FROM CALIFORNIA. 31 



used in dances or superstitious ceremonies, as rain making-, curing the 

 sick, &c, this being the alternative suggested by Dr. Bowers. Not only 

 does the character of the implements themselves agree best with this 

 idea, but it is borne out also by the rest of the cave contents. The 

 rudely painted notched sticks, the feather headdresses, and the bone 

 whistles are all strongly suggestive of "medicine practices." Notched 

 sticks similar to the ones found in the cave by Dr. Bowers are used in 

 certain sacrifices by the Navajo, as Dr. W. Matthews informs me, and 

 also disks of stone; the latter, however, are not perforated. Moreover, I 

 was informed by an Indian in Santa Barbara County that feather bands 

 or gorgets, of which a specimen similar to those found in the cave was 

 shown me, were worn by all their medicine men in their ceremonies, 

 and that the feathers of the red shafted flicker, which occur in the 

 specimens found in the cave, were peculiarly efficacious in rain making. 

 I was also told that bone whistles were used by the medicine men in 

 their invocations. As already stated, therefore, a consideration of all 

 the above facts justifies the conclusion, in my opinion, that the speci- 

 mens in question, together with the rest of the contents of the cave, 

 were the implements of trade of medicine men or the property of some 

 religious order. 



Significance of the staff. — The stick or staff as a badge of authority 

 originates early in savagery, and it is interesting to observe that its use 

 for similar purposes survives even in our modern civilization, as in Eng- 

 land and elsewhere, where on stated occasions it is still to be seen in 

 the hands of certain high dignitaries. 



Among the Nez Perce, as Capt. Charles Bendire informs me, a wooden 

 staff, gaily decorated with feathers and other ornaments, is carried on 

 the right and another on the left of the order of battle. 



In Africa the act of selecting a camp or of taking possession of a 

 tract of land was indicated by the chief sticking a staff in the ground, 

 and the sign of our own western Indians for possession is a motion of 

 thrusting into the earth an imaginary stick, grasped with both hands. 

 Ideas similar to the above may have been attached to the use of these 

 staves in New Guinea; or in the ceremonies and dances of these sav- 

 ages they may have been borne aloft in the hands and thrust tempo- 

 rarily into the earth; or here and elsewhere they may have been used 

 in connection with the custom of "tabu." Thus D'Albertis says: ' 



On landing [Fly River], I saw a footprint, and, at the beginning of (lie path leading 

 to the house, a stick was set up, at the top of which was a hit of hark. It was evident 

 the stick had been placed there only a few minutes before. Is this a mark to indi- 

 cate that this is forbidden ground ? Is it a sign of Tabu * In Mibu Island they put 

 a cocoa-nut at the top of a stick to signify Tabu; at Yule Island they set up sticks 

 with stone heads. 



It would be going much too far to assume on the strength of the evi- 

 dence above adduced that all of the star shaped disks from Peru, to say 



1 New Guinea, Vol. II, p. 301. 



