182 THE INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA. 
tion; the girls acting as nurses to the younger children, 
and taking them off in the woods or to the river where they 
bathed, and the babies allowed to crawl in the water before 
they could walk on land. An Indian could no more remem- 
ber when he learned to swim than when he first stood on his 
feet. When the children were disposed to be good natured 
the girls petted them as kindly as our children tend dolls, 
but if they were cross, in spite of their caresses, they threw 
cold water in their faces until their tempers cooled. The 
girls fully equalled the boys in swimming or diving, and also 
used the paddle with skill, sometimes even beating the boys 
in their canoe or foot races. The boys, however, soon took 
to their bows and arrows, wandering off to hunt, and the 
girls learned at home the art of weaving baskets and making 
bread of acorns. Familiar with the points of the compass 
from infancy, they use their knowledge on all occasions ; even 
in play, if a ball or an arrow is being searched for, the one 
who saw it fall will guide the seeker thus, "to the east," Ta 
little north,” “now three steps north-west,” and so on. In 
the darkest night I have known an Indian go directly to a 
spring of water from a new camp by following the directions 
of a companion, who had been there previously, given perhaps 
as follows : “three hundred steps east and twenty steps north." 
This early training in wooderaft gives that consummate 
skill and confidence which is rarely acquired by those who 
learn it later in life. In tracking game they know the 
"signs," as our hunters call them, of the various animals 
and birds as well as they know the kind of game that made 
them, and experience teaches them when the animals moved 
away. In tracking white men they cannot make mistakes. 
The white man’s foot is deformed, made so by the shape of 
his boots or shoes, and even when he is barefooted his toes 
are turned inwards. The Indian's foot, never having been 
compressed, has the toes naturally formed and straight as 
our fingers are, and he can even use them to hold arrows 
when he is making them. When he walks therefore, each 
