GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON CALIFORNIA. 317 



tooing, and ornament their arms and breasts with it. Their 

 habitations are formed of pliable poles, with their butts in- 

 serted into the ground and tied together at the top. These 

 are interwoven with brush and thatched with bulrushes ; the 

 interior of these wigwams is usually very filthy, and contain 

 no furniture, except a few wooden bowls, a small netting-sack 

 in which to put their fruit and seeds, another in the form of a 

 bag to sling on the shoulders, for the purpose of carrying their 

 infants when traveling, one or two fishing-nets, and a sea- 

 shell for dipping water to drink. 



Among some of the tribes, parentage and other relations of 

 consanguinity are no obstacles to matrimony. A man often 

 marries a whole family, the mother and daughters, and it is 

 said that in such cases no jealousies ever appear among these 

 families of wives. They seem to consider their offspring as 

 the property of all, and the husband as their common protector. 



It is known that those tribes which have not embraced 

 Christianity do nevertheless believe in the control of good and 

 evil spirits, to whom they occasionally offer prayers ; and as a 

 proof of their having some idea of a future state, they inva- 

 riably deposit bows and arrrows, and cooking utensils in the 

 graves of their dead. 



The part of Upper California inhabited by foreign settlers, 

 is a tract extending five hundred miles along the shore of 

 the Pacific, and bounded inland at an average distance of forty 

 miles from the coast by a range of hills. The most southern 

 portion of this region is torrid and parched, but as we proceed 

 north, the climate becomes more favorable, though the country 

 is subject to long and severe droughts, which occasion great 

 distress. There are many streams in this part of California, 

 which carry off the water in torrents to the ocean, during the 

 rainy season, and cause the valleys which they water, to afford 



