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

dish. Grasshoppers constitute another toothsome delicacy. When for winter use, they are dried in the sun; when for present consumption, they are either mashed into a paste, which is eaten with the fingers, ground into a fine powder and mixed with mush, or they are saturated with salt water, placed in a hole in the ground previously heated, covered with hot stones, and eaten like shrimps when well roasted. Dried chrysalides are considered a bonne bouche, as are all varieties of insects and worms. The boiled dishes are cooked in water-tight baskets, into which hot stones are dropped. Meat is roasted on sticks before the fire, or baked in a hole in the ground. The food is conveyed to the mouth with the fingers.

      ACORNS AND WILD FOWL.

Grasshoppers are taken in pits, into which they are driven by setting the grass on fire, or by beating the grass in a gradually lessening circle, of which the pit is the centre. For seed-gathering two baskets are used; a large one, which is borne on the back, and another smaller and scoop-shaped, which is carried in the hand; with this latter the tops of the ripe grass are swept, and the seed thus taken is thrown over the left shoulder into the larger basket. The seeds are then parched and pulverized, and usually stored as pinole,512 for winter use.513 When acorns are scarce the Central Californian resorts to a curious expedient to obtain them. The woodpecker, or carpintero as the Spaniards call it, stores away acorns for its own use in the trunks of trees. Each acorn is placed in a separate hole, which it fits quite tightly. These the natives take; but it is never until hunger compels them to do so, as they have great respect for their little caterer, and would hold it sacrilege to rob him except in time of extreme need.514 Wild fowl are taken with a net stretched across a narrow stream between two poles, one on either bank. Decoys are placed on the water just before the net, one end of which is fastened to the top of the pole on the farther bank. A line passing through a hole in the top of the pole on the bank where the fowler is concealed, is attached to the nearest end of the net, which is allowed to hang low. When the fowl fly rapidly up to the decoys, this end is suddenly raised with a jerk, so that the birds strike it with great force, and, stunned by the shock, fall into a large pouch, contrived for the purpose in the lower part of the net.515

Fish are both speared and netted. A long pole, projecting sometimes as much as a hundred feet over the stream, is run out from the bank. The farther end is supported by a small raft or buoy. Along this boom the net is stretched, the nearer corner being held by a native. As soon as a fish becomes entangled in the meshes it can be easily felt, and the net is then hauled in.516 On the coast a small fish resembling the sardine is caught on the beach in the receding waves by means of a hand-net, in the manner practiced by the Northern Californian heretofore described.517 The Central Californians do not hunt the whale, but it is a great day with them when one is stranded.518 In reality their food was not so bad as some writers assert. Before the arrival of miners game was so plentiful that even the lazy natives could supply their necessities. The 'nobler race,' as usual, thrust them down upon a level with swine. Johnson thus describes the feeding of the natives at Sutter's Fort: "Long troughs inside the walls were filled with a kind of boiled mush made of the wheat-bran; and the Indians, huddled in rows upon their knees before these troughs, quickly conveyed their contents by the hand to the mouth." "But," writes Powers to the author, "it is a well-established fact that California Indians, even when reared by Americans from infancy, if they have been permitted to associate meantime with others of their race, will, in the season of lush blossoming clover, go out and eat it in preference to all other food."519

In their personal habits they are filthy in the extreme. Both their dwellings and their persons abound in vermin, which they catch and eat in the same manner as their northern neighbors.520

      CALIFORNIAN WEAPONS.

      Their weapons are bows and arrows, spears, and sometimes clubs. The first-named do not differ in any essential respect from those described as being used by the Northern Californians. They are well made, from two and a half to three feet long, and backed with sinew; the string of wild flax or sinew, and partially covered with bird's down or a piece of skin, to deaden the twang.

The arrows are short, made of reed or light wood, and winged with three or four feathers. The head is of flint, bone, obsidian, or volcanic glass, sometimes barbed and sometimes diamond-shaped. It is fastened loosely to the shaft, and can be extracted only from a wound by cutting it out. The shaft is frequently painted in order that the owner may be able to distinguish his own arrows from others. Spears, or rather javelins, are used, seldom exceeding from four and a half to five feet in length. They are made of some tough kind of wood and headed with the same materials as the arrows. Occasionally the point of the stick is merely sharpened and hardened in the fire.521 The head of the fishing-spear is movable, being attached to the shaft by a line, so that when a fish is struck the pole serves as a float. Some of the tribes formerly poisoned their arrows, but it is probable that the custom never prevailed to any great extent. M. du Petit-Thouars was told that they used for this purpose a species of climbing plant which grows in shady places. It is said that they also poison their weapons with the venom of serpents.522 Pedro Fages mentions that the natives in the country round San Miguel use a kind of sabre, made of hard wood, shaped like a cimeter, and edged with sharp flints. This they employ for hunting as well as in war, and with such address that they rarely fail to break the leg of the animal at which they hurl it.523

      BATTLES AND WEAPONS.

Battles, though frequent, were not attended with much loss of life. Each side was anxious for the fight to be over, and the first blood would often terminate the contest. Challenging by heralds obtained. Thus the Shumeias challenge the Pomos by placing three little sticks, notched in the middle and at both ends, on a mound which marked the boundary between the two tribes. If the Pomos accept, they tie a string round the middle notch. Heralds then meet and arrange time and place, and the battle comes off as appointed.524 Among some tribes, children are sent by mutual arrangement into the enemy's ranks during the heat of battle to pick up the fallen arrows and carry them back to their owners to be used again.525 When fighting, they stretch out in a long single line and endeavor by shouts and gestures to intimidate the foe.526

      Notwithstanding the mildness of their disposition and the inferiority of their weapons, the Central Californians do not lack courage in battle, and when captured will meet their fate with all the stoicism of a true Indian. For many years after the occupation of the country by the Spaniards, by abandoning their villages and lying in ambush upon the approach of the enemy, they were enabled to resist the small squads of Mexicans sent against them from the presidios for the recovery of deserters from the missions. During the settlement of the country by white people, there were the usual skirmishes growing out of wrong and oppression on the one side, and retaliation on the other; the usual uprising among miners and rancheros, and vindication of border law, which demanded the massacre of a village for the stealing of a cow.

      Trespass on lands and abduction of women are the usual causes of war among themselves. Opposing armies, on approaching each other in battle array, dance and leap from side to side in order to prevent their enemies from taking deliberate aim. Upon the invasion of their territory they rapidly convey the intelligence by means of signals. A great smoke is made upon the nearest hilltop,