Faces of the Yuma Indians of Arizona, California and Colorado Photo Gallery

Faces of the Yuma Indians of Arizona, California and Colorado Photo Gallery

Yuma Indian warrior believed to have been taken in Arizona in the early 1900s

Two Yuma women in traditional dress

Yuma Indian woman with child

Photograph notes that these are Yuma Apache in which they were a kindred tribe. No explanation on the hair coloring.

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This photograph has been circulated as both Apache and Yuma. Her name was Hattie Tom.

Yuma Indian Facts

Yuma Indian Facts

The valley of the Colorado River in Arizona, the peninsula of California and portions of the eastern shore of the Gulf of California, formed the home of the Yuma stock. They were found in these regions by Coronado as early as 1540, and own no traditions of having lived anywhere else. The considerable differences in their dialects within this comparatively small area indicates that a long period has elapsed since the stock settled in this locality and split up into hostile fractions.

It has also been called the Katchan or Cuchan stock, and the Apache, that being the Yuma word for “fighting men”; but we should confine the term Apaches to the Tinneh (Athapascan) tribe so
called, and to avoid confusion I shall dismiss the terms Apache-Yumas, Apache-Tontos and Apache-Mohaves, employed by some writers. The Yumas, from whom the stock derives its name, lived near the mouth of the Colorado River. Above them, on both banks of the river, were the Mohaves, and further up, principally on Virgin River, were the Yavapai.

Most of the Yumas are of good stature, the adult males averaging five feet nine inches high, well built and vigorous. The color varies from a dark to a light mahogany; the hair is straight and coarse, the eyes horizontal, the mouth large, and the lips heavy. The skull is generally brachycephalic, but there are a number of cases of extreme dolichocephaly .

Animal totems with descent in the male line prevailed among the Yumas, though they seem for a long time not to have regarded these matters closely. In culture they vary considerably. The Seris or Ceris, who formerly lived in the hills near Horcasitas, but in 1779 were removed to the island of Tiburon, are described as thieves and vagrants, lazy and wretched. They were exceedingly troublesome to the Mexican government, having revolted over forty times. The boats they use are of a peculiar construction, consisting of rushes tied together. As weapons up to recent years they preferred the bow and arrow, and upon the arrow laid some kind of poison which prevented the wounds from healing.
Their dialect, which is harsh, is related especially to the western branch of the Yuma stem. They are described as light in color and some of them good-looking, but filthy in habits.

The Yumas and Maricopas were agricultural, cultivating large fields of corn and beans, and irrigating their plantations by trenches. It is highly probable that formerly some of them dwelt in adobe houses of the pueblo character, and were the authors of some of the numerous ruined structures seen in southern Arizona. The pottery and basket work turned out by their women are superior in style and finish. A few years ago the Mohaves of the west bank lived in holes in the earth covered with brush, or in small wattled conical huts. For clothing they wore strips of cottonwood bark, or knotted grass. Tattooing and painting the person in divers colors were common. The favorite ornament was shells, arranged on strings, or engraved and suspended to the neck. The chiefs wore elaborate feather head-dresses.

The Tontos, so-called from their reputation for stupidity, are largely mixed with Tinné blood, their women having been captured from the Apaches. Though savage, they are by no means dull, and are considered uncommonly adept thieves.

Quite to the south, in the mountains of Oaxaca and Guerrero, the Tequistlatecas, usually known by the
meaningless term Chontales, belong to this stem, judging from the imperfect vocabularies which have been published.

The peninsula of California was inhabited by several Yuma tribes differing in dialect but much alike in culture, all being on its lowest stage. Wholly unacquainted with metals, without agriculture of any kind, naked, and constructing no sort of permanent shelters, they depended on fishing, hunting and natural products for subsistence. Their weapons were the bow and the lance, which they pointed with sharpened stones. Canoes were unknown, and what little they did in navigation was upon rafts of reeds and brush.

