A THEORY OF INCREMATION. 171 
Siberian bury their dead if they will; it matters little; the earth is the same 
above as below; or to them the bosom of the earth may seem even the 
better ; but in California, do not blame the savage if he recoils at the thought 
of going under ground! This soft, pale halo of the lilae hills—ah, let him 
console himself if he will with the belief that his lost friend enjoys it 
still. 
The narrator concluded by saying that they destroyed full $500 worth 
of property. ‘The blankets,” said he, with a fine Californian scorn of such 
absurd insensibility to a good bargain, ‘‘the blankets that the American 
offered him $16 for were not worth half the money.” 
After death the Senel hold that bad Indians return into coyotes. Others 
fall off a bridge which all souls must traverse, or are hooked off by a raging 
bull at the further end, while the good escape across. 
Like the Yokaia and the Konkau, they believe it necessary to nourish 
the spirits of the departed for the space of a year. This is generally done 
by a squaw, who takes pinole in her basket, repairs to the scene of the 
incremation or to places hallowed by the memory of the dead, where she 
scatters it over the ground, meantime rocking her body violently to and fro 
in a dance, and chanting the following chorus: 
“ Hel-lel-li-ly 
Hel-lel-lo, 
Hel-lel-lu ”. 
This refrain is repeated over and over indefinitely, but the words have 
no meaning whatever. 
Their ‘ Big Indians” profess to believe that the whole world was once 
a globe of fire, whence that element passed up into the trees, and now comes 
out whenever two pieces of wood are rubbed together. So, also, they hold 
the world will finally be consumed by fire. They may have acquired these 
notions from the Spaniards, but I think not, for the California Indians while 
accepting our outward customs cling tenaciously to their ancient beliefs. 
Nearly all the Wintiin tribes entertain the same notion, and-the earthquakes 
of California are suflicient to account for it. 
Clear Lake was created by a coyote which drank too much brine trom 
