V. Supernatural: Now Men Know Commencing We

CHAPTER V.
GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.
ESKIMO WITCHCRAFT THE TINNEH AND THE KONIAGAS KUGANS OF THE

ALEUTS THE THLINKEETS, THE HAIDAHS, AND THE NOOTKAS PARA
DISE LOST OF THE OKANAGANS THE SALISH, THE CLALLAMS, THE
CHINOOKS, THE CAYUSES, THE WALLA WALLAS, AND THE NEZ PER-
CES SHOSHONE GHOULS NORTHERN CALIFORNIA THE SUN AT MON
TEREY OUIOT AND CHINIGCHINICH ANTAGONISTIC GODS OF LOWER
CALIFORNIA COMANCHES, APACHES, AND NAVAJOS MONTEZUMA OF THE
PUEBLOS MOQUIS AND MOJAVES PRIMEVAL RACE OF NORTHERN CAL
IFORNIA.
WE now come to the broadest, whether or not it

be the most important, branch of our subject; namely,
the gods and spirits that men worship or know of.
Commencing at the extreme north, we shall follow
them through the various nations of our territory
toward the south. Very wild and conflicting is the
general mass of evidence bearing on a belief in super
natural existences. Not only from the nature of the
subject is it allied to
questions and matters the most
abstruse and transcendental in the expression of
which the exactest dialectic terminology must often
be at fault; much more the rude and stammering
speech of savages but it is also apt to call up preju
dices of the most warping and contradictory kind in
the minds of those through whose relation it must pass
to us. However hopeless the task, I will strive to
hold an equal beam of historical truth, and putting
away speculations of either extreme, try to give the
naked expression of the belief of the peoples we deal
with however stupid, however absurd and not what
( 140 )
ESKIMO SHAMANISM. 141
they ought to believe, or may be supposed to believe,

according to the ingenious speculations of different
theorists.
The Eskimos do not appear to recognize any supreme
deity, but only an indefinite number of supernatural
beings varying in name, power, and character the evil
seeming to predominate. They carry on the person a
small ivory image rudely carved to represent some
animal, as a kind of talisman; these are thought to
further success in hunting, fishing, and other pursuits,
but can hardly be looked upon with any great rever
ence, as they are generally to be bought of their own
ers for a reasonable price. All supernatural business
is transacted
through the medium of shamans func
tionaries answering to the niedicine-men of eastern
Indian tribes; of these there are both male and
female, each practising on or for the benefit of his or
her own respective sex. The rites of their black art
differ somewhat,
according to Dall, from those of their
Tinneh neighbors, and very much from those of the
Tschuktschi and other Siberian tribes; arid their whole
religion may be summed up as a vague fear finding
1
its
expression in witchcraft.
The Tinneh, that great people stretching north of the
fifty-fifth parallel nearly to the Arctic Ocean and of the
Pacific, do not seem in any of their various tribes to
have a single expressed idea with regard to a supreme
power. The Loucheux branch recognize a certain
personage, resident in the moon, whom they suppli
cate for success in starting on a hunting expedition.
This being once lived among them as a poor ragged
boy that an old woman had found arid was bringing
up; and who made himself ridiculous to his fellows
by making a pair of very large snow-shoes; for the
people could not see what a starveling like him should
want with shoes of such unusual size. Times of great
scarcity troubled the hunters, and they would often
have fared badly had they not invariably on such oc-
1
Armstrongs Nar., pp. 102, 193; Richardson* Pol. Reg., pp. 319-20, 325;
Riclictrdsonx Join-., vol. i., pp. 358, 385; DaWs Alaska, pp! 144-5.
142 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.
casions come across a new broad trail that led to a

head or two of freshly killed game. They were glad
enough to get the game and without scruples as to its
appropriation still they felt curious as to whence it
;
came, and how. Suspicion at last pointing to the boy

and his great shoes, as being in some way implicated
in the affair, he was watched. It soon became evi
dent that he was indeed the benefactor of the Lou-
cheux, and the secret hunter whose quarry had so
often replenished their empty pots; yet the people
were from being adequately grateful, and continued
far
to treat him with little kindness or respect. On one
occasion they refused him a certain piece of fat him
who had so often saved their lives by his timely
bounty! That night the lad disappeared, leaving only
his clothes behind, hanging on a tree. He returned
to them in a month, however, appearing as a man and
dressed as a man. He told them that he had taken up
his home in the moon; that he would always look down
with a kindly eye to their success in hunting; but he
added that, as a punishment for their shameless greed
and ingratitude in refusing him the piece of fat, all
animals should be lean the long winter through, and
fat only in summer : as has sinc3 been the case.
According to Hearne, the Tinneh believe in a kind
of spirits, or fairies, called nantena, which people the
earth, the sea, and the air, and are instrumental for
both good and evil. Some of them believe in a good
spirit called Tihugun, my old friend/ supposed to re
side in the sun and in the moon; they have also a bad
spirit, Chutsain, apparently only
a personification of
death, and for this reason called bad.
They have no regular order of shamans; any one
when the spirit moves him may take upon himself
their duties and pretensions, though some, by happy
chances or peculiar cunning, are much more highly
esteemed in this regard than others, and are supported
by voluntary contributions. The conjurer often shuts
himself in his tent and abstains from food for days till
his earthly grossness thins away, and the spirits and
srilUTS WITH THE KONIAGAS AND TlXNKll. 14::
things unseen are constrained to appear at his holiest.

The younger Tinneh care for none of these tilings;
the strong limb and the keen eye, holding their own
well in the jostle of life, mock at the terrors of the
invisible; but as the pulses dwindle with disease or
O e, and the knees strike together in the shadow of
a^ vT>
impending death, the shaman is hired to expel the

evil things of which the patient is possessed. Among
the Tacullies, a confession is often resorted to at this
stage, on the truth and accuracy of which depend the
chances of a recovery. As Harmon says "The crimes :
which they most frequently confess discover something

of their moral character, and therefore deserve to he
mentioned; but in truth I cannot mention them; both
with women and with men a iilthiness and bestiality
worse than the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah defy the
stomach of description. The same thing is true of
the tedious and disgusting rites performed by the Tin
neh shamans over the sick, and at various other emer
gencies. They blow on the invalid, leap about him
or upon him, shriek, sing, groan, gesticulate, and foam
at the mouth, with other details of hocus-pocus vary
O indefinitely with tribe and locality.
ing *; /
The exist-
once of a sou] is for the most part denied, and the
spirits with whom dealings arc had are not spirits
that were ever in or of men; neither are they re
garded by men with any sentiment of love or kindly
respect; fear and self-interest are the bonds where
any bonds exist that link the Tinneh with powers
2
supernal or infernal.
The Koniagas have the usual legion of spirits haunt
ing water, o*arth, and air, whose wrath is only to be
appeased by offerings to the shanuins; and sometimes,
though very rarely, by human sacrifices of slaves.
i
L
m
JL ">
L 1"
- " -
1"
"
per* Tn*li, 317; Richardson 8 Jour., vol.

p. i., pp. 385-6; DalCs Alaska, pp.
88-90; Whympers Alaska, pp. 231-2.
They have nlso a chief deity or spirit, called Shljam

s
Schoa",
and a power for evil called Eyak.
Of the Aleuts it is said that their rites showed a
much higher religious development than was to be
found among any of their neighbors the labors of ;
tht>
Russian priests have, however, been successful enough

among them to obliterate all remembrance of aught
but the outlines of their ancient cult. They recognize
a creator-god, but without worshipping him; he had
made the world, but he did not guide it; men had
nothing to do any longer with him, but only with the
lesser Jcugans, or spirits, to whom the direction and care
of earthly affair have been committed. The stars and
the sun and the moon were worshipped, or the spirits
of them among others, and avenged themselves on
those that adored them not. The offended sun smote
the eyes of a scoffer with blindness, the moon stoned
him to death, and the stars constrained him to count
their number hopeless task that always left the
victim a staring maniac. The shamans do not seem
to have enjoyed that distinction among the Aleuts
that their monopoly of mediation between man and
the invisible world gave them among other nations.
They were generally very poor, living in want and
dying in misery; they had no part nor lot in the joys
or sorrows of social life never at feast, at wedding,
;
or at a funeral was their face seen. They lived and

wandered men forbid, driven to and fro by phantoms
that were their masters, and not their slaves. The
Aleuts had no permanent idols, nor any worshipping-
places built with hands; near every village was
some
sanctifiedhigh place or rock, sacred as a Sinai against
the foot of woman or youth, and whoever profaned it
became immediately mad or sick to death. Only the
men and the old men visited the place, leaving there
their offerings of skins or feathers, with unknown
mysterious ceremonies.
The use of amulets was universal; and inoje than
shield or spear to the warrior going to battle was a
*Holmberg, Etlm. Skiz., pp. 140-1; Saner, Billinys. Ex., p. 174.
ALEUTIAN MYSTERY-DANCE. 145
belt of sea-weed woven

in maodc
O knots. What a
plilosopher s stonewas to a Roger Bacon or a Para
celsus was the tJchimkee, a marvellous pebble thrown
up at rare intervals by the sea, to the Aleutian hunter.
No beast could resist its attraction; he that carried it
had no need to chase his prey, he had only to wait
and strike as the animal walked up to its death.
Another potent charm was grease taken from a dead
man s body; the spear-head touched with this was
sure to reach a mortal spot in the whale at which it
was hurled.
There are dim Aleutian traditions of certain religi
ous night-dances held in the month of December.
Wooden idols, or figures of some kind, were made for
the occasion, and carried from island to island with
many esoteric ceremonies. Then was to be seen a
marvellous sight. The men and women were put far
apart; in the middle of each party a wooden figure
was set up; certain great wooden masks or blinders
were put on each person, so contrived that the wearer
could see nothing outside a little circle round his feet.
Then every one stripped, and there upon the snow,
under the moonlight, in the bitter Arctic night, danced
naked before the image say rather before the god,
for as they danced a kugan descended and entered
into the wooden figure. Woe to him or to her whose
drift-wood mask fell, or was lifted, in the whirl of that
awful dance the stare of the Gorgon was not more
;
fatal than a glance of the demon that possessed the

