88 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



using the dried and pounded up leaves of Artemisia vulgaris L. var. 

 heterophylla Jepson, California mugwort (Spanish, estafiate). The 

 leaves, silvery underneath, become dry and shriveled in the early 

 summer, and were pounded on the anvil stone to make a spongy 

 fuzzlike material, which was laid on the bare skin of the Indian to 

 form the desired pattern, and was lighted. The pain was intense, as 

 the burning reached the skin, but it was borne without a wince or 

 murmur. The brand resembled a cattle brand and adorned the person 

 for life. 



New data were also obtained on the similar custom of tattooing. The 

 pattern was pricked with a cactus or other thorn, or a sharp flint 

 fragment, and the green leaves of either one of two species of 

 Solarium, S. douglasii Dunal, a perennial, or S". nigrum. L., an annual, 

 both called black nightshade in English and chichiquelite in Spanish, 

 were pounded up to a salvelike mass and rubbed in the bleeding 

 wound. A permanent bluish black tattoo was the result. 



The chief diety of the Mission Indians of the coast region was 

 the God Chingichngich, a strange Indian prophet and religious leader 

 who was born at the village of PuviV, which with its old spring lay 

 just downslope from the tennis court at the Fred. H. Bixby ranch in 

 the southwest corner of Los Angeles County, on the northern bank 

 of the New San Gabriel River and only a little over 2 miles inland 

 from Seal Beach. He was of lowly birth and his real name, by which 

 he was called in childhood, was *Wiyaamot. After he became a 

 religious leader, he taught the people that they should call and invoke 

 him by the name Chingichngich. He has three epithets : ( 1 ) Sza' uura, 

 meaning lowly person, applied to him to bring out his lowly birth. 



(2) Toovit, Syk'ilagus bachmani cinerascens (Allen), California 

 brush rabbit. This tiny rabbit was the first man who ever sang in the 

 world, and this epithet was applied to the prophet when he had already 

 become a religious teacher and was no longer a common person. 



(3) Kwa" owar, a very sacred name applied after Chingichngich had 

 ascended to heaven, whence he watches our deeds and punishes the 

 one that does not obey his commands by having poisonous and fierce 

 animals or plants or minerals do injury to him. 



The Mission Indian calendar was determined to have only six double 

 months, of two moons each, and not eight as has been stated in the 

 books. The seventh and eighth double months were renamings by the 

 dying Woyoot of months which he had already named the year pre- 

 vious. The key to this solution lay in printed documents, and also in 

 the memory of the oldest Indians. 



