe. Pad-like sandals of agave-fibre were, and are, used when the feet must be protected from thorns. A fibre thong is so arranged that the foot can be slipped through a loop in such a way that the cord encircles the ankle, extends down the instep, then branches and passes on both sides of the second toe. Flat-topped basketry caps of coiled weave were worn by women to protect the head when carrying burdens suspended in a net on the back. The fauna of the Cahuilla habitat includes antelope, deer, mountain-sheep, black bears, badgers, mountain-lions, and wildcats, all of which were eaten, although their flesh was not a staple. Rabbits, hares, woodrats, and ground-squirrels were a more dependable source of meat. Dogs, and in later times horses, were eaten in time of famine, and the tortoise and a species of large lizard were esteemed. {view image of page 24} 24 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Fish were not available to the Desert Cahuilla within historic times, but the mountaineers secured limited quantities of trout. A boy or youth was not permitted to eat any game killed by his own arrows, nor could his parents eat it. Such game was given to other families. Not until he became a father was the taboo lifted. It was said that transgression of this rule would result in his inability to kill another animal of that particular kind. Most important of all foods to the desert dwellers were the seedpods of the mesquite tree (Prosopis juliflora), and to a lesser degree those of the screw mesquite (P. pubescens). These, the so-called mesquite-beans, are still harvested in considerable quantities. The pods are broken up and the seeds, kda'at, in their somewhat pithy covering are soaked in water, which imparts a slightly acid flavor to the resulting beverage. The seeds have no further use. The pods are dried, parched by stirring them about in a flat dish containing embers, and ground in a wooden mortar. The brownish meal, menikis-t6at, is eaten dry or mixed with water. It has a pleasant, sweetish taste slightly suggestive of licorice. Mesquite-blossoms are roasted in a pit on heated stones and squeezed into balls ready for eating. This product is called sel-kolat ("mesquite-blossoms madeof"). The fleshy leaf-base of agave was roasted in stone-heated pits. This is the food commonly called mescal. The dwarf yucca yielded a similar product. The pith of a palm with fan-like leaves was boiled and eaten in time of famine, and the fruit was crushed and stirred in water to make a beverage. Mistletoe, chaiyal, a parasitic growth on mesquite trees, has small, pink-white, waxy berries, which, mashed and mixed with a small quantity of ashes to counteract the viscidity, are boiled in an earthen pot for a few minutes. This is used as an occasional food, like a dessert. The taste is sweetish. Various seeds, including those of a sage called pasal (Salvia columbaric), are winnowed, parched, and ground into flour. The fruit of Echinocactus and of two species of Opuntia, or prickly-pear, and the seeds of another Opuntia, the cholla cactus, are eaten. The Cahuilla make, or made, implements and utensils of fibre, skin, wood, clay, and stone. The burden-net may be described as a small hammock with fourinch meshes. The material is agave-leaf fibres twisted into cord by * The white streak just below the apex of the hill is the old shoreline, and in the depression at the left of the apex are the remains of what the Cahuilla say were ancient fish-pounds. See footnote, page 26. {view image of facing page 24} Ancient shore of Salton Sea [photogravure plate] {view image of page 25} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 25 rolling them with the palm against the thigh. At each end of the net the strands converge into a ring, one of which extends in the form of a band long enough to pass over the head of the bearer and back to the other ring. Small objects to be transported are placed in a rather shallow basket, which is supported in the net. Agave-fibre sandals and rabbit-fur robes have already been mentioned. Bows, arrows, rabbit-sticks, fire-drills, flutes, mortars, cradleboards, seed-beaters, and baskets were fashioned of wood or woody materials. Bows, usually of willow, sometimes of mesquite, were about fifty inches in length and two inches, more or less, in width. Sinew reinforcement was not employed. The string was either mountainsheep sinew or agave-fibre. Arrows for small game had a shaft of cane, pahal, into which was inserted a pointed piece of greasewood, or they were simply pointed and feathered lengths of arrow-weed (Pluchea). For large game a flint or obsidian point was attached with black gum obtained from a plant, atukul, and with sinew cord either to the hardwood foreshaft of a cane arrow or directly to the end of an arrow-weed shaft. Arrows were about three feet in length and were either doubly or triply feathered with feathers from the wing or the tail of a hawk. Curved, flattish sticks were used in knocking over rabbits as they ran. The hearth of the fire-drill was a piece of palm-wood, the spindle a shaft of arrow-weed. The flute was an open section of cane, beveled at the mouth-end and bored with four holes. Gourd rattles were not made, but were secured in trade, probably from the agricultural Yuman tribes of Colorado river. The mortar of the Desert Cahuilla is a mesquite block about two feet long, hollowed with fire to about half its length, and embedded in the ground. The pestle is of the same material. Stone mortars also are used. Wherever mesquite is wanting, that is, generally among the Mountain and the Palm Canion Cahuilla, are found shallow stone mortars with basketry hoppers attached at the base by means of gum from the plant atukul. The cradle-board was a frame of transverse slats lashed across two parallel rods, with a sun-shield of basketry at the head. The infant was bound in place with a thong, and a strap at the head of the cradle served to carry it. With the exception of an open-mesh utensil used as a sieve and a tray, all Cahuilla baskets are produced by the coiling process. The VOL. XV- 4 {view image of page 26} 26 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN horizontal, or foundation, elements are the tall, slender, grass-like stems of sul (Epicampes rigens), and the sewing or wrapping material is either reed-grass, maisvat, also known as seil (Juncus), or sumac, selet (Rhus trilobata). Juncus provides not only the prevailing straw color of Cahuilla basketry, but also brown and reddish patterns, these latter shades occurring at the base of the stalks; and it is dyed black by boiling with mistletoe, Phoradendron californicum or P. coloradense, both of which species occur as parasites on mesquite trees. Kaputil, the burden-basket, so called although it is used for carrying burdens only when enclosed in a net, and furthermore is quite commonly employed as a container of food or other articles, is from twenty-four to thirty inches in diameter, half as deep, and slopes inward at a forty-five-degree angle to a flat bottom. Contrary to general Indian practice, Cahuilla men were not ashamed to be seen bearing a load on the back. Kaput-mal, judged by its name, is only a smaller form of the burden-basket. Its sides, however, are slightly curved, and the general appearance is that of a broad, shallow dish. Baskets of this kind are about twelve to fourteen inches in diameter and half as deep. They are used both for parching seeds by shaking them with embers, and as food-containers. Chipat-mal is a shallow basket, almost a tray, used for winnowing seeds and as a plate. T15.nil, somewhat globose, with flat, wide bottom and opening nearly as large, is used for the storage of valued objects of small size, such as beads, paints, awl, or tobacco. Basketry caps for protecting the head from the pack-strap have already been mentioned. Of pseudo-basketry construction is the outdoor granary, penivut, for the storage of mesquite-beans. Wormwood (Artemisia) stalks are horizontally intertwined, but not woven, to form the sides of a large, truncated cone. It rests on a bed of wormwood, to which however it is not attached, and is covered with the same material. Usually it is raised on a wooden platform. Cahuilla pottery resembles that of the other Southern California Shoshoneans and of the Yuman tribes. It is not to be compared * In the hills south of Mecca, on what once were points of land projecting into shallow water, are found what appear to be the remains of circular enclosures of stone open toward the water. The Cahuilla say that these were built by their ancestors for the purpose of impounding fish in the age when Salton sea beat against the hills a hundred and fifty feet above the present level. The ancient shoreline is visible for miles, a white streak on the flanks of the hills. {view image of facing page 26} Remains of ancient fish-pounds - A [photogravure plate] {view image of page 27} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 27 with Pueblo pieces. Although there is no direct evidence on the subject, it is possible that the manufacture of pottery in southern California was derived from the Pueblos. There was a definite trail from the Colorado river to Zuii,1 and it is reasonable to suppose that Yuma travellers acquired there the rudiments of this useful art. The clay for Cahuilla pottery, obtained in certain localities at the base of hills, was thoroughly dried and then pulverized on a metate. After a few sherds had been ground and intermixed, water was added until the mass was of the desired consistency. A rope of the material was coiled round and round, and as the sides of the vessel were thus built up, from time to time the potter smoothed them by rubbing with a curving stone on the inside and a wooden paddle on the outside. After drying in the sun for a day, the ware was ready for painting. Tesnat, a brown earth (probably iron oxide), was burned, rubbed on a flat stone, and mixed with water, and with this pigment simple geometrical designs were painted on the vessel. The ware was fired with the roots of a shrub called swuil, in later times with cattle-dung. Pottery was made only by women. The product of the potter's art took the form of water-jars, storage-jars, pots for cooking, dishes for parching seeds and serving food, and tobacco-pipes. Water-jars were spheroidal, with a restricted neck terminating in an opening of the same size, like the well-known Mexican olla. Jars for the storage of edible seeds lacked the extended neck, and the opening was considerably larger, so as to permit the insertion of the hand. Pots had an even larger opening, the lip was slightly recurved, as if to permit the fastening of a thong about it. Vessels used for parching seeds and for serving food were simply bowl-shape dishes with the opening as large, or nearly as large, as the maximum diameter. All these utensils had rounded bottoms. The clay tobacco-pipe was tubular. The stone implements of the Cahuilla were flint or obsidian arrow-points, arrow-straighteners, mortars (in the mountainous areas), pestles, metates, and mullers. The arrow-straightener was an oval piece of soft stone with a transverse groove in which, after the implement had been heated, the shaft was drawn back and forth. Metates were flat slabs of granitic rock worn slightly hollow in actual use, and the muller was a flat, oval or rectangular, piece of the same material, or a naturally shaped stone of convenient size and form. Arrow-points, mortars, and pestles have been noted heretofore. Sociologically the Cahuilla are a large number of localized, 1 See Volume XVII. {view image of page 28} 28 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN exogamous, patrilineal clans, which are divided into two groups, one identified with the wildcat, tzkuzt, the other with the coyote, isil. These moieties also are exogamous, and are designated by the collective forms of tuikut and isil, that is, tuktum and istam. With coyote is associated buzzard (yanavis), with wildcat is crow (alwat). Totemism, in the sense of descent from an animal or guardianship on the part of an animal, is not present. The clan chief, net, who comes to his position by heredity, is concerned principally with ceremonial matters, and is in fact a priest rather than a political leader. One of his duties is to keep mental record of those of his clansmen who have died during the interval between two memorial ceremonies. Again, whenever a vegetal food-product comes in season, he directs his people to bring a quantity to him, and his official assistant prepares the food and distributes it among them. Then they are free to harvest for themselves. At intervals of a few months he gives a feast in his house and imparts to the people any news or advice he may have. At the time of the memorial ceremony he sends his assistant to neighboring villages with a small gift of shell money and invites them to the ceremony. Some of these customs are now of course in abeyance. The clan chief's assistant (pahia' among the Mountain Cahuilla, talhqa in the Palm Cafion and Desert divisions) is an hereditary official charged with the actual management of ceremonial affairs. One of his duties is to prepare the dead for cremation. Marriage was normally arranged in a conference between two fathers, in which the girl's parent received a gift of some value, such as a quantity of mesquite-flour. The girl having been persuaded to accept her parents' decision, the young man came and led the bride away without formality. Either spouse, if dissatisfied, could dissolve the partnership and await opportunity for a new match. Sometimes girls not yet adolescent were pledged, and were then regarded as actually married although they continued to live at home. A widower could claim an unmarried sister of his deceased wife, and a widow customarily married a brother of her deceased husband. Familiar conversation or association between a man and his mother-in-law or his daughter-in-law was avoided, and relations between a man and his wife's sister or his brother's wife must be circumspect. * This rectangular structure is approximately a hundred and fifty feet long, open at the front, and divided into numerous stalls for the accommodation of the local population as well as visitors during the week of the memorial ceremonies. Similar sheds enclose the open space in which the dancing occurs. This usage has largely supplanted the circular ceremonial house. {view image of facing page 28} Fiesta camp - Cahuilla [photogravure plate] {view image of page 29} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 29 Pregnant women observe many restrictions in order to insure the delivery of healthy children. Little meat and no salt are eaten, and only warm water is drunk. Great stress is placed on the certainty of unfortunate prenatal influence should an expectant mother look at unpleasant or repulsive sights, such as a person marked with sores. She should busy herself constantly so that the child will be similarly industrious. The birth of twins is a great misfortune, but it is not known that the Cahuilla ever deliberately exposed one of twins to death by starvation, as did some Indians. After childbirth a woman lies in a heated pit and is covered with hot sand practically constantly for a week or longer, and for a month she avoids meat, salt, and cold water. As among many Indian tribes, nursing mothers do not cohabit, and the early weaning of an infant is the occasion of general chaffing of the impatient woman. On the fourth day of the memorial ceremony for the dead, when the material for the effigies is distributed, children are publicly named. The clan chief applies to each unnamed infant an ancestral name belonging to its father's family. Rarely were the ears pierced, but sometimes even the septum of the nose as well as the ears was so treated. William Pablo, a Palm Cafon Cahuilla, in his boyhood used to see an old man wearing a piece of iridescent shell hanging from his nose. At a later age each individual receives an "enemy name," which, when known, is used by the members of some other clan in singing songs ridiculing the "enemy" clan. This is comparable to the custom of certain Hopi fraternities, which in their ceremonies sing songs ridiculing the women of certain other organizations. The Cahuilla endeavor to keep these names secret in order to foil the "enemy" clan. At intervals of approximately two years occurred Tavilyoily, when all children of the age of puberty, or thereabouts, received a course of instruction in the ancient traditions and the right ways of life. First the older people met on three successive nights and discussed the myths, refreshing their memory. Then on the fourth night the children were brought into the chief's house, each wrapped in a rabbit-fur blanket, and the boys were laid on the floor at one side, the girls at the other side. The people sang the old songs, while the children listened and learned. The next morning the parents or other relative of the children took them to the water, bathed them, brought them back before sunrise, and painted their faces and bodies with gypsum. At sunrise a fire was built in front of the house, and the children lay there to {view image of page 30} 30 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN sweat. They were covered with green shoots, such as willow, and then with earth, to prevent them from becoming stiff. The sweat lasted perhaps two hours, and they were then taken back into the house. The chief's assistant and a woman or two remained in the house to watch the children, while all the other men went hunting and the women gathered seeds and berries for the night's feasting. Thus three nights and three days were spent. On the morning after the third hunt occurred Ponil, when the children were taken to a plot of cleared ground and trained to dance, one at a time.- If there were many pupils, this consumed the entire day. Toward evening they received food. This was repeated on the two succeeding days, and on the next (the tenth from the evening of practice singing by the elders) they received a bath and were questioned as to what they had learned; and any songs, myths, or rules of conduct in which they were deficient were repeated to them. Those who showed sufficient progress were dismissed, but the others remained under training as long as three months. Some never acquired any knowledge and were dismissed as hopeless. During this period of training meat and salt were prohibited. At first the pupils had only one meal daily, but if they made good progress they received two meals. The custom has been obsolete for many years. On the occasion of her first menses a Cahuilla girl was laid recumbent on a bed of brush and herbs in a heated trench. Covered with a blanket she remained there throughout three nights, while men and women danced and sang songs alluding to the institution of this custom by Moon and to the proper conduct of menstruating girls. During the day her grandmother or aunt placed her on the floor of the house, where neither sun nor wind could strike her. When she was thirsty they gave her warmed water, since cold water would cause cramps; and for her two daily meals she received a small quantity of thin mush. No salt nor dried food was given, and a bone or wooden scratcher was provided, since scratching with the fingers was prohibited. She remained thus in seclusion and on a limited diet for one moon. The first menstruation generally occurred at the new moon, it is said, and the girl remained under care until that moon disappeared, when she received a warm shower-bath. At the rise of the next new moon the flow, it is said, did not usually recur. If it did, the parents knew that the previous one was not her first period, that she had deceived them; and therefore a shaman was * The beaded cap is as modern as the dress. {view image of facing page 30} A Cahuilla child [photogravure plate] {view image of page 31} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 3I summoned to administer large quantities of bitter herb decoctions. At her second menstruation, and indeed, it is said, at every recurrence, the girl was kept in seclusion for six days, and ate no salt nor dried food. The initiation of boys by administering a drink of toloache, the root of Jamestown-weed, did not prevail among the Cahuilla. The practice obtained a precarious foothold among the Cahuilla of San Jacinto mountain and south of San Gorgonio pass, having been learned, it is said, from the Serranos of San Bernardino mountains. The games and contests of the Cahuilla included the hand-game and two somewhat similar guessing contests, shinny, hoop-and-pole, dice, various forms of archery, the kicking race, and string figures. Only the hand-game, now generally known by its Mexican name, peon, is extant.1 The Cahuilla were not warlike. Such fighting as occurred generally grew out of encroachment on the food preserves of a neighboring group or the supposed sorcery of a medicine-man. The most distant fighting of which a Palm Canion Cahuilla ever has heard was with the "Kisianu" (Cristianos, apparently missionized Serranos), who lived between the sites of Redlands and San Bernardino. It was thought that the medicine-men of that tribe had poisoned the food of their Serrano visitors from Morongo, who thereupon sent for the Palm Canon fighting-man Sisu. This warrior organized a party and joined the Morongo people against their enemies, with what success is not remembered. Hunters and shamans were predestined, and did not obtain their power by fasting. A youth destined to become a hunter felt an irresistible impulse to go into the mountains to hunt, and without a bite of food he departed at dawn to wander in the wilds. A voice, whether of a bird or other animal, or a rumbling noise among the rocks, or perhaps a voice inaudible to the ear, informed him where he would find game. There were shamans of three kinds, who existed in each group of people by the arrangement of the creator Miukat. The pa'vol was a medicine-man who not only cured sickness by means of herbs (very rarely by pretending to suck out blood), but also was a powerful hunter, to whom the animals spoke a language he understood. He could send his thoughts to a distant hunter in the hills and tell him where game was to be found. He treated any disease visited by Amnaa ("power"), one of the beings existent 1 For names and descriptions of Cahuilla games see Appendix, page I62. {view image of page 32} 32 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN before the creation of the world, as a punishment for transgression of such rules as relate to religious rites. He could cure snakebites, pneumonia, broken bones, bruises, dysmenorrhea caused by bathing in cold water at the menstrual period or by eating salt at that time, wounds, and colic. In all cases he employed herbs, administering them internally or applying them as a poultice, and rubbing either with the hand or with a hot stone. He treated tuberculosis, which was believed to result from an infection of the blood. Thus, if a wound were not cured, the bad blood passed into the system and lodged in the lungs; or the same thing might occur to a woman afflicted with irregular menses. The pa'vol treated also diseases of the eyes and ears. He could tell by feeling her abdomen and pulse whether or not a woman were pregnant, could assume the form of an animal and thus capture deer,1 could render an archer powerless to shoot, causing him to stand motionless all day with drawn bow. Pol was a shaman who obtained his power by predestination from Amnaa through the medium of dreams in childhood. These recurrent dreams distressed the child, but if he disclosed them to anyone they became of no effect. When he became a young man he confided to his elders that he had dreamed, and his clan chief at once ordered preparations for a dance. On three successive nights the novice danced and sang the songs revealed in his dreams. All this conforms to a custom widely prevalent in western America. The pol cured by sucking and singing and waving a bunch of colored feathers over his patient, in order to send strength into the sick one's heart. After sucking he gave the spectators a glimpse of a small black object, which he professed to have removed from the patient. It was this object, entering the body by magic exerted by some other shaman, that had caused the sickness. He usually was rewarded by a gift, but is said never to have made a formal charge for his services. Sometimes, usually in the case of a woman, a pol, after sucking and failing to produce the sickness, announced that there was none in her body, that he would therefore take a night to ask his amnaa (power) what was wrong. The next day he declared that the spirit had gone out of the patient's body, and sent the chief's assistant to call the people together. He placed the woman with her back to the 1 This belief may have been the result of certain men hunting deer by means of a disguise. The custom, common enough in regions not far distant, was known to the Cahuilla, but was not practised by many, and supernatural power would very probably be accredited to men who, having travelled and observed the method, first made use of it. The deer disguise was called aulavel; the stalker himself, aulav?. {view image of facing page 32} Remains of ancient fish-pounds - B [photogravure plate] {view image of page 33} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 33 fire, and danced and leaped about her, singing, and finally he shouted, "It is coming!" He made a grasp into the air near her and then opened his hand to show a very small black object, holding it up for all to see. This always resembled a diminutive lizard. He placed it on the top of her head, pressing down, and then passed -his hands downward over her body. Sometimes after dancing two nights he called in several other pol to assist on the third night. It was thought in such cases that the spirit simply had taken temporary leave of the body, not that it had been carried away by evil powers. When a spirit was carried off by Taqih (identified with ball-lightning) or other malevolent beings, it could not be recovered. Tftaaiwis ("dreamer") had dreams, which came at command and enabled him to foretell events. His power was prenatal. One of his principal functions was to see at a distance poaching parties of neighboring people. By dreaming of a person he could cause his death; but he himself claimed invulnerability and the power to move long distances with great rapidity. Nevertheless, "dreamers" were sometimes killed by the relatives of those who were supposed to have died as a result of sorcery. They were noted for ability to endure hunger, thirst, and lack of sleep. Tinaivas ("healer"), a woman who used herbs without supernatural assistance, having acquired her ability by human instruction, cared for women in childbirth and treated other similar cases. If she failed, she sent for a pa'vol. The "dreamers" neither danced nor sang, but both pol and pa'vol had songs alluding to their special abilities and exploits. On any occasion when a chief called a number of people to his house to sing and repeat the ancient myths, as well as in the course of the mourning ceremony, shamans of both the latter classes would perform certain acts of magic, one of which was to cause some object to disappear from the upraised hand, another to thrust a short rod down the throat and cause something ostensibly to come out of his heart. This, whatever it might actually or supposedly have been, was his taqia, the agent or symbol of his guardian spirit. A real feat was the taking of a live coal into the mouth, an act still in vogue. An ember, and not a diminutive one, is placed between the teeth and the breath is forcibly exhaled, causing it to glow brightly and emit sparks. After a moment it is taken back into the oral cavity, held there briefly, and then swallowed. The present writer has not been so fortunate as to observe this act, but he has questioned so many reputable white residents who have seen it at close range that he VOL. XV - 5 {view image of page 34} 34 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN entertains no doubt the feat is actually accomplished.' Shamans are still active among the Cahuilla, especially among the Desert group. When death occurred, shamans, both pa'vol and pol, were called in to make certain that life was really extinct. The people present then began to wail, and blew their breath upward three times in order to speed the spirit on its way. After the corpse had been washed and dressed, the chief's assistant, tadhqa, or pah6', placed it in a carrying-net and took it to the burning-ground. He scraped out a long, shallow trench, laid sticks of wood across it, placed the body on them, and built over it a conical heap of fuel, like a peaked hut. He then set fire under the mass, and the corpse was consumed almost without being seen. Children were not permitted to attend a cremation, but elder relatives and friends stood at a little distance and wailed. When all was consumed, the taAhqa (paida') covered the ashes with earth and left the spot like the surrounding surface. A few days later the house and all the individual possessions of the deceased person were burned. Men and women cut the hair and rubbed charcoal on the face as a sign of sorrow, and they continued mourning until the next celebration of the memorial rites. Nui-kily, or Chom-nily,2 the memorial rite for the dead, is held annually, in the winter, unless there is lack of the quantities of food needed for a feast. In the fall, if any members of his group have died since the previous celebration, the chief, whose principal function is in this connection, summons his elders to determine just when the ceremony shall take place. They eat and smoke while conversing, and at length the chief himself suggests a date, to which the others agree as a matter of course. They then decide what other groups shall be invited, and a messenger carries the word to them, receiving for his chief a gift from each invited group. The ceremony lasts six nights. The invited, and usually many uninvited, guests having arrived during the day, all assemble in the large ceremonial house, and after a period of smoking they begin under the direction of a song-leader to intone the chants that largely compose the creation myth. Sometimes the officiating chief first delivers a speech explaining the origin and purpose of the rites. The chanting goes forward with very frequent intermissions, and at the conclusion of each brief period of singing the leader exhales a groan 1 Since the foregoing was written a trained investigator has observed the "fire dance" and vouched for the genuineness of the act. See Hooper, The Cahuilla Indians, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. I6, No. 6, 1920, page 331. 2 The name refers specifically to the making of effigies of the dead. {view image of facing page 34} A desert Cahuilla woman [photogravure plate] {view image of page 35} SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SHOSHONEANS 35 and blows his breath upward three times, which the others repeat. These ceremonial acts, common to the Luiseios and the Dieguenos, may respectively refer to the groaning of the two creators as they lay in darkness after their spontaneous generation in the union of red lightning and white lightning, and to their creation of various things by ejecting them from their hearts. The more immediate reference of the upward expulsion of breath is, however, to the belief that the soul rises to the sky before travelling onward to its home, and to the desire to be rid of the ghost. At intervals in the chanting a shaman dances and sings his personal songs, assisted by the spectators, and the capable ones exhibit their magic as heretofore described. Some of them pretend to receive from Amnaa instructions which they communicate to the people. Large quantities of provisions have been accumulated for the occasion, and the baskets and pots of food brought by all the resident families are piled together in the ceremonial house, ready for the feast that occurs each morning. Three nights pass in the chanting of the creation myth, and the second three nights are devoted to singing by the invited guests. On the fourth night the officiating chief makes a speech, emphasizing the importance of continuing this custom which has come down from the beginning, and then distributes among the women of the bereaved families deerskin, feathers, baskets, nets, shells, everything necessary to make a native costume. On the following day other women of the same moiety 1 construct life-size effigies of reeds, tules, or other such material, one for each dead person mourned, and clothe them in a lifelike manner with the goods received from the chief. On the fifth evening all these effigies are brought to the ceremonial house, the official singer leads the chanting of the ancient songs alluding to the creation of the world and the suffering and death of the creator Mukat, and the effigies are laid away at the rear of the house and covered with blankets. Crowds begin to arrive on the sixth day, and all sadness is for the moment cast aside. At night when the people have assembled, the chief makes known to the newcomers what persons are being mourned, a signal for a general outburst of wailing. Just before dawn, after another full night of song, the effigies are brought in, each borne by a woman relative of the dead person thus represented. Following the chief, the women march around the fire and outside the house, where they form a circle and dance in situ by bending forward at the waist, 1 Gifford says of the opposite moiety. {view image of page 36} 36 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN rising on the toes, and settling back forcibly on the heels, always singing while the others loudly lament. Other clansmen of the dead toss money or commodities among the crowd, exactly as if an actual cremation were taking place. After a time the women carry their effigies to the burning-ground, where they are consumed amid wailing and the chanting of songs describing the burning of Miukat. This memorial is intended to put an end to grief, as in fact it does. The mourners thereafter wash their faces, permit the hair to grow long again, and deliberately laugh and joke. Almost the whole of Cahuilla mythology is included in the account of the creation and subsequent events. Miukat and Temayawuit, born from the union of a red and a white ball of lightning, effected two creations side by side. The balls of lightning were simply the manifestations of Tukmiut 2 ("night") and Amnaa (" power"), which existed from the beginning. Night was the mother, whereas in Luisefio and Dieguefo mythology Night (that is, the night sky) was the father and Earth the mother. Temayawut, argumentative and headstrong like the Coyote creator familiar in the mythology of northern and central California, brought into existence an ill-formed race, and in displeasure over his defeat in the creative contest, he disappeared beneath the earth, taking his monstrosities with him. Mukat incurred the ill-will of his people by teaching them to fight with bows and arrows, and they had Frog bewitch him. This is a motive found also in Yuman mythology. By his own direction they burned his dead body and so instituted the funerary and mourning rites, the last gift of the creators. These rites, together with the puberty ceremonies for boys and girls, may properly be said to comprehend the religion of the Cahuilla. 1 The Cahuilla profess to be ignorant of the meaning of the names of the creators. TPmayawut is identical with Luiseno Tamiyawut, which is translated "earth," and apparently is a compound of t!mal, earth, and the common suffix wtt, indicating greatness. 2 Palm Canon Cahuilla dialect, T6kmiyawtt. {view image of facing page 36} Desert Cahuilla home [photogravure plate] {view image of page 37} The Dieguenos {view image of page 38} I {view image of facing page 38} Modern rancheria at Santa Ysabel - Diegueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 39} THE DIEGUENOS T I"HE territory of the Dieguenio Indians coincided with what is now San Diego county, with the exception that the northwestern corner of the county was held by the Luisefios and an area in the north-central portion by the Cupefio. Other Shoshoneans, the Cahuilla of the mountains and the desert, the latter group on the other side of the rugged Santa Rosa mountains, were north and northeast of the Dieguefios. Eastward on the level floor of Salton sink, now the fertile Imperial valley, were the rancherias of the Yuman Kamia, a little-known group which may have been merely a part of what we call the southern Dieguefios. Farther east, on the Colorado, were the Yuma, and below these the Cocopa. South of the Dieguenios, in Lower California, were other Yumans still little known. The entire area of Dieguefio occupancy is a network of mountains. Perhaps it were better described as an elevated region breaking into fairly lofty, rounded hills, with numerous small valleys, some gorges and canons, and occasional rugged peaks from four thousand to more than six thousand feet high. Many of the valleys and rolling hills are dotted with oaks, here and there are groves of pine. Extensive tracts on the mountainsides are a tangle of manzanita and chamiso (idenostoma), above which in midsummer the dwarf yucca thrusts its showy white panicles in profusion. Mission San Diego de Alcala, the first of the California missions, was founded by Fray Junipero Serra in I769, and the Indians of the region, having no collective self-name, became known as Diegueinos. The term is now used as a convenient group-name for the Yuman inhabitants of the county. Quite homogeneous in culture, except for environmental variation, which was not great, the numerous Diegueio settlements differed considerably in language. Two dialects are recognized, a northern and a southern, but even within these divisions there is a good deal of variation, so that vocabularies recorded at two rancherias separated by only a few miles may disagree surprisingly. Nevertheless, a northern and a southern Dieguefio readily converse, each speaking his own dialect. Many of the Dieguefios describe 39 {view image of page 40} 40 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN themselves as Kuwaik-ipai, "South People"; some, even at Santa Ysabel, the most northerly of their reservations, where one would least expect to hear the name, as Kamiyai (Kamia), which is the Yuma term for the former desert-dwellers west of Colorado river, as well as for the modern southern Dieguefios. Indians of Yuman stock are not conspicuously friendly to strangers, and it is not surprising that the first efforts to Christianize them made little progress. Indeed, the mission was scarcely a month old when it was subjected to attack. One Spaniard and several natives lost their lives. Five years later the establishment near the bay was abandoned and new buildings were erected six or seven miles up San Diego river. At that time there were nearly a hundred adherents, many of whom doubtless were children; but some sort of control must have been exercised over a considerable number of Indians, for without numerous laborers buildings of the size and number constructed would have been impossible. The character of the influence wielded may be surmised from the fact that in the following year, I775, the mission was again attacked, this time by a very large force, which killed a priest and two others and set fire to the buildings. One cannot doubt that the Indians rebelled at compulsory labor, for they were not addicted to warfare. Indomitable, the Franciscans proceeded to rebuild, and thereafter the number of adherents increased rapidly, until at the close of the century there were about fifteen hundred. Of course not all, nor even a large part, of these lived in the immediate vicinity. A neophyte was a baptized Indian who occasionally attended mass and hoped for earthly blessings. A sad commentary on this period is the fact that from I81o to I820 the death rate among the missionized natives was thirty-five per cent. As their adherents (and laborers) increased, the padres extended the boundaries of their temporal domain, until their grain waved in many a valley and their herds grazed on many a hillside. One of these outlying districts was the valley of Santa Ysabel creek, where they established a visita in 1822. The Franciscans were deprived of their control of mission property in I834, and before many years the missionized Diegueios had generally returned to their ancestral homes. Traditional memories of mission days are thus recounted by a clan chief at Santa Ysabel: When San Diego mission was being built, the Spaniards sent men into the mountains and forced the Indians to carry pine timbers.1 At 1 The reference is to the year I774, when a new group of buildings, including a wooden church, was constructed. {view image of facing page 40} A Santa Ysabel woman - Diegueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 41} THE DIEGUENOS 41 Santa Ysabel the start was made on Friday morning of each week, six men to a timber, and camp was made at El Cajon,1 where the women gathered fagots to supply the mission with fuel. They reached the mission Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday morning after mass they received a small portion of food and returned home. Children accompanied these parties. When the chapel was built at Santa Ysabel the Indians were compelled to work in the fields. Several ox-teams plowed side by side, and a woman with a burden-basket full of seed followed each plow. At a signal each woman dropped a seed. [They probably were planting corn.] Some of them as they drew the hand from the basket on the back would drop a few seeds into the woolen dress which they wore at this period, and so carried home a handful of grain. Recalcitrant men were trussed up, rolled over on the side, and whipped with a bundle of oak brush heated in a fire to toughen it. At Santa Ysabel some men who had been punished for killing cattle escaped into the desert and persuaded the Cahuilla to raid the mission, run off the cattle, and take the girl neophytes. One of the Dieguefios went to San Felipe 2 to warn his relatives there to leave, lest being in the probable line of pursuit they come to harm. Some of these then secretly went to the mission and revealed the plot, and the original informant was seized and threatened with severe punishment, but was promised immunity if he would tell all he knew. So he revealed the plan in detail. When the attacking parties, two in number, approached, they found the Spaniards armed with guns and the Indians with bows, waiting in the plaza, the women and girls being shut up in the houses. They were driven off. The Santa Ysabel men escaped in one direction, but the Cahuilla, taking another route across the mountains, were intercepted by the Mesa Grande Dieguefios and many were killed. The chief himself was killed, and the war-dance was celebrated for weeks. This dance, Harhloi, was participated in by naked women. After the battle some women of San Felipe who had previously lost relatives at the hands of the Cahuilla reviled the dead bodies, even squatting on them and inviting them to cohabit with them. The people of Santa Ysabel and Mesa Grande never had fought with the Cahuilla, but those of San Felipe, living closer to the desert, had had infrequent encounters with them. Unlike their congeners along Colorado river, the Dieguefios were not agriculturists. Their small villages, or rancherias in the local vernacular, situated in the upland valleys wherever the surroundings were favorable, were occupied as a rule only in the winter. The summer was passed in roaming in search of edible products, for only 1 A distance of twenty-five to thirty miles. 