idol; and for any one to look on one of the opposite
sex, however it came about, he might be even counted
as one dead. When the dance was over, the idols and
the masks were broken and cast away. It may be
added that such masks as this were needed, even by
prophets in their interviews with the great spirits
that know all mortal consequences; and that when a
man died, such a mask was put over his eyes. naked
and shivering soul, face to face with the darkest kugan
4
of all, we will shelter thee what we can!
*
D Orbiany, Voy., pp. 579-80; Cojce s Jfms. Dix., p. 217; Dalfs Alaska,
pp. 385. 389j see Bancroft s Nat. Races, vol. i., p. 93.
VOL HI. 10
The Thlinkeets are said not to believe in any su

preme being. They have that Yehl, the Raven, and
that Khanukh, the Wolf, whom we are already to
some extent acquainted with; but neither the exact
rank and character of these in the supernatural world,
nor even their comparative rank, can be established
above contradiction. Thus Yehl is said to be the
creator of all beings and things, yet we have not for
gotten how Khanukh wrung from the unwilling lips
of him the confession, Thou art older than I. It is
again said of Yehl that his power is unlimited; but
alas! we have seen him helpless in the magic darkness

raised by Khanukh, and howling as a frightened child
might do in a gloomy corridor. The nature of Yehl
is kind, and he loves men, while the reverse is
gener
ally considered true of Khanukh but Yehl, too, when ;
his anger is stirred up sends sickness and evil fortune.

Yehl existed before his birth upon earth; he cannot
die, nor even become older. Where the sources of
the Nass are, whence the east-wind comes, is Nass-
Shakieyehl, the home of Yehl; the east-wind brings
news of him. By an unknown mother a son was born
to him, who loves mankind even more than his father,
and provides their food in due season. To conclude
the matter, Yehl is, if not the central figure, at least
the most prominent in the Thlinkeet pantheon, and the
alpha and the omega of Thlinkeet philosophy and
theology is summed up in their favorite aphorism As :
Yehl acted and lived, so also will we live and do.

After Yehl and Khanukh, the Thlinkeets believe in
the brother and sister, Chethl and Ahgishanakhou,
the Thunder or Thunder-bird, and the Underground
Woman. Chethl is a kind of great northern rukh
that snatches up and swallows a whale without diffi
culty, while h is wings and eyes produce thunder and
lightning, as already described ;
his sister Ahgishanak
hou alone below and guards the Irminsul that
sits
5
supports the world of the North-west.
&
In Holmberg s account of these Thlinkeet supernatural powers, nothing
is said of the sun or moon as indicating the possession of life by them or of
THE THLINKEET SHAMAN. 147
The
Tlilinkeets have no idols, unless the little images
sometimes carried by the magicians for charming with
may be called by that name; they have no worship
nor priests, unless their sorcerers and the rites of them
may be entitled to these appellations. These sorcerers
or shamans seem to be much respected; their words
and actions are generally believed and acquiesced in
by all; though the death of a patient or victim, or
supposed victim, is sometimes avenged upon them by

the relatives of the deceased. Shamanism is mostly
hereditary; as a natural course of things, the long ar
ray of apparatus, masks, dresses, and so on, is inherited
by the son or grandson of the deceased conjurer. The
young man must, however, prove himself worthy of
his position before it becomes assured to him, by call
ing up and communicating with spirits. The future
shaman retires into a lonely forest or up some moun
tain, where he lives retired, feeding only on the roots
of the panax-horridum, and waiting for the spirits to
come to him, which they are generally supposed to do
in from two to four weeks. If all Oo o well, the meeting;
%
O
takes place, and the chief of the spirits sends to the
neophyte a river-otter, in the tongue of which animal
is
supposed to be hid the whole power and secret of
shamanism. The man meets the beast face to face,
and four times, each time in a different fashion, he
pronounces the syllable Oh! Upon this, the otter
falls instantly, reaching out at the same time its
tongue, which the man cuts off and preserves, hiding

it
away in a close place, for if any one not initiated
should look on this talisman the sight would drive him
mad. The otter is skinned by the new shamiin and
the skin kept for a sign of his profession, while the
flesh is buried; it was unlawful to kill a river-otter
save on such occasions as have been described. If>
any qualities not material. But Dunn, Tlie Oregon Territory, p. 284, and
Dixon, Voyage Round the World, pp. 189-90, describe at least some tribe or
tribes of the Thlinkeets, and many tribes of the Haidahs, that consider the sun
to be a great spirit moving over the earth once every day, animating and
keeping alive all creatures, and apparently, as being the origin of all; the
moon is a subordinate and night watcher.
however, the spirits will not visit the would-be

shaman, nor give him any opportunity to get the
otter- tongue as described above, the neophyte visits
the tomb of a dead shaman and keeps an awful vigil
over night, holding in his living mouth a finger of the
dead man or one of his teeth; this constrains the
spirits very powerfully to send the necessary otter.
When all these things have been done, the shaman
returns to his family emaciated and worn out,, and his
new powers are immediately put to the test. His
reputation depends on the number of spirits at his
command. The spirits are called yek, and to every
conjurer a certain number of them are attached as
familiars, while there are others on whom he may call
in an emergency; indeed, every man of whatever rank
or professionis attended
by a familiar spirit or demon,
who only abandons his charge when the man becomes
exceedingly bad. The world of spirits in general is
divided into three classes: keeyek, tdkeeyek, and tckee-
yek. The first class,
i
the Upper Ones, dwell in the
north, and seem to be connected with the northern
lights; they are the spirits of the brave fallen in bat
tle. The other two classes are the spirits of those
that died a natural death, and their dwelling is called
takankou. The tdkeeyek, land-spirits/ appear to the
i
shamdns in the form of land animals. With regardO to

the tekeeyek, sea-spirits, which appear in the form
of marine animals, there is some dispute among the
Thlinkeets as to whether these spirits were ever the
spirits of men like those of the other two classes, or
whether they were merely the souls of sea animals.
The supreme feat of a conjurer s power is to throw
one of his liege spirits into the body of one who refuses
to believe in his power; upon which the possessed is
taken with swooning and fits. The hair of a shaman
is never cut. As among the Aleuts, a wooden mask
is
necessary to his safe intercourse with any spirit;
separate masks are worn for interviews with separate
spirits. When a shaman sickens, his relatives fast for
his recovery; when he dies, his body is not burned like
SOLAR SPIRIT OF THE HAIDAKS. 149
that of other men, but put in a box which is set up on

a lii O^h frame. The first nioO ht following O his death, his
is left in that corner of his hut in which lie died.
body
On the second night, it is carried to another corner, and
so on for four nights till it has occupied successively
all the corners of the yourt, all the occupants of which
are supposed to fast during this time. On the fifth day,
the body is tied down on a board, and two bones that
the dead man had often used in his rites when alive are
stuck, the one in his hair, and the other in the bridge of
his nose. The head is then covered with a willow bas
ket, and the body taken to its place of sepulture, which
is always near the sea-shore no Thlinkect ever passes
;
the spot without dropping a little tobacco into the

water to conciliate the manes of the mighty dead. 6
The Haidahs believe the great solar spirit to be the
creator and supreme ruler; they do not, however, con
fuse him with the material sun, who is a shining man
walking round the fixed earth and wearing a radi
ated crown. Sometimes the moon is also connected
in a confused, indefinite way with the great spirit.
There is an evil spirit who, according to Dunn, is pro
vided with hoofs and horns, though nothing is said as
to the fashion of them, whether orthodox or not. The
Holmherrj, Etkn, SUz., pp. 52-73; DaWs Alaska, pp. 421-3; Kotzebue s
6
New Voyage, vol. ii., p. 58; Duniis Oregon, p. 280; BendeVs Alex. Arch.,
pp. 31-3. This last traveller gives us a variation of the history of Yehl and
Khaiiukh, which is best presented in his own words: The Kliiikits do not
believe in one Supreme Being, but in a host of good and evil spirits, above
whom are towering two lofty beings of godlike magnitude, who are the prin
cipal objects of Indian reverence. These are Yethl and Kanugh, two
brothers; the former, the benefactor and well-wisher of mankind, but of a
very whimsical and unreliable nature; the latter, the stern God of War, terri
ble in his wrath, but a true patron of every fearless brave. It is he who
sends epidemics, bloodshed, and war to those who have displeased him,
while it seems to be the principal function of Yethl to cross the sinister pur
poses of his dark-minded brother. Yethl and Kanugh lived formerly on
earth, and were born of a woman of a supernatural race now passed away,
about the origin and nature of which many conflicting legends are told, hard
to comprehend. When Yethl walked on earth and was quite young, he ac
quired great skill in the use of the bow and arrow. He used to kill large
birds, assume their shape, and ily about. His favorite bird was the raven;
hence its name, Yethl," which signities "raven "in the Klinkit language.
"
He had also the fogs and clouds at his command, and he would often draw
them around him to escape his enemies. His brother s name, Kanugh, signi
fies "wolf," consequently "raven" and "wolf" are the names of the two
gods of the Kliiikits, who are supposed to be the founders of the Indian race.
Haidahs, at least those seen by Mr Poole on Queen

