From the foregoing facts some important conclusions can be drawn. First, the wonderment of the natives is but an extension of attitudes they had daily shown from the 17th to the 20th; and similar manifestations continued throughout the long stay of the English.[50] The English were looked upon as unusual, perhaps supernatural, visitors, since nothing is more clear than the fact that they were not treated as ordinary mortals. Kroeber has suggested that the Indians regarded the English as the returned dead, and there is much to be said for this view, as will be shown later. The doleful shrieking, weeping, and crying are evidence sui generis that the presence of the English was in some way associated with ghosts or the dead.[51]
The circular semisubterranean house, roofed over with poles and earth-covered, is also characteristic of a wide area of central California. The Coast Miwok of Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay[52] used these houses, as did the Pomo.[53] It is clearly not a temporary brush-covered house like those seen in the Bodega-Tomales Bay region.[54] The "caules of network" undoubtedly refer to the well-known net caps of central California,[55] a type so widespread that exact localization or provenience is impossible.
The Fletcher account is fairly specific on particulars of dress—women wore shredded bulrush skirts and deerskin shoulder capes, and men were ordinarily naked. The bulrush or tule-fiber clothing is attested for Bodega Bay[56] and Drake's Bay,[57] but it is also found generally throughout central California. Men were generally naked in California, so Fletcher does not note here a distinctive cultural trait. The wearing of deerskin capes by the women is not strictly substantiated by the observations of later explorers, although Cermeño (1595) said that the women in Drake's Bay "covered their private parts with straw and skins of animals."[58] Archibald Menzies noted that the women in Tomales Bay wore a deerskin wrapped around their middle and reaching to the knees,[59] and Francisco Eliza said that near Bodega Bay "the women cover themselves from the waist down with deer skins."[60] Colnett mentions the Indian dress of deerskins in Bodega Bay.[61]
June 23.—On this day, after a two-day absence, "a great assembly of men, women, and children" appeared at the camp of the English. The Indians stopped at the top of the hill at the bottom of which Drake's camp was pitched, and one man made "a long and tedious oration: deliuered with strange and violent gestures, his voice being extended to the vttermost strength of nature...." At the conclusion of the speech or oration, all the other Indians reverently bowed their bodies "in a dreaming manner" (?) and cried "Oh" in approbation. Then the men, leaving their bows, women, and children behind them, came down to the English with presents and gifts. While the men were gift giving, the women cried and shrieked piteously, tore their cheeks with their fingernails until the blood flowed, tore off the single covering from the upper parts of the body, and, holding their hands high, cast themselves on the ground with great violence, regardless of consequences. The English, grieved at this spectacle of sacrifice, attempted to dissuade the Indians by praying and indicating by signs that their God lived above. During this "performance" (prayers, singing Psalms, and reading chapters of the Bible), the Indians "sate very attentiuely: and obseruing the end of euery pause, with one voice still cryed, Oh, greatly reioycing in our exercises." The natives were watching with great interest what seemed to them a ceremonial performance (which it actually was, but not in the sense in which the Indians understood it). The singing of Psalms interested the Indians most, and whenever the natives came, says Fletcher, their first request was Gnaah, an entreaty that the English should sing. After the Indians and English had exchanged ceremonial performances of a religious nature, the Indians again departed, giving back to the English everything they had received.
The oration by the man at the top of the hill may perhaps be likened to a speech that Cermeño made note of, when, in 1595, he was at Drake's Bay: "... Indians from near by kept coming and the chief talked a long time."[62] It is not improbable that the speaker mentioned by Fletcher was a messenger dispatched to announce the later coming of the big chief.[63] Or, the orator may simply have been a local village chief who delivered a long address or salutation to the English. The existence, at least, of such orators is known.[64] The signal of approbation, "Oh," has already been remarked upon by S. A. Barrett: "The expressions of assent and pleasure which are here noted are those commonly used not only by the Moqueluman Coast Miwok peoples of this region but by the Pomo to the north where such expressions as o, yo, iyo, varying with the locality, are heard, as evidences of approval of the sentiment expressed by the speaker, or of satisfaction with the performance of a dance."[65] When the preliminaries were over, the men came down the hill, and the women remained behind, lamenting, and lacerating their flesh. Crying and tearing the cheeks with the fingernails, as an ethnographic practice in connection with mourning, is documented for the Coast Miwok[66] and Pomo.[67] The word Gnaah, by which (so Fletcher states) the Indians asked the English to sing, can possibly be likened to the Coast Miwok koyá, "sing."[68] If it is granted that Gnaah is equivalent to koyá, there is good reason to believe that Coast Miwok were the main frequenters of Drake's camp, since Fletcher says, "... whensoever they resorted to vs, their first request was Gnaah, by which they intreated that we would sing." The words for "sing" in neighboring Indian tongues are so unlike Gnaah that no idea of connection can be entertained.
