410 GENERAL FACDS. 
us, and the one which amuses them most, is wéhah, which is formed from 
the ‘‘whoa-haw” that they heard the early immigrants use so much in 
driving their oxen. Let an Indiantsee an American coming up the road, 
and cry out to his fellows, ‘There comes a wéhah!” at the same time 
swinging his arm as if driving oxen, and it will produce convulsive laughter. 
At Healdsburgh they call a locomotive toot-toot-toot. A Chinaman is called 
by the Nishinam, chd-li-i, which means “shaved head”. There are other 
names which they apply to us, which are very amusing, but they will not 
bear translation. ; 
Felicitously characteristic of one feature of Indian life, as well as 
humorous within itself, was the remark of an observing old man, “Injun 
make a little fire and set close to him; white man make a big fire and set 
way off.” : 
Frequently their humor is of the kind that may be called unconscious, 
and is none the less pleasing on that account. One day I applied to an 
Indian for certain information, and he began to give me the desired names 
in “American”. I interrupted him, and told him I wanted him to talk 
Indian talk. At that he pulled a black, scowling face, and said, ‘Guess 
mebbe bimeby all white man want to learn to talk Injin talk.” To any 
one knowing the peculiar relations which exist between many whites and 
the aborigines, the satire of this remark is delightful. 
They are great thieves, whenever it is safe to be so. Like ill-mannered 
white people, to use the mildest phrasing, they are fond of borrowing small 
articles, knives, pipes, pencils, and the like, which they will presently insert 
into their pockets, hoping the owner may forget to ask for them. One 
means of protection which old pioneers advised me to take, was, in journey- 
ing anywhither, always to keep at my tongue’s end the names of several 
prominent citizens of the vicinity, to impress the savages with the belief 
that I was well acquainted there, had plenty of friends, and ample means 
of redress if they did me any wrong. They are strongly attached to their 
homes, and they have learned by tough experience that if they commit any 
thievery it will be the worse for them, and that it will go hard but the 
whites will burn their rancherias and requite the stealing double. Hence 
they are proverbially honest in their own neighborhood; but a stranger in 
