MEDICAL PRACTICE—INCREMATION, WSL 
Spaniards was. Senor Carrillo mentions that in 1838, there were no wild 
oats growing on the plains, though they were found in patches on the 
mountains, and that they subsequently took root-on the plains from seed 
scattered by the Indians. 
In autumn is held the wild-oat dance. Not only is there no feasting 
on the part of anybody, but none who. participate in the dance are allowed 
to partake of any meat. One of the most singular circumstances touching 
the California Indians is the number of occasions when they are required to 
abstain from flesh. One is constantly reminded of the ancient Israelites. 
In their medical practice they make use of several conjurations, one of 
which is to place the patient in a pole pen which is ornamented with owls’, 
hawks’, buzzards’, and eagles’ feathers as a propitiation to those diabolical 
birds. Then they chant and caper around the pen in a circle. Sometimes 
the shamin scarifies the person, sucks out some blood, gargles his mouth 
with the same, then ejects it in a hole dug in the ground, and buries it 
out of sight, thinking he has thus eliminated from the body the materia pec- 
cans. The physician must abstain rigidly from food while performing his 
conjurations over a patient, and they sometimes continue a good part of a 
day. 
As soon as life is extinct they lay the body decently on the funeral 
pyre, and the torch is applied. The weird and hideous scenes which ensue, 
the screams, the blood-curdling ululations, the self-lacerations they perform 
during the burning are too terrible to be described. Joseph Fitch says he 
has seen an Indian become so frenzied that he would rush up to the blazing 
pyre, snatch from the body a handful of burning flesh and devour it. To 
augment the horror of these frightful orgies, the horse or dog belonging to 
the deceased is led up to the spot, and cut off with butcherly slaughter. 
When the fire is burned down they scoop up the ashes in their hands and 
scatter them high into the air. They believe that they thus give the disem- 
bodied spirit wings, and that it mounts up to hover forever in the upper 
regions, westward by the sea, happy in the boundless voids of heaven, yet 
ever near enough still to delight itself with the pleasant visions of earth. 
But different Indians hold different views, and the totality of them believe 
in a greater number of heavens than the Shakers. Some of them believe 
