iment rather
than an incentive to progress." In some of the tribes, such as the Hupa,
for example, there existed no organization and no formalities in the
government of the village. Formal councils were unknown, although the
chief might and often did ask advice of his men in a collected body. In
general the social structure of the California Indians was so simple
and loose that it is hardly correct to speak of their tribes. Whatever
solidarity there was among these people was due in part to family ties
and in part to the fact that they lived in the same village and spoke
the same dialect. Between different groups of these Indians, the common
bond was similarity of language as well as frequency and cordiality of
intercourse. In so primitive a condition of society there was neither
necessity nor opportunity for differences of rank. The influence of
chiefs was small and no distinct classes of slaves were known. Extreme
poverty was the chief cause of the low social and political organization
of these Indians. The Maidus in the Sacramento Valley were so poor that,
in addition to consuming every possible vegetable product, they not
only devoured all birds except the buzzard, but ate badgers, skunks,
wildcats, and mountain lions, and even consumed salmon bones and deer
vertebrae. They gathered grasshoppers and locusts by digging large
shallow pits in a meadow or flat. Then, setting fire to the grass on all
sides, they drove the insects into the pit. Their wings being burned off
by the flames, the grasshoppers were helpless and were thus collected
by the bushel. Again of the Moquelumne, one of the largest tribes in
central California, it is said that their houses were simply frameworks
of poles and brush which in winter were covered with earth. In summer
they erected cone-shaped lodges of poles among the mountains. In
favorable years they gathered large quantities of acorns, which formed
their principal food, and stored them for winter use in granaries raised
above the ground. Often, however, the crop was poor, and the Indians
were left on the verge of starvation.

Finally in the far south, in the peninsula of Lower California, the
tribes were "probably the lowest in culture of any Indians in North
America, for their inhospitable environment which made them wanderers,
was unfavorable to the foundation of government even of the rude and
unstable kind found elsewhere." The Yuman tribes of the mountains east
of Santiago wore sanda