222 THE PATWIN. 
had a quarrel about a woman or any other matter sometimes fought a duel 
with bows and arrows at long distances. 
When a Korusi woman died, leaving an infant very young, the friends 
shook it to death in a skin or blanket. ‘This was done even with a half- 
breed child. Occasionally a squaw destroyed her own babe when she was 
deserted by her husband and had no relations, for the sentiment that the 
men are bound to support the women—that is to furnish the supplies—is 
stronger even than among us, especially in these days of endless discussion 
of “woman’s sphere”. No American woman would be upheld in destroy- 
ing her child because it had no supporter but herself, but the Indians up- 
hold it always. In Long Valley a woman who was about to give birth toa 
child was so strongly threatened by its American father that she consented 
to make away with it; but the neighbors interfered, collected a sum of 
money and a quantity of supplies, and presented them to her on the condi- 
tion that she should preserve its life—a condition to which she gladly 
assented. Afterward the child was bought of her for $10, and lived with 
one of its purchasers eighteen years. 
Parents are very easy-going with their children, and never systemati- 
cally punish them, though they sometimes strike them in momentary anger. 
On the Sacramento they teach them to swim when a few weeks old by 
holding them on their hands in the water. I have seen a father coddle and 
teeter his baby in an attack of crossness for an hour with the greatest patience, 
then carry him down to the river, laughing good-naturedly, gently dip the 
little brown smooth-skinned nugget in the waves clear under, and then lay 
him on the moist, warm sand. The treatment was no less effectual than 
harmless, for it stopped the perverse, persistent squalling at once. 
The Patwin presents as good an illustration as any of the traditional 
Digger Indian physique, and it will be well to describe it somewhat 
minutely. There is a broadly ovoid face, in youth almost round, and in 
old age assuming nearly the outlines of a bow-kite. The forehead is low, 
but disproportionately wide, thickly covered with stiff, bristly hair on the 
corners, and often having a sharp point of hair growing down in the middle 
toward the nose; not retreating, but keeping well up toward a perpendicu- 
lar with the chin, and frequently having the arch over the eye so strongly 
