Their meetings are held in an assembly-house erected especially for the purpose, constructed of peeled pine-poles. It is painted red, black, and white (wood color) on the inside in spiral stripes reaching from the apex to the ground. Outside it is thatched and covered with earth. When they are assembled in it there is a doorkeeper at the entrance who suffers no one to enter unless he is a regular member, pledged to secrecy. Even Mr. Potter, though a man held in high honor by them, was not allowed to enter, though they offered to initiate him, if he desired. They do not scruple to avow to Americans who are well acquainted with them, and in whose discretion they have confidence, that their object is simply to "raise the devil," as they express it, with whom they pretend to hold communication; and to carry on other demoniacal doings, accompanied by frightful whooping and yelling, in order to work on the imaginations of the erring squaws, no whit more guilty than themselves. Once in seven years these secret woman-tamers hold a grand devil-dance (cha-du-el-keh), which is looked forward to by the women of the tribe with fear and trembling as the scourging visit of the dreadful Yu-ku-ku-la (the devil). As this society has its ramifications among the many Pomo tribes, this great dance is held one septennium in one valley, another in another, and so on through the circuit of the branch societies. Every seven years, therefore, witnesses the construction of an immense assembly-house which is used for this special occasion only. I have seen the ruins of one which was reared in Potter Valley somewhere about the year 1860. The pit, or cellar, which made a part of it was circular, sixty-three feet in diameter and about six feet deep, and all the enormous mass of earth excavated from it was gouged up with small, fire-hardened sticks and carried away in baskets by both men and women, chiefly men. It was about eighteen feet high in the center, and the roof was supported on five posts, one a center pole and four others standing around it, equidistant from it and the perimeter of the pit. Timbers from six to nine inches in diameter were laid from the edge of the pit to the middle posts, and from these to the center pole. Over these were placed grass and brush, and the whole was heavily covered with earth. Allowing four square feet of space to each person, such a structure would contain upward of seven hundred people. In their palmy days hundreds and even thousands of Indians attended one of these grand dances.