June 26.—After three days, there "were assembled the greatest number of people which wee could reasonably imagine to dwell within any conuenient distance round about." Included in the crowd were the "king" and his "guard" of about one hundred men. Before the king showed himself, two "Embassadors or messengers" appeared, to announce his coming and to ask for a present "as a token that his comming might be in peace." Drake complied, and soon the "king with all his traine came forward." The king and his retinue "cryed continually after a singing manner" as they came, but as they approached nearer they strove to "behaue themselues with a certaine comelinesse and grauity in all their actions." In the front of the procession came a man bearing the "Septer or royall mace," a black stick about four and a half feet long, to which were tied long, looped strings of shell disk beads, and two "crownes," a larger and a smaller, made of knitwork and covered with a pattern of colored feathers. Only a few men were seen to wear the disk bead necklaces ("chaines"). Fletcher observes that in proportion to the number of "chaines" a man wears, "as some ten, some twelve, some twentie, and as they exceed in number of chaines, so are they thereby knowne to be the more honorable personages." Next to the scepter bearer was the king (Hioh), surrounded by his guard. On his head he wore a net cap ("cawle") decorated with feathers in the same manner as the "crownes" described above, "but differing much both in fashion and perfectness of work." From the king's shoulders hung a waist-length coat of the skins of "conies." Members of his guard each wore a coat of similar cut, but of different skins. Some of the guard wore net caps "stuck with feathers," or covered with a light, downy substance, probably milkweed down. Only those persons who were close to the king wore the down-filled or down-covered net caps and feather plumes on their heads.
Following the procession of the king and his guard came the "naked sort of common people." Their long hair was gathered behind into a bunch in which were stuck plumes of feathers, but in the front were only single feathers which looked "like hornes." Every Indian had his face painted in black or white or other colors, and every man brought some sort of gift. The procession was brought up behind by the women and children. Each woman carried against her breast a round basket or so, filled with a number of articles such as bags of Tobah; a root called Petah, which was made into meal and either baked into bread or eaten raw; broiled pilchard-like fishes; and the seed and down of milkweed (?). The baskets are carefully described by Fletcher as "made in fashion like a deep boale ... [and] about the brimmes they were hanged with peeces of shels of pearles, and in some places with two or three linkes at a place, of the chaines aforenamed: thereby signifying, that they were vessels wholly dedicated to the only vse of the gods they worshipped: and besides this, they were wrought vpon with the matted downe of red feathers, distinguished into diuers workes and formes."
As the crowd of people came near, they gave a general salutation and were then silent. The scepter bearer, prompted by another man who whispered, delivered in a loud voice an oration which lasted half an hour. When the oration was ended, "there was a common Amen, in signe of approbation giuen by euery person...." Then the company, leaving the little children behind, came down to the foot of the hill where the English had their camp. Here the scepter bearer began to sing and danced in time to the song. The king, his guard, and all the others joined in the singing and dancing, except the women, who danced but did not sing. The women had torn faces, their bodies showed bruises and other lacerations which had been self-inflicted before the Indians had arrived. After the assembly of natives had concluded their dance, they indicated by signs that Drake should be seated. This done, the king and several others delivered orations to Drake, and, concluding with a song, placed the crown upon his head and hung all the shell disk bead necklaces around his neck. Many other gifts were tendered to Drake, and the name Hioh was bestowed upon him. Fletcher interpreted this ceremony as the giving up of the kingdom to Drake, a thought hardly ascribable to the Indians. It is quite clear, however, that Drake was individually and specially honored by the leader of the California natives, and was invested with a name, Hioh.
After the "crowning" was concluded, the common people, both men and women, dispersed among the English, "taking a diligent view and survey of every man." When a native found an Englishman who pleased his fancy, and the youthful Englishmen were preferred, a personal "sacrifice" in the form of weeping, moaning, shrieking, and tearing of the face with the fingernails was offered. As might be expected, such a scene was embarrassing and uncomfortable to the English, and the strongest efforts were of no avail in disabusing the Indians of their "idolatry." After a time the Indians quieted down and began to show to the English "their griefes and diseases which they carried about with them, some of them hauing old aches, some shruncke sinewes, some old soares and canckred vlcers, some wounds more lately receiued, and the like, in most lamentable manner crauing helpe and cure thereof from vs: making signes that if we did but blowe vpon their griefes, or but touched the diseased places, they would be whole." The English applied various unguents to the affected places, continuing the treatment as the natives resorted to the camp from time to time.