2 San Felipe river is a westerly affluent of Salton sink, east of Santa Ysabel. Dieguefios occupied this watershed down to the edge of the desert. VOL. XV- 6 {view image of page 42} 42 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN by considerable diligence was subsistence to be had. This phase of activity culminated in the autumnal harvest of acorns. Dieguefio dwellings were small, elliptical huts of poles thatched with brush, grass, and earth. The earthen floor was slightly below the ground level. There was a smoke-vent at the apex, and the entrance, so low that it was necessary to creep through it, was imperfectly closed at night with a large leaching-basket. The occupants slept on beds of grass and covered themselves on occasion with rabbit-fur blankets. At the present time rectangular houses with double-slope roofs are constructed of posts, poles, and brush thatch. The sweat-house, or temescal as the Spaniards called it, was a somewhat conical structure of poles, brush, grass, and earth, with an excavated floor and a low, narrow, open doorway. The size varied from fifteen to twenty feet. The fire was built just inside the entrance, and there, in order to deflect the heat inward, the height of the earthen wall was increased by constructing a baffle of stones and earth about two feet high and twice as long. As many as twenty-five to thirty men sat on small stones against the wall, and after about half an hour of sweating they bathed in the stream. This was done every evening, if possible. Diegueiio men wore no clothing whatever except a rabbit-fur robe about the shoulders in cold weather and agave-fibre sandals when travelling among thorns. Women had small aprons of agavefibre or willow-bark, one before and another behind. When the mountaineers first visited their friends at the mission, the padres would give them bits of cloth to make loin-cloths, and eventually the women were taught to weave long woolen dresses. The hair of both sexes hung loose. Many women had horizontal bands tattooed on the chest and three perpendicular lines on the chin. Gypsum and iron oxide obtained from mineral springs were used in painting body and face. Rabbits, hares, and other rodents such as woodrats, gophers, and ground-squirrels were the most dependable form of flesh food. Deer were taken in fair numbers with bow and arrow, and antelope and mountain-sheep were less frequently brought down. Bears, mountain-lions, and wildcats were regarded as good food, but were rarely hunted. Quails were easily killed with arrows or caught in snares, and a species of large lizard was highly prized. Acorn mush and sage-seed mush were the vegetal staples of the Dieguefios, and they are still consumed in quantities. Acorns are first spread out to dry in a sunny place, and then one {view image of facing page 42} A southern Digueño woman [photogravure plate] {view image of page 43} THE DIEGUENOS 43 by one are cracked and laid back in the sun, which soon causes the shells to split wide open. Then the pile is beaten with a stick to remove the shells. The nuts are pounded into meal in a stone mortar, the meal is placed in a leaching-basket, and water is poured through it repeatedly to remove the tannic acid. The meal is then boiled in an earthen pot into a thin mush, or gruel. A ruder method of leaching was sometimes practised. On a bed of grass was spread a layer of sand slightly depressed in the centre, and in this shallow dish the meal was placed. Properly leached, the upper part of the meal was then transferred to the cooking-pot, and the remainder, with sand adhering to it, was thrown into a dish of water, where the sand settled to the bottom and the meal, remaining near the surface, was skimmed off. Kotuch, widely known under its Mexican name pinole (Aztec pinolli), is the fine flour made of the seeds of several species of sage, especially piih7tai, white sage, and epIhl (Salvia columbarice), commonly known as chia, its Mexican name. The gruel made of pinole is usually called atole, another Mexican Indian word. The roots of tules and cattails, various bulbs, young cattail sprouts, scapes and leaf-bases of the dwarf yucca, mescal (that is, the leaf-base of agave), pine-nuts, manzanita-berries, elderberries, chokecherries, and mesquite-beans purchased from the desert folk were of greater or lesser importance. Salt was obtained from the inhabitants of Salton sink. Those near the coast had fish, shell-fish, and seaweed. Tobacco was gathered in the mountains by organized parties under the direction of a shaman. On their return all the participants in such an expedition held a "war-dance," after which the tobacco was distributed among them. Only persons of importance used tobacco, and the shamans fostered the belief that it was sacred. The principal occupation of Dieguefno women was the manufacture of pottery and basketry. Both arts are still practised, though they cannot be said to flourish. The potter pulverizes clay and rock in a mortar, sifts the material through a basket, and mixes it with water. The bottom of the vessel she forms by beating out a lump of the material, and the sides by coiling a rope of it, smoothing the surfaces by means of the usual rounded stone rubbed on the inside and a wooden paddle on the outside. Usually, but not always, the vessel is painted with oxidizediron scum from mineral springs before being placed on a bed of white-oak bark in a pit, covered with more bark, and then fired. The cooking-pot, askai, the dish, kaIhet, the water-jar, kulkul, and {view image of page 44} 44 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN the tobacco-pipe, zmuqin, differ not at all from the Cahuilla pottery forms already described. The Dieguefios have also a double-mouth water-jar called chakal, and a ladle, ahyuhl. The jar kulkul was formerly employed also as a receptacle for the ashes of the dead. The twining process appears in enpun, a tray-shape leachingbasket, and in esqil, an obsolete carrying-basket provided with a bail and formerly used in gathering acorns, which were poured into the net-bag huh7mi. The cradle-basket was simply a lattice-work of withes, and the outdoor granary a large receptacle of interlaced willow or greasewood or other convenient brush. With the exceptions noted above, all Dieguefio baskets consist of horizontal coils of the grass Epicampes rigens (qaiyuRT), closely wrapped and sewed together with Rhus trilobata (phflcha) and 7uncus (kwanai). The sumac shoots are allowed to dry, so that the bark peels off, leaving white withes, which are split into two or three strands. The lower portion of the underground stock of the rush Juncus furnishes the material for red-brown patterns, and the upper portion is dyed black by boiling, adding to the cooled liquid black mud and crushed mistletoe, and allowing the rushes to stand thus for a month, after which they are suspended in the smoke of oak-bark. Dieguefio coiled baskets, resembling in every respect those of the Cahuilla, which have been described, include the burden-basket, hasich, used principally for harvesting seeds and carried on the back in a net; the bowl-shape halich, a food-container and parching-basket; the tray-shape winnowing-basket, hiatayil; the globose trinket-basket, hatamul; and the cap, enpul7, which was used not only to protect the head from the pack-strap of the carrying-net, but also as a waterdipper. Cordage was the twisted fibres of milkweed, Indian hemp, or agave, and the articles manufactured therefrom were the carrying-net, in which a burden-basket usually was borne, a long, small-mesh bag for transporting acorns from the hills to the village, agave-fibre sandals, and open-mesh shirts worn by certain dancers and intended solely as a foundation for feathers. The Diegueiio bow was fashioned of the half of a willow branch. This wood is easily worked, but becomes very tough with age. The bow was reinforced with deer-sinew, which was fastened at the ends and in the middle with pine-pitch boiled on a potsherd and made black by adding charcoal and the flowers of greasewood, or red by adding iron oxide. Quail-feathers were matted into the pitch before the sinew was applied, a detail which is said to have resulted in a {view image of facing page 44} Monkey Face - Mesa Grande Digueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 45} THE DIEGUENOS 45 more adhesive binder. Between the points where pitch was applied both bow and sinew were wrapped with sinew thread. For ordinary purposes the arrow was a cane shaft with a point of greasewood hardened in fire and embedded in hot pine-pitch. Sinew wrapping was employed to insure a firm union. The arrow for large game and for fighting had an obsidian point set into the end of the cane shaft. The instrument for straightening and smoothing arrow-shafts was a piece of stone with a transverse groove. It was heated before use, and straightening and smoothing were accomplished in one operation. Besides arrow-points the Dieguefios employed stone for mortars and pestles, metates and mullers, and sometimes, instead of clay, for tobacco-pipes. Although they made transportable mortars, acorns were pounded also in holes gradually worn in the face of immovable bowlders. The bullroarer, the four-hole elder flute, the cane whistle, and the gourd or tortoise-shell rattle were the musical instruments of the region. Like the Luisenios the Dieguefios have localized, patrilineal clans, and marriage must be exogamous even if blood-relationship cannot be traced. The hereditary clan chief, qaipai, inaugurates ceremonies and is the official host for the occasion.1 A Dieguenio woman during pregnancy is subject to many restrictions of the nature heretofore noted as Luisefio practice, and especially she abstains from meat, salt, and cold water. After the severing of the navel-cord, the stump is coiled on the child's abdomen, a warm, flat stone is laid on the umbilicus, and the infant is bathed with warm water, wrapped in nettle-bark fibre, and lashed on a cradlebasket. The sloughed cord is buried. For about four weeks after childbirth the mother spends most of the time, day and night, lying on a bed of white-sage above a layer of hot stones. The stones are reheated and the sage is renewed each evening. Some women still faithfully adhere to these customs. During the same period the father avoids all activity, and, like the woman, eats neither meat nor salt. Children were usually named for natural objects. Typical names for boys are Samai (a kind of grass), Hiulyomai ("smoky rock"), Sasan ("sunstroke"). Children nowadays always receive Spanish baptismal names and clan surnames. At the age of puberty most boys, but not all, were initiated into 1 An informant at Santa Ysabel gives qaipai as the title of an hereditary village chief in charge of inaugurating ceremonies, and koimi as the clan chief. {view image of page 46} 46 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN the toloache cult, and all girls experienced a long course of treatment intended to make them strong, industrious women, healthy and prolific mothers. In the ceremony for girls, Atonuk, a pit was dug, the bottom was lined with stones, and fire was kept burning on them until they were sufficiently hot. The heated stones were covered with green stalks of a plant called ahipup, and the girls, only one of whom necessarily was experiencing her first menses, came naked to the pit, received a drink of warm water containing a small quantity of tobacco, and lay down on the herbs. They were covered with ragweed, haquhia, except the feet, where thistle-sage, halulu, was used.1 Blankets were then spread over them, and large baskets were inverted above their faces. There they remained all day and all night, and each morning the heat and the herbs were renewed. Only at that time and at brief intervals during the day were the girls taken from the pit. People from other villages came to the ceremony, and some of these visiting women danced two by two beside the pit, day and night, while the men sang. The relatives of the girls sometimes threw clothing and other articles into the pit, and the visitors took them as payment for their assistance. The first song after placing the girls in their sudatory was sung by a woman: Umat qiihwahl hum6, miyu? II kupaich hum6, miyu? earth the one no where wood the one no where to dig more are you to carry more are you XYaiu-miyut, waiu-miyu, waiu-miyiu? where are you "There is no one to dig the earth. Where are you? There is no one to carry wood. Where are you? Where are you, where are you, where are you?" Another song was this: "Crushing herbs, crushing herbs, crushing herbs." The first song obviously refers to the preparation of the pit and heating the stones, the second to the fact that the girls are now reclining on their bed of herbs. Throughout the ceremony numerous songs were sung, most of them referring to the acts which they accompanied. The girls remained in the pit as long as they could stand it, or until the food was exhausted and the visitors departed. This usually was about a week. 1 Waterman, The Religious Practices of the Diegueno Indians, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 8, No. 6, 191o, page 286, says that white-sage, thistle-sage, and ragweed were used. In this, as in more important matters, local practice doubtless varied. {view image of facing page 46} A northern Digueño type [photogravure plate] {view image of page 47} THE DIEGUENOS 47 During their confinement the girls received only unsalted sageseed mush and warm water. Scratching the body, and particularly the scalp, with the nails would cause violent skin eruptions, therefore bone scratchers were provided. For at least several weeks meat and salt were not eaten.1 The initiation of boys into the toloache cult was like the Luisefio ceremony. In fact, traditions of both tribes agree that the Dieguefios were initiated into the cult by the Luiseios, and most of the songs are in a Shoshonean dialect. The toloache initiates really composed a pseudo-fraternity, for they received instruction in shamanistic magic and a distinguishing badge, and only they could participate in the so-called war-dance, the eagle-dance, and the fire-dance. Sometimes an adult man, not an initiate, was permitted to take part in these affairs after rubbing toloache on his arms and legs. A synopsis of the toloache rites follows. The chief in charge, qaipa', and four or more assistants, kaponil, met at night in a ceremonial enclosure, qusichinwa ("drinkershouse"), where they powdered the narcotic roots, kusi, in a small stone mortar reserved for that purpose. At other times such mortars were kept buried. Water was poured on the powdered roots and strained off through a leaching-basket into a basketry cap, from which the boys drank, or, in some localities, they drank directly from the mortar. They were then conducted by the kaponfl to a larger brush enclosure, himtk, or himawajus, where old men voluntarily attached themselves as nuhiut, godfathers or sponsors, to the novitiates, supporting them as they moved in a circle about the fire, teaching them the songs, and generally guiding them throughout the course of the rites. Soon becoming too narcotized to stand any longer, the boys were carried out to sleep and receive the dreams which were the principal object of the cult. In the morning, having slept off their intoxication, they were made to sit in the sun and to drink warm water. In the evening a kapohel went about among the houses carrying two staffs, each of which had two crow-feathers attached to it. Returning to the dance-place, he planted them in the ground and at the point thus selected the families of the boys brought sage-seed mush, a bowl of which was held in front of each boy. But it was quickly snatched away, and any boy who was sluggish received not even the one handful that he could at 1 Waterman, op. cit., page 286, describes, and illustrates with a photographic reproduction, "a ceremonial crescent shaped stone... warmed at the fire and placed in turn between the legs of each girl close against her body." Several men questioned at Mesa Grande and at Santa Ysabel professed ignorance of the custom. {view image of page 48} 48 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN best secure. At the end of six days of partial fasting they were taught dancing each evening by their sponsors. The kaponil kept close watch during the month the initiates were under their charge, lest they run away and drink cold water, which it was believed would be fatal. Morning, noon, and night they drank warm water. Each morning they were taken apart from the village, and the unmarried girls who acted as singers in the ceremony rubbed them with warm water. They were then brought to the dance-place, where the same girls smeared the boys' bodies with charcoal. At the end of the ceremony a mosaic was made on the ground with colored earths, representing the Dieguefio conception of the universe and its principal creatures, and each boy received from his ceremonial father as a symbol of his new status a pointed, sword-like stick and a bunch of owl-feathers. Dieguefio youths sometimes were subjected to the ordeal of being confined in a house with masticated mescal smeared over their bodies, which were then exposed to the attacks of myriads of red ants previously collected in jars. To make themselves strong and healthy, young men practised competitive running at each new moon. There was no formal marriage rite. A favorite method of getting a wife was to seek the desired female while she gathered seeds or roots, and then take her home. In other cases some male relative of the man went to the girl's house to negotiate for her. The parents themselves apparently had nothing to say about the matter: if her brothers and her uncles on both sides consented, the girl was taken without further ado. Presents of food were sent back, and her family responded in kind. The couple always lived with the husband's people. Linguistic evidence points to the former existence among the Diegueiios of a widespread custom, that is, the marriage of a widow to her deceased husband's brother and of a widower to his deceased wife's sister: for the terms for stepmother and mother's sister are identical, as are those for stepfather and father's brother. The limitation of conversation and association between a man and his mother-in-law, as well as his daughter-in-law, to the absolutely essential was formerly very strictly enjoined. The Diegueiios never organized for war, and the only fighting was the result of petty brawls between the small local groups over the question of territorial rights. The favorite form of gambling was humcarp, the hand-game, commonly known in this region as peon. It is still played. There {view image of facing page 48} A Campo female type - Diegueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 49} THE DIEGUENOS 49 are four men on each side, and each has two cylinders of bone or white wood, one with a black band around the middle. These the Mexicans call peones. One side having concealed these markers in their hands, their opponents' leader endeavors to indicate the position of the white ones. Each man "killed" drops out of the game for the remainder of the inning, which continues until the last of the four is "dead," when the other side take their turn at concealing their markers. For every wrong guess one of the fifteen tally-sticks is taken by the winning side, and the game continues, perhaps for several nights, until all are in possession of one side. Uptfik, a game of dice, was played by women. Four flat, wooden sticks, marked in pairs by designs incised on one surface, were stood on end on a stone disc and were swept off with the hand. The score was recorded by covering with pebbles the indicated number of holes in a circle of fifteen. Muturp, the hoop-and-pole game, was played by the northern Dieguenos until about the year 900o, and is said to be still in vogue at some of the southern rancherias. Diegueno men became shamans by dreaming, not by instruction nor by deliberately sought visions. The usual method of removing occult sickness by sucking and by incantation prevailed. Like all other Yumans, and indeed nearly all California Indians, the Dieguefios cremated the dead. As soon as the death-wail was raised, all the people assembled at the house, and with little delay a hole was dug and a funeral pyre built over it. Then the corpse was carried out, and the people stood about the pyre, wailing as the flames consumed the body. It is said that the heart was always difficult to burn,' and some of the men would prod it with sticks in order to reduce it more quickly to ashes. The ashes and bits of bone were placed in a water-jar, which was buried in the pit or concealed among the rocks. Then followed a feast at the bereaved home, the people carried off all the unconsumed food, and the house was burned. But the clothing and other personal possessions of the deceased person were kept for use in the memorial rites. Close relatives cut their hair, and if any others were especially grief-stricken they had the hair shorn by the dead person's mother, for which act of honor to the dead a new basket was received. The hair was preserved until the next memorial ceremony, when it was used in making effigies of the dead. The greatest care was exercised to keep this hair secure 1 Cf. the mythology of this region, pages I2I-I23, in which the heart of the creator and of Taqiqh remained unconsumed. VOL. XV- 7 {view image of page 50} 50 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN from theft by a shaman, who might desire it for use in bewitching its owner. It is believed that the soul flies through the air to the place where people were created, that is, the mountain Wikami in southern Nevada. The mourning rites usually occurred a year after the death of him whose spirit was thus to be sent permanently away, and the families of all persons deceased within the past year joined in the ceremony, unless some of them had not the necessary supplies of food; in which case they might subsequently accumulate food and repeat the ceremony later in the year. The first feature of the rites was the burning of the clothing of the deceased persons, which occurred at night, following a prior night of lamentation. On the next morning, and again in the late afternoon, provided one of the lamented had been a toloache initiate, occurred Tapakwirp ("whirling"), which might be repeated on the two following days before the people dispersed. This was the dance known to the Luiseios as Marahish and to local white residents as tatahuila.1 At the close of the afternoon performance of the whirling dance the old toloache initiates entered the ceremonial enclosure one by one, imitated the action of their lamented comrade, and passed out. Then all together returned, crawling like animals and imitating the sound of the animals of which they severally had dreamed while intoxicated with toloache at their initiation. They formed a circle about a bunch of feathers, the dead man's insignia of initiation, which they proceeded with ceremonial gestures and upward expulsions of breath to bury. This might be followed by the so-called war-dance, Hariloi, which however was not restricted to such occasions. Participation was a prerogative of toloache initiates. Although the Dieguefios did not practise organized warfare and their logical right to a war-dance is therefore open to question, it must be noted that Harhloi is said to have been danced repeatedly after the killing of certain Cahuilla who attempted to destroy the mission establishment at Santa Ysabel. The numerous songs of this dance consist of Shoshonean words, and it is clearly a component part of the toloache cult. Each of the dancers wore a head-band of owl-feathers, in which he inserted his feather insignia of initiation, and at certain times they shook their raised fists in a gesture apparently threatening. When effigies representing the dead were to be burned, a small hemispherical booth, open to the east, the direction of the spirit world, was built for housing them. The effigies were made by clanswomen 1 For a description of the whirling dance see page 15. {view image of facing page 50} Communal ceremonial shelter at Capitan Grande - Diegueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 51} THE DIEGUEi0OS 5.I of the mourners. Six nights passed in singing and dancing, while the effigies were carried around the fire. At the end of the sixth night they were returned to the booth, clothing, baskets, and other articles were piled over them, and the entire mass was burned. This concluded the period of mourning. The words of the songs for this occasion are Diegueno, hence the rite is not to be regarded as a feature of the adopted toloache cult. In memory of a deceased chief, Uhpa-ima ("eagle dance"), or Uhp.a-ham6chh ("eagle kill"), was performed. An eagle, always obtained in some more or less distant locality, was killed, ostensibly by magic exerted through the pointing of a stick at the bird and, of course, through numerous songs. Actually the deed was accomplished by pressure of the thumb over the eagle's heart. All toloache initiates were taught the secret of handling embers without being burned. This act was a feature attached to several dances or ceremonies, such as the toloache initiation, the mourning rites of burning clothing, and Harfloi. After singing and dancing in a circle about the fire, the performers scattered the brands and coals with their feet, continued to dance while the heat somewhat abated, and then resumed the attack with their feet, thus finally extinguishing the fire. Sometimes a single man, squatting beside the fire, scattered the coals with a stick, and some of the dancers stamped on them, others placed embers in their mouths. In preparation for this dance they chewed gypsum, chahar, and sprayed it over their feet and bodies. The Diegueno account of the creation is clearly related to the Mohave myth.' From the union of Earth and the superimposed Water were born two brothers, who pushed the water up and thus formed the sky. They created the celestial luminaries and human beings. This occurred at Wikami.2 A ceremony was planned, and having built the brush enclosure the people sent to the ocean for a monster serpent, in whose body was all knowledge. When the serpent had coiled himself in the enclosure they set fire to it, and his body exploded, scattering among the people languages, songs, institutions, and customs. The elder brother then fell sick and died. They burned his body, thus establishing the custom of cremation, and Coyote ran away with the heart. The younger brother, after making many transformations in the earth and its inhabitants, went into the sky. He is identified with the phenomenon of ball-lightning. 1 See Volume II, pages 56-57. 2 This is the Avikome of Mohave mythology, a mountain identified with a peak in southern Nevada. On being asked to repeat the name carefully a Diegueio usually says iJwikami. {view image of page 52} 52 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN The foregoing is the summary of a version recorded at Capitan Grande in Northern Dieguefio territory. Considerable confusion seems to prevail, even among the raconteurs, regarding the names of the two creators. At Capitan Grande they are Chakopa and Chakomat, who are described respectively as m tuwilh (" elder") and qusaink ("younger"); but at Mesa Grande, farther north, they are Tochaipa-mutuwih and Quisank-yokomat. With these names compare Mohave Matochipa and Kokomat.1 Gifford, writing of the southern Dieguefios, gives Tcaipakomat and Tcakumat as alternative names for the male partner of the pair created by "the god Maiyoha," who was the elder of two brothers existent in the water.2 DuBois names Tuchaipa, the elder brother, and Yokomat, the younger, and says that they are sometimes named as one, Chaipakomat.3 Waterman, in a Southern Dieguefio version, has the same dual form, Tcaipakomat, as the name of the elder of two brothers existent under the water, but does not name the younger brother.4 From all this, and considering the evidence of Mohave, Yuma, and Maricopa mythology, it appears probable that the two creators, born of Earth and Sky (Water), are properly Tochaipa and Yokomat; that the two names are frequently conjoined into Chaipakomat, in the same manner as Umal (sky) and Uhai (water) into Gifford's Maiyoha; and that Chakopa and Chakomat are variants of Tochaipa and Yokomat, derived probably from Chaipakomat. 1 See Volume II, page 56. Mat6chipa < Mu(tuwihl)-tochaipa; K6komat < qu(sinkyo)komit? 2 Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 14, No. 2, I918, pages I70-I7I. "Maiyoha" is IUmai-hli ("sky water"), which as Umi-yuhfi was heard by the present writer at Mesa Grande as the name of the creator of the first human pair. 3 Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XXI, I908, page 229. 4 Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 8, No. 6, I9I0, page 338. {view image of facing page 52} Summer shelter at Campo - Diegueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 53} Plateau Shoshoneans {view image of page 54} {view image of facing page 54} An Owens Valley Mono [photogravure plate] {view image of page 55} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS T HE Mono-Paviotso branch of the Shoshonean stock includes the Mono in California, the very similar Paviotso in western and northwestern Nevada and northeastern California, and the bands of southeastern Oregon loosely known as Paiute and Snakes. All these, as well as the desert Shoshoneans of southern California and the bands in the rest of Nevada and western Utah, have at different times been described as Paiute, and this is the designation generally used by local white residents today. The Mono THE habitat of the Mono, who number about fifteen hundred, is in east-central California, including all of Mono county and Inyo county as far south as Owens lake. On the west are the towering, snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada, beyond which colonies of the Mono have established themselves in Madera and Fresno counties. These western Mono have assimilated much of the typical culture of central California. The Mono country is far from being the desert it is often imagined to be. The rainfall, to be sure, is scanty, and districts directly dependent on the clouds are barren wastes of sand, volcanic ash, naked mountain ranges, and cinder cones. But it is south of their territory that such conditions become the rule. Most of the Mono area is near enough to the Sierra Nevada to receive unfailing streams from the snowy heights, and it would be difficult to find a more pleasing landscape than is presented in the series of valleys from Owens lake northward to the Nevada line - Big Pine, Independence, Lone Pine, Bishop, Round valley, Long valley, Mono lake, and the charming headwaters of Walker river. Not an acre of this region drains into the sea. The extreme northern part is tributary, through Walker river, to Walker lake in Nevada. A small portion of the northern section lies above Mono lake, but far the greater part of the area drains through Owens river into Owens lake. The three lakes are salt. Strikingly symmetrical volcanic cones rise above the surface of Mono, recalling the aspect of Pyramid lake in Nevada. 55 {view image of page 56} 56 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN The forestation of the mountains is prevailingly coniferous, and the pifions furnished a very important food staple. Alders, cottonwoods, and willows grow along the streams. Oaks do not occur here, and the Mono made regular visits to the Miwok and western Mono beyond the mountains, to secure acorns by purchase. John Muir, mounting the western side of Mono pass in 1869, met a band of them on their annual pilgrimage to Yosemite valley. His habit of viewing everything in terms of animals, trees, rocks, and glaciers gives the account an amusing turn. "As I entered the'pass... a drove of gray hairy beings came in sight, lumbering toward me with a kind of boneless, wallowing motion like bears.... I soon discovered that although as hairy as bears and as crooked as summit pines, the strange creatures were.. nothing more formidable than Mono Indians dressed in the skins of sage-rabbits.... I afterward learned that they were on their way to Yosemite Valley to feast awhile on trout and procure a load of acorns to carry back through the pass to their huts on the shore of Mono Lake.... These... were mostly ugly, and some of them altogether hideous. The dirt on their faces was fairly stratified, and seemed so ancient and so undisturbed it might almost possess a geological significance. The older faces were, moreover, strangely blurred and divided into sections by furrows that looked like the cleavage-joints of rocks, suggesting exposure on the mountains in a castaway condition for ages." 1 The origin of the name Mono is undetermined. The southern Yokuts generally call them Monachi, which may be simply their adaptation of Mono, as are Southern Miwok Manaiya and Northern Miwok Monak. The northwestern Maidu name for the Paviotso is Monazi, which is another form of Monachi. Quite possibly the word was an erroneous application by trappers of Mana'ft, the Pyramid Lake Paviotso name for the Washo. Kroeber 2 eliminates from consideration "a Yokuts folk etymology, which derives it from monai, monoyi, 'flies,' on the ground that the Mono scaled the cliffs of their high mountains as the insect walks up the wall of a house." But this Yokuts term might well be the original form of Mono, with reference to the well-known fondness of the people so called for kuzavi, small, water-born larvae which English-speaking Indians generally call flies. Their Nevada congeners still call the people at Mono lake "kuzavi eaters," a fact which points to some such appellation as the usual aboriginal term for the tribe. The Mountains of California, New York, 1894. 2 Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 78, I925, p. 584. {view image of facing page 56} A Mono type [photogravure plate] {view image of page 57} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 57 The northern neighbors of the Mono were the Washo, from Lake Tahoe to the upper course of Walker river, and the Paviotso of Walker lake in Nevada. Southward were the desert Shoshoneans known as Koso, inhabiting the region of Coso, Panamint, and Death valleys. Westward were the western Mono and beyond them the Yokuts, and farther north the Miwok. Eastward beyond a rugged desert were other Shoshoneans in southwestern Nevada. There are marked lexical differences in the language as spoken at Mono lake in the north and Owens valley in the south, and even within the southern area of Mono occupancy there is considerable lack of uniformity.1 Before the advent of white men there was a period of warfare with the Yokuts. Hostilities are said to have started when the Yokuts began to steal the wives and children of the western Mono at North Fork, who appealed to the chief at Pagwi-huu ("fish river"), a southerly affluent of Mono lake in a district reached by way of San Joaquin river. This chief sent a summons to the young men of all the Mono bands, who assembled and crossed the mountains over the Mammoth Lake trail. With other tribes, particularly with the Miwok, whom they visited regularly, the Mono apparently had no difficulty; and they were quite unlike the people of central California in that warfare between bands was unknown. Even the killing of shamans suspected of nefarious practices did not result in feuds, because they were invariably recognized as properly doomed to death when they had supposedly misused their power. There was a brief Indian "war" in 1862, when Fort Independence was established. The Mono at Keeler on Owens lake killed some cattle, and the owners killed an Indian. A native known as Jim then declared war and proceeded up the valley to incite the other Mono bands. Soldiers soon appeared and built the fort, and in a fight at Black Rock near Big Pine a number of Indians lost their lives. The troopers then marched up the valley, fighting as they went, and after scattering the belligerents they returned to the fort. Hunger drove some of the younger natives to the post to make peace, where they received food and were told to summon the others. When the Indians responded to the invitation, they were driven across the mountains and established on Tejon reservation south of the present Tule River reservation. None remained long in exile. 1 Cf. the Owens Valley vocabulary, pages I82-I88, with Kroeber's Inyo Mono and Western Mono vocabularies, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 4, No. 3, I907. Owens Valley seems to agree with Western Mono about as frequently as with Inyo Mono. VOL. xv - 8 {view image of page 58} 58 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN The ordinary garment of Mono men was a narrow strip of deerskin between the legs and supported by passing the ends under a thong girdle. Those of the better class wore in addition to this a deerskin flap in front and another behind. Women wore two knee-length skin aprons, one in front and one behind, and a few draped over these a bunch of deerskin fringe. The upper part of the body and the legs were bare. Leggings were never used, and two-piece moccasins with soles made of the neck-skin of a large deer were worn only in travelling over very rough country. For protection from cold both sexes wrapped about the body a robe made of strips of rabbit-fur with Asclepias cord twining.' Women wore bowl-shape basketry caps. Snowshoes were used wherever they were required, but armor of any kind was unknown. Women piled the hair on the top of the head and covered it with a cap. They frequently painted white stripes on the face, and many had perpendicular lines tattooed on the chin by the process of scarifying the skin with a flint chip and rubbing charcoal into the wound. Their ear-pendants were two pieces of flat shell about an inch long and one-eighth wide, which, dangling on a cord, produced a pleasing tinkle. Men doubled the hair up at the back and held it in place with a head-band. They frequently covered the face with red paint obtained as iron oxide in a natural state among the rocks, and their earornaments were wooden plugs with a whorl of mountain-quail crestfeathers at one end, surrounded by crest-feathers of a valley quail. The house was approximately hemispherical and twelve to fourteen feet in diameter. A shallow pit was dug, and green willow poles set up close together around the excavation were bent over and bound together at the top. Battens were lashed around the outside, and dry bunch-grass was applied in as many courses as were necessary. This was covered with green grass, or in some cases with the leaves of cattails, and the thatching was held in place by horizontal battens laid on the grass and lashed to the frame. A doorway was left in the east side, and a small hole at the peak. In the centre was a small fire-pit, which was used in common by the several related families occupying the house. In each village there was a house of this same type, but more tightly built and with the excavation about three feet deep, where the men passed their days and evenings working at various tasks, talking, and smoking. Here slept all bachelors, all male visitors, and See plates facing pages 54, 64. {view image of facing page 58} Mono house near Independence [photogravure plate] {view image of page 59} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 59 any local married men who lacked sufficient blankets for protection during cold weather. In summer a willow-brush pent-house was erected wherever the family resided for any length of time. The sweat-house was about the same size as a dwelling. In the three-foot pit two forked posts were set up near the north and south sides, and a timber was run from one crotch to the other. Strong willow poles were set close together around the edge inside the pit, and the tops were bent down and lashed to the ridge-timber. The doorway was in the east side, and a small vent was provided in the top. The frame was thatched with bunch-grass, which was thickly covered with mud. The sweat-house was used at any time of the day, but not necessarily every day. Some individual would begin to provide wood, and any others who felt like taking a sweat would come to his assistance. The man who started the work was charged with the duty of building and maintaining the fire. He thus became more heated than the others, and frequently appeared to be intoxicated, and sang. After the sweat they bathed in the stream or lake. Women did not use the sweat-house, and, contrary to the custom among various tribes, sweating was not employed in treating sickness. The manufactures of the Mono show no high development, though they include not only basketry, the typical aboriginal industry of California, but, among the southern bands, a limited quantity of crude pottery, such as the more southerly Shoshonean and the Yuman tribes make. Basketry is both twined and coiled. The warp and the woof of twined baskets are always willow-shoots, and reddish designs are effected by leaving in place the inner bark, black designs by the use of fibres drawn from the core of bracken-roots. Work done by this process takes the form of conical burden-baskets as large as three feet in diameter, small-mouth, urn-shape water-jars, shallow baskets for parching seeds, winnowing-trays, sieves, and caps for women. The water-jar holds as much as five gallons. After the weaving is done, pine-pitch is heated and poured into the vessel, which is slowly turned until the inner surface is completely coated. Some of the pitch oozes through to the outside, but the outer surface is never intentionally coated. Coiled, bowl-shape baskets of excellent quality are made with the cord-like ground-shoots of a willow found in the mountains. Redbudbark gives brown patterns and bracken-root fibres produce black. {view image of page 60} 6o THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Seed-beaters were not used. Wild grasses were cut just below the head, and the tops were spread on the ground to dry. They were then burned, and the parched seeds remained. Granaries were grass-lined pits in dry ground, instead of the usual California basketry receptacle, and the stone or wooden mortar here gave place to the flat stone metate and oblong muller. Cord made by twisting the fibres of milkweed was employed in the twining of tule mats, and in constructing balsas, or cigar-shape bundles of tules which an individual either sat on or straddled and propelled over the water. But the most essential use for milkweed cord was in building up rope for the all-important rabbit-nets. These were about thirty inches high and a hundred yards long, and the making of one, always the task of an old man, consumed an entire winter. In use several of them were joined, and as the rabbits, driven toward them, became entangled, they were removed by men stationed in hidingplaces at suitable intervals. The potter's art was represented only by tubular pipes and globular cooking-pots. The latter were made bythe process of rolling the plastic material into a rope and coiling it round and round upon itself, thus building up the sides of the vessel. In the preparation of the material the sticky liquid obtained by boiling the branches of a small, unidentified bush bearing red blossoms was mixed with the pulverized clay. The Lake Mono made no pottery, but fashioned cooking-vessels of red tuff. Their axes for cutting cedar to make into bows were of serpentine, and tobacco-pipes were either tuff or serpentine. Objects of wood were rare, and implements for such work were limited to stone knives and pumice abraders. The flute was made of a section of elder stalk, and the baton for marking rhythm was a split cane. There was no drum. Fuel and house-timbers were secured by breaking up fallen trees with heavy stones. Deer-horn wedges were employed in splitting wood. Both base and spindle of the firedrill were sage, and fire was transported in a roll of sage-bark. The Mono arrow for small game had a cane shaft and a foreshaft of greasewood, or of any other available hardwood, straightened and toughened by heat. For large animals and for fighting, the end of the cane shaft was split and filled with hot pine-pitch, the base of an obsidian point was forced into it, and the halves of the split end were held firmly together until the pitch hardened. Sinew wrapping *Tor6yow6wufi carried off the prize at Yosemite in I923 in competition with Washo, Miwok, and other Mono basket-makers, and with the nearly finished piece in the illustration she hoped to win in I924. She expected to sell the basket for about a hundred dollars. {view image of facing page 60} A Lake Mono basket-maker [photogravure plate] {view image of page 61} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 6i is said not to have been employed. The shafts were straightened by heating them and bending them between the teeth, and smoothed by drawing them through a groove in a piece of pumice or other stone. The hunter's sheaf was carried in a fawn-skin quiver. The bow was about three feet long, recurved at the ends, and made of a piece of cedar taken from the trunk, not from a branch. The better ones were strengthened with a reinforcement of sinew glued to the back. The fish-hook was made by lashing two double-pointed bones at right angles. Suckers, chubs, and minnows were caught by embedding a large, rather flat basket in the middle of a creek and damming the stream on both sides. The fish, driven down-stream, fell into the basket and were removed by hand. Another method was to dam one branch of a creek, causing the water to go down the other fork, and then gather the fish from shallow pools. In deeper, quiet pools fish were stupefied by means of a root, which, from the description, cannot be soap-plant. In the shallow water of lakes the Mono employed a long cane shaft with a wooden prong by which a fish was pinned to the bottom until it became helpless. Edible animals of wide variety were available to the Mono. Great herds of antelope roamed the plains, deer were abundant on the mountain slopes, and mountain-sheep among the lofty peaks. Elk however were too distant to be hunted. Horse-flesh was highly esteemed, and black bears, mountain-lions, and wildcats were eaten when they chanced to be killed. The grizzly-bear however was too highly respected for its ferocity. The abundance of jack-rabbits and cottontails, and the comparative ease of capturing them, resulted in their furnishing the greatest part of the flesh food of the Mono, and their soft, fluffy fur was of great importance in making blankets. Porcupines, badgers, skunks, dogs, woodrats, kangaroo-rats, squirrels, and moles were eaten, and all species of waterfowl, which abounded along the reedy shores of the lakes. The waders too, especially cranes and herons, were relished. Although bats and lizards were eaten, the Mono avoided many animals that were used as food by some tribes in California. Such were the predatory and carrion birds, coyotes, foxes, wolves, minks, and serpents. The Mono are still very fond of kuza'vi, the larval form of a small fly. The larvae hatch under water, rise to the surface and are blown ashore in enormous quantities, where they are swept into baskets by means of a besom. For the time being they are piled on the ground, and later are spread out to dry, after which they are rolled in the hands and passed through a basketry sieve in order to separate the {view image of page 62} 62 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN edible portion from the enveloping tissue. Many Caucasians testify to the palatableness of the larva, which the Mono however mix with a kind of thick soup made of pine-nuts. Mono lake is so noted for its yield of these larvae that its people, as noted heretofore, are known to the Nevada Paviotso as "kuzavi eaters." For the methods of hunting the reader is referred to the following section on the Paviotso, whose usage did not differ from that of the Mono. With the advent of spring the Mono abandoned their winter houses, or even demolished them with the intention of rebuilding in another place in the fall, and began to wander about the country in quest of food. The most important vegetal foods were pine-nuts and the seeds of various grasses and Composite. The harvesting of pinenuts was the principal business of the autumn. The entire band moved in a body to a favorable locality, and every member of the family engaged in the labor, men and boys swarming into the trees or knocking off the cones with long poles, and women and girls gathering them in great piles. If the cones were ripe, the nuts could be removed without further ado; but most of them were gathered green in order to forestall the busy squirrels and jays, and consequently had to be roasted in pits until the scales opened and exposed the seeds, one beneath each scale. Then all gathered around to pick out the nuts, and after appetites sharpened by months of expectation had been satisfied, the work of accumulating the winter stores proceeded. At such times the pine groves were scenes of intense animation and industry. The bunch-grasses, wild oats, the tarweeds, and sunflowerswere important sources of edible seeds, which, parched in the harvesting, were ground with metate and muller and eaten without further preparation. Acorns were a luxury. They were secured by the Mono Lake bands from the Miwok in Yosemite valley and by the more southerly Mono from their cousins across the mountains. Like the Washo and the Paviotso, the Mono congealed the cooked mush by pouring it into cold water. A nutritious food greatly enjoyed, and still used by the Nevada Paviotso, was obtained from the leaves of the cane used for arrowshafts, which were dried, beaten with sticks on a skin, and winnowed in a basket. There remained a sweetish meal, which solidified into a hard mass. It was prepared for eating by adding enough water to soften it to the consistency of taffy, or it was warmed at the fire until a piece could be bitten off. {view image of facing page 62} Mono basketry [photogravure plate] {view image of page 63} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 63 Cattail-roots were roasted in pits, and the core of the underground stalks of tules was eaten fresh. The Mono lacked the great variety of fruits available to the Indians west of the Sierra Nevada, but chokecherries, elderberries, and grapes were in fair abundance. One of the few definitely religious practices of the Mono was the offering of a morsel of food to a being known as Tsidaga, or Taramugaa. The favorite amusement of Mono men was a game foreign to the central and northern Californians. This was pasitu, the hoop-and-pole game, in which a hoop made by bending a piece of willow branch and lashing the ends together was rolled along the ground, and each of the two contestants launched after it a wooden shaft about six feet long. A point was scored by the player upon whose javelin the hoop came to rest, and three consecutively gained points decided the wager. The hand-game, nayagwiti, was played with a marked and an unmarked bone in the manner so frequently described heretofore; and in the women's dice game, napoghohinu, ten flat sticks marked on one side were cast end-foremost upon a skin. The method of counting in the dice play appears to have been forgotten. Wichimuinnu was a game of football, in which a ball of deer-hair covered with deerskin was kicked across a goal. The Mono are an aggregation of local bands with no connection other than a common language and the ties of intermarriage. Chiefs formerly were selected at a public meeting, the principal qualification being ability to harangue the people. At frequent intervals the chief summoned the entire population of his village and exhorted them to lead good lives, and sometimes discussed questions of public importance. He was the director of dances and hunts, but had no power to enforce his desires. There are no clans.' Children are named at the age of a few months without ceremony, girls receiving names from the father's mother's family, and boys from the father's father's family. Examples of boys' names are Paghayughii, Kazavuuf, Saivaghaa, Siyavagha; of girls' names, Mahariyuniu, Piyarunafi, Yaruniu. These all are without meaning to the modern Mono. The childhood names are retained until death, and no additional ones are acquired. The ears of children were formerly pierced without formality. Although dancing and ceremonial singing were not observed for a girl at her first menstruation, there was a prescribed treatment for 1 Moieties of the central California type became a feature of Western Mono sociology, but remained unknown to the tribes east of the Sierras. {view image of page 64} 64 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN her. Each evening for six days she was enveloped in a blanket above a basket containing steaming water and heated stones, but during the day she went about much as usual, doing a little work now and then. Meat and fish were taboo, but not salt, and she wore no special clothing or badge. At the end of six days the old woman in charge bathed her in warm water. Nothing was done at the recurrence of her periods, and menstruating women were not segregated, although, regardless of age, they ate neither meat nor fish. Marriage usually did not take place for a considerable time after the age of puberty. There were no ordeals of any kind for adolescent boys. The parents of a marriageable youth selected a suitable girl and gave a present of shell money to her parents, who, if they favorably regarded the suit, gave food in return. Assured that the marriage would be consummated, the youth's relatives provided a quantity of blankets, baskets, and other property; and this exchange of presents continued to be made between the families. After a short time a paternal uncle or other male relative led the young man to the house of his bride and remained there overnight to see that they slept together. A Mono husband lived with the family of his wife, and it was his duty for several years to be particularly industrious in providing game for the household. Conversation between a man and his mother-in-law was not prohibited, but it was required to be serious and respectful. Blood relationship, no matter how remote, was a bar to