THEIR LOW ABORIGINAL CONDITION. Sy Evl 
Bear River they call Nem Se’-u (great river); the Sacramento, Nep’- 
em Se’u (greater river); the plains, Tu’-kii-di; the timber-land, Cha’-pa, 
Cha’-pa-di; the foot-hills, Ya’-mun, Ya’-mun-di; the Sierra Nevada, Nep’- 
em Ya/-mun (greater hills); the Coast Range, Tai’-a-mun (western hills). 
Both in their social customs and in their political organization the 
Nishinam must be ranked on a low grade, probably the lowest in the State. 
They had the misfortune to occupy the heart of the Sierra mining region, 
in consequence of which they have been miserably corrupted and destroyed. 
Indians in the mining districts, for reasons not necessary to specify, are 
always worse debauched than those in the agricultural regions. And the 
fact that most observers and writers have seen the Indians of the diggings 
more than any others has contributed to bring the whole California race 
into unmerited opprobrium. 
Let the following facts bear witness to their low aboriginal estate: 
Robert Gordon, a responsible citizen of Auburn, states that in 1849 he was 
surface-mining from Auburn as far up as the North Fork of Feather River, 
and that a great proportion of the men and women who entered his camp 
were costumed strictly after the fashion-plates of Eden. This was in a 
region pretty well up in the mountains, where the aborigines had not yet 
come in contact with Europeans. Both sexes and all ages moved about his 
camp, absolutely in puris naturalibus, with that perfect freedom and inno- 
cence which betoken unconsciousness of any impropriety. But these sim- 
ple, unswathed mountaineers, according to the same good authority, were 
often of a magnificent physique, tall, sinewy fellows, who would have made 
the scale-beam kick at 180. 
Most tribes in the State lay considerable emphasis on the formal estab- 
lishment of marital relations in their way, that is by purchase, whether . 
those relations are faithfully observed afterward or not. But the Nishinam 
may be said to set up and dissolve the conjugal estate almost as easily as 
do the brute beasts. No stipulated payment is made for the wife. A man 
seeking to become a son-in-law is bound to cater (ye'-lin) or make presents 
to the family, which is to say, he will come along some day with a deer on 
his shoulder, perhaps fling it off on the ground before the wigwam, and go 
his way without a single word being spoken. Some days later he may 
