54 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



The Indians are very familiar with the habits of wild ani- 

 mals. They know precisely the character of the brushwood 

 and ravines in which the deer and bear hide during the day, 

 and the places to which they go to feed in the morning and 

 evening. In hunting deer and antelope, in places where there 

 is grass eighteen inches or two feet high, the Indian will often 

 hold the skull and horns of a buck deer before him, and thus 

 crawl within bow shot. The Pit River Indians dig pits about 

 five feet cubic, and cover them with brush and grass, and thus 

 catch deer, hares, and so forth. For catching wild geese, vari- 

 ous small and simple kinds of nets are used, and they are 

 knocked down with clubs. Salmon are killed with stones and 

 clubs in shallow water, and are caught with spears. Their 

 most ingenious spear has a head of bone about one inch and a 

 half long, and sharp at both ends. To the middle is fastened a 

 string, which is attached to the spear-shaft. One end of the 

 head fits in a socket at the end of the spear-shaft. When the 

 spear is thrown, the head comes out of the socket and turns 

 cross-ways in the fish, and then there is no danger that it will 

 tear out. The Indians rarely hunt the grizzly bear. Along 

 the ocean beach they get barnacles. Their method of catching 

 grasshoppers is to dig a hole several feet deep, in a valley 

 where this species of game abounds. A large number of the 

 Indians then arm themselves with bushes, and commence at a 

 distance to drive the grasshoppers from all sides toward the 

 hole, into which the insects finally fall, and from which they 

 cannot escape. The pine-nuts are sought at the tops of the 

 pine-trees, which the " bucks " ascend by holding to the rough 

 bark with their hands, and pressing out with their legs, so that 

 they .do not touch the body to the trunk of the tree in going 

 up. It is more like walking than climbing. 



The bow and arrow, the spear, the net, the obsidian knife, 

 the mortar, and the basket, are the only tools made by the 

 Indian. The obsidian knife is merely a piece of obsidian, as 

 large as a hand, and sharp on one side. The baskets are all 



