It was believed that a man who drank fresh bear blood would be very healthy thereafter, if he were strong enough. If he were weak, however, drinking the blood would kill him promptly.

Mountain lion were tracked, sometimes with dogs, sometimes in the snow, then treed and shot. Wildcats were generally killed in the same way. A hunter might coax a mountain lion to leap at him by simulating a deer feeding, using the deer head and skin disguise, but this was a dangerous practice.

Except in the eastern part of Atsugewi territory where the Apwaruge lived, rabbits were not plentiful. Yana, Yahi, and Maidu hunted them more, driving cottontail, snowshoe, and jack rabbits into long nets and clubbing them to death. In the winter rabbits were sometimes tracked and shot with bow and untipped arrows.

Other small mammals were shot, caught by dogs, and dug, smoked, or drowned out of burrows. A stick split at the end was thrust into a burrow and by twisting was entangled in the creature’s fur sufficiently to drag him out. Ground squirrels could be outrun and killed by stepping on them. Skunks, badgers, rats, and more often porcupines were eaten—the latter being clubbed or stoned to death.

Small and medium sized animals were also caught under stone or log deadfalls which were propped up to drop on the victim while it was traveling along a runway, crossing a stream on a log, or when the animal pulled on a baited trigger. Similar placing was used for setting spring snares which took advantage of bent tree limbs for power. Long fences with nooses placed in gaps were used for rabbits, quail, and the like, and on occasion for creatures as large as deer. Some nooses were even operated by hand from a place of hiding.

Birds of all sorts were caught too, but live or imitation decoys were never employed as lures. Woodpeckers were removed from the nest by hand or else a noose was hung around the nest opening. Some birds were taken in basketry traps. Waterfowl were shot with bow and arrow and the young were run down. Eggs were also taken. Some ducks were speared at night from canoes or driven into nets by use of a canoe with fire at one end. Frequently nets or snares were suspended at intervals just above a stream where waterfowl commonly alighted. Ducks and geese were also driven into the traps in taking off from the water.

Grouse and small birds like robins and blackbirds were shot with blunt or untipped arrows, usually of one-piece construction.

It is interesting to note that in contrast to other local tribes, the Yana and Yahi tribes did not employ the following hunting techniques: burning brush, using bird snaring booths, nets for ducks, geese, rabbits, or deer, nor was game driven into enclosures or quail secured by use of net traps or drive fences. Furthermore Yana and Yahi did not believe that game was immortal.

It was not an uncommon practice, especially among the mountain Maidu, to frequently burn off their lands to make for easier travel and to minimize the possibility of ambush by enemies. The frequent “light” burnings do not seem to have generated enough heat to have destroyed the forests. Never the less this practice is not regarded as a wise conservation as it is definitely injurious to tree and much other plant reproduction as well as being destructive of organic material in the soil, damaging the watershed and being unfavorable to certain animal species, as well as accelerating erosion.

Chapter VII
FISHING

Fishes were one of the four important food categories consumed by Indians of the Lassen region. Land-locked and other non-migratory Rainbow Trout were abundantly available in mountain streams and in some lakes. Steelhead Trout penetrated the territories of our four tribes too. Salmon, however, did not go so far upstream, only rarely coming up Hat Creek, for instance, into Atsugewi lands. For the most part this tribe of Indians visited the Pit River to the north in the autumn. They paid the Achomawi, through whose territory this fine salmon stream flowed, for the privilege of catching salmon by giving up a share of the catch to them. The larger streams in south Yana, Yahi, and mountain Maidu country contained salmon and steelhead, but it seems that these tribes also made bargains with the Valley Indians for salmon fishing privileges or else made fishing forays to the Sacramento River.

Gill nets about three feet high and as much as 30 feet long were commonly used. Spawning trout in the spring were speared in large numbers. Although old informants have denied the practice, Boonookoo-ee-menorra (Mrs. Selina La Marr of the Atsugewi) tells of catching Rainbow Trout by hand from Manzanita Creek banks about fifty years ago when her family came up in the summer to fish. Trout were speared by the Atsugewi with two pointed or four pointed spears instead of the common single pointed version. Bone or Serviceberry wood might be used for the tips. Spears were used not only from stream banks, but, especially at night, from a canoe equipped with a torch in front. One man or more would spear the fish while a person, sometimes a woman, paddled the craft from the rear. The torch consisted of four mountain-mahogany sticks bound together with pitch down the center.