marriage. Some men had as many as three wives, but these, unless they were sisters, did not occupy the same house and indeed were kept in camps well separated. Frequently widows married their deceased husbands' brothers. Although this procedure is now said to have been entirely optional, the fact that the term for stepfather is the same as that for paternal uncle, which latter relationship is also expressed by a compound translated as "little father," indicates that the levirate was once a well-established custom. Adultery on the part of either husband or wife was cause for the other to leave. Occasionally two men fought over a woman, but the payment of money for damages was never asked. Berdaches -men who dressed like women and did women's work —were not uncommon, and there are now two at Big Pine. The statement that they did not cohabit with men is probably made to conceal a shameful fact. The dead were usually buried, but cremation was not unknown. Usually the body was kept overnight and buried the next day. It {view image of facing page 64} Mono summer shelter [photogravure plate] {view image of page 65} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 65 was wrapped in a robe belonging to the deceased person or provided by relatives, and was laid at length with the head southward. Some personal possessions, but neither food nor water, were deposited in the grave. The remaining personal property was divided among the near relatives, or in some cases was preserved for two or three years and then burned at a public ceremony much like the annual crying of other California tribes. Men and women relatives cut the hair to about half-length by means of an obsidian flake, and very old people cut it quite short. The house was always demolished or burned. There was a stringent rule that the names of the recently dead must not be spoken. In mentioning a dead man they called him, for example, "the grandfather of Paghayughii"; and even though the deceased man's name were identical, this was regarded as observance of the taboo. The spirits of the dead, it is believed, proceed to a nameless place in the south, where they pass their time in dancing. At the entrance to this land is a sapling covered with a sticky substance. Each spirit grasps it. The hands of the truly dead do not adhere, and they pass on; but the hands of those not actually dead stick to the sapling, and they turn about and go back to the earth. Before eating, a Mono takes a bit of food and tosses it away, saying, "There is what you are asking for." This is an offering to the spirit Tsidaga, who is also called Taramugaa. It is thought that he will take out the sinews of anyone who fails to feed him, and he is besought for abundant crops of seeds. T6maa is believed to send rain, and is addressed on this subject. There seems to be no very definite conception regarding these spirits. Medicine-men treated sickness in the usual way. Having received his fee, usually the equivalent of fifteen dollars, the shaman marched around the fire, singing with the assistance of those who happened to be present, and then proceeded to suck out the "poison." The treatment was repeated on the following night. If the patient failed to recover, but did not die, no money was refunded, but in the event of death a portion of it was given back. Often medicine-men were killed by those who believed that a relative had been bewitched by them, but contrary to the usual California practice this did not result in a feud. Shamans acquired their power through dreams, which were not deliberately sought. Mono culture is characterized by a marked lack of ceremonial life. The puberty rites can hardly be called a ceremony, and the burning of property in memory of the dead was too sporadic to deserve the name. VOL. XV - 9 {view image of page 66} 66 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN A dance for amusement is called Nufihava. The people assemble at night in a circular enclosure of willow boughs, and men and women in a circle join hands and pass slowly to the left with a shuffling movement. All sing, and at the end of a song rest, still standing in their places. This is continued for six nights, with the sexual promiscuity that characterizes so many Indian celebrations. In Tozohoidi, the war-dance, three or four singers sat side by side and sang to the accompaniment of split batons, and apart from them sat four or five other men, also singing. When the chorus of a song was reached, these latter stood up and danced with vehement gestures and posturings. They wore circlets of eagle-feathers about the head and sometimes feather streamers down the back, and about the waist was a belt supporting a kilt of cords in which were twisted white down-feathers. The Paviotso THE Paviotso themselves recognize four divisions of their people: I. The Aghai-tikaru ("trout eaters"), in the region of Walker lake. 2. The Kuyuii-tikaru ("black-sucker eaters"), at Pyramid lake. 3. The Tae-tikarf ("cattail eaters"), at Carson lake. 4. The Wara-tikaruf ("tarweed-seed eaters"), at Honey lake. The first three are in western and northwestern Nevada, the last was formerly in northeastern California. Many Paviotso consider the Mono also as being another division. The etymology of the terms Paiute and Paviotso is unknown. Both are undoubtedly Shoshonean words, and one is probably a dialectic variation of the other. The physical geography of the country is typical of much of the great interior plateau. Mountain-fed streams bordered with cottonwoods and willows drain into salt lakes: Walker, Carson, Pyramid, and Winnemucca in Nevada; Honey, Horse, and Eagle in California; and there are many marshes and beds of extinct lakes, all relics of ancient Lake Lahontan. Numerous ranges of naked, rugged mountains trend approximately north and south. Scattering pinion groves abound in the hills, but the wide plains produce little besides sagebrush, bunch-grass, and various annuals. Blind Tom, who was born at the southern end of Walker lake and was an adult when white people first entered Mono territory in California, said that when he was a youth his people ranged over the California line into the Mono Lake country, being on very friendly {view image of facing page 66} Mono summer kitchen [photogravure plate] {view image of page 67} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 67 terms with the people there. The "Diggers," from what is now the northern part of Madera county,' once came across the mountains to harvest pine-nuts, and the Paviotso, resenting the intrusion, set upon them and killed some. In revenge the strangers threatened to "witch" them. The Paviotso, when they heard of this, went up into the mountains along Pagwi-hu ("fish river"), which flows into Mono lake from the south, surrounded a camp, and killed nearly all the people. One who escaped brought help, but these also were destroyed by the Paviotso. The Paviotso were generally good friends of the Shoshoni. In spite of the fact that the Washo are still regarded as enemies, Blind Tom never knew of any actual fighting with them. American trappers came early into Paviotso territory. In 1825 Jedediah S. Smith descended Humboldt river, naming it Mary's river, crossed to Carson river, and passed through Churchill caion to Walker river in Mason valley. Following this stream to its source, he went on to the coast, discovering Mono lake, and returned to the Rocky mountains by way of Columbia river, accompanying Peter Skeen Ogden's party to the trappers' winter quarters in Jackson's Hole, Wyoming. Ogden followed the same route in I83I. In I832 Milton Sublette reached the head of Humboldt river, and a year later Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville sent an expedition under Joseph Walker from Green River valley to trap along the Humboldt. Walker's party shot some "Shoshones" who had committed petty depredations, and who made no resistance, and from Pyramid lake ascended Truckee river and crossed the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento. Many trapping parties followed, and the Indians frequently committed minor offenses, which the white men were ever prone to punish. In 1852 the Washo several times raided the stock in Carson valley, and in retaliation the settlers captured two of the tribe, one a powerful man dressed in a full suit of deerskin, the other a naked youth. The man was killed in attempting to escape, and his companion was liberated. In 1857 two men were killed by the Washo south of Lake Tahoe. Peter Lassen (for whom Lassen county, California, is named) and a companion were killed by the Paviotso in Humboldt county, Nevada, in I859, and in the following year Dexter E. Deming lost his life at a ranch north of Honey Lake valley, California. 1 These apparently were western Mono. Either Miwok or Yokuts would have had to pass through western Mono territory in order to reach "Fish river." {view image of page 68} 68 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Governor Roop then appealed for troops to the general commanding the Department of the Pacific, but none were sent. In April, I860, the Paviotso held a great council at Pyramid lake for the purpose of deciding on a course of conduct, and on the first of May Indians at Williams Station killed several men, who were said to have captured two young girls for immoral purposes. Volunteers were organized at Genoa, Carson, Silver City, and Virginia City, and on the ninth of May they started for the scene. They proceeded down Truckee river to the present Wadsworth, four companies numbering I05 men. Major Ormsby is generally called the leader of the party, though they did not elect a commanding officer, thinking the Indians would not fight. On May fourteenth, about half a mile north of the present reservation buildings and within two miles of the southern end of Pyramid lake, they were confronted by Indians, and charged them. The enemy vanished, then suddenly a volley of bullets and arrows poured from the surrounding sagebrush. The volunteers became demoralized, and many fled, leaving a few brave men to be slaughtered by overwhelming numbers. About a fifth of the force were killed, but only three Indians fell. General Wright, the departmental commander at San Francisco, then ordered to Carson a company of soldiers stationed at Honey Lake valley. Many settlers fled to California, and volunteers sent from that state proceeded northward and on May 31, i860, at the site of Wadsworth, Nevada, were joined by about 750 regulars. By common consent Colonel John C. Hays of the volunteers was given the command. On the second of June a detachment of eighty scouted down the Truckee, and at the scene of the battle of Pyramid lake were met by 300 mounted Indians and an equal number on foot. They retreated fighting to the main body, which came forward to support them. In this "battle of the Truckee," which lasted five hours, the Indians were defeated with small loss to either side. The soldiers then proceeded northward beyond the lake, and on June seventh returned to Virginia City and disbanded.' In 1862 occurred the Owens River difficulties with the Mono, and conflicts of a more or less serious nature between the two races continued until i868. In 1874 the reservations of Walker River and Pyramid Lake were confirmed, the former comprising 268,000 acres, the latter 322,000. The population at each reservation is about five hundred, but this is a decided minority of the tribe. Owing to the extent of the country 1 Thompson and West, History of Nevada, Oakland, I88I. {view image of facing page 68} Pavaish - Pyramid Lake Paviotso [photogravure plate] {view image of page 69} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 69 in which the non-reservation Paviotso are found, and the fact that most of them are in small groups on private stock and agricultural ranches, an estimate approaching accuracy cannot be made. It appears likely that the total of all Paviotso may approximate thirtyfive hundred. They are good laborers, and therefore are in demand among ranchmen. Approaching the Plains type of Indian, they are a refreshing contrast to the California tribes, who are generally less alert, in many cases rather sullen, and in some instances in the northwestern part of the state markedly avaricious. Men of the better class belted two deerskins about the waist, and in cold weather threw about the shoulders another deerskin or a robe made of rabbit-skin strips with cord twining. A few had hiplength leggings and fringed shirt of the well-known Plains type, but this costume was much more common at Carson lake than among the other bands. Most men had moccasins, and all wore the breechcloth, which was the only garment possessed by the very poor. In fact the majority of the people were almost destitute of clothing. Old men can yet remember the time when entire families slept naked and so close to the fire that their bodies were covered with blisters and sores. Women of the poorer families had only a small apron in front and another behind, and therefore avoided as much as possible appearing in the presence of strangers. The more prosperous wore skirts reaching to the knees or nearly to the ankles, according to their means. A man with daughters was constantly bestirring himself to obtain enough deerskins to provide them and his wife with skirts reaching from waist to ankles, in order that they might go about freely without shame. Women in the regions where deer were not to be had made skirts of tule fringe. Men arranged the hair in two braids, with the ends wrapped with strips of otter-fur to which shell and bone ornaments were attached. Eagle-feathers were worn in the hair and sometimes in the fur wrapping. Some who paid much attention to appearance had a bone cylinder in the nasal septum, and many wore similar ornaments in the ears. Many, but not all, of both sexes had various lines tattooed on the face and sometimes on the arms, and both men and women painted the face daily with a red material, obtained in a natural state as it oozed from rocks, and white clay, or possibly gypsum. The red was laid on either solid or in alternate lines. Women and dandies used graphite beneath the eyes. Such men were called panananafti {view image of page 70} 70 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN ("trail men"), because they never left the trail to hunt or fish. Necklaces were strings of thin sections of eagle-bone variously dyed. Women let the hair hang loose, but when working they doubled it up on the head and covered it with a small basketry cap to keep it clean. The Paviotso prepared deerskin, the material of nearly all their clothing, by removing all bits of fat and flesh, soaking the hide, and scraping off the hair with the sharp-edged ulna of a deer. The brains and marrow were then placed between two hot stones, and mixed with water in a large basket, in which the hide was put to soak. When this softening solution had completely impregnated it, the skin was removed and thoroughly worked in the hands until it became pliable. Several skins were then sewed together and supported like a tent over a sage fire, in order to impart a pleasing yellow tinge. Paviotso lodges were nearly hemispherical. Willow saplings were set closely together in a circle about twelve to fourteen feet in diameter, the tops were bent over and lashed together, and the interstices were filled with bark. A very thick thatch of dry pifion-needles was applied, and this sometimes was covered with earth. A small hole was left at the top, and in the east side a narrow doorway, which was closed at night by a swinging door of poles lashed together. Inside and outside the earth was scraped up to the base of the walls. Such were the winter houses, which were built in groups wherever wood, water, and food were convenient. For summer habitations green boughs were set up to provide shade, and the dance-house was a brush fence roofed over with branches. Sweat-houses were not used at Walker lake, but at Carson and Pyramid lakes the hemispherical Plains type of sudatory had been adopted before the historical period. Its name, tubi-navagye (" rock bath"), indicates the method of generating heat. All Paviotso baskets are made by the twining process, and the material is willow, designs being produced by the use of shoots showing the reddish bark and by stripped shoots dyed black by burial in mud. The large, conical burden-baskets are either coarse-mesh for pine-nuts or fine-mesh for grass-seeds, and parching-baskets are * Broken stones, impregnated with salts from the ancient sea that filled the basin of Walker lake to a level hundreds of feet higher than the present surface, lie in oddly scattered groups. They are beautifully colored by lichens with pastel shades of red, orange, mauve, and black. Many of them are of such shape as to suggest parts of the human body - skulls, limbs, even torsos fairly complete. Some of the surfaces are rather smooth, like a weathered skull, others have the porous appearance of a partially decayed bone. All this - the peculiar grouping of the fragments in approximately circular areas, and the easily fancied resemblance to bones and fragments of the human body - accounts for a Paviotso legend that northern invaders, pausing to hold a dance, were overcome by the sorcery of the local inhabitants and fell lifeless in the midst of their celebration. {view image of facing page 70} The ancient shore of Walker Lake [photogravure plate] {view image of page 71} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 7I similarly of two kinds, some of them being actually water-tight. Cooking was formerly done mostly in baskets by means of hot stones, and water-vessels are urn-like baskets coated with pifon-gum. Cradle-baskets have adjustable hoods, on which appear in color phallic designs proclaiming the sex of the child.1 Other products of weaving were tule mats and rabbit-skin robes, which were made with cord twining, and nets for rabbit drives and for fishing. The rabbit-skins were cut into continuous strips, which were wrapped spirally on poles, so that in drying they assumed a shape in which the entire outer surface was fur. When a sufficient number had been sewn together, end to end, the furry rope was stretched as the warp on a frame consisting of two horizontal poles, one above the other. Milkweed was the source of the fibre used in twisting cord and rope. Pottery was not made, but some cooking-vessels are said by the Walker Lake people to have been made of a soft stone, while at Pyramid lake this art is denied.2 Tubular tobacco-pipes were made of a soft bluish stone called puito's, which probably was serpentine. The metate and muller were the means of grinding seeds, and food was stored in grass-lined pits instead of baskets. Arrows were tipped with obsidian, and the rosewood shafts, without foreshafts, were smoothed with a flat piece of pumice. They were kept in fawn-skin quivers. Most of the bows were juniper reinforced with sinew, but the powerful recurved bow of mountainsheep horn was not uncommon, reminding the observer again that here he is on the western edge of the plains and mountain culture area. Knives were obsidian. Fishing devices were the hook, made of two crossed bones; the milkweed-fibre line; the spear, a two-pronged pole with which fish were pinned to the bottom; the weir, by which streams were dammed; and the dip-net and gill-net. Tule balsas were used on the lakes, especially in hunting waterfowl. The Paviotso rattle was employed only by shamans, and consisted of the two ears of a deer sewn together and partially filled with rattling bits of whatever material the individual's guardian spirit may have indicated. The medicine-men used also bird-bone whistles. Among the common objects not found among the Paviotso are the drum, elder flute, horn or bone wedges, spoons, and armor. 1 See plate facing page 74. 2 Lowie, Notes on Shoshonean Ethnography, Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History, I924, mentions soapstone pots among the Wind River Shoshoni. {view image of page 72} 72 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Pinion-nuts were the most important food, and even today are considered indispensable. The cones, brought to the ground by men and boys wielding poles, and collected in burden-baskets by women and girls, are roasted, the nuts removed from the opened scales, and the refuse is winnowed out. Like other winter foods pinon-nuts formerly were stored in dry pits. In preparation for eating they are parched, shelled, and parched again, and then, thoroughly dried, they are pulverized on the metate and made into a thick mush by the admixture of cold water. The roasted nuts are eaten either shelled or unshelled. Second only to pinion-nuts were the small seeds of various plants bunch-grass, wild oats, tarweed, tumbleweed, sunflower, and sage. All these were merely parched and ground into the well-known pinole of the California Indians. Like the Mono, the Paviotso are very fond of the candy-like substance obtained from the meal of dry reed-leaves. Roasted cattail-roots and fresh tule-roots were esteemed, and in addition to the small fruits enjoyed by the Mono their congeners had the buffalo-berry, so typical of the plains. The principal game animals were much the same as in the Mono country. Antelope and deer were the only large animals regularly hunted, but most important were rabbits and hares. Elk were sometimes killed, but bears were not hunted and indeed were rarely seen. Waterfowl and fish were abundant at certain seasons and very easily caught. Both deer and mountain-sheep were driven between very long wings paralleling a game trail, and so into a corral. The entrance to the wings was perhaps sixteen to twenty feet wide, and the enclosure itself was about a hundred feet in diameter. When the game had thus been rounded up, the owner of the corral selected the animal that best pleased him and shot it down; then the others, one after another, killed the remainder. In rough country deer were hunted by small or large parties, some of the men driving the game and others lying in ambush. Deerhunters so well understood the habits of their prey that from the tracks they could tell when the animal was about to lie down and rest, and they knew in what direction it would turn in circling back to its range. They exercised great care in preserving and increasing the acuteness of the sense of smell by avoidance of excess in eating, sleeping, and especially undue familiarity and association with women. Dan Vorhees, a Walker Lake man of about forty, averred that he could smell a mountain-lion as quickly as his dogs, and could dis {view image of facing page 72} Western shore of Walker Lake [photogravure plate] {view image of page 73} PLATEAU SHOSHONEAN S 73 tinguish between a mountain-lion and a coyote at a considerable distance. He described the sensation as a tingling of the nerves. Sometimes a hunter would pursue a large buck for two days across the hills before killing it, and then far from home would flay and butcher it and carry the meat home in the hide. Disguises, pitfalls, and deadfalls were not used by the Paviotso. Antelope were driven into a large and high brush corral by a numerous body of men and there brought down with arrows. After horses were obtained the fortunate possessors would drive a band of antelope along the valley for some distance and then apparently abandon the chase. These animals would then always return toward the place from which they had been driven, and hunters lying in concealment could easily shoot them. Rabbits and hares, the principal game, were taken in nets from one hundred to two hundred feet long. Sometimes three men would set their nets together, each standing at the end of his net, while other hunters drove the animals and shot them when they could. A very good man might thus bring down three in the course of a drive. Those that escaped the arrows ran headlong into the nets, and the waiting men killed them with clubs. The owners of the nets kept all the game thus secured, and the drivers retained what they killed with arrows. Quarrels between hunters who simultaneously shot the same animal were not infrequent. Small rodents are still relished. In 1922 one of several old men, met to pass the time in friendly conversation, was observed to remove from a cloth bag a number of roasted gophers. The hair had been more or less completely burned off, but the skin was unbroken. The men ate them much as one eats a banana, from end to end, consuming intestines and organs and discarding only the bones. The feasters rather enjoyed the observer's qualms. Large game taken by a party of hunters was divided among them on the spot, and when a hunter returned to the camp, those who needed meat stood significantly waiting until he supplied them. But there was no general distribution among all the people, nor was meat regularly given to the chief. The family of the hunter's wife, however, always received a portion. Each year when waterfowl were not quite full-grown and the adults of certain species had lost their wing-feathers so that they could not fly, the chiefs of the Paviotso at Carson lake sent to the neighboring people an invitation to the annual bird drive. A great many answered the call, and each man who purposed building a tule VOL. XV- I1 {view image of page 74} 74 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN balsa for the occasion brought a twenty-foot willow push-pole, because no willows grow at Carson lake. When all preparations were complete, men on balsas started among the tules at the north end of the lake and slowly drove the fowl out into open water and across the lake to the southwestern corner. The drive started about midnight and lasted until the middle of the afternoon, and after dawn the hunters shot the adult birds as they slowly moved forward. Arriving at the southern end of the lake, they drove the young birds up on shore, where women and boys and other men caught them among the bushes. Some secured whole horse-loads of birds. When a handful of fowl was caught, a turn of a rope was made about their necks, and the rope was dragged behind as the hunter proceeded to take more game. Because ducks spoil very easily in this hot climate, the catch was immediately taken home, and was there plucked and dried in the sun. Although the entire area of Paviotso occupancy is without drainage to the sea, its numerous lakes support an abundant fish life. Pyramid and Winnemucca lakes are fed by the two mouths of Truckee river, which receives the outflow of Lake Tahoe, more than six thousand feet above sea-level near the crest of the Sierra Nevada, two hundred square miles in area, and sixteen hundred feet deep. Pyramid lake, at the other end of the Truckee's hundred-mile length, is twenty-three hundred feet below Tahoe, and its three hundred and fifty square miles of surface are broken by some striking islands, which are frequented by numerous birds at the nesting season. Farther south, Walker and Carson lakes receive Sierra waters through rivers of the same names. The fish in these two systems are principally trout and suckers. The trout are Salmo Henshawi (the so-called cut-throat) and S. regalis, the royal silver trout. The former species attains a weight of twenty to twenty-five pounds. The "black" sucker, Chamistes cujus (Paviotso kuyzi), is found only in Pyramid and Winnemucca lakes. "It lives in their depths, and is never seen until in the spring, when great schools suddenly appear at the mouth of the Truckee River, crowd up the channel and cover the bars, often pushing each other out of the water in their struggles to find room enough to * The plate illustrates the conical burden-basket (partially concealed), the cradle-basket (with female symbol), the basin-shape receptacle for harvesting seeds, the winnowing-tray (partially concealed in the background at the right), two gummed water-jars, the fish-basket, several trinket receptacles, and modern beaded belts. The long, narrow piece in the foreground is called a "christening" basket by a local collector. This is a modern form, and probably is used as a platter. The Paviotso do not always cover their cradle-baskets with deerskin. {view image of facing page 74} Paviotso basketry [photogravure plate] {view image of page 75} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 75 deposit their eggs. Formerly this was an occasion of rejoicing among the Indians, for here were numbers of large, fat fishes which only need to be kicked out of the water and hung on the bushes to dry. The Piutes still continue to cure them in large quantities for winter food." 1 In the rivers both trout and suckers were taken by building a willow weir across the stream with an opening in the middle small enough to be filled by a dip-net called yani. A man sat on the weir holding the two divergent poles on which the net was stretched. From the mouth of the net to the top of the poles ran a string, to which a light feather was tied, and when a fish entered, it touched the string and agitated the feather. In lakes the Paviotso used gillnets, pagwi-wana, about seventy-five feet long and four feet wide, which were kept properly spread by means of reeds four feet apart. At the bottom of each stick was a grooved stone sinker, and at each end of the net was a float consisting of a bundle of reeds about six feet long. Spears were used in daylight by fishermen standing on shore and watching for the fish to pass. The larvae known as kuzavi, though not so abundant as in Mono lake, were taken in fair quantities at Pyramid and at certain other salt lakes of central Nevada. Although the culture of the plains exercised considerable influence on the Paviotso, they never adopted the custom of making use of dogs as beasts of burden. After horses were obtained, a few of the house-poles were sometimes transported from place to place, the tops being lashed to the sides of the animal and the butts trailing. But the travois was not used. The favorite play was mayagwiva, the hand-game. WXatimuiva ("ball play") was a football game in which holding, pushing, tripping, wrestling, in fact almost any tactics, were permitted. The ball was a small one of deerskin, and each of the goals, which were about forty yards apart, was marked by two posts. Madziftakaya was played by women armed with sticks, by means of which they tossed toward the goal a piece of half-inch rope about eighteen inches long. Wagwakatatganinu was a dice game for men, in which eight half-sections of cane, painted red on the inside, were cast upon a skin. The player counted one for each piece that lay with the convex side exposed. After peaches were introduced into the country, women played dice with halves of the pits. Each band of Paviotso had at least one chief, whose principal 1 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 63, No. 8, 1914, page 36. {view image of page 76} 76 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN duties were to direct his people in their quest for food, sending the men out now for rabbits, now for deer, again for fish or ducks; and the women for various seeds and roots. His authority was slight. His successor might be one of the subchiefs, or his own son, according to the consensus of opinion. Relations between the different bands were friendly and fairly close, and a dance was always attended by many visitors from the other bands. The principal enemy of the Walker River Paviotso was the Washo, whom they regarded as a not particularly worthy foe. They say that the Washo pointed their arrows with averted face. Conflict between the two tribes was limited to the harmless encounters of parties of hunters and food-gatherers. With the Shoshoni there was an ancient war, which is said to have terminated because they were too easily killed! The Bannock are regarded as "our own tribe," and their enemies the Nez Perces are named as a Paviotso enemy. The Pyramid Lake bands were inveterate enemies of the Achomawi from the upper course of Pit river and the northern part of Lassen county, California. The origin myth describes the growth of two tribes, Paviotso and Saii, or Saiduka,1 the Pit River Indians, from two pairs of brothers and sisters, who fought even in childhood. Following is the history of the long conflict with this tribe and others, in the words of Billy Williams, who was born east of Honey lake in California "about ten years before the first white men came from the north, ascended Truckee river, and went on to California." He refers to the Bonneville party of I833, and not the earlier ones of Smith and Sublette. The Paviotso were attacked by the Sail at Carson lake, and forced their enemies to take refuge in the lava rocks, where they smoked 1 Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, quoting Powers, Indians of Western Nevada (MS., Bureau of American Ethnology, 1876), defines Saiduka as "Shoshoneans of eastern Oregon." Quoting Gatschet in Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. II, Pt. I, it gives Saidoka as the Shoshoni name for the Modoc. Quoting Campbell in Indian Affairs Report, II9, I866, it gives Sidocaw as equivalent to Paviotso. Saituka ("camas eaters") is also noted as "a collective term applied in various forms by the Paiute and other Shoshonean tribes to the camas-eating Indians of Oregon and Idaho, especially to the tribes of the Shahaptian family." The translation "camas eaters" indicates that the second component of the term (tuka, doka, duka) is Paviotso tikaru, eaters. The Paviotso employ Saii and Saiduka, the former said to be an abbreviation of the latter, to designate the Achomawi. At Walker River reservation are two young women known as Saii; they were born near Alturas, give Humahwi (an Achomawi division) as their tribal selfname, and count in the Achomawi language. In his narration of the origin myth, Blind Tom, a Walker Lake Paviotso, says that the Saii originally lived at Humboldt lake and were driven northward by the Paviotso, who lived at Carson lake. Probably the term was loosely used to designate various alien tribes of the northern region. {view image of facing page 76} Modern Paviotso beadwork [photogravure plate] {view image of page 77} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 77 them out and killed them. At Mudhen lake, near Pyramid lake, occurred a fight with the people who lived there, and the chief made a war speech in which he used the words, "Nakauhauhiiafi nakamomosovaki." The Paviotso killed all these or drove them away. Later the Modoc and the Ute of Green river, where there is now a reservation [Uintah], came down from the north. The Paviotso were living on the east side of Pyramid lake, and while hunting antelope on the west side found the tracks of the invaders. They turned homeward and travelled all night in order to protect their camp. At sunrise two chiefs, who were in advance, were suddenly attacked by the Modoc, and ran back to the main party, which quickly attacked. The chief shouted: "Push them back! They are women!" During the skirmish the two parties exchanged positions, the Paviotso being now to the east of the Modoc. They challenged their enemies in the Modoc language to fight, "Tun6tunosupaha!" Then the Modoc closed in. Their chief wore a stuffed owl as a headdress. He pointed his arrow here and there, to frighten the Paviotso; but two of the latter went against him, taking one arrow from each of their companions, and while the Modoc chief was threatening them, they shot him in the eye, and his body rolled down the hill. Then they charged and drove the Modoc back to the lake and killed them. They buried the bodies in a long grave. [A long mound on the west side of Pyramid lake is pointed out as the grave.] When my grandfather Tunai-qaa ["antelope shirt"] was a young man, the Sail attacked the Paviotso on the west side of Pyramid lake and killed a great many. Two women, Tu-qta ["black neck"] and her sister, and Tuna-qaa escaped. A man named Kfdaa lived in Long valley at Honey lake. He was making a bow and some arrows, and was testing them by shooting up into the air. The Saii attacked the village and the people took shelter behind a great rock. Kudia, some little distance from the camp, heard the barking of dogs. The Paviotso behind the rock, being few, kicked up a great dust in order to frighten the Sail, and then climbed up among the rocks. When the Saii followed, the boys threw stones and rolled rocks down upon them. From a small cave a Paviotso shot and struck the eye of the Saii chief, whose companions dragged the body back, cut off the head and placed it behind them, and then fought. They did not wish his scalp to be taken. When at last the Saii were driven away, they tried to conceal the head, wrapped in a wildcat-skin blanket, under a bush; but one of the pursuing Paviotso dragged it out. A long knife [rather, a short spear] was with the head, and from this circumstance the Paviotso man received the name Long Knife.' His great-grandson is now living. The Paviotso pursued the Saii to Honey lake, and the effort of the Saii to make Pyramid lake their own was frustrated. Later another band came to Pyramid lake. The war-chief called 1 These short spears, which were carried on the back, are said to have originated among the easterly tribes, probably the Bannock. {view image of page 78} 78 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN for men from all the Paviotso bands. They went along the range of hills east of the lake, and were met by a party of Bannock, armed with spears. They camped together, and in the morning the Bannock forcibly took away everything the Paviotso had. But the next night they gave back what they had taken, and the two parties travelled together northward as far as the site of Lakeview, Oregon, and there chose a Bannock and a Paviotso scout. From a hilltop the scouts saw a man with a bow and a bag of arrows on his back, sitting under a cedar. They decided to fight with him. He was a Saii. He shot one of the scouts through the shoulder, but the other shot him in the back and killed him. He was very old, and his hair was gray. With the entire scalp and his weapons they returned to their companions at night, and immediately all set forward. After a time they saw a fire, toward which they travelled, and at daylight they were close to it. The Sail had been dancing for a menstruating girl, and were sleeping soundly. The Paviotso crossed a stream, attacked the camp, and killed many. They liberated some Paviotso young women who had been captured by the Saii as little girls, and captured two Saii women. The granddaughter of one of the captives was recently living in Reno, a very old woman. Years after this the Sail gave up fighting the Paviotso, and the latter then collected arrows, one from each band, and gave them to a woman captive, who took them back to her people as a sign of peace. [This woman was seen by the present interpreter at Susanville.] The Paviotso and the Saii then met near Toha-kaiva ["white mountain" - Mount Lassen] and made peace. All this fighting the Pyramid Lake Paviotso engaged in to maintain their ownership of the lake, where they obtained their principal supplies of food. The Paviotso are still fighting for their lake, which they call Kuyfii-vanunadu (" black-sucker lake"). More than once white men have launched power-boats on it, but the Indians have always dragged them ashore. Their chief, Captain Dave, is trying to throw it open to public use, but his people will not consent. There are neither clans nor secret societies. Boys receive the names of the father's male relatives, especially his paternal uncles, and girls those of the father's female relatives. There is no formality in the bestowal of names. Typical masculine names are Namasugagunuu ("grandson great-grandfather"), Tubagi ("water-worn pothole"), Aghai-zora ("trout cheek"); feminine names are Tsurukumaa (" Equisetum edge"), Tagu-donii (" taguc [an unidentified root] blossom"), Inagufvufif ("breaking something white with the teeth"). The childhood name is retained until death, unless a new one is acquired by the performance of some unusual feat.1 1 Lowie, Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History, 1924, cites Sarah Winnemucca, daughter of the Paviotso chief of that name, as responsible for the statement {view image of facing page 78} Paviotso house at Walker Lake [photogravure plate] {view image of page 79} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 79 Many of the ancestral names embody obscene allusions or are bald compounds of words not commonly spoken in mixed society. These are not nicknames, and the only way to designate an individual bearing such a name is to suppress false modesty and utter the suggestive syllables. Women sometimes chaff men whose names are of this character. After parturition the mother and the child were bathed every five days by an elderly woman, and the father received similar treatment from a man. The attendant prayed to the sun that the parent might work hard and provide well for the child, and that the child might have good health and become a strong and industrious person. At the end of three weeks whatever clothing the parents had on was given to the attendants, including even valuable beads, or in later days money, and an entirely new set of garments was donned. This form of purification is obsolete, but even at the present time fathers do not hunt for about three weeks after the birth of a child; nor do they ride a male horse, because, as they assert, for about that length of time the father as well as the mother is filled with the odor characteristic of catamenia, and this would "go into" the horse and kill him. But mares are immune. It is said that girls who never played with boys had their first menstruation at the age of about fourteen, while those who romped with boys and came into physical contact with them had it at about thirteen. Similarly, boys who were fond of girls are said to have matured earlier than others. The cause of course is mistaken for the effect. When the first menses appeared, two elderly women led the girl out from camp, and the three made six or seven piles of brush, after which they returned. This was done each morning and evening until the period was over, not merely as a sign to the people that the girl had reached puberty and was ready for marriage, but as a means to making her an industrious woman. During the day she was required to be active, moving here and there, whether working or not, and one of the old women always accompanied and watched her while the other slept or rested. At the end of her time they took the girl to a stream or spring and bathed her, while reciting: "Tava, naisudihai [sun, we pray]. You know everything. You see everything on this earth. Make this girl healthy and strong. Make her industrious and not lazy. Let her have many children without pain." that "the Paviotso named the majority of their girls after flowers, others after rocks; boys... according to some chance observation they made in infancy." The prevalence of flower-names for girls is apparent from those quoted above. See also plates facing pages 82, I46. Nevertheless, these are all of ancestral origin. {view image of page 80} 80 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN The girl's old clothing was then thrown away or taken by the women, if they wished it, and new garments were put on her. The puberty customs have fallen into disuse. Paviotso boys were not sent out to observe vigils, although the Bannock had this custom. Marriage followed at any time after the first menstruation. Not infrequently girls were married before they reached puberty, but they did not cohabit until after their first menses. A marriage of this kind took place at Walker River reservation about the year 1912. Chastity before marriage was strictly enjoined and is said to have been the rule. Girls were not ordinarily permitted to associate freely with boys, and those who conducted themselves modestly were not molested. Prostitution was practised, but not for pay. There were a few berdaches who, as usual, dressed like women and did women's work. When a youth desired to marry, he consulted his mother. If she did not approve his choice, she might endeavor to interest him in some other girl; but if he persisted she said just what she would have said had she herself approved, "Well, why not buy her?" The family then prepared the purchase price, which consisted of beads or deerskins or clothing, and sent it to the girl's family, who accepted it without a word of approval or disapproval. They returned no answer, even after the lapse of several weeks, and at the end of perhaps a month an additional quantity of property was sent. Soon after this either a favorable answer was returned or the young man's mother went and demanded to know what they meant by keeping both the property and the girl. If then they decided not to accept the youth, they gave up the property; but if they returned a favorable answer he went that evening to their home and lay down near the door, afraid to approach the girl too closely, and usually it was not until the fifth or sixth night that their mating was consummated. The man made his home permanently with his wife's people and it was his duty to provide meat for the family. Sometimes a marriage was arranged without purchase, as when a male relative of the girl, being on friendly terms with a young man, would joke him regarding the girl and the girl regarding him, suggesting marriage, and finally bringing it about. Such a marriage was somewhat disgraceful for the girl, who thus gave herself away without price. It might also turn out unfortunately for the man; for if she should die in childbirth, he, as the cause of her death, would be mistreated and insulted until he left the camp. On the other hand the {view image of facing page 80} Paviotso woman of Pyramid Lake [photogravure plate] {view image of page 81} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 8I relatives of a purchased wife who died in childbirth had nothing to say to her husband; for though he was still held to be the cause of her death, she belonged to him absolutely. Once purchased, a woman belonged to her husband's family so long as they kept her as a married woman. But if she became a widow and none of her husband's people married her within the usual period of about a year, she became free to marry outside and their right to her ceased. Some widows remained unmarried a long time. Good women waited about a year for remarriage, others only a few months. The brothers of a deceased man kept close watch of their sister-in-law, to see that she did not disgrace their dead brother's name by a too hasty marriage. An informant's brother purchased a woman and died. His cousin, already married, took her also after the lapse of a year, in order to maintain the family's right in their duly purchased property. The informant's wife then died, and he without formality began to live with his deceased brother's widow, his cousin abandoning claim to her. This happened within the last few years. The primitive marriage customs still flourished in 1916, and existed side by side with ecclesiastical rites in 1924. When a woman died, her relatives, if they had high regard for her husband, gave him one of her "sisters," either a blood sister or a cousin, without payment. Few men had more than two wives, and these two were nearly always sisters in the Indian system of kinship. A man might take a second wife without the consent of the first, and the first wife, even though a purchased woman, had then the right to leave him. Brawls over women were not infrequent, but seldom had a fatal termination. Conversation between a man and his mother-in-law, and between a woman and her father-in-law, was restricted to necessary and serious topics, and generally was carried on through the wife or the husband, as the case might be. A man coming home and finding his mother-in-law in the house, left it at once; and if any conversation were necessary, he stood outside and spoke impersonally. This custom is obsolete. The bodies of warriors were cremated, others were buried. The corpse was wrapped with drawn-up knees in a blanket, or, if it were a man who had owned a horse, in the animal's hide, and was laid in a shallow grave made by removing some half-buried stones from the ground. The stones were then replaced and others piled on them. Food and water were not deposited. Even today the death of any member of a household is followed by removal of the house to a new VOL. XV - II {view image of page 82} 82 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN site. Usually a man's entire property was distributed among his relatives, and the widow was left destitute; but sometimes the dying husband stipulated that certain things should remain in her possession during the minority of the children, and in rare cases, even without this provision, his relatives made the same arrangement. Close relatives of both sexes cut the hair at the level of the ears, and some women in mourning for a son singed it quite short. Reference to the dead by name was an act of the greatest disrespect to the dead man and his family. The spirits of the dead are