158 THE POMO. 
ities and pains of a future state are hung suspended over the heads of those 
who are persistently lascivious. All the devices that savage cunning can 
invent, all the mysterious and masquerading horrors of devil-raising, all the 
secret sorceries, the frightful apparitions and bugbears, which can be sup- 
posed effectual in terrifying the women into virtue and preventing smock- 
treason, are resorted to by the Pomo leaders. 
William Potter, a high authority on Indian matters and master of most 
of the Pomo dialects described to me as far as he was able a secret society 
which exists among the Poam Pomo, and which has branch chapters at 
Clear Lake, Calpello, Redwood Canon and several other places, whose 
simple purpose is to conjure up infernal terrors and render each other assist- 
ance in keeping their women in subjection. 
Their meetings are held in an assembly-house erected especially for 
the purpose, constructed of peeled pine poles. It is painted red, black, and 
white (wood color) on the inside in spiral stripes reaching from the apex to 
the ground. Outside it is thatched and covered with earth. When they 
are assembled in it there is a door-keeper at the entrance who suffers no one 
to enter unless he is a regular member, pledged to secrecy... Even Mr. 
Potter, though a man held in high honor by them was not allowed to enter, 
though they offered to initiate him, if he desired. They do not scruple to 
avow to Americans who are well acquainted with them, and in whose dis- 
cretion they have confidence, that their object is simply to ‘raise the devil”, 
as they express it, with whom they pretend to hold communication ; and to 
carry on other demoniacal doings, accompanied by frightful whooping and 
yelling, in order to work on the imaginations of the erring squaws, no whit 
more guilty than themselves. 
Once in seven years these secret woman-tamers hold a grand devil- 
dance (cha'-du-el-keh), which is looked forward to by the women of the 
tribe with fear and trembling, as the scourging visit of the dreadful Yu-ku- 
ku’-la (the devil). As this society has its ramifications among many Pomo 
tribes, this great dance is held one septennium in one valley, another in 
anothermand so on through the circuit of the branch societies. 
Every seven years, therefore, witnesses the construction of an immense 
assembly-house, which is used for this special occasion only. I have seen 