It is interesting to note that the practice of shooting fish with bow and arrow was not carried on by any tribes of the Lassen area, although the eastern people of the Pit River Indians (Achomawi), the western Shasta, Wintu, and foothill Maidu did do so.

Only Atsugewi, of the tribes we are considering, trapped fish in converging weirs into which fish might be driven. In the autumn, streams were sometimes diverted by damming. The fish trapped in the ponds remaining were scooped out with baskets or nets. Mountain Maidu drove fish into traps and caught lamprey eels in dip or scoop nets. Bow-type nets illustrated in the text were used with the bow bent ends down resting on the bed of the stream, the pole being raised to trap the fish. The net was preferably as wide as the stream.

All local tribes fished with lines and hooks which were made by lashing a sharp piece of bone to a section of twig, at an acute angle. Atsugewi and mountain Maidu also used a “gorge” for angling. This was a slender piece of bone two or three inches long fastened near the middle and sharpened at both ends. Hooks were sometimes baited with meat, grasshoppers, or large flies, but man-made “flies” as fishermen know them today were not used. Sometimes meat or grasshopper bait was used by Atsugewi on fish-lines without any hook. Atsugewi women occasionally fished with baskets and with hook and line. Hooks were often tied in a series on a line attached either on both banks of the stream or to a pole secured in the bank or tied to tules or to brush, and left over night. A series of basket traps was sometimes likewise stretched across a stream.

Salmon fishing was done largely with harpoons which differ from spears in having one or more movable barbs or toggles of bone. These opened when the harpoon was pulled back (outward in the victim) thus securing the catch all the more firmly. This was necessary for such large and heavy fish as salmon. Yana tribes caught their salmon with either hook and line or by spearing with a two pointed harpoon.

Natural falls were favored fishing sites. There Indians caught salmon and steelhead trout as the fish attempted to scale the falls. Long handled nets were used. Atsugewi went so far as to build scaffoldings to assist either in this method of fishing or from which to harpoon large fish. In the latter case many whitish rocks, where available, were thrown into the stream to build up a light colored bottom for better visibility in harpooning or spearing.

After the fish were caught they were killed by striking with a stick as a general practice. Mountain Maidu sometimes killed fish by striking their heads on rocks. The central Yana, interestingly enough, killed fish by biting them!

In quiet portions of streams fish were poisoned by placing certain pounded plant materials in the water. Yana and Yahi used crushed Soaproot; Atsugewi used pulverized Wild Parsley. Wild Parsley application made the water bluish, and caused the fish soon to rise to the surface of the water floating belly-up. Where suitable quiet pools did not exist in a stream, they were sometimes formed by the Indians through temporary damming. Buckeye nut pulp, which is poisonous, was not used in this area for poisoning fish.

Long basketry fish traps, usually constructed by men, were also utilized. The design and proportions of these varied with the tribe.

Each of the Lassen area tribes had taboos which prevented youths, and in the case of Atsugewi, their parents too, from eating the first fish each youth caught.

Chubs and minnows, spurned by white man, were driven into nets and eaten. At lower elevations, where waters were warmer and sluggish, suckers provided a common source of food fish. The Indians also not infrequently dove for crawfish and fresh water mussels. These were gathered in net sacks by male Indians of all local tribes. Yana and Yahi roasted mussels but did not boil them and never dried them for later use. A flat rock might be carried on the shoulders to assist the diving Indians.

Some fish were cooked by roasting over coals or by boiling. Most trout, however, were cleaned, head and backbone removed, and then strung up on poles to dry. No salt was used in the process. The dried fish was carried to camp or village in large baskets. Dried trout was tied into small bales for storage and placed in baskets or in pits dug in the ground for safe-keeping. Salmon were usually cooked in earth pit ovens, then dried and crumbed by Atsugewi and mountain Maidu for later use. This was of necessity an autumnal activity. Yana and Yahi stored their salmon in dried slabs, pulverizing it as needed.