said to rise straight through the air to the Milky Way and travel southward to the end of this trail, where is a lake with a conical rock in the middle. Down through the hole in the apex of this rock they pass, and at the bottom they emerge, living bodies, in Pugwazniumu-muguwa-bitighan ("place-where spirit goes-in"). Some say that below the Milky Way is another earth like this of ours, but with more abundant grass and flowers. Adults pass rapidly through this land, but children loiter and pluck flowers. Some who have apparently died and visited the other world declare that one cannot see anything there. One hears the voices of people like the humming of unnumbered flies. The earth is regarded as flat. The existence of a western ocean is known, and it is supposed that water bounds the land on the east. The sun sinks into the western ocean, passes through the water under the land, and emerges in the morning from the eastern ocean, where he climbs up on a rock and dries himself before resuming his daily journey. The stars are believed to be lights fastened to the sky, which is a solid hemisphere. The power of a Paviotso medicine-man is acquired in a dream, which is not kept absolutely secret. In the dream the spirit of some creature, or even of an inanimate object, such as a gun, speaks to the dreamer and directs him to do certain things in order to prepare himself for the profession of healing. Thus, the spiritual counterpart of a gun might instruct him to make a certain number of bullets and keep them in a certain way, and these would give him the power to cure sickness. The family of a person requiring treatment by a medicine-man name over the available ones and select him whose power they deem best suited to this particular case. One of the men of the family visits him, and laying the fee on the floor, says, "We would like to have you sing over our relative tonight." A string of beads was the customary fee, but at the present time five dollars is the usual pay {view image of facing page 82} Su-donii - "Osier-willow blossom" - Pyramid Lake Paviotso [photogravure plate] {view image of page 83} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 83 ment. The medicine-man then studies to decide which one of his powers is best for the case; for the more capable healers have more than one guardian spirit. After a period of thought he tells his visitor what to do. He may, for instance, direct the preparation of a number of willow wands by peeling them in a certain manner and the concealment of them in a certain direction from the house; or he may require an eagle-feather to be deposited in a certain place. At night the medicine-man comes to begin the treatment, and while the members of the family and any others who are present sing, he dances or walks about the fire. At intervals he sucks the place where the sickness is supposed to be, and in the end he shows either blood, or white foam, or an object which he calls a worm or a bullet. During the night he demonstrates his clairvoyant power by telling the patient how he feels and asking him to confirm or deny it; or by describing the exact manner in which the sickness was incurred, calling for confirmation by the patient. There is an old man, hired by the family, to whom the shaman addresses all his remarks, and who repeats them to the others. Sometimes the shaman declares that the sickness was caused by another medicine-man, who was trying to kill his victim. If his own power is greater than that of the evilworker, he sucks out the poison and reveals the name of the sorcerer; but if he is unable to remove the poison, he conceals the name lest the relatives of the sick and dying person kill the malefactor. Failure to cure is not cause for returning the fee, but in case of death the medicine-man may give part of the payment to the dead person's mother or widow. Sometimes the medicine-man secretly tells the dead man's family that a certain shaman has bewitched him, and they conspire to kill the sorcerer. The death of a medicine-man by violence does not, and apparently never did, give rise to a family feud. There is no fraternity of shamans. The genuinely religious acts of the Paviotso seem to have been confined to supplications for well-being addressed to the sun and the moon, who were believed to be persons of great power. Religious ceremonies were lacking. The practices connected with puberty, healing, and death were merely pseudo-religious, customary observances of individuals, and the only public dances were performed largely for amusement and in the hope that the harvest of food would be plentiful. Nuqava ("dance") was held in the spring, in the summer, and in the autumn. When it occurred in the spring, the chief sent men to bring in pine-cones, so that the people could see whether there would {view image of page 84} 84 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN be a good supply of nuts. In the autumn the chiefs in the region where pine-nuts would be plentiful sent word to the scattered people to assemble on a certain day. There they danced for several days, and then scattered to the work of harvesting nuts. At such dances the chiefs made speeches expressing the hope that there would be plentiful supplies of food; but apparently they uttered no supplication to any particular deity. When the people assembled in the circular brush enclosure, a few men stood up with the song-leaders, joined hands, and passed slowly to the left with a shuffling movement of the feet. Gradually other men joined them, and after a time women began to take their place in one side of the circle. With brief intervals of rest this continued until a late hour of the night, when the men would say, "Well, we had better close up." The two men at the ends of the arc composed solely of men then joined hands, leaving the women standing in an arc on the outside, and continued to dance around, while the women watched them, each one deciding which man she would dance with. Married women chose their own husbands. When the man of her choice came near, each female took her place in the circle beside him. If a man danced for some time without a partner, he left the circle and went home. Such occasions were favorite times for arranging clandestine meetings. A youth would whisper to his lover as they danced: "Drop out and go to such and such a place. I will continue to dance for a while and then come to you." Affairs of this kind frequently led to marriage without purchase. A young woman or girl might come home a short time before daylight, and her parents would remonstrate: "What are you doing out so long? You have no husband. You should be at home." Perhaps she would say nothing, or she might become angry and boast that she had not been at the dance at all, but sleeping with her lover. In that case they would say: "Well, it is your own doing. We did not tell you to do this. But if you like him and he likes you, you had better bring him here." The next night she would pass again in secret with her lover, and the third night she would bring him home as her husband. The dancers had various costumes. Men wore loin-cloths, and such as had a deerskin threw it over the shoulder and under one arm. Bead necklaces were marks of wealth. Old women carried on the back a burden-basket with deer dew-claws fastened around the edge. All women who had them wore strings of cylindrical bone beads about the neck or the waist, and both sexes painted lines and spots of red and white on face and body. {view image of facing page 84} Volcanic mud formation at Pyramid Lake [photogravure plate] {view image of page 85} PLATEAU SHOSHONEANS 85 Tufina-nugui (tunaa, hunchback) was a dance of clowns. Half a dozen young men would paint their bodies in grotesque and unsymmetrical fashion and tie lumps of skin or willow withes to various parts of their bodies. One might wear a coyote's ears, another a coyote's tail; some had humps on their backs, and some dressed like women. They stood in a line and sang, led by two or three singers who sat opposite them, and stamped on the ground and shook their bodies uncouthly. One of their number was always clad in the entire skin of a coyote, and ran about snapping and otherwise imitating that animal. The dance lasted about an hour for the amusement of the people. These were the only indigenous dances. The war-dance of the Mono was not performed by the Paviotso. A Walker River Paviotso was immediately responsible for the Ghost dance, a messiah cult that spread like wildfire among the tribes as far east as the Missouri river. Wovoka ("male infant") known to the whites as Jack Wilson, was born about i856 in Mason valley north of Walker lake. About I888 he announced that he had received a revelation promising a complete change of conditions, the elimination of the white race, the recovery of the Indian land in all its former abundance of buffalo, the return of the dead. In short, a new world was imminent, and the people must prepare for it by appropriate dancing. The gospel spread by word of mouth and by the prosaic medium of the postal service. In I889 came pilgrims from the Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho, eager to become disciples of the prophet and learn the new religion at the fountainhead. A dance was held at Walker river, and as its underlying motive was identical with that of the Sun dance, namely, the inducing of visions, by means of mental excitement and concentration and physical fatigue, these Plains Indians departed for home thoroughly converted. The movement culminated in the outbreak of the Lakota Sioux and the killing of their medicine-man Sitting Bull at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in I890. {view image of page 86} l {view image of facing page 86} Bob Lowry - Pyramid Lake Paviotso [photogravure plate] {view image of page 87} The Washo {view image of page 88} I {view image of facing page 88} Phallic rock painting at Walker Lake [photogravure plate] {view image of page 89} THE WASHO HE Washo controlled all the territory about Lake Tahoe.' Their western border, from Honey lake in Lassen county to the eastern end of Calaveras county, and their southern boundary, extending through the Blue lakes and Silver mountain in Alpine county to the headwaters of Walker river at the site of Coleville in Mono county, lay entirely in California. In Nevada they held the western foothills of the Pine Nut range, extending northward on Truckee river to a point five miles above Wadsworth. About equally divided between California and Nevada, Washo territory in the latter state included the valleys of Carson and Truckee rivers, and in California the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, together with the extreme headwaters of the westward-flowing American, Cosumnes, Mokelumne, Calaveras, and Stanislaus rivers, where they held the edge of the oak groves. The mountains were their summer hunting- and fishing-grounds. An extremely heavy annual snowfall rendered this region uninhabitable during a long winter season, which they therefore spent in the valleys. The western portion of this area presents the characteristic sierra topography of high mountains, glacial lakes and gorges, dense forests of conifers, such as the digger, sugar, and yellow pine, spruce, hemlock, fir, cedar, and juniper, and groves of oaks. The eastern portion is typical of the Great Basin, of which it forms the western edge, consisting of arid plains with sagebrush, greasewood, and bunch-grass vegetation, and low mountains either unforested or clothed with dark green, nut-bearing pinons. It would be difficult to say whether Washo culture more strongly resembles the California or the Basin type. Their conical slab houses and their use of acorns relate them to the California tribes, but their dependence on rabbits and pifons is a Great Basin characteristic. The original form of the word Washo is Wa5hiu, the tribal selfname. The Mono and the Paviotso call them Waisiu. Until recently From Washo ta6, lake VOL. XV- 12 89 {view image of page 90} 9o THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN they were known to the Pyramid Lake Paviotso as Mana'ft. The Washo were regarded as a distinct linguistic stock, but Dixon and Kroeber are inclined to classify them as members of the Hokan family, which includes such well-known groups as Shasta, Karok, Yana, and Pomo.1 They themselves recognize three geographical divisions of the tribe: the Hanalelti ("southerners"), in Alpine county, California; the Pawalu (Pau, Carson valley), in Carson valley, Nevada; and the Welmelti (" northerners"), in Truckee valley, Nevada. Their western neighbors were the Maidu, whom they call Tanniu. On the west and south were the Miwok, or Teubimmus; southeastward the Mono, and on the east and north the Paviotso, both of which tribes they call Paliu. Although there was a constant state of hostility between the Washo and the Paviotso over the question of trespass, there never was organized warfare between them. The feeling of enmity, however, is still strong, with the result that drunken brawls between those who meet in the towns are not uncommon.2 Many generations ago a large number of northeastern Maidu attacked a Washo camp while the men were fishing in Truckee river below the site of Reno. They killed an old woman, and the others ran to apprise the men at the river, who pursued the retreating enemy. In Sierra valley, Plumas and Sierra counties, California, a heavy snowstorm overwhelmed the invaders, and almost all of them were frozen to death in the caves in which they took refuge. About the year 1835 a party of Miwok invaded the Washo country west of Lake Tahoe in order to hunt deer. They were driven out, and in a fight about twenty miles from the lake a few were killed. The first white men in Washo territory were the trappers under Jedediah S. Smith, who passed through on their way to California in 1825. Explorers, trappers, and finally gold-seekers and colonists came in growing numbers. In 1846 the Donner party, bound for Sacramento valley, attempted to cross the mountains too late in the season and became snowbound at a small lake northwest of Tahoe. 1 "Since Dr. Lehmann first observed the remarkable analogy between the nominal d- prefix of Subtiaba and that of Washo, Dixon and Kroeber, J. P. Harrington, and the writer have been led, independently of each other, to affiliate Washo with the Hokan group." - Edward Sapir, The Hokan Affinity of Subtiaba in Nicaragua, American Anthropologist, N.S., Vol. 27, No. 3, page 403, July, 1925. 2 Henshaw, in Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, quotes Mooney to the effect that " about I86o-62 the Paiute conquered the Washo in a contest over the site of Carson and forbade them thenceforth to own horses." In the present investigation several Washo and more Paviotso old enough to recall incidents so recent have been questioned without confirmation of the statement. It should be noted that the settlement of Carson valley began in I85I, and the famous Comstock lode was discovered in I859. {view image of page 91} THE WASHO 91 The father and the grandfather of the present Washo informant used to fish every year in Donner lake. One spring when they went there as usual, they were astonished to see a group of log huts. On the walls were guns and clothing. The use of these things they did not know. Outside were many corpses. Some of the bones seemed to have been sawed, and evidently cannibalism had been practised. They reported the discovery to their people, and with a larger party returned to the place. They saw where limbs thirty feet from the ground had been cut off for fuel during the winter, the deep snow having raised the prevailing level that distance. The arrival of settlers was followed by the usual depredations and reprisals. The Washo however did not fall victims to organized warfare. Although no general reservation has ever been assigned them, in 1892 they received allotments in severalty. A few were fortunate enough to obtain tracts in the foothills where small areas can be cultivated, but many were assigned to barren slopes on the western side of Pine Nut range, a hopeless region which they have never occupied. The land is leased to sheep-raisers and returns a pitiful annual amount varying from a few cents to several dollars per family. The allotment of the Pine Nut lands is said to have resulted from a misunderstanding on the part of an interpreter. The spokesman for the Washo requested protection of the pifions, not allotment of the land. In 1916 Congress appropriated ten thousand dollars for the purchase of land and water for the Washo, and five thousand dollars for their support and civilization. Five separate tracts aggregating 236 acres were purchased. The largest, consisting of 119 acres of sandy sagebrush land with little water, was occupied by three families in 1924. Twenty acres of rocky ground near Reno, costing six thousand dollars, was the home of a small number of Washo and Paviotso. On a tract of about forty acres five miles from Gardnerville a dozen families have erected cabins. But since a single well is the only source of water, successful tillage is out of the question. One man has sowed a plot of wheat about his house, desiring not only food for his family but fodder for his horses and a lawn to please the eye. He carries water in buckets from the well. Such ambition would seem to deserve better opportunities. The present numerical strength of the Washo is not known with any accuracy, because they are not concentrated on reservations. The Census of I9IO enumerated eight hundred, of whom about {view image of page 92} 92 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN six hundred were of unmixed blood. They reside principally about Reno and Carson and in the intervening country. Many of them work on ranches, and some regularly visit Lake Tahoe in summer, where the men serve as boatmen for sporting fishermen, and the women make baskets for sale to tourists. Like the tribes of central California the Washo exhibit in connection with a general paucity and simplicity of manufactured objects a high degree of skill and artistic taste in basketry. The two processes of coiling and twining are employed, and the product of the former method especially is of excellent quality and much in demand. The materials are willow rods and bark, bracken-root fibres, and redbud-bark. Willow rods form the radiating elements, or warp, in twined baskets, and the coiled elements, or foundation, in coiled baskets. The inner bark of the willow, in its natural state of whiteness or browned by exposure to sunlight, is the weft material in twined baskets, and the sewing, or wrapping, material in coiled work. Redbud-bark, purchased from the Miwok, and black fibres from the roots of bracken, are used as weft and sewing material for the production of geometrical designs. Twined basketry takes the form of the conical burden-basket, which is large and coarsely woven for acorns, pine-cones, and fuel, or small and closely woven for grass-seeds; the cradle-basket, consisting of longitudinal willow rods and widely separated rows of bark twining, with separate and detachable convex sun-shade ornamented with phallic designs; the fan-shape, concave winnowing-basket, either open-mesh or closely woven, some of the latter kind, with numerous transverse bands of fine, geometrical figures, strongly resembling a beautifully banded shell; the nearly cylindrical cooking-vessel; the elliptical, open-mesh seed-beater; and the conical fish-trap. Coiled baskets are used for cooking and serving food, and as containers of small possessions, such as beads; and many are now made simply as art objects for sale. Food vessels usually take the form of a bowl or a truncated cone, and ornamental ones more frequently approach the globose. For shooting at marks and small game the Washo used woodenpointed arrows made of rose-shoots. The arrow for large game and for war was tipped with flint or obsidian, which was attached with sinew wrapping directly to the shaft or to a short foreshaft. The points of war-arrows were poisoned. A deer liver repeatedly bitten by a rattlesnake was dried and pulverized, and a small portion was {view image of facing page 92} Washo house [photogravure plate] {view image of page 93} THE WASHO 93 mixed with water in the hollow of a stone kept for this purpose. Such arrows were used also in attacking a grizzly-bear. All arrows were triply feathered, and were carried in quivers of the skin of a coyote or of a young deer or antelope with the hair inside. The shafts were smoothed by means of a flat pumice abrader, and straightened by bending between the teeth. Obsidian blades served as knives. For pulverizing nuts and seeds the Washo used both the bowlder mortar and water-worn pestle of northern California culture, and the flat stone metate and oblong muller of the desert tribes. The implement used for brushing back the scattered meal into the mortar, as well as for dressing the hair, was a bunch of soap-plant fibres, which were purchased from the Miwok. Acorns, pine-nuts, and grass-seeds were stored in pits lined with wild oats and cedar-bark. Cord made of Asclepias fibres was used principally in tying fishnets, which were of the bow-and-arrow type familiar to California culture. Other fishing devices were the hook, which was a straight bone lashed to a wooden or bone shank; the single- or double-pointed gig used on a spear-shaft; and the weir. The weir was made by driving into the bed of a creek a row of closely set stakes and reinforcing them with stones. This part of the structure was called pakoftal. On the down-stream side the workmen attached transversely a trough-like apron of poles and bark twining, which they called pekmeyet, and at each end of the trough a conical trap, pakamat, with the point down-stream and the opening directly connected with the trough. Fish swimming down-stream were carried over the weir into the trough, and, attempting to escape, swam into the traps. Bone awls, wooden fire-drills, and snowshoes were like those found in northern California. Split-stick batons of elder or willow were used in marking rhythm, and the shaman's rattle was made by attaching several willow-galls to a handle. Wedges of horn or bone, drums, and flutes were not made by the Washo. Canoes also were unknown, but they made limited use of rafts. Both sexes wore a short kilt of deerskin or groundhog-skin, and, when protection was required, knee-length leggings and moccasins of deerskin. The women had also shirts of deerskin. These statements probably refer to comparatively recent times. Everyone possessed a garment made of strips of rabbit-fur with cord twining and used both as a robe and as a blanket. The hair generally hung loose, but men {view image of page 94} 94 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN sometimes tied it in a knot at the back of the head. For personal adornment clam-shell beads were obtained from the western tribes in exchange for eagle-feathers, skins, and bows. Tattooing is a modern acquisition. The house was a simple conical structure consisting of a willowpole frame thatched with wild-oat grass, tules, cattail leaves, or cedarbark slabs. The door was on the eastern side, because the winds seldom blew from that direction. In summer rude brush shelters sufficed. The sweat-house was an earth-covered, conical hut over a shallow excavation. Three forked posts, set respectively in the centre and near the front and the rear of the pit, supported a two-piece ridgepole, against which willow poles and slabs of bark were leaned. Heat was generated directly by fire. The sweat-bath, instead of being a regularly recurring event, was employed only to relieve actual physical ills. The most important vegetal foods were pine-nuts, especially those of Pinus monophylla, or pinion, and sunflower-seeds. The nuts are still harvested, and each autumn the people reestablish their camps at certain places in the hills. The cones are plucked by means of a pole with an angular wooden hook lashed to the end, and are roasted in order to open the scales. The kernels are frequently eaten without preparation, but usually they are ground and made into mush. Nuts of the digger and the sugar pine were obtained in the Sierras, and acorns were harvested in the groves at the head of American, Cosumnes, Mokelumne, Calaveras, and Stanislaus rivers, or secured from the Maidu and Miwok in exchange for pifion-nuts. Besides sunflower-seeds, the seeds of various grasses and other plants, especially wild oats, were of importance., Edible fruits included serviceberries, plums, grapes, elderberries, chokecherries, huckleberries, and manzanita-berries, the last purchased from the Miwok. Deer and antelope were killed as required, and the meat was seldom dried. Deer were usually run down by a party of four or five men. These animals when pursued follow a certain route, and as the Indians knew just what direction the quarry would take, some of the party followed the track while others took a short-cut and lay in wait. Disguises were employed for stalking deer, the natural horns and entire skin being utilized. While one of the hunters acted as a decoy, several others lay in ambush, and when a buck, perceiving the * The designs on the sun-shades are phallic symbols. The separated diagonal lines indicate that the infant is a male; the serrated line and the diamond pattern indicate a female. The same symbolism appears on Paviotso cradle-baskets. {view image of facing page 94} Washo cradle-baskets [photogravure plate] {view image of page 95} THE WASHO 95 decoy, came to fight his supposed rival, they let fly their arrows. Not infrequently the stalker had to throw off the disguise in order to avoid an actual attack by the infuriated animal. The most important game animal was not the deer nor the antelope, but the lowly rabbit, which was very plentiful and easily captured. The method of hunting was the same as that employed by the Paviotso, namely, to drive the animals into the meshes of a long net. The kill, whether of deer or rabbits, was divided among the people of the camp. Fish were a prominent item in the diet of the Washo. They passed their summer at Lake Tahoe, fishing, not in the lake, but in the affluent streams where the trout spawn from the first of May until June or July. So jealous of their rich fishing-grounds were the Washo that when other Indians came to trade for dried fish they were permitted to remain only one night. The fish were dried in smoke, but few were carried over into the winter. At the end of the fishing season the people made preparations for moving to the pifion hills of Nevada, taking a moderate supply of dried trout. There were a considerable number of Washo villages, which were politically and socially independent of one another. Each community had its head-man, whose function was to convene the people on public occasions, and to look after their affairs in fatherly fashion. There was also a hunt-chief, whose authority was considerable. Each year about the month of September, when the pine-nuts were ripe and the deer season was beginning, he sent runners with knotted cords summoning all the people to an appointed place in the pine country, there to participate in feasting on nuts, venison, and fish, in dancing, contests of football, and the hand-game. The assembly usually lasted three or four days. After the last night's dancing, when the chief had finished his speech exhorting the people to treat the children and the aged with kindness, and to avoid cruelty to any animal, everybody, even the children, went to the stream and bathed. Then they scattered to the work of gathering the winter's supply of nuts. The hunt-chief also had charge of the communal rabbit-drives, which could not be held without his consent and direction. Clans did not exist among the Washo, and totemic names were unknown. The name given to a child was generally the infant's ludicrous mispronunciation of a word, and it was never deliberately changed. On the occasion of a girl's first two menstruations there was a ceremony. During four days she fasted absolutely, drank warm {view image of page 96} 96 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN water, and was led about by an attendant to perform various duties that involved walking, such as gathering nuts and seeds. All this was intended to make her active and strong. On the last day, accompanied by a girl companion, or by several, she started about the middle of the afternoon to climb to the top of a mountain or lofty hill, building fires along the slope and finally on the peak. They returned to the village about dark. That night was spent in dancing, men and women holding hands and moving to the left in a circle, and at some time during the dance the girl stood within the circle and held a basket above her head, a prize for the first male dancer who touched it. The intent of this feature was no doubt to overcome the natural timidity of a young girl by having a throng of youths jostling about her, to arouse the sexual impulse by physical contact. Perhaps also there was a feeling that this in some occult way would predispose her to fecundity. Just before sunrise her mother stood up beside her with a fine basket containing cold water. Circling it four times above the maiden's head, she expressed the wish that headache might never trouble her daughter and that she might always have good health, and then poured the water on her head and bathed her entire body. This was followed by a ritualistic bath with warm water, and the basket was thrown eastward above the heads of the crowd as a prize for anyone who could get it. Next, the girl's father, with perpendicular stripes of white clay on his face, took a red-banded elder stick and ran eastward with it, to hide it in some secret place; and returning with speed, he stood before the people and made a speech, expressing the hope that his daughter would always have good health and would run over the mountains like a deer, that she would have long, black hair until aged, and be a faithful wife and a good mother of many children. Finally he thanked the people for showing respect to his daughter by attending the ceremony. Many of the people then departed, others perhaps remaining to play football or to gamble. All this was repeated at the second menstruation; and thereafter until, a month later, she participated in a feast of fish or venison, the * This remarkable example of coiled basketry, as well as those shown in plates facing pages 150 and 152, was made by Datsolali (Tafsolali), an old woman residing at Carson (see folio plate 540). Her work has rarely been equalled in the fineness and regularity of the stitches, in perfection of symmetry, and in the softness and harmonious blending of shades in the straw-color background and the brown and black patterns. An example of Datsolali's work, now in the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, was purchased by a private collector at a cost of two thousand dollars, while another specimen of her handiwork was sold by a dealer for the hitherto unheardof sum of three thousand dollars. Datsolali died in December, I925. {view image of facing page 96} A Washo gem [photogravure plate] {view image of page 97} THE WASHO 97 girl ate no meat nor fresh fish. At the present time many elderly women refrain from meat for four to ten days after their periods. This puberty ceremony, T!ewewe, is still religiously observed. To arrange marriage, the parents of a young man offered venison or deerskins to the parents of the desired bride, and acceptance signified acquiescence. After several exchanges of gifts, the two young people without formality made their beds together in the girl's house. After a few weeks they usually became permanent members of the husband's family, but in many cases they lived alternately in both places. Polygyny was common, but by no means unexceptional, and a widow was bound to marry her husband's brother if he desired her. The dead were cremated. A corpse was laid at length in the house, the personal possessions were disposed beside it, and fire was set to the dwelling. Nothing was kept that might remind the family of their loss. Mourning relatives cut the hair, but did not blacken the face. Annually there was a memorial ceremony which appears to have closely paralleled the California rite. Objects were burned while the people wailed, and a feast was provided by the chief. Effigies of the lamented dead are said to have been burned, as in southern California; but since the statement came in answer to direct inquiry and no details were forthcoming, its truth cannot be accepted without further evidence. The genuinely religious acts of the Washo appear to have been limited to addressing prayers to Ti-kai ("my father"), who lived above, for food, health, long life, children, and other bounties. Both shamans and herb doctors obtained their power and knowledge by dreaming. A shaman cured by sucking out the "poison blood" after a period of incantation and shaking of rattles, and one suspected of having killed a person by projecting sickness into his body was likely to be slain by grieving relatives. There were a few female shamans. A herb doctor, dreaming that in a certain spot was an efficacious plant, visited the place, obtained the plant, and used it as his dream indicated it should be used. Besides the puberty rite, the only pseudo-religious ceremonies are T!agum-las ("pine-nut dance"), Mallin-las ("acorn dance"), and Peleu-las ("jack-rabbit dance"), which vary only in the character of the songs employed, and are performed for the purpose of enhancing the supply of food. Men and women join hands in a circle and dance slowly to the left as in the puberty dance. VOL. XV - 13 {view image of page 98} 98 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN On the rare occasion of the departure of a war-party, the members of the expedition danced with young female relatives, who expressed the wish that the fighters might return safe and victorious. Washo mythology has few features peculiar to itself. The world is accepted as an accomplished fact, and the creation of human beings is described as the work of Wolf, chief of the pseudo-human race that already existed but was destined to become animals of the lower orders. This he accomplished by placing cattail-down, seeds, and grass in a basket, whence in time a faint humming issued. The sound increased in volume, and Wolf turned out the contents of the vessel - the progenitors of Washo, Miwok, Maidu, and Paviotso. The typical California motive of an argumentative dispute between an elder and a younger brother creator, here Wolf and Coyote, is embodied in the Washo myth. A favorite tale is based on the widespread Plains theme of two sisters marrying star-men; and another is palpably a variant of the Paviotso story concerning the wonderful adventures of two brothers. In short, Washo myths, like Washo material culture, appear to be about equally influenced by central California and the Great Basin. *Namina (Ifyive, I walk) was the infant's first attempt to speak. This was the regular method of naming Washo children. {view image of facing page 98} Captain Pete, Namina - Washo [photogravure plate] {view image of page 99} Mythology {view image of page 100} I {view image of facing page 100} Scraping a deerskin - Washo [photogravure plate] {view image of page 101} MYTHOLOGY Taqish 1 T IJKUPAT 2 and his brother Kawi-alwiit [" rock crow, " raven] lived in one house. When the wife of Tikupat bore a child, although it was winter and the weather severe, he built a shade for them near the house. For he wished to avoid blood-stains on his bow and arrows. When the boy grew up he went hunting with his father, but if a rabbit came near him he would only frighten it and not try to kill it. This angered his father. When they returned home, the boy asked for some cord with which to make rabbit-snares. So he made and set many snares, and each day he caught many rabbits. For a long time they lived on in this way. One day the boy became exhausted far from home. He said it was too much trouble to come there daily and then walk back home. He proposed that his father bring food each day, and he himself would camp there and hunt. So the boy remained alone. It was not long before a man came to him. This was TaqiTh. He killed the boy and flew away with the body to his home on San Jacinto mountain. The next day the father came and searched for his son. The snares had not been tended, for in them were halfeaten bodies of rabbits. Unable to find his son, he returned home and told his wife what had occurred. That evening he began to sing, and all night he kept it up. In the morning he put his rattle on the wall and told his wife that if he were killed by Taqlih the rattle would fall. Then he started for the home of Taqi.h. No man ever had been there. On the way he came upon a form containing six young rabbits. He roasted them, wrapped them up in a piece of skin, and hung the bundle at his belt. He went on. He said to himself, "I am coming to a place from which perhaps I shall not return." So he began to 1 Narrated by a Luisefio at Pala. 2 According to Kroeber, Tukupar is Gabrielino for sky. Cf. Luiseio tukumtt, night. Night is commonly identical with night-sky. IOI {view image of page 102} I02 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN practise his magic. He stood and jumped three times, and then flew through the air, and dodged about in the way he would do when Taqifh should oppose him. At last he reached the place and found only the mother of Taqiqgh. He greeted her, and she said: "How have you come here? No man has ever done so. Your cousin will eat you when he comes." He answered: "I cannot help it. I am here, and it will have to be that he will eat me." There was a roll of matting in the corner. He opened it, and beheld the hair of many people whom Taqifh had eaten. He recognized the hair of his son. He rolled up the mat and replaced it in the corner. Then he asked his aunt how Taqigh acted when he came home. "Oh," she said, "a great wind blows, and all these trees bend to the ground." In the roof he saw a small hole. He went up on the housetop, opened the hole a little, and perched under the roof. Then Taqish came in with a child. He smelled flesh, and said, "I smell something raw, like meat." Then he saw Tuikupat, and reached for him; but Tukupat dodged and flew up through the hole, and sat on the roof. TaqiSh reached again, but again Tukupat eluded him. And Taqish tried no more. The woman said, "That is your cousin, Tfikupat." And Taqi~h, pretending anger, said, "Why did you not tell me when I first came?" After a time he said, "Cousin, there is something you wish, for you never have been here before this." "Yes," answered Tfikupat, "I came because you are the man of great power who travels everywhere. So you must have seen my son, dead or alive. He has disappeared. That is why I have come, to ask you about this." "I have not seen your son," said Taq~ih. He opened the roll of matting, but kept his hand over the hair of his cousin's son. Tfikupat looked here and there, but could not find the hair. Then Taqiqh, angry because Tfikupat seemed to suspect that he had killed the boy, slapped him in the face with the hair. But Tfikupat repeated that he had come merely to ask if his cousin had seen the boy. Then Taqi~h showed the baby he had brought, and lamented that he had not had better luck. He gave it to Tiukupat and told him to eat. But Tuikupat stealthily concealed it in the ground where he sat, and ate the rabbits. Taqih invited him to sing, but Tuikupat objected: "You are the one who has the power. You are the one to sing." So Taqigh sang, and shook his rattle, and danced, and while he danced, Tuikupat blew a cloud of gnats into his face, and they {view image of page 103} MYTHOLOGY IO3 choked his nose and throat and filled his ears and blinded his eyes. He fell as if dead. The woman began to wail, and Tukupat took his feathers from his bag and brushed the gnats away from Taqi'h, who soon sat up. Again he asked his cousin to sing and dance, and at last Tfikupat consented. He stepped aside to one corner, then to another, and then to the centre, and there he danced. Soon the house began to shake, so that Taqifh begged him to cease before the house fell. The next morning Tuikupat returned home. He ordered the people to gather seed for an entire year, but he did not reveal his plan. When the year was past, he announced a feast to commemorate the death of his son, and he appointed twelve men who were to kill Taqish with arrows when he came to the feast. He himself went to invite Taqigh, telling him that there would be many pretty girls and fat women, whom he could kill and carry away. So Taqifh accompanied him to the village. There he prepared to do his work immediately, but Tuikupat advised him to wait, for more were coming. So he led Taqih to a knoll away from the crowd. There the twelve men surrounded the two on the knoll, and before TaqiAh was aware of their intention he was shot with twelve arrows. Twelve more pierced him, and he died. During the feast he lay there on the knoll. Now Paahf [pocket-gopher] came to the feast, and seeing the dead body he asked why they did not burn it; if they did not intend to take care of it they had better give it to him. They told him to do as it pleased him, so he spread his burden-net on the ground, placed the body in it, and carried it off on his back to a place where lived twelve aunts of TaqiSh. They prepared a place for burning it. Several days they spent in gathering wood, then they placed the body on the pyre and set fire to it. They kept turning it over and over until all was consumed except the heart. It would not burn quickly. Almost exhausted, they went to drink at a creek. Suddenly the heart of Taqish exploded and killed them, and his spirit flew up into the air. It is still seen at night, travelling low in the sky in the form of a ball of fire. Suskia, the Giantess 1 A woman was preparing acorn meal at the spring. It was evening. In the house her baby was crying, but she gave no heed. Then Sufskia, assuming the likeness of the woman, entered the house and bore the crying baby away. She carried him home and kept him until he grew to boyhood. 1 Narrated by a Luisefio at Pala. {view image of page 104} I04 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN One day Gopher Woman, always weaving baskets, told the boy that Suiskia was not his mother. In a distant village, she said, lived his real mother. "When there is a fire on the mountain where your people live," she said, "I will point out the place to you, and you can go home." So when there happened to be a fire on the mountain, Gopher Woman prepared chia meal for the boy, and she gave him also a flat basket. "Roll this basket ahead of you," she said, "and it will lead you home. Follow wherever it leads." So the boy started, following the rolling tray. When Suskia returned and asked where her son was, Gopher Woman replied, "He was here a short time ago." Then Siuskia was angry, and they quarrelled. Siuskia tried to harm Gopher Woman, but the little woman ran into her burrow, and when Sufskia kicked at her, she dodged back, only to reappear at some other hole. Then Suskia seized a tray, rolled it off, and followed it. In the village the people saw, far away, two persons running toward them, each following a rolling tray. When the first reached them, they recognized him as the lost infant, and quickly concealed him in a roll of matting, which they stood in a corner of the house. The strong shamans gathered in the house and closed the door. When Suiskia approached, they exerted their power and tried to prevent her from coming farther, but she was too strong. She came, and forced open the door. "Give me my son!" she demanded. "We have no son of yours," they said. "But here are his tracks coming into the house," she declared. So they had to agree to give up the boy. They said, "Close your eyes, and we will place him in your mouth." She closed her eyes, and they threw a red-hot stone into her gullet. She leaped up, rushed out of the house, and disgorged the stone. Then she ran back into the house and gave a kick at the bundle of matting, and the boy fell dead. Siuskia also fell dead on the floor, and her body became that of an owl. The people warned their children not to approach the body. But one day some of them plucked the owl's feathers and placed them on their heads. Soon their heads felt lifeless, and they could not move from the place. So they lay there, crying and calling for help. When their parents heard them, they did not dare to approach lest they also be unable to stir from the spot. Then the eldest of the children thought of something. He said he would arrange his fingers, {view image of facing page 104} Primitive Chemehuevi dwelling [photogravure plate] {view image of page 105} MYTHOLOGY IO5 one on another, and his toes in the same way, and he would put feathers between them. The others were to do the same thing, and then he would sing, and when the song reached its highest pitch, they would straighten their fingers and toes and would fly away. So this they did, and the boy sang, " Wichu-kanom6vo, kanonoe-e, numa ['twist on the leg, feet, my hand']!" The pitch constantly rose, and at the highest point they straightened out their fingers and toes, and flew away, meadowlarks. Temet'awi', the Magic Hunter 1 A man and his wife were living. They had a son who went hunting every day. When he went with a hunting party, he would separate himself from the others and hunt alone, transforming himself into a kisil [a kind of hawk]. Thus he caught rabbits with ease. Before the day was over he would return with more rabbits than any other would have at the end of the day. The others wondered how he did this. They questioned him, but he would not tell them. One day he told them to stop at a certain place and watch. He went on, and with his stick he soon killed several rabbits; but he did not become a hawk. Then the other hunters decided to kill him, and the youth, learning of the plan, went away and lived in another place with some relatives. There was an eagle-nest in a place that could be reached only by descending on a rope, and no man dared attempt it. But the boy's uncles said that he would try it. So the youth descended on a rope. When he reached the nest, his uncles cut the rope, and left him to be eaten by the eagles. But instead of eating him, the eagles gave him of the food they brought for their young. At last, however, the youth, having no water, dried up into a thing of skin and bones. When his mother learned what had happened to her son, she went to the cliff and sat there all day and cried, and begged the eagle to give up her son. One day the eagle, seeing that the youth was so dry that she could carry him, flew high into the air with the body and swooped down, and left it before the woman. She thought her son was dead, and carried him away to a watercourse. She heated water and rubbed it over the body to soften it. After a time he came to life. They remained there together. One day the boy gathered dry canes and told his mother to go to the neighboring village and steal sinew, pitch, and an arrow1 Narrated by a Luisefio at Pala. VOL. XV - 14 {view image of page 106} Io6 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN straightener. When she brought these things to him he made arrows in preparation for killing the people who had tried to destroy him. There was an old woman whom he did not wish to kill, and he told his mother to warn her. After the people had gone to sleep, this old woman was to make her escape from the village. So she came out of the house and was led away by the boy's mother. The youth then went to the village and set fire to the first house, and when the people came out he shot them down. Thus he killed all save one old woman who escaped his arrows. Then he returned to his camp, but not wishing to remain so near the scene of these deeds they went to the mountain Wikiy6. After living there for a time they crossed into the desert, and thence returned to the mountains at Durazno [Spanish, peach]. As there was no water at that place they dug a hole, and the woman told her son to go down into it. He did so, and she lay across the hole. Soon water came bubbling up. Then the woman and her son became stones, which still lie there at the spring. The Creation 1 There was no land, no light. Through the dark shot red lightning back and forth. It grew larger. In another place flashed white lightning. After a long time the red and the white gradually approached each other until they were close together. They were like two balls of fire. Then each ball broke and disappeared. Again in the same places red and white lightning appeared. They approached each other and broke. A third time red and white lightning appeared in the same places, and came together. Now they stood, and after a time from each one came forth something white, like a cocoon. These opened, and gradually a very small being emerged from each shell. Still there was no land, no light, only Night around the two beings. They said to each other, "By this Night [tumkmiut, night, or nightsky] and by this Greatness [amnaa] we shall become living beings." Then they named the different parts of the body in the order in which the parts had emerged from the balls of lightning: top of the head, forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, neck, shoulders, chest, belly, hips, knees, calves, ankles, heels, feet, toes. They lay there, breathing and groaning. They said, "What are we; of what nature are we?" They kept looking at each other and wondering. They moved a little in the way of infants, and after a while they sang, "Mana, 1 Narrated by Charley Alamo, a Desert Cahuilla at Cabezon reservation. The version is authentic, so far as it goes, but is incomplete. See the Palm Caion Cahuilla version, pages I Io-121. {view image of facing page 106} Chemehuevi house on Colorado River [photogravure plate] {view image of page 107} MYTHOLOGY IO7 mana-chem yulukna ['roll, roll-we our heads']!" Then they stretched their limbs again and sang to Night, "In Night we are stretching ourselves." They stretched their limbs, and with a final effort they stood up. They were growing rapidly. As they stood there they heard a confusion of roaring noises, and they were afraid and sang: "This Night might eat us. Night is coming closer to us. Perhaps it will never cease making this noise, where we were lying, where we were groaning, where we were made. The noise is like the buzzing of flies, it is like the buzzing of wasps, it is like the twanging of a bowstring." They said to each other: "How are we going to live? Where are we going to walk? What are we going to eat?" Then one of them vomited black tobacco. He named himself Muikat.l He was the one that came out of the red lightning. The other threw up white tobacco and gave himself the name Temayawuit.2 He was the one that came out of the white lightning. They could not see the tobacco, for it was dark; but they placed their hands on it and felt of it. They said: "It is tobacco. It came out of our hearts." They wanted to put it into something and eat it. They thought about this, and it seemed best to eject from their hearts a pipe in which to smoke the tobacco. But they knew not how to make a hole in the pipe. Then Mukat pulled a hair from his lip and with it made a hole in the pipe. They filled it with tobacco, but the hole was so large that the tobacco was drawn out with the breath. So they sought a plug. Miukat ejected Temapikiwiut [firefly] and tried to plug the hole with him, but could not. He ejected Temahfiyaiya [grub], but he could not be used. Then he ejected Tolkosivas [tumblebug], and then Chfichukowit [measuring-worm], and then KaIniwal. This was a black object; nobody knows what it was. With it they plugged the hole so that it was small enough. And Miukat said: "Fill the pipe with tobacco. I am going to eat it and be done with it." So Temayawiut filled the pipe. They wondered how to light the tobacco, and Miukat ejected Kawi-kut ["rock fire"] and Tami-kut ["sun fire"]. He lighted the tobacco, and named the burning tobacco 1 Sparkman (quoted by DuBois): "Mokat, the second word of the name given to the second part of each period [of time], means large." 