spirit home, to love and caress as a memento of his living
earth-wife.

[Illustration: _Photograph by Boysen_.
OLD KALAPINE.
One of the oldest Indians in the Valley. The short hair is a
badge of widowhood.]

These Indians believe that everything on earth, both natural and
artificial, is endowed with an immortal spirit, which is
indestructible, and that whatever personal property or precious
gifts are burned, either with the body or in later years for the
departed friend's benefit, will be received and made use of in
the spirit world. In recent years the Yosemites and other
remnants of tribes closely associated with them, have adopted the
custom of the white people, and bury their dead. The fine,
expensive blankets, and most beautifully worked baskets, which
have been kept sacredly in hiding for many years, to be buried
with the owner, are now cut into small fragments before being
deposited in the ground, for fear some white person will
desecrate the grave by digging them up and carrying them away.

There are no people in the world who more reverence for their
dead, or hold memory more sacred, than these so-called "Digger"
Indians. After being released from the reservations they kept
themselves in abject poverty for many sacrificing their best
blankets, baskets and clothing in the devouring flames of a fire
kindled for that purpose, when holding their annual mourning
festivals in memory of their dead friends.