376 THE YOKU'S. 
instance, goods which eost them at the store $5 they sell among themselves 
for $3, or thereabout. This is done by the old Indians, who consider an 
Indian dollar better than an American. 
They say that, in remote times, they were accustomed to rub their 
acorns to-flour on a stone slightly hollowed, like the Mexican metate, which 
was a suggestion of the mouse; but nowadays they pound them in holes on 
top of huge bowlders, which was a suggestion of the wiser coyote. Ona 
bowlder in Coarse Gold Gulch, I counted eighty-six of these acorn-holes, 
which shows that they must have been used many centuries. 
For snaring quail, rabbits, and other small game, they employ cords 
made of a kind of ‘ wild flax” found.in the Sierra. I presume this ‘“ wild 
flax” is milkweed (Asclepias). 
Manzanita cider is made of a much better quality than the wretched 
stuff seen among the Wintin. After reducing the berries to flour by 
pounding, they carefully remove all the seeds and skins, then soak the flour 
in water for a considerable length of time. A squaw then heaps it up in a 
little mound, with a crater in the center, into which she pours a minute 
stream of water, allowing it to percolate through. In this way she gets 
about a gallon an hour of a really delicious beverage, clear, cool, clean, 
and richer than most California apple cider. The Indians consume it all 
before it has time to ferment, so that they do not get intoxicated on it. 
In the mountain streams which empty into Tulare Lake they catch lake 
trout, chubs, and suckers. Sometimes they construct a weir across the river 
with a narrow chute and a trap set in it; then go above and stretch a line 
of brushwood from one bank to the other, which they drag down stream, 
driving the fish into the trap. Another way is to erect a brushwood booth 
over the water, so thickly covered as to be perfectly dark inside; then an 
Indian lies flat on his belly, peering down though a hole, and when a fish 
passes under him he spears it. The spear is pointed with bone, and is two- 
pronged. Still another method is employed on Tule River and King’s 
River. An Indian takes a funnel-shaped trap in his teeth and hands, buoys 
himself on a little log, and then floats silently down the rapids, holding the 
net open to receive the fish that may be shooting up. On Tulare Lake 
they construct very rude, frail punts or mere troughs of tule, about ten feet 
