ORIGIN OF FIRE—SUPREME BEING. 161 
squaws were Amazons and exercised a gyneocracy. I am inclined to think 
the fable was not without some foundation. When we consider the infinite 
trouble which these Pomo find it necessary to give themselves in order to 
keep the women in subjection, and also that the latter actually bear des- 
potice rule over childhood and senility—that is, over the beginning and the 
ending of human life—we can easily perceive that these Pomo wives are 
stronger than the common run of Indian women. At least, by diligent 
inquiry, I never found any other trace of such a race of Amazons. 
The Poam Pomo believe that lightning was the origin of fire; that 
the primordial bolt which fell from heaven deposited the spark in the wood, 
so that it now comes forth when two pieces are rubbed together. As to the 
lightning itself, they believed it to be hurled by the Great Man Above, as 
it was by Jupiter Tonans. 
There is no doubt that they believe in a Supreme Being, but as usual 
among the California Indians he is quite a negative being, possessing few, 
if any, active attributes. His name is Cha-kal-lé. The syllable cha denotes 
“man” (though the usual word meaning an ordinary mortal is atabunya), 
and kallé signifies “ above”, being apparently derived from the same root 
as kalleh in the Gallinomero language. Hence the name denotes ‘The 
Man Above”, or ‘The Great One Above”. But as before remarked, he 
is a being of no manner of consequence in their cosmogony, for the Pla- 
tonic Kon, the active principle, has always resided in the coyote. He it 
was who created the world and mankind, or rather he deigned to take on 
himself the human form divine. 
Their happy land is in the heavens above us, to which, like the Budd- 
hists, they believe they will ascend by a ladder. The souls of the wicked 
will fall off the ladder in the ascent and descend into negative and nonde- 
script limbo, where they will be neither happy nor tormented, but rove 
vacantly and idly about forevermore; while others, in punishment for 
greater wickedness, transmigrate into grizzly bears, or into rattlesnakes 
condemned to crawl over burning sand, or into other animals condemned to 
hunger and thirst; to a California Indian, a place where he is hungry is 
hell. They believe that every grizzly bear existing is some old savage 
Indian thus returned to this world to be punished for his wickedness. 
ILE (6) 
