HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



and were obliged to use deerskins, rabbit-skin blankets, and other 

 coverings. 



It was the custom of every Pomo man to take a sweat bath each 

 day. A fire was built and the sudatory rendered intensely hot. By 

 means of large fans, made of raw deerhide especially for the purpose, 

 the men fanned the heat onto one another and produced a profuse 

 perspiration, after which they ran quickly to the river or to the lake 

 and plunged into the cold water. This sweating was done for the 

 general good of the health, and special sweat baths were taken, usu- 

 ally with beneficial but sometimes with disastrous results, for almost 

 every type of illness. However, the women and girls rarely, if ever, 

 indulged in these sweat baths except in cases of illness. . 



THE DANCE HOUSE 



The most important building in the Pomo village was the cere- 

 monial dance house, a large, semi-subterranean structure in which all 

 important gatherings, particularly those of a ceremonial nature, were 

 held, and which served as the center of the village life. This dance 

 house was called, in contradistinction to the sudatory, ke'mane cane 

 (N), ke' cane (C), ku'ya cane (C), k'e k'uan (SE), and xo'marak (£). 

 Like the sudatory, it was quite centrally located in the village. Plate 

 vi, and plate xi, fig. i, present views of the exterior of the old 

 dance house at Sulphur Bank, the last of the truly aboriginal type 

 of dance house built in the Pomo region. The first of these views 

 is from the east and shows a part of the village on the immediate 

 shore of East lake. The second shows the opposite side of the house. 

 Views of its interior, showing its construction, are given in plates 

 vil and viii. These photographs were taken after the dance house 

 had stood for several years in disuse and its roof and sides had partly 

 caved in. 



The building of a dance house was attended with considerable 

 ceremony. The chiefs, or captains as they are locally called, having 

 decided to build a new dance house, the head captain first called to- 

 gether all the men of the village who were not in mourning; that is to 

 say, all those who had not lost relatives within the past twelve months 

 and who were not, therefore, dako'l (E). He announced the decision 

 of the captains to build a new dance house and asked that all contrib- 

 ute to a collection of beads to be given to the mourners before the 

 actual building of the house was commenced. Such an announcement 

 was usually received with much pleasure, and the contributions were 

 liberal. After receiving the donations of all the other men of the vil- 

 lage, the head captain himself added a substantial number of beads 



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