270 THE ACHOMAWIL. 
salmon season arrives, a band of aged shamans abstain from fresh fish, flesh, 
or fowl for certain days, which they believe will induce a heavy run and 
a plentiful catch. Even the women and children at this time, if they wish 
to eat fresh salmon, must carry it back in the forest out of sight of the river. 
Like the Maidu of Sutter County, they call the salmon by sitting in a circle 
on some overlooking promontory, while a venerable shamin stands in the 
midst and earnestly addresses the finny multitudes for two or three hours, 
urging them to ascend the river. 
Probably the squaws in this nation occupy as degraded and servile a 
position as in any other tribe in the State. A man’s daughters are consid- 
ered simply as his property, his chattels, to be sold at pleasure. He owns 
them not only when maidens, but when widows—either the father or the 
brothers. A widow does not pass into the possession of her husband’s 
brother, as in some tribes, but of her own brother, who sells her and her 
children to her second husband. An intelligent squaw told me they were 
often cruelly beaten, and had no redress. If a wife deserts her husband’s 
lodge and goes back to her father, the hushand may strike her dead if she 
refuses to return. A squaw is seldom held responsible for adultery, even 
with white men. Polygamy prevails when the man is rich enough to 
buy wives. Tyee John, for instance, had three. When a man marries he 
gives presents to all the male members of his bride’s family, but none’ to 
the female. Yet even here there were some mitigations to her position. A 
widow retains all the articles which she herself made; also sometimes a 
horse which she paid for out of her own earnings. A widower cannot 
keep his wife’s personal property, such as baskets, &c. ; but her relatives come 
and take them away. Though a slave herself, bought and sold, her right to 
these little personal articles is inviolable. There are many female sha- 
mins, and the rights and modesty of a woman in childbirth are sacredly 
respected, as they are not among civilized nations. Moreover, there is once 
in a while a good, healthy, natural instance of a thoroughly henpecked 
man. The Indians tell with great glee of a terrible termagant in the tribe, 
called “Old Squally”. One day she quarreled with her husband when 
whereupon she faced him about toward the water, and 
they were fishing, 
kicked him into the same with violence, telling him to “go in swimming”. 
