The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft

A kind of guess-game is played with clay balls.488 There is also an international game, played between friendly tribes, which closely resembles our 'hockey.' Two poles are set up in the ground at some distance apart, and each side, being armed with sticks, endeavors to drive a wooden ball round the goal opposite to it.489 In almost all their games and dances they are accompanied by a hoarse chanting, or by some kind of uncouth music produced by striking on a board with lobster-claws fastened to sticks, or by some other equally primitive method. Before the introduction of spirituous liquors by white men drunkenness was unknown. With their tobacco for smoking, they mix a leaf called kinnik-kinnik.490

      MEDICAL TREATMENT.

The diseases and ailments most prevalent among these people are scrofula, consumption, rheumatism, a kind of leprosy, affection of the lungs, and sore eyes, the last arising from the dense smoke which always pervades their cabins.491 In addition to this they have imaginary disorders caused by wizards, witches, and evil spirits, who, as they believe, cause snakes and other reptiles to enter into their bodies and gnaw their vitals. Some few roots and herbs used are really efficient medicine, but they rely almost entirely upon the mummeries and incantations of their medicine men and women.492 Their whole system of therapeutics having superstition for a basis, mortality is great among them, which may be one of the causes of the continent being, comparatively speaking, so thinly populated at the time of its discovery. Syphilis, one of the curses for which they may thank the white man, has made fearful havoc among them. Women doctors seem to be more numerous than men in this region; acquiring their art in the temescal or sweat-house, where unprofessional women are not admitted. Their favorite method of cure seems to consist in sucking the affected part of the patient until the blood flows, by which means they pretend to extract the disease. Sometimes the doctress vomits a frog, previously swallowed for the occasion, to prove that she has not sucked in vain. She is frequently assisted by a second physician, whose duty it is to discover the exact spot where the malady lies, and this she effects by barking like a dog at the patient until the spirit discovers to her the place. Mr. Gibbs mentions a case where the patient was first attended by four young women, and afterward by the same number of old ones. Standing round the unfortunate, they went through a series of violent gesticulations, sitting down when they could stand no longer, sucking, with the most laudable perseverance, and moaning meanwhile most dismally. Finally, when with their lips and tongue they had raised blisters all over the patient, and had pounded his miserable body with hands and knees until they were literally exhausted, the performers executed a swooning scene, in which they sank down apparently insensible.493 The Rogue River medicine-men are supposed to be able to wield their mysterious power for harm, as well as for good, so that should a patient die, his relatives kill the doctor who attended him; or in case deceased could not afford medical attendance, they kill the first unfortunate disciple of Æsculapius they can lay hands on, frequently murdering one belonging to another tribe; his death, however, must be paid for.494

But the great institution of the Northern Californians is their temescal, or sweat-house, which consists of a hole dug in the ground, and roofed over in such a manner as to render it almost air-tight. A fire is built in the centre in early fall, and is kept alive till the following spring, as much attention being given to it as ever was paid to the sacred fires of Hestia; though between the subterranean temescal, with its fetid atmosphere, and lurid fire-glow glimmering faintly through dense smoke on swart, gaunt forms of savages, and the stately temple on the Forum, fragrant with fumes of incense, the lambent altar-flame glistening on the pure white robes of the virgin priestesses, there is little likeness. The temescal495 is usually built on the brink of a stream; a small hatchway affords entrance, which is instantly closed after the person going in or out. Here congregate the men of the village and enact their sudorific ceremonies, which ordinarily consist in squatting round the fire until a state of profuse perspiration sets in, when they rush out and plunge into the water. Whether this mode of treatment is more potent to kill or to cure is questionable. The sweat-house serves not only as bath and medicine room, but also as a general rendezvous for the male drones of the village. The women, with the exception of those practicing or studying medicine, are forbidden its sacred precincts on pain of death; thus it offers as convenient a refuge for henpecked husbands as a civilized club-house. In many of the tribes the men sleep in the temescal during the winter, which, notwithstanding the disgusting impurity of the atmosphere, affords them a snug retreat from the cold gusty weather common to this region.496

      BURIAL AND MOURNING.

Incremation obtains but slightly among the Northern Californians, the body usually being buried in a recumbent position. The possessions of the deceased are either interred with him, or are hung around the grave; sometimes his house is burned and the ashes strewn over his burial-place. Much noisy lamentation on the part of his relatives takes place at his death, and the widow frequently manifests her grief by sitting on, or even half burying herself in, her husband's grave for some days, howling most dismally meanwhile, and refusing food and drink; or, on the upper Klamath, by cutting her hair close to the head, and so wearing it until she obtains consolation in another spouse. The Modocs hired mourners to lament at different places for a certain number of days, so that the whole country was filled with lamentation. These paid mourners were closely watched, and disputes frequently arose as to whether they had fulfilled their contract or not.497 Occasionally the body is doubled up and interred in a sitting position, and, rarely, it is burned instead of buried. On the Klamath a fire is kept burning near the grave for several nights after the burial, for which rite various reasons are assigned. Mr. Powers states that it is to light the departed shade across a certain greased pole, which is supposed to constitute its only approach to a better world. Mr. Gibbs affirms that the fire is intended to scare away the devil, obviously an unnecessary precaution as applied to the Satan of civilization, who by this time must be pretty familiar with the element. The grave is generally covered with a slab of wood, and sometimes two more are placed erect at the head and foot; that of a chief is often surrounded with a fence; nor must the name of a dead person ever be mentioned under any circumstances.498

      BURIAL CEREMONIES AT PITT RIVER.

      The following vivid description of a last sickness and burial by the Pitt River Indians, is taken from the letter of a lady eye-witness to her son in San Francisco:—

      It was evening. We seated ourselves upon a log, your father, Bertie, and I, near the fire round which the natives had congregated to sing for old Gesnip, the chief's wife. Presently Sootim, the doctor, appeared, dressed in a low-necked, loose, white muslin, sleeveless waist fastened to a breech-cloth, and red buck-skin cap fringed and ornamented with beads; the face painted with white stripes down to the chin, the arms from wrist to shoulder, in black, red, and white circles, which by the lurid camp-fire looked like bracelets, and the legs in white and black stripes—presenting altogether a merry-Andrew appearance. Creeping softly along, singing in a low, gradually-increasing voice, Sootim approached the invalid and poised his hands over her as in the act of blessing. The one nearest him took up the song, singing low at first, then the next until the circle was completed; after this the pipe went round; then the doctor taking a sip of water, partly uncovered the patient and commenced sucking the left side; last of all he took a pinch of dirt and blew it over her. This is their curative process, continued night after night, and long into the night, until the patient recovers or dies.

Next day the doctor came to see me, and I determined if possible to ascertain his own ideas of these things. Giving him some muck-a-muck,