178 THE GALLINOMERO. 
say they do not kill it, but “God kills it”. It seems to have been that mere 
heartless and stolid butchery which comes of over-population, and of that 
hard and grim penury which stamps out of the human heart its natural 
affections. They are grossly licentious, like all California Indians, but this 
horrible crime did not result from the shame of dishonest motherhood. 
Neither was it caused, as in later years, by that deep and despairing melan- 
choly which came over the hapless race when they saw themselves perishing 
so hopelessly and so miserably before the face of the American. 
If in regard of their treatment of infants they resemble the Chinese, 
in their bearing toward the aged they are as far removed from them as light 
from darkness. While the Chinaman sometimes slays his helpless babe 
that he may the better support his equally helpless parents, the Gallinomero 
reverses the practice. He puts his decrepit father or mother to death. 
When the former can no longer feebly creep to the forest to gather his 
back-load of fuel or a basket of acorns, and is only a burden to his sons, 
the poor old wretch is not unfrequently thrown down on his back and 
securely held while a stick is placed across his throat, and two of them seat 
themselves on the ends of it until he ceases to breathe. I could hardly 
have believed this horrible thing, and I record it only on the testimony of 
two trustworthy men, Joseph Fitch and Louis Pina, both veteran pioneers 
who had lived among them many years. 
A young Gallinomero buys his wife, in accordance with the usual cus- 
tom, without any preceding courtship, but the parents must give their con- 
sent to the marriage. If dissatisfied with her, and he can strike a bargain 
with another man, he sells her to him for a few strings of shell-money. 
They very seldom beat their wives, but if they do not like them they 
quietly abandon them, so that in case of separation or divorce the wite 
always retains the children. 
Being eminently a peaceable people they have no war-dances, and 
take no scalps when they do go to battle. Among themselves there was 
never anything that could be dignified with the name of a battle, hardly 
even a fisticuff, but they were sometimes compelled to fight with the war- 
like Wappos. So timid were they that when the Spaniards first made their 
appearance among them on horseback they fled with the greatest terror 
