Every one shouted: “These are the two we suspected; we have them now.” Some wanted to kill them immediately with clubs, others wanted to burn them alive, but the captain restrained them and insisted upon first questioning the bear doctors. They finally confessed to the murders, and took the hunters to their hiding place. Here they exposed their entire secret and told all the details of their work: how they dug the cavern, how they made the ceremonial outfits, and how they killed people. The hunters then stripped the bear doctors and took them, together with all their paraphernalia, and the property they had stolen, back to the village, placed them in their own house, tied them securely, and set fire to the house. Thus ended the bear doctors. That is how the knowledge of this magic was acquired. It has been handed down to us by the teaching of these secrets to novices by the older bear doctors ever since.[13] ACQUISITION OF POWER Even as late as the closing years of the nineteenth century many of the Pomo were convinced that bear doctors were still active; this in spite of the fact that the whites had at that time long possessed complete control of the entire region, and had succeeded, purposely or otherwise, in suppressing most of the aboriginal practices of the Indians. Evidently the belief was a deeply rooted one in the native mind. On the other hand, since the nefariousness of the alleged practices would cause them to be carefully concealed, there are now some Pomo skeptics who maintain that bear doctors never existed. Both men and women of middle or old age could become bear doctors, the same name[14] being applied to both. In fact, it is said that women sometimes made very successful bear doctors; even a woman so old and feeble that she could hardly walk would acquire great powers of endurance and swiftness through this magic. It is said that a bear doctor always learned from an old person who was or had been one. The training for both men and women was precisely the same and they were on a par in every way. A female bear doctor could not operate during her menstrual period, but a male bear doctor was similarly restricted by the menstrual periods of both his wife and his female assistant or the other female members of his household. He was even prohibited from going near his bear hiding-place during his wife’s menstruation. The periods of other members of his household also restricted him.[15]