The Northern California Indians, No. I [pp. 325-333]

328 THE NOR THERNV CALIFORNVIA INDIANS.
have dwelt a good part of their lives
among them; and, for this reason, many
a "squaw-man," whose contribution to
the large uses of civilization was not otherwise conspicuously apparent, was, to
me, a mine of treasure. One might spend
years with diligence in acquiring an Indian tongue, then journey a three- hours'
space, and find himself adrift [again, so
multitudinous are the languages and dialects of California. Carefully recorded
conversations with five hundred men,
therefore, would be more profitable than
five years spent by one man, to say nothing of the value of time.
The custom in respect of names is
various. Sometimes there is a tribal
name for all who speak the same language; sometimes none, and only names
for separate villages; sometimes a name
for a whole tribe or family, to which is
prefixed a separate word for each dialect, which is generally co-extensive with
some valley. Of the first, an instance is
found in the Cahrocs, on the Klamath,
who are a compact tribe, with no dialects; of the second, in the large tribe,
on the lower Klamath, who also have no
dialects, and yet have no name, except
for each village; of the third, in the great
family of the Pomos on Russian River,
who have many dialects, and a name for
each -Es Ballo Ki Pomos, Cahto Pomos, etc.
To increase the confusion, the Indians
seldom call their neighbors by the same
tribal names as the latter themselves
adopt.
As a simple basis of classification, I
used the ten numerals. These will always detect a new language, but not always a new dialect; for a tongue may
have many dialects, with wide departures, yet the numerals will remain about
the same throughout.
It is frequently a hard work to scrape
away the debris created by the White
Man during twenty years, and get down
to the bed - rock of the old tribal organi
zations. The California tribes crumbled
under the touch of the Paie-face, and their
members were proud to group themselves
about some strong man in the land, and
call themselves by his name. They
thought it greater honor to be called
Bidwell's Indians, Hubbard's Indians,
Redding's Indians, or so, than Wintoons, or whatever might chance to be
their native title. Some remnants of
tribes have three or four names, all in
use within a radius of that number of
miles; some, again, are merged, or dovetailed, into others; and some never had
a name taken from their own language,
but have adopted that given them by a
neighbor-tribe, altogether different in
speech. All these things are exceedingly perplexing and vexatious. For this
reason, I have studiously ignored all the
names given to tribes by Americans,
else the whole matter would have been
involved in an inextricable confusion.
On the Klamath River there live three
distinct tribes-called the Eurocs, Cahrocs, and Modocs; which names mean,
respectively, "down the river," "up the
river," and "head of the river." The
habitat of the Cahrocs extends from a
certain canon, a few miles above Weitspeck, along the Klamath to the foot of
the Klamath Mountains, and a few miles
up Salmon River. They have no recollection of any ancient migration to this
region; on the contrary, they have traditions of creation, the flood, etc., which
are fabled to have occurred on the Klamath.
The Cahrocs are probably the finest
tribe of Indians in California. Their
stature is a trifle under the American;
they have well-sized bodies, erect and
strong-knit; and when a Cahroc has
the weapon to which he is accustomeda sharp stone gripped in the hand -he
will face a White Man, and give him a
square, handsome fight, though he flees
before him when armed with a snickersnee, or pistols in the use of which he
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