MAKING RAIN—MANUFACTURE OF BOWS. 373 
liberally of their substance. But he was yet an unknown prophet. They 
were incredulous, and mostly laughed him to scorn, whereupon he would 
leave the village in high dudgeon, denouncing war upon their heads, and . 
threatening them with a continuance of the drought another year far worse 
than before. Sure enough, the enraged Hopodno brought drought a sec- 
ond year, and the Indians were smitten with remorse and terror, believing 
him endowed with superhuman power; and when next year he made a sec- 
ond pilgrimage, offerings were showered upon him in abundance, and men 
heard him with trembling. He compelled them to pay him fifty cents 
apiece, American money, and many gladly gaye much more. And he 
made rain. 
As to their implements and weapons, there are some interesting par- 
ticulars to be noted. Here, as everywhere on the Sacramento and Joaquin 
plains, the Indians make no bows, but purchase them all from the mount- 
aineers. This is because they have no cedar. This wood is extremely 
brittle when dry, and is then the poorest possible material for bows; but 
by anointing it every day with deer’s marrow while it is drying the Indian 
overcomes this quality and renders it the best. The bow is taken from the 
white or sap wood, the outside of the tree being also the outside of the bow. 
It is scraped and polished down with wonderful painstaking, so that it may 
bend evenly, and the ends are generally carved so as to point back slightly. 
Then the Indian takes a quantity of deer’s sinew, splits it up with flint into 
small fibers, and glues them on the outside or flat back of the weapon until 
it becomes semi-cylindrical in shape. These strings of sinew, being lapped 
around the end of the bow and doubled back a little way, impart to it its 
wonderful strength and elasticity. The glue is made by boiling the joints 
of various animals and combining the product with pitch. 
I saw a bow thus carefully made in the hands of an aged chief, and it 
was truly a magnificent weapon. It was about five feet long, smooth and 
shining—for when it becomes a little soiled the fastidious savage scrapes 
it slightly with flint, then anoints it afresh with marrow—and of such great 
strength that it would require a giant to bend it in battle. For lack of 
skins the owner carried it in a calico case. The string, composed of twisted 
sinew, was probably equal in strength to a sea-grass rope of three times its 
