ROTATION OF FOOD—TRAFFIC—PUBERTY DANCE. 935 
summer months they make a drink by soaking the mashed berries in cold 
water, and this is also imbibed with the deer’s tail. It is the acme of hos- 
pitality in the host to swab this utensil in the liquid, put it into his mouth, 
and then hand it to his guest! An Indian would refuse to touch it unless 
the host did this, lest he should be poisoned. 
Clover is eaten in great quantities in the season of blossoms. You 
will sometimes see a whole village squatted in the lush clover-meadow, 
snipping it off by hocking the forefinger around it and making it into little 
balls. After a long winter on short commons they are fain to allay the 
cravings of hunger by filling their stomachs with the sweet inner bark of 
the yellow pine. But the seasons formerly furnished them a very con- 
venient and liberal rotation. Earliest and always was the bark of trees, 
then the eagerly awaited clover, then roots and wild potatoes lasting all 
summer, next salmon about June and July, now wild oats and grass seeds, 
then manzanita berries and pinon-nuts; last, acorns, finishing the harvest 
of the year, with game and vermin of many kinds at many seasons. ‘Thus 
did the genial climate offer them an almost unbroken succession. 
When the Wintiin were at peace with the mountaineers they carried on 
considerable traffic with them, exchanging dried salmon, clams, and shell- 
money for bows, arrow-heads, manzanita berries, and wild flesh or peltries. 
Nowadays they manufacture arrow-heads with incredible painstaking from 
thick, brown whisky-bottles, which are very deadly, but are principally 
used for fancy purposes, gambling, ete. 
When a girl arrives at maturity, about the age of twelve or fourteen, 
her village friends celebrate the event with a dance in her honor, which may 
be called the puberty dance (bath’-leschu'-na), to which all the surrounding 
villages are invited. First, as a preparation for this festivity the maiden is 
compelled to abstain rigidly from animal food for the space of three days, 
and to allowance herself on acorn porridge. During this time she is ban- 
ished from camp, living alone in a distant booth, and itis death to any person 
to touch or even to approach her. At the expiration of the three days she 
partakes of a sacred broth or porridge, called khiup, which is prepared from 
buckeyes in the manner following: The buckeyes are roasted underground 
a considerable time to extract the poison, then are boiled to a pulp in small 