Chapter VIII
GATHERING AND PREPARATION OF OTHER FOODS

As has been pointed out earlier under “California Indians”, these tribes had a common food pattern. Although there was some difference in the relative importance of the four major types of food to the several tribes due to varying availability, the California Indians ate (1) game, especially deer, (2) fish, particularly salmon and trout, (3) roots and bulbs which the women dug, and (4) fruits and seeds of a wide variety, the most important of which were acorns.

Besides fish and venison, many kinds of flesh food were eaten by the Indians of the Lassen area: fox, wolf, grizzly and black bear, skunk, raccoon, porcupine, rabbit, owl, fish, fresh water mussel, and turtle being most common. They also ate with apparent relish a variety of insects and the like including crickets, grasshoppers, angleworms, red ant eggs, and yellow-jacket larvae.

Game which was not eaten by either Atsugewi or mountain Maidu was coyote, elk, antelope, and all snakes and lizards. The last two items were almost universally shunned by California Indians. Many California tribes including Yana and Yahi refused to eat dog meat, some of them believing canine flesh to be poisonous. That mountain Maidu was one of the few tribes which ate dog flesh whenever it was available is denied by Dixon. Atsugewi ate it only as a last resort when rare, near-famine conditions prevailed or during times of severe epidemic. Canine flesh was believed by them to be a powerful and perhaps somewhat dangerous medicine. Buzzards seem to have been about the only birds which were not eaten.

Each tribe had certain taboos on eating game. An Atsugewi did not, for example, eat wildcat, gopher, hawk, lamprey eel, or caterpillars. Mountain Maidu did not eat mountain lion, badger, raven, or crawfish.

Heart of deer was taboo to all males among Atsugewi and to all children and youths of the mountain Maidu. The foetus of all animals and also deer fawns could not be eaten by any except Atsugewi, Yana, and Yahi old men and old women. Animal foetus was, however, allowed as food to all mountain Maidu adults. Bear foetus was skinned by Atsugewi and fed to old women because it was so tender. Likewise, Yana and Yahi made foetus soup for old folks to eat. Deer liver was taboo to Atsugewi boys and youths. Taboo also among Atsugewi was the eating of fish and deer meat together. Among mountain Maidu the eating of salt on bear meat was prohibited. Many other food combinations were outlawed by these and other California tribes.

Deer backbone was ground up and eaten dry by mountain Maidu or molded into small cakes, then baked and eaten while Atsugewi would dry deer backbones with meat still adhering, grind it up, and then boil the meal before eating it. Yana also ate pulverized meal of other bones after cooking. Marrow was relished; it was a special delicacy for Yana children.

Securing of large game and fish and their preparation has been described earlier.

Such animals as wildcat, raccoons, foxes, et cetera were skinned and cooked in earth ovens by all local tribes. These were pits sometimes as much as six feet wide and lined with rocks. A large fire was built in the pit to thoroughly heat the rock lining, after which any unburned debris was removed. The animal to be roasted was laid in the pit on a layer of green pine needles, or various other leaves, depending upon the tribe. A large heated rock was placed inside the body cavity and smaller hot rocks were wedged under the fore and hind legs which were then all tied tightly together. A flat heated rock might be placed on top of the carcass and the whole was covered with pine needles and the like, and finally with hot ashes and sometimes dirt. The roasting proceeded for half a day or so. Blood and fat might be placed in the intestine membranes of larger animals (especially wildcat) to form sausage and cooked in ashes. Mountain Maidu also boiled blood for eating.

Quills of porcupine and hair of badger, squirrel, or other small mammals might be singed off before cooking instead of skinning the animals. Ground squirrels were sometimes merely gutted and then roasted in ashes without further preparation. When Yana (and probably Yahi) did this, they then skinned the ground squirrels after cooking and mashed the whole bodies by pounding before eating them. Rabbits were roasted over coals and broken into pieces for eating. Both mountain Maidu and Atsugewi sometimes broiled small mammals on a single stick over coals.

Turtles were cooked alive in hot ashes. If they crawled out they were pushed back in again.

Duck eggs were boiled in baskets using hot rocks—cooked they would keep for a week or two. Yana tribes roasted quail eggs in ashes. Birds were gutted, feathers singed off in flames and roasted on sticks or roasted in oven pits. Roasting was invariably used for the large birds such as ducks, geese, and swans.

