ASSEMBLY CHAMBER—GATHERING SACRED FUEL. 25 
the warm and cosy snuggery themselves. But, air tight as they are, and 
heated perpetually (for once kindled, the fire must not be suffered to go 
out until spring), the atmosphere in them is simply infernal. 
But the Indians are consistent in the matter of the assembly chamber. 
As they suffer no woman to enter it, so they allow none to gather the wood 
burned therein. Fuel for the assembly chamber is sacred, and no squaw may 
touch it. It must be cut green from a standing tree, that tree must be on 
top of the highest hill overlooking the Klamath, and the branches must be 
trimmed off in a certain particular manner. The Karok selects a tall and 
sightly fir or pine, climbs up within about twenty feet of the top, then 
commences and trims off all the limbs until he reaches the top where he 
leaves two and a top-knot, resembling a man’s head and arms outstretched. 
All this time he is weeping and sobbing piteously, shedding real tears, 
and so he continues to do while he descends, binds the wood in a fagot, 
takes it upon his back, and goes down to the assembly chamber. While 
erying and sobbing thus, as he goes along bending under his back load of 
limbs, no amount of flouting or jeering from a white man will elicit from 
him anything more than a glance of sorrowful reproach. When asked 
afterward why he weeps when cutting and bringing in the sacred fuel, if 
he makes any reply at all, it will be simply, “For luck”. 
Arrived at the assembly chamber he replenishes the fire making a 
dense and bitter smudge, while all the occupants lie around with their faces 
close to the floor to keep themselves from smothering. When they are in a 
reek of perspiration they clamber up the notched pole at the side, swarming 
out from the hatchway like rats, and run and heave themselves neck and 
heels into the river—all “for luck ”. 
The taboo is lifted from the assembly chamber only while a squaw is 
undergoing the ordeal which admits her to the mysterious realm of thera- 
peutics. This ordeal consists simply in a dance, wherein the woman hold- 
ing her feet together leaps up and down, and chants in a bald, monoto- 
nous sing-song’ until she falls utterly exhausted. For a man the test is 
something more rigid. He retires into the forest and remains ten days, 
partaking of no meat the while, and of just enough acorn-porridge to keep 
