Music of California was characterized by singing, rattles, whistles, split slap sticks, flute, and musical bow. The last two instruments were the only ones which were able to make real melodies, but amazingly, neither one was used for dances or ceremonies. California Indians were virtually without any drums—the exception being a single headed flat foot drum used in ceremonial sweathouse chambers of the tribes in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys.
Dress of California women was a front and a back apron of skin—especially buckskin—or of plant fiber. Men wore nothing or a folded skin about the hips or between the legs. In bad weather both sexes used cape-like or wrap-around (over one arm and under the other) skin robes. In localized areas the brimless dome-shaped basketry cap was worn by women. Hair of both sexes was long (but shorn in mourning) and frequently put up in nets by men. Men removed their beards by pulling with their fingers.
In mountain areas social and religious cults were lacking. In the extreme northwest corner wealth dances were held; in central California the secret society and Kuksu dances, in the south the Jimsonweed initiation system, and in the Colorado River area the dreamsong ceremony flourished.
Houses varied from open enclosures and brush or bark shelters to frame structures more or less completely dug into the ground and covered with bark, brush, and dirt, usually with a roof entrance and or one to the south; this was the earth lodge. In the extreme northwest housing was not the earth lodge, but a structure built on top of the ground; hand-split planks were used in its construction.
Sweat houses were of the earth lodge type, often of daily service and in northern areas, lived in too. Sweat houses of California were not heated by steam, but directly with fire.
Boats generally were of rushes tied into balsa rafts or into boat shapes. In addition one-piece dugout canoes from tree logs were typical of the northern portion of California, becoming progressively more refined in workmanship and in design to the northwest. A unique lashed split board canoe was made by channel island tribes in the Santa Barbara vicinity.
The tribe as a political unit, so common elsewhere in America, did not exist in California. What we call a tribe was actually a number of groups of Indians, each of whom had a chief, spoke the same language dialect, had the same customs, intermarried regularly, and were usually mutually friendly. There was no tribal chief as such.
In the northwest portion of California wealth was so important that real chieftain leadership was lacking. In central and southern California the chief was a powerful local leader on a hereditary basis. Between the two extremes was a zone where tribes struck a compromise; the hereditary local chief had moderate authority and usually was well to do, but not necessarily so. Rich men in smaller political divisions were influential headmen under the local chief.
Warfare was only for revenge and not for plunder or for a desire for distinction. Except for the Northwest Sub-culture, scalps were generally taken and included the victim’s skin down to his eyes or nose, and including the ears. Not infrequently the whole head was taken by a victorious warrior. The weapon was the bow and arrow, with rocks employed in close combat. Such war implements as shields, clubs, spears (throwing), and tomahawks were not used.
Guessing games, usually played by men, were universal, with variations, and heavy gambling was the rule. Shinny in several different forms was widely played.