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Indians of California by Edward Chever (12 pages)
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Page: of 12
LOST AND FOUND 127
Running of races was confined, after childhood,
to the men, and endurance rather than speed sought
for. A race was for three or five miles at least, and a
good runner would follow a runaway horse or mule
that had started off with greater speed, but in a few
hours would return with the animal in his possession.
The Indians were inveterate gamblers, and parties
from one tribe would visit another for several days at
a time and play day and night. The game was a sort
of an “odd and even,” as played by white children,
the parties guessing as to the number and position of
the sticks used in the game. The playing was
accompanied by singing, and beads were principally
used for stakes.
In the treatment of diseases the Indians succeeded
in a certain class of them, but failed altogether in
others. The pain from a sprain or rheumatism would
be drawn to the surface by burning the skin with fire.
I can testify to a cure from this remedy. A severe sprain
of an ankle, followed by two months use of crutches,
resulted six months later in rheumatism in one of my
feet. The assertion of a chief that fire would cure it in
an Indian, but for a white man—and here he shrugged
his shoulders as if words were unnecessary—induced
me to try the experiment, and show him that white
men could bear pain. I placed a live coal on the top of
my instep, and before the burn was healed my
rheumatism was gone. For headaches they pressed
their hands on the head of the sufferer and sometimes
cured it by gentle pressure. For other diseases they
tried steam baths, especially for colds. When any
internal disorder defied their treatment, they
immediately begged medicine from the whites.
In burying the dead a circular hole was dug and
the body placed in it, in a sitting posture, with the
head resting on the knees. If a man his nets were rolled
about him and his weapons placed by his side. If a
woman her blanket enclosed her body, and a conical
shaped basket, such as they carry burdens in, was put
in the grave also, with the peak upwards. The widow
of an Indian cut her hair short and covered her head
with ashes, and in the mountains they used tar for
that purpose. Every night for weeks, after their
bereavement, the wails of these women were
distracting. I do not know the exact time prescribed
for mourning but I do not think it lasted more than
six months.
The language of the California Indians is
composed of gutteral sounds, difficult to separate into
words when spoken rapidly, and hard to pronounce
or remember. The counting is done, as with all
primitive people I have met, by decimals. Children in
reckoning call off the fingers and toes of both hands
and feet as twenty, when wishing to express a large
number. In counting ten the following words are used:
Weekum, Paynay, Sarpun, Tchuyum, Marctem,
Suckanay, Penimbom, Penceum, Peleum,
Marchocom. If eleven is to be expressed it is
Marchocom Weekum, or Ten one; Marchocom
Paynay, ten two, and so on to twenty which is
Midequekum. The general term for man is Miadim,
and for woman Killem, and for a child Collem. A boy
is Miadim collem and a girl Killem collem. Although
this seems to indicate a poverty of distinctive terms,
yet when it is found that every animal, bird, insect
and plant has its own name, it will be seen that there
is no want of materials to supply a stranger with words
for book making, if his tastes lead him in that
direction.
After many years passed with these Indians, and
having every opportunity to study their customs and
character, I entertain pleasant recollections of their
friendship which was never broken, and feel sadly
when I realize that the improvements of the white men
have been made at the sacrifice of Indian homes and
almost of the race itself.
Feather River (Rio de Plumas), before its mines
were washed for gold, was so clear that the shadows
reflected on the surface seemed brighter than the real
objects above. The river abounded in fish, as did the
plains on either side in antelope, deer, elk, and bear.
The happy laughter of children came from the
villages, the splash of salmon, leaping from the
surface, sent ripples circling to the shore, and the blue
dome of heaven was arched from the Sierra Nevada
with its fields of snow on the east, to the distant Coast
Range that shut out the Pacific on the west. Grand
oaks, with far spreading shade, clotted the plains that
stretched for miles on either side, and in spring time
the valley was brilliant with flowers. This was the
possession and home of the Indians, whose ancestors
had lived and hunted without patent or title obtained
from deeds, long before the first sailor planted his
flag on the sea-coast and claimed the country by right
of discovery. It could not be expected that the Indian