202 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

The Hupas are very fond of this acorn meal, and even such of them
as are well provided with the white man’s food must have it from time
to time.

Other vegetable foods, the quest of which keeps the Hupa women busy,
are the hazel nuts (Corylus rostrata), which are excellent; the nuts of the
pepperwood (Umbellularia Californica), which are roasted in the ashes, and
the seeds of the sugary pine (P. Lambertiana), much valued as an article of
diet. These last call for the joint exertions of the men and the women, who
go together in large companies to the tops of the ridges, where the trees
are found, and camp there for some time. These trees are now felled and
stripped of their cones, which are then pounded until the seeds fall out. The
nuts are eaten raw, either shelled or not.

Many other representatives of the vegetable kingdom are the object of
the Hupas’ quest, some of which have been enumerated in our tenth chapter.

Sheep Tending and Agriculture.

The reader will not have forgotten the statistics that close our enume-
ration of the Dénés’ resources. The very fact that a single tribe can boast
the possession of some 650.000 domestic sheep bespeaks for it other occupa-
tions than those we have hitherto reviewed. The Navahoes, who are credited
with such an unmistakable sign of prosperity, are therefore more of shepherds
than of hunters. Yet the two essentials to the welfare of any flock, grass
and water, are scarce in their country. Hence their animals must almost con-
stantly be kept on the move, a condition of things which harmonizes but too
well with the roving propensities innate in the heart of every Déné. Almost
every family has two, three or more huts, which are occupied in succession
according to the season of the year, the size of the flocks, the condition of
the grass, and the supply of water.

As arule, they drive their sheep during the summer into the mountains
or upon the high table-lands, near springs, ponds or creeks, taking them down
again when the snow falls among the lower foot-hills or out into the valleys.
During the winter, flocks and shepherds depend on the snow for their water
supply, and a copious fall of the same is generally appreciated, as it foretells
a greater moisture in the soil and a larger number of running streams for the
ensuing summer.

A. M. Stephen draws a life-like picture of the Navaho family as it moves
with its belongings to pastures new. He writes: “The hos-teen, as the head
of a family is conventionally called, drives before him the band of ponies,
which, as a rule, are a degenerate lot of ‘scrubs’, small bodied, big headed,
and ungainly. He carries a bow and quiver of arrows slung at his side, and
probably a rifle and a revolver, for the coyotes, and now and then a wolf,
make havoc among their sheep, and against these depredators they now resort
to the more effective modern weapons. He carries on his saddle two or three