150 THE POMO. 
as you go toward the interior, both the physique and the intelligence grad- 
ually improve. This kind of stratification does not obtain on Russian 
River, but fetichism increases as you ¢o down approaching the ocean. 
? Do t=] 
THE KA-TO PO-MO. 
We now commence with the true Pomo, The Ka-to Pomo (Lake People) 
were so called from a little lake which formerly existed in the valley now 
known by their name (Cahto). They do not speak Pomo entirely pure, 
but employ a mixture of that and Wailakki. Like the Kai Pomo, their 
northern neighbors, they forbid their squaws from studying languages— 
which is about the only accomplishment possible to them save that of danc- 
ing—principally, it is believed, in order to prevent them from gadding 
about and forming acquaintances in neighboring valleys, for there is small 
virtue among the unmarried of either sex. But the men pay considerable 
attention to linguistic studies, and there is seldom one who cannot speak 
most of the Pomo dialects within a day’s journey of his ancestral valley. 
The chiefs especially devote no little care to the training of their sons as 
polyglot diplomatists ; and Robert White affirms that they frequently send 
them to reside several months with the chiefs of contiguous valleys to ac- 
quire the dialects there in vogue. 
They construct lodges in the Russian River manner, and do not differ- 
entiate their costumes or utensils to any important extent. In appetite they 
are not at all epicurean, and in the range of their comestibles they are quite 
cosmopolitan, not objecting even to horse-steak, which they accept without 
instituting any squeamish inquiries as to the manner in which it departed 
this life. They consume tar-weed seed, wild oats, California chestnuts, 
acorns, various kinds of roots, ground-squirrels and moles, rabbits, buckeyes, 
kelp, yellow-pine bark (in a pinch), clams, salmon, different sorts of ber- 
ries, ete. Buckeyes are poison, but they extract the toxieal principle from 
them by steaming them two or three days underground. They first excavate 
a large hole, pack it water-tight around the sides, burn a fire therein for 
some space of time, then put in the buckeyes, together with water and 
heated stones, and cover the whole with a layer of earth. When they go 
over to the ocean to fish and dig clams they collect quantities of kelp and’ 