Marriages among them were by individual preference, and are said not to have respected the limits of consanguinity; but this is doubtful, as we are also told that the mother-in-law was treated with peculiar ceremony. Their rites for the dead indicate a belief in the survival of the individual. The body was buried and after a certain time the bones were cleaned, painted red, and preserved in ossuaries.

The population was sparse, probably not more than ten thousand on the whole peninsula. At the extreme south were the Pericus, who extended to N. Lat. 24°; beyond these lived the Guaicurus to about Lat. 26°; and in the northern portion of the peninsula to latitude 33° the Cochimis. The early writers state that in appearance these bands did not differ from the Mexicans on the other side of the Gulf.
Their skulls, however, which have been collected principally from the district of the Pericus, present a peculiar degree of elongation and height (dolichocephalic and hypsistenocephalic).

YUMA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

• Ceris, on Tiburon Island and the adjacent coast.
• Cochimis, northern portion of Californian peninsula.
• Cocopas, at mouth of Colorado river.
• Coco-Maricopas, on middle Gila river.
• Comeyas, between lower Colorado and the Pacific.
• Coninos, on Cataract creek, branch of the Colorado.
• Cuchanes, see Yumas.
• Diegueños, near San Diego on the Pacific.
• Gohunes, on Rio Salado and Rio Verde.
• Guaicurus, middle portion of Californian peninsula.
• Hualapais, from lower Colorado to Black Mountains.
• Maricopas, see Coco-Maricopas.
• Mohaves, on both banks of lower Colorado.
• Pericus, southern extremity of Californian peninsula.
• Tontos, in Tonto basin and in the Pinal mountains.
• Tequistlatecas, of Oaxaca and Guerrero.
• Yavipais, west of Prescott, Arizona.
• Yumas, near mouth of Colorado river.

Yosemite California Indian Wars With Gold Miners of 1851

Yosemite California Indian Wars With Gold Miners of 1851

Dr. Bunnell, in his book already referred to, has given the soldiers' and white men's account of the cause of the Indian war of 1851, but a statement of the grievances on the part of the Indians, which caused the uniting of all the different tribes in the mining region adjacent to Yosemite, in an attempt to drive the white invaders from their country, has never been published, and a brief account of these grievances may be interesting.

AGGRESSIONS BY THE WHITE SETTLERS.

The first parties of prospecting miners were welcomed by the Indians with their usual friendliness and hospitality toward strangers—a universal characteristic of these tribes,—and the mining for gold was watched with great interest. They soon learned the value of the gold dust, and some of them engaged in mining, and exchanged their gold at the trading stations for blankets and fancy trinkets, at an enormous profit to the traders, and peace and good feeling prevailed for a short time.

Native American Indian Raids on California Trading Posts

Native American Indian Raids on California Trading Posts

To prepare for this struggle for existence, they made raids upon some of the principal trading posts in the mining sections, killed those in charge, took all the blankets, clothing and provisions they could carry away, and fled to the mountains, where they were soon pursued by the soldiers and volunteer citizens, and a spirited battle was fought without any decisive advantage to either side.

The breaking out of actual hostilities created great excitement among the whites, and an urgent call was made upon the Governor of the State for a military force to meet the emergency, and protect the settlers—a force strong enough to thoroughly subdue the Indians, and remove all of them to reservations to be selected by the United States Indian Commissioners for that purpose.

Meantime the Governor and the Commissioners, who had then arrived, were receiving numerous communications, many of them from persons in high official positions, earnestly urging a more humane and just policy, averring that the Indians had real cause for complaint, that they had been "more sinned against than sinning" since the settling of California by the whites, and that they were justly entitled to protection by the Government and compensation for the spoliations and grievances they had suffered.


These protests doubtless had some influence in delaying hostile measures, and in the inauguration of efforts to induce the Indians to come in and treat with the Commissioners, envoys being sent out to assure them of fair treatment and personal safety. Many of the Indians accepted these offers, and, as the different tribes surrendered, they were taken to the two reservations which the Commissioners had established for them on the Fresno River, the principal one being a few miles above the place where the town of Madera is now located.

