SOCIAL PARTIES—DEATH—WIDOWS. 327 
adays frequently wheat-flour), a little salt, and baskets to cook and eat the 
soup in—nothing else. Nothing is en regle except the soup, an article some- 
what thicker than gruel, and thinner than mush. After they have eaten a 
great quantity of this, the young people amuse themselves in dancing, while 
their elders indulge in the gossip and scandal of which the Indians are so 
inordinately fond. ‘ 
Among many California Indians it is usual for a man requiring the 
services of a shaman to pay him in advance, but these hold to the prin- 
ciple “No cure, no fee”. The benefit which the man of drugs renders 
his patient generally consists in sucking from him certain sticks and stones, 
which he alleges were lodged just under the skin, to his great detriment. 
When it is manifest to all beholders that the sufferer has been marked by 
Death for his own, and that he cannot long survive, his friends and relatives _ 
collect around him in a circle, and stand awaiting the final event in awe- 
stricken silence. As his breath grows stertorous, showing that he is pass- 
ing through the last grim struggle, one of them approaches reverently and 
kneels by his side. Holding his hand over the region of the heart, he 
counts its feeble pulsations as they grow slower and weaker. When it 
ceases to beat and all is ended, he turns to the waiting relatives and silently 
nods. Whereupon they commence the death-dance, with frightful wails 
and ululations. Every family have their own burning-ground, and as soon 
as the corpse is cold it is conveyed thither for incremation. Around Au- 
burn, a devoted widow never speaks, on any occasion or upon any pretext, 
for several months, sometimes a year or more, after the death of her hus- 
band. Of this singular fact I had ocular demonstration. Elsewhere, as on 
the American River, she speaks only in a whisper for several months. As you 
go down toward the Cosumnes this custom disappears, and only the tarred 
head is observed. It is only fair to remark that the widow is generally 
more faithful to the memory of her husband than the widower to his wife’s, 
and seldom disgraces human nature by remarrying in a week or two, as he 
not infrequently does. 
Apropos, the following story: An Indian woman, living on Wolf Creek, 
lost her husband, and went to live with her mother, who was also a widow. 
One day before the customary period of mourning had expired, during 
