MARITAL RIGHTS—PLACATING THE OWL. 199 
feigns to take no notice whatever of the money, though he surreptitiously 
squints at it now and then. If he thinks there is not enough, or he does 
not like the youth, after a sufficient time has elapsed to suit the aboriginal 
ideas of dignity and red-tape, he reaches out his hands and returns it, and 
the suitor goes away without a word, or remains and adds another string. 
If accepted, the old Indian calls his daughter to him, joins her hand to her 
lover’s, makes them sit down together on the ground before his knees, and 
addresses them a few words of advice. Thereupon they arise and go away 
husband and wife. 
Their custom allows the wife unlimited rights in recovering a truant 
husband, if only she has the muscular force to exercise them. A Wappo 
once abandoned his wife at Cloverdale and journeyed down the river to 
the ranch of William Fitch where he abode for a season with a second love. 
But the lawful wife soon discovered his whereabouts, followed him up, con- 
fronted him before his paramour, upbraided him fiercely, and then seized 
him by the hair and led him away triumphantly to her bed and basket. 
Some author has said that love warmed up is not enduring. This love 
remained warm two years, when the Indian again met his enslaver and 
again eloped. 
They worship the owl and the hawk; that is they regard them as 
potent and malignant spirits which they must conciliate by offerings and by 
wearing mantles of their feathers. When a great white owl alights near a 
village in the evening and hoots loudly, the head-man at once assembles 
all his warriors in a council to determine whether Mr. Strix demands a life 
or only money (for they understand him to say, like the California foot-pad, 
‘“‘Your money or your life!”). If they incline to the belief that he demands 
a life, some one in the village is doomed and will speedily die. But they 
generally vote that he can be placated by an offering, and immediately a 
quantity of shell-money and pinole must be brought in by the squaws, 
whereupon the valorous trencher-men fall to and eat the pinole themselves, 
and in the morning the head-man decorates himself with owl feathers, car- 
ries out the shell-money with much solemn formality, and flings it into the air 
under the tree where the owl perched. The hawk is appeased in a differ- 
ent manner. A stuffed specimen of that bird is placed on top of a pole, and 