As before stated, these Indians were not a warlike people. Their only weapons were their bows and arrows, and these they soon found nearly useless in defending themselves at long range against soldiers armed with rifles. Moreover, their stock of provisions was so limited that they either had to surrender or starve.

California Native American Fishing

California Native American Fishing

They had various methods of catching fish—with hook and line, with a spear, by weir-traps in the stream, and by saturating the water with the juice of the soap-root plant (Chlorogalum pomeridianum). Before they could obtain fishhooks of modern make, they made them of bone. Their lines were made of the tough, fibrous, silken bark of the variety of milkweed or silkweed, already mentioned. Their spears were small poles pointed with a single tine of bone, which was so arranged that it became detached by the struggles of the fish, and was then held by a string fastened near its center, which turned it crosswise of the wound and made it act as an effective barb.

Their weir-traps were put in the rapids, and constructed by building wing dams diagonally down to the middle of the stream until the two ends came near together, and in this narrow outlet was placed a sort of wicker basket trap, made of long willow sprouts loosely woven together and closed at the pointed lower end, which was elevated above the surface of the water below the dam. The fish, in going down stream, ran into this trap, and soon found themselves at the lower end and out of the water.

The soap-root was used at a low stage of water, late in summer. They dug several bushels of the bulbous roots and went to a suitable place on the bank, where the roots were pounded into a pulp, and mixed with soil and water. This mixture, by the handful, was then rubbed on rocks out in the stream, which roiled the water and also made it somewhat foamy. The fish were soon affected by it, became stupid with a sort of strangulation, and rose to the surface, where they were easily captured by the Indians with their scoop baskets. In a stream the size of the South Fork of the Merced River at Wawona, by this one operation every fish in it for a distance of three miles would be taken in a few hours.
The fish were generally cooked by roasting on hot coals from burned oak wood or bark.

California Native Americans in the Yosemite Valley

California Native Americans in the Yosemite Valley

Other bands of Indians in the vicinity of the Yosemite Valley were the Po-ho-nee´-chees who lived near the headwaters of the Po-ho´-no or Bridal Veil Creek in summer, and on the South Fork of the Merced´ River in winter, about twelve miles below Wawo´na; the Po-to-en´-cies, who lived on the Merced River; Wil-tuc-um´-nees, Tuol´-unme River; Noot´-choos and Chow-chil´-las, Chowchilla Valley; Ho-na´-ches and Me´-woos, Fresno River and vicinity; and Chook-chan´-ces, San Joaquin River and vicinity.

                                                                           Digger Indians

These tribes, including the Yosemites, were all somewhat affiliated by common ancestry or by intermarriage, and were similar in their general characteristics and customs. They were all called by the early California settlers, "Digger Indians," as a term of derision, on account of their not being good fighters, and from their practice of digging the tuberous roots of certain plants, for food.

The California Gold Rush Effect on Native American Populations

California Gold and the Native Americans

The report of the rich gold "diggin's" on the waters of the Tuolumne, Merced, Mariposa, Chowchilla, and Fresno Rivers, soon spread, and miners by thousands came and took possession of the whole country, paying no regard to the natural rights or wishes of the Indians.


Some of the Indian chiefs made the proposition that if the miners would give them some of the gold which they found in their part of the country, they might stay and work. This offer was not listened to by the miners, and a large majority of the white invaders treated the natives as though they had no rights whatever to be respected. In some instances, where Indians had found and were working good mining claims, they were forcibly driven away by white miners, who took possession of their claims and worked them.

Moreover, the Indians saw that their main sources of food supply were being rapidly destroyed. The oak trees, which produced the acorns—one of their staple articles of food,—were being cut down and burned by miners and others in clearing up land for cultivation, and the deer and other food game were being rapidly killed off or driven from the locality.

In the "early days," before California was admitted as a free State into the Union, it was reported, and was probably true, that some of the immigrants from the slave-holding States took Indians and made slaves of them in working their mining claims. It was no uncommon event for the sanctity of their homes and families to be invaded by some of the "baser sort," and young women taken, willing or not, for servants and wives.

RETALIATION.

