246 THE SHASTIKA. 
Third. All, or nearly all, of their shamins are women. Below Mount 
Shasta the women do whatever is required in midwifery, and make some 
little occasional use of roots and herbs, but they cannot be called the phy- 
sicians of the tribe. 
Fourth. The chief here exercises too great authority to suit the demo- 
cratic clannish Californians. The latter sometimes rebel against their 
chief and chase him ignominiously out of camp, but nothing of the sort is 
attempted or thought of by the Shastika. An intelligent Indian told me 
that the chieftainship was hereditary, but E. W. Potter and J. A, Fairchild 
state that the position is acquired solely by prowess and common consent, 
in distinction from the rule of the gift-giver in California tribes. A Shas- 
tika chief has power to exact taxes of the village captains, to cede territory, 
to put a disobedient subject to death with his own hands if necessary, and 
to surrender criminals to the whites; none of which prerogatives, except the 
last, is exercised by a Californian chief unless he is a man of extraordinary 
force of character. 
There is a war-chief and a peace-chief, the latter being simply the best 
orator in the tribe, without any very well-defined functions, and then a 
petty captain over every village. In a case of flagrant wrong-doing a gen- 
eral council is sometimes assembled by the chiefs, and the decision of the 
council is the law of the matter, which no individual may go behind. 
There is no appeal, no court of cassation, no bill of exceptions. When a 
married man commits adultery he is frequently condemned to be tied down 
naked to the ground for a certain number of nights near a stream of water, 
where it is always colder than it is on the plain. If his relations pity him 
sufficiently, public sentiment sometimes allows them to build a fire near 
him; otherwise he must lie and shiver through the frosty nights. The 
Indian theory seems to be that his blood and his passions require cooling. 
If a squaw is punished at all she is beaten by her husband. 
For murder a tender of blood-money is made, from one up to five, or 
even ten horses, but almost always rejected. The Shastika are less easily 
placated with money than the Karok, and demand blood for blood. 
A treaty is not accounted to be fully ratified and binding unless the 
high contracting powers exchange clothes (these Indians anciently wore 
