128 - THE YUKI. 
place is infested with miasmatic exhalations and is unhealthy. The abori- 
gines were better sanitarians when they had the control of these matters ; 
they built their lodges all around the edge of the valley, on the first little 
bench or series of knolls, and not on the plain at all, Their assembly-hall 
was of the Sacramento Valley order, dome-shaped, capable of containing 
from one to two hundred persons, thatched with grass and covered with earth. 
They had the mountain style of lodge, conical-shaped and built of poles, 
bark, and puncheons, but often thatched in winter. 
Most of the tribes in Northern California use wood almost exclusively 
in their lodges, especially on the Coast Range, and near the redwood belt; 
but in the coast valleys and on the great plains of the interior, thatch and 
earth are used for roofing. As a partial consequence, we find that ophthal- 
mia and blindness prevail in the latter region more than in the former, on 
account of deficient ventilation. 
There have been various estimates of the aboriginal population of 
Round Valley. Iam told that Sam. Kelsey, the first American who ever 
set foot in the valley, and a man accustomed to Indians, estimated it at 
5,000 souls. At this figure there would have been one Indian to every four 
acres in the valley, or 160 to the square mile! And yet this is not at all 
improbable, because the Indians lived wholly in the valley (except for brief 
seasons in the summer), while they had usufructuary possession of a vast 
circumjacent area of mast-bearing forest, besides many miles of salmon 
streams. On the same reasoning, the above conjectural rate of population 
must by no means be applied to the great, naked, arid plains of the Sacra- 
mento and San Joaquin. 
As the Yuki were so often involved in war, martial matters necessarily 
engage a great deal of their attention, and occupy a large part of their con- 
versation. Their customs and usages in this direction were quite elabo- 
rate. Mrs. Dryden Laycock, one of the pioneer women of Round Valley, 
described to me a Yuki war-dance, that she once witnessed, which was a 
fantastic and terrible spectacle. The warriors to the number of several 
hundred assembled behind a little hill, where they stripped themselves 
naked (though their aboriginal costume consisted of little else but breech- 
cloths); then they smeared their bodies with pitch or some other sticky 
