TRAVELS IN TIIE CALIFORNIA S. 
365 
by women than men. Their wardrobe is very scanty. A 
wrapper of greater or less extent around the waist is their sole 
garment. To this is added in winter a rude outer covering 
of deer or otter skin. Sometimes they wear a garment 
which is made of feathers of the water-fowl, twisted into 
ropes and tied together closely, so as to give a downy surface 
on both sides. The females always have this or a rush cov¬ 
ering around the loins and usually over the shoulders; the 
men are commonly naked. In addition to these, it may be 
mentioned, that in the colder hours of a winter day, they are 
in the habit of plastering themselves over with mud, to keep 
the cold out, which they wash off as the temperature rises. 
The Indians make a very rustic kind of habitation, some¬ 
thing like the dwelling of the Hottentots. The frame-work 
is formed of pliable poles, with their butts inserted into the 
ground, and drawn together at the top. These are inter¬ 
woven with brush, and thatched with bulrushes. The in¬ 
closed area is ten or twelve feet in diameter, and twelve or 
fifteen in height, having an opening at the side to admit its 
occupants, and a hole at the top to let out the smoke. Within 
each of these huts are commonly found eight or ten Indians 
of both sexes, and all ages, nearly naked, squatting around a 
fire, and covered with a variety of vermin; a spectacle of 
the extreme filth and wretchedness of the most pitiable savage 
condition. 
The furniture of these wigwams, the reader will naturally 
infer, is quite limited and primitive. A kind of box or chest, 
a bowl shaped like a high-crowned hat, a bone awl used in 
making it, a piece of touch-wood for kindling a fire, a small 
netting sack in which to put their fruit and seeds, another in 
the form of a bag to sling on the shoulders, for the purpose 
of carrying their infants when travelling, fishing-nets, bows, 
arrows, lances, and a sea-shell for dipping water to drink, 
make up the sum total of the furniture of an Indian house¬ 
keeper in Upper California. 
Ornaments are as much sought after by these as they arc 
53 
