Te ee at ee er AN Eg ce gets Hee re en eee eee, en a oe EC eae ANN Gor 
OW oe A ee to en eg: we ae 
3 fa piel 
t 
1878.] Anthropology. ` 48i 
branch of tough wood nearly an inch thick, which is formed into 
a ring having a diameter of about six or seven inches. This is 
sometimes wrapped with raw hide or sinew. en there are two 
cords running horizontally across the inner space, intersecting two 
similar ones attached vertically, giving the middle the appearance 
of the cross-wires in an engineer’s transit. The poles are each 
about fifteen feet long, consisting of spliced pieces of cottonwood, 
and having the general appearance of a good sized fishing rod 
with the thin end slightly turned upward. When the players are 
ready, they take their positions at one end of the course, and one 
of them placing his forefinger on the periphery of the hoop and - 
grasping the sides with his thumb and fingers, rolls it with 
sufficient force to drive it to the other end of the course. When 
it is half way the players start abreast, pushing their poles on the 
ground before them. When they reach the middle of the course 
the poles are pushed ahead so as to pass through one of the 
Spaces between the cords, the game resulting upon some previous - 
agreement as to what was required in counting. This is repeated 
rom the end where the first attempt terminated, and continued 
for hours. I have seen men lose blankets, horses, bows and ar- 
rows, and in fact almost everything of which they were possessors. 
Similarities between this and closely allied games formerly 
practiced might be noticed, but it is not the object of the writer 
to more than refer to the probable use of the discoids as men- 
tioned in the beginning —W. F. Hoffman, M.D. 
TRIBES OF CALIFORNIA, BY STEPHEN Powers.—In the May num- 
ber of the Naruratisr attention was called by a brief note to the 
third volume of contributions to North American Ethnology, 
edited by Major J. W. Powell, and especially to the portion of it 
written by Mr. Stephen Powers. The great merit of Mr. Powers’ 
work demands for it a more extended notice. In addition to 
acute powers of observation, great tact in dealing with the Indians, 
and a genuine sympathy, the author enjoyed during a portion of 
his three years the official recognition of the Interior Department 
and of the Smithsonian Institution. He speaks, therefore, as one 
having authority. Taking Herbert Spencer's descriptive sociology 
as a guide in estimating the exhaustiveness of any ethnographic 
work, commence necessarily with Mr. Powers’ account of the 
environment of the California Indians. On this point the author 
is extremely lucid and exhaustive, seizing as if by intuition the 
relation of the people to the land, and expressing it in language 
exceedingly terse and attractive. The reader will be especially 
charmed with those sentences in which the winds, the sky, the 
storm, and the darkness are brought into relation with savage 
life and feelings. The tone of sadness with which the great 
depletion of former populations under the blighting effect of the 
worst element of our civilization is narrated, is thought by some 
to be gratuitous; but Mr. Powers in his letter to Major Powell — 
