Settling a Dispute — Pomo

We disagreed how to divide the salmon. It should have been settled in advance that the family that built the weir got more, but it wasn’t settled. Both sides felt bad about it, but they felt that they were right. After this went on for a while, everyone was taking sides, backing the family from their own village. The time came for it to be settled. The headman called for a big game and talked to everyone. He felt bad about the bad feelings on both sides. The headman said we should settle over the result of a game. The women would gamble and the families would settle. The family that won the beads would lose their bad feelings. The family that lost their beads would lose their bad feelings. The headman gathered beads from both villages, then he put up a big feast for everyone, and the game settled everything.