32 HUGO RIED'S ACCOUNT OF THE INDIANS 



stones, such as have hitherto been considered, and described, 

 as " plummets, plum-bobs, sinkers, and weights." An old 

 Tobikhar said that such stones would require too much time 

 and labor to be used only to cast into the sea. The Indians 

 term them "medicine stones," and consider them as possessing 

 medicinal properties. 



That the Shaman also prepared arrow-poison, there is no 

 doubt. Nearly all of the tribes between the Pacific ocean and 

 the Rocky mountains had more or less knowledge of plants, 

 insects, or other materials, which rendered it capable of pro- 

 ducing septicaemia in any person or animal wounded thereby. 

 For more extended information by the present writer, re- 

 specting the methods of preparation, and the tribes by whom 

 used, see Bull. Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris, Vol. VI, 3rd 

 Series, 1883, p. 205, et seq. ; Verhandl. Berliner. Gesell. fiir 

 Anthrop. Ethnol. und Vrgesch., 1880, p. 91, et seq. 



11. Although the author says that syphilis was unknown, there is 



every reason to suppose that this disease made its appear- 

 ance among the coast and island Indians at a very early day. 

 A skull, which the writer obtained at Santa Cruz Island 

 and has in his possession still shows great destruction 

 over the left parietal bone, beginning at the temporal bone 

 and extending backward and upward, so as to embrace the 

 surface of nearly the lower half of the temporal, while on the 

 frontal bone the erosion extended to greater depth, taking in 

 part of the external portion of the supra orbital ridge, thence 

 upward for about one inch and across the forehead to a point 

 above the middle of the right orbit. In the middle of these 

 eroded areas are the more recent deposits of bony matter, 

 forming, what may have been a healthy reconstruction of the 

 parts. The skull is an extremely interesting one, and the 

 only specimen of this kind known to the writer to have been 

 obtained at that locality. From the general idea of burial, 

 and the primitive forms of the relics obtained from the grave, 

 there is every reason to believe that the body was not of 

 recent years. 



12. This game was played by many tribes of Indians, and was called 



" Chunkee" by Adair, who observed it among the Muskoki. 



The writer saw it played by the Coyotero Apaches, in 1871, at 



Camp Apache, A. T., and an extended notice of the subject 



was printed in the American Naturalist, 1878, Vol. XII, pp. 



478-481. 



The Indians at Santa Barbara also played a similar game, 



using a barrel-shaped stone ring, three inches in diameter 



