mat-toal

Updated: April 30, 2025

Powers also states that "The Tolowa share in the superstitious observance for the memory of the dead which is common to the Northern Californian tribes When I asked the chief Tahhokolli to tell me the Indian words for 'father' and 'mother' and certain others similar, he shook his head mournfully and said 'all dead, 'all dead, 'no good. They are forbidden to mention the name of the dead, as it is a deadly insult to the relatives,"... and that the "Mat-toal hold that the good depart to a happy region somewhere southward in the great ocean, but the soul of a bad Indian transmigrates into a grizzly bear, which they consider of all animals the cousin-german of sin."

H. C. (Harry Crécy) Yarrow - An Introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians