390 ESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



The Califoriiian Indian men are about five feet and a half 

 hiirh on an averaoje. and the women four feet and ten incheis. 

 They are very tliickinthe chest, and have voices of wonderful 

 strength. The children are clumsy, and heavy set. The women 

 are very wide in the shoulders and hij^s, and strongly built. 

 Men and women are large in the body, and slim in the legs 

 and arms, as compared with Caucasians. When not affected 

 by hereditary diseases, caught from the white men, the Cali- 

 fornian Indians have healthy constitutions, and formerly they 

 lived to a great age. During the last ten years, a number 

 have died with the reputation of being more than one hundred 

 and twenty years old. It is a common assertion, and one that 

 I have never heard, contradicted, though I have conversed on 

 the subject with men who have seen much of them, that the 

 wild Indians never take cold. During the winter of 1849-'50, 

 I lived near a tribe in the mines, in what is now Shasta coun- 

 ty, and I saw that the men never wore any clothing save a 

 deerskin thrown over the shoulders ; that men, women, and 

 children went barefooted through a winter when snow lay on 

 the ground for a week at a time, and that their huts were only 

 about six feet wide, were open on all sides, and on two sides 

 had holes large enough for men to get in and out ; and I never 

 saw one troubled with a cold or cough. In the tribes living 

 far from the whites, the men usually go naked, and the women 

 wear a petticoat made by fastening flags or strips of bark, 

 about eighteen inches long, to a girdle. They are very filthy 

 in their habits, and their houses are always filled with lice. 

 Their form of government is very simple. They have heredi- 

 tary chiefs who have very little power. The tribes are small, 

 and have no wealth, and no laws. Occasionally a member of 

 a tribe gives offence, and some of the leading ones of a tribe 

 agree to kill him, and the sentence is carried into effect by way- 

 laying him and shooting him with arrows. Their rule is blood 

 for blood. They rarely keep men- prisoners, but kill them im- 

 mediately after capturing them. Women and children are 

 held frequently as prisoners ; and one of the most common 



