328 THE NISHINAM. . 
which a widow is forbidden to do any work or attend a dance, her mother 
requested her to go down into the ravine and gather some clover. She 
went, accompanied by a young girl, one of her unmarried companions. 
Going afield with her basket, she was observed by an Indian named Pwi'-no, 
her husband’s brother, who watched where she went and for what purpose. 
He reported to his father, and by him was charged to follow and strike her 
dead. He did so, following her for several hours, but he had no heart for 
the butcherly business, and he finally returned home without accomplishing 
his errand His father upbraided him bitterly as a coward and an ingrate 
for not avenging the insult to his brother’s memory. Stung to madness by 
the paternal reproaches, in a moment of furious passion he rushed away, 
fell upon the offending widow, and smote her unto death. 
~ When a mother dies, leaving a very young infant, custom allows the 
"relatives to destroy it. This is generally done by the grandmother, aunt, 
or other near relative, who holds the poor innocent in her arms, and while 
it is seeking the maternal fountain, presses it to her breast until it is smothered. 
We must not judge them too harshly for this. They knew nothing of bottle- 
nurture, patent nipples, or any kind of milk whatever other than the human. 
Some Nishinam hold that the dead linger on earth a while; hence it is 
that they have such a mortal terror of ghosts. If they are good spirits, 
after they have traveled toward the Happy Western Land until they are 
weary, other good spirits who have preceded them thither come to meet 
them, and bear them away from earth in a whirlwind. When an Indian 
sees one of those little dust-columns which are frequent in this windy cli- 
mate, he thinks some beatific soul is ascending in it to the Happy Western 
Land. 
As above recorded, the dance for the dead is observed as far south as 
American River (not below), through the influence and example of the 
Maidu, who observe it annually. As soon as life is extinct the body is 
burned, with all the person’s possessions. Then the ashes are conveyed to 
some tribal burying-ground, and slightly covered up in the earth. When 
the dance for the dead is held by appointment at each place, generally in 
the spring, the ashes are uncovered and a fire is made directly over them. 
bar fis ere . : ° . 
1e first evening and morming the mourhning-women dance in a circle 
