CHAPTER XV. 
THE TA-TU. 
The Té-tu are known in their own language as Hiichnom and on the 
reservation as ‘‘Redwoods”; the title here given them is that applied to 
them by the Pomo of Potter Valley. The Hichnom live along South Kel 
River, but that part of them included in the above name live in the extreme 
upper end of Potter Valley. They constitute a mere village, a little Indian 
Monaco, wedged in between two powerful families, the Yuki and the Pomo, 
yet allowed to retain their neutrality and independence most of the time. 
As I once before intimated, the Pomo were a harmless and inoffensive 
race, yet they had the fondness of most savages for martial trophies and 
displays, though lacking the courage to procure them. So they sometimes 
employed the Hichnom to make war for them against the Yuki and bring 
them scalps, for which they paid at the rate of about 520 a scalp. And 
frightful scalps they took! They skinned the whole bust, including the 
shoulders, but omitted from the scalp that part of the face within a triangle, 
whose angles are the root of the nose and the extremities of the lower jaw- 
bone. This is a mercenary transaction quite germane to the character of 
the Northern California Indians. 
The Tatu wigwams do not differ essentially from-those of the vicinal 
tribes; they are constructed of stout willow wicker-work, dome-shaped, 
o, with 
and thatched with grass. Sometimes they are very large and oblong, 
sleeping-room for thirty or forty persons. The assembly-hall is made with 
heavier timbers to support the thick layer of earth necessary to render it 
air-tight. Having only very contracted holes at the side for ingress and 
egress, these wigwams maintain within a most execrable and everlasting 
acrid smudge which makes bloodshot and protruding eyes horribly common 
+ 
anong the aged. 
