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Indians of California by Edward Chever (12 pages)
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Page: of 12
124
The division of fish and game was made generally
by achief, who counted out as many portions as there
were families to eat. If no objection was made to the
size of any portion, one of the number turned his back
and called out some name as each lot was pointed out
by the chief, the Indians removing their share as fast
as called for. No complaint was made if some were
sharers who had not been workers, and hospitality to
those entering their lodges was universal.
The Indians hunt for one kind of game only at a
time, and each kind when they can be taken most
advantageously. When I saw every kind of game
represented together at the Indian encampment in
Bierstadt’s celebrated painting of the Yosemite, I knew
the camp had been introduced for effect, from this
evident ignorance of, or disregard for the habits of
Indians.
The Indian bow [Fig. 3] is made of the tough
mountain cedar, with a thick back of sinew. A string
of sinew also enables him to draw an arrow nearly to
its head before it is sent humming through the air.
The arrows are of two kinds, those with a head of
hard, pointed wood for common use and those [Fig.
3b] reserved for extreme cases of attack or defense,
having points of agate or obsidian, which are carefully
kept in the skin of a fox, wild cat or otter. The stone
arrowheads [Fig. 4] are made with great care, and the
materials from which they are made are often brought
from long distances. Obsidian and agate are probably
selected not so much for beauty of coloring as for
their close grain, which admits of more careful
shaping. They use a tool with its working edge shaped
like the side of a glazier’s diamond. The arrowhead
is held in the left hand, while the nick in the side of
the tool is used as a nipper to chip off small fragments.
An Indian usually has a pouch of treasures consisting
JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY
of unfinished arrowheads or unworked stones, to be
slowly wrought out when industriously inclined. The
feathers are so placed on the arrow as to give ita spiral
motion in its flight, proving that the idea of sending a
missile with rotary motion is older than the rifling of
our guns.
It would consume too much space to describe all
their implements, and many of them do not differ
materially from those that were used by Indians in
this section; among them were awls of bone, thread
of deer sinews, and cord which they used for their
nets, bird traps, and blankets; —this cord was spun from
the inner fiber of a species of milk-weed. Their
cooking utensils were made from the roots of a coarse
Dal
> @iTTTT
Figure 4. a, Arrow-head of obsidian, from the Museum of th
Peabody Academy; b, Instrument for chipping the obsidian;
Section of the same.
Figure 3. a, The bow unstrung, from the Musuem of the Peabody
Academy; b, Arrow with head of obsidian, from the same.