Francis Drake and the California Indians, 1579 Part 4

207-208; Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 366; Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 425.

The Kuksu staff was feathered on the end, whereas that of Calnis was somewhat shorter and did not have the feather tuft. Kroeber, _Handbook_, pp. 261-262; Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, pp. 110, 128.

[72] They were manufactured chiefly by the Pomo and Northern Coast Miwok. See E. W. Gifford, _Clear Lake Pomo Society_, Univ. Calif. Publ.

Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. XVIII, No. 2 (Berkeley, 1926), pp. 377-388; Kroeber, _Handbook_, p. 248; Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography"; Gifford and Kroeber, _Culture Element Distributions, IV: Pomo_, (pp. 186-187).

[73] Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," figs. 29, 30, Pl. XLIX.

[74] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography."

[75] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 433; Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 178.

[76] Cf. Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 405, 438-439.

[77] Ill.u.s.trated in Kroeber, _Handbook_, fig. 20. See also Gifford and Kroeber, elements 88, 89; Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 432; Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." And see Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," Pl. XLVIII, fig. 25.

[78] Gifford and Kroeber, element no. 4. Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography."

[79] Ill.u.s.trated and described by Kroeber, _Handbook_, pl. 55, _a_, and pp. 264, 269, 388, and ill.u.s.trated by Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," fig.

33. See also Gifford and Kroeber, elements nos. 81 ff.; Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 407, 432; Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 200. The down-filled net cap was used by the Coast Miwok in the Kuksu and other ceremonial performances.

[80] Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," figs. 19-21.

[81] Kroeber, _Handbook_, fig. 21.

[82] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 407, n. 12.

[83] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography"; Wagner, _Spanish Voyages_, pp.

158, 159 (Drake's Bay).

[84] Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, p. 158; Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 407, 433; Gifford and Kroeber, _Culture Element Distributions: IV, Pomo_, element no. 96, pp. 207-208.

[85] I can find no record that the down of milkweed (or of any other plant) was used. Most ethnographic accounts (see n. 79) above list the use of eagle down. That Fletcher was probably correct in attributing the source of the downy substance to a plant is shown by his reference to the seeds of the same plant. There is also the probability that he saw the plant itself on the journey into the interior. From my own observation I know that at least three different plants producing such down grow on Point Reyes.

[86] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography." Dr. Kelly's informants at Bodega in describing just such baskets said, "They were just for show"--i.e., had no practical or utilitarian use. Her San Rafael informant also knew of such baskets.

[87] For ill.u.s.trations and description see J. W. Hudson, "Pomo Basket Makers," _Overland Monthly_, ser. 2, XXI (1893), 571, and C. Purdy, "The Pomo Indian Baskets and Their Makers," _ibid._, XV (1901), 438, 446. O.

M. Dalton ("Notes on an Ethnographical Collection from the West Coast of North America ... Formed during the Voyage of Captain Vancouver, 1790-1795," _Internationale Archiv fur Ethnographie_, Vol. X [Leiden, 1897]), shows (fig. f, p. 232; Pl. XV, fig. 4) several Pomo baskets which might as well have been the ones described by Fletcher. It seems possible that these were collected at Bodega Bay, since some of the Vancouver party visited there, but this is not certain. In Mission times many Coast Miwok and even some Pomo were brought to San Francisco and San Jose as neophytes. These individuals might well account for the Pomo-Coast Miwok type of feathered baskets collected there in the early nineteenth century by von Langsdorff or Chamisso, both of whom ill.u.s.trate such pieces in their published accounts. Barrett, _Pomo Indian Basketry_, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. and Ethn., Vol. VII, No. 3 (Berkeley, 1908), discusses at length (pp. 141-145, 168) feather and sh.e.l.l materials used in the manufacture of these decorated baskets. A number of examples are shown in Barrett's plate 21. The same anthropologist ("Pomo Buildings," pp. 1-17) mentions the use of feather-decorated baskets among the Pomo as sacrifices to the dead.

[88] Kroeber, _Handbook_, p. 245.

[89] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography."

[90] Gifford and Kroeber, _Culture Element Distributions, IV: Pomo_, element no. 807, p. 197, n.

[91] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, p. 400, mentions a princ.i.p.al singer who started and led the air of the songs, but does not indicate whether he might be identifiable with the "scepter bearer."

[92] See Barrett, _Ceremonies_, _pa.s.sim_; Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_ and _Pomo Folkways_, _pa.s.sim_; Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography"

_pa.s.sim_.

[93] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 492, n. 37. Wagner says that this word "sounds" to him like an exclamation. To Elmendorf and me it "sounds"

like the Coast Miwok word for chief or friend. The latter proposal rests upon both phonetic and semantic resemblances.

[94] For the Coast Miwok words for "chief" and "friend" see Barrett, _The Ethno-Geography of the Pomo Indians_, words nos. 62, 64, pp. 70, 71. The Pomo words (p. 58) are totally unlike those of the Coast Miwok.

Barrett, _Ceremonies_, mentions a Kuksu curing call, _hyo_, which was repeated four times. Although the call is phonetically similar, the context is so unlike, that a correspondence with Fletcher's word for chief or king is improbable.

[95] Taylor, _loc. cit._, p. 369.

[96] Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 412, 431; Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, p. 118.

[97] Kroeber, _Handbook_, table 10, p. 876.

[98] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography."

[99] The ground squirrel and Point Reyes mountain beaver have been variously identified as Fletcher's "conies." See Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 492-493, n. 42.

[100] See photograph in McAdie, "Nova Albion--1579," fig. 1.

[101] Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography."

[102] Kroeber, _Handbook_, p. 277.

[103] These "burnt offerings" are ascribed to the Trinidad Bay Yurok by Wagner (_Drake's Voyage_, p. 157), but there is no need to look so far afield for parallels when the Coast Miwok-Pomo area fits the case so well.

[104] Memorial ceremonies for the dead are a characteristic feature of central California culture; see Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, p. 117 (Coast Miwok).

[105] Heizer and Elmendorf, "Francis Drake's California Anchorage."

[106] For evidence of this, using the words on Drake's plate of bra.s.s, see Allen Chickering, "Some Notes with Regard to Drake's Plate of Bra.s.s"

and "Further Notes on the Drake Plate."

[107] Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 171. Cf. the Huchnom song facing p. 144.

[108] Loeb, _The Western Kuksu Cult_, pp. 103, 127, 128.

[109] Loeb, _Pomo Folkways_, pp. 374, 392, 393. See also Barrett, _Ceremonies_, pp. 409, 413.

[110] Because of the high degree of similarity between all phases of Pomo and Coast Miwok ceremonies, a close correspondence, or even ident.i.ty, in the songs connected with these ceremonies may safely be a.s.sumed.

[111] Davidson, "Identification of Sir Francis Drake's Anchorage," p.

35.

[112] J. P. Munro-Fraser, _History of Marin County_ (San Francisco, 1880), pp. 96-97.

[113] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, pp. 148, 167, 494.

[114] Wagner, "The Last Spanish Exploration," p. 334.

[115] Wagner, _Drake's Voyage_, p. 167.