Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: The Valley Nisenan Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Author: A.L. Kroeber Source(s): UC Publications in American Archaeology & Ethnology, Volume 24 # of Pages: 20 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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er ee a Comatose YORE: ee he} 264 University of California Publications in Am. Arch, and Ethn. [Vol 99) ° Kroeber: The Valley Nisenan 265 The rest was counted off by fours after the players had bet that evening, for everyone to hear, from somewhere in. the village, on last remainder would be 0, 1, 2, or 3. This looks like an interesting ; Prund not from a roof 1 The wou was the secret mooie independent parallel to the Chinese game. Importation seems um announcer ere orders of the peipi. He sat on top of the k’um, likely, on account of the compactness of recorded distribution Piening and evening, at certain (ritual) times and called_to the eentral California. The informant of his own accord called this an people to wake up, foullawe no quarre ‘ old Nisenan game as compared with the Patwin stick dice. 4 He finished with a call heiiiii. Sometimes there. were two In the guessing or hand-game the number of calls for the bones i interesting, because suggestive of borrowing due to games between people of different speech. There were one or two players on a sida each with a pair of bones. : 4 Marriage. —Marriage within the village was not forbidden. Cousins married. This certainly refers only to eross-cousins, perhaps only to one kind of cross-cousin. + Disposal of the dead.—Those who died of sickness were cremated and their bones buried. Shamans could see the dead go north from i he pyre. Those who died violently—‘‘ from a bear, or war’’—were ‘buried. Small children were buried. People who died at a distance were buried there, or burned and their bones brought home for burial. uA bear skin and ornaments were put on a dead person, so he would ‘not trouble his living kin. The body was tied, in extended position. Duck heads ornamented with beads, haliotis, yellowhamiim feathers, etce., were stuffed as toys for babies. 4 Dogs.—These were scarce. Some were woolly. Calendar.—The month names obtained are given in the vocabulary, They number ten. This may not be lack of memory: the Mountain Maidu name only nine moons, those of summer being undesignated."# Mo 0 ena an end in me season, . 4 : The informant knew of flexed burial, but not among his own people. SOCIETY E W eapons and personal effects of the dead were burned. Mortars andBe “pestles were not destroyed; they were ‘Vike family property.”’ _ Hair was cut in mourning and buried. Burning: would spoil it. “Women sometimes kept their combings to use in what they manuOficials—The chief, hu’k, was selected when he was young. Sues cession was mostly from father to son. In default of a son, a grand: son, nephew, or other kinsman succeeded. The installation feast ont ceremony was called wo’kwok: everyone contributed to the new chief 4 there was much to eat, and the people sang, slapped their thighs and danced. The old dance house was not destroyed; the new chief kept it ‘‘because it had been his father’s.’’ It was replaced only when itl began to decay. Any dance might be the first to be made in a new. dance house: The (larger) villages had one dance house, Pujune for instance; some, like Kadema, had two formerly, the informant had een feu his father. Pujune in the informant’s father’s time hadi wo chiefs, Humpai and Teduwa, who , : ships were brothers. At Kademag 4 actured. hime . Kinship.—tThe terms obtained are given in the vocabulary. There are several gaps and uncertainties, but it is eclear_that the system is imilar to that of the hill Nisenan*® and not very different from that ; f the Maidu.1? All the Nisenan-Maidu form a rather close unit in "their kinship designations. Although centrally situated, they are not comprised in the Central California valley area of kinship systems.** a hey are the only Penutian people not-so comprised. On the basis lof a statistical count of similar features, they rank high, or general" jzed, in California—from 970 to 1010 on a scale ranging from 708 to 1025. The number of similarities which each of the three divisions an Three kinds ralds, eri P Y 4 Sa : ; pe'dan seems oe ances criers, ee were mentioned. The" possesses is highest with one another, next highest with remote and ave been the chief’s official speaker in assembl 1s lated groups like the Sh Ach i, Kl Mono.”° He talked in t oy enannnaeeseeete Sees Macias ‘_ unre groups li te e Shasta, Achomawi, Klamath, and Mono. : e em ancwered ’ r a ifford alifornian Kinshiy Systems, this s 3, 18: “s p apert everyone é : i‘. The pe’taye was a sort of itp. 43 : figs pen tortor topr Geen, and was ‘‘a common man.’’ He shouted, morning and. 18 sat 24, p. 203. a 19 p, 194. 14 Faye, 39, lists only six for the hill Nisenan. 15 Faye, 43. » 20 Table 3, p. 197. ls, to be well-behaved men and Zs