2 The Luisefios use tamayawat as an alternative term for etila, earth. In their creation myth Tamayawilt, Earth, is the mother and Tukumit, Night, that is, Night-sky, the father. The Cahuilla word for earth is temal, and tfmayawut is plainly equivalent to "earth great," although both of the two Cahuilla raconteurs insisted the word has no meaning. Note that in Luisefio mythology, as in Yuman, Earth is the mother, Night (Sky) the father, while in Cahuilla Night, the mother, and Power, or Greatness, the father, give birth to Earth and another being, Mukat, who together make the world. {view image of page 108} Io8 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Kut-siwasiwa ["fire ember"], and the fire which he had ejected he called Kaiwikut aivawit ["rock-fire elder"] and Tamikut aivawit [" sun-fire elder"]. Muikat smoked, and handed the pipe to Temayawit, holding it aloft. But he said, "I am coming on the ground." And Temayawiut reached low for the pipe, for he could not see it in the darkness. He kept feeling about for it until his hand touched it, and he smoked. When he had finished, he held the pipe low and said, "I am coming above." But Miukat reached forth his hand and took the pipe without groping. He said: "I have told you many times that I am the elder. I was the first to hear the noise of this Night that was taking care of us." Temayawut answered, "No, I am the elder." They considered how they might move Night away from them. They ejected from their hearts two Silyisilyim [crickets], one black and one white. They ejected two PaFpavanuit [cricket pupae], one black and one white. They ejected two Tukmiuit-waul [" night -," a lizard], black and white, and two Tukmiuit-wainivawuit ["night caller," a small lizard], black and white, and two Hwaithwatwetem [mudhen], black and white, and two Tanamaiwetem [mudhen], black and white. Miukat and Temayawut told all these creatures to move Night away, and they pushed it back. But when they would return to the place, Night would again press in. Still they kept pushing it away again and again. Their eyes and mouths became black from its touch. All these animals they called Tukmiuit-pemyaivanwe ["night graspers"]. When they found they could not drive Night away, they went round and round it, and Mflukat and Temayawut sang: "Night is going a little farther back. It is already farther apart. Keep working it back, and there will be light." Then they sang, "There is a hole through Night." The animals said: "Our hearts are going far away. Our hearts are going through Night." The two brothers were thinking how to come through to the light. They thought of ejecting Hoyanahai [a very long, slender stick]. So they did, and it lay there and they named it. It was painted red, blue, and other colors. It was pretty. They said to each other: "Lift it. Try to lift it. Stand it up. Make it firm. It is already standing, our H6yanahai. It stands firm. It stands rooted to the place. It is set firm in Night in the ground." Still there was no ground. While saying these things, they lifted the pole and set it firmly. Then they summoned all the different kinds of snakes to wrap themselves about the pole, and all the spiders to fasten their ropes to it. They called all their helpers to stand close about it to {view image of facing page 108} Chemehuevi granary [photogravure plate] {view image of page 109} MYTHOLOGY IO9 hold it firm while they two climbed. As they mounted, they said, "It is swaying!" Then after a while they said, "We are halfway up!" Soon they called out, "Our pole is too weak!" Still they climbed, and then they said: "We are coming to the top of our pole.... We are now at the top of our pole." They knew not to what place they had come. They looked down and knew whence they had come. Temayawut wished to know what was in the place whence they had come, and Mukat said: "Why, do you not know that the place from which we came is Tukmiut? Our blood, where we came out, is red and fresh." He was referring to the blood left from their birth out of the balls of lightning. "From that blood will come blindness and sickness to pursue us." 1 While still on the top of the pole they created from their hearts earth, sky, water. Then they came down from the pole. They made stars and scattered them about the sky, to keep it from shaking. But the earth was constantly spinning, and they created ants and all other insects, and distributed them through the earth, and this kept it still. To assist in this they created Teaoka [whirlwind]. They created also all the creatures that live in the water. After the earth was still, they made people from the soil. Then Muikat made the sun, and as soon as he released his hold, it flew away. Temayawut made the moon. Then they quarrelled. Some of the people whom Temayawut had made had webbed feet, too many eyes and ears, noses and mouths misplaced. Still he wanted to make more, but Mukat said the earth was not large enough to hold them. But Temayawiut answered: "There will be death among these people. They will not live always and fill the world." Still Mukat thought that the dead should live again, should not remain forever dead. Temayawut declared it would not be so, but when the body decayed, it would be forever. Mukat proposed that they make medicine to revive the dead. So the dispute went on, and Temayawut decided to leave that place and not remain with Mukat. And he departed, taking with him all his created things. The earth at that time was perfectly flat, without hills or valleys. But when Temayawut went away it began to shake, and this was the time when the hills came into being. Mukat spread his feet apart and held his outstretched hands up against the sky, and kept it still. Temayawut went down into the ground, but Miukat remained here, and Moon, a woman, was with him. She made bows and arrows, 1 Contact with menstrual or puerperal blood is commonly believed to cause lingering sickness. {view image of page 110} IIO THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN and the people began to play with them. Many were wounded and many were killed in the play. Moon also taught them how to dance and enjoy themselves. But Miukat offended her, and she went away. Then the people were sad, and decided to kill Miukat by sorcery. But he was their creator, and they did not know how to harm him.' The Creation 2 In the beginning only Night existed. Tokmiyawuit 3 [night] talked with Amnaa [greatness] about creating something. And they created a man, Miukat. He existed, suspended in Night. He said, "If I could have someone with whom to talk, to tell what I am going to do!" He kept thinking and worrying about this. At last he went through Night to Greatness and told his desire. And T6kmiyawuit and Amnaa created another man, Temayawit.4 The first words Mukat uttered were, "Hwit, hwit, yaku ['lo, lo, it is here']!" And Te mayawiut replied with the same words, and said also, "You are my younger brother." But Mukat replied: "Hwit, yaku! You are my younger brother." Thus they continued to dispute, each wishing to be considered the elder, and at last Miukat said, "I was created by Amnaa through Tokmiyawuit, and I have been given power to create the world." And Temayawut answered: "Yes, my younger brother, I was created by Amnaa through Tokmiyawuit, and I have been given power to create the world, and to create all things that are to be in the world. For I am your elder brother." Mukat replied, "Yes, I am the one that is going to create the people to be in the world." And Temayawut said: "Yes, I am studying with my power that was given by Amnaa, how I am going to create the people and the animals with wings that shall be seen in the air; so that it will be remembered that in the first place Temayawut was in the air before there was any land." Said Mukat, "Yes, I am just now making my plan, how to create the food for the people, on which they will live." And Temayawut answered: "Yes, I am studying how to create At this point Alamo, an old man, became mentally exhausted. 2 Narrated by William Pablo, a Palm Cafion Cahuilla, born about I862. He learned the myth from his maternal grandfather, Andres Painik, born about I800 at Painik, near Andres canion, south of Palm Springs; from an uncle, Cuate Wanikik, born about I835 at Wani, near Banning; and from his father, Gabriel Pablo Wanikik, born at Milki, a former village at what is now Morongo reservation near Banning. Taken with the preceding version, this probably forms as complete and satisfactory an account of the Cahuilla creation as can be had. 3 Identical with Desert Cahuilla Tukmiut. 4 See footnote, page 107. {view image of facing page 110} Chemehuevi basketry and pottery [photogravure plate] {view image of page 111} MYTHOLOGY III things that shall be in the air and on the earth, that shall be used for food." "No," said Mukat, "if you are going to create food on the earth for the people, there will not be enough. There will be no room for it." So they could not agree. Muikat said, "I am going to create Pa-chiwet ['water bitter,' ocean], which will give breezes to the world." Temayawut replied: "Yes, I am studying how to create the ocean, with the creatures that shall live in it. And those will be the ones that shall furnish the air and the breezes for the earth." Then Miukat named one of the animals that would be in the water, Paya-honwiut ["water bear"]. And Temayawut said, "Yes, it will be Pana-honwiut ['water-in bear']." Mukat said, "I am going to create Pa-tukwiit ['water cougar']." And Temayawut replied, "Yes, I am going to create Pana-tfkwiit ['water-in cougar']." Then Miukat said, "I am going to create Paya-iswut ['water wolf']." And Temayawut answered, "Yes, I am going to create Pana-iswit ['water-in wolf']." Thus the first creation was finished. Mukat said: "Now I am studying those that can be seen in the air. I must have a chief animal with wings. They will be known as those that go also in the water." He meant that these birds would get their food from the water. So he named Pa-aswuit ["water eagle"], and Temayawut named Pana-aswit ["water-in eagle"]. Muikat named Pa-yunaviwit, and Temayawut named Pana-yinaviwut ["water-in condor"]. So the second creation was finished. Then Miukat said, "Now I am coming to the creation of the earth." And Temayawut replied, "Yes, I am going to create the world." Said Miukat: "It will be better and easier, and it will be more satisfactory to our father Amnaa and our mother Tokmiyawit if we help each other and create only one world with the power that we have received from Amnaa." Temayawut answered: "It is well. There is plenty of room for two of us to create in. You have not the power that I have, which was given me by Amnaa, my father, and by T6kmiyawuit, my mother. You have not the power that I have." But Miukat said: "Yes, I have the power you have. I am the elder and you are the younger, and you have only the same power from the same father and the same mother." {view image of page 112} II2 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Said T.mayawut: "Yes, if we had the same power, we would put our hands to the same work, ard that would not do. I have my power and you have your power. We must make our creations, each one his own way. You can see that our powers are different, from the different ways in which we named the animals of our creations." In all these arguments it was Amnaa who was putting the thoughts in their minds. At last Mikat said: "Well, if we had something to smoke, then we could better discuss and have everything understood what we are going to do. I am the elder brother, but it seems to me you do not understand what my plan is. It seems to me your plan will not work." He thought that his power would be able to prevent Temayawut from creating. Temayawut answered, "Yes, I am going to ask my father to furnish me with tobacco." "How are you going to ask our father for tobacco?" asked Milukat. "Yes," replied Temayawiut. "It is useless to tell you. I have power to ask my father, aud he is the one that will furnish it." Said Miukat, "Yes, that is what I am going to do." He raised his hand and expelled his breath forcibly, "Ha..... ha..." And the third time there was tobacco in his hand. So Temayawut did the same thing, and received tobacco in his hand. Temayawut spoke, "Yes, my younger brother, in what shall we smoke this tobacco?" And the other answered, "Yes, I know, because I am your elder brother, in what we are going to smoke this tobacco." He raised his hand and said, "Ha..h... ha.. And in his hand lay a straight pipe. Itwasblack. Henamedit Tohpit.l ThenTemayawut also received a pipe. It was gray. He named it Patoihpit. They filled the pipes, and Miukat said, "Yes, we must have something that will make it burn, so that it will give smoke." Temayawut replied: "Yes, I am the elder brother, I know all about it. I know what to do so that it will burn and give smoke, to show you that I am the elder brother." He raised his pipe, and Muikat did the same, and they both said, "Ha... ha... ha..." And when they placed the pipes to their mouths, there was fire in the tobacco. After a time Miukat said, "Since smoking, my body is a little sweaty." "Yes," replied TWmayawit, "the reason is that you have not yet quite enough strength. But my body feels good." Mukat said then, "As I said, I am going to create people." The pipe is now called yulil. {view image of facing page 112} Cahuilla house in the desert [photogravure plate] {view image of page 113} MYTHOLOGY 113 "Yes," said Temayawut, "I have told you that I am going to create people after making the earth." Muikat: "Well, then, my younger brother, how are you going to create the earth? And how will the people live?" Temayawuit: "Yes, my great father knows all about that. I was created by my great father, and he knows that I am living without food except this tobacco." Mukat: "I am beginning to make up my mind that it is about time. I cannot find anything that will prevent me from going on with my plan, as my father has given me my power to do, and I cannot restrain my power any longer. As I have told you, there cannot be two worlds." Temayawut: "Yes, if two worlds cannot be created, why then have we been created two? We are two brothers, and you are my younger brother. You can go on with this creation of the world, this creation of yours. Mine will be with us all the time." He meant that he would create his world as a part of that which Miukat would make. Muikat: "I am going to create the world momepa." Temayawit: "I am going to create the world pamomepa." Muikat: "I am going to create the world ponaipa." Temayawuit: "I am going to create the world paponaipa." Muikat: "I am going to create the world yawipa." Temayawuit: "I am going to create the world payawipa." Mukat: "I am going to create the world rowepa." Temayawut: "I am going to create the world parowepa." Mukat: "I am going to create the world omipa." Temayawuit: "I am going to create the world paomipa." Mukat: "I am going to create the world mu'riuripa." Temayawuit: "I am going to create the world pamururipa." Miukat: "I am going to create the world havaipa." Temayawuit: "I am going to create the world pahavaipa." Mfiukat: "I am going to create the world tawalipa." Temayawit: "I am going to create the world patuwaiipa." Mukat: "I am going to create the world hahaipa." Temayawut: "I am going to create the world pahahaipaa." Mukat: "I am going to create the world povaipa." Temayawuit: "I am going to create the world papovaipa." 1 All these words are said to mean the emptiness of the darkness that filled all space, but out of which the world was to be created. Pa, prefixed to all the words spoken by Temayawut, is said not to signify water. VOL. XV 15 {view image of page 114} II4 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Muikat: "I am ready to begin creating the earth." Temayawuit: "Yes, you may go on with it." Mukat: " Well, I thought you were going to start one beside mine." Temayawut: "Yes, but I wish you to begin first." Mfikat: " So you wish me to start, and you will say that you did it." Temayawut: "No, I want our creations to be of different colors." Muikat: "What color will your creation be?" Temayawut: "My creation will be gray. And your creation, what color will it be?" Mukat: "My creation will be black. Your creation of the world, will there be bottom, top, end, and directions to it?" Temayawut: "Yes. And what about your creation?" Mukat: "My creation will have a bottom and a top and an end and directions." Temayawut: "No matter which way you may direct your creation, mine will be just beside it. So you may begin." Mukat: "After my creation of the world, when it comes to the end or the bottom or the top or the directions, it will remain quiet." Temayawut: "That is well. Mine will be different. My creation of the world, as soon as it comes to the bottom or the top or the end or the directions, will be moving. But the movement will not be felt by the people or the things of the world." Muikat: "I could not make you agree with me that we should create the world together, so that after the creation of the whole world and the people in it, they should know that Miukat and Temayawuit had made them. But you wished to act by yourself and not with me, though our power comes from the same father and the same mother. Now I am going to begin, and create with the power that I received from Amnaa." Temayawut: "Proceed with it. Mine will be with yours." Muikat: "What do you mean by that? I do not know what you mean by always saying that." Temayawut: "Begin, proceed." So then Miukat began, and he made the same gesture as when he had asked for tobacco, and he said, "Ha... ha... h...!" But he received nothing. "Ha... ha...!" he said, but he received nothing. "Ha...!" he said for the sixth time, and there in his hand lay something. While Miukat was raising his hand for the fourth time, Temayawut began to do likewise, and at the sixth time he also received something in his hand. It was gray. In the hand of Miukat was a small quantity of something like black sand, and it {view image of facing page 114} Modern houses at Palm Springs - Cahuilla [photogravure plate] {view image of page 115} MYTHOLOGY II5 was revolving slowly on the palm of his hand, like sand in whirling water. "Hwit, yaku ['lo, it is here']!" he said, and he blew on it thrice. It began to spread. It grew rapidly and filled his hand by the time Temayawut first received his gray sand. Then Temayawit said: "'Hwit, yaku! Hi'kai, hi'kai...!" The material in his hand revolved and spread. Now the material in the hand of Miukat was becoming larger and larger, until it extended to his elbow, and he dropped it and kept repeating as rapidly as possible, "Hi'kai, hi'kai, hi'kai!" Then Temayawut dropped his material, saying rapidly, "Pahi'kai, pahi'kai, pahi'kai!" The two worlds lay side by side, touching, and revolving very swiftly while the creators repeated their words. The line of division was easterly and westerly. And the third creation was finished. Temayawut asked, "What about the ocean?" And Miukat answered: "If you have not made yours, mine is already created. That is where the earth gets its breath by which it will grow larger and more rapidly. I must build Huyaut [barriers], where the world is to stop growing." And Temayawut said, "Yes, I have my Pahufyaut." Mukat repeated, " Taramhaut, Kutumawavit, Kutzmut." And Temayawut repeated, "Pataramhaut, Pa kutuzmawavit, Pakutuzmut." These were the names of their Huyau.t. All these they set in the ocean at the places where the earth was to stop in its spreading. Like a beam running from one Huiyaut to another Miukat placed Tukuip.aft,1 and Temayawut placed Patukipaft. And thus the fourth creation was finished. Then Temayawiut said, "Perhaps it is large enough." Mukat replied: "Yes, I finished long ago. It is not necessary to use all the power for creating the earth. I have many things yet to create." Temayawut: "Yes, I thought your creation was still going on. For my part, I finished long ago. It is true, what you say, my younger brother: I must use part of my power to create other things. I feel like going down to see my creation of the world." Mukat: "How are you going to see it? I am already on the earth. Move your legs, and you will know that you are on the earth." Temayawut: "I thought you did not feel that you are on the earth. That is why I said it." Mlukat: "I have power given by Amnaa to ask for a sister, Takukalet [reflected light]." 1 This word means something that cannot be broken, and is now applied to iron. {view image of page 116} ii6 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Temayawiit: "Yes, I must have my sister Takukalet Hatinkalet [flash of reflected light]." Then Mukat asked Amnaa to give the light so that he might see his creation, and it was given. But it came in sudden flashes, so that they could see but dimly. "Your earth looks gray," said he. "But mine is black, which will produce the material for human beings to use as food." Temayawut: "My gray earth, the people that will be created will be able to eat it." Muikat: "But they will eat it up, and it will be gone." Temayawuit: "Oh, we will keep on creating more." Mukat: "Yes, that may be well, but mine will be different. My created people will have certain foods, which will be named after the creation of the people. The same power that I have they will use in naming the foods and the other things in the world. Are you satisfied with your creation?" Temayawut: "Yes, I am pleased with it." Mfikat: "What makes you satisfied? Are you sure that your creation is safe?" Temayawut: "Yes, I am sure of it." Mukat: "Have you the power to go and see your creation?" Temayawuit: "Yes, I have the power. And you, have you power that you and I can go together and examine the creation of the world, whether it is safe or not?" Mukat: "My creation is solid and safe. But yours you have created in three pieces." So they disputed. Then Miukat said, "My younger brother, I think it will be well to start to Naika [an archaic word, 'westward']." "Yes," said Temayawut. "Before we leave, I am going to name the place where we were together and created the world." Mukat said: "Yes, that place I will name Chahpa. Chahpa shall be known as the place where Miukat and Temayawiut created the world." And Temayawuit replied: "Yes, I will name this place Pachahpa Temal Chem-nfikaa Chem-tawa ['Pachahpa earth our creation we set-it']. We are Temayawut and Miukat." Then they started westward, walking on the ground along the line where the two creations joined, and they talked to their father, asking that he make the distance shorter. And at once they were there at the west. They examined the HCiyaut of Miukat and found it good. And on the other side was nothing but water. They examined {view image of facing page 116} The harvester - Cahuilla [photogravure plate] {view image of page 117} MYTHOLOGY II7 the work of Temayawut and found it also solid. They decided to go to Temamuka [northward], and both asked Amnaa for power to go quickly. And quickly they passed northward over the creation of Temayawut. And passing over this creation they reached an arm of the ocean. They crossed this and found another arm of the ocean, and then a third before they came to the ocean itself. For the Pahdyaut set there by Temayawut had not been strong enough to retain the earth, and it had pressed beyond. Mukat said: "In creating your world you ran too far before you stopped. If I had not told you, this creation would have kept going farther and farther." For by adding the power of his word to the power of Temayawut, Miukat had stopped the spreading of this creation. Temayawut answered, "I must have a large country, so that when I create people they will have room to travel and obtain food." They told Amnaa they wished to be back at Chahpa, and immediately they were at the place of the creation. And Mukat said, "Let us go to Hemuika [an archaic word, 'eastward'], and see our creation." They asked Amnaa to take them to Hemuika, and at once they were there. On the north side of the line of division all was well, and on the south also. With the power of Amnaa they were soon back at Chahpa. Mukat said, "I would like to have you go with me to Kichamka [southward] and help me examine my creation." But Temayawut refused: "What is the use of going there? We have used the same power of Amnaa in creating this earth. I think it unnecessary to examine your creation, when you used the same power as the power of your elder brother. I know all about it." "It is well," said Miukat. "If you had only taken my word from the beginning to the end, you would have been wise and would have had full power from Amnaa, as I have. But you would not join with me in creating the earth." Temayawut: "I have a plan for the creation of people." Mukat: "Yes, I have a plan." Temayawuit: "I am going to ask you a question. How will your created people be?" Mukat: "I am going to create people in this way. In the first place, they will walk and not fly. I shall create them so that they will walk on the ground." TUmayawit: "That is what I am going to do. I am going to {view image of page 118} II8 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN create people so that they will walk forward and backward. They will have two faces." Muikat: "That will not do. I shall have people with only one face." Temayawuit: "That will not do. If a man has one face and someone comes behind him, he will not be able to see that person." Mukat: "But with two faces how will he carry a basket on the back; how will he lie down?" So they disagreed about this. Then they talked about the arms and the legs. Miukat said that people should have two arms and two legs, and Temayawut said that his would have feet pointing forward and backward, and fingers and toes webbed so that they could swim well and so that objects would not fall through their fingers. In this way they disagreed about all parts of the body. Finally Miukat created people, holding his hand in the air and breathing three times. A small bit of material appeared in it. This he deposited under Yuliwuit Teviwuit,' a round, clay house. Thus he received twenty-four pieces of material, which he placed in the house to grow into human beings. Temayawut also made twelve pairs of people and placed them under another house. Then Miukat said, "I am going to ask my father for light, that I may see my created people." He asked Amnaa for light, and in the sky appeared Moon, and they were able to see. Mukat said to Moon: "You are one of my creations. Come down and see your two brothers." And Moon came down to them, and they three examined the created people. Those of Temayawiut had two faces, feet pointing in both directions, fingers and toes webbed; but those of Miukat were normal. When Temayawut saw that his created people were not right, he felt chagrin. Miukat asked his sister to bring teviwet [gypsum]. And when Moon brought it, he told her to paint the faces and the bodies of the people. And the fifth creation was finished. Then Miukat said, "Now there will be one more creation, and I shall have finished." "Yes," responded Temayawut, "I shall have one more creation." "I am going to ask for the sun," said Miukat. Temayawuit repeated, "Yes, I am going to ask my father for the sun. Then Miukat held up his hand and breathed thrice, and on his palm appeared a bit of material. He dropped it on the line where the two creations joined, and it disappeared in the crack. But soon the glowing sun rose in the east, and Mukat with a gesture of his 1 Cf. yulil, clay pipe; tfviwet, gypsum: apparently "clay-great gypsum-great." {view image of facing page 118} Palm fruit [photogravure plate] {view image of page 119} MYTHOLOGY II9 hand pushed it away southward, so that it shone more over his creation than over the creation of Temayawut. But because he was the one that had received it from Amnaa and dropped it through the earth, Temayawuit had no power to prevent this. Many of the newly created people were scorched by the sun. It rose to the zenith, and then disappeared again in the east.1 Because he had been cheated with regard to the sun, Temayawut was angry, and he was displeased also about his unsuccessful creation of people. After another dispute with Mukat he went northward with his people, and there he disappeared into the earth. He made a heavy storm sweep over the land, and rain fell. It was then that the earth was torn up into mountains, canons, and volcanoes. But Mukat had power to stop these convulsions, and although the earth was much damaged and many people were killed, he repaired the earth and created new people from the remains of the dead. The people of the first creation were Naalem [ancestors], and these others were Kuiminovuit. Mukat directed his sister Moon to care for the people and teach them the ways of living. This she did, and also by his instruction she taught them to play with bows and arrows, and some of them were wounded. Again, one of the men spurned another with his foot. The injured one placed two cactus-thorns in his mouth, and when the offense was repeated he bit the man's foot. He then crawled off and remained a rattlesnake. Muikat liked his sister. He would touch her occasionally, and in going out of the house at night he would pass over her body, but she did not feel him. One day, however, she became aware of what he had done to her, and she told the people she was going away and would be seen in the eastern sky in three days. Because Miukat had taught them to use bows and arrows, had created Rattlesnake, by whom one had been killed, and finally had driven away their mother Moon, who had been their benefactress and teacher, the people plotted to bewitch him. Lizard was set to watch where Miukat defecated. He concealed himself in a crack in the central post of the great house where all 1 The earth is believed to revolve in the horizontal plane, so that the sun, though it seems; to set in the west, really goes down in the same place where it rises. Since the land created by Temayawut extended too far northward, there is a projection in that quarter, and sometimes in revolving this projection strikes against the barriers that confine the land and exclude the ocean. The result is an earthquake. In certain quarters are the homes of strong winds and of rain, and when a given portion of the earth comes opposite those places the people experience wind or rain. {view image of page 120} I20 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN slept, and watched through the night until Miukat went out. He followed to the shore of the ocean, and saw him climb up a great post at the edge of the water and defecate. The next day they sent Frog to lie in wait, and she went into the water and waited until Miukat came and mounted to the top of the post. Then she opened her mouth and caught the excrement. Miukat heard the sound of the dropping excrement. It did not sound as usual, instead of pom... it was ssss. He said, "What is the matter?" He thrust a pole repeatedly into the water, and Frog dodged from side to side. But the stick prodded her, and made her skin mottled. Then Miukat started home.' Frog scattered the excrement over the ocean and the land of Temayawut among his witch people, and they swallowed it. That caused Miukat to become sick with chills. Coyote came to nurse him. Whenever Miukat would spit, Coyote would pick up the sputum and carry it outside as if to throw it away, but he would eat it: for he was helping to kill Miukat. When he realized that he must die, Mukat told the others that he feared Coyote would try to eat his body, and they must send him away before the cremation. On the fifth day Miukat died, and the people rubbed charcoal on their faces and their bodies, mourning for their dead father. They sent Coyote for the fire ta'mya-kut ["sun fire"], and as soon as he was gone they began to collect firewood. Quail was the last one to return, but he was too late and still carries his stick on his head. They began to make fire. They laid a woman, Ninmaiwuit [palm], on her back, and Aawut [housefly] took a wooden spindle and drilled her. First blood, then fire, came forth. This woman then became a palm [formerly used for the hearth of the fire-drill], and the man a housefly, which still rubs its hands together as if using a drill. Coyote prayed to Amnaa to help him on his way, and in a short time he was far in the east; but when he reached for the sun-fire it kept slipping away from him. He looked back anxiously and saw smoke, and immediately ran westward. When he arrived, he saw the people in a circle about the smoking pyre. The body was consumed, all except the heart. "Brothers and sisters," he said, "just let me pass through to see my father." But they only crowded the closer. He ran about the circle, and finding a man of short stature 1 The return of the bewitched Mukat is the theme of the first of a series of songs, which by allusion, not in detail, tell the remainder of the story. Most raconteurs glide rather hurriedly over the concluding incidents, because mental concentration is required to turn the songs into narrative form. {view image of facing page 120} Under the palms - Cahuilla [photogravure plate] {view image of page 121} MYTHOLOGY 121 he jumped over him, snapped up the heart, leaped back over Badger, and ran away. The dripping blood became red paint. When he was safe from pursuit he ate the heart, and he became sick. He ate some rushes [Equisetum], vomited, and became well. Then he returned to the people. They were preparing to hold the mourning ceremony, but they did not know how to begin. From a distance, knowing that they hated him for eating the heart of Miukat, Coyote began to call loudly, importantly, "We will build a house, we will have baskets and clothing to burn, we will have a feast, and do thus and so!" He pretended to have forgotten about the episode of the heart and to have his mind only on the impending ceremony, which he assumed to know all about. Perceiving that he had some plan, they permitted him to come in, and they began the ceremony.l The people scattered about the world and established the various tribes and villages. They carried with them the custom of burning and crying for the dead, which they had learned at the burning of Muikat. All spoke one language in the beginning. Naal [ancestor] was the one who established them in their different homes, travelling over the country, naming the places and the animals and the things they should eat, marking boundaries with bowlders and with lines drawn on the earth, and causing springs to bubble forth. Amnaa never died, nor did T6kmiyawuit. Both still exist. It is in punishment for the killing of Mukat that people have to live on the wild products of the country and to wear garments of skin. The Creation 2 Umut [earth] was a woman and Uhaf [water] a man. Earth was beneath Water. She bore two sons, and she named them Chakopa and Chakomat. Chakopa was mutuwlh7 [elder] and Chakomat was qusank [younger]. They stood up and pushed with their hands, raising the water until it formed the sky. Then they were standing on the earth. The younger was blind. First they made the sun, then the moon, then the stars. The younger brother rolled clay into a flat disc and threw it into the western sky. It slipped down twice. He tried it in the southern sky, but it slipped down twice. He tried it in the north, and again 1 With the conclusion of the mourning ceremony the song-cycle ends. 2 Narrated by Jose Bastiano Lachapa, a northern Diegueiio, at Los Conejos. This obviously is the merest sketch of the principal incidents of the myth. See pages 51-52. VOL. xv- 6 {view image of page 122} 122 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN it slipped down twice. He tried it in the east, and it remained without slipping so rapidly. The elder brother said it felt too hot, and it was raised higher. Three times it was moved higher, until it felt right. In the same way the moon was finally fixed in place, but it was too cold, and three times it was moved higher until it was right. For the stars many small pieces of clay were scattered in the sky. Then was begun the creation of people out of clay. They lay there sleeping, and then began to come to life. This happened at the mountain Wikami. The people planned a ceremony, and built a large enclosure of brush. Then they sent a messenger to bring the great serpent Umaihiihlya-wit 1 [" sky moon -- "] from the ocean. He came and coiled himself in the enclosure; but he could not get his entire length inside. On the third morning, when he had coiled as much of his body as the enclosure would contain, the people set fire to it and burned him. His body exploded and scattered. Inside his body was all knowledge, comprising songs, magic secrets, ceremonies, languages, and customs. Thus these were scattered over the land and different people acquired different languages and customs. The elder brother became sick. Hufilya-.kwihl [approximately November] was the moon in which he fell sick. Before this there were no names for the moons: they had been concealed in the body of Umai-hih1lyai-wit. His sickness continued through the following moons: Hfulya-nyumsap, Hfihulya-tai, fiuhlya-pesiu, HFiulya-mutifia, HFimlya-nicha.2 In that moon he died. They prepared to burn his body on a pile of wood, and Coyote was sent for the fire of the Fireflies in the west; for they feared he would make trouble. And while he was absent they began to make fire with the drill. He came back from the west unsuccessful, and was sent in turn to the south, to the north, to the east. While he was in the east, fire was at last kindled, and by the time he returned, the body was consumed, all except the heart. All the people stood around the fire, wailing. They would not let Coyote in. Round and round he ran, trying to find an opening. He wanted to be burned up, he 1 Gifford, Univ. Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. Ethn., Vol. 14, No. 2, 1918, page 172, has Maihiyowita, and Waterman, ibid., Vol. 8, No. 6, I9I0, page 339, Maihaiowit. Both refer to a version by the southern Dieguefios. 2 The second six moons of the year repeat the names of the first six. Gifford, op. cit., page 169, gives the same names for the moons, but in slightly different form even allowing for different phonetic systems: IlyakweL, Hexanimsup, Xatai, Hexapsu, Hatyamatinya, Ixyanidja. Doubtless the initial component in each of these terms should be the Southern Diegueno equivalent of hatiya, moon. The series given by DuBois, ibid., Vol. 8, No. 3, 1908, page I65, coincides in names with the foregoing lists, but the sequence appears to be erroneous. {view image of facing page 122} A desert Cahuilla female type [photogravure plate] {view image of page 125} MYTHOLOGY 125 husbands of the women were hunting. From his house to the women's house Topi extended a long tube, and through it they passed. The house was empty. Outside one said to the youngest sister: "Go and see what is in our house. It seems heavy." The youngest sister went in. To her Topi said, " Bring water for your husbands." She went back and said: "Sisters, there is a man who said, 'Bring water for your husbands."' "Who are those men? Is Htinupi [roadrunner] there?" "No, he is not there. A handsome young man is sitting in the corner." "Oh, that is Ihada. Is T6pi there?" "There is a man in the back of the room, lying down." "Yes, that is Topi. You can give them water." Then she, the eldest, told all her sisters to gather around a pot and urinate into it. This the youngest sister took into the house. "This is not good," said Topi. "Take it out and throw it away. Bring good water to your husbands." So she took it out and repeated what T6pi had said. The eldest said: "Well, take them good water." She sent in a very small cup. T6pi said to the man sitting at the north side of the door: " Drink, and pass it around. Drink all you want." The cup came last to Ighaa. He drank, and vomited vile-smelling stuff. Then a small quantity of food in the same kind of cup was sent in. It was passed around and everybody ate all he could hold. When night fell, the women came in and lay with the men. Everyone had a woman except Ighaa. The youngest sister was the one who should have been his, but the other women hid her. A very old woman came and started to prepare a bed beside him. He said: "We will not lie together, because we are nanawakafhi [the relation of a man and his child's parents-in-law]." He kept pushing her away, and she started to go out. At that moment she became a beautiful young woman, and she ran away. He exclaimed: "What! Was I pushing away a young woman?" He ran after her. At the fire outside sat an old woman, the mother of the absent hunters. "Old woman, where is that young woman who ran away?" "I did not see her. Perhaps she went away." She continued to repeat her words, and he said, "Oh, you talk too much!" He put his member into her ear. She broke away after he had finished, and ran into the mountains, where her sons were. Along the way she {view image of page 126} I26 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN built signal fires, and when they saw the smoke they made a fire to guide her to them. When she reached their camp, she said, "My sons, all your wives are sleeping with strange men." They were angry and decided to make war. They started homeward, and set upon T6pi and his people. That was the beginning of warfare. All except two were killed, T6pi and Huzaa [sagehen], who was one of the deer-hunters. These two agreed to have a contest, and then Huzaa lost his life, being caught by the neck and strangled. T6pi was now alone with all the women. Every day he killed a deer and told the mother of the women where it was. In an instant she would be gone and would return with the deer. Each night he slept between two different women, but he did not touch them. He would say: "Lie quiet! Do not disturb me!" Each day the deer he killed was a little farther away than before, but each time the old woman was back almost instantly. While she was away Topi would begin to look for the young girl who had been hidden, but there never was time enough. At last one day the old woman's pack-rope broke, and while she was repairing it T6pi found the youngest sister and cut off her head. Then he started away. He had wanted to marry this girl, and because she was kept from him he killed her. While the old woman was repairing her pack-rope, she from time to time would look back to see if T6pi was still sitting outside the house where she had left him. But he had placed there something that resembled him, and so she was not troubled and went on with her work. When she came home and saw what had happened, she said, "You cannot get away!" She pursued him and caught him before he had gone far. She had an instrument, sak u, which she would throw with a great whizzing sound. When it struck anyone it cut him asunder. She had also an obsidian knife, which she used in the same way. These she kept throwing at T6pi, but saku always passed over him and the knife beside him. She pursued him to the house of HCinupi [roadrunner]. Round and round the house she chased him, while Topi kept crying: "Where is your door? Where is your door?" At last HCinupi said, "The door is in the top." Then Topi ran up on the roof and leaped down inside. Htnufpi was cooking something. The old woman smelled it and said, "Throw out what you are cooking!" "Hold your mouth up!" said Hfnufpi. He threw out a red-hot stone, and it fell down her throat into her stomach. She went home {view image of facing page 124} Marcos - Palm Canon Cahuilla [photogravure plate] {view image of page 125} MYTHOLOGY 125 husbands of the women were hunting. From his house to the women's house T6pi extended a long tube, and through it they passed. The house was empty. Outside one said to the youngest sister: "Go and see what is in our house. It seems heavy." The youngest sister went in. To her Topi said, " Bring water for your husbands." She went back and said: "Sisters, there is a man who said, 'Bring water for your husbands."' "Who are those men? Is Hdnupi [roadrunner] there?" "No, he is not there. A handsome young man is sitting in the corner." "Oh, that is Iha'a. Is Topi there?" "There is a man in the back of the room, lying down." "Yes, that is T6pi. You can give them water." Then she, the eldest, told all her sisters to gather around a pot and urinate into it. This the youngest sister took into the house. "This is not good," said Topi. "Take it out and throw it away. Bring good water to your husbands." So she took it out and repeated what Topi had said. The eldest said: "Well, take them good water." She sent in a very small cup. T6pi said to the man sitting at the north side of the door: "Drink, and pass it around. Drink all you want." The cup came last to Ihaia. He drank, and vomited vile-smelling stuff. Then a small quantity of food in the same kind of cup was sent in. It was passed around and everybody ate all he could hold. When night fell, the women came in and lay with the men. Everyone had a woman except Ishaa. The youngest sister was the one who should have been his, but the other women hid her. A very old woman came and started to prepare a bed beside him. He said: "We will not lie together, because we are nanawakaAhi [the relation of a man and his child's parents-in-law]." He kept pushing her away, and she started to go out. At that moment she became a beautiful young woman, and she ran away. He exclaimed: "What! Was I pushing away a young woman?" He ran after her. At the fire outside sat an old woman, the mother of the absent hunters. "Old woman, where is that young woman who ran away?" "I did not see her. Perhaps she went away." She continued to repeat her words, and he said, "Oh, you talk too much!" He put his member into her ear. She broke away after he had finished, and ran into the mountains, where her sons were. Along the way she {view image of page 126} 126 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN