The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft

the deceased was burned with him. When all was over the mourners betook themselves to the outskirts of the village, and there gave vent to their lamentation for the space of three days and nights. During this period songs were sung, in which the cause of the late death was related, and even the progress of the disease which brought him to his grave minutely described in all its stages. As an emblem of grief the hair was cut short in proportion to nearness of relation to or affection for the deceased, but laceration was not resorted to.602 Mr. Taylor relates that the Santa Inez Indians buried their dead in regular cemeteries. The body was placed in a sitting posture in a box made of slabs of claystone, and interred with all the effects of the dead person.603 According to Reid, the natives of Los Angeles County waited until the body began to show signs of decay and then bound it together in the shape of a ball, and buried it in a place set apart for that purpose, with offerings of seeds contributed by the family. At the first news of his death all the relatives of the deceased gathered together, and mourned his departure with groans, each having a groan peculiar to himself. The dirge was presently changed to a song, in which all united, while an accompaniment was whistled through a deer's leg-bone. The dancing consisted merely in a monotonous shuffling of the feet.604 Pedro Fages thus describes a burial ceremony at the place named by him Sitio de los Pedernales.605 Immediately after an Indian has breathed his last, the corpse is borne out and placed before the idol which stands in the village, there it is watched by persons who pass the night round a large fire built for the purpose; the following morning all the inhabitants of the place gather about the idol and the ceremony commences. At the head of the procession marches one smoking gravely from a large stone pipe; followed by three others, he three times walks round the idol and the corpse; each time the head of the deceased is passed the coverings are lifted, and he who holds the pipe blows three puffs of smoke upon the body. When the feet are reached, a kind of prayer is chanted in chorus, and the parents and relatives of the defunct advance in succession and offer to the priest a string of threaded seeds, about a fathom long; all present then unite in loud cries and groans, while the four, taking the corpse upon their shoulders, proceed with it to the place of interment. Care is taken to place near the body articles which have been manufactured by the deceased during his life-time. A spear or javelin, painted in various vivid colors, is planted erect over the tomb, and articles indicating the occupation of the dead are placed at his foot; if the deceased be a woman, baskets or mats of her manufacture are hung on the javelin.606

Death they believed to be a real though invisible being, who gratified his own anger and malice by slowly taking away the breath of his victim until finally life was extinguished. The future abode of good spirits resembled the Scandinavian Valhalla; there, in the dwelling-place of their god, they would live for ever and ever, eating, and drinking, and dancing, and having wives in abundance. As their ideas of reward in the next world were matter-of-fact and material, so were their fears of punishment in this life; all accidents, such as broken limbs or bereavement by death, were attributed to the direct vengeance of their god, for crimes which they had committed.607

      Though good-natured and inordinately fond of amusement, they are treacherous and unreliable. Under a grave and composed exterior they conceal their thoughts and character so well as to defy interpretation. And this is why we find men, who have lived among them for years, unable to foretell their probable action under any given circumstances.

      THE SHOSHONE FAMILY.

      The Shoshone Family, which forms the fourth and last division of the Californian group, may be said to consist of two great nations, the Snakes, or Shoshones proper, and the Utahs. The former inhabit south-eastern Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, and the northern portions of Utah and Nevada, are subdivided into several small tribes, and include the more considerable nation of the Bannacks. The Utahs occupy nearly the whole of Utah and Nevada, and extend into Arizona and California, on each side of the Colorado. Among the many tribes into which the Utahs are divided may be mentioned the Utahs proper, whose territory covers a great part of Utah and eastern Nevada; the Washoes along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, between Honey Lake and the west fork of Walker River; the Pah Utes, or, as they are sometimes called, Piutes, in western and central Nevada, stretching into Arizona and south-eastern California; the Pah Vants in the vicinity of Sevier Lake, the Pi Edes south of them, and the Gosh Utes, a mixed tribe of Snakes and Utahs, dwelling in the vicinity of Gosh Ute Lake and Mountains.

The Shoshones608 are below the medium stature; the Utahs, though more powerfully built than the Snakes, are coarser-featured and less agile. All are of a dark bronze-color when free from paint and dirt, and, as usual, beardless. The women are clumsily made, although some of them have good hands and feet.609

On the barren plains of Nevada, where there is no large game, the rabbit furnishes nearly the only clothing. The skins are sewn together in the form of a cloak, which is thrown over the shoulders, or tied about the body with thongs of the same. In warm weather, or when they cannot obtain rabbit-skins, men, women and children are, for the most part, in a state of nudity. The hair is generally allowed to grow long, and to flow loosely over the shoulders; sometimes it is cut straight over the forehead, and among the Utahs of New Mexico it is plaited into two long queues by the men, and worn short by the women. Ornaments are rare; I find mention in two instances610 of a nose-ornament, worn by the Pah Utes, consisting of a slender piece of bone, several inches in length, thrust through the septum of the nose. Tattooing is not practiced but paint of all colors is used unsparingly.611

The Snakes are better dressed than the Utahs, their clothing being made from the skins of larger game, and ornamented with beads, shells, fringes, feathers, and, since their acquaintance with the whites, with pieces of brilliant-colored cloth. A common costume is a shirt, leggins, and moccasins, all of buck-skin, over which is thrown, in cold weather, a heavy robe, generally of buffalo-skin, but sometimes of wolf, deer, elk, or beaver. The dress of the women differs but little from that of the men, except that it is less ornamented and the shirt is longer.612

      DRESS OF THE SNAKES.

      The dress of the Snakes seen by captains Lewis and Clarke was richer than is usually worn by them now; it was composed of a robe, short cloak, shirt, long leggins, and moccasins.

The robe was of buffalo or smaller skins, dressed with the hair on; the collar of the cloak, a strip of skin from the back of the otter, the head being at one end and the tail at the other. From this collar were suspended from one hundred to two hundred and fifty ermine-skins,613 or rather strips from the back of the ermine, including the head and tail; each of these strips was sewn round a cord of twisted silk-grass, which tapered in thickness toward the tail. The seams were concealed with a fringe of ermine-skin; little tassels of white fur were also attached to each tail, to show off its blackness to advantage. The collar was further ornamented with shells of the pearl-oyster; the shirt, made of the dressed hides of various kinds of deer, was loose and reached half-way down the thigh; the sleeves were open on the under side as low as the elbow—the edges being cut into a fringe from the elbow to the wrist—and they fitted close to the arm. The collar was square, and cut into fringe, or adorned with the tails of the animals which furnished the hide; the shirt was garnished with fringes and stained porcupine-quills; the leggins were made each from nearly an entire antelope-skin, and reached from the ankle to the upper part of the thigh. The hind legs of the skin were worn uppermost, and tucked into the girdle; the neck, highly ornamented with fringes and quills, trailed