In retaliation, and as some compensation for these many grievous outrages upon their natural inalienable rights of domain and property, and their native customs, the Indians stole horses and mules from the white settlers, and killed them for food for their families, who, in many instances, were in a condition of starvation.

F

Yosemite Indian Reservations in California

The Yosemites and all of the other tribes named in the previous chapter were put upon the Fresno reservation. Major Savage, who had been the leading figure in the war against the Indians, was perhaps their best friend while in captivity, and finally lost his life in a personal quarrel, while resenting a wrong which had been committed against them.


The tribes from south of the San Joaquin River, who were also conquered in 1851, were put upon the Kings River and Tejon (Tay-hone´) reservations.

LIFE ON THE RESERVATIONS.

Ample food supplies, blankets, clothing and cheap fancy articles were furnished by the Government for the subsistence, comfort and pleasure of the Indians on the reservations, and for a short time they seemed to be contented, and to enjoy the novelty of their new mode of life. The young, able-bodied men were put to work assisting in clearing, fencing and cultivating fields for hay and vegetables, and thus they were partially self-supporting. A large portion of them, however, soon began to tire of the restraints imposed, and longed for their former condition of freedom, and many of them sickened and died.

Old Teneiya, chief of the "Grizzlies," was particularly affected by the change in his surroundings, and by the humiliation of defeat. He suffered keenly from the hot weather of the plains, after his free life in the mountains, and begged to be allowed to return to his old home, promising not to disturb the white settlers in any way, a pledge which he did not break.

Yosemite Indian Sweat Houses

YOSEMITE INDIAN SWEAT HOUSE.

Used by the Yosemite hunters before starting after game.

    Late in the summer, or early in the fall, just before holding some of their grand social or sacred festivals, the Indian hunters would make preparation for a big hunt in the mountains, to get a good supply of venison for the feast. One of the first absolute prerequisites was to go through a thorough course of sweating and personal cleansing. This was done by resorting to their sweat houses, which were similar in construction to the o´-chums, except that the top was rounded and the whole structure was covered thickly with mud and earth to exclude the air. These houses were heated with hot stones and coals of fire, and the hunters would then crawl into them and remain until in a profuse perspiration, when they would come out and plunge into cold water for a wash-off. This was repeated until they thought themselves sufficiently free from all bodily odor so that the deer could not detect their approach by scent, and flee for safety.
After this purification they kept themselves strictly as celibates until the hunt was over, though their women went along to help carry the outfit, keep camp, cook, search for berries and pine nuts, and assist in bringing to camp and taking care of the deer as killed, and in "packing" the meat out to the place of rendezvous appointed for the grand ceremonies and feast.
Their usual manner of cooking fresh meat was by broiling on hot coals, or roasting before the fire or in the embers. Sometimes, however, they made a cavity in the ground, in which they built a fire, which was afterwards cleared away and the cavity lined with very hot stones, on which they placed the meat wrapped in green herbage, and covered it with other hot rocks and earth, to remain until suitably cooked.
When they had a surplus of fresh meat they cut it in strips and hung it in the sun-shine to dry. The dried meat was generally cooked by roasting in hot embers, and then beaten to soften it before being eaten.

A young hunter never ate any of the first deer he killed, as he believed that if he did so he would never succeed in killing another.

California Native American Yosemite Religious Ceremonies and Dancing

California Native American Yosemite Religious Ceremonies and Dancing

The Indians of this region, in common with most, if not all, of the North American aborigines, were of a highly religious temperament, most devout in their beliefs and observances, and easily wrought upon by the priests or medicine men of their tribes. Elaborate ceremonies were carried out, in which all of the details were highly symbolical, and some of their curious and picturesque superstitions were responsible for acts of cruelty and vengeance, which in many cases were foreign to their natural disposition.

DANCES.