built signal fires, and when they saw the smoke they made a fire to guide her to them. When she reached their camp, she said, "My sons, all your wives are sleeping with strange men." They were angry and decided to make war. They started homeward, and set upon T6pi and his people. That was the beginning of warfare. All except two were killed, Topi and Huzaa [sagehen], who was one of the deer-hunters. These two agreed to have a contest, and then Huzaa lost his life, being caught by the neck and strangled. Topi was now alone with all the women. Every day he killed a deer and told the mother of the women where it was. In an instant she would be gone and would return with the deer. Each night he slept between two different women, but he did not touch them. He would say: "Lie quiet! Do not disturb me!" Each day the deer he killed was a little farther away than before, but each time the old woman was back almost instantly. While she was away T6pi would begin to look for the young girl who had been hidden, but there never was time enough. At last one day the old woman's pack-rope broke, and while she was repairing it Topi found the youngest sister and cut off her head. Then he started away. He had wanted to marry this girl, and because she was kept from him he killed her. While the old woman was repairing her pack-rope, she from time to time would look back to see if Topi was still sitting outside the house where she had left him. But he had placed there something that resembled him, and so she was not troubled and went on with her work. When she came home and saw what had happened, she said, "You cannot get away!" She pursued him and caught him before he had gone far. She had an instrument, sak u, which she would throw with a great whizzing sound. When it struck anyone it cut him asunder. She had also an obsidian knife, which she used in the same way. These she kept throwing at T6pi, but saku always passed over him and the knife beside him. She pursued him to the house of Hfinupi [roadrunner]. Round and round the house she chased him, while Topi kept crying: "Where is your door? Where is your door?" At last Hiinupi said, "The door is in the top." Then Topi ran up on the roof and leaped down inside. Hfinupi was cooking something. The old woman smelled it and said, "Throw out what you are cooking!" "Hold your mouth up!" said Hrinupi. He threw out a red-hot stone, and it fell down her throat into her stomach. She went home {view image of facing page 126} A man of Palm Springs - Cahuilla [photogravure plate] {view image of page 127} MYTHOLOGY I27 with the stone in her stomach. Then Hunupi told his sons to go and see if she reached home safely: if they saw smoke coming out of her head they would know she would soon die. T6pi had left HUnufpi behind when he had gone to visit the house of the women, because he had feared that the youngest, whom he desired for himself, would fall in love with him. He had turned Hunufpi into a small. worm and concealed him in a cocoon, and cautioned his sister, who lived there in the house, not to attempt to look into the cocoon. Thinking herself all alone, the girl would lie on the floor naked, with her legs apart; and Huinupi, seeing her, would spit on her vulva. She would say: "What can that be that is spitting on me? I wonder why my brother told me not to look into that little box?" Then one day she looked into it and drew out the small worm. It grew larger and larger, and at last became a man. She said: "Is it my brother's son? No, it is not." So she named all the various relationships, but when she came to husband, she could go no further. Then Hunufpi lay with her, and she was his wife. They had a child. Topi lay about the house for a long time, resting after his hard race. His sister said to her child, "That is your uncle." Hunupi said, "No, that is your stepfather." "Why are you disputing?" asked Topi. "I am his stepfather." Then she became sad, that he should renounce her as his sister. Topi went back to where his men had been killed, struck them with his arrows, and awoke them to life, and brought them to the house. He decided to go hunting, and Hunufpi accompanied him and his men. Every night after they had killed something and camped, Hunufpi would bring back some meat to his family. They were proceeding eastward, and as they went farther and farther, still Hunufpi kept returning home each night. Gray hair began to show on the cheeks of Topi. He no longer said to Hunupi, "Take this meat home to your wife." One night Hunupi said to his wife: "I am afraid of T6pi. He is becoming hairy all over his body." The next morning when he returned to the hunters' camp he found the fire, and all the bows and arrows piled up, but nobody was to be seen. In the distance he heard something howling. Topi and his men had become animals of various kinds. Then Hunufpi returned home and said to his wife: "Everything is changed. You are going to be tiuwara [an edible plant]. I shall be {view image of page 128} I28 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN roadrunner. I shall be able to move about, but you will remain in one place." The Origin of People Ihaia [coyote] lived in a recess in the rocks at Round valley. He had only rabbit meat. For a long time however he could not catch any rabbits. Then he caught one. He took it home and cut the skin into a continuous strip. He rolled it on his thigh and laid it down, thinking to wind it on two poles in the morning to make a blanket. In the morning he took it up and began to coil it, saying, "Piput, piput, piput," until he was out of breath. And there lay a great pile of rabbit-skin rope. He laid it down to recover his breath. A young woman came travelling from the south. As she peered in at the door, he saw her and came outside. Already she was some little distance away, and he followed her. He could not catch her, but persistently followed. At last he saw water ahead. He said, "I wish that water would turn to ice, so that I could catch up with her while she is slipping about on it." The water turned to ice, but still he could not catch her. He said, " I wish that there would be salt grass in front of her, so that it would cut her feet and make her go more slowly." But she went through the salt grass before he could catch her. "I wish there would be a patch of holly." But even this did not check her enough. She was following a stream toward Mount Tom. He said, "I wish there would be a steep rock, which she could not climb." While she was climbing the rock, he arrived at the foot and looked up. He could see her vulva. He could see teeth in it. He said: "U...! What is that?" Nevertheless, he kept following. "I wish there would be a lake that would stop her." And at the lake he caught up with her. She said, "Get on my back and I will take you across." He did so, and she started across. He tried to cohabit with her while she carried him, and she dropped him in the middle of the lake. So he turned himself into an insect and floated. The woman went on. When she arrived at her home she said to her mother, "I left your son-in-law in the water, because he tried to cohabit with me in the water." "Yes, did you do that?" said her mother. After the woman had gone, Iihaa became a man again and walked on the water and killed ducks. He took the ducks to her house, and 1 Narrated by Mose Weyland, Owens Valley Mono. {view image of facing page 128} A woman of Palm Springs - Cahuilla [photogravure plate] {view image of page 129} MYTHOLOGY I29 her mother cooked them. While they ate, he observed that they would throw the bones down between their legs, and he could hear their vulvas crunching them with their teeth. After the meal he went to bed with the young woman; but he was afraid to cohabit with her. Hanging on the strings in the house he could see many members which had been bitten off her husbands. Nevertheless he inserted his member and quickly drew it out as the teeth came together. Then he left the house. He said: "I wish I had a piece of hard wood with thorns on it, which I could use." He found a piece of hard, thorny wood, and went back. He inserted it, the teeth came together, and he drew it out with the teeth fastened in it. " Adadadada!" she cried. "What has happened to you?" asked her mother. "My duck teeth are out of me!" she said. Ishaa then went to his mother-in-law and treated her in the same way, and returned to sleep with his wife. The next morning she was pregnant, and he prepared to take her to his home at Round valley, thinking to use the rabbit-skin blanket for the childbirth. But before they reached the place the woman could go no farther: the child was too heavy. As she was ready to give birth to the child, Ihfiaa went down a steep bank for water, but while he was scrambling up the bank and sliding down again and again, she was delivering many children. Almost as soon as they appeared they were grown men and women, and began to scatter about over the country. They were the first people. Origin Myth 1 There was a house at Pudzi [a brook near Sweetwater creek, in the vicinity of Yerington, Nevada]. At night the people played the hand-game in the house. A menstruating woman was outside. The woman heard something like the distant hooting of an owl, and exclaimed, "Something is coming!" She continued to call to the people in the house, trying to gain their attention. Closer and closer came Tsanahoho, calling in a plaintive, wailing tone: " Tsanahoho..! Hanz nima...? Naniakaka..." ['Tsanahoho! Where people? I heard!'] The woman kept saying: "Be quiet in the house, and listen. Something bad is coming." But they would answer: "Be still! Nothing is coming." She threw stones on the house, but the men would not stop their gambling and singing. When the bad creature was close, the woman crept into an empty Narrated by Blind Tom, Walker River Paviotso. VOL. XV- 17 {view image of page 130} I30 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN seed-pit and covered herself with a burden-basket. It walked past her and into the house. It sat down inside the door. It chirped, made a smacking sound with its lips. Then the people looked up. It opened its eyes wide. They were fiery red, and darted flashes of light. The instant the people met its eyes, they became immovable, and lifeless. There they all were in every conceivable position, just as they sat or crouched when they looked up and met the fiery eyes. Only one escaped, a little boy who was sleeping under the edge of his father's blanket and did not see the eyes. When the little boy awoke after the creature had left, he began to cry. There were all the people, dead, some sitting, some on their knees, some on hands and knees, all staring toward the door where it had sat. From one to another went the little boy, pushing them to gain their attention, but each one only tumbled over on the floor. The menstruating woman, hearing Tsanahoho depart, crept out of the seed-pit. In the rear wall of the house she made a small hole and put her hand through it. Motioning with her fingers, she called: "Come, little boy! Come, little boy!" The child crept toward the beckoning fingers, and she drew him out. She wrapped him in her blanket and carried him away to a creek near by. Her footprints and the marks of her staff are still seen in the rock. From the creek she turned back to a piece of level land and stopped. She left the boy and went to dig roots. In her absence came an enormous man, who killed the boy and hung him at his belt like a dead rabbit, and then went on and found the woman. "Where is your camp?" he demanded. She answered: "Over beyond that ridge. You will find my father lying there." As soon as the giant had gone over the ridge, she took up her staff and with its help leaped to the top of a mountain. From peak to peak she leaped, until she reached 0 [a mountain near Aurora], where she jumped down into a deep cave. After her came the giant, leaping from mountain to mountain; but before he overtook her, night came on. In the cave she could hear him saying: "Oh, it is only a woman, and a woman cannot go far. I will wait for daylight and then kill her." He was groping about with his long arms in the cave, but did not quite reach the bottom. During the night the woman crept out and urinated, while the giant snored. Then she fled. In the morning the giant awoke, and seeing the white foam of her urine, he was enraged. Angrily he tweaked his nose until blood {view image of facing page 130} Modernized house at Capitan Grande - Digueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 131} MYTHOLOGY I31 came. "If I had only groped a little deeper," he said, "I would have had her." With her staff the woman made a long leap to the East fork of Walker river, and then began to walk. She remained there two days. Then Ishaa [wolf] 1 said to her, "You have little food here; go down to Kawa [woodrat]." She went down to Woodrat, and after she had been there a while, he said, "You had better go down the river to your aunt, Yunadziva [gopher]." The woman went down the river to Gopher, and remained there a time, gathering seeds and grinding them. When she had a supply of meal, Gopher said: "Go down the river and cross the mountains to Kusi-pa ["mud water" - Carson lake], and then to Pidami-tai ["distant cattails" - Alkali lake]. Go past this to the top of the mountain east of the lake. Be careful. On the trail as you leave the river you will see a human head. Do not touch it, do not push it with your foot, or it will destroy you." So the woman departed with her supply of meal. Leaving the river to cross the mountains to Kusipa, she came upon the human head lying beside the trail. She said, "I do not believe it could hurt me." She rolled it about under her foot, and went on. She had not gone far when the head began to bound up into the air and cry: "Where? Where?" After each bound it fell on the next footprint left by the woman. When she saw the head pursuing her, she ran swiftly forward. At the south end of Kusipa she came to the house of Woodrat in a cave with a small opening from above. She cried out: "Where is your smoke-hole? Where is your smokehole?" "In the top," answered Woodrat. The woman ran up to the top and jumped down through the hole. She said: "That head is pursuing me. Can you do anything with it?" Woodrat scraped up some dirt and wet it with urine. With the mud he stopped the smoke-hole, and when the head came bounding along and tried to find the entrance, it crushed itself on the rocks. Woodrat said: "Do you see that little gap far away in the hills? There is the house of the one you are seeking." So she went on, and after a time she found beside the trail the little boy whom the giant had taken. The child was alive. She picked him up and went on. It was about noon when she reached the mountaintop and found the house. Nobody was there. She prepared a basket of soup for the absent man, and sat down outside. 1 See footnote, page 123. {view image of page 132} I32 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN In the evening she saw the man approaching with a large deer on his back. He dropped the deer and began to bustle about, building a fire and roasting meat. The woman sat there and said nothing. When the meat was cooked, she gave him the basket of soup, and he put the meat in a dish and gave all to her. They sat there eating without speaking. From time to time the woman pushed a bit of meat under her blanket for the child. The man noticed this and said: "What have you under that blanket? Bring it out and feed it." So she drew out the little boy and fed him. That night they slept on opposite sides of the fire. In the morning when the man prepared to go hunting, he said: "About sunset watch that gap in the mountains. Whenever I kill a deer, I come through that gap and nearly fill it." And so it was. Every day he came through the gap with a deer on his back. Each night he moved his bed a little closer to the back of the house, and the woman did the same, until on the sixth night they slept together. She became pregnant and gave birth to a boy. A second boy was born, and soon after a girl and then another girl. The children grew very rapidly. After the birth of the first child the man ceased his hunting for a time. The house was full of dry meat. One day when the man as usual was lying in the house with his knees drawn up, the children sat in pairs on opposite sides of him. The boys began to shoot under his knees at each other with small twigs, launching them swiftly by resting the end on the nail of the little finger, which they grasped bent inward, between the thumb and index finger of the other hand, and suddenly released. The girls jabbed each other with the ends of burning sticks. As they grew older they would go outside, and the boys would shoot each other with straws and the girls threw sticks at each other. Then the boys made small bows and shot straws with them, and the girls stood beside them, unable to fight because the distance was now too great. Each day the younger boy would come home with his body all spotted with the marks of straw arrows, but the body of the elder was unmarked. They became men, and made strong bows with which they continued to fight. Their father, weary of this constant fighting, one day said to the elder son and elder daughter: "Go down to Kusipa [Carson lake]. Increase and become a tribe." To the younger son and younger daughter he said: "Go to Saii-dfbiva ['Saii place'- Humboldt lake]. Increase and become a tribe. When you have become a large tribe, make a big smoke so that the others will know." {view image of facing page 132} Modern house at Mesa Grande - Digueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 133} MYTHOLOGY 133 The Sail increased rapidly, and it was not long until a thick smoke rose at Kusipa, indicating that there too the people were numerous. Then the Saii began to come down to Kusipa to fight, and each time they lost. Then the Numu ["people"] began to go against the Saii to fight, and they finally drove them northward out of their place. In one of these fights many Saii took refuge in a cave, which had a smoke-hole in the roof. Down through this hole the Nufmu cast piles of brush, intending to throw fire afterward and fill the cave with smoke. But the Saii carried the brush away and used it to stop up the entrance of the cave. When the Numu saw that, they set fire to the great pile at the entrance, and many Saii were suffocated. Those who had deerskins with which to cover their heads escaped and took refuge among the tules in the middle of the lake. There they lived, even in the winter, surrounded by walls of tules for protection from attacking parties that came over the ice. At last they were driven out and went away to the north. The Numu then occupied the country, separating into various bands. After Numuf-naa ["people father"] had driven his four children away because of their fighting, he said to Nfmuf-biya ["people mother"], "Let us leave this place and go southward." But she was unwilling to leave her children. He said, "You will see that when we have gone they will follow us." So they started southward from the mountain at Pidamitai. After they had gone a short distance, the woman stopped. She cried, and declared that she could not leave her children. She wanted to go back, but he would not let her. He said, "You will see that when our children have increased, they will begin to die, and their spirits will come to us." As they travelled on he gave names to all the places. Suni-nanahuigwa ["tumbleweed canion"] he named. Adayagi-kaiva ["- mountain"] he named. Wiyu-kamu ["buffalo-berry-brush jack-rabbit"] he named, a flat where many jack-rabbits lived in the thick brush of buffalo-berry. Qida-wixwaw ["magpie sugarloaf-mountain"] he named. Kosika-tudui [" gray hill "] he named. Tono-kamu [" greasewood jack-rabbit "] he named. Piyadoya ["buttes"] he named. He passed through the rocks and emerged into the light again. He said, " This will be called Toka-va [' dark place ']." Tivo-karfdu [" make-a-mark sitting"] he named, a long mountain. Nuvai-katfi 1 [" snow place "] he named. 1 This is sometimes abbreviated to Nfivadf, a form so strikingly like "Nevada" in sound and sense that one would be tempted to call it a loan word were not its origin so clearly Shoshonean. {view image of page 134} 134 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Pa-gha ["water g$ha" (an onomatope)] he named, a high waterfall. They came to the ocean [tand-unagwa-pa, "around us water"] and walked over the water to the western edge. The clouds rose like a great door and they passed under. They climbed up a ladder and passed through a door in the sky. There they live. When anybody dies the spirit goes along Kasipo [the Milky Way] to this place. People's Father places it in a box, and after a time it becomes a living person like us. The Father then places him in a luxuriant place where the soil is white like snow, and where no sickness ever comes. Origin Myth 1 They were camping in the hills [near the site of Virginia City] to harvest pine-nuts. A hand-game was in progress in a large house. Something approached, wailing: " Wliwi nuhu! WiwZ muhu! Puipas ['stare']!" A woman outside was weaving a basket. She heard the sound and called to the people inside, warning them and telling them to stop playing. But they would not listen. A small baby was in the house asleep. When the creature arrived, the woman covered herself with the basket she was making. It passed by her and stood in the doorway. "liwi muhzu! iwi muhz! Puipas!" Everybody looked up, and instantly all were struck dead in the position in which they happened to be, with their eyes staring. When the baby awoke, it went about trying to waken the others, and pushing them over. The woman made a hole in the house and drew the baby outside. She put it in her basket and started northward through Mason valley. She placed the baby beside a bush and dug roots. Then she saw the giant Pu'-gwihi [" blood knife"] seize the infant, kill it, and hang it at his belt. As he turned toward her, she spat on the ground where she was digging and crept into the hole that opened. Pugwihi tried to dig her out, but she went deeper and deeper. He dug until he was stopped by a great rock, and then, trying to frighten her, he said: "Many lizards are under there. I think I had better stop." To himself he said: "Tomorrow I will return and get her. She cannot get away." In the night the woman crept out of the hole. By the aid of a willow staff she leaped to the top of a mountain, and thence travelled southward toward Walker lake. She had a few pine-nuts, and she killed a sagehen, which she took to the place where lived Numi-dzohot [" people pound-in-a-mortar"]. These were giants who ate people. 1 Narrated by Billy Williams, Honey Lake Paviotso. {view image of facing page 134} A Capitan Grande man - Digueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 135} MYTHOLOGY I35 With them lived Gopher, their housekeeper. When the woman arrived, Gopher hid her under some basketry osiers. The giants, when they returned, inquired how Gopher had obtained the sagehen, and she answered that she had killed it on the wing with a stick. But they doubted her. They threw it into the air and told her to strike it. She struck it, and they believed her. Then Gopher cooked some wild oats and pine-nuts, and while pretending to straighten her willows she fed the woman. The next day when the giants were gone, Gopher directed her on her way. She was to pass Carson lake and travel southeastward in order to find the man for whom she was searching. She was provided by Gopher with pine-nuts and wild oats, which she carried in a basket hanging on a string about her neck, and she was warned that in the trail she would find a head, which she was by no means to touch. But when she found the head, she could not resist giving it a push with her foot. It bounded into the air, and when she ran, it came down and struck her heel. It screamed, " WYhiu!" The woman ran on, and the head followed her with great bounds. She came to the house of Kawa [woodrat], who quickly covered it with pricklypear cactus; and when the head bounded up and fell on the house, the thorns put out its eyes. From Woodrat's house the woman went to Wanikutaqa [at Fallon], where she found a man. They slept together and in the morning there was a half-grown girl lying beside them. The second morning a boy was there. On the third morning another girl was born, and on the fourth another boy. These children were constantly fighting, the two boys and the two girls. Their father became angry and pushed them apart with his legs, one pair to Carson lake, and one to Humboldt lake. "Now you can fight!" he said. They quickly increased. Those at Humboldt lake made a fire, and the smoke was black; the band at Carson lake made a fire, and the smoke was light.1 They were enemies. These two bands were the progenitors of the Sail and the Paviotso. Hainanu, the Transformer 2 A woman and her two sons, Pamaqasu, the elder, and an infant still in the cradle-basket, had a camp at the creek Y6gho in the mountains [east of Bishop, California]. Every day the mother went 1 The Pit River Indians burn pine, and the smoke is dark; while the Paviotso burn sage, which gives off white smoke. 2 Narrated by Blind Tom, Walker River Paviotso. {view image of page 136} I36 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN into the western mountains to gather seeds, and at sunset Pamaqasu would stand outside the house watching for her to come through a certain gap. One night she said: "I am afraid that some time I may not return. The elk have been trampling my basket and smashing it, and they may do the same to me." She ground up a quantity of meal and tied it in a bag, which she gave to him, saying, "If I do not come back, use this for your food." The next night he watched the gap as usual, but nobody came, and on the second night still nobody came. The baby cried, and Pamaqasu sang while shaking the cradlebasket up and down: "Haina, haina, hainanu, haina! Hanna, haina, hainanu, haina! Tabidzil nasuap, iwanaa ['our-mama eaten-up, mylittle-brother']!" The next day, carrying his little brother in the basket, he travelled southward to a gap in the mountain [east of Big Pine, California], and there he built a strong, tight house. The child was growing so rapidly that he was bursting the lashings of his basket. When the house was completed, Pamaqasu started at the bottom to unlace his brother; but when he was halfway to the top, the child burst the rest of the string and bounded out, flying upward to the roof and bouncing from one side to the other. At last he settled down and sat there, a full-grown man. Pamaqasu called him Hainanu. The younger brother went hunting. The first thing he killed was a cottontail rabbit. Then he saw an antelope. When he came back he asked: "What is that animal that seems not to be afraid of me? It comes close to me and says, 'Tata."' "Oh, that is the best food. You had better kill one," said Pamaqasu. He made some obsidian-pointed arrows, and the next day his brother brought home an antelope. Hainanu climbed into the mountains and saw a mountain-sheep. When he returned, he asked: "What is that animal that came close and looked at me? It has horns like logs." " Oh, that is good food; that is the food of our fathers. Kill one the next time." The following day Hainanu brought in a mountain-sheep. Again he said, "What is that animal that looks closely at me, and has horns like a tree?" "That is good food, that is the food of our fathers. Kill one the next time." The next day he brought an elk. Then he asked, "What is that animal that came and looked very closely at me, and has a black spot on its breast?" {view image of facing page 136} A Capitan Grande woman - Digueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 137} MYTHOLOGY I37 "That is our best food. Kill one the next time," said the elder brother. So Hainanu brought a sagehen. Pamaqasu said: "My brother, big bucks used to run in the southern hills. Look for them. When you start them up, wait at the gap and they will come through." Hainanu did so, and as he crouched beside the trail at the gap, a great band of mountain-sheep came along, one behind the other. He waited until the last one was opposite him and shot it. The entire band fell lifeless. He carried them down to the water, four or five at a time, and then went home. He said: "I killed a small sheep and left it at the spring you told me about. Tomorrow you can go and get it." In the morning Pamaqasu went to the spring and found a great pile of sheep. For many days he was busy carrying them home and drying the meat. A girl came to marry Hainanu. Pamaqasu said to him, "Take some of this dry meat to your mother-in-law." So Hainanu prepared a load of meat and started out with his wife. They soon arrived at her camp, and at the same time the girl gave birth to a child. One day his mother-in-law said to Hainanu: "Go and kill some prairie-dogs. But do not cross that swamp. It is full of rattlesnakes. Go around it." So Hainanu went around the swamp and found the place where the prairie-dogs lived. He called them, and the young ones came out, crowding close about him. He killed them with a stick. Then he called again, and the old ones came out and he killed them. He tied them all on a stick and raised it to his shoulder, but it broke. He secured a strong pole and started out with his load of meat. He said to himself: "I wonder if that old woman is telling me the truth. I will see whether rattlesnakes are in that swamp." He started directly across the swamp, and in the middle a snake bit him. He fell down and died. There he lay, his body all swollen. In the camp his mother-in-law, waiting, said: "I think he ought to be here by now. I think he is bitten by a rattlesnake. Go and see." The girl went and found his body, and came running back to her mother. "Your son-in-law is all swollen, and dead!" The old woman went back with her. She struck his body all over with a stick. The rotted flesh fell from his bones, and he became alive. But he was only a skeleton. He said, "Why did you wake me?" "See, the flesh has come off your bones." He looked, and said: "Whoever did this to me, I will kill him. He shall not live." He went to the rattlesnake and killed it. Then they carried home the prairie-dogs. The old woman piled VOL. XV- I8 {view image of page 138} I38 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN them around her son-in-law and poured water on his head and rubbed it down over the bones. "Have good luck always," she said, "and kill all kinds of game." Flesh again covered his bones. Hainanu and his wife visited Pamaqasu. The elder brother said, "My brother, get some reeds for our arrows." When these were brought, he said, "My brother, get some stone for arrow-straighteners." Then he said, "My brother, get some greasewood to make foreshafts." Then he said, "My brother, get some obsidian for points." Then he said, "My brother, get some small feathers." When the arrows were ready, they shut the woman in the house and fastened the door, and started forth to kill whatever it was that had destroyed their mother. They came to Atut-hu ["sand creek," south of Bishop], where they stopped with their great-grandmother Sawahu-dziva [a small bird]. When they asked for food, she took some sage-seed, crept under an inverted burden-basket, and shook the seed and some embers in a parching-basket, repeating, "Sawa punu punu punu, sawa punu punu punu." Pamaqasu said: "It sounds good, grandmother. Let me see it." "No. Do not look, or it will all turn to gum." But Pamaqasu could not resist the desire to see this food. He raised the burden-basket to look, and the seed turned to lumps of hard gum. Then she had to grind up the lumps and pour the meal into a bag made of the skin of a young mountain-sheep. The next morning they started out across the western mountains, carrying the bag of food. The first spring they passed they called Kuhavai, the second, Monodovo.1 These were on opposite sides of a divide. They passed on, crossing a creek, and named a spring Ayuhotfubu. The next spring was Siwumaya. Then they started up through the mountains. Passing through a cafion, they heard something whistling among the hills above the caion: "Pazldzo wiw... Pazidzo wiwi... " Said Hainanu, "My brother, I will go and see." "No, do not go. It is something bad." "I will go anyway. I will borrow some arrows from him. We can use them for deer." So Hainanu went. He found a man, who smiled and said, "Sit down beside me." He sat down close to the man. Pazidzo had a round belly. He pushed Hainanu down on his back and rolled over on him. And Hainanu could not get out from under him. 1 Mon6dovo, a plant resembling asparagus. The word has no connection with the name Mono. {view image of facing page 138} A Mesa Grande man - Digueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 139} MYTHOLOGY 139 Near by sat Meadowlark. He sang, "Pazidzo nugwivi kaidakavatu fagwe!" The fat man growled, " Be still!" Again Meadowlark sang, "Scratch Pazidzo on the flank with your little finger!" So Hainanu began to scratch the fat man with his little finger. He found a soft place. With his finger-nail he ripped it open, and water ran out. The man's belly became flabby, and the water filled the canion, splashing from side to side. Hainanu flew into the air above the rising water and challenged him, "If you can do this, follow me into the air." Then the water rose higher and higher. Hainanu broke through the sky, and the flood followed him even so far, but it could not catch him. It subsided to the earth, and he also returned. In the canion he saw the whistling man, and shot him with arrows. Water poured out, and again the canion was filled. But as soon as Pazidzo expired, the water subsided and left the canion empty. The marks of blood can still be seen there. Hainanu took all the arrows from the house of Pazidzo and brought them to his brother, and together they went on. Hainanu left the trail to visit the Rattlesnakes. He saw two women making baskets. He took the baskets from them and punched holes in them promiscuously with the awl. So the women bit him, and he died. After waiting a long time, Pamaqasu followed his brother and found his bloated body. With a stick he knocked the putrid flesh from the bones, and thus restored life to his brother. Hainanu rose and said, "Whoever did this to me shall not live." So they killed the two women, and went on. As they travelled, Pamaqasu said: "My brother, go to the Vultures and borrow some of their fine, white feathers to tie in our hair." So Hainanu visited the Vultures and asked for feathers. They gave him some old, worn feathers. He looked at them and said, "These are not good." He seized an old man and dragged him about. The old man cried, "Nephew, look in your hand before you mistreat me!" He looked, and found his hand full of fine, new feathers. They went on, and Pamaqasu said: "Yonder is the house of our uncle, Deer. Go and ask him for a horn arrow-chipper." Hainanu went to Deer's house and asked for an arrow-chipper, and Deer gave him an old one. He tumbled Deer about roughly, and Deer cried, "Nephew, look in your hand before you treat me thus!" He looked, and saw in his hand a fine new chipper. On a hilltop they met Panihugwapa [swift wind]. Pamaqasu said: {view image of page 140} I40 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN "There is our great-grandfather. Go and see him." Hainanu went to him, and found him clothed in a deerskin and browsing on the hillside like a deer. From him they borrowed nothing. He said to Hainanu: "Look over the edge of this cliff. There is a deer. Go a little farther. Now look down over the edge." He kept urging Hainanu closer and closer to the edge, and on the very brink he pushed him over. As he fell, Hainanu kept praying for a hole in the coarse sand and gravel of which the wall consisted, and soon there appeared a hole, in which he set his foot. He climbed up by the aid of similar holes, and said to Panihugwapa: "You try it. I went to the wrong place. There is a mountain-sheep over the edge." While Panihugwapa was looking over, Hainanu gave him a push, and he was killed even before he reached the bottom. His blood splashed the rocks. Hainanu went on to his brother, who said: "Our great-grandfather is smoking out a groundhog over there. Go and see him." So Hainanu went. An old man was kneeling on the ground, poking fire into a groundhog's burrow. Hainanu came up behind and pricked his scrotum with a straw. The old man half arose to smooth the ground more carefully. Again and again this happened. Then the old man looked back between his legs and saw Hainanu just about to use his straw again. He said: "Oh, my grandson is playing with me. My grandson, you had better try this. A big groundhog is in this hole." Hainanu looked in and saw the animal, and crept into the hole to capture it. But the old man blew his nasal mucus into his hands, smeared it over the mouth of the burrow, and held Hainanu a prisoner. After waiting a long time, Pamaqasu followed his brother's trail. He kicked a pile of stones, and from it came forth Hainanu with a large groundhog. As they went on, they saw a swing attached to a tree. Hainanu said, "I will go and swing with my aunt." He went to the tree and said to Bear, "My aunt, I would like to swing." She bent down a branch and Hainanu grasped the end. She released it, and it flew up into the air. He said, "Hainanu, Hainanu, Hainanu!" and its motion was retarded. He wished for a soft sandy place to fall in, and sank knee-deep into the sand, but was not hurt. "How does it feel in the air?" asked Bear. "Oh, fine! Do you wish to try it?" Then all the Bears got on the branch, and Hainanu warned the Bear woman that when coming down she must repeat the charm words he had used, so that they would fall in soft sand. But the {view image of facing page 140} A Santa Ysabel man - Digueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 141} MYTHOLOGY 141 words he told her were, "Many rocks, many rocks." So the Bears were crushed on the rocks, and Hainanu removed their skins and followed his brother. Pamaqasu looked back and saw a bear following him, and waited with the intention of killing it. He drew an arrow, and waited for the bear to come close. Just as the arrow left the bow, Hainanu leaped aside and it whizzed past. He said: "What is the matter with you? You might shoot a person!" "Well," said Pamaqasu, "why did you wrap yourself in a bearskin? I might have killed you." The next morning Pamaqasu said: "My brother, what is your power? What can you do? Are you strong?" "Yes, I am strong, I have power." "Well, before we fight I want to see what kind of power you have." First Hainanu became a small downy feather, and then a cloud; and Pamaqasu said: "That is good. That is enough." He himself made five holes in the ground, and in one of them he concealed himself. He told Hainanu to go to the camp near by, where lived the one who had killed their mother. He said that the guilty one would grunt now and then, and by that sign would be known. So Hainanu went to the camp of the Elks. With drawn bow he walked around the outside of the camp, demanding, "Where is the one that ate my mother?" At last he came to a place where lay a grunting man, and killed him. Then all the others leaped up and pursued him. Straight westward he ran, then turned to the left, and thus doubling back and forth he led them past the hill where his brother lay concealed. As the last Elk passed him, Pamaqasu shot, and the entire band fell dead. Pamaqasu then fell asleep, and Hainanu cut off some of the best parts to eat. While the meat was roasting, he walked about, examining the vicinity, and when he returned, it was gone. He cut more and roasted it. This also disappeared. "What is eating my meat?" he asked. "I will get a hind-quarter, and see if it can eat that." He threw a hind-quarter into the fire, and looked away. It disappeared. Then he was very angry. He poked the fire and said, "What is eating my meat?" A huge Red Spider darted out of the fire. He ran round and round his sleeping brother, calling: "Brother, brother! Spider is chasing me! Wake up!" But Pamaqasu only snored. Hainanu ran to the camp of the Skunks and cried: "Where is your door? Spider is going to eat me!" "Look on the roof!" {view image of page 142} 142 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN He ran up the roof and jumped down through the smoke-hole, and told Skunk about his adventure. Skunk put him in a tobaccopouch and hid it under his pillow. He started to heat his arrowstraightening stone. Soon it was red. Then came Spider, and demanded: "Where is Hainanu? Throw him out, and I will eat him and go away." "You are not the only hungry one," said Skunk. "I have already eaten all except his heart. Do you want that?" "Yes, throw it out." "Well, open your mouth and I will throw it out." Skunk threw out the red-hot stone, and it burned its way down through Spider's gullet and killed him. Then Skunk released Hainanu. Meanwhile Pamaqasu had awakened. He saw his brother's tracks, and began to cry while trying to follow them. He traced his brother to Skunk's camp, and the two remained there that night. In the morning Pamaqasu said: "Let us go back again to our home." As they went along, Hainanu hunted; and that night Pamaqasu ate an entire deer. The second day Hainanu said: "We will camp on yonder mountain tonight." So that night Pamaqasu built the fire at that place and waited for Hainanu to come in from his hunting; but nobody appeared. He saw a fire on a distant mountain, and said to himself: "Oh, that is the mountain my brother meant." He went to it and found the fire with a grass bed beside it. Then he realized why Hainanu was angry with him. He said: "Oh, I know why my brother is angry. It is because I did not help him against Spider. What was the matter with me that time? I was dead. I should have helped him." Thereafter they continued to travel homeward, but Hainanu kept far from his brother. When Pamaqasu was approaching Pagwi-hu [" fish creek," a southerly tributary of Mono lake], his dog ran ahead and sniffed about a dead campfire. Hainanu, lying there, saw the dog, took up his load of venison, and hurried on. The next day Pamaqasu came to where a deer had been butchered, but there was nothing to eat. He followed on as rapidly as he could, and the next day saw Hainanu leaving his camp hurriedly. He ran after his brother and called out, "My brother, why are you angry?" "Oh, you are a good man, a good hunter! You kill all the game and eat it." Then Pamaqasu became angry and said: "If you say that to me, you will become a whirlwind before you reach the top of that mountain." {view image of facing page 142} A young woman of Campo - Digueño [photogravure plate] {view image of page 143} MYTHOLOGY 143 And so it was. Hainanu became a small whirlwind, and Pamaqasu ate the venison that was left lying there. Tavuu, the Transformer 1 Tavuu hunted cottontail rabbits [tavuu]. He would kill two, but when he was about to kill the third, the Sun would suddenly disappear behind the mountains and darkness would come at once. At last this angered him, and he started eastward to attack the Sun. The first person he encountered was Qinahava [north wind], who was directing his people in a rabbit-hunt. They had some rabbits surrounded in the brush. Tavuu became a rabbit, and they tried to shoot him, but their arrows passed right through without harming him. Then he became a man, and asked, "Where is your camp?" "Yonder is our camp. Only our sister is there, alone." "I will go there," he said. He went to the camp and cohabited with the woman all day. About sunset he painted his eyes with red, and in the doorway he hung several stones on cords. When the men entered and saw that red-eyed man, they were frightened and ran back, and bumped their heads on the stones. They sat down outside the house. The woman said to Tavuu: "You had better take those stones down. My brothers are becoming cold." One of the men said, "I will give you a rabbit-skin if you will take them down." Another and another promised the same. Then Taviuu washed his face and took down the stones, and the men entered. The first one sat by the door, and the next one came and pushed him aside. So it went, and the growing circle of men was constantly pushed along until the first man was sitting beside Tavuu, who was in the place of honor at the back of the house. Still they kept coming, and Taviuu was pushed on and on, until finally he was forced to sit on the lap of their sister, who occupied the place beside the door. For the house was just large enough for the brothers and their sister. They began to dress the rabbits they had killed, and the smallest one of all they gave to their brother-in-law. They put the rabbits into a pit and built a fire over them. Taviuu cleaned his rabbit and placed it last in the oven. When the pit was opened, he took his out last, and they saw that it was full of fat. They said: "What are we going to do about that thing there? Shall we wrestle for it?" 1 Narrated by Blind Tom, Walker River Paviotso. {view image of page 144} 144 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN "Yes," said some, "let us wrestle for it." They all rushed upon Taviuu to take away his rabbit. But in the struggle, he slipped aside and left only his tail there, and while they wrestled, he sat outside squeaking like a rabbit and laughing at them. Some of the men at the bottom of the pile were killed. These were dragged out of the house, and the others ate and went to sleep. In the morning Taviuu tied the hair of all the men together and took the girl outside. He pushed a great rock into the doorway, and set fire to the house, and when all were burned up he asked the girl to go with him; but she refused, because he had burned her brothers. "Yes," he said. He seized her with his fore-finger in her anus, threw her into the fire, and went on with their bows and arrows. He came to the camp of Vulture and his son, and the three lay down together. Thinking Taviuu asleep, Vulture reached over to press his thumb into his guest's brain; but Tavuu saw him and moved. Vulture waited. After a while he fell asleep, and Taviuu exchanged places with the young one. When the old Vulture woke, he reached over and pressed his thumb into his son's brain, and killed him. In the morning Tavuu saw some arrows in the house. He picked up one and said: "This is a fine arrow. Let us have a shooting contest. I will be the first target." "Sit in the crotch of that tree," said Vulture. He selected five arrows. Tavufu sat in the crotch of the tree, and Vulture shot, but each arrow just grazed the body of Taviuu. Then he came down and said, "Now let me try with five arrows." Vulture sat in the fork of the tree, and Taviuu took careful aim, but missed him four times. With the fifth arrow he struck Vulture's heart and killed him. He took all the arrows and went on. At the next spring there was a camp, where he built a little hut. Bluejays came down and sat on the roof until it was completely covered and looked as blue as the sky. Tavuu pulled some hair from his face and threw it up to the roof, and the birds fell dead. The man who lived in that place came then and asked, "Where did you get all those bluejays?" "At a spring. I built a blind there and killed them. You can do the same thing in the morning." And he told the man just what to do. The next morning the man made a blind and got inside. The birds came and covered it, and the man tried to pull some hairs from his lips, but instead he pulled off the entire side of his face. There he lay rolling on the ground and crying. At the next place Taviuu killed some groundhogs and took them {view image of facing page 144} Paviotso female type [photogravure plate] {view image of page 145} MYTHOLOGY I45 to the camp. The man asked where he had obtained them, and he said, "I killed them where those rocks are." "But how did you kill them?" "Oh, I just said, 'Rock Mother, come after me!'" The next morning he travelled on, and the man went to the rocky place. He repeated the magic words, and all the female groundhogs came forth. He repeated the words again, and the very largest ones came out and beat him to death. Tavuiu came to the camp of Narukudzu. "What do you eat?" he inquired. "We do not eat much. We eat something sweet that comes down from the trees whenever we say, 'Narukudzau, Narukudzu, Narukudza', Narukudzu'! "' Taviuu said: "Say it again. See if more will come down." The man said it again, and there was a sound like the approach of a hailstorm. It came close, and the sweet substance turned into hail, which struck out the eyes of Narukudzu and his wife. Taviuu went on to the top of a mountain, where it was very steep. He found a round, flat stone, which he rolled down the hill, and he ran along beside it to see if he could beat it. They ran together down to the valley, and then along the flat until they came to TsufighuC [a small cottontail rabbit], his younger brother. On the top of a hill these two built a stone house, thinking that the Sun came close to the