24 THE KAROK. 
at home there is not more in him to complain of than there is in the conduct 
of thousands of white husbands. Still, the women are regarded as drudges. 
The Karok have a conception of a Supreme Being, whom they call 
Ka-ré-ya. The root of this word is the same as that of ‘‘ Karok”, and prob- 
ably also Kal’-leh Kal-l¢, in the Pomo, signifying “above”; but with the 
curious accretive capacity of Indian languages, it is expanded to mean 
“Phe Old Man Above”. IKareya sometimes descends to earth to instruct 
the prophets or shamans, when he appears as a vencrable man clad in a 
close-fitting tunic, with long white hair flowing down his shoulders, and 
bearing a medicine-bag. When creating the world, he sat on the Sacred 
Stool, which is still preserved by the Kareya Indian, and on which he’sits 
on the occasion of the great annual Dance of Propitiation. But as among 
most tribes in California, the coyote is the most useful and practical deity 
they have. They also believe in certain spooks or bogeys, which run after 
people at night in the forest, and leave tracks which when seen in the 
morning bear a suspicious resemblance to horse-tracks. 
The assembly chamber is constructed wholly underground, oblong, 
about ten by six feet, and high enough for a man to stand in, puncheoned 
up inside, and covered with a flattish roof level with the earth, and air-tight 
except for the little hatchway at one side. It is club room, council house, 
dormitory, sudatory, and medical examination room in one, and is devoted 
exclusively to masculine occupation. Lafiteau says, among the eastern 
Indians the man never enters the private wigwam of his wife except under 
cover ef the darkness; but here it is the men’s apartment which is taboo. 
No squaw may enter the assembly chamber, on penalty of death, except. 
when undergoing her examination for the degree of M. D. During the 
rainy season when fires are comfortable, they are kept burning in the 
assembly chambers day and night; and there are always enough of them in 
each village to furnish sleeping-room for all the adult males thereof. 
In summer the men occupy the common wickiup (this is a word used in 
California and the Territories, signifying a brushwood booth ; it is imported 
from the Sioux), together with their wives; but in winter they sleep by 
themselves in the assembly chamber, and I suspect they use the terrors of 
superstitious interdict to banish the women from them, in order to enjoy 
