AN ANCIENT METROPOLITAN TRIBE. Dei 
well believe it does since these peaceful Win-ttiin living within reach of 
the incursions of the powerful and warlike Hupa would be very likely to 
seek to avert peril by calling themselves friends. On Hay Fork, as far 
down as Hai’-en-pum (High Hill), are the Nor’-mok, or Nor’-rel-mok. 
The Wintiin appear to have been originally a sort of metropolitan 
tribe for the whole of Northern California below Mount Shasta. An intel- 
ligent pioneer who had made himself well acquainted with their language 
told me he was inclined to believe, from its richness in forms and syno- 
nyms, that the Wintin had attained a higher point of development than 
any of the surrounding tongues and might once have been, perhaps, a dip- 
lomatic or court language over a wide extent of territory, as the Hupa is 
yet. The broad, rich and beautiful valley of the Cottonwood is a natural 
center for leagues upon leagues of the rolling, barren wastes that surround 
it, being to this day a chosen spot of reunion for the scattered and wasted 
tribes of the Wintin—‘‘a Mecca of the mind”, the seat of power of The 
People; and we can easily believe that in the by-gone days of their glory 
and greatness it may have witnessed large assemblages of gay revelers, and 
the transaction of mighty affairs of state with savage pomp. 
Physically considered the Wintiin are apt to be obese to a degree, 
though not more so than others living in Sacramento Valley. At an early 
day while the wild-clover pastures were yet good,.when it was fresh and 
ereen in the spring, the nursing-women might be seen sitting on the ground 
covering nearly a yard square with their fat persons, “larding the lean 
earth”, like Falstaff; gathering clover and putting it in baskets, while their 
little ones frolicked and tumbled on their heads in the soft sunshine, or 
cropped the clover on all-fours like a tender calf. ‘They were very numer- 
ous, swarming on the face of the earth like the long-eared rabbits of the 
chaparral. They were a healthy race in this way; that is, a very large num- 
ber of children were born, though many died young; but when a child once 
survived the hardships of savage rearing and arrived at years of discretion, 
the chances were good that it would live a tolerably long and healthy life. 
But there were few very old people. 
It is the testimony of the pioneers that even before they were cor- 
rupted by the whites they were rather neglectful than otherwise of the 