hill when he rose in the morning, and intending to lie in wait for him there. But in the morning they saw him rise over a distant hill in the east. They went on and built another shelter of stones on the hill. So again they did on a third hill, and from the fourth hill they saw the Sun emerge from the ocean beside a huge rock. They dug a hole as a refuge from the fire of the Sun, if they should succeed in killing him. They decided that neither stone nor wood could protect them, and that cactus was the only thing. In the morning they crept into the hole and watched the Sun come out of the water and climb to the top of the rock and dry himself like an otter. Then he started on his way. They began to shoot even while he was drying himself, but the arrows were consumed by his fierce heat before they came near him. They took their fire-drill and twirled it, and when it was hot they shot it for an arrow. It struck the Sun. He fell, and they rushed quickly to him, cut out his gall, and threw it into the sky straight overhead, crying, "When you travel, do not go along the ridge of the mountains, but travel straight across the sky, so that we will have time to hunt." Then they ran back. A stream of fire VOL. XV- I9 {view image of page 146} I46 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN followed them. When their burrow became too hot, they fled to a hole in the ground, then to a hollow in the rocks, and lastly to a hollow cactus. Here they were safe. The fire could not burn more than the needles of the cactus, and passed them by. After a while the earth cooled off and thereafter the sun travelled as it does now. They started homeward, and came to the camp of an old woman, who was making a basket. They asked, "What are you doing, old woman?" "I am making a basket in which to put those who have killed the Sun, and gut them." "Are you sure it is the right size? Get in and try it." The old woman got into the basket to show them that it was the right size, and they took her knife and gutted her. In the next camp they found many women making water-baskets. "What are you going to do with those baskets?" they asked. "We are afraid of those who have killed the Sun. We are going to hide and take water to drink in our hiding place." "How are you going to do it? Show us." So the women took the water-jars and went into the hut, and Tavfiu and his brother burned them up. At the next place they saw an old woman, and they said: "Grandmother, we are very hungry. Have you any food?" "Yes, I have some seed buried over there. I will make mush." She went to the place, and soon came back empty-handed. "What is the matter?" they asked. "That place is covered with great rocks," she said. "I cannot get at the seed." "Go back and look again." She went back and found the place smooth and free of stones, and brought seed and fed them. They went on, and met a person on the trail. They asked, "Who are all the people that made these tracks going in the same direction?" "Oh, those are people who are playing on a swing. Go and play with them." So they went to play where the people were swinging on the branches of a high tree. They played there a while, and then got all the people on the branches and let the boughs fly high into the air, so that the people were thrown off and crushed as they fell. They came to a place where a house was built under overhanging rocks, and asked, "Why have you built this house?" {view image of facing page 146} Pahu-Kumaa - "Sunflower Edge" - Walker Lake Paviotso [photogravure plate] {view image of page 147} MYTHOLOGY I47 "We have heard of those who killed the Sun, and we built this house as a refuge when they come." "Show us how you are going to do when they come." All the people went into the house, and the rocks collapsed and killed them. As they went on, Taviuu said to his brother, "Look for a good place." They found a place where the sage was very tall, and there his younger brother became a small cottontail rabbit. Taviuu went on until he found where there were pine-nuts and rocky ground, and he became a cottontail rabbit. Origin of the Belt of Orion 1 A man with his wife, his son, and his younger brother, had a camp at Tufgwunusonii. Each day the woman, starting out to harvest seed, would say to her husband, "Give me your best sinew, so that when the child cries I can roast a piece and give it to him to chew." And he would give her a piece of sinew from the leg of a deer or a mountain-sheep. While the woman gathered seed, the men hunted mountain-sheep. They were having bad luck: each day they chased the same sheep round and round the mountain, but they could not kill it. Then the elder brother said: "You had better sit down here beside the trail and watch. I wonder why that mountain-sheep never tires." Crouching beside the trail, the man saw the sheep coming and his brother in pursuit. As the sheep passed, he saw that his brother's little boy was tied between its horns. The child was covered with foam, like the lather between the legs of a horse. Then he knew that the sheep was his sister-in-law. His brother came running up and stopped. He sat down and when he had recovered his breath he asked, "Did you see that sheep pass?" The other did not answer at once. Then he said: "Yes, the sheep! And your little child was tied between its horns!" The elder brother said nothing, but he was enraged that his wife had been causing them to hunt fruitlessly. The two men went home. The next morning the woman asked for sinew, but her husband said: "No! Leave that child at home and gather seeds by yourself. We are going to remain at home and mend our moccasins. We will take care of the child." So the woman went to harvest seeds. The men placed certain sticks of wood in the bed and arranged 1 Narrated by Blind Tom, Walker River Paviotso. {view image of page 148} 148 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN the blankets and some moccasins so that it appeared there were two men and a baby lying there. Then they transformed themselves and the baby into mountain-sheep and went and stood at the spring. At noon the woman came home. She was thirsty, but there was no water. She kicked the empty water-basket and said: "Where is the water? Where is the water?" She took the basket to the spring. There she saw three mountain-sheep standing in the water, and she ran back to the house and cried: "Get up, you lazy men! Do not sleep all day! There are three sheep in the spring." She seized the blankets and threw them off. In the bed was nothing but sticks of wood. She ran to the spring, but the others had already gone. The elder brother said to the younger and to his son: "Do not look back, my brother; do not look back, my son! She has long hair on her vulva and she might catch you with it." So the three ran on, the elder brother first, the boy second, and the younger brother last. The woman pursued them. As she ran, she shook her breasts, calling to the child, "Here is your milk, my child!" With the other hand she shook her vulva, calling to her husband. But neither would look back. As they ran along they encountered Coyote, who killed the three. While they lay there, the woman came up. She raised them to life and said, "You must not turn yourselves into mountainsheep." She tore the flesh from the front of her pelvis and threw it at them. It struck the back of their necks and remained there. That is why the mountain-sheep has a lump on the back of the neck. She said: "Go along the way you were. I will follow behind." They became stars, forming the Belt of Orion, travelling behind the Pleiades. Origin of Pine-nuts and Death 1 Coyote smelled pine-nuts in the east, and blood gushed from his nose. He travelled all day toward the odor; but he did not find the place, and returned. The next day he tried again, and discovered a place where there were many people. The chief was directing them to make the pine-nut mush very thin, for he did not want Coyote to carry it away. The children were holding mush tightly grasped in their little hands, and Coyote made them drop it by thumping their hands. But when he attempted to hold it in his mouth in order to carry it back to his people, it was so thin that he swallowed it. Then he went home again. 1 Narrated by Billy Williams, Honey Lake Paviotso. {view image of facing page 148} A Paviotso woman of Walker Lake [photogravure plate] {view image of page 149} MYTHOLOGY 149 His brother Wolf was making a speech to the assembled animal people, and Coyote stood beside him. Then all started out to obtain the pine-nuts, leaving behind only Sanaki [a small bird] to watch for their return. On the way they teased one another. Wildcat scratched the others, and when they complained, he showed his hands and rubbed them together to prove that he had no claws. The pine-nuts were concealed in the wrapping of a bow. All night they searched, and it was near morning when Louse found them and Woodpecker picked them out. Then they all ran westward, and the pine-nut people pursued them. Coyote said, "Let me be killed first." But Wolf said, "No, I will be the one." So he remained behind and was killed. Blackbird had on his leg a sore, in which they hid the nuts so that the pursuers would not be able to find them. When the people overtook them and searched in vain for the nuts, they killed all except Blackbird, who, pretending to be dead, flew onward after they had gone. When he arrived home, Sanaki helped him build a fire to parch the nuts. The eastern people made a great wall of ice between the dead western people and their home; but after a while Wolf came to life and revived his people, who broke through the ice wall and returned home. Wolf wanted the nuts to be like acorns, but Coyote said they should be in cones. And so it was. They discussed how many months should be in the year. Coyote placed his hands beside his forehead and said, "Perhaps there will be this many." Nobody replied. They sent him to another house for tobacco, and while he was absent they arranged that there should be three months in the summer, three in the winter, three in the spring, and three in the autumn. Wolf proposed that people should live forever, but Coyote returned just then and changed this. He said, "We will grow old and die." He went to his house for tobacco, and finding his son sick and dying, he hurried back and cried, "I thought you said we would not die!" "No," answered Wolf, "you insisted that we die, and so it shall be." Coyote's son was the first person to die. Origin Myth Tuli'hi [wolf] was the chief of those who first inhabited the earth. When they decided that it would be best if they became animals of various kinds and made way for a new race of human beings, Tulishi 1 Narrated by Captain Pete, Washo. {view image of page 150} I50 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN placed in a water-basket a quantity of cattail-down and seeds, and some grass. He set it aside and told the others to watch it. So they stood in a circle and watched it. A moon passed, and there was the sound of voices in the basket. They were indistinct. Tuli~hi poured the contents on the ground. There were people of three kinds. In the centre he placed the Wafhiu [Washo]; on the west the Teubimmuis [Miwok] and the Tanniu [Maidu]; and on the east the Paliu [Paviotso]. When the newly created people were seen, Kewe [coyote] protested that they ought to have four fingers like himself. But Lizard stood up on a rock and said, "No, it is right that they have five fingers like me." Kewe insisted: "They cannot do anything with five fingers. When I want to kill anything, I bite it." But Lizard declared that it would not look well for these new people to bite. They must use their hands, they must have five fingers. Kewe cried: "Do not make me angry! I will burn you!" But Lizard took refuge under a rock. Then Kewe secured the assistance of Mouse and went with him to the east. There were those who had pine-nuts. He sent Mouse into the house where the cones were lying. Mouse carried them out, and Kewe ran away with them clinging to various parts of his body. He brought them home and asked, "What shall we do with these?" Tulighi said: "These will be for the Wafihiu and the Paliu to eat. Plant them and they will become trees." So they planted the nuts, which grew into trees, and TuliShi told Matus [measuring-worm] to mark off plots of ground for each family. Kewe changed the original people into various kinds of animals. A great warrior became jack-rabbit, and his eagle-feathers became long ears. One who carried an ember wherever he went, to light the campfire, became sagehen, and the black spot of the sagehen's breast is a mark made by the ember. The Monster Bird 1 In the lake [tao, whence "Tahoe"] stood a great pine. In the top was a mass of large branches, the nest of aan, an enormous bird that ate human beings. Its winter home was a cave on the lakeshore [near Glenbrook, Nevada]. One day it carried a man into its nest and left him sitting there while it ate. He covered his head with his rabbit-skin blanket and peered out through the holes, and each time the bird took a bite, he could see into its great mouth and down into its gullet. He threw an arrow-point into the bird's mouth, and it 1 Narrated by Captain Pete, Washo. {view image of facing page 150} A Pyramid Lake matron - Paviotso [photogravure plate] {view image of page 151} MYTHOLOGY I5I swallowed the piece of obsidian along with the meat. Repeatedly he did this, and soon the bird began to tremble, and it died from the poison on the arrow-points. Then the man cut off its wings and tied them together. He climbed down the tree, placed the wings on the water like a boat, and sat on them, and the wind wafted him ashore. How the Animals Were Named 1 A little boy lived with his mother. Every morning before sunrise he would go out to look about, and soon he would return and say, for example: "I saw a small thing with stripes down its back. It runs about on the ground. What is that?" She would reply with the name of the animal, and would say, "That is for you to kill." Then the boy would go and kill it and bring it home. From day to day he described all the different animals, and as his mother named them, he killed them. It was thus that the animals were named, and the methods of killing them established. Tamalili and Goji Tamalili was a small boy. He was always looking about, searching the distance. One day he saw something on a distant snowy mountain, and asked the people to help him observe it. They watched for a long time. Gradually it became larger. It was approaching. After a long time it came to the camp, and they saw that it was a small boy. It was G6ji. He remained with Tamalili that night. The next morning Tamalili said: "I am going to keep you with me. Let us go across the western mountains." G6ji said nothing, but sat there. Tamalili had a bow and some arrows. He said: "My bow and arrows, I know it, wish to go around and look for another country. These arrows are for killing game as we go along. They will kill anything, and we will have plenty of food." So they started. They ran all day. They started at Tsimetime [Pine Nut valley, south of Carson]. They ran southward and stopped at Ldam [Waller (?) spring]. Tamalili wished to camp there, but G6ji said: "No! We will not remain here. Let us go to the summit and camp." Before arriving at the summit they shot some chipmunks, and on the summit they roasted them. While the chipmunks were roasting, G6ji fell asleep. Tamalili was constantly walking about. He had said to G6ji: "You must watch the fire. Something may come up out of it." When he came back he found G6ji asleep, and in the edge of the fire he saw Spider. He said, "Who are you?" This and the following myth were narrated by Captain Pete, Washo. {view image of page 152} 152 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN "I do not belong to any people," answered Spider. "Have you no family?" "No, I do not know who are my people. I am always alone." "Well, you are a strange fellow. You ought to know your parents." "I do not know who is my mother nor who is my father. I have no relations." "Well, then, how were you born?" "I do not know. Nobody fed me and cared for me. I just grew up by myself. I think I will go with you." "No, I do not want you," said Tamalili. "You do not tell me about your people. I do not want to take you." "But I will go with you." "How can you keep up with me?" asked Tamalili. "I run always. I can run to the top of this hill and jump to the bottom. Can you follow me all day?" "Yes, I am a good runner. I am a strong man." "Well, then, let us go." Tamalili started off, leaving G6ji asleep. He ran swiftly, but Spider remained at his side. He ran up and down the hills, trying to outrun Spider and lose him in the mountains, but he could not. In the middle of the afternoon Spider became angry. He demanded: "What are you trying to do? I can tell what you are going to do." "What is it?" "I know it. You want to kill me. You want to take me into the mountains and lose me." They ran on, and he said: "What is the matter? I am sweating." "I do not know," answered Tamalili. "Well, I can tell you," said Spider. "It is caused by my finding a bad man today. If he were a good man, he would sit down and talk to me; but he is a bad man, who tries to run away from me. I do not know where he is going nor where his home is. He runs all the time and visits nobody." Then Tamalili was fearful. Spider went on, "I know you are a good runner, but if you do not stop troubling me I will kill you." He was very angry. He struck Tamalili many times and each time a swarm of young spiders was planted in the eyes, or the ears, or the nose of Tamalili. He was nearly killed, and he ran back to G6ji. He shook his friend and exclaimed: "I! I am nearly killed, brother. Wake up!" He shook him and called him again and again, but G6ji only snored on. Then Tamalili fell down dead, and {view image of facing page 152} Washo burden-basket and trinket-basket [photogravure plate] {view image of page 153} MYTHOLOGY I53 after a while G6ji awoke. He called his brother: " My brother, where are you? Come, these chipmunks are cooked! Let us eat!" He walked about and found his brother's tracks, and the tracks of Spider. Then he feared. He kept on searching, wandering about the mountains, and always following the trail. But he could not find his brother. He went into the sky and talked to the Sun. "Friend, did you see my brother yesterday?" "No," answered the Sun. "Go to the other house." G6ji went to the Moon's house. "Well," said Moon, "I do not look about in the daytime, because my eyes hurt. But at night I look over the whole world. That other man looks in the daytime. He can tell you." "Perhaps he does not wish me to come again." "If he does not wish you to come again, take this along." The Moon gave him Porcupine. "This will wake him up," he said. "If the Sun will not talk to you, let this Porcupine help you." When G6ji returned to the Sun's house, he looked in and saw the Sun sitting there with his back to the door. He drew Porcupine out from under his arm and said: "What is the matter with you? If you do not talk to me, this will hurt you." Porcupine waved his tail, and the house was filled with sharp quills. Then the Sun looked around and asked, "What is it?" "Did you see my brother yesterday? If you do not tell me, this will hurt you." "Put him back, that Porcupine! I do not want to see him. But I will tell you." Then the Sun told him about Tamalili and Spider, and added: "Your brother is in a hole near the fire where you were roasting chipmunks. Spider dragged him in after he died." So G6ji returned to the fire and scraped away the ashes, and there he saw the feet of his brother. He drew out the body and laid it beside the fire and stepped across it, and Tamalili sat up alive. G6ji took him to the spring and washed him, and leaving the roasted chipmunks they went on. In the afternoon G6ji found a great buck. Tamalili said: "You cannot shoot. Let me shoot him." "No, I am a good shot," said G6ji. He shot from a great distance and struck the deer, but did not kill it. The buck ran down along the river [American], and they followed. G6ji became exhausted and Tamalili continued the chase alone. Near the trail he saw a great sweat-house. A watchman on the roof called his fellows, and out VOL. XV - 20 {view image of page 154} I54 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN came more than a hundred Teubimmuis [Miwok]. Tamalili said nothing to them, but continued on the deer's trail, and several men with bows and arrows followed him, headed off the buck, and killed it. When Tamalili came up he found them standing beside the dead animal. Each of them took a small piece of venison, and they sent a messenger to the sweat-house; and every man came and took a piece of the deer, until only the skin and bones were left. Then they killed Tamalili. G6ji, sleeping beside the fire, dreamed that his brother was in trouble. So he followed the tracks. On the way he found a little boy, who had a jug of water on his back. He took the boy along, and again he restored life to his brother. Then these two with the little boy went along westward. They came to the ocean. The people there wore wildcat-skins. They were dancing. As the travellers sat watching, a girl approached and asked, "Whence come you?" "We came a long way. We cannot tell you all about it. You would be frightened." "Where are you camping?" They told her, and she said: "When anyone comes here, we treat him well. We feed him and give him a place to sleep. I will bring a friend and visit your camp tomorrow." Then G6ji, Tamalili, and the little boy returned to their camp. The next morning two girls visited them, and proposed to remain; but G6ji and Tamalili urged them to go home and not cause their parents sorrow. "Well, we will go home, but tomorrow we will bring another girl," said one of them. The following morning a number of girls came, and thereafter more and more. They proposed to take Tamalili and G6ji hunting, for these girls hunted like men. After remaining in that place for a time, G6ji said: "I do not like so many women around our camp. We had better go home tomorrow." They left the little boy with the water-jug and travelled eastward. The Women Who Married Stars 1 An old man had two granddaughters. They lived in Pau [Carson valley]. He had a fishing hut at the edge of the river, where he speared fish. The two girls remained always in the camp. One of them said: "I think my grandfather has been eating fish every day, and he must be tired of fish. We will grind some seed and take mush to him." They ground some seeds and made mush, which they took 1 Narrated by Captain Pete, Washo. {view image of facing page 154} Washo basketry designs [photogravure plate] {view image of page 155} MYTHOLOGY I55 to him, but he refused to eat it. They took pine-nut mush and other foods, but he would not eat. So much food they carried that the bits of mush and flour they spilled made a trail from the camp to the fishing hut. Then they were angry. "What can we do? Can we go somewhere and find something good for our grandfather? Perhaps he will become angry with us and kill us. You can tell how this old man is feeling, because when we give him food he throws it away. This shows that he does not like us. Perhaps we had better leave him and go away by ourselves." That is what they said. So that very evening they started westward. They passed the night on the summit, and as it was very cold they slept close together. They laughed and joked. "Well, if we find a good man on the trail or in a camp, let us get married." So they talked. The younger sister said: "See those large stars. You marry that red one and I will marry the white one." Now the stars heard this and came down and carried the girls into the air and married them. In the upper world the girls learned that the red star was the Sun and the white star the Moon. One day the younger went to her sister's camp, and said: "What kind of meat have you? Have you good venison?" "Yes, I have good meat, fat and juicy." "I think that man does not shoot with bow and arrows. It seems that he bites with his mouth, like a coyote. If he does not give me better meat, I will not stay much longer." " Do not say that! If we leave, I do not know where we shall go. We have no home. We have no friends. We must stay here another year. If you do not get the right kind of meat, feed your husband and then come here and eat with me." This the younger sister promised to do. She said, "I am going to gather roots and seeds." "Well, I will go with you," said her sister. So they went together to the younger sister's camp. The elder saw that the meat was bad. She said: "Do not eat more. I think this is the flesh of a dog or a coyote. My meat at home is good venison. Your meat is bad. Let your man eat alone, and you come and eat my good meat." They went out to dig roots. As they worked, the younger sister's stick struck an ant-hill. It seemed to be hollow. She said: "Let us dig here. I think we will find a hole." When they thrust a heavy stick into the nest, the ground gave way and they looked down upon the earth. There they beheld their grandfather going about as if {view image of page 156} I56 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN searching for a trail, and the younger sister was sorry. She said: "My poor grandfather! He has nobody to care for him. I think I will go to him." So they agreed to try to escape. The elder sister had a baby. She said to her husband: "My baby will not eat this venison. Whenever he sees sinew he cries. I think you had better get sinew for him." By this deception she gradually secured a store of sinew, and each day she would go away from the camp and twist cord. They told their husbands that they wished to go to the valley and camp alone and make some fine baskets, which they did not wish the men to see until completed. The younger sister thought it best to leave the child, because otherwise its father might be angry and pursue them to the earth. The mother was unwilling to give it up; yet she consented. They tied the sinew rope to a log and dropped it through the hole. The end reached the earth, and they prepared to climb down. Meanwhile the baby was growing rapidly. As the women started down the rope, the child cried, "Mother, where are you going?" "Oh, I am going down for water." "I think you are going to leave me," said the child He ran home and told his father that his mother and his aunt had been spending all their time in making rope, and now were climbing down to the earth. Then the Sun and his child came running to the hole. He cut the rope, and the women fell to the earth and were killed. The old man, their grandfather, was the one who taught the people how to make sinew nets and lines, bone fish-hooks and spoons, bows and arrows, and all the implements used by them. Had the two girls not run away and been killed, he would have been able to do much better for the people. For it was on these things that he was working and studying when the girls tried to induce him to eat. {view image of facing page 156} A Washo woman [photogravure plate] {view image of page 157} Appendix {view image of page 158} I I {view image of page 159} APPENDIX Tribal Summary The Luisenos LANGUAGE -Shoshonean. POPULATION- The Luisefios were estimated by Government agents in 1856 to number between 2,500 and 2,800. In the Census of I9IO five hundred were enumerated. Kroeber estimates 4,000 in I770. DRESS - In pre-mission times men were without clothing, and women wore merely a diminutive apron of vegetal fibre in front and another behind. Rabbit-fur robes were wrapped about the body for warmth, and deerskin moccasins were used when the ground was unusually rough. The hair of both sexes was unconfined. DWELLINGS - Houses were rudely conical and were thatched with any convenient brush or bark. No supporting posts were used. The floor was somewhat lower than the surrounding surface, the smoke-vent was at the apex, and the doorway, usually an unprotected opening, was sometimes approached by a covered passage sloping from the ground down to the level of the floor. The roof of the approximately elliptical sudatory was supported by a pair of posts and a ridge-beam, on which rested rafters extending to the ground. The brush thatch was covered with earth from the excavated floor-area. The fire was built inside. PRIMITIVE FOODS - Acorn mush, and gruel made of the flour of numerous small seeds, especially those of sage, were staple foods. Mescal was of considerable importance. There were numerous small fruits, principally berries of various kinds, and several species of cactus yielded edible fruit and seeds. Many kinds of bulbs and tubers were dug, and in the spring pot-herbs were not unimportant. Various rodents, and especially rabbits and hares, were depended upon for flesh food. Deer were stalked by hunters wearing the stuffed skin of a deer's head, and were caught in rope snares hung in their runways. Antelope and mountainsheep were more rarely killed. Bears, cougars, and wildcats were eaten when by chance they were brought down. Tortoises and lizards were relished. Except along the coast, fish were of very little importance to the Luiseios. ARTS AND INDUSTRIES - Manufactures of wood were the bow of mountain-ash, willow, or even elder, without sinew reinforcement, the arrow of cane with greasewood foreshaft and more rarely with obsidian point, or of self-pointed arrow-weed, the curved rabbit-stick, the fire-drill, the bullroarer, the four-hole elder flute, and the cane whistle. Stone was the material for flattish grooved arrow- straighteners, mortars both movable and wrought in the surface of a bowlder, pestles, and arrow-points. Of horn were the chisel or wedge and the arrow-flaker; and of bone, the awl and the markers used in gambling. Two-ply cordage of Apocynum, Asclepias, or Urtica was the material for carrying-nets, rabbit-nets, dip-nets, and (on the coast) seines. Mats were made by stringing rushes on parallel cords. Pottery forms were the water-jar, the food-bowl, the cooking-pot, and the tobacco-pipe. Woven baskets were made for carrying burdens and for sifting or leaching; sewn, or coiled, baskets for winnowing and parching seeds, for serving food, for preserving small articles of value, and for wearing on the head when using the pack-strap. Outdoor granaries were large receptacles of interlaced brush. The coastal bands used water craft, both dugout canoes and tule balsas. GAMES - The favorite diversion of the Luisefios was tepanYfh, a hand-game still played by two sets of four men, each of whom is provided with two white bone cylinders, one of which is distinguished by a black band. Though the contest is between the two parties, each player I59 {view image of page 160} i6o THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN conceals his pair of markers and must individually be correctly guessed before he is disposed of for the inning. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION - Politically the Luisefios were an aggregation of numerous small settlements, relations between which were practically limited to mutual assistance in the performance of religious rites. They were in no sense a tribe, and chiefs were those who inaugurated ceremonies and presided as host to visiting delegations. Socially these people were a large number of local, exogamous clans with patrilineal descent. Side by side with this clan system existed groups concerned with the conduct of religious rites, and these apparently were at one time identical with the clans. Disintegration of a clan forced its survivors to join some stronger group on ceremonial occasions, but they still retained their identity as a clan; and thus apparently developed the present status, in which a religious "party" is dominated numerically by one clan but includes members of several other clans. The chiefs of these parties, originally simply clan chiefs and therefore religious leaders of their clansmen, are the important men of the Luisefios. Each one has his hereditary assistant, who actually manages the functions which his principal inaugurates. The official who initiates and manages the communal rabbit-drive is an important and honored individual. SOME LUISENO PLACE-NAMES t.shmai, "Rosebush," at Las Flores, above San Luis Rey. IKeih 1 (said to derive from KeAhla, ocean-shells), at San Luis Rey. T6pomai, "Gophers," near San Luis Rey. Wah6mai, at Guajome (Spanish orthography of the native name) near San Luis Rey. Pala, at Pala. P6ma, at Pauma. Wisha (a species of grass), at Rincon. Yuimai (said,to mean "much snow"), in the foothills north of Rincon. Kdki, near Ydimai on what is now Potrero reservation. Yapicha, west of La Jolla on Potrero reservation. Hdyulkim, at La Jolla. Qimava (said to mean "at the door" of a canion), at the lower end of Warner's Ranch valley. Norivo, three miles west of Warner's Hot Springs at Puerta de la Cruz. Peha, at Aguanga on the head-waters of Santa Margarita river. Temeku, at Temecula. Sov6vo, at Saboba on San Jacinto reservation. MARRIAGE - Marriage was arranged by negotiation, and a stipulated price was paid for the bride in the form of a gift. There was no formal wedding. Marriage between members of the same clan would have been incestuous, and was not to be thought of. Some men had two or more wives, who usually were sisters. The levirate prevailed. MORTUARY CUSTOMS -The dead were cremated, all the populace except children attending and loudly lamenting. As usual, widows cut their hair and blackened their faces. A few weeks after the cremation the deceased person's clothing was formally washed at a public ceremony, and about a year later the same garments were burned as the concluding act in the period of mourning. At irregular intervals was performed what is commonly called the image ceremony, a memorial for all who had died since the last previous observance of the rite. The principal feature of the image ceremony was the burning of large effigies of the lamented individuals, and the burning and giving away of property. It was in fact in the nature of a repetition of the cremation rite. The memorial rites for a deceased chief were not complete without the "eagle-killing," on which occasion a captive eagle was killed, ostensibly by magic but actually by pressure of the thumb over its heart. These various mortuary rites composed almost the whole, certainly the most important part, of the native Luisefio religious practice; for the 1 According to Kroeber, "The Luisefio call [San Clemente island] Khesh [and] state that it was inhabited by people speaking their own language, who, having been brought to the mainland by the Franciscans, were settled at a place three miles below San Luis Rey Mission, to which they gave the same name, Khesh." This, rather than kicham, houses, may be the origin of such names as Kechi, Ghecham, and Khecham, which have been applied to the Luisefios; but the most satisfactory etymon for these forms is kicham(ka), south(ward). {view image of page 161} TRIBAL SUMMARY i6I toloache initiation of boys, the whirling, or feather, dance, and the "war-dance," were introduced among them at about the dawn of the historical period. PUBERTY RITES - On the occasion of her first menses a girl, in company with several others of approximately her age, passed practically the entire time, day and night, for as long as a week lying on a bed of green herbs in a pit lined with heated stones. Dancing and singing by men and women continued at intervals throughout the period of the treatment. In conclusion an earth-picture was outlined on the ground in representation of the world, and after various ceremonious acts in connection therewith an old man exhorted the girls to observe the rules of conduct that had been taught them, so that they might bear healthy children without pain. The original Luisefio puberty rite was much modified by contact with the toloache cult. Most boys at about the age of puberty were initiated into the toloache cult. The principal feature was the drinking by each initiate of a quantity of water containing the pulverized root of Jamestown-weed, which had the effect of stupefying him and causing hallucinations. These "dreams" were the prime object of the treatment, for it was thought that the spirit of whatever animal or thing appeared in the hallucination would guard the individual through life and give him powers that others had not. In conclusion each boy received a sword-like stick and a bunch of feathers, and he was known as pumal ("initiate"). Only a pumal could take part in the "war-dance," the whirling dance, and the "eagle-killing." It is apparent that the toloache initiates actually composed a pseudo-fraternity, although it was not so formally organized as, for instance, Pueblo fraternities. Indeed, this inheres in the very nature of the case. Practically all males were initiated, and whatever lacks exclusiveness is apt to lack formality. SHAMANISM - Men became shamans by dreaming of some animal or thing, and receiving songs in the dreams. They were believed to possess the power of projecting sickness into the body of a victim, especially if they had some bit of the proposed victim's body over which to perform acts of imitative magic. The usual methods of treating sickness prevailed - sucking, rubbing, blowing the breath, singing, waving feathers. Great confidence was reposed in the shaman's tobacco-pipe. RELIGION AND CEREMONIES -Two religious systems exist side by side in Luisefio life. First there is the series of funerary and mourning rites, which they observe in common with other Indians of southern California. With these rites is associated the name of Wiy6t, the creator who by his own acts instituted death and the attendant customs. This system seems to be the result of Yuman propinquity. On the other hand there is the toloache cult with various dances performed only by its initiates. With these rites is associated the name ChiinichniTh, a vaguely conceived being who, residing above, is not mentioned at all in Luisenio mythology. Luisefio tradition points to the Coast Shoshoneans as the source of this cult, so far as they themselves are concerned, and the songs pertaining to its rites are in the Gabrielino dialect, whether used by the Luisefos or by the Dieguefios. If the mourning rites are Yuman, and the toloache rites came from the coast, there remains as what may be called native Luisefio religious practice only the puberty rites for girls. This probably is the fact. The Luisenos, when they pressed into this southern area, possessed just the religious rites of their congeners in the north, the Mono, who never came in contact with either Yumans or coastal people, and had only the puberty rite and a simple dance "wishing" for abundant food. The Cahuilla LANGUAGE - Shoshonean. POPULATION - The Census of 1910 reported 755 Cahuilla. Kroeber estimates 2,500 in 1770. DRESS - Rabbit-fur robes were draped about the shoulders in cold weather. Skin loincloths for men and mesquite-bark kilts for women were not habitually worn. Pad-like sandals of agave-fibre are still worn when the footing is particularly rough. Basketry caps were worn by women when using the pack-strap. DWELLINGS - Cahuilla houses (the reference is particularly to the Desert Cahuilla) were much like those of the Mohave, with flat roofs, perpendicular sides, and rectangular floor-space. The materials used were mesquite posts and beams for the framework, and wormwood shoots, mesquite-bark, leaves, and earth for the walls and roof. The sudatory was partially underground. The floor-space was approximately circular, but the superstructure was somewhat elongate. The rafters extended from the ground to the short ridge-beam, which was supported VOL. XV - 21 {view image of page 162} I62 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN on two poles, and the roof consisted of brush and earth. Fire, not steam, supplied heat. Sweatbaths were employed only to relieve physical ailments. The ceremonial house had a circular wall about four feet high and fifty feet in diameter, and the conical roof, as well as the walls, was thatched with brush. PRIMITIVE FOODS - Except that mesquite-beans here supplanted acorns, the diet of the Cahuilla was much the same as that of the Luisefios. Mescal also was of more importance, and the fruit and pith of a palm were used. Rabbits, hares, and other rodents were the important animals. ARTS AND INDUSTRIES -The basketry, pottery, net-work, and stone and wooden implements of the Cahuilla were practically identical with those of the Luisefios. One of the few points of difference is that the Desert Cahuilla used, instead of the stone mortar, a hollowed block of mesquite embedded in the ground. GAMES -K6pis, a ball of mesquite taken where a parasitic plant, mistletoe, had its roots, and naihat, a stick about thirty inches long with a short crook at the end, were the requisites for playing k6piil. The ball was buried in a hole in the middle of a quarter-mile course, the goals being marked by stakes between which it must be driven. Ten men played on each side. This was a very rough game played for community wagers. A variation was sometimes made by tossing the ball into the air instead of burying it. Women also played this game of shinny among themselves. The hand-game, tohonfnil ("hiding game"), was played by eight men kneeling in two equal parties on opposite sides of a small fire. Each contestant held two small cylinders of wood or of bone from a wildcat's leg, one black, one white. Each bone had a wrapping of thong about the middle. The umpire held the fifteen tally-sticks. Pikinil was played by two men, each having four black and four white sticks. One arranged his sticks in a row and covered them with a basket, and the other guessed their relative position. In timanatnenil ("ground-in-hide game") one of two players concealed a small stick in any one of four holes in the ground, and the other guessed its whereabouts. Kalmoanil ("shooting game") was an archery contest. An arrow was shot as far as possible, and each contestant sent one after it. He whose arrow lay nearest the first one took those of his opponents. Tahy6nil was another form of archery. lminut, a tight roll of mesquite-bark the size of a finger, was laid on the ground. The contestants stood about twenty feet distant and shot at it, and he who first struck it picked it up, placed one of the arrows on his bowstring, laid the aminat on the arrow just outside the bow, gave it a toss into the air, and discharged the arrow at it. If he struck it, the arrow became his property, and he tried again with another arrow of those that had been shot at the target. Each arrow with which he struck the aminut he won; but as soon as he missed, the contest was resumed at the beginning. In kwaianpis there were two players, each having an arrow with a four-inch feather projecting from the end and a wrapping of some kind of fibre about the point, also a shaft of Artemisia split for several inches and with the jaws held open by a bit of wood. A player tossed his arrow high into the air, and as it fell zigzag the other attempted to catch it between the jaws of his stick. The hoop-and-pole game, tolvipis, employed a three-inch ring, kavakvaanat, of agavefibre and a slender, ten-foot pole, t6lvi, of mesquite-root straightened by heating and bending. Women played dice with marked pieces of wood, but the counting is not remembered. String-games were played, and there was a kicking-race in which two wooden balls were used. All these amusements except the hand-game have long been obsolete. