894 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
with a covering of deer’s sinews. The arrows are of reed, and. 
have a head made of obsidian, which is a transparent, vitreous. 
substance of volcanic origin, in appearance very similar to a 
coarse quality of glass. The arrow-heads are made two inches 
long, half an inch wide, an eighth of an inch thick, with a very 
sharp point and sharp edges. The head is fastened in a split 
of the shaft of the arrow by tying with deer sinews. Such an 
arrow-head can be used but once, for the obsidian is as brittle 
as glass and breaks at the first shock. Some tribes in the 
northern part of the state, poison their arrows by irritating a 
rattlesnake and then thrusting forward a fresh deer’s liver, 
which it will bite. After it has bitten repeatedly, and thrown 
some of its poison at every bite into the liver, the latter is 
buried and allowed to putrefy. It is then dug up, the arrow- 
head is dipped in it and allowed to dry. An arrow thus 
poisoned will kill a man, a horse, or an ox in twenty-four 
hours, or less time; and it is said that the meat of an animal 
thus killed may be eaten with safety. I know that the Indians 
do eat the meat of animals killed with poisoned arrows, but I 
am not positive that the poison was prepared in this manner. 
The poison of the rattlesnake is not injurious when taken into 
a sound stomach ; it is only when injected into the blood that 
its injurious influences are felt. The arrows, even when not 
poisoned, make very dangerous wounds, for the sinew used to 
fasten the head soon softens, and allows the head to remain 
when the shaft is pulled out. 
The Indians are very familiar with the habits of wild. ani- 
mals. They know precisely the character of the brushwood 
and ravines in which the deer and bear hide during the day, 
and the places to which they go to feed in the morning and 
evening. In hunting deer and antelope, in places where there 
is grass eighteen inches or two feet high, the Indian will often 
hold the skull and horns of a buck deer before him, and thus 
crawl within bow-shot. The Pit River Indians dig pits about 
five feet cubic and cover them with brush and grass, and thus 
catch deer, hares, and so forth. For catching wild geese, varr 
