SCHUMACHER ON KJOKKENMODDINGS OF CALIFORNIA. 41 



coal among the debris. The graves yielded about 225 skeletons and a 

 moderate addition to our collection in stone and bone articles. From 

 this place we made a reconnaissance in the surrounding country, and 

 noticed many shell-mounds located, rather singularly, on high ridges 

 and mountains, where water is distant and the place bare and much ex- 

 posed. The shells on such places are better preserved, and it seems as 

 if these people had moved up here the better to avoid contact with the 

 whites while hunting otters around these islands. The deposits, although 

 very conspicuous by their bright color when seen from the sea, and scat- 

 tered over large areas, are not deep, and we found but very few flints, 

 some beach-rocks, but no skeletons, and therefore they may be safely 

 termed temporary camping-grounds, as described in the Smithsonian 

 Report of 1874. After almost a week's stay in our picturesque camp, the 

 passing Hassler party took us up and brought us back to Prisoner Harbor. 

 We intended to make our next station at Smuggler's Cove, but the 

 heavy breakers prevented us from lauding, and we went on to Coche 

 Prieto (Map 5) [Plate 13], a small cove on the south side of the island, of 

 which Prisoner Harbor lies due north across the neck of the island. We 

 found shell-mounds at the mouth of a dry creek ascending gradually 

 toward the east side of the caiion, while an older layer was found op- 

 posite on the west side, or the right bank of the creek. Here again, as 

 in fact all over the island, with but one exception, the reason of digging 

 the graves into the kjokkenmoddings, was the difficulty of working the 

 ground which surrounds them, as only the beach is sandy, while back 

 of it the bottom is gravelly and the rising ground hard and rocky. The 

 western cemetery was the larger one ; but, although we exhumed 140 

 skeletons, we made only a moderate addition to our collection of ethno- 

 logical finds. The first fish-hooks of shells were found in the graves 

 eastward on the small ridge. They are ingeniously made, and I shall 

 speak of them more explicitly farther on. We dug up a square board 

 {a) [Plate 22], about 1^^ by 2 feet, pretty well preserved, painted with a 

 bright red color, and having small indentations in a depression which is 

 bounded by a raised border. I was told by an old vaquero, with some 

 Indian blood, that the board was used in connection with hot ashes to 

 whiten the money-shell {Olivella bipUcata) by a sieve-like action. The 

 same individual explained the use of a perforated stone (&) [Plate 22], 

 commonly found, and so readily taken for a war-dub head, as a weight 

 fo the shaft of the wooden spade. If one is at the first glance inclined 

 to take this implement as the ball of a club, we also must admit the fact 

 that we found many of them split in two, as if caused by the wedge-like 

 action of the spade-handle, and that no stone spades were found, which 

 speaks in favor of the theory that it was used for the purpose stated by 

 the half-breed, who was very positive, and earnestly tried to impress on 

 us the idea by roughly making the implement used by his ancestors as 

 a spade. We also found some wooden relics, which appeared to me to 

 have belonged to a canoe, made of board sewed with strings, and well 



