SOCIETY. 49 



share of the courage, military spirit, and intellectual activity 

 of the Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares, and the other tribes who 

 contended so stoutly for the possessi6n of the valley of the 

 Ohio. The majority of the Californian Indians never learned 

 to use fire-arms, and never dared to meet the white men in 

 battle. A few in the northern part of the State have rifles, 

 use them well, and fight stubbornly, but they are a small pro- 

 portion. 



The Californian Indian men are about five feet and a half 

 high on an average, and the women four feet and ten inches. 

 They are very thick in the chest, and have voices of wonderful 

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

 are very wide in the shoulders and hips, and strongly built. 

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

 legs and arms, as compared with Caucasians. When not 

 aifected by hereditary diseases, caught from the white men, 

 the Californian Indians have healthy constitutions, and for- 

 merly 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 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 

 County, 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 filthy in 

 their habits, and thejir houses are always filled with vermin. 

 Their form of government is simple. They have hereditary 

 chiefs who have little power. The tribes are small, and have 

 4 