Atsugewi practiced some fascinating gathering techniques in which they were not unique. Insects were gathered by both men and women. Grasshoppers and crickets not infrequently appeared in large numbers. These were collected early in the morning while still sluggish with cold. When very abundant they were scraped with sticks from branches of bushes into large burden baskets. During the heat of the day grasshoppers were effectively collected by singeing them. Some tribes merely burned dry grassy fields after which the insects were easily picked up. Atsugewi made a long willow “rope” to which many bunches of dry grass were fastened. This was set afire and men carrying this blazing band stretched tightly between them ran across open grassland where the grasshoppers were numerous. The insects jumped into the flames and were thus killed. Yana pulverized grasshoppers and other insects without cooking them.

Atsugewi roasted crickets in the pit oven. These were then dried two days and finally eaten or stored. If they had been stored, they were pounded before being eaten.

Salmon flies were plentiful along Pit River and Lost Creek (outside of the park). These were hand picked from the banks early in the morning. The wings were removed and the bodies boiled before eating by the Atsugewi.

When yellow-jackets, always carnivorous (meat eaters), were seen buzzing about, Atsugewi would tie a white flower petal to a grasshopper leg. When the yellow-jacket picked this morsel up and flew away with it toward its nest, the Indians would run after the yellow-jacket which was easy to follow on account of the conspicuous flower petal it carried along. Thus yellow-jacket nests were found. A line was marked around the nest area with the fingers. This line was supposed to increase the size of the nest. Pine needles were then stacked over the nest and burned to kill the winged insects. This done, the nest was dug up and roasted alongside a fire, thus cooking the maggot-like grubs inside. These were considered to be quite a delicacy. According to Dixon, mountain Maidu young folks were denied this delicacy, but not so among the Yana. Dried grasshoppers, crickets, and yellow-jacket larvae were foods often used as items of trade.

Angleworms were collected by first driving a digging stick a few inches into the moist soil, then moving the top about. The consequent disturbing of the ground made the worms crawl out. Although other California tribes made angleworm soup, Atsugewi, Yana, and probably Yahi sometimes roasted angleworms between hot rocks. Maidu reportedly dried worms for eating.

Red ant eggs were eaten by Indians too. Atsugewi baked them in earth pit ovens, while mountain Maidu parched them with coals. Mountain Maidu also ate certain caterpillars, but the other tribes of the Lassen area did not.

Indians of this region did not carry on any agriculture, that is they did not plant crops for food or other purposes, but collected those which grew wild. It was, however, a common practice to burn some areas over regularly to stimulate growth of edible seed producing plants. Women always gathered the vegetable materials and prepared them for use.

Roots and bulbs provided vital foods to the aborigines also. These were procured with a digging stick. In this region it was blunt at the top with a tapered point at the digging end. Atsugewi fastened a short cross piece on top to serve as a handle. The digging stick was made by this tribe of green mountain-mahogany wood with the digging point hardened by scorching in the flame. After the coming of white man, the same design was retained, but an iron rod replaced the mountain-mahogany digging shaft.

In use, the digging stick was thrust into the ground next to the plant whose root was to be secured. The handle portion was worked sideways a couple of times, then pulled downward toward the operator. The point very effectively brought the root out of the ground. Roots were customarily tossed into a large cone-shaped carrying basket which was held in place on the digging woman’s back by a chest band over her chest. Some of the load in the basket might also be supported by a band from the basket over the Indian woman’s forehead.

Roots were cleaned by rubbing (sometimes with sand) in a shallow bowl-shaped basket of a rough coarse mesh weave of willow ribs, like that used for cleaning acorns. The whole was dipped in water frequently. Rubbing usually continued until the skins were entirely removed.

The most important item of this type collected in large amount for food is known as epos locally, or “peh-ts-koo” among the old Atsugewi. The plant belongs to the parsley family and stands one to two feet high. Actually, probably more than one species was eaten by Indians of the Lassen area. These plants are not unlike except in detail. All had sweet carrot-like taproots about two inches long. Garth states that Atsugewi ate the species Pteridendia bolanden which apparently corresponds to the botanists’ Perideridia bolanderi or Eulophus bolanderi; also probably Carum or Perideridia oregona and californica. Common English names for epos are squaw root or yampah. Epos roots were dried and stored, then ground up for use. This food item was made into either soup or bread. The finished product had a fine sweet meaty or nutty taste, and was held in high esteem. Obviously this constituted an important vegetable in the diet.