Dancing was an important part of all religious observances, and was practiced purely as a ceremonial, and never for pleasure or recreation. Both men and women took part, the men executing a peculiar shuffling step which involved a great deal of stamping upon the ground with their bare feet, and the women performing a curious sideways, swaying motion. Some of the dancers carried wands or arrows, and indulged in wild gesticulations. They usually circled slowly around a fire, and danced to the point of exhaustion, when others would immediately take their places. The ceremony was accompanied by the beating of rude drums, and by a monotonous chant, which was joined in by all the dancers.

The great occasions for dancing were before going to war, and when cremating the bodies of their dead. The war dance was probably the most elaborate in costume and other details, and of recent years the Indians have sometimes given public exhibitions of what purported to be war dances, but these performances, like everything else which they do from purely mercenary motives, are very poor imitations of the originals, and it is doubtful if they have ever allowed a genuine war dance to be witnessed by white men.

FESTIVALS.

The various tribes in the vicinity of Yosemite Valley are accustomed to hold a great meeting or festival once a year, each tribe taking its turn as hosts, and the others sometimes coming from considerable distances. At these meetings there are dances and other ceremonials, and also a grand feast, for which extensive preparations are made. Another feature of the occasion is the presentation of gifts to the visiting tribes, consisting of money, blankets, clothing, baskets, bead-work, or other valuable articles. These presents, or their equivalent, no matter how small they may be, are always returned to the givers at the next annual festival, together with additional gifts, which, in turn, must be given back the following year, and so on.

At these gatherings an Indian is appointed to secure and keep on hand a good supply of wood for the camp fires, and every day he spreads a blanket on the ground and sits on it, and the other Indians throw money, clothing, or other contributions, into the blanket, to pay him and his assistants for their services. At other times this man acts as a messenger or news carrier—first spreading his blanket to collect his fees, and then starting off on his mission.

California Native Americans: Genocide of the Yosemite Indians

California Native Americans: Genocide of the Yosemite Indians

Their four years' residence on the reservations, however, had been more of a school in the vices of the whites than one of a higher education. They became demoralized socially, addicted to many bad habits, and left the reservations in worse condition than when they were taken there. Their old tribal relations and customs were nearly broken up, though they still had their head men to whom they looked for counsel in all important matters.

As the country became more settled, much of their main food supply, the acorns, was consumed by the domestic animals of the ranchers, and their mode of living became more precarious and transitory, and many of them were, at times, in a condition near to starvation. In these straitened and desperate circumstances, many of their young women were used as commercial property, and peddled out to the mining camps and gambling saloons for money to buy food, clothing or whisky, this latter article being obtained through the aid of some white person, in violation of law.

Their miserable, squalid condition of living opened the way for diseases of a malignant character, which their medicine men could not cure, and their numbers were rapidly reduced by death.

At the present time there are not in existence a half-dozen of the old Yosemites who were living, even as children, when the Valley was first discovered in 1851; and many of the other tribes have been correspondingly reduced.

California Native American Shamans and the Supernatural World

ABOUT CALIFORNIA INDIAN SHAMANISM.

Shamanism, the supposed individual control of the supernatural through a personally acquired power of communication with the spirit world, rests upon much the same basis in California as elsewhere in North America. In general among uncivilized tribes the simpler the stage of culture the more important the shaman. It is as if he constituted an element that remained nearly constant in quantity of effect, as it is fundamentally unvarying in form, through all successive periods of civilization to the highest; but that as increase in degree of civilization brought with it ever more and more new elements, religious and otherwise, and these unfolded in ever expanding complexity, he became, relatively to the total mass of thought and action of a people, less and less important. Certainly the difference is marked between the Eskimo, whose religion consists of little else than shamanism, and the much more highly organized Indians of the North Pacific Coast, where shamanism is but one of several and by no means the most important religious factor, even though it may be the most deep seated. The same contrast is found between the rude simple-minded Indians of California as compared with those of the Plains and of the Southwest, where the supremacy of the shaman is rather obscured by that of the priest conversant with a ceremony. Picture and Images of California Indians

Haida Shaman from the Northwest Coast.

