the doctors treated them by applying dirt or earth, and in warm
weather would excavate a place in the ground and put the patient
in it, either in a sitting or recumbent position, as the nature
of the case required, and cover the affected part with earth for
several hours, daily. Sometimes, by this mode of treatment,
wonderful cures were made.

In all cases, if a doctor failed to cure a disease, and the
patient died, he was obliged to refund to the relatives any fee
which he had received for his services.


DISPOSING OF THE DEAD.

In the early days of the settlement of California, it seemed to
be the universal custom of the Indians along the foothills of the
Sierra Nevada range of mountains to burn the bodies of their
dead.

A suitable pile of readily combustible wood was prepared. The
body was taken charge of by persons chosen to perform the last
sacred rites, and firmly bound in skins or blankets, and then
placed upon the funeral pyre, with all the personal effects of
the deceased, together with numerous votive offerings from
friends and relatives. The chief mourners of the occasion seemed
to take but little active part in the ceremonies. When all was
ready, one of the assistants would light the fire, and the
terrible, wailing, mournful cry would commence, and the
professional chanters, with peculiar sidling movements and
frantic gestures, would circle round and round about the burning