98 THE PATAWAT. 
The Patawat have reduced the science and practice of law down to a 
tolerably accurate mechanism in one matter at least—that of mulctuary 
punishment. The average fine imposed for the murder of a man is ten 
strings of allikochik, each string consisting of ten pieces, and for that of a 
squaw five strings of equal length. As the pieces of this shell-money gen- 
erally average, and as it was at first valued in American coin, these fines 
amount to about $100 and $50, respectively. If any one is curious to have 
amore determinate Indian standard, I may say that an average Patawat’s 
life is considered worth about six ordinary canoes, each of which occupies 
two Indians probably three months in the making (that is, of old), or, in all, 
tantamount to the labor of one man for a period of three years. Many a 
California homicide has escaped with no more than three years’ “ hard 
labor” in the penitentiary. P 
A wife is always acquired by purchase, and her market value is reeu- 
lated on a sliding scale, on which the prices range all ‘the way from two up 
to fifteen strings. Jacob wrought seven years for Rachel; a Patawat may 
get his spouse for the equivalent of about nine months’ labor, such as it is, 
or she may cost him as much as five years’ labor. 
The Patawat also have the custom, which prevails among the Yurok, 
of contracting “half-marriages.” 
This tribe has a superstition which, if not actually a belief in vam- 
pires, is a close approximation thereto. According to my veracious little 
chief, there are innumerable spooks, in the forms of men and women who 
are in the habit of digging up dead Indians and carrying them away into 
the forest. There they extract from these dead bodies, by burning and by 
some process of infernal alchemy, divers kinds of poisons, which they use 
in the destruction of other victims. These ghouls have equal power over 
the dead and the living. In the night they frequently give chase to people 
in forests, catch them, and rob them with violence of all their dllikochik. 
They also have power to turn men and women into dogs, coyotes, ground- 
squirrels, and other animals; and they often resort to this highly unjustifia- 
ble measure. These imps of hell do not appear to be proper vampires, in 
that they are not dead Indians returned to life, but pre-existing demons 
assuming the human form. 
