108 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
shaman or si-se’-ro. In the mountains there is some approach to this mar- 
tial array, but it is universal on the plains.”" 
As a rule these houses were occupied by more families than one, as is 
shown by the same author. In the northern part of the State “the Tatu 
wigwams do not differ essentially from those of the vicinal tribes They 
are constructed of stout willow wicker-work, dome-shaped, and thatched 
with grass. Sometimes they are very large and oblong, with sleeping-room 
for thirty or forty persons.”” The Yo-kai’-a inhabit a section of the north- 
west part of the State. ‘Their style of lodge is the same which prevails 
generally along Russian River, a huge frame-work of willow poles covered 
with thatch, and resembling a large flattish haystack. Though still pre- 
serving the same style and materials, since they have adopted from the 
Americans the use of boards they have learned to construct all around the 
wall of the wigwam a series of little state rooms, if I may so call them, 
which are snugly boarded up and furnished with bunks inside. This enables 
every family in these immense patriarchal lodges to disrobe and retire with 
some regard to decency, which could not be done in the one common room 
of the old-style wigwam.”* 
Again: “The Se-nel, together with three other 
petty tribes, mere villages, occupy that broad expanse of Russian River 
Valley on one side of which now stands the American village of Senel. 
Among them we find unmistakably developed that patriarchal system which 
appears to prevail all along Russian River. They construct immense dome- 
shaped or oblong lodges of willow poles an inch or two in diameter, woven 
in square lattice-work, securely lashed and thatched. In each one of these 
live several families, sometimes twenty or thirty persons, including all who 
are blood relations. Hach wigwam, therefore, is a pueblo, a law unto itself; 
and yet these lodges are grouped in villages, some of which formerly con- 
tained hundreds of inhabitants.*. I cannot find that Mr. Powers mentions 
the practice of communism in these households, but the fact seems probable 
Their usages in the matter of hospitality are much the same as in the other 
tribes. Their principal food was salmon, acorn-flour bread, game, kamas, 
and berries. They were, without pottery, cooked in ground ovens, and 
also in water-tight baskets by means of heated stones. 
1 Powers’ Tribes of Cal., p. 370. 3Ib., p. 139. 3Ib., p. 163, 4Tb., —p. 168, 
