PREDOMINANCE OF FEMALES. 149 
tle-grounds in California, where Indian blood has been poured out like 
water, and where the ground is yet strewn with flint arrow-heads and spear- 
points. But the bones of the warriors slain on this fatal field are no longer 
visible, having been doubtless consumed on the funeral pyre and sacredly 
carried home for interment. 
The Kai Pomo are the same in all respects as the Kastel Pomo, which 
is to say, about the same as the Wailakki. One matter is notable among 
these Eel River Indians—I observed it more especially among the Kai 
Pomo—and that is the extreme youthfulness of both sexes when they arrive 
at the age of puberty. In the warm and sheltered valley of South Fork 
(however bleak the naked mountain-tops may be in winter), it was a thing 
not at all uncommon, in the days of the Indians’ prosperity, to see a woman 
become a mother at twelve or fourteen. An instance was related to me 
where a girl had borne her firstborn at ten, as nearly as her years could be 
ascertained, her husband, a white man, being then sixty-odd. For this 
reason, or some other, the half-breeds on Kel River are generally sickly, 
puny, short-lived, and slightly esteemed by the fathers, who not unfre- 
quently bestow them as presents on any one willing to burden himself with 
their nurture. 
There is another noteworthy phenomenon in regard to California half- 
breeds which I have observed, and which, when mentioned to others they 
have seldom failed to corroborate, and that is the girls generally predomi- 
nate. Often I have seen whole families of half-breed girls, but never one 
composed entirely of boys, and seldom one wherein they were- more 
numerous. 
I wish to call attention here to what may be denominated the peculiar 
stratification of the tribes in this vicinity. On the northern rivers, which 
debouch into the ocean nearly at right angles, each tribe occupies a certain 
length of the stream on both sides; but on Eel River, South Fork, and 
Van Dusen’s Fork, which flow almost parallel with the coast, every tribe 
owns only one bank of a river, unless it chances to dwell between two 
waters. It should seem that the influence of the ocean has distributed the 
. Indians in certain parallel climatic belts, those living nearest the coast 
being darker, more obese, more squat in stature, and more fetichistic; while, 