   Even within California the difference holds good. In the Northwest, where the native civilization reached on the whole its greatest complexity, the shaman is less prominent than anywhere else in the state. In the south, where the culture is also more developed than in the Central part of the state, the shaman is certainly as much dreaded as there; but that his province is more restricted is shown by the fact that in Southern California the shamans in their capacity as such do not seem to form associations, perform public ceremonies, or directly participate in the tribal dances.

The power of the shaman being directly dependent upon his personal acquisition of a connection with the supernatural world, an understanding of the method by which this acquisition takes place generally furnishes also a pretty accurate idea of the nature of his functions and influence. The most common way of acquiring shamanistic power in California, as in so many other parts of the world, is by dreaming. A spirit, be it that of an animal, a place, the sun or another natural object, a deceased relative, or an entirely unimbodied spirit, visits the future medicine-man in his dreams, and the connection thus established between them is the source and basis of the latter's power. This spirit becomes his guardian spirit or "personal." From it he receives the song or rite or knowledge of the charm and the understanding which enable him to cause or remove disease and to do and endure what other men cannot. In California, with a few special exceptions, the idea does not seem so prevalent as elsewhere that this guardian spirit is an animal. Occasionally it is the ghost of a person who has once lived, usually a relative. Perhaps most frequently it is merely a spirit as such, not connected with any tangible embodiment or form, either human, animate, or inanimate. The belief that the shaman acquires the spirits most frequently in dreaming is prevalent through the whole Sierra Nevada region and in many other parts of the state.

Female Shaman from the Clayoquot tribe of Vancouver, Canada

    In certain regions another important method, that of the waking vision and trance, is recognized. The person is in a wild desolate place, perhaps hunting. Suddenly there is an appearance before him. He becomes unconscious and while in this state receives his supernatural power. On his return to his people he is for a time demented or physically affected. After he again becomes normal he has control of his supernatural influences. Such beliefs prevail in part among the Yuki and Athabascans of the Coast Range and the Maidu of the Sacramento valley, and no doubt occur more or less sporadically in other regions.

Finally, the shaman sometimes acquires his powers through seeking for them rather than by having them thrust upon him during a dream or vision. This of course is a common procedure in the Plains and in part on the North Pacific Coast. Among the Yurok of the lower Klamath, for instance, the person whom the spirits have visited in dreams, ascends high peaks where he spends one or more nights until he has acquired his powers. Among the Wiyot of Humboldt Bay there are similar beliefs. In the same Northwestern region a man who wishes to be fierce, strong, and invulnerable swims at night in lakes inhabited by monsters or thunders. From these, if his courage is sufficient to await and endure their presence, he receives the desired powers. This practice of bathing in lonely lakes closely recalls the custom prevalent along the Pacific slope for some distance northward, and within California it is probably not strictly confined to the Northwestern culture area. On the whole, however, this deliberate method of acquiring shamanistic power is not common, nor, as has already been stated, would it be in accord with the generally lower intensity of religious feeling among the California Indians as compared with those of most other parts of the continent. More California Indian Pictures Here

The Northwestern area is not only exceptional in being the principal one within the state where this deliberate seeking of shamanistic power is prevalent. The conception of a guardian spirit is much less clearly defined among the Northwestern tribes, with whom the possession of "pains," the small material objects which cause disease, rather than of true spirits, seems to be what is generally associated with shamanistic power. As already stated, shamanism forms a much less important part of religion as a whole in the Northwestern area than elsewhere, and it is in accord with this fact that the majority of the shamans, and those supposed to be most powerful, are women.

