450 INDIANS OF WESTERN NEVADA AND CALIFORNIA. 



own language this branch of them is known as " Cooyuweeweit," from 

 co&ymcee, a species of sucker which formerly constituted their principal 

 food-supply. They were not an aggressively warlike race, though in an 

 early day they gave the white settlers considerable trouble, and fought 

 with them some bloody battles. They lived in conical-shaped lodges, 

 constructed of tule and bound with willow wands ; they also made of 

 the same material rude rafts, consisting of three bundles of tule lashed 

 firmly togethef, with which they navigated the lake for fishing pur- 

 poses. They caught fish with nets of milkweed fiber, with hooks of 

 bone and greasewood fastened to throw-lines, and with bone or horn 

 spears, principally with the latter. To this day the quantity of fish which 

 they take by the latter means is sometimes remarkable. I saw two In- 

 dians come in with two large horse-loads, at least 200 pounds, the pro- 

 duct of twenty-four hours' labor. In winter Wadsworth affords a ready 

 market for all the fish offered, and a single Indian has been known to 

 sell $25 worth of fish per day for a short time. They were good hunters; 

 but their bows and arrows (partly owing to lack of materia.1) are de- 

 cidedly inferior to those of the California Indians. They caught a great 

 many hares with nets ; and they ate ground-squirrels and ground-hogs; 

 also grasshoppers, crickets, and some other species of insects. I also 

 collected about twenty kinds of seeds and roots which they consumed 

 in their season. The suckers from the lake constituted certainly one- 

 half of their food, game perhaps a quarter, and vegetable products, 

 principally pine-nuts, another quarter. 



The men wore breech-cloths of rawhide, deer-skin leggings (in winter) 

 reaching to the groins, and moccasins; the v/omeu, waistbands or short 

 petticoats of milkweed fiber, moccasins, long deer-skin dresses, (in win- 

 ter,) and skull-caps of willow-work. 



The Piutes are a well-formed race, with bolder features than those of 

 the typical California Indian, noses more prominent at the root, complex- 

 ion lighter, and less tendency in youth to superfluous fat. Some of them are 

 wonderfully agile dancers. Most of their games are sedentary, and they 

 are all, both men and women, fatuously fond of gambling. They enjoy 

 practical jokes keenly, and some of their games are comical and pro- 

 duce much laughter. The work of their women is less severe than that 

 of the acorn-eating tribes of California, and they always were and still 

 are much more chaste than the latter. 



The present condition of the Piutes is not satisfactory. The preva- 

 lence of ophthalmia and blindness among them, owing partly to change 

 of habit and food, partly to filth and venereal disease, partly to un- 

 known causes, is alarming and disgusting. The four reservations in 

 Nevada are without a surgeon, while each of the three in California has 

 one. As above noted, many of them earn large amounts of money in 

 the season by catching and selling fish ; but professional gamblers of 

 their own race come down from Virginia City and Carson and play 

 cards with them until the greater portion of it is absorbed. The isola- 