Charlotte Island, have no worship, nor did they look
upon themselves as in any way responsible to any deity
for their actions. As with their northern neighbors, a
the belief in goblins, spectres, and sorcery seems to be
the sum of their religion.
With some at least of the Haidahs there was in ex
istence a rite of this sorcery attended by circumstances
of more than ordinary barbarity and ferocity. When
the salmon season is over and the provisions of winter
have been stored away, feasting and conjuring begin.
The chief who seems to be the principal sorcerer, and
indeed to possess little authority save from his connec
tion with the preterhuman powers goes off to the lone
liest and wildest retreat he knows of or can discover
in the mountains or forest, and half starves himself
there for some weeks till he is worked up to a frenzy of
religious insanity, and the naivloks fearful beings of
some kind not human consent to communicate with
him by voices or otherAvise. During all this observ
ance, the chief is called taamish, and woe to the un
lucky Haidah who happens by chance so much as to
look on him during its continuance; even if the taa-
mish do not instantly slay the intruder, his neighbors
are certain to do so when the thing comes to their
knowledge, and if the victim attempt to conceal the
affair, or do not himself confess it, the most cruel tor
tures are added to his fate. At last the inspired de
moniac returns to his village, naked save a bear-skin or
a ragged blanket, with a chaplet on his head and a red
band of alder-bark about his neck. He springs on the
first person he meets, bites out and swallows one or
more mouthfuls of the man s living flesh wherever he
can fix his teeth, then rushes to another and another,
repeating his revolting meal till he falls into a torpor
from his sudden and half-rnasticated surfeit of flesh.
For some days after this he lies in a kind of coma,
"like an over-gorged beast of prey," as Dunn says;
the same observer adding that his breath during that
time is "like an exhalation from a grave." The vie-
NOOTKA GODS. 151
tims of this ferocity dare not resist the bite of the taa-
mish; on the contrary, they are sometimes willing to
offer themselves to the ordeal, and are always proud
7
of its scars.
The Nootkas acknowledge the existence of a great
personage called Quahootze, whose habitation is appar
ently in the sky, but of whose nature little is known.
When a storm begins to rage dangerously, the Nootkas
climb to the top of their houses, and looking upward
to this great god, they beat drums, and chant and call
upon his name, imploring him to still the tempest.
They fast, as something agreeable to the same deity,
before setting out on the hunt, and if their success
warrant it, hold a feast in his honor after their return.
This festival is held usually in December, and it was
formerly the custom to finish it with a human sacrifice,
an atrocity now happily fallen into disuse a boy, with ;
knives stuck in flesh of his arms, legs, and sides, being

exhibited as a substitute for the ancient victim.
Matlose is a famous hobgoblin of the Nootkas; he is
a very Caliban of spirits; his head is like the head of
something that might have been a man but is not; his
uncouth bulk is horrid with black bristles; his mon
strous teeth and nails are like the fangs and claws of a
bear. Whoever hears his terrible voice falls like one
smitten, and his curved claws rend a prey into morsels
with a single stroke.
The Nootkas, like so many American peoples, have
a tradition of a supernatural teacher and benefactor, an
old man that came to them up the Sound long ago.
His canoe was copper, and the paddles of it copper;
everything he had on him or about him was of the
same metal. He landed and instructed the men of
that day in many things; telling them that he came
from the sky, that their country should be eventually
destroyed, that they should all die, but after death
rise and live with him above. Then all the people
rose up angry, and took his canoe from him, and slew
Dunns Oregon, pp. 253-9; Scouler, in Lond. Gcoy. Soc. Jour., vol. xi., p.
223; Bane rojCs Nat. Races, vol. i., pp. 170-1.
him a crime from which their descendants have de

rived muchbenefit, for copper and the use of it have
remained with them ever since. Huge images, carved
in wood, still stand in their houses, intended to repre
sent the form and hold in remembrance the visit of
this old man by which visit is not improbably in
tended to be signified an avatar or incarnation of that
chief deity, or great spirit, worshipped by many Cali-
fornian tribes as "the Old Man above."
The Alits regard the moon and the sun as their
highest deities, the moon being the husband and the
sun the wife. To the moon chiefly, as the more pow
erful deity, they pray for what they require and to ;
both moon and sun, as to all good deities, their prayers

are addressed directly and without the intervention of
the sorcerers. Quawteaht which seems to be a local
Aht modification of Quahootze who made most
things that are in the world, was the first to teach the
people to worship these luminaries, who are more pow

erful than himself, though more distant and less active.
There is also that Tootooch, thunder-bird, of which so
much has been already said.
The Nootkas, in general, believe in the existence of
spirits of various kinds, and

numberless in the efficacy
of sorcery. As in neighboring nations, the shaman
gains or renews his inspiration by fasting and solitary
meditation in some retired place, reappearing at the
end of his vigil half starved and half insane, but filled
with the black virtue of his art. He does not gener
ally collect a meal of living human flesh like the
taamish of the preceding family, but he is satisfied
with what his teeth can tear from the corpses in the
burial-places. Old women are admitted to a share
in the powers of sorcery and prophecy and the inter
pretation of omens and dreams; the latter a most im

portant function, as few days and nights pass over a
Nootka house that do not give occasion by some vision
8
or occurrence for the office of the sibyl or the augur.
8
Jewitt s Nar., p. 83; Scouler, in Lond. Geoy. Soc. Jour., vol. xi., pp. 223-
4; Mofnis, Eyplor., torn, i., p. 345; Sutil y Mexicana, Viaye, p. 13(3; Meares*
PARADISE LOST OF THE OKANAGAXS. 153
The Okanagans master of

believe in a good spirit or
life, Skyappe and in
called Elemeliuiiikillanwaist or ;
a bad spirit, Kishtsainah or Chacha; both moving- con

stantly through the air, so that nothing can be done
without their knowledge. The Okanagans have no
worship public or private, but before engaging in any
thing of importance they offer up a short prayer to
the good spirit for assistance again, on state occasions,
;
a pipe is passed round and each one smokes three

whiffs toward the rising sun, the same toward the set
ting, and the same respectively toward the heaven
above and the earth beneath. Then they have their
great mythic ruler and heroine, Scomalt, whose story
is
intimately connected with a kind of Okanagan fall
or paradise lost. Long ago, so long ago that the sun was
quite young and very small and no bigger than a star ?
there was an island far out at sea, called Sarnahtumi-

whoolah, or the White Man s Island. It was inhab
ited by a white race of gigantic stature, and governed
by a tall fair woman called Scomalt; and she was a

preat and strong
o o medicine, this Scomalt. At last
the peace of the island was destroyed by war, and the
noise of battle was heard, the white men fighting the
one with the other; and Scomalt was exceedingly
wroth. She rose up and said: Lo, now I will drive
these wicked far from me; my soul shall be no longer
Fo?/.,p. 270; Hutcldn<]s Cal. J/a-/., vol. v., pp. 222-4; Macjie s Vane. I*L, pp.
>
433-41, 455; Bnrrct-Lcnnard s Trav., pp. 513; /Sproat s Scenes, pp. 40, 15(3-
8, 167-75, 205-11; Coolcs Voy. to Pac., vol. ii., p. 317. As illustrating
strongly the Nootka ideas with regard to the sanctity of the moon and sun,
as well as the connection of the sun with the fire, it may be well to call atten
tion to the two following customs: El Tays [chief] nopuede hacer uso de sus
mugeres sin ver cnterameiite iluminado el disco de la luna. Sut d y Mcxi-
cana, Viw/e, p. 145. Girls at puberty.
. .are kept particularly from the sun
.
or lire. Bancroft s Nat. Races, vol. i., p. 197. In this connection it may be men
tioned that Mr Lord, Naturalist, vol. ii., p. 257, saw among the Nootkas
while at Fort Ilupert, a very peculiar Indian medicine, a solid piece of
native copper, hammered flat, oval it would appear from the description, and
painted with curious devices, eyes of all sizes being especially conspicuous.
The Hudson Bay traders call it an Indian copper, and said it was only
exhibited on extraordinary occasions, and that its value to the tribe was esti
mated at fifteen slaves or two hundred blankets. This medicine was pre
served in an elaborately ornamented wooden case, and belonging to the tribe,
not to the chief, was guarded by the medicine-men. Similar sheets of cop
per are described by Schoolcraft as in use among certain of the Vesperic
aborigines. May they all be intended for symbols of the sun, such as that
reverenced by the Peruvians?
vexed concerning them, neither shall they trouble the