In parts of Southern California also the idea of the guardian spirit does not seem to be well developed. Here the method of acquiring shamanistic power is almost exclusively by dreams; but among the Mohave and probably other Colorado river tribes, myths, and not a personal meeting or communion with an individual spirit, constitute the subject of the dreams. The Mohave shamans believe that they were present at the beginning of the world, before mankind had separated into tribes. They were with the great leader and almost creator, Mastamho. They saw him singing, blowing, and rubbing over the body of a sick man, if their own power be that of curing disease, and from Mastamho they thus learned the actions and speeches which constitute their power. Before him they showed what they had learned from him, and by him were designated those who had seen and learned most and those of less power. Each man saw only the shamanistic actions relating to his particular power, whether these had reference to the curing of disease, to love, to war, or to some other activity. The Mohave universally speak of having dreamed these scenes, just as each narrator affirms his knowledge of non-shamanistic myths and of ceremonies to have been individually derived from dreaming them. It is probable that to a certain extent this is true. That it is not entirely true becomes evident when the Mohave with equal unanimity state that these dreams were dreamed by them before birth. In other words, their statement that they have dreamed such experiences is to be interpreted mainly as a belief that they as individuals were present in spirit form at the beginning of the world, at the time when it took shape and everything was ordained, and when all power, shamanistic and otherwise, was established and allotted. It is obvious that with this conception as the basis of their whole religion, there is but little room for any beliefs as to guardian spirits of the usual form.

Of course there is nothing that limits the shaman to one spirit, and among many or most tribes, such as the Maidu, a powerful medicine-man may possess a great number.

Frequently in Central and Northwestern California there is some more or less public ceremony at which a new shaman is, so to speak, initiated before he practices his powers. The body of initiated shamans do not form a definite society or association. The ceremony is rather an occasion that marks the first public appearance of the novice, in which he receives for his own good, and presumably for that of the community also, the assistance of the more experienced persons of his profession. Commonly it is thought that the novice cannot receive and exercise the full use of his powers without this assistance. The ceremony is usually held in the ceremonial chamber and is accompanied by dancing. The efforts of the older shamans are directed toward giving the initiate a firm and permanent control of the spirits which have only half attached themselves to him and which are thought to be still more or less rebellious. Of course exhibitions of magic and of the physical effects of the presence of the spirits are a prominent feature of these ceremonies. This initiation of doctors is found among the Northwestern tribes and in the Central region among the Maidu and Wintun and probably other groups.

A special class of shamans found to a greater or less extent among probably all the Central tribes, though they are wanting both in the Northwest and the South, are the so-called bear doctors, shamans who have received power from grizzly bears, often by being taken into the abode of these animals—which appear there in human form,—and who after their return to mankind possess many of the qualities of the grizzly bear, especially his apparent invulnerability to fatal attack. The bear shamans can not only assume the form of bears, as they do in order to inflict vengeance on their enemies, but it is believed that they can be killed an indefinite number of times when in this form and each time return to life. In some regions, as among the Pomo and Yuki, the bear shaman was not thought as elsewhere to actually become a bear, but to remain a man who clothed himself in the skin of a bear to his complete disguisement, and by his malevolence, rapidity, fierceness, and resistance to wounds to be capable of inflicting greater injury than a true bear. Whether any bear shamans actually attempted to disguise themselves in this way to accomplish their ends is doubtful. It is certain that all the members of some tribes believed it to be in their power.

The rattlesnake doctor, who cured or prevented the bite of the rattlesnake, was usually distinct from other medicine-men. Among the Yuki his power, as that of the rattlesnake, was associated with the sun; among the Maidu with the thunder. Among the Yokuts the rattlesnake shamans annually held a public ceremony designed to prevent rattlesnake bites among the tribe. On this occasion they displayed their power over the snakes by handling them in a manner analogous to that of the Hopi, and by even allowing themselves to be bitten.

As everywhere else, the practice of shamanism in California centers about disease and death. It is probably more narrowly limited to this phase than in most other portions of North America. Being an essentially unwarlike even though a revengeful people, it is natural that the supernatural power personally acquired by the California Indian should not often be directed toward success in battle. Success in love is also less often the result of such personal power than for instance on the Plains, perhaps because in the latter region the custom which made virtually every young man seek shamanistic power, resulted in a condition where those whose proclivities were not toward medicine or war, desired and received their powers in this direction. Influence over game and over nature's yield of vegetable products was sometimes attributed to shamans in California, but on the whole their powers in this respect were not very much insisted upon except in Southern California, favorable or adverse conditions of this kind being attributed rather to the tribal ceremonies, and in the Northwest connected with the all-important formulae. The causing and prevention of disease and death were therefore even more largely the predominant functions of the person who had acquired personal supernatural power in California than elsewhere in America.

