ACORNS AND PINE-NUTS. 421 
is the Quercus Gambelii; Indian name, Cha'-kau. They generally select 
those trees which have a free, coarse bark and large acorns. About the 
middle of October the harvest begins, when the Indian, armed with a long, 
slender pole, ascends the tree and beats off the nuts. A tree which has 
been well whipped looks as if it had been scourged in a mighty hail-storm. 
The old men generally assist in carrying them home in their deep, conical 
baskets, and there the squaws’ duties commence. Holding an acorn on a 
stone, she gives it a slight tap with a stone pestle, called su’-neh, to crack 
the shell, which she strips off rapidly. They are then dried and beaten to 
powder in small hollows on top of some great rock. The flour is soaked a 
few hours in a large hollow scooped in the sand, the water draining off and 
carrying away the bitterness; after which it is cooked into a kind of mush 
in baskets by means of hot stones, or baked as bread in an underground 
oven. The acorn which stands second in favor is that of the burr-oak 
(Q. lobata; Indian, lauwh). In Placer County this oak seems to be more 
properly Q. Douglassii, as its branchlets are erect and rigid. There is an 
oak which they call shu’-heh, which seems to be something like a cross 
between the white and burr oak, having very white and coarsely rimose 
bark, and glabrous, shining, deeply sinuate leaves. Professor Bolander pro- 
nounces this also Q. Gambelit. The live-oak is ha’-ha; Q. Wislizenia, ham’- 
mut; the black oak, (Q. Sonomensis) ham’-chu. The acorns of these last 
three are eaten only when they can procure no others. ‘There is one other 
very small species called chi’-pis, growing in the mountains; but I cannot 
determine from their descriptions whether it is the chinquapin or the whortle- 
berry oak. 
The nut-pine or silver-pine (Pinus edulis) is toan, toan'-em cha. It is a 
great favorite with them, the most useful tree they have, and they always 
regret to see an American cutting one down. The nuts are a choice article 
of food; and, burned and beaten to powder, or crushed up raw and spread 
on in a plaster, they form their specific for a burn ora scald. The pitch 
and the mistletoe (Arceuthobium) which grows on this pine are very valuable, 
in their estimation, for coughs, colds, and rheumatism. They set them afire, 
making a dense smudge, and then the patient, wrapped in a blanket, squats 
over it or stands on all-fours over it, and works and shuffles his blanket, 