faithful of my people with their strivings any more.
And she drove the rebellious together to the utter
most end of the island, and broke off the piece of land
on which they were huddled, and pushed it out to sea
to drift whither it would. This floating island was
tossed to and fro many days, and buffeted of the winds
so that all the people thereon died, save
exceedingly,
one man and one woman, who, seeing their island was
ready to sink, made themselves a canoe and gat them
away toward the west. After paddling day and night
for many suns, they to certain islands, whence
came
steering through them, they came at last to where the
mainland was, being the territory that the Okanagans
now inhabit; it was, however, much smaller in those
days, having grown much since. This man and woman
were so sorely weather-beaten when they landed that
they found their original whiteness quite gone, and a
dusky reddish color in its place. All the people of
the continent are descended from this pair, and the
dingy skin of their storm-tossed ancestors has become
a characteristic of the race. And even, as in time
past the wrath of the fair Scomalt loosed the island
of their ancestors from its mainland, and sent it adrift
with its burden of sinful men, so in a time to come
the deep lakes, that like some Hannibal s vinegar
soften the rocks of the foundations of the world, and
the rivers that run forever and gnaw them away, shall
set the earth afloat again; then shall the end of the
world be, the awful itsowleigli. 9
The Salish tribes believe the sun to be the chief
deity, and certain ceremonies, described by Mr Lord
as having taken place on the death of a chief, seem to
indicate that fire is in some way connected with the
10
great light. The chief is ex-oflicio a kind of priest,
*
Ross" Adven., pp. 287-9.
The bravest woman of the tribe, one used to carrying ammunition to
10
the warriorwhen engaged in fight, bared her breast to the person who for
courage and conduct was deemed fit successor to the departed. From the
breast he cut a small portion, which he threw into the fire. She then cut a
small piece from the shoulder of the warrior, which was also thrown into
the fire. A piece of bitter root, M ith a piece of meat, were next thrown into
DEITIES OF THE CLALLAMS. 155
presiding for the most part at the various observances

by which the deity of the sun is recognized. There is
the usual belief in sorcery and second sight, and indi
viduals succeed, by force of special gifts for fasting and
lonely meditation, in having themselves accounted con
jurers an honor of dubious profit, as medicine-men
are constantly liable to be shot by an enraged relative
of any one whose death they may be supposed to have
brought
o about.
The Clallams, a coast tribe on the mainland oppo
site the south end of Vancouver Island, have a prin
cipal good deity called by various names, and an evil

spirit called Skoocoom; to these some add a certain
Teyutlma, the genius of good fortune. The medicine
men of the tribe are supposed to have much influence
both for good and evil with these spirits, and with all
the demon race, or sehuidb, as the latter are sometimes
called. In this tribe, the various conjurers are united
by the bonds of a secret society, the initiation into
which is attended by a good deal of ceremony and ex
pense. Three days and three nights must the novice
of the order fast alone in a mysterious lodge prepared
for him, round which during all that time the brethren
already initiated sing and dance. This period elapsed,
during which it would seem that the old nature has
been killed out of him, he is taken up like one dead
and soused into the nearest cold water, where lie is
washed till he revives; which
thing they call "wash
ing the dead." When his senses are sufficiently gath
ered to him, he is set on his feet; upon which he runs
off into the forest, whence he soon reappears, a perfect
medicine-man, rattle in hand, and decked out with the

various trappings of his profession. He then parts all
his worldly gear among his friends, himself henceforth
to be supported only by the fees of his new calling. 11
Ikdnam, the creator of the universe, is a powerful
deity among the Chinooks, who have a mountain
these being intended as offerings to the Sim, the deity of the
tlic fire, all
Flatheads. Tol/nie, in Lord s 2?(tt., vol. ii., pp. 237-8. For references to the
remaining matter of the paragraph, see Id., vol. ii., pp. 237-43, 2oO.
11
/uwe\s pp. 21.8-19; GVI JS Clallam and Lnmmi I walt., p. 15.
W<i>t(L,
named him from a

belief that he there turned
after
himself into After him, or before him as
stone.
many say, comes Italapas, the Coyote, who created
men after an imperfect fashion, 12 taught them how to
make nets and catch salmon, how to make a fire, and
how to cook; for this, the first-fruits of the fishing
season are always sacred to him, and his figure is to
be found carved on the head of almost every Chinook
canoe on the Columbia. They have a fire-spirit, an
evil spirit, and a body of familiar spirits, tamanowas.
Each person has his special spirit, selected by him at
an early age, sometimes by fasting and other mortifi
cation of the flesh, sometimes by the adoption of the
first object the child or
young man sees, or thinks he
sees, on visiting the woods. These spirits have a
great effect on the imagination of the Chinooks, and
their supposed directions are followed under pain of
mysterious and awful punishments; people converse
particularly when in the water"- with them, appar
"
ently talking to themselves in low, monotonous tones.

Some say that when a man dies his tamanowa passes
to his son; but the whole matter is darkened with
much mystery and secrecy the name of one s familiar ;
spirit or guardian never being mentioned, even to the

nearest friend. A
similar custom forbids the mention
of a dead man s name, at least till many years have
elapsed after the bereavement.
The Chinook medicine-men are possessed of the
usual powers of converse and mediation with the spirits
good and evil there are two classes of them, employed
;
in all cases of sickness the etaminuas, or priests, who

intercede for the soul of the patient, and, if necessary,
for its safe passage to the land of spirits, and the kee-
lalles, or doctors, sometimes women, whose duty it is
13
to administer medical as well as spiritual aid.
12
This
vol., pp. 95-6.
13
Wilkcs Nar., in U. S. Ex. Ex., vol. v., pp. 124-5; Cox s Adven., vol. i., p.
317; Dunns Oregon, pp. 125-6; Francheres Nar., p. 258; Mofrax, Explor.,
toin. ii., p. 354; fioss Adven., p. 96; Parkers Explor. Tour, pp. 139, 246, 254;
Tolmie, in Lord s Nat., vol. ii., p. 248; Gibbs Chinook Vocab., pp. 11, 13;
Cibbs Clnllam and Lummi Vocal., pp. 15, 29; Irving s Astoria, pp. 339-40;
Tutors Prim. Cult., vol. ii., p. 253.
SHOSHOXK DEMONS. 157
With the Cay uses and the Walla Wallas any one
may become a medicine-man; among the Xez Perces
the office belongs to an hereditary order. Women are
sometimes trained to the profession, but they are not
believed to hold such extreme powers as the males,
nor are they murdered on the supposed exercise of
some fatal influence. For, as with the Chinooks, 14 so
here, the reputation of sorcerer is at once the most
terrible to others and the most dangerous to one s self
that one can have. His is a power of life and death ;
his evil eye can wither and freeze a hated life, if not
as swiftly, at least as surely as the stare of the Medusa ;
he is mortal, however he can slay your friend or
yourself, and death is bitter, but then how sweet an
anodyne is
revenge! no strong magic can
There is
avail when the heart s blood down the aven
trickles
s
ger shaft, no cunning enchantment that can keep the
life in when his tomahawk crumbles the skull like a
potsherd and so it conies about that the conjurers

walk everywhere with their life in their hand, and are
constrained to be very wary in their exercise of their
nefarious powers. 15
The Shoshone legends people certain parts of the
mountains of Montana with little imps or demons,
called ninumbees, who are about two feet long, per
fectly naked, and provided each with a tail. These
limbs of the evil one are accustomed to eat up any
unguarded infant they may find, leaving in its stead
one of their own baneful race. When the mother
conies to suckle what she supposes to be her child,
o o seizes her breast and begins
the fiendish chansfelino; o to
devour it; then, although her screams and the alarm
thereby given soon force the malicious imp to make his
escape, there is no hope further; she dies within the
twenty-four hours, and if not well watched in the
u Parker s The chiefs say that they and their sous
E.rplor. Tour, p. 254.
are too great to die of themselves, and although they may be siek, and de
cline, and die, as others do, yet some person, or some evil spirit instigated
by some one, is the invisible cause of their death; and therefore when a chief
or chief s son dies the supposed author of the deed must be killed.
ld
Aloord, in tic/toolcraft* Arch., vol. v., p. G52.
mean time, the little demon will even return and make
an end of her by finishing his interrupted meal.
There is another variety of these hobgoblins, called
pahonalis, water-infants/ who devour women and
children as do their brother fiends of the mountain,
and complete the ring of ghoulish terror that closes
round the Shoshone child and mother. 16
The California!! tribes, taken as a whole, are pretty
uniform in the main features of their theogonic beliefs.
They seem, without exception, to have had a hazy
conception of a lofty, almost supreme being; for the
most part referred to as a Great Man, the Old Man
Above, the One Above attributing to him, however,
;
as is usual in such cases, nothing but the vaguest and

most negative functions and qualities. The real, prac
tical power that most interested them, who had most
to do with them and they with him, was a demon, or
body of demons, of a tolerably pronounced character.
In the face of divers assertions to the effect that no
such thing as a devil proper has ever been found in
savage mythology, we would draw attention to the
following extract from the Porno manuscript of Mr
Powers a gentleman who, both by his study and by
personal investigation, has made himself one of the
best qualified authorities on the belief of the native
Californian, and whose dealings have been for the
most part with tribes that have never had any friendly
intercourse with white men: "Of course the thin and
meagre
O imagination
O of the American savages
& was not
equal to the creation of Milton s magnificent imperial
Satan, or of Goethe s Mephistopheles, with his subtle
intellect, his vast powers, his malignant mirth but in so
;
far as the Indian fiends or devils have the ability, they

are wholly as wicked as these. They are totally bad,
they have no good thing in them, they think only evil ;
but they are weak and undignified and absurd they are
;
as much beneath Satan as the Big Indians who invent

them are inferior in imagination
o to John Milton."
17
16
Stuart s Montana, pp. 64-G.
17
Powers Porno, MS.
SACRED FII1ES. 159
A definite location is generally assigned to the evil

