NO. 4 NEW ORIGINAL BOSCANA — HARRINGTON 33 



harangue as we have said above. And because of the fear and 

 dread which had been impressed on them, they did not dare to 

 commit any incivihty, for if some bold [youth] presumed to maltreat 

 or to injure them either by deeds or words, at once they ordered him 

 slain, and it was in the following manner : an old man, one of those 

 who had been appointed for the purpose, began to shout through the 

 rancheria weeping bitterly, saying that such a one had done or said 

 this or that to the chief, and because of this crime the God 

 Chinigchinix is very angry with us, and wants to send a great sick- 

 ness upon us ; and therefore, young men, arm yourselves for killing 

 such a one, that by presenting him dead to Chinigchinix, he may 

 lay aside his wrath and not kill all of us. Since the Indians believed 

 these deceivers like infallible truths, immediately the men went 

 forth armed with bow and arrow, and wherever they found him, 

 there they killed him, and together with the arrows that they had 

 shot at him they presented him to Chinigchinix. Afterwards the 

 relatives of the dead man took him and carried him to the pyre to 

 burn him. The authority which the chief exercised in his rancheria 

 was : that he was the one who had to tend to and handle all matters 

 which came up with other rancherias ; to call together for war, 

 defensive as well as offensive, and also for [making] peace; to 

 announce the day of all the feasts which they celebrated, which were 

 many ; to set the general days for hunting and seed gathering, for 

 the old women and the women also went privately whenever they 

 wanted to and needed them [the seeds] for their subsistence without the 

 permission of the chief or of anyone. These general expeditions 

 were for the purpose of [obtaining food for] celebrating their feasts, 

 and in them all those of the rancheria, men and women, participated. 

 The men killed the game, such as ducks, geese, cottontail rabbits, rats, 

 etc., and the women gathered and carried them; having returned 

 to their rancheria they all of them delivered the greater part of what 

 they brought, both of the animals which they had killed as well as 

 of the seeds of all kinds which they had gathered to the chief, (and 

 that night a great feast was begun). But do not imagine that these 

 seeds and animals which they delivered to the chief were a kind of 

 tribute, that as such they owed it to him. Not so, for these seeds 

 which they delivered to the chief were for the purpose of cele- 

 brating the feasts, and the chief had to keep them like a deposit, 

 being deprived of eating or using the least part of them, not having 

 any more of them than what was left over in the feasts. 



And if any chief ate the said seeds or sold them, or gave them 

 out squandering them, what they did was to kill him, alleging that 



