SOCIAL AND GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION. 175 
functions of that office are nebulous. The remnant of them now living a 
little way below Healdsburg occupy one great wigwam, Ventura with his 
subjects, twenty or thirty together, on the most democratic equality. This 
wigwam is in the shape of the capital letter L, made up of slats leaned up to a 
ridge-pole, and heavily thatched. All along the middle of it the different 
families or generations have their fires, while they sleep next the walls, lying 
on the ground underneath rabbit-skin and other less elegant robes, and 
amid a filthy clutter of baskets, dogs, large conical-shaped baskets of acorns 
stacked one upon the other, and all the wretched trumpery dear to the 
aboriginal heart. There are three narrow holes for doors, one at either 
end and one at the elbow. 
They are nearly black, Ventura being the blackest of all; and ona warm, 
sunny day in February when he is chopping wood briskly his cuticle shines 
like that of a Louisiana field-hand. The nose is moderately high, straight 
and emphatic, with thick walls, and ovoid or nearly round nares; lips rather 
thick and sensual; forehead low, but nearly perpendicular with the chin; 
face rounder and flatter than in the Atlantic Indian; eyes well-sized and 
freely opened straight across the face, with a sluggish but foxy expression ; 
color varying from old bronze or brown almost to black, though an ocea- 
sional freckled face and sparse whisker betray a touch of Castilian blood in 
the veins. They live on the land of a good-natured farmer, and do occa- 
sional small services in the field in return for casual flitches of dubious 
bacon, baskets of specked apples, cast-off clothing, and the like. These 
and the contributions of the neighbors eke out their stock of salmon and 
acorns and enable them to live in considerable affluence. In the matter of 
providing for the casual necessities of the patriarchal household, Ventura is 
worth all the dozen or so of his male subjects; and he demonstrates daily 
his right to the chiefship by chopping wood, breaking mustangs, fishing, 
and otherwise playing an altogether manly part. 
Their small dogs are fat and churlish, and they themselves look well 
fed, their black-brown faces shining out oleaginous amid their tatters. 
Whisky is interdicted by a wise and humane statute which is generally 
obeyed, and they appear to dwell together in great tranquillity, dozing 
away their vacuous lives from day to day in the sun and calmly brushing 