one as his favorite residence or resort; thus the Califor-
nians, in the county of Siskiyou, give over Devil s Cas
tle, its mount and lake, to the malignant spirits, and
avoid the vicinity of these places with all possible care.
The medicine-man of these people is a personage of
some importance, dressing in the most costly furs; he is
a non-combatant, not coming on the field till after the
fight; among other duties, it is absolutely necessary
for him to visit any camp from which the tribe has
been driven by the enemy, there to chant the death-
song and appease the angry spirit that wrought this
judgment of defeat, for only after this has been done
is it
thought safe to light again the lodge-fires on the
old hearths. Once lit, these lodge-fires are never
allowed to go out during times of peace; it would be
a bad omen, and omens are everything with these men,
and deduciblc from all things. The power of prophecy
is
thoroughly believed in, and is credited, not only to
special seers, but also to distinguished warriors going
into battle; in the latter case, as far at least as their
own several fate is concerned; this, according to Mr
18
Miller, they often predict with startling accuracy.
There is a strange sacredness mixed up with the
sweat-house and its use, among the Cahrocs, the Eu-
rocs, and many other tribes. The men of every vil
lage spend the winter and rainy season in its warm
shelter; but squaws are forbidden to enter, under
penalty of death, except when they are initiated into
the ranks of the medicines. So consistent are the
Indians in this matter, that women are not allowed
even to gather the wood that is to be burned in the
sacred fire of a sweat-house; all is done by men, and
that only with certain precautions and ceremonies.
The sacred fire is lit every year in September by a
medicine who has gone out into the forest and fasted
and meditated for ten days; and, till a certain time has
elapsed, no secular eye must behold so much as the
smoke of it, under awful penalties. The flame once
ls
Joaquin Milkr s L{/e amongst the Modocs, pp. 21, 116, 259-GO, 3GO.
burning is never suffered to go out till the spring begins

to render further heat unnecessary and inconvenient.
On one only occasion is the ban lifted from the head
of women when a female is being admitted to the
;
medicine ranks, she is made to dance in the sweat-

house till she falls exhausted. It does not appear,
however, that even by becoming a medicine can she
hope to see twice the interior of this lodge.
The admission of a man to the medicine is a much
severer affair. He must retire to the forest for ten
days, eating no meat the while, and only enough
acorn -porridge to keep the life in him; the ten days
passed, he returns to the sweat-house and leaps up and
down till he falls, just as the woman did.
The doctors or sorcerers are of two kinds, root
doctors and barking doctors. To the barking doc
tor falls the diagnosis of a case of sickness. He or
she squats down opposite the patient, and barks at
him, after the manner of an enraged cur, for hours to
gether. If it be a poisoning case, or a case of malady
inflicted by some conjurer, the barking doctor then
goes on to suck the evil thing out through the skin or

administer emetics, as may be deemed desirable. If
the case, however, be one of less serious proportions,
the barker, after having made his diagnosis, retires,
and the root doctor comes in. who, with his herbs and
simples and a few minor incantations, proceeds to cure
the ailment. If a patient die, then the medicine is
forced to return his fee and if he refuse to attend on
;
any one and the person die, then he is forced to pay

to the relatives a sum equal to that which was ten
dered to him as a -fee in the beginning
O O of the affair;
thus, like all professions, that of a medicine has its
dra \vbacks as well as advantages.
Several northern California!! tribes have secret
societies which meet in a lodge set apart, or in a
sweat-house, and engage in mummeries of various
kinds, all to frighten their women. The men pretend
to converse with the devil, and make their meeting-
place shake and ring again with yelb and whoops. In
CALIFORNIA!* DEITIES. lui
some instances, one of their number, disguised as the

master fiend himself, issues from the haunted lodge,
and rushes like a madman through the village, doing
his best to frighten contumacious women and children
out of their senses. This, it would seem, has been going
on from time immemorial, and the poor women are still
gulled byit, and even frightened into more or less pro
fits of wifely propriety and less easy virtue.

longed
The coast tribes of Del Norte County, California,
live in constant terror of a malignant spirit that takes
the form of certain animals, the form of a bat, of a
hawk, of a tarantula, and so on but especially de
lights in and affects that of a screech-owl. The
belief of the Russian River tribes and others is prac
tically identical with this.
The Cahrocs have, as we already know, some co?i-
ception of a great deity, called Chareya, the Old Man
Above; lie is wont to appear upon earth at times to
some of the most favored sorcerers ; he is described as
wearing a close tunic, with a medicine-bag, and as
having long white hair that falls venerably about his
shoulders. Practically, however, the Cahrocs, like
the majority of Californian tribes, venerate chiefly
the coyote. Great dread is also had of certain forest-
demons of nocturnal habits; these, say the Eurocs,
take the form of bears and shoot arrows at benighted
19
wayfarers.
Between the foregoing outlines of Californian belief
and those connected with the remaining tribes, pass
ing south, we can detect no salient difference till we
reach the Olchones, a coast tribe between San Fran
cisco and Monterey; the sun here begins to be con
nected, or identified by name, with that Great Spirit,
or rather, that Big Man, who made the earth and
who rules in the sky. 20 So we find it again both
around Monterey and around San Luis Obispo; the
first-fruits of the earth were offered in these neigh-
19
Power* Porno, MS.
M
Becclmjs Voy., vol. ii., p. 78.
VOL. III. 11
1C2 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.
borhoods to the great light, and his rising was greeted

21
with cries of joy.
Father Geronimo Boscana 22 gives us the following
relation of the faith and worship of the Acagchernem
nations, in the valley and neighborhood of San Juan
Capistrano, California. Part of it would fall naturally
into that part of this work allotted to origin; but the
whole so intimately mixed with so much concerning
is
the deeds, and worship of various supernatural
life,
personages, that it has seemed better to fit its present

position than any other. Of the first part of the tradi
tion there are two versions if indeed they be versions
of the same tradition. We

give first that version
held by the serranos, or Highlanders, of the interior
country, three or four leagues inland from the said
San Juan Capistrano.
Before the material world at all existed, there lived
two beings, brother and sister, of a nature that can
not be explained; the brother living above, and his
name meaning the Heavens, the sister living below,
and her name signifying Earth. From the union of
these two, there sprang a numerous offspring. Earth
and sand were the first fruits of this marriage; then
21
Fages, in Nouvelles Annales dcs Voy., vol. ci., pp. 316, 335.
22
Father Boscana, one of the earliest missionaries to Upper California,
left behind him the short manuscript history from which the tradition follow
ing in the text has been taken through the medium of a now rare transla
tion by Mr Robinson. Filled with the prejudices of its age and of the profes
sion of its author, it is yet marvellously truthlike; though a painstaking care
has evidently been used with regard to its most apparently insignificant
details, there are none of those too visible wrenchings after consistency, and
fillings up of lacunas which so surely betray the hand of the sophisticator
in so many monkish manuscripts on like and kindred subjects. There are
found on the other hand frank confessions of ignorance on doubtful points,
and many naive and puzzled comments on the whole. It is apparently the
longest and the most valuable notice in existence on the religion of a nation of
the native Californians, as existing at the time of the Spanish Conquest, and
more worthy of confidence than the general run of such documents of any
date whatever. The father procured his information as follows: He says:
God assigned to me three aged Indians, the youngest of whom was over
seventy years of age. They knew all the secrets, for two of them were
capitanes, and the other a,pul, who were well instructed in the mysteries. By
gifts, endearments, and kindness, I elicited from them their secrets,
with
their explanations; and by witnessing the ceremonies which they performed,
I learned, by degrees, their mysteries. Thus, by devoting a portion of the
nights to profound meditation, and comparing their actions with their dis
closures, I was enabled after a long time to acquire a knowledge of their re
ligion. Boscana, in. Robinsons Life in Cal. p. 236.
THE COYOTE OF THE ACAGCHEMEMS. 103
were born rocks and stones; then trees both great and
small; then grass and herbs; then animals; lastly was
born a great personage called Ouiot, who was a grand
*
captain. By some unknown mother many children

of a medicine race were born to this Ouiot. All these
things happened in the north; and afterward when
men w ere created, they were created in the north but;
as the people multiplied they moved toward the south,

the earth growing
o o larger
o also and extending
o itself in
>
>
the same direction.

In process of time, Ouiot becoming old, his chil
dren plotted to kill him, alleging that the infirmities
of age made him unfit any longer to govern them or
attend to their welfare. So they put a strong poison
in his drink, and when he drank of it a sore sickness
came upon him; he rose up and left his home in the
mountains and went down to what is now the sea
shore, though at that time there was no sea there.
His mother, whose name is the Earth, mixed him an
antidote in a large shell, and set the potion out in the
sun to brew; but the fragrance of it attracted the
attention of the Coyote, who came and overset the shell.
So Ouiot sickened to death, and though he told his
children that he would shortly return and be with
them again, he has never been seen since. All the
people made a great pile of wood and burned his body
there, and just as the ceremony began, the Coyote
leaped upon the body, saying that he would burn with
it; but he only tore a piece of flesh from the stomach
and ate it and escaped. After that the title of the
Coyote was changed from Eyacque, which means Sub-
captain, to Eno, that is to say, Thief and Cannibal.
When now the funeral rites were over, a general
council was held, and arrangements made for collecting
animal and vegetable food; for up to this time the
children and descendants of Ouiot had nothing to eat
but a kind of white clay. And while they consulted
together, behold a marvellous thing appeared before
them, and they spoke to it, saying Art thou our cap
:
tain, Ouiot? But the spectre said: Nay, for I am

is above, and my
greater than Ouiot; my habitation
name is Chinigchinich. Then he spoke further, hav
ing been told for what they were
come together I :
create all things, and I go now to make man, another

people like unto you; as for you,
I give you power,
each after his kind, to produce all good and pleasant
things. One of you shall bring rain, and another dew,
and another make the acorn grow, and others other
seeds, and yet others shall cause all kinds of game to
abound in the land and your children shall have this
;
power forever, and they shall be sorcerers to the men

