DIFFICULT OF ACCESS—PHYSICAL CONDITION. 401 
sheet that covers his bloody corpse, he is not prolific in narration of his 
people’s legends and traditions. Dead men tell no tales. 
Besides that, the California Indians, above all others, are a shy, foxy, 
secretive race, who will not impart whatever information they possess until 
confidence has been grounded on long acquaintance, and even then not 
completely unless one shows sufficient regard for them to learn their lan- 
guage. This singilar secretiveness has kept. the great body of the whites 
in profound ignorance of their ideas, whatever they may have observed of 
their customs. 
The multitude of tongues is another serious obstacle. One may spend 
years in acquiring an Indian tongue, then ride a half-day’s journey and find 
himself adrift again. | 
It is frequently difficult also to clear away the débris created by the 
white man during twenty years and get down to the bed-rock of the old 
tribal organization. So morally feeble and self-abnegative were they that 
their tribes crumbled under the touch of the pale-face, and their members 
were proud to group themselves about some prorhinent pioneer and call 
themselves by his name. They frequently accounted it greater honor to 
be called Bidwell’s Indians or Reading’s Indians, or so, than Wintin or 
whatever the vernacular title might happen to be. Then, again, it is seldom 
that a tribe call their neighbors by the name the latter themselves use; and 
there are some tribes that have no name taken from their own language, as 
they have adopted the one bestowed by their neighbors. 
Physically considered the California Indians are superior to the Chi- 
nese, at least to those brought over to America. There is no better proof 
of this than the wages they receive for labor, for in a free and open market 
like ours a thing will always eventually fetch what it is worth. Chinamen 
on the railroad receive $1 a day and board themselves; Indians working 
in gangs on public roads receive seventy-five cents a day, sometimes $1, 
and their board, the whole equal to $1.25 or $1.50. But on the northern 
ranches the Indian has $1.50 to $2 a day and his board, or $1 a day 
when employed by the year. Farmers trust Indians with valuable teams 
and complicated agricultural machinery far more than they do the Chinese. 
And the Indian endures the hot and heavy work of the ranch better than 
26 Po 