That the medicine-men who could cure diseases were also the ones who must cause it, unless it were the direct consequence of an infraction of some religious observance or prohibition, was the almost universal belief, which was probably adhered to with greater definiteness than in most portions of North America. The killing of medicine-men was therefore of frequent occurrence. Among some tribes, as the Yokuts, the medicine-man who had lost several patients was held responsible for their death by their relatives. Among the Mohave also murder seems to have been the normal end of the medicine-man. In the Northwestern region the shaman who failed to cure was forced to return the fee received in advance. If he refused to attend a patient when summoned, he was compelled to pay, in the event of the latter's death, an amount of property equal that proffered him for his services. So completely was the shaman regarded as the cause of disease and death, as well as of their prevention, that one hears very little among the California Indians of witchcraft, that is to say, of malevolent practices performed by persons, often very old or very young people, who are not believed to be endowed with the shaman's power of curing.

Disease, as among most primitive peoples the world over, was usually held to be caused by small material objects which had in a supernatural way been caused to enter the body. The determination and extraction of these was the principal office of the medicine-man and, also as elsewhere, was most frequently accomplished by sucking. In certain regions, especially the South, the tubular pipe was brought into requisition for this purpose, the disease-object being supposed to be sucked into the doctor's mouth through it. Among such tribes the pipe was also smoked by the medicine-man as part of his ritual. In other cases the sucking was performed directly with the mouth, but, just as the disease-causing object had by supernatural means entered the body without causing or leaving an opening, so it was extracted by the medicine-man without an incision or a trace of its passage. This object might be a bit of hair, a stick, an insect or small reptile, a piece of bone, deer sinew, or almost any other material. In the greater part of northern California, including the Northwestern region, it was not an ordinary physical object working mischief by its mere presence in the body or by the supernatural properties with which the shaman or his spirits had endowed it, but an object itself supernatural and called a "pain." These pains are variously described, frequently as being sharp at both ends and clear as ice. They possessed the power of moving even after extracted, and were able to fly through the air to the intended victim at the command of the person who had sent them. The medicine-man after extracting the disease-object or pain almost always exhibited it. It was then either destroyed by him or kept by him for his own use. In Northwestern California he sometimes swallowed it, the degree of his power being thought to be dependent upon the number of pains he kept in his body, both those which he received upon his becoming a shaman, when they were "cooked" before a great fire in the doctor-initiation dance, and those which he subsequently secured in doctoring his patients. The rattlesnake's bite was regarded as being dangerous on account of its injection into the victim's body of a material animate object, which the rattlesnake shaman must extract if death was not to ensue. Among the Yuki this object was a small snake; among the Yokuts a rodent's tooth or other object supposed to have formed part of the animals upon which the snake subsisted. In some cases two classes of medicine-men were distinguished, one diagnosing, the other treating the patient. Among the Wiyot or Wishosk the former by dancing before the patient saw in a vision the nature and location of the disease-object and determined what had caused it to enter the body. Somewhat similar though varying distinctions between shamans whose power consists of knowledge, and those who have practical capacity as well, occurred among other tribes. Sucking is not always resorted to. The Mohave principally blow or spit over their patients and stroke or rub or knead their bodies, which actions are supposed by them to drive out the disease. Medicines and drugs are but little used, or if so, in a manner that gives no opportunity for their physiological efficacy. Four or five drops—the number varying according to the ceremonial number of the tribe—of a weak decoction may be given to the patient or even only applied to him externally. It is natural that where the magic effect of the drug as used in a certain ritual is believed in, the quantity so used is not an essential consideration. It is the supernatural qualities connected with the plant that bring about the desired result, and these are as inherent in a drop placed upon the forehead as in a basketful taken internally. Perhaps the most-used medicinal plant throughout the state is the angelica root, probably principally on account of its fragrance. Tobacco is considerably employed by shamans, but is of equal importance in other aspects of religion.