I go to create, and shall receive gifts of them, that
the game fail not and the harvests be sure. Then
Chinigchinich made man; out of the clay of the lake
he formed him, male and female; and the present
Calif ornians are the descendants of the one or more
pairs there and thus created.
So ends the known tradition of the mountaineers;
we must now go back and take up the story ancAV at
its beginning, as told by the playanos, or people of the
valley of San Juan Capistrano. These say that an

invisible, all-powerful being, called Nocuma, made the
world and all that it contains of things that grow and
move. He made it round like a ball and held it in
his hands, where it rolled about a good deal at first,
till he steadied it by sticking a heavy black rock called
tosaut into it, as a kind of ballast. The sea was at this

time only a little stream running round the world, and
so crowded with fish that their twinkling fins had no
longer room to move ;
so great was the press that
some of the more foolish fry were for effecting a land
ing and founding a colony upon the dry land, and it
was only with the utmost difficulty that they were
persuaded by their elders that the killing air, and
baneful sun, and the want of feet must infallibly prove
the destruction, before many days, of all who took part
in such a desperate enterprise. The proper plan was
evidently to improve and enlarge their present home,
and to this end, principally by the aid of one very
large fish, they broke the great rock tosaut in two.
THE FIRST MEDICINE-MAX. l<;r>
finding a bladder in the centre filled with a very bit

1
ter substance. The taste of it pleased the fish, so

it into the water, and
they emptied instantly the water
became salt and swelled up and overflowed a great
part of the old earth, and made itself the new bounda
ries that remain to this day.
Then Nocuma created a man, shaping him out of
the soil of the earth, calling him Ejoni. Awoman
also the great god made, presumably of the same mate
rial as the man, calling her Ac. Many children were
born to this first pair, and their descendants multi
plied over the land. The name of one of these last
was Sirout, that is to say, Handful of Tobacco, and
the name of his wife was Ycaiut, which means above ;
and to Sirout and Ycaiut was born a son, while they

lived in a place north-east about eight leagues from
San Juan Capistrano. The name of this son was
Ouiot, that is to say, Dominator he grew a fierce and
;
redoubtable warrior; haughty, ambitious, tyrannous,

he extended his lordship on every side, ruling every
where as with a rod of iron and the people conspired
;
against
O him. It was determined that he should die
by poison; a piece of the rock tosaut was ground up
in so deadly a way that its mere external application
was sufficient to cause death. Ouiot, notwithstanding
that he held himself constantly on the alert, having
been warned of his danger by a small burrowing ani
mal called the cucumel, was unable to avoid his fate;
a few grains of the cankerous mixture w ere dropped
r
upon his breast while he slept, and the strong mineral

ate its way to the very springs of his life. All the
wise men of the land were called to his assistance but
;
there was nothing for him save to die. His body was
burned on a great pile with songs of joy and dances,
and the nation rejoiced.
While the people were gathered to this end, it was
thought advisable to consult on the feasibility of pro
curing seed and flesh to eat, instead of the clay which
had up to this time been the sole food of the human
family. And while they yet talked together, there
appeared to them, coming they knew not whence, one

called Attajen, "which name implies man, or rational
being."
And Attajen, understanding their desires,
chose out certain of the elders among them, and
to these gave he power, one that he might cause
rain to fall, to another that he might cause game to
abound, and so with the rest, to each his power and
gift, and to the successors of each forever. These
were the first medicine-men.
Many years having elapsed since the death of
Ouiot, there appeared in the same place one called
Ouiamot, reputed son of Tacu and Auzar people
unknown, but natives, it is thought by Boscana, of
"some distant land." This Ouiamot is better known
by his great name Chinigchinich, which means Al
mighty. He first manifested his powers to the peo
ple on a day when they had met in congregation for
some purpose or other; he appeared dancing before
them, crowned with a kind of high crown made of tall
feathers stuck into a circlet of some kind, girt with a
kind of petticoat of feathers, and having his flesh
painted black and red. Thus decorated, he was called
the tobet. Having danced some time, Chinigchinich
called out the medicine-men, or
puplewis, as they were
called, among whom it would appear the chiefs are
always numbered, and confirmed their power; telling
them that he had come from the stars to instruct
them in dancing and all other things, aiTd commanding
that in all their necessities
they should array them
selves in the tobet, and so dance as he had danced,
supplicating him by his great name, that, thus they
might receive of their petitions. He
taught them
how to worship him, how to build vanquechs, or places
of worship, and how to direct their conduct in various
affairs of life. Then he prepared
to die, and the peo
ple asked himthey should
if bury him but he warned
;
them against attempting such a thing If ye buried me,

:
he said, ye would tread upon my grave, and for that

my hand would be heavy upon you look to it, and to
;
all
your ways, for lo I go up where the high stars
!
SANCTUARIES OF REFUGE. 1G7
are, where mine eyes shall see all the ways of men;
and whosoever will not keep my commandments nor
observe the things I have taught, behold disease shall
plague all his body, and no food shall come near his
lips, the bear
shall rend his flesh, and the crooked
tooth of the serpent shall sting him.
The vanquech, or place of worship, seems to have
been an unroofed enclosure of stakes, within which,
on a hurdle, was placed the image of the god Chinig-
chinich. This image was the skin of a coyote or that
of a mountain-cat stuffed with the feathers of certain
birds, and with various other things, so that it looked
like a live animal; a bow and some arrows were at
tached to it on the outside, and other arrows were
thrust down its throat, so that the feathers of them
appeared at the mouth as out of a quiver. The whole
place of the enclosure was sacred, and not to be ap
proached without reverence; it does not seem that
sacrifices formed any part of the worship there offered,
but only prayer, and sometimes a kind of pantomime
connected with the undertaking desired to be fur
thered thus, desiring success in hunting, one mimicked
;
the actions of the chase, leaping and twanging one s

bow. Each vanquech was a city of refuge, with rights
of sanctuary exceeding any ever granted in Jewish or
Christian countries. Not only was every criminal
safe there, whatever his crime, but the crime was, as it
were, blotted out from that moment, and the offender
was at liberty to leave the sanctuary and walk about
as before it was not lawful even to mention his crime
; ;
all that the

avenger could do was to point at him and
deride him, saying Lo, a coward, who has been forced
:
to flee to Chinigchinich ! This flight was rendered so

much a meaner thing in that it only turned the pun
ishment from the head of him that fled upon that of
some of his relatives; life went for life, eye for eye,
and tooth for tooth, even to the third and fourth gen
eration, for justice sake.
Besides Chinigchinich, they worshipped, or at any
rate feared, agod called Touch; who inhabited the
1GS GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.
mountains and the bowels of the earth, appearing how 1
ever, from time to time in the form of various animals

of a terrifying kind. Every child at the age of six or
seven received, sent to him from this god, some ani
mal as a protector. To find out what this animal or
spirit in the shape of animal was, narcotic drinks were
swallowed, or the subject fasted and watched in the
vanquech for a given time, generally three days. He
whose rank entitled him to wait for his guardian appa
rition in the sacred enclosure was set there by the side
of the god s image, and on the ground before him was
sketched by one of the wise men an uncouth figure of
some animal. The child was then left to complete his
vigil, being warned at the same time to
endure its
hardships with patience, in that any attempt to in
fringe upon its rules, by eating, or drinking, or other
wise, would be reported to the god by the sprawling
figure the enchanter had drawn in the clay, and that
in such a case the punishment of Chinigchinich would
be terrible. After all this was over, a scar was made
on the child s right arm, and sometimes on the thick
part of the leg also, by covering the part,
"
according
to the figure required," with a peculiar herb dried and
powdered, and setting fire to it. This was a brand or
seal required by Chinigchinich, and was besides sup
posed to strengthen the nerves and give 23

better "a
pulse for the management of the bow."
The Acagchemems, like many other California!!

24
tribes, regard
O the great
O buzzard with sentiments of
veneration, while they seem to have had connected with
it several rites and ideas
peculiar to themselves. They
called this bird the panes, and once every year they had
a festival of the same name, in which the principal cere
mony was the killing of a buzzard without losing a drop
of its blood. It was next skinned, all possible care be
ing taken to preserve the feathers entire, as these were
used in making the feathered petticoat and diadem, al-
23
See p. 113 of this volume, for a custom among the Mexicans not with
out analogies to this.
2
See p. 134 of this volume.
A:TD THERE WAS WAR IN HEAVEN. ico
ready described as part of the tobet. Last cf all, tho

body was buried within the sacred enclosure, amid great
apparent grief from the old women, they mourning as
over the loss of relative or friend. Tradition explained
this: the panes had indeed been once a woman, whom,
wandering in the mountain v/ays, the great god Chi-
nigchinich had come suddenly upon and changed into a
bird. Plow this was connected with the killing of her
anew every year by the people, and with certain ex
traordinary ideas held relative to that killing, is, how
ever, by no means clear; for it was believed that a:.;
often as the bird was killed it was made alive again,
and more, and faith to move mountains that the birds
killed inone same yearly feast in many separate vil
lages were one and the same bird. How these things 5
were or why, none knew, it was enough that they were

a commandment and ordinance of Chinigchinich, whoso
20
ways were not as the ways of men.
The Pericues of Lower California were divided

into two sects, worshipping two hostile divinities who
made a war of extermination upon each other. Tho
tradition explains that there was a great lord in
heaven, called Niparaya, who made earth and sea,
and was almighty and invisible. Plis wife was Anay-
icoyondi, a goddess who, though possessing no body,
bore him a divinely mysterious manner three
in
children; one of whom, Quaayayp, was a real man
and born on earth, on the Acaragui mountains. Very
powerful this young god was, and a long time he lived
with the ancestors of the Pericues, whom it is almost
to be inferred that he created; at any rate, we r.ro
told that he was able to make men, drawing them up
out of the earth. The men at last killed this their
great hero and teacher, and put a crown of thorns
26
upon his head. Somewhere or other he remains
lying dead to this day, and he remains constantly
,
r.\ L fe i.i C .:L, p;x 2t2-D31.
Robinsons
all
The Christian
leaven, v,l:o.;e working ui-e evident through this narra
tive, ferments here too violently to nee 1 pointing out,
170 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP
beautiful, body know corruption.

