8 BUREAU *OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



the mountains, it was tlie custom for Indian boys to spring 

 from one to the other of these bowlders. They also were 

 called "medicine. " 



Mr. Harrington also discovered at Rincon the ruins of 

 a medicine house formerly used by the island wizards for 

 secret ceremonies. An enormous bowlder is supported on 

 several rocks forming a natural cave, still smudged on the 

 interior by the smoke of ancient fires. In front of this 

 chamber on the east is a circular corral or parapet 18 feet 

 in diameter and rising to a height of 3 feet. From the top 

 of this stone wall rafters had formerly extended to the roof 

 of the cave chamber, and on these thatch had been placed. 

 It is beUeved by the Indians that if a person comes upon 

 this place by mistake, thunder, lightning, and rain will 

 immediately result. 



The construction of a Mission Indian house by one of the 

 few survivors who stiU know how to make them was next 

 attempted under the direction of Mr. Harrington, and an 

 excellent series of photographs was obtained, showing the 

 house in all the successive stages of building. The jacal is 

 slightly eUii^tical in shape with the door, less than 4 feet 

 high, at one end. Door leaves, both of woven tules and of 

 jariUa, were constructed. The diameter of the structure 

 is 13 feet and it is only 7 feet high, with an unduly ample 

 smokehole at the top. 



Postholes a step apart and the same distance in depth 

 were dug with a short bar of willow, the earth being scooped 

 out with the hand. TaU and slender wiUow poles were 

 selected with the greatest care from a place where the 

 growth was tliick. These poles were burnt down. Eight 

 of them were first erected in the postholes, forming a Greek 

 cross. Opposite pairs of poles were then arched and lashed 

 together with yucca tyings. Only after the complete frame- 

 work of uprights had been constructed were the "latas" 

 or horizontals lashed on at intervals of a foot apart. On 

 these a thick thatching of deerbrush was sewed, the bottom 

 layer being stem down but all the higher layers tip down, 

 the inverted leaves better shedding the water. The sew- 

 ing was done with yucca shreds, using a great needle of wood 