At least two kinds of camas bulbs and brodeia bulbs were roasted in the earth pit oven, ground to pulp, shaped into cakes, and rebaked. These were then either eaten or dried and stored. The latter process was not employed by mountain Maidu. If the baked camas cakes were stored, they would be soaked with water before eating. Camas cakes were not made into soup.

Tiger lily bulbs were roasted in earth pit ovens and eaten immediately. They were a highly prized food.

Wild onion was used too, but usually with other root foods as a flavoring.

The foregoing are but a few of the most extensively eaten roots. Many others, especially those of the lily and parsley families, were used by tribes of the Lassen region.

Yana tribes robbed gophers of stores of edible roots and bulbs. These were found by probing for burrows and digging out the animals’ food storage chambers. Men usually did this, which is an exception to the general rule that women only collected vegetable materials.

Acorns were probably the most important single food of California Indians. Surprisingly, this was true even in eastern parts of the territories of the Atsugewi (Apwaruge), mountain Maidu, and others where acorns were scarce or wanting entirely. Indians frequently traded for acorns or made long journeys for them. Acorns of the black oak were generally preferred over other kinds. Nearly all varieties were used for food on occasion, however. It is interesting to note that Modoc and Klamath Indians were exceptions in not using acorns for food.

In the fall, usually in September, acorns were gathered by women after the ripe nuts had been knocked from the oaks with long poles, or by men and young agile girls climbing the trees to strike the fruit with straight sticks or staves. To aid in climbing large smooth tree trunks, Atsugewi men used sapling ladders on which part of branches were left attached to serve for footholds. Mountain Maidu on the other hand used a very unique two poled ladder with buckskin rungs. Acorns were carried to villages by women in stages, using baskets about the size of nail kegs.

First spring food gathering each year was marked by rites in which the shamans, or medicine men, conducted praying ceremonies. Atsugewi conducted three of these. In May first epos roots were gathered and sung over by shamans. They examined the roots and prophesied whether the women who had dug them were going to be sick. Those who were going to be sick dug roots all day. In the evening these were dumped into piles and women shamans sang over these for half the night to make the threatened women healthy. Each woman gatherer participating then took home the roots she had dug leaving some for the shamans, who cooked and ate them. A second first food ceremony consisted of a ceremonial feast of fruit and vegetable materials with fish which the men brought. In the third such rite, root digging women threw away the first roots they dug that season and prayed to the effect: “Don’t make me poor. Give me good luck. You may have this one.”

In autumn, mountain Maidu held their first fruit ceremonies. Large groups of women went out to gather acorns. Acorn mush was made immediately of the first batch collected. The shamans ate some and prayed. Portions of this batch were then eaten by the rest of the assemblage. After that it was all right for anyone to gather and to use acorns of the new crop.

Local tribes stored acorns in the shell either indoors in large baskets or outside in pits or in large hoppers or granaries covered with bark. The details of these varied with the several tribes. Maidu except for the “mountain tribe” and Yana shelled, split, and slightly dried some of their acorns, and placed them in basketry storage bins lined with broadleafed maple leaves. Maidu ate twelve different kinds of acorns, but the favorites were the black oak (Quercus kelloggii), golden cup oak maul, or canyon oak (Quercus chrysolepis), and sierra live oak (Quercus wislizenii) acorns.

In preparation, acorns were cracked by up-ending each on a flat rock and striking the point with any convenient small stone. Sometimes small acorns were cracked with the teeth. Though usually a woman’s job, young folks and men might help with the task.

