234 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



money. If this offer is accepted they exchange moneys (not necessarily 

 in equal amounts) and harmony is at once restored. 



Courtship is also conducted by means of money among the Klamath 

 and Trinity' River tribes. A wife seldom brings less than half a 

 string, and when she belongs to an aristocratic family, is pretty and 

 skillful in making acorn bread and weaving baskets, she sometimes 

 costs as high as two strings, say $80 or $100. 



No marriage is legal or binding unless preceded by the payment of 

 money, and that family is most aristocratic which pays the highest price 

 for the wife. So far is this shell aristocracy carried that the children 

 of a woman for whom no money was paid are accounted no better than 

 bastards, and the whole family is contemned. 



In Placer County, Cal., the Nishinam Indians dun their debtors 

 with a device called sandiest, which is thrown into the wigwam of the 

 tardy individual. (Fig. 113.) A number of sticks 4 inches long and 

 about I of an inch thick are arranged on a string like a rope 

 ladder. These sticks are painted with streaks of black and red, and 

 represent the amount and character of the debt. 



GAMBLING AND MEDICINE. 



For gambling they have a bunch of small wands, one of which has a 

 black band around the center. The game is i)Iayed by any number that 

 wish to engage in betting. Two dealers sit opposite each other on a 

 blanket, each backed by two or more singers and a drummer, and the 

 game commences by one of the dealers taking the sticks in both hands, 

 about equally divided, and holding them behind his back, shuffling 

 them from hand to hand, after which he brings them in front of his 

 body with both hands extended and the sticks grasped so the plaj^ers can 

 not see the centers. The opposite dealer clasps his hands together two 

 or three times and points towards the hand which he thhiks holds the 

 stick with the black center. Should he guess correctly he takes the 

 deal, and holds it until his opponent wins it back in like manner. For 

 each failure a forfeit is paid, and one is also demanded when the dealer 

 loses the deal. 



Friends of each party make outside bets on the dealers, and each 

 dealer's band plays and sings as long as he holds the deal. 



There is another game, essentially the same as the one above de- 

 scribed, except that they use a smaller number of sticks, and the joker 

 is blackened only in the center and the others at both ends and centers. 

 Both games are called Iciu. 



Rattles employed by medicine men and in gambling are composed of 

 many hoofs and hooflets of the black-tail deer. Each piece is pierced 

 through the apex and suspended on a short thread npon which four 

 wiiitc beads are also strung. These pendants are then fastened to a long 

 belt of cloth or leather and worn around the waist or held in the hand* 

 The hoofs striking together x)roduce a sharj) rattling sound. A small 



