In winter a person might be buried shallowly in the floor of a living house. Next spring the house would be torn down and the dirt walls caved in. There was variation not only between, but within tribes as to the final disposition of houses of the deceased. They might be burned down, a common practice, or they were torn down, abandoned, temporarily deserted, or torn down and rebuilt. If to be lived in again, purification of some sort was always practiced, either by burning juniper boughs in the house, smoking tobacco, bringing in aromatic plants, or treating the main beams. Among Yana tribes the family seems to have habitually abandoned the house right after the funeral and to have burned the whole thing including property and food of all the inmates, retaining only the barest necessities of life such as sleeping robes.
Among Atsugewi all mourners had to deny themselves meat and fresh fish for one day; then they sweated and swam after the funeral. Mountain Maidu mourners, including all persons who had had any part in the funeral, had to undergo four or five days taboo on eating all flesh. They also had to eat alone and from separate dishes, do head scratching with special sticks only, were allowed no hunting, gambling, intercourse, or smoking. Purification of those persons contaminated by participation in burial included swimming and washing every day that the taboos were in effect.
Only Atsugewi, of all local tribes, are said to have practiced suicide, though unquestionably it did occur on occasion among all California Indians.
Mentioning the name of the deceased in the presence of his relatives was considered very poor taste, and was actually forbidden in some cases.
It was forbidden that the widow touch the corpse, so that relatives had to prepare the body for burial. After the funeral, the widow always cut her hair off closely. If an Atsugewi, she made a belt out of it, and the hair belt was then often decorated with shells. In all local tribes the widow traditionally covered her whole head and face with pitch and covered this with white diatomaceous earth or black charcoal. Touching her head or face (the whole body for mountain Maidu) with fingers was taboo; she could do this only with the scratching stick which mountain Maidu widows wore around the neck. Raggedy, ill-looking clothes were worn by the survivor, and Atsugewi widows put pitch on old basketry caps to be worn. A mourning necklace was worn at all times, made of lumps of hard pitch strung onto a fiber string. This was worn until remarriage, which was usually two or three years for Atsugewi and one to three years for mountain Maidu. Pitch on the face and head was normally left on until it wore off of its own accord.
The mourning conduct of grieving men who had lost their wives in death was not nearly so lengthy or as rigorous as was that of widows. Widowers cut their hair too, but among Atsugewi the only other observance required was abstinence of flesh eating for a day. Mountain Maidu widowers spent one sleepless night out in the mountains. Widowers did not generally sing at dances and at “big times” for about a year, but this was not compulsory. The Yana are said to have stayed away from dances for two or three years.
Parents mourning the loss of children cut their hair slightly and placed some pitch on hair or faces. The Atsugewi mother observed a three day meat taboo and the Maidu father went to the hills to seek power. However, loss of a baby in birth or before its navel cord dropped off was considered a more serious situation. Such bereaved parents gave all of their belongings away in order to make a fresh start.
Anniversary mourning rites were not conducted in the Lassen region. An exception was the rare instance among Atsugewi when a child was sick at a time just three years after the death of its parent. Under such circumstances a shaman sang over the child and the whole remaining family and relatives mourned, later washing themselves. With respect to the general lack of mourning anniversaries it is of interest that the foothill (northeast) Maidu held elaborate annual burnings for several years after death of relatives. At these great mourning dance ceremonies large quantities of valuable possessions were burned as sacrifices to honor the dead.
Chapter XXIX
COUNTING, TIME, AND PLACE
Counting on the fingers was usual practice. Mountain Maidu started with their thumbs while Atsugewi began on the little finger of one hand and counted across to that on the other hand, and toes were used for the purpose too. To help in counting, tribes also employed sticks to represent groups of numbers: Atsugewi used sticks to represent 1’s, 5’s, 10’s, and hundreds. Yana frequently used a stick to represent the unit 20. This is presumed to be a natural unit because it is the sum of all of a person’s fingers and toes.