The thin brownish skin which covers the acorn kernels was removed by rubbing vigorously in rough porous baskets made entirely of willow ribs. Water was not used. Indians of the Lassen area did not employ stone mortars for grinding acorns as was the practice in other parts of California. Stone mortars were always found, not made, and were used for ceremonial purposes, in the belief that these had been made by Coyote. However, Maidu families cherished portable stone mortars. They were kept buried at some distance from the dwelling, and dug up for occasional inspection. Bed-rock acorn pounding holes are not found in this region either except for the Maidu area. Instead, acorn meats were placed in hopper baskets lacking bottoms. This basketry mortar hopper rested with the small open end down on a heavy flat stone. The pounding basket was held in place by the Indian woman’s knees as she sat in front of and straddling it. In one hand she wielded a stone pestle, flat on the grinding end. With the other hand she stirred the acorn material so that the coarse pieces worked toward the center to get the full impact of the pounding. The hopper basket was not always used, by the mountain Maidu, the pounding often being done merely on a flat rock slab, the woman’s free hand continually brushing the acorn material back to the center. Acorn meal was ground until it was as fine as flour. The coarse pieces were separated from the fine by a process which employed a flattish piece of wood or bark a foot or so across. Sometimes a basketry plaque was used. A portion of ground meal was placed on this tray which was held firmly at one side and inclined toward the operator. The other edge of the plaque was shaken, causing the coarse material to roll into a container held in the lap for repounding while the fine flour remained on the plaque. A small brush, generally made from the pounded and dried root of the soap-plant, was used to brush the flour off and into the cooking basket. Mountain Maidu, according to Voegelin, actually did sift acorn meal through open-work baskets though this was not a common practice even among members of this tribe.

White oak and some other acorn flour could be used for cooking without further preparation. Atsugewi preferred black oak acorns which had to be leached to remove the bitter tannic acid before using. To do this the flour was placed in a shallow depression on clean sand over porous earth, usually, but Yana used loosely woven baskets for the purpose, and in recent times it has become common practice to place cloth flour sacking over a screen or sieve. Cold water was poured over the meal until it was nearly free of bitterness. Warm water was then employed briefly, but hot water was never used, for it would make the flour tend to jell. Sand was removed from the bottom of the flour by touching the bottom of a handful of the moist material to water. The flour held together, but the sand grains dropped off. The flour could be dried and stored at this point, but was usually used as it was prepared.

Portions of about two or three quarts of acorn flour were placed in cooking baskets a foot or more in diameter. Water was added and then hot stones were dropped in. These smoothly rounded stones, of any shape and from one and a half to three inches in diameter, had been heated in an open fire. They were quickly dipped into water to remove ashes before being put into the mush cooking basket. The method of handling these cooking stones seems to have varied. Present day Atsugewi say a small looped stick was used, but old informants stated that two forked sticks were employed. Stirring had to be continuous lest the cooking stones scorch the basket. Atsugewi used any convenient stick for this, but Yana had a small oak paddle. After boiling a short while the acorn mush became light greyish or brownish in color; when cooled it jellied quite firmly. Acorn mush was commonly eaten warm with meat, from small individual baskets. Spoons were unknown in the Lassen area so acorn mush was eaten with index and second fingers. Mountain Maidu made their acorn mush of a more liquid consistency so that it was often consumed by drinking.

Acorn bread was made by using less water and adding a small amount of reddish iron-bearing or blackish salt-bearing soil by Atsugewi, but mountain Maidu left this ingredient out. The paste was molded into biscuit or loaf-shaped forms, wrapped in leaves and baked all night in earth pit ovens. Yana sometimes added red soil to their acorn bread making it brightly colored. Usually black oak acorns were used for bread by the Yana tribes and white oak for soup.

That acorns are a fine food is indicated by the following analysis of the uncooked meal. The proportions vary somewhat, but not importantly among the several kinds of acorns used: 21% fat, 5% protein, 62% carbohydrate, and 14% water, mineral, and fiber. In cooked acorn mush the proportions remain the same relatively, except, of course, for the greatly increased water content.

Buckeye nuts, not used much by Atsugewi, were important to other Indians of California, especially those residing at lower elevations. These fruits were gathered when ripe, then shelled, pounded and soaked in loosely woven baskets until the poisonous juice was leached out. The pulpy mass was next squeezed to remove excess water. Unlike acorn meal buckeye pulp was eaten uncooked. Yana crushed their buckeyes with their feet and leached the material in creeks, though sometimes hot water was used.

Nuts of digger pine and sugar pine were highly regarded as food. Men climbed trees and picked digger pine cones or shook limbs to dislodge sugar pine cones. The cones were placed on end and covered with dry grass which was burned, