They were also dependent upon the Pai-utes for their supply of salt for domestic use, which came in solid blocks as quarried from salt mines, said to be two days' travel on foot from Mono Lake.
From the Indians at or near the Catholic Missions to the South, on the Pacific Coast, they got their hunting knives of iron or steel, and sea shells of various kinds, for personal or dress ornaments, and also to be used as money.

From the same source they obtained beads of various forms, sizes and colors, cheap jewelry and other fancy articles, a few blankets, and pieces of red bunting, strips of which the chiefs and head men wore around their heads as badges, indicating their official positions.
COMMUNICATION.
They had a very efficient system of quickly spreading important news by relays of special couriers, who took the news to the first stations or tribes in different directions, where others took the verbal dispatches and ran to the next station, and so on, so that all tribes within an area of a hundred miles would get the good or bad tidings within a few hours.

In this manner important communication was kept up between the different tribes.
They also had well organized signal systems, by fires in the night and smoke by day, on high points of observation--variations in the lights (either steady, bright or flashing) indicating somewhat the character of the tidings thus given.
DWELLINGS.
Their winter huts, or _o'-chums_, as they termed them, were invariably of a conical form, made with small poles, and covered with the bark of the incense cedar (_Libocedrus decurrens_).

A few poles ten or twelve feet long were set in the ground around an area of about twelve feet in diameter, with their tops inclined together.

The outside was then closely covered with long strips of the cedar bark, making it perfectly water-tight.