neither does his
Blood drips constantly from his wounds, and he can
speak no more, being dead; yet there is an owl that
speaks to him. And besides the before-spoken-of god
Niparaya in heaven, there was another and hostile
god, called Y/ac or Tuparan. According to the
Niparaya sect, this V/ac had made war on their favor
ite god, and been by him defeated and cast forth of
heaven into a cave under the earth, of which cave the
whales of the sea were the guardians. With a per
verse though not unnatural obstinacy, the sect that
held Wac or Tuparan to be their great god persisted
in holding ideas peculiar to themselves with regard to
the truth of the foregoing story; and their account
o-reat war in heaven and its results differed from
of the O
the other, as differ the creeds of heterodox and ortho
dox everywhere; they ascribe, for example, part of
the creation to other gods besides Niparaya. 2r The
Cochimis and remaining natives of the Californian
peninsula seem to have held in the main much the
same ideas with regard to the gods and powers above
them as the Pericues held, and the sorcerers of all
had the common blowings, leapings, fastings, and
ether mummeries that make these professors of the
28
minister art so much alike everywhere in our territory.
The natives of Nevada have ideas respecting a

great kind Spirit of some kind, as well as a myth con
cerning an evil one; but they have no special class set
29
r,part as medicine-men. The Utah belief seems to
be as nearly as possible identical with that of Nevada. 30
The Comanches acknowledge more or less vaguely a
Supreme Spirit, but seem to use the Sun and the Earth
as mediators with, and in some sort as embodiments
of him. They have a recognised body of sorcerers
called puyacantes, and various religious ceremonies
27
See pp. 83-4, this volume.
28
Veneyas, llotldas de la CzL, tom. i., pp. 1G2-24; Clavigero, Storia
della C(iL, tom. i., pp. 135-41; Humboldt, Essai Pol tom. i., p. 314.
,
29
Virginia City Chronicle, quoted in 8. F. Daily Evg Post, of Oct. 12,
1372; Browne s Lower Cal., p. ICO.
30
De Smei s Letters, p. 41.
MONTEZUMA OF THE PUEBLOS. 171
and chants; for the most part of a simple kind, a::d

directed to the Sun as the great source of life, and to
the Earth as the producer and receptacle of all that
sustains life. According to the Abbd Domenech,
every Comanche wears a little figure of the sun
attached to his neck, or has a picture of it painted on
his shield; from the ears of each hang also two cres
31
cents, which may possibly represent the moon.
The Apaches recognize a supreme power in heaven,
under the name Yaxtaxitaxitanne, the creator and
master of all things; but they render him no open
service nor worship. To any taciturn, cunning man
they are accustomed to credit intercourse with a pre
ternatural power of some kind, and to look to him as
a sort of oracle in various emergencies. This is, in
fact, their medicine-man, and in cases of illness he pre
tends to perform cures by the aid of herbs and cere
monies of various kinds. 32
The Navajos, having the usual class of sorcerers,
call their good deity Whaillahay, and their evil one
Chinday the
; principal use of their good god seems to be
to protect them from their evil one. In smoking, they
sometimes puff their tobacco-smoke toward heaven
with great formality: this is said to bring rain; to the
same end, certain lono;
O round stones, thought
O to be cast
down by the clouds in a thunder-storm, are used with
various ceremonies.
The sun, moon, and stars are thought to be powers
connected with rain and fine weather; while the god
Montezuma of their Pueblo neighbors is unknown
33
among them.
All the Pueblo cities, though speaking different
S1
Parker, in Schoolcraffs Arch., vol. v., p. 684; Whipjde, Ewbank, and
Turner s RepL, pp. 35-6, in Pac. R. R. RcpL, vol. iii.; Barreiro, Ojeada sol re
N. Mcx., ap. p. 8; Filley s Life and Adven., p. 82; Marcy s Army Life, pp. 58,
64; Domenech, Jonr. d un JAs>s.,pp. 13, 121, 469,
32
Barreiro, Ojcada sobre N. Mex., ap. pp. 2-3; Henry, in. Schoolcraft s
Arch., vol. v., p. 212.
33
Crrfatfs Western World, Aug. 1872, p. 27; Whipple, Ewltank, and Tur
ners RepL, p. -1-2, in Pac. R. R. Rcpt., vol. iii.; Ten BroccJc, in Schoolcraft s
Arch., vol. iv., p. 91; Cristol, in hut. Aff. Kept.., Special Com., 10:37, p. 358;
Brinion s Mjtlis, p. 1"3; DornenecliS Deserts, vol. ii. p. 402.
languages, hold substantially the same faith. They

seem to assent to the statement of the existence of a
great and good spirit whose name is too sacred to be
mentioned but most say that Montezuma is his equal
; ;
and some, again, that the Sun is the same as or equal

to Montezuma. There are, besides, the lesser divini
ties of water Montezuma being considered in one
aspect as the great rain-god, and as such often men
tioned as being aided by or being in connection with
a serpent. Over and above all these, the existence of a
general class or body of evil spirits is taken for granted.
At Acoma, it is said by some, was established the
first Pueblo, and thence the people marched south
ward, forming others. Acoma was one, and Pecos

another. At this last, Montezema planted a tree up
side down, and said that, on his leaving them, a strange
nation should oppress them for many years, years also
in which there should be no rain, but that they were
to persist in watching the sacred fire until the tree
fell, when he would return, with a white race which
should destroy their enemies; and then rain should
fall again. It is said that this tree fell from its abnormal
position as the American army entered Santa Fe.
The watching of the fire, kept up in subterranean
estufas, under a covering of ashes generally, and in
the basin of a small altar, was no light task. The
warriors took the post by turns, some said, for two
successive days and nights, sans food, sans drink, sans
sleep, sans everything. Others affirm that this watch
ing was kept up till exhaustion and even death
relieved the guard the last not to be wondered at,
seeing the insufferable closeness of the place and the
accumulation of carbonic acid. The remains of the
dead were, it was sometimes supposed, carried off by
a monstrous serpent. This holy fire was believed to
be the palladium of the city, and the watchers by it
could well dream of that day, when, coming with the
sun, Montezuma should descend by the column of
smoke whose roots they fed, and should fill the shabby
little estufa with a odory like that in a wilderness tab-
HE IS NOT L>EAJ>,
BUT IrJLEEPETH. 173
eriuiclethey knew not of, where a more awful pillar

of smoke shadowed the mystic cherubim. Hope dies
hard, and the dim memories of a great past never
quite fade away from among any people.
No true-
born British bard ever doubted of Arthur s return
from his kingly rest in Avalon, nor that the flash of
Excalibar should be one. day again as the lightning of
death in the eyes of the hated Saxon. The herders
on the shore of Lucerne know that were Switzerland
in peril, the Tell would spring from his sleep as at the
crack of doom. "When Germany is at her lowest,
then is her greatness nearest," say the weird old ballads

of that land; for then shall the Great Kaiser rise from
the vault in the Kyffhauser Barbarossa shall rise,
though his beard be grown through the long stone
table. Neither is the Frank without his savior Sing, :
O troubadours, sing and strike the chords proudly!

Who shall prevail while Charlemagne but sleeps in
the shadow of the Untersber^ O? And so our Pueblo
sentinel climbing the house-top at Pecos, looking ever
eastward from Santo Domingo on the Rio Grande;
lie too waits for the beautiful feet upon the mountains,
and the plumes of him
Who dwelt up in the yellow sun,
And sorrowing for man s despair,
Slid liis trailing yellow hair
l>y
To earth, to rule with love and bring

The blessedness of peace. ^
The Pueblo seem to be at the same time

chiefs
priests; they perform the various simple rites by which
the power of the sun and of Montezuma is recognized
as well as the power according to some accounts
of "the Great Snake, to whom by order of Montezuma
they are to look for life;" they also officiate in certain
ceremonies with which they pray for rain. There are
painted representations of the Great Snake, together
with that of a misshapen red-haired man declared to
stand for Montezuma. Of this last, there was also in
1845, in the pueblo of Laguna, a rude effigy or idol,
34
Joaquin Miller s Californian.
intended, apparently, to represent only the head of the

deity; it was made of tanned skin in the form of a
brimless hat, or cylinder open at the bottom. Half
round it was painted red; the other half was
way
green. The green side was rudely marked to suggest
a face; two triangles were cut for eyes; there was no
nose a circular leather patch served for a mouth, and
;
two other patches in an appropriate situation suggested

ears. Crowning the head was a small tuffc of leather,
said to be supplemented by feathers on festal occasions.
A sorry image, one would say, yet one looked upon by
its exhibitors with apparently the greatest veneration ;
they kneeling in a most devoted manner, going through

