CHAPTER XXVIII. 
THE A-CHO-MA‘WI. 
_The Pit River Indians are divided into a number of tribes, of which the 
principal are the following: In Fall River Basin, the A-cho-ma’-wi; on the 
South Fork, the Hu-nia’/-whi; in Hot Spring Valley, the Es-ta-ke’-wach ; 
in the same valley, below Hot Spring, the Han-te’-wa; in Round Valley, 
the Chu-ma/-wa; in Big Valley, the A-tu-a’-mih (also called sometimes 
the Ha-mef-kut’-tel-li). The first name is derived from a-cho'-ma, ‘the 
river”; and Estakewach is from es-ta-ke’, ‘‘hot spring”. 
Another tribe on the south side of the river, opposite Fort Crook, are 
called Il-ma’-wi. Pit River is simply and pre-eminently ‘the river”; other 
streams have their special names. In accordance with that minuteness of 
geographical nomenclature so common in California, they are not content 
with designating the river as a whole, but every reach, every cataract, every 
bend, has a name to itself. Thus a little rapid above Burgettville is Cho- 
to’-keh, the next bend below Lo-ka’-lit. 
There is a remarkable difference between the physique one sees in 
Hot Spring Valley and that in Big Valley, only twenty miles below. It 
is partly caused by the meager supply of aboriginal food in the former 
valley; partly the deplorable result of generations of slave-wars and slave- 
catching prosecuted against them by the Modok and the Mukaluk, and 
partly the result of the awful scourging given them by General Crook, and 
the deportation of the heart of the tribe to a distant reservation. The Hot 
Spring Valley Indians are the most miserable, squalid, peaked-faced, men- 
dicant, and mendacious wretches I ever saw in California. Frequently 
their teeth project forward into a point, and when their lips are closed they 
are wrinkled tight over them like a drawn purse. When eating there is 
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