136 THE INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA. 
taining the dust of their ancestors. Here they kept up the 
traditions of their fathers, and related tales of former glory, 
and prayed to the Great Spirit for success and for abundant 
blessings. It is worth our time perhaps to consider, while 
speaking of the mounds that indicate the sites of villages, 
how much of the elevation is due to natural deposits, and 
whether it may not jn many cases be entirely so. 
The streets in the city of Chicago have risen from eight 
to ten feet above the old level during the past twenty-five 
years from the soil obtained from cellars, ashes, sweepings, 
etc. Even the villages (so called) of prairie dogs are made 
higher by their occupation. The ground used as a permanent 
home by human beings is constantly receiving additions from 
the wood used as fuel, bones of animals, shells of various 
kinds, and even the bodies of the California Indians were 
buried near their houses, with their baskets and implements 
used in hunting and housekeeping. I am aware that else- 
where mounds seem to have been heaped up by another race 
of people, but the highest that I have met with in Califor- 
nia I think were owing to the gradual accumulations from 
centuries of occupation. 
The traditions of the Indians are so fanciful, when they 
get beyond the history known to the living, that they differ 
but little from printed fictions. 
Their religion is probably little changed from that of an 
earlier age. A Good Spirit is invoked to provide food and 
give prosperity, and evil spirits are to be propitiated. The 
oldest chief prays at certain seasons, morning and evening, 
outside of the council lodge, and sings in. a monotone a few 
sentences only. This is not in words taken from their lan- 
guage, but is supposed to be intelligible to the Great Spirit. 
When special prayers are made for success in fishing or hunt- 
ing, the request is made in plain Indian. Although he prays 
constantly for success, he uses wonderful craft and skill to 
ensure it. The antelope could not be approached in the 
short, dry grass on the plains even by crawling, but the In- 
