TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIAS. 
C69 
haps best shown, however, in their manner of killing the deer, 
which will be described in a following page. 
Not less shrewd is their manner of catching the water-fowl. 
They erect for this purpose a long pole on each side of the 
river, and attach to the one on the shore opposite themselves 
a large net of bulrushes so arranged as to be pulled across 
the stream at will—artificial ducks and geese, made of the 
bulrushes, are then set afloat, which acting as decoys entice 
the game toward the poles, when the Indians scare them up, 
and springing the net across the stream, arrest their flight 
and tumble them into a pouch in the net from which escape 
is impossible. 
Of their religion, it is known that they believe in the con¬ 
trol of good and evil spirits to whom they occasionally offer 
prayers. They have persons among them professing power 
ever thunder, lightning, rain, the movements of whales, &c .; 
but they do not seem to be credited by the Indians, as seers, 
but rather as impostors having in view the obtainment of 
presents. They firmly believe, however, that all diseases are 
sent upon them by the incantations of their enemies. They 
appear to have a faint idea of a future state ; for in burning 
their dead as they do about the Bay of San Francisco—and 
in burying them as they do, farther south—their habit is to de¬ 
posit with them bows and arrows and other things, as those 
tribes do who have a definite faith in another existence. 
Perhaps the finest traits in the character of these Indians 
are their faithful and ardent attachment to each other, and 
their admiration of true courage. 
After battle, or when disease has destroyed their friends, 
they exhibit the truest and deepest grief I have ever seen. 
The parental feeling—particularly maternity, that holiest im¬ 
pulse of our nature, is possessed by them in all its extreme 
tenderness. The aged and decrepid, too, receive from them 
the warmest sympathy, and when the old or the young die, 
they lament a number of nights about their tombs, or their 
last abode; and consider it unkind, for many months after, to 