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION -The Cahuilla were not organized on tribal lines. Here, as elsewhere in the region, the chief was a religious leader. Clans were localized, patrilineal, and exogamous. The Cahuilla system differed from the Luisefio in that the clans were associated in two groups, one of which was identified with wildcat, the other with coyote. These moieties also were exogamous. Wildcat and coyote do not appear to be properly called totems in Cahuilla life. RELATIONSHIP TERMS -The following are arranged in reciprocal columns. Other terms of relationship may be found in the Cahuilla vocabulary, pages I77-I78. grandfather, maternal he-kwa daughter's child (of a man) kwi-la grandfather, paternal hze-ka son's child (of a man) ka-la {view image of page 163} TRIBAL SUMMARY i63 grandmother, maternal grandmother, paternal great-grandparent brother's wife sister's husband wife's parent husband's parent child's parent-in-law sister's son's wife (of a man) (of a woman) brother's son's wife (of a man) (of a woman) sister's daughter's husband (of a man) (of a woman) brother's daughter's husband (of a man) (of a woman) father's brother's son (of a man) (of a woman) father's sister's child (of a man) (of a woman) he-su he-ka h.e-piw telme kwina minkiw misi nahwa keh6 misi misi' keh6 mnkiw minkiw minkiw keh6 hepas; yul fidku hemut nesi daughter's child (of a woman) son's child (of a woman) great-grandchild husband's brother or sister wife's brother or sister daughter's husband son's wife husband's mother's brother husband's mother's sister husband's father's brother husband's father's sister wife's mother's brother wife's mother's sister wife's father's brother wife's father's sister father's brother's daughter (of a man) (of a woman) mother's brother's son (of a man) (of a woman) mother's brother's daughter su-la ka-la piw-i telm6 kwina minkiw misi' 1 keh6 misi kehe mlsi' hkeli minkiw minkiw kehe ifiku hekis; nawul ifiku asis DESERT CAHUILLA PLACE-NAMES AND GROUP-NAMES Sehe, Palm Springs, the name of the hot spring itself. Kiwisik (kawis, rock), a large rock near the spring. Kawis-pa-miya, "Rock Water Hold," north of Mecca. Pal-tewat, "Water Found," at Indio. Pal-so6nul, "Water Sonzul [a plant]," a short distance down the valley from Coachella. Nainhayum, a group south of Coachella at Augustin reservation. Sewahilyum, a group a short distance south of the Nanhayfim. Wikwai-kiktum, " Wakwai Dwellers," the group at what is now Torros reservation. Tel-kiktuim, in close proximity and relationship to the Nanhayium and the Sewahilyum. Kavinis, "Depression," at Indian Wells six or seven miles southwest of Indio. There are marks in the stone which serve as the basis for a myth of the transformer, who left the imprint of his crossed arms, fists, and feet when the stone was yet soft. The people of the place were nicknamed A'cha-chium, "Good They." Two survivors live at Banning, and one at Palm Springs. A'walfm, "Dogs," northwest of Martinez reservation. Wanis-yawum, "River Grasped," near the A'walim. Isil-siva-yiwichum, "Coyote Urine Grasp-they," a group near Wanisyawuim. Autaat, "High Place." Mumlai-chtim, "Mixed They." Wiitem, "Grasshoppers." Ma' s6vi-chum, "Hairy-nostrils They." Tamolani-chum, "Legs-drawn-up They." Pal-ponivi-kiktum, "Water Whirling Dwellers." Tevina-kiktlm, "Trinket-basket Dwellers," referring to a bowl-shape place. After maternity the daughter-in-law is called kala-hiyg, grandson's mother. {view image of page 164} I64 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Kaunakal-kiktfim, "Water-hole-in-sand Dwellers." Winchi, south of the eastern end of San Jacinto mountain. Minalim (plural of manal, a small Opuntia), near Indian Wells. Havi', or Havina (locative), northeast of Palm Springs, in the foothills. Techahna, " Something-hanging-at," west of Whitewater. Piloki, "Prettily Marked," between Whitewater and Cabezon. Wikihe, "Cracked," south of Cabezon. Milki, at Morongo reservation near Banning. Sihat, the country between Beaumont and Redlands Junction, Serrano territory. Yamsevel, at the source of Whitewater river, north of Palm Springs. Swfilt-htpus, "Rattlesnake His-face," north of Dry Camp. Yamichu, north of Sewiut-hepus and at the same water-hole. Pafhavala, east of Sewut-hepus, a camping place for harvesters of palm fruit. T6mau-chdm, a group east of Pahavala. TahchI-miulfm (maulam, palms), northeast of Indio, a favorite place for harvesting mesquitebeans, which are here very sweet, and for gathering basketry material and palm fruit. Panyik, south of Agua Caliente reservation. Mala', at the base of San Jacinto peak in a caiion west of Agua Caliente. Kawis-ismal, east of Agua Caliente at the first point in the range. Tinki, southward and around the point. (Perhaps Mexican Spanish tanque, water-hole.) T6hoo, in the curve of the mountains, between Tanki and Indian Wells. Panaksi. Selet, "Sumac," a favorite locality for gathering basketry material. Kawis-yulawdt, " Rock Hanging," southwest of Indian Wells. Tepachiwut, San Jacinto peak. Yuikat, San Gorgonio peak. PALM CANON CAHUILLA PLACE-NAMES AND GROUP-NAMES - Kokomo-yam, inhabiting the district centering about Cucamonga (Kokomona, locative of K6komo). Wai-chem, inhabiting the district centering about Waichava, San Bernardino. Paivoko-yam, inhabiting the valley on the east side of Mojave river, a district called Ydravfit. Maridna-yam, inhabiting the district Miaruna (whence Morongo reservation), the country between Mission creek and Twenty-nine Palms south of San Bernardino mountains. The foregoing names designate people of the group known to us as Serranos. The informant stated that the Morongo could converse with the Mojave River people and with the Hivinakiktem (see next below), who lived between Palm Springs station and Indio; but that these last two groups could not understand each other. Havina-kiktam, "Havi-at Dwellers," in the country from Palm Springs station to Indio. Wini-kikt6m, inhabiting the district Wini, south of San Gorgonio pass. Kaiwisi-kiktem, inhabiting the district about Kaiwisik, Palm Springs, near the eastern base of San Jacinto mountain. Paini-kiktem, at Painik (said to mean "dawn"), near Andres cafion south of Palm Springs. They were regarded as a branch of the Kawisik people. The three names preceding designate the group called Palm Canion Cahuilla. In Salton sink from Indian Wells (southwest of Indio) down to Tuva (a place on the west shore of Salton sea, well known as the home of Figtree John) lived numerous communities of Desert Cahuilla. To the Palm Cafion people they were known as follows: Acha-chem, Wiqai- kiktem, Namhai-yam, Sewahil-yam, Kaiwispa'wiya-wichem, Wavaai-kiktem, T6'oi-kiktem, T6i-kiktem, Paniksa-kiktem, Mas6vi-chem, A'walem, Wii-tem, Wanchiktamyana-chem, Palp6nivi-ktem, Weonisyiwam, Tel-kiktem, Manalm, Kaiwisik'a' chachem. All these could readily converse with the Palm Canion Cahuilla. MARRIAGE - Marriage was arranged by the two fathers concerned, and the girl's family received a gift. The bride was led away without formality. Very young girls were sometimes pledged, and although they continued to live at home they were regarded as actually married. The levirate and the mother-in-law taboo prevailed. {view image of page 165} TRIBAL SUMMARY I65 PUBERTY RITES -At intervals of approximately two years children who had arrived at the age of puberty received a course of training in mythology, customary observances, and rules of conduct. This was quite like the system prevailing in central California. When a girl's first menses appeared, she was laid in a heated trench on a bed of herbs and covered with a blanket. This treatment continued throughout three nights to the accompaniment of singing and dancing around the pit. During the day, and for an entire month, she was secluded in the house under the care of an elderly female relative, and her diet was restricted to small quantities of mush and warm water. Salt, meat, and scratching with the fingers were particularly avoided. The initiation of boys by administering a stupefying drink of the root of Jamestown-weed occurred sporadically, but not at all among the Desert Cahuilla. WAR - Like most California Indians, the Cahuilla engaged so little in fighting that few fixed customs were developed. Their petty quarrels were confined among themselves, and seldom resulted fatally. SHAMANS -There were three kinds of shamans, all of whom depended for their supposed power on supernatural sources. Pa'vol treated many kinds of sickness, especially those resulting from violence, by the use of herbs (rarely by sucking); but the herbs were such as his guardian spirit directed him to employ. He had no human instruction, and was strictly a shaman, not a healer by natural means. pol derived his power through dreams in childhood, but it did not manifest itself until in his youth he danced publicly and sang the songs revealed in the dreams. His method of treatment consisted in singing, blowing on the body, waving a bunch of feathers, sucking to remove some foreign substance. Tftaaiwis ("dreamer") had prenatal clairvoyance, which he exerted in dreams that came at his command. He did not treat sickness, but was especially valuable in detecting the presence of poachers in the territory of his people. Both p6'vol and pol exhibited their power by performing magic in the course of any ceremony. Their favorite method of proving their ability was to thrust a rod down the throat and to take a burning ember between the teeth and then swallow it. Both of these feats are still performed. MORTUARY CUSTOMS- The dead were always cremated, and the ashes were covered in the shallow trench over which the pyre was erected. The body was carried out, the pyre was built, and the ashes were covered by the chief's assistant, the taihqa, or paha'. The house and the personal possessions of the dead person were burned, and members of the family, both women and men, cut the hair and blackened the face. The memorial rites for the dead occurred in the winter and continued through six nights. The time was passed in chanting the songs that constitute the creation myth, and especially those referring to the death and cremation of the creator Mukat. On the last night effigies of the dead were brought in by female relatives of those whom they represented, and after dancing while holding them in their arms, the women carried them out to the burning-ground, where the effigies were consumed amidst loud lamentations. This laying of the ghost terminated the period of mourning. RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY - Excepting the puberty rite for girls, the whole of Cahuilla religion is comprehended in the myth describing the creation and subsequent events. In the beginning existed Tukmiuit ("night") and Amnaa ("power," or "greatness"). Out of the meeting of a red and a white ball of lightning were born Mukat and Temayawut. In a creative contest, in which the latter always opposed the plans of his elder brother, two worlds and two races were produced. The race created by Temayawut was monstrous, and in his displeasure he disappeared into the earth, taking his creatures with him. Mukat remained to teach the people, but because he gave them bows and arrows with which in their play they injured one another, Frog, directed by the creator's sister Moon, bewitched him. As he lay dying he directed them how to burn his body and perform the mourning rites. The Yuman origin of this mythology and the rites for which it purports to account seems evident. DESERT CAHUILLA NAMES OF MOONS Nevavat, January 1 Siqamor, July Kwakat, February Sumaft, August Mi'kanis, March Yaimamafs, September Machach, April MmufihikUfi, October Ahawun, May Pamoakit, November Pom6honakuit, June Nfimdt, December 1 The coincidence with the months of our calendar is of course only approximate. {view image of page 166} i66 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN The Dieguenos LANGUAGE - Yuman. POPULATION -The Census of I9IO reported 756 Dieguefos. The Office of Indian Affairs reported 1257 in 1870, and the same number reappears in the report for I88i. Kroeber estimates 3,000 in I770. DRESS -The rabbit-fur robe for protection from cold, agave-fibre sandals for occasional use, and small, double aprons of fibre or of bark for women, were the only garments. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, men were commonly wearing loin-cloths and women woolen dresses, which they had been taught to weave by the Spanish priests. The hair of both sexes hung loose, and gypsum and iron oxide were used in decorating face and body. Many women had the chest and the chin tattooed, the latter with three perpendicular lines. DWELLINGS - The Diegueno dwelling was a small, conical hut of poles thatched with brush, bark, grass, and earth. The floor-space was slightly excavated, and there was a vent at the apex. The sudatory was like that of the Luisenos, a somewhat elongate, earth-covered structure with roof sloping to the ground, with an excavated floor, and with a baffle at the low entrance to deflect the heat inward. PRIMITIVE FOODS- The diet of the Dieguefos was identical with that of the Luisenos. Acorns, sage-seeds, and rabbits were the staples. ARTS AND INDUSTRIES- Dieguefio women made both basketry and pottery. Basketry was both twined and coiled, but principally of the latter process. Both baskets and pots were identical in appearance, in construction, and in purpose with Luiseno products, the single exception being that the Dieguefios made a double-mouth water-jar and a ladle, which have not been noted as Luisefio forms of pottery. Carrying-nets, net-bags for acorns, and net-shirts for dancers were of milkweed or of Indian hemp. Willow bows were sometimes strengthened with sinew; arrows were of cane with greasewood foreshaft, sometimes with an obsidian point set in the end of the cane shaft. Arrow-straighteners, mortars and pestles, metates and mullers, and some tobacco-pipes were of stone. Musical instruments were the bullroarer, the four-hole elder flute, the cane whistle, the gourd or tortoise-shell rattle. WAR - Warfare among the Dieguefios, with the exception of recorded outbreaks against the early missionaries, was limited to quarrels over territorial rights. GAMES -The hand-game, played by four men against an equal number of opponents, was, and still is, conducted in the same manner as among the Luisefios and the Cahuilla. Women played at dice, employing four flat sticks marked in pairs. The hoop-and-pole game was played. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION - Like the Luisefios, the Dieguefios have localized, exogamous, patrilineal clans, with hereditary clan chiefs who are simply religious leaders. The various rancherias were not politically united, and in fact had little intercourse except in the performance of ceremonies. MARRIAGE-There was no formal marriage rite. Either the match was arranged by negotiation, in which case the bride was led away without ado, or a female was encountered abroad and persuaded to accept her suitor's advances. PUBERTY RITES- Several young girls, one of whom was necessarily experiencing her first menses, were kept almost continuously for about a week in a heated pit, lying between layers of fragrant herbs. At night there was constant dancing and singing of songs alluding to the various acts of the rite. There was the usual taboo of meat, salt, cold water, and scratching with the fingers. Most boys were initiated into the toloache cult and thereby became members of a pseudofraternity, in the same manner as that practised by the Luisefios, from whom the Dieguefios learned these rites. MORTUARY CUSTOMS - The dead were cremated, and the ashes were placed in a jar, which was concealed among rocks. The house was burned, but the clothing was retained for use in the memorial rites. Members of the family cut the hair, which they preserved for use in making effigies of the dead. Annually there was a final mourning ceremony in memory of all who had died since the last previous occasion, and the principal and culminating feature was the burning of the clothing and effigies of the lamented dead. When one of these was a former toloache initiate, as usually was the case, certain features of the alien toloache cult were inserted into the original Yuman practice. These were the whirling dance, Tapakwirp, and the so-called war-dance, Harhloi. In the former, a single dancer performed by rapidly whirling {view image of page 167} TRIBAL SUMMARY I67 as he encircled the fire, in such a way as to make the dangling feathers of his net-shirt stand out. In the latter the performers wore head-bands of upright feathers, danced in line, and occasionally raised their fists in gestures apparently threatening. Hostile intent is denied by the natives, and the feather head-dresses and the misunderstood gestures probably account for the popular name of this dance. MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION - As indicated in the preceding paragraph, native Diegueio religion is summed up in the funerary and mourning rites (to which may be added the pseudoreligious puberty rite for girls). The toloache cult, with its initiation of boys by the administering of a stupefying drink and its whirling dance and war-dance, is a system of comparatively recent acquisition from Shoshonean sources. The creation myth purports to account for the institution of the funerary and mourning rites. Two brothers, Tochaipa and Yokomat (also known as Chakopa and Chakomft), were born of the union of Earth, the mother, and Water (who later became Sky), the father. These two were the creators. The elder brother sickened and died, and the burning of his body established the custom of cremation and the attendant ceremonies. NAMES FOR INDIAN TRIBES Cahuilla, Desert Inkipa 1 Diegueios Kuwaik-ipal (South People) Luisefios Hukwich 2 The Mono LANGUAGE - Shoshonean. POPULATION -The Census of I9IO reported I448 Mono. Kroeber estimates 4,000 in I770. DWELLINGS -The Mono house was approximately hemispherical, twelve to fourteen feet in diameter, with an excavated floor, and without supporting posts. Willow poles slightly bent to meet at the top formed the framework, and the thatch was grass or rushes. The doorway faced eastward (probably because the prevailing winds were from the westerly mountains), and a firepit was in the centre of the floor. In each community was a house of this same type, but somewhat larger than the family dwellings, where men passed their time at various tasks while smoking and talking. All bachelors and male visitors slept in the community house. Summer shelters were pent-houses or mere windbreaks of brush. The grass-thatched, earth-covered sudatory had two supporting posts and a connecting beam, with rafters extending from the ridge to the ground. The form was nearly conical, but somewhat elongate. The floor was about three feet below the level of the ground, the low doorway faced eastward, and a small opening in the roof provided ventilation. The fire was kindled just inside the entrance. DRESS - Men wore deerskin loin-cloths, women short aprons of skin, one before and another behind. Rabbit-fur robes were wrapped about the body in cold weather, and moccasins with separate soles were used for rough travelling. Snowshoes were employed when necessary. Women massed the hair on the top of the head and confined it beneath a basketry cap, and many had perpendicular lines tattooed on the chin. Men doubled the hair up at the back of the head, and confined it with a band. Women painted white stripes on the face and wore shell disc ornaments suspended from the ears. Men used red paint (iron oxide), and inserted feathered wooden plugs in the lobes of the ears. PRIMITIVE FOODS - Pine-nuts and various seeds, eaten as mush, were the staple foods. Acorns were a luxury purchased from the Miwok. Rabbits, hares, and other rodents were the most dependable food-animals, but deer and antelope were plentiful. Waterfowl were important to the Mono, and the larval form of a water-born insect was collected in large quantities at the edge of Mono lake. ARTS AND INDUSTRIES - Basketry, both twined and coiled, was the principal product of Mono women. A limited quantity of pottery was made by the southern bands, but not by the inhabitants of the region about Mono lake. Milkweed twine was used in making long nets for rabbit-drives. Mats and balsas were made of tules. Deer-horn wedges were used in splitting wood, stone knives and abraders in fashioning wooden implements, such as bows, arrows, 1 Probably for Inyak-ipai, "East People." 2 This term designates also the Mountain Cahuilla. In a slightly different form it is the Mohave name for the Cahuilla. Garces in I776 recorded the Mohave term Jequiches. {view image of page 168} I68 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN flutes, fire-drills. Bows were of cedar, recurved, and sometimes backed with sinew. Arrows had cane shafts and greasewood points, more rarely obsidian points. GAMES -The hoop-and-pole game, pasitu, was the favorite amusement of Mono men. A point was scored by him on whose javelin the hoop came to rest, and three consecutive points won the wager. The hand-game was played in the usual manner with bone markers, and women gambled with ten stick-dice. Football was played with a ball of deer-hair enclosed in deerskin. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION -There were numerous local bands without connection other than a common, though somewhat varying, language and the ties of intermarriage. The chief is said to have been selected at a public meeting, but the formality implied by this statement was probably a modern innovation. It is more likely that public opinion gradually concentrated on one man as the logical successor of a deceased incumbent. The chief frequently exhorted the villagers to live in amity. He gave the word when a dance or a hunt was to be inaugurated. There are no clans. Female children received ancestral names from the family of the father's mother, male children from the family of the father's father. This is evidence of patrilineal descent, although a bridegroom invariably took up his residence with his wife's people. The explanation of the latter custom is that daughters were an asset, to be purchased with valuable service rendered. MARRIAGE -Negotiations between two families having resulted in agreement, and numerous exchanges of presents having been made, a paternal uncle or other male relative of the man led him to the home of his bride and remained there over night to see that they slept together. The husband continued to live at his wife's house, and it was his duty to hunt industriously. Blood-relationship in any degree prevented marriage. Polygyny was not unknown. If the wives were not sisters, they were kept in camps well separated. A widow was expected to marry her deceased husband's brother if he desired her. A man was required to speak seriously and respectfully to his mother-in-law. PUBERTY RITES - Each evening for six days the menstruating girl was enveloped in a blanket above a basket of steaming water. During the day she endured no restraint, except that meat and fish, but not salt, were prohibited. She wore no badge to indicate her condition. Dancing and ceremonial singing for adolescent girls had no part in Mono practice. Menstruating women were not segregated, but they avoided meat and fish. There were no rites nor ordeals for adolescent boys. WARFARE - There was a traditional period of hostility with the Yokuts, who, having carried away some women and children of the western Mono, were attacked by a combined force of the westerners and the Owens Valley Mono. In general the Mono may be said to have been at peace with all their neighbors, although they committed frequent depredations on immigrants from I850 to I862, when troops were sent into their country. SHAMANS - Dreams were the source, or rather the medium, of a shaman's power. In the dreams some animal or imaginary creature gave him songs and instructed him what to do. The method of treatment consisted in singing, and sucking out the sickness. The killing of a medicine-man suspected of having made malevolent use of his power did not result in a feud. MORTUARY CUSTOMS -The dead were usually buried, but cremation was not unknown. Wrapped in a blanket, the body was laid recumbent in a shallow grave with the head southward, and a few personal articles, but not food, were placed with it. The remaining personal property was divided among the relatives, or was kept for two or three years and then burned at a public ceremony much like the mourning rites of the central California tribes. Names of the dead were not uttered. MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION - Definitely religious acts were limited to the offering of a bit of food, before eating, to a being called Tsidaga, or Taramugaa, and to the singing of songs in supplication for abundant food while dancing in a circle. Mono mythology represents Wolf and Coyote as creating land while floating in a boat on an expanse of water. MONO PLACE-NAMES -The following are districts formerly inhabited by Mono, each centering about the locality indicated: Paqazinadf, on the east side of Owens lake around the site of Keeler. Paheiduhwattu, Lone Pine. Saghapuwtuf, George creek near Manzanar. WakAduhwattf, Independence. {view image of page 169} TRIBAL SUMMARY I69 Tsakishaduhwattu, Fort Independence. Pawahipfu, between Independence and Big Pine. Panidfi, Fish Springs south of Big Pine. Tobowahfifii, Big Pine. Pawahivipavai, Bishop. Qinamba, Round valley. Saivagwi, Long valley. Evikor6o, Casa Diablo springs between Long valley and Mammoth lake. Pagwi-huu, "Fish River," north of Casa Diablo springs. Qijabaya, the district about Mono lake. Ctufdu, Benton. Pavuheghatiiu, McBride, north of Benton. Tubusiinadu, south of Benton. Tsonaragwiti, north of Laws. Sohorohwatu, Fish Lake valley in the extreme southeastern corner of Mono county. The following are in the territory of the western Mono: Pafto6dzi, North Fork in Madera county. Hurughidu, Burrough in Fresno county. The following are Paviotso districts: Pahdmu, Sodaville, Nevada. Pagwiviya (pagwi, fish), at Hawthorne, Nevada. Agafyiwtfi (agayi, trout), at Schurz, Nevada. The Paviotso LANGUAGE - Shoshonean. POPULATION - The Census of 1910 reported 3038 Paviotso, including 34I at Warm Springs and Klamath reservations in Oregon, 152 in Idaho, 101 in California, 30 scattered, and an unstated population of Duck Valley reservation in northern Nevada and southern Idaho (Western Shoshoni). DWELLINGS - Willow poles with the tops bent over and meeting were lashed together with horizontal battens to form the frame of a Paviotso house. It was covered with bark, pineneedles, and earth, or with rushes when these were available. The summer house was a simple shade, and the dance-house a brush enclosure roofed with green boughs. At Walker lake sudatories were unknown. At Carson lake and at Pyramid lake the Plains type of sweat-house was in use. The Walker Lake Paviotso are geographically midway between the Mono and these more northerly Paviotso, and to their habitat neither the Plains nor the Southern California culture extended its influence sufficiently to introduce the sudatory. DRESS - In general the Paviotso were as nearly destitute of clothing as the people heretofore described. Men had loin-cloths, women small, double aprons. The more prosperous, on the other hand, dressed in the manner of the Plains: fringed shirts and hip-length leggings for men, dresses reaching to the knees or nearly to the ankles for women. Most men used moccasins, and everyone possessed a rabbit-fur robe. Men wore the hair in two braids, the ends of which were wrapped with strips of fur, and women left theirs hanging loose, except that when working they confined it under basketry caps. PRIMITIVE FOODS - Pine-nuts are still considered indispensable. Other vegetal products were the seeds of numerous grasses, tarweed, tumbleweed, sunflower, and sage (all of which were made into mush), roasted cattail-roots and fresh tule-roots, and various small fruits, including the well-known buffalo-berry of the Plains. Although the Paviotso were fairly good hunters of deer and antelope, and occasionally of elk, they depended principally on rabbits and hares. Waterfowl were taken in great abundance while the young were still unfledged, and the lakes were well stocked with fish. ARTS AND INDUSTRIES - All Paviotso baskets are twined, and the principal forms of basketry are burden-baskets, water-jars coated with gum, winnowing-trays, vessels for cooking, and cradle-baskets. Tule mats and rabbit-fur robes were made with cord twining, and nets were used in the rabbit-drive and for fishing. Pottery was unknown, but a soft stone is said to have been the material of some of the vessels for cooking, as it was for tobacco-pipes. Seeds VOL. xv -22 {view image of page 170} 17o THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN and nuts were ground on the metate. Arrows had rose shafts and obsidian points; bows were of juniper strengthened with sinew, or occasionally of mountain-sheep horn. GAMES -The hand-game was the favorite form of gambling. Football was played by men, and women had a rude form of lacrosse, the missile being a short length of rope. Men gambled with dice, which were eight half-sections of cane. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION - Each band had its chief, who directed the people in their seasonal movements and inaugurated communal hunts. In other respects his authority was slight. He was succeeded perhaps by a son, perhaps by a subchief, according to the desire of the people. There were neither clans nor secret societies. Boys received ancestral names from the father's male relatives, girls were named for the father's female relatives. NAMES FOR PAVIOTSO BANDS 1 Kuyui-tikiar, "Black-sucker Eaters," at Pyramid lake. Wari-tikaru, "Tarweed-seed Eaters," at Honey lake, California. Tae-tikaru, "Cattail Eaters," at Carson lake. Aghai-tikaru, "Trout Eaters," at Walker lake. MARRIAGE- A bride was purchased with beads or deerskins. His family's "gift" having been accepted by a girl's parents, a youth went to her house at night and lay near the door, gradually moving closer each night until on the fourth they lay together. He made his home permanently with her people, and was expected to be diligent in supplying food and skins. Girls were ready for marriage immediately after the first menses. Sometimes they were pledged, and regarded as really married, before that age, although they did not cohabit. A widow belonged to her deceased husband's family for a year; but if during that time she was not claimed as a wife by one of his male relatives, she was free to marry outside the family. A widower, if he had proved a good provider, usually received one of his deceased wife's sisters or cousins. The mother-in-law taboo was observed. MORTUARY CUSTOMS- Slain warriors were cremated, others were buried with knees drawn up to the chin in shallow graves, which usually were mere niches among the rocks. The house was then removed to a new site, and the property was divided among the deceased man's relatives. Both sexes cut the hair to indicate grief for the dead, and the name was taboo for a few years. SHAMANS - Medicine-men, by power acquired from some spirit-being in dreams, treated the sick by singing, and by sucking out some small object which they declared was the sickness. They did not go into the mountains seeking dreams. PUBERTY RITES-Morning and evening during the period of her first menstruation a girl was led apart from the camp by two old women, and she piled up here and there six or seven heaps of brush. This was to make her industrious, and also it informed the people that she was ready for marriage. During the day she was not permitted to be indolent. At the end of the period the women bathed her at a stream or a spring, while praying to the sun to make her a healthy, prolific woman. Paviotso boys were not subjected to the vigil. MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION -The Paviotso have no creation myth. Their origin myth relates that all the pre-human race except a baby and a menstruating woman were killed by a monster. The woman fled, and after various adventures came upon a hunter for whom she bore two male and two female children. They sat on opposite sides of their father and fought, and he at last sent one pair to Carson lake, another to Humboldt lake. The former increased and became the Paviotso, the latter became the Achomawi. The father and the mother then proceeded to travel over the earth, naming the places, until at the rim of the ocean they passed under the edge of the clouds and went up into the sky. The Paviotso sometimes addressed supplications to the sun and the moon. The only ceremony, if such it can be called, was a dance preceding the annual pine-nut harvest, the purpose of which was to keep on good terms with whatever power controlled vegetation, but which actually was an occasion of merriment and of clandestine meetings. NAMES FOR INDIAN TRIBES - English Walker Lake Pyramid Lake Achomawi Saii, Saiduka Saii, Saiduka Bannock Panaki Paniki I Recorded at Walker lake. {view image of page 171} TRIBAL SUMMARY I7' Maidu Takuni Miwok Wawia Mono, Benton Pitinagwatf 2 Mono, Lake Kuzavi-tikair 3 Shoshoni Tov6ne 4 Tov6n6 Washo Wasiu Mina'fs 5 The Washo LANGUAGE- Washoan. Dixon, Kroeber, Harrington, and Sapir are inclined to classify Washo as Hokan. POPULATION - In I859 the Washo were estimated at about 900. The census of 191I enumerated 800, about 600 of whom were of unmixed blood. DWELLINGS - Washo houses were rude wickiups of willow poles meeting at an apex, and thatching of grass, tules, or cedar-bark slabs. The shape may be described as between a hemisphere and a cone. The doorway was always eastward, in the lee of prevailing winds. Windbreaks sufficed in the summer. The sudatory had three posts set in line in a shallow, circular excavation. These supported a two-piece ridge-beam, against which were leaned the tops of willow poles. The covering was slabs of bark. Fire was built inside. DRESS - Both sexes wore a short kilt of deerskin, and on occasion moccasins and kneelength leggings. Women had deerskin shirts, and everyone possessed a rabbit-fur robe. The general use of moccasins, leggings, and dresses for women was probably of comparatively recent date. Tattooing is a modern practice. The hair generally hung loose, and clam-shell beads obtained from the west were favorite ornaments. PRIMITIVE FOODS - Pine-nuts and sunflower-seed were the important vegetal foods. Acorns in moderate quantities were harvested on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and were purchased from the Miwok and the Maidu. Deer were killed by driving them past concealed hunters, or with the aid of disguises. Antelope were plentiful in the valleys, but like all their neighbors, the Washo were dependent mainly on rabbits for both flesh and fur. Fish were plentiful in Lake Tahoe and in Truckee and Carson rivers, and were an important food. ARTS AND INDUSTRIES - Both coiled and twined baskets are made, and the former are of especially excellent quality. Besides mortar-pits in large bowlders, metates, or mealing stones, were used. Fish-nets of the bow-and-arrow type were made of milkweed or of Indian hemp, fish-hooks were straight needles of bone lashed at the proper angle to wooden shanks, single- or double-pointed gigs were attached to spear-shafts, and weirs were sometimes constructed across streams so that fish were forced into traps. Arrows had rose shafts, self-pointed or equipped with stone points poisoned with powdered deer's liver which had been bitten by a rattlesnake. The wooden-pointed arrows of course were used only for game. Shafts were smoothed with a pumice abrader and straightened by bending between the teeth. Bone awls, wooden fire-drills, snowshoes, clap-stick batons, were among the miscellaneous articles made by the Washo. Wedges of horn, drums, flutes, and boats were unknown. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION - In each community was a head-man, whose function was to convene the people on public occasions and generally to take a paternal interest in their affairs. Of more actual importance was the hunt-chief. Without his consent and direction no rabbit-drive could be held; and just before the pine-nut harvest he sent out runners with knotted strings, summoning the scattered bands to a rendezvous in the hills, where several days were passed in feasting, gambling, and dancing. There are no clans. Children invariably receive names from their first ludicrous attempt to utter a word. PUBERTY RITES - During four days the menstruating girl fasted absolutely and drank no cold water. She was constantly led about by an attendant, performing light tasks, such as gathering fuel, and on the fourth afternoon, accompanied by girl companions, she climbed a hill and built fires at frequent intervals. That night was spent in dancing, in the course of 1 Cf. Miwok waehwdhna, sequoia. 2 Pitadu, south; nagwatui, said to mean district, region. 3 Kuzavi, the larvae of an insect; tikaru, eaters. 4 Probably tava, sun, with locative suffix, "sun-at," that is, "easterners." 5 The Pyramid Lake Paviotso now generally use Wisiu. {view image of page 172} 172 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN which the girl took her place within the circle and held a basket above her head, a prize for the first man who touched it. Just before sunrise her mother poured a vessel of water on her head and then gave her a symbolic bath with warm water. Her father then hurried out with a redbanded elder stick and hid it, and returning made a speech expressing the wish that his daughter might have health, long life, and many children. The significance of this use of an elder stick is not understood. All this was repeated at the second menstruation, and during the following month the girl ate neither meat nor fresh fish. MARRIAGE - After several exchanges of gifts between the interested families, a man and his chosen bride lived together without further formality in the girl's house. Usually after a few weeks they joined the husband's household. Polygyny was not rare, and the levirate prevailed. MORTUARY CUSTOMS - A corpse was laid out in the dwelling, the personal effects were heaped about it, and the whole was consumed by fire. There was an annual mourning ceremony. at which property, and possibly effigies, were burned. MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION - The Washo addressed supplication to Ti-kai (" my father") for food, health, and other benefits. Besides the puberty and the mourning rites, the only ceremonies were round dances accompanied by songs beseeching abundant pine-nuts, or acorns, or jack-rabbits, as the case might be. Washo mythology, so far as it is known, accepts the fact of the existence of the world, and turns at once to the creation of the human race. The earth was already inhabited by people, of whom Wolf was chief. Deciding that his race should become the animals they now are, he placed a quantity of cattail-down, seeds, and grass in a basket. He watched it, and soon detected a humming sound. He emptied the basket, and before him were the progenitors of the Washo, Miwok, Maidu, and Paviotso. Coyote was present and began an argument to the effect that these people were not properly formed, but he was worsted. Then follows the usual cycle of tales describing the adventures of the mischievous Coyote. SHAMANS -The knowledge of herb doctors, as well as the power of shamans, came through dreams. The herb doctor, dreaming of a certain plant in a certain place, proceeded to obtain it and use it as the dream directed. He was therefore in reality a shaman, not a healer by natural means. Those who used no herbs treated sickness by sucking and by incantation. Shamans were sometimes killed by relatives of those supposed to have died by sorcery. NAMES FOR INDIAN TRIBES - Maidu Tanniu Washo, Alpine county Hanalelti (Southerners) Miwok TEubimmais Washo, Carson valley Piwalu (Pau, Carson valley) Mono-Paviotso Paliu Washo, Truckee valley WelmElti (Northerners) Washo Washiu {view image of page 173} Vocabularies Southern Shoshonean '1 ANATOMICAL TERMS 2 English ankle-joint arm blood bone chest chin ear elbow eye, his face, his finger finger-nail fingers foot hair hand head heart knee leg mouth neck nose shoulder teeth toe-nail toes Cupeiio ka-pu-ki-pus mal; pi'=ma (his arm) ti-il tiui-wal nik-al mq-ki-wal p6=pus si-la-sal-as sul-61i sas-la-as hii-chil; pu~hd-chi Luiseho ka-m6-i-kat~pu-'e (joint its-foot) pu~mi paiuiw (his blood) pu~k165 (his wood) pii=c-yi po~nik po-s6-ka-ta-mai pu~piis pu=ptis=pi-sani-a-wis (his eye outside) pii=sla pu=mi~wa-chai-kat pu=e pu=yu pu=mi pu=yii po~s6n po~kih-mai pa=Li-si po=tma po=hi-ra pu=mii-vi po~sai-ka pii=sla pu=e~wa-chai-kat Cahuilla he'=ki-wa mal; he'=ma w-i ' I; h'=w (his blood) t&e-i; t'eil chi-a-ii e&yu-wci-ka naik-a p6v-yi~m h-e=pus~pal (his face spring) h'epus; p6=chil sil-u h6=ma~sil-a h e" = ' h'e=ma; mal yii-lu-Jkal he'=sun tam-i tih-al-ha; h~=m~h tam'-a kil-i he=mu sek-a tim=ki'-wis h-e"i-sil-u h'e'=i~lyi-pa (his foot squeeze d-together) h&e~nan (his foot) yul mal yul sdn-il tim-il ti-il tit-mil pi-val (throat) mul sfi-kal tii-miI=ka-w'is (mouth stone) Sul hd-chilkis-la-as (foot fingers) tongue, his pu=nal pu=w'e-yl 1 The Cupefio vocabulary was obtained at Pala, the Luisefio at Pala, the Cahuilla at Coachella. 2 The suffix 1 is objective. The third person pronominal prefix is p and connecting vowel in Cupefio and Luisefio, h and connecting vowel in Cahuilla. V is always bilabial. 3 Respectively, calf and thigh. '73 {view image of page 174} '74 THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN ANIMALS'I English antelope* badger * bat bear* condorcoyote crow deer* dog * eagle fox hawk, red-tail horse* lizard* mountain-lion* mountain-sheep* owl owl, groundquail * rabbit, cottontail* rabbit, jack-* rattlesnake rattlesnake, sidewinder raven road runner skunk squlirrel* squirrel, ground-* tortoise* vulture wildcat* wolf wood rat* Cupeho tin-lam h6-nal d-chai-nat (wild); p'i-wil ykipi —vi=w~it (vulture big) I-si' jl=Wiit 2 sd-kat a-wil ka-wi-sis qi-al pi'su-kat (water deer) 3 su-va-chan-al tim-a-vis pa-at mut ku-kdl ka-il' ti-si-obat su-is ta-mi-tat=s6'-w~it (ground rattlesnake) ka-wi=al-wit (rock crow 6 pu-wis t 6.-kwql k~n-T~h ai-yiI tdk-ut is=wiit (coyote big) kii-wu'l Luiseno t6n-la hd-nal h6n~wflt (badger big) a-no' iil=wuit sd-kat chd-chu as=wut ke-we~wi~h kwif-la pi=su-k~at tdk=w~it (wildcat big) pa-at md-ta ku-kdl ka-hMi to-si-hu't Su-is sfl=wiit ka-wil=al-wiit pd-i-pu-i pi-lu-ku~t su-kai=wuit ke~n-!~h tdk- ut is=wuit kO-L Ia Cahuilla t&-nil h6-nal pii-lII h6n~wflt i-sil il=wat sd-kat is=w~it ki-wi-sis; wil-yal qii-al pii=su-kat chih-wal 4' tdk=wcit pa-at mut k6-kul ki-h al tai-vot so-is te-man-a=se-wutt ~I-wa~mal pd-is t'ekwu'l si-a=wiit kiin-i~h a-yil ydnu-a-vis tdk-ut is=wiit kii-wiM CARDINAL POINTS 7 east nadir tam=i- ka ta-mi m=ka eh-la, (earth) tu-mim=ik tam=i-k a(sun toward) te-ma'i-ka (earth -1 toward) te-ma- mu=ka north IThe names of animals used as food are indicated by stars. 2 Cf. Chukchansi Yokuts 61wu~ch, raven; Northeastern Maidu aiut, crow. 3 So called, according to a Cahuilla informant, because it was introduced by the whites, who came from the coast. 4 This apparently is a Yuman word. Cf. Walapai chtkawaila. The species is known to desert prospectors as chuckawalla. An onomatope. 6That is, "mountain crow." 7 The ceremonial sequence observed in smoking by the Cupeiio and the Luisefios was norh, ast sothwest, zenih nadir; by the Cahuilla, west, north, south, east, zenith, nadir. {view image of page 175} VOCABULARIES '75 English south West zenith Cupeio Luisenio kil-cham= ka ki-chim~ik ka-wi~ka 1 a-y6m=ik 2 to-ku-chidc-a tdi-pa=ik COLORS hwa-va'-hwa-vi-is ma-lcim-lis hwi-ya-hwA-nit hwai-ya-hii-nki Cahuilla kil-cham= ka kii-wi~ka' tu-ku-vas=i-mi-ka (sky toward) t6l~n6-kis t6k-vis=n6-kis se.l=n6-kis t'e-viS~ne-kis t&e=n6-kis; black blue, green red white yellow PRIMITIVE FOODS 3 acorns agave cactus hi-hat a-mdl ni-vcit; mi-nal h-hat a-miil ni-viit; mi-nal m6-tul~ pu=pds.(cholla its eye) 6-la cactus (cholla) seeds mesquite-beans palm fruit palm pith sage-seeds (chia) yucca 6 wi-yiil mu-iii-kis i-mul wi-yal me-iii-kis mi-ul=t6,-i pi-sal pi-nal pi-sal pa-nM pa-sal pa-nil HANDICRAFT arrow arrow-point arrow-straightener awl basket (generic) basket, burdenbasket cap basket, foodbasket, granary basket, trinketbasket, winnowingblanket, rabbit-fur bow bowstring cradle-board fire-drill flute house metate ho-yal; hul'7 yaf-wa-la-aih i-vis pu-k~wi=mal yui-ma-at si-hwa-lal mid-ku-ku~n=val ti-vi=mal ta-wi-is 5i6-ta-pis il-ha-vill pa-hil 8 kut=md-il (firewi-ru-la-as kigh ma-lil hul y6- la~h e-ves pi-lku=mal pi'-k~wat chil-kwat si-hwa-lal chi-qat tdk=mal ta-wi-is ki6-ta-pis ki-wi-na wi-ru-lagh ki-cha ma-liu h6-yal; hUl 7 si-vat y6-ha-pis ne-at l~i-put=il yii-mu,=v~l chi-pat=mal hal-y6-la-l1im cho-ki-nii-pis si-at kut=m6-pis wi-ru-pis kis mi-lal 1 Mountain-ward." Said to mean " down-stream-ward." 3 See also under the head of Animals. 4 Acorns do not occur in the Desert Cahuilla habitat. -' Respectively, Echinocactus, and a large and a small species of Opuntia. T05i, fruit. 6 Yucca Whipplei, Spanish bayonet. 7 Respectively, wooden-pointed and stone-pointed. 8 Cf. Cahuilla p. h~al, cane. {view image of page 176} 176 English metate muller mortar net, burdenparching-dish pestle pipe pottery (generic) rattle 3 storage-jar sweat-house throwing-stick water-jar THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN Cupeio pd=ma (his hand)' il-ya-pal i-kat ta-pi-wis i-chit a-yil kfi-yid-sil his-1l-la-as wi-kat ki-va~mal 4 Luiseno pu=ma t6-pal; 26-la-pal i-kat i-wa-was t6-pal=pu~mii (mortar hd-k u-pis its arm) pi-i-la t6'-so-is hiis-la~?h wii-kat p6s-lis Cahuilla ti-kis pi-al i-kat wai-il Pi-il ydii-il ki-qa~mal pi-i-yal t~a-mo- pis-wa-nult hd-ya-chat wi-kat ki-va=mal 4 NATURAL PHENOMENA ashes charcoal cloud darkness dawn day daytime earth fire fog0 ice lake wiis-k6s tul h6m-ya-his pi-ka-vi-ka-i-ka hi-va-cha-ka ti-mit ti-kwi -ka ta-mil kult mes-mal (water standing) po-wi-k'a 5 t6-lin-is tdl-la to-vis yu-y6-va-kl~a te-m'et te-me-na kut mes-mal t6-ylt pil=a-q6-ya-lkat po-wik=to-ma-wuit ti-q~h 6 sii'-la=kii-mi-ma-wis (star trail-of-light) ma~-i-la ka-wis 7 td-ku-mit ma-mat nis-his tol yu-pis pai-vi-k~a ti-mit ti-mit- pik te'mal kut pi-his t~-po-qiuis P6-piv-an-ka; p6-ti-kal-kal ti-kus namn-nam me-nil ki-wis=wi-vu-vut (rock long) pil~n6-lkat (water light lightning lightning, ballmeteor moon mountain night ocean o-wi-mal mu-nil ka-wis; pa-6-ta tdk-mi-iit mfi-miit; pil=pi-chi-viit (water bitter) rain a-wfi-wii-ni hi-lak w&wii-n rainbow pfi-stl-na-ha a-s6-nah pi-yah-tp river wa-nis wa-nis wa-nis rock ka-wis t6-ta ki-wis sky to-ku-ch'i-at tu-pa~h tiik-vas smoke mi-at ku-mit mi-at snow a-yuiy-a yyit yi-a star sii-ul sd'-la sii'-wit sun tim-yiit t&mat ti-mit 1 Cf. Mexican Spanish mano, hand. 2 TO'pal are the mortar-pits worn in the surface of a bowlder. 3 A tortoise-shell or a gourd. Ka(cva is probably "water (in a container)." Cf. Hopi kdi. 5 Cf. Hopi poweika, sorcerer. 6 See the myth accounting for the origin of this phenomenon, pages 1c01-I03. 7 Cf. Cupefio, ~awiis, rock. created) lis {view image of page 177} VOCABULARIES English thunder thunder-storm tree water wind Cupeho nu-na-na-his t6-sln-pa-at ka-hi-wat pal sa-v'IM Luiseiio t6-ma=wuit I po-ro-vo-ris pi-la hdn-la '77 Cahuilla nten~-n~s; m'em-la-ka ta-u-val k&e-la=wiit (wood big) pal ai-i NUMERALS 2 one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven Isi-pla-wiit wi, pa wi~chu n~Ama~q~i-nan~-ah (my hand one-side) ntAma=qi-nan~-ah=slipla-w&t=nii=ma=yihwa-niit (my hand one-side one my hand other-side) nti~ma=q~i-nani-ah~wi'= n6=ma=y~i-hiwa-n&i nti=ma=q~i-nari-ah=pa= nii=ma=qi-nani-ah=wichu=nu'-ma~ya-hwa-n&i nq~ma=t6l-w9-nUi (my hand finished) aq~sii-pla-wiit (my hand finished and one pa-aq~wi' (and two) w~ls=nii=ma=t6l-wii-niit wi=chu-is~nu~ma~t6l-wciniit n6=ma=qa'-nan~-ah~nii= ma=t61-w~nint sd-pla-w~it=su'ta-wi1-nrit su-p'Il pi-hai wu=sa, ma=hMr (hand) su-pdl~nu~ma=na'hant (one my hand other-side) w6'=nu=ma~na'-hant pi-hai=nu~ma~nahant wu~sa =nu~ma=nahant ma=hfir=nu=ma~nahant wewiin=nu=mata'pa-hant=su-ptil (twice my hand finished one) we-wun=nu=ma=tapa-hant=w6' sti-pli wi, pa wi~chu qan~wi' qan~pa qan~wf~chu nti~ma~ch6-mi p&-ta=wil' wis=n~i=ma=ch6-mi p~is=nii~ma=ch6-mi wj=chu-is=ntiima= ch6-mi nt=ma~qi-nan-is= nq~ma~ch6-mi twelve twenty thirty forty fifty hundred PERSONAL TERMS 3 aunt, maternal, elder ntI~niis (my aunt) 4 aunt, maternal, younger ni=yiiis-ma 5 aunt, paternal, his pul=pa baby pol-yi-nis boy ki~-mal brother, elder, his pii=p~is-ma no=n6s 4 ni=y6s-mai -5 po=p~i-mai ki-hcit (small) hin-&~mal po~pai-as h-e-pa l'i-yat e&qis=mal h'e=pas brother, younger, his pgkiin-yi-ma po~pet h e= yulI 1oTma, an onomatope; wat, postfix indicating greatness. 2 Cupefio numerals six to ten are unrivalled, in the writer's experience, for cumbersomeness. 3 See pages i62-i63. Cupefio: second personal singular, J n as; third person singular, pd n as. Luisefio: o~n6s, Po~no's. Cupefio: second person singular, a=yfis-rna; third person singular, pa~yfis-ma. Luisefio: o~yos-mal, po=yos-mai. voL. Xv - 23 {view image of page 178} I78 178 ~~THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN English brother's child, his chief, ceremonial chief, housechief, rabbit-hunt daughter father, his girl husband man medicine-man mother, his people people, Mexican people, white person sister, elder, his sister, younger sister's child., his, her son uncle, maternal, his uncle, paternal, his wife woman youth Cupeiio Luiseno ptl=6~h-ma; pu~lku-mii-mal po=mail-mai; pii=kmumai 1 nut; pu-ya=ai-ya-nis not; p6-yu~kv6t; (-big); tdi-chin~-ba-agh t6ih-n~o=i'at ki-kut ki-kat sun-a~mal pa=na nu-wis~mal pu-k~ain na-fii-'nis pol; pi'-Vol pu=yu a-tih-am si-vit-~m mam-nah-vis a-tih-a pa=~i s-ma pu=wa'-hal-yi pu~mu-ti-ma; pu~m~i-tisma na-u- ka-wul pfl=qis-ma pti=kum; pizMmuS 7 p6=mui-wi-ka-a 8 mui-wi-kUt pis-wez.lis ktimu-kat 3 pos-wa-mai po=na na-wil pu-lik~in ya-ah pd-la po~y6o a-tih-um so-sa-vit-am hwai-ya-hun-tLum (whites) a-tih-a po=lkes po=plt po=m6-la; po'i-li-mal5 po=ka-mai po=ta-as pii=kmu; pU=MiS 7 po=sn~i-ki 8 sun-al a-wol Cahuilla 1 h~=k6i-ma; h~=tahmai1 n~t kik sun-a~mal he —na na-wis=mal Wu l-is-Su ni-ha-nis pol; pi'-Vol hi~y~ tih-lqs-wft-qm chi-a-chflm mel-ki=chflm tih-lqs-wit h~&kis ni-wuil he'=mut; h6=n'nsi ma'il-yu-a hez=pas; yul 6 he'=pas;yu7 ni-chil panls-we-lis alder ash cedar cottonwood elder mesquite mesquite, screw oak., liveoak, white palm pine sycamore wi'llow ta-ku'vilt ni-chu-ku-vat tu,-vut a-va-hat k6-ut mu-nii-kis kwi-fiili wi-at tti-va- siil ma-wql wa-h6-tit si-vil pas-ka-vis TREES ta-ku'vut piv-las t ui- vu`~t a-va-hat k6-ta &-la kwi-iiil wi-a-sal t6-va-sal ma-hul ydy-la se-v~l sah-it li-val-va-a-nuit il kwi-iial ma-ul sih-at MISCELLANEOUS autumn breath ta-mi-va~hi-a-ka-la (winter beginning) huk-sil yu-ya=ch't-wi-v6 (snow ) pu~hilq-sa (his breath) 1 Respectively, of one's elder and one's younger brother. 2 Cf. Hopi kI'k~monzvi, houses chief. -3 See page 33. 4 Mlki, from Spanish for "American")); chrin, plural suffix. 5 Respectively, man's sister's child, woman's sister's child. 6 Respectively, elder than mother, younger than mother. The second term is objective. 7 Respectively, elder than father, younger than father. 8 Cf. woman. 9 Cf. house. {view image of page 179} VOCABULARIES '79 English dream large.shadow small spirit (ghost) spirit (soul) spring summer supernatural power tobacco winter Cupeiio Luiseiio pdi=ti'-tai-yu'-a (his dream) po~ti-lkap ai-ya-nis l~Yot a-lkuil-yi ki-hiit pi-mdU-1.is pu=sdn (his heart) PU=Su'n t~is-pa pii=tu'a-yii-wa (his power) po~t6-to-pu'm-la pi-vat pi-vat tfi-mi-va Cahuilla t6-ta-ai-wil he'=kis (his shadow) 6n-tu-kil he-s=sun tis-pa=his t6-pa=his te-ai-yo-wa pi-vat ti-mi-vi=his Yuman 2 ANATOMICAL TERMS English ankle-joint arm bone chest chin ear elbow-joint eye face finger-nail foot hair hand head Dieguenio he-m'il~ku-td't-ho-lo-waip (leg ) he-si'fili ha'k hi-chili ti-ki-sfi he-muflh he-si'h-l=ku-tiit-ho-lowaip (arm) hi-yviw hi-yiw he-mil (leg) h11hl-tfi he-si'fil (arm) ha-hwcdiil English heart knee leg lips lung mouth neck nose nostril teeth toe-nail toes tongue Dieguenio hi-chili (chest) mq-hui-tnn he-mil ha (mouth) chti-1hwilfr ha hi-pdk CI-lid u-hui=qll-h6p (nose hole) hi-y6w sy-li-hw6w he-mil (leg) ha=na-pifihl (mouth ANIMALS3 antelope * lmilfox par-1h6 badger* mii-lwi gopher* tik-lii bat mil-ya-pin; mily-w6w horse ka-vi-yo 5 bear *n6-miL mnountain-lion fii-ma-ta'i buzzard sa-i mountain-sheep * -mu condor ii-hpi=u-r6 (eagle - owl, horned U-6 4 coyote hil-ti-p~i quail * a-hm~i crane a-kai quail, mountain- * lia-mu-m~ifil 6 crow a-hiik 4 rabbit, cottontail* hilfil-y6 deer * ii-q ik rabbit, jack- * qin-y6 dog il-hiit raccoon *ni-mils eagle ti-lipi raven iili-tai 1Said to be a corruption of diablo. 2 This Northern Dieguefio vocabulary was recorded at Mesa Grande. 3 The names of animals used as food are indicated by stars. 4'An onomatope. 5 Spanish. 6 Apparently a reduplicative form of ahima, denoting increased size. {view image of page 180} i8o THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN English skunk snake, gophersnake, rattlespider squirrel, ground- * Diegueno ql-tu'n; ~A-fil-hwiw; qiL-se-kai 1 LI-wi=yak hill-chl-q6; hql-tit 2 Ilh-mfi l English tarantula weasel wildcat * wolf wood rat * Diegueio mqt-PIM-ku'n nI-mi hfich-kdhlk l-miuhlIk east north in-yak kia-tu'i CARDINAL POINTS 3 south west kid-wik ai-wik black blue, green red hd-pl-sixv a-hwi't COLORS white yellow ni-mi-sip a-qus PRIMITIVE FOODS 4 acorns acorn meal acorn soup agave cattail-roots cattail-sprouts chokecherries elderberries kop-he'hl; Is-R656 hfl-ttit sa-wi q-miih1 ~n-pih1 ~n-pih=ha-?6h1 ah-kai ko-pifi manzanita-berries mesqu te-beans pine-nuts roots (bulbous) sage salt tule-roots he-sifi a-nfiM gih-hwiw i-y~hil; mlh —ka-pu'p; ~m-a-hwi plhl-tai; ep-hihil 6 I-sil a-sa-k HANDICRAFT arrow arrow-point arrow-straightener baby-basket basket, burdenbasket cap basket, carryingbasket, foodbasket granary basket, leachingbasket, trinketbasket, winnowingbow bullroarer dance-apron, bark dance-skirt, feather flute house ladle, pottery a-pil a-pa-wi; ko-pal7 hap-chdhil hu-qih-i ha-sich 6n-pIh1l ~s-qil ha-lich hi-qin ~n-pdn ha-ta-mdl ha-ta-yil a-tim ha-i-re pa-hMl; hi-ydl fiip-hai hil-ldl u-wa ah-yiMil metate muller mortar net-bag net, burdennet-shirt, ceremonial pestle pipe pot, cookingpottery dish rabbit-stick rattle robe, rabbit-fur sandals war-club water-jar whistle, cane iih-pi=he-siMil (metate hand) iih-md; kal-md8 ka-tir; hiil-mi ha-llT-pd ah-rd |