a form of prayer, and sprinkling it with a white pow
der. One of the worshippers said it was God and the
brother of God; and the people bring it out in dry
seasons, and with various rites, invoke it for rain.
Christianity has now effaced the memory of most of
the rites of the Pueblo religion, but Dr Ten Broeck
noticed that many of the worshippers at the Christian
church in Laguna carried little baskets in their hands
containing images of domestic animals, or of beasts of
the chase, moulded in mud or dough; it being the cus
tom, as it had been there from time immemorial, for
those that had been successful in the chase, or in accu
mulatingO cattle, to O such sinmlachres of their
brin<2f
prosperity before the altar of God probably a modi

fication produced by the poverty of the people of a
rite as old as the altar of Abel, to wit, the offering of
the firstlings and first-fruits to that Deity whose bless
ing had given the increase.
It has been affirmed, without much foundation or
probability of truth, that the Pueblos worshipped fire
and water. 35
1
Com. Prairies, vol. i., pp. 271-3; Davis El Gringo, pp. 142, 396;
Simpson s Overland Journ., pp. 21-3; Domeneclis Deserts, vol. i., pp. 1645, 418,
vol. ii., pp. 62-3, 401; Mollhausen, Twjelmcli, pp. 170, 219, 284; Mehnes Two
pp. iyj-3; timorys Jteconnoissance, p. au; Tyl

p. 384; Brintons Myths, p. 190; Coronado, in Hakluyt s Voy. vol. iii., p. %
379. Fremont gives an account cf the birth of Montezuma. His mother was,
MOJAVE DEITIES. 175
The Moquis know nothing of Montezuma; they

believe in a Great Father, living where the sun rises,
and in a Great Mother, whose home is where the sun
goes down. This Father is the father of evil, war,
pestilence, and famine; but from the Mother are all
86
their joy, peace, plenty, and health.
The Mojaves tell of a certain Matevil, creator o/
heaven and earth, who was wont in time past to re
main among them grand casa. This hab
in a certain
itation was, however, by some untoward event, broken
down; the nations were destroyed; and Matevil de
parted eastward. Whence, in the latter days, he will
again return to consolidate, prosper, and live with his
people forever. This Matevil, or Mathowelia, has a

son called Mastamho, who made the water and planted
37
trees. There is also an Evil Spirit, Newathie.
From a letter just received from Judge Rosebor-

ough, I ana enabled to close this chapter with some
new and valuable facts regarding the religious ideas
of certain tribes not accurately specified of the
north-west portion of Upper California. The learned
judge has given unusual attention to the subject of
which he writes, and his opportunities for procuring
information must have been frequent during ten years
of travel and residence in the districts of the northern
counties of California.
Among the tribes in the neighborhood of Trinity
River is found a legend relating to a certain Wappeck-
quemow, who was a giant, and apparently the father
and leader of a pre-human race like himself. He was
a -woman of exquisite beauty, admired and sought after by all men,
it is said,
they making her presents of corn and skins and all that they had; but the
fastidious beauty would accept nothing of them but their gifts. In process
of time a season of drought brought on a famine and much distress; then it
was that the rich lady showed her charity to be as great in one direction as
it had been wanting in another. She opened her granaries, and the gifts of
the lovers she had not loved went to relieve the hungry she pitied. At last
with rain fertility returned to the earth; and on the chaste Artemis of the
Pueblos its touch fell too. She bore a son to the thick summer shower, and
that son was Montezuma.
ac
Ten Broeck,in Schoolcraft s Arch., vol. iv., pp. 85-G.
37
WJupple, Ewlxtnk, and Turner s Kept., pp. 42-3, in Pac. R. R. Rept.,
vol. iii.; Dodt, in bid. Aff. JRept., 1870, p.
12<J.
expelled from the country that lie inhabited near the

mouth of the Klamath for disobeying or offending
some great god, and a curse was pronounced against
him, so that not even his descendants should ever
return to that land. On the expulsion of these Ana-
kiln, the ancestors of the people to whom this legend
belongs came down from the north-west, a direction
of migration, according to Judge Roseborough, uni
formly adhered to in the legends of all the tribes of
north-west California. These new settlers, however,
like their predecessors of the giant race, quarrelled
with the great god, and were abandoned by him to
their own devices, being given over into the hands of
certain evil powers or devils. Of these the first is
Omaha, who, possessing the shape of a grizzly bear,
is invisible, and goes about everywhere bringing sick
ness and misfortune on mankind. Next there is Maka-
lay, a fiend with a horn like
a unicorn; he is swift as
the wind, and moves by great leaps like a kangaroo.
The sight of him is
usually death to mortals. There
is, thirdly, a dreadful being called Kalicknateck, who
seems a faithful reproduction of the great thunder-
bird of the north; thus Kalicknateck a huge bird
"is
that sits on the mountain-peak, and broods in silence

over his thoughts until hungry; when he will sweep
down over the ocean, snatch up a large whale, and
carry it to his mountain-throne, for a single meal."
Besides the before-mentioned powers of evil, these
Trinity people have legends connected with other per
sonages of the same nature, among whom are Wanus-
wegock, Surgelp, Napousney, and Nequiteh.
When white miners first came to work on the Trin
ity River, their advent caused, as may be imagined,
much unsatisfactory speculation among the aborigines;
some saying one thing of the whites and some another.
At an old seer of the Hoopah Valley settled the
last
question by declaring that the new-comers were de

scendants of that banished Wappeckqueinow, from
whose heads the already-mentioned curse, forbidding
their return, had been by some means lifted.
THE KITCHEN-MIDDEN OF THE HOHGATES. 177
Thecoast people in northern California have a story

about a mysterious people called Hohgates, to whom
is ascribed an immense bed of mussel-shells and bones
of animals still existing on the table-land of Point St
George, near Crescent City. These Hohgates, seven
in number, are said to have come to the place in a
boat, to have built themselves "houses above ground,
after the style of white men" all this about the time
that the first natives came down the coast from the
north. These Hohgates, living at the point mentioned,
killed many elk on land, and many seals and sea-lions
in fishing excursions from their boats; using for the
latter purpose a kind of harpoon made of a knife
attached to a stick, and the whole fastened to the boat
with a long line. They also sailed frequently to cer
tain rocks, and loaded their little vessels with mussels.
By all this they secured plenty of food, and the refuse
of it, the bones and shells, and so on, rapidly accumu
lated into the great JcjoJcJcen madding still to be seen.
One day, however, all the Hohgates being out at sea
in their boat, they struck a huge sea-lion with their
rude harpoon, and, unable or unwilling to cut or throw
off their line, were dragged with fearful
speed toward
a great whirlpool, called Chareckquin, that lay far
toward the north-w^est. It is the place where souls
go, where in darkness and cold the spirits shiver for
ever living men suffer even from its winds from the
;
north-west wind, the bleak and bitter Charreck-rawek.

And just as the boat reached the edge of this fearful
place, behold, a marvellous thing the rope broke and
:
the sea-monster was swept down alone into the whirl

of wind and water, while the Hohgates were caught
up into the air; {swinging round and round, their boat
floated steadily up into the vast of heaven. Never
more on earth were the Hohgates seen; but there are
seven stars in heaven that all men know of, and these
stars are the seven Hohgates that once lived where
the great shell-bed near Crescent City now is.
VOL. III. 12

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CHAPTER V.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

ESKIMO WITCHCRAFT THE TINNEH AND THE KONIAGAS KUGANS OF THE

WE now come to the broadest, whether or not it

they ought to believe, or may be supposed to believe,

casions come across a new broad trail that led to a

came, and how. Suspicion at last pointing to the boy

things unseen are constrained to appear at his holiest.

impending death, the shaman is hired to expel the

which they most frequently confess discover something

per* Tn*li, 317; Richardson 8 Jour., vol.

They have nlso a chief deity or spirit, called Shljam

Russian priests have, however, been successful enough

or at a funeral was their face seen. They lived and

belt of sea-weed woven

fatal than a glance of the demon that possessed the

The Thlinkeets are said not to believe in any su

alas! we have seen him helpless in the magic darkness

his anger is stirred up sends sickness and evil fortune.

Yehl acted and lived, so also will we live and do.

supposed victim, is sometimes avenged upon them by

tongue, which the man cuts off and preserves, hiding

however, the spirits will not visit the would-be

shamdns in the form of land animals. With regardO to

that of other men, but put in a box which is set up on

the spot without dropping a little tobacco into the

Haidahs, at least those seen by Mr Poole on Queen

knives stuck in flesh of his arms, legs, and sides, being

him a crime from which their descendants have de

both moon and sun, as to all good deities, their prayers

people to worship these luminaries, who are more pow

spirits of various kinds, and

pretation of omens and dreams; the latter a most im

The Okanagans master of

a bad spirit, Kishtsainah or Chacha; both moving- con

a pipe is passed round and each one smokes three

there was an island far out at sea, called Sarnahtumi-

by a tall fair woman called Scomalt; and she was a

vexed concerning them, neither shall they trouble the

presiding for the most part at the various observances

cipal good deity called by various names, and an evil

medicine-man, rattle in hand, and decked out with the

named him from a

ently talking to themselves in low, monotonous tones.

spirit or guardian never being mentioned, even to the

in all cases of sickness the etaminuas, or priests, who

potsherd and so it conies about that the conjurers

as is usual in such cases, nothing but the vaguest and

far as the Indian fiends or devils have the ability, they

as much beneath Satan as the Big Indians who invent

A definite location is generally assigned to the evil

burning is never suffered to go out till the spring begins

medicine ranks, she is made to dance in the sweat-

goes on to suck the evil thing out through the skin or

any one and the person die, then he is forced to pay

some instances, one of their number, disguised as the

fits of wifely propriety and less easy virtue.

borhoods to the great light, and his rising was greeted

pulse for the management of the bow."

then is her greatness nearest," say the weird old ballads