The Native Races (Complete 5 Part Edition). Hubert Howe Bancroft

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СКАЧАТЬ seldom fail to take a cold bath in the morning, and frequently bathe at intervals during the day, yet they are never clean.461

      WAR AND WEAPONS.

The Northern Californians are not of a very warlike disposition, hence their weapons are few, being confined chiefly to the bow and arrow.462 The bow is about three feet in length, made of yew, cedar, or some other tough or elastic wood, and generally painted. The back is flat, from an inch and a half to two inches wide, and covered with elk-sinews, which greatly add both to its strength and elasticity; the string is also of sinew. The bow is held horizontally when discharged, instead of perpendicularly as in most countries. The arrows are from two to three feet long, and are made sometimes of reed, sometimes of light wood. The points, which are of flint, obsidian, bone, iron, or copper, are ground to a very fine point, fastened firmly into a short piece of wood, and fitted into a socket in the main shaft, so that on withdrawing the arrow the head will be left in the wound. The feathered part, which is from five to eight inches long, is also sometimes a separate piece bound on with sinews. The quiver is made of the skin of a fox, wild-cat, or some other small animal, in the same shape as when the animal wore it, except at the tail end, where room is left for the feathered ends of arrows to project. It is usually carried on the arm.463

Mr. Powers says: "doubtless many persons who have seen the flint arrow-heads made by the Indians, have wondered how they succeeded with their rude implements, in trimming them down to such sharp, thin points, without breaking them to pieces. The Veeards—and probably other tribes do likewise—employ for this purpose a pair of buck-horn pincers, tied together at the point with a thong. They first hammer out the arrow-head in the rough, and then with these pincers carefully nip off one tiny fragment after another, using that infinite patience which is characteristic of the Indian, spending days, perhaps weeks, on one piece. There are Indians who make arrows as a specialty, just as there are others who concoct herbs and roots for the healing of men."464 The Shastas especially excelled in making obsidian arrow-heads; Mr. Wilkes of the Exploring Expedition notices them as being "beautifully wrought," and Lyon, in a letter to the American Ethnological Society, communicated through Dr. E. H. Davis, describes the very remarkable ingenuity and skill which they display in this particular. The arrow-point maker, who is one of a regular guild, places the obsidian pebble upon an anvil of talcose slate and splits it with an agate chisel to the required size; then holding the piece with his finger and thumb against the anvil, he finishes it off with repeated slight blows, administered with marvelous adroitness and judgment. One of these artists made an arrow-point for Mr. Lyon out of a piece of a broken porter-bottle. Owing to his not being acquainted with the grain of the glass, he failed twice, but the third time produced a perfect specimen.465 The Wallies poison their arrows with rattlesnake-virus, but poisoned weapons seem to be the exception.466 The bow is skilfully used; war-clubs are not common.467

      WAR AND ITS MOTIVES.

Wars, though of frequent occurrence, were not particularly bloody. The casus belli was usually that which brought the Spartan King before the walls of Ilion, and Titus Tatius to incipient Rome—woman. It is true, the Northern Californians are less classic abductors than the spoilers of the Sabine women, but their wars ended in the same manner—the ravished fair cleaving to her warrior-lover. Religion also, that ever-fruitful source of war, is not without its conflicts in savagedom; thus more than once the Shastas and the Umpquas have taken up arms because of wicked sorceries, which caused the death of the people.468 So when one people obstructed the river with their weir, thereby preventing the ascent of salmon, there was nothing left for those above but to fight or starve.

Along Pitt River, pits from ten to fifteen feet deep were formerly dug, in which the natives caught man and beast. These man-traps, for such was their primary use, were small at the mouth, widening toward the bottom, so that exit was impossible, even were the victim to escape impalement upon sharpened elk and deer horns, which were favorably placed for his reception. The opening was craftily concealed by means of light sticks, over which earth was scattered, and the better to deceive the unwary traveler, footprints were frequently stamped with a moccasin in the loose soil. Certain landmarks and stones or branches, placed in a peculiar manner, warned the initiated, but otherwise there was no sign of impending danger.469

Some few nations maintain the predominancy and force the weaker to pay tribute.470 When two of these dominant nations war with each other, the conflict is more sanguinary. No scalps are taken, but in some cases the head, hands, or feet of the conquered slain are severed as trophies. The Cahrocs sometimes fight hand to hand with ragged stones, which they use with deadly effect. The Rogue River Indians kill all their male prisoners, but spare the women and children.471 The elk-horn knives and hatchets are the result of much labor and patience.472

The women are very ingenious in plaiting grass, or fine willow-roots, into mats, baskets, hats, and strips of parti-colored braid for binding up the hair. On these, angular patterns are worked by using different shades of material, or by means of dyes of vegetable extraction. The baskets are of various sizes, from the flat, basin-shaped, water-tight, rush bowl for boiling food, to the large pointed cone which the women carry on their backs when root-digging or berry-picking.473 They are also expert tanners, and, by a comparatively simple process, will render skins as soft and pliable as cloth. The hide is first soaked in water till the hair loosens, then stretched between trees or upright posts till half dry, when it is scraped thoroughly on both sides, well beaten with sticks, and the brains of some animal, heated at a fire, are rubbed on the inner side to soften it. Finally it is buried in moist ground for some weeks.

      MANUFACTURES AND BOATS.

The interior tribes manifest no great skill in boat-making, but along the coast and near the mouth of the Klamath and Rogue rivers, very good canoes are found. They are still, however, inferior to those used on the Columbia and its tributaries. The lashed-up-hammock-shaped bundle of rushes, which is so frequently met in the more southern parts of California, has been seen on the Klamath,474 but I have reason to think that it is only used as a matter of convenience, and not because no better boat is known. It is certain that dug-out canoes were in use on the same river, and within a few miles of the spot where tule buoys obtain. The fact is, this bundle of rushes is the best craft that could be invented for salmon-spearing. Seated astride, the weight of the fisherman sinks it below the surface; he can move it noiselessly with his feet so that there is no splashing of paddles in the sun to frighten the fish; it cannot capsize, and striking a rock does it no injury. Canoes are hollowed from the trunk of a single redwood, pine, fir, sycamore, or cottonwood tree. They are blunt at both ends and on Rogue River many of them are flat-bottomed. It is a curious fact that some of these canoes are made from first to last without being touched with a sharp-edged tool of any sort. The native finds the tree ready felled by the wind, burns it off to the required length, and hollows it out by fire. Pitch is spread on the parts to be burned away, and a piece of fresh bark prevents the flames from extending too far in the wrong direction. A small shelf, projecting inward from the stern, serves as a seat. Much trouble is sometimes taken with the finishing up of these canoes, in the way of scraping and polishing, but in shape they lack symmetry. On the coast they are frequently large; Mr. Powers mentions having СКАЧАТЬ