ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES IN CALIFORNIA, 181 



cheria near Lenioorc, in Kings County, wlio parted witfci her treasure 

 only after the strongest persuasion on the part of the visitors. It is 

 shown in Plate 4:1. 



The following account of the game as played by the Tulares is 

 (juoted from Mr. Stephen Powers: 



The Gualala ytyle of gambling prevails all over the State, but the Yokuts have 

 another sort which i)ertains exclusively to the women. It is a kind of dice throw- 

 ing, and is called u-chu-us. For a dice they take half of a large acorn or walnut 

 shell, till it level with pitch and pounded charcoal, and inlay it with bits of bright- 

 colored abalone shells. For a dice table they weave a very large, fine basket tray, 

 almost fiat, and ornamented with devices woven in black or brown, mostly rude 

 imitations of trees and geometrical figures. Four squaws sit around it to play, and 

 a fifth keeps tally with fifteen sticks. There are eight dice, and they scoop them up 

 in their hands and dash them into the basket, counting one when two or five flat 

 surfaces turn up. 



The rapidity with whic^h the game goes forward is wonderful, and the players 

 seem totally oblivious to all things in the world beside. After each throw that a 

 player makes she exclaims yei-ni (equivalent to "one-y "), or rd-a-tak, or ko-inai-eh, 

 which are simply a kind of sing-song or chanting. One old squaw, with scarcely a 

 tooth in her head, one eye gone, her face all withered, but with a lower jaw of iron 

 and features denoting extraordinary will — a reckless old gambler and evidently a 

 teacher of the others — after each throw would grab into the basket and jerk her hand 

 across it, as if by the motion of the air to turn the dice over before they settled, and 

 ejaculate viatak! It was amusing to see the savage energy with which this fierce old 

 hag carried on the game. The others were modest and spoke in low tones, but she 

 seemed to be unaw^are of the existence of anybody around her.^ 



The account given by Mrs. Briggs is to the same effect. In Plate 

 42 I venture to reproduce a drawing illustrating the use of the gaming 

 tra}' as set forth so vi\'idh' in Mr. Powers's account. 



SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 



Southern California has much to interest the student of archaeology 

 as well as the traveler seeking an ideal countr3\ It is a region occu- 

 pied formerl}' b}^ numerous and probably greath* diversified peoples, 

 presenting, however, no great dissimilarity in culture. Their contact 

 j on the east and south was with peoples lower in the scale of progress 

 than themselves, and it appears that few elements of culture from the 

 more distant regions ever crept in. A. small number of widely scat- 

 tered aboriginal conununities still survive to the presert day, but pre- 

 sent no ver}^ considera])le points of interest to the student, their original 

 customs having been destroyed or greatly modified by mission rule. 



The region including Santa Barbara County and the group of islands 

 lying off the coast is probably the richest, archa?ologically, in Califor- 

 nia and furnishes vast numbers of artifacts of usual classes, among 

 which the mortar and pestle predominate to a remarkable degree. A 



'Tribes of California. Contributions to North American Ethnology, U. S. Geo- 

 graphical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, III, 1877, p. 377. 



