372 THE YOKUTS. 
and he made his name feared and dreaded for many a score of miles around. 
He “bound out” his subjects at will, adults and children alike, to the 
ranchmen, on life-long indentures. 
Nai-ak’-a-we was a famous prophet of the Chukchansi, who died in 
1854. It is said that his name was known and his power was acknowledged 
from King’s River as far north as Columbia; but this seems hardly probable. 
Naiakawe had a lofty ambition, and he meditated great and benevolent 
designs for his people, but he was doomed to disappointment. He sought 
to mollify those miserable janglings and that clannishness which have been 
so fatal to the California Indians from time immemorial; to reconcile the 
warring captains of villages and chiefs of tribes, and thereby harmonize 
them into one powerful nation, peaceful at home and respected and feared 
abroad. But the question of a food-supply was one which this savage 
statesman, however able and far-sighted, could not master. In ancient 
times they had immense herds of elk and deer, and, sweeping over the plains 
on their swift mustangs, they could shoot down at any time a fat bronco 
bogged by the lake (for the Indians of this State used to eat horse-flesh, 
until the influence of the Americans gradually induced them to abandon it); 
but now all these were gone, they had to scatter into families to collect food, 
the wretched feuds of the petty captains were eternally breaking out afresh, 
and Naiakawe beheld one hope after another and one noble design after 
another pass away; so he died at last broken-hearted. He said he did not 
wish to survive the ruin of his people. 
Another notable characteristic of the Yokuts is the great influence and 
extensive journeyings of their wizards or rain-makers (¢éss). Ke’-ya, who 
lives at Woodville, is one instance; but the most remarkable is Hop-od’-no. 
Though living at Fort Tejon, he has by his personal presence, his elo- 
quence, and his cunning jugglery, made his fame and authority recognized 
for two hundred miles northward, to the banks of the San Joaquin. In 
1870, the first of two successive years of drought, he made a pilgrimage 
from the fort up as far as King’s River, and at every centrally-located vil- 
lage he made a pause and sent out runners to collect all the Indians of the 
vicinal villages to listen to him. In long and elaborate harangues he would 
promise them to bring rain on the dried-up earth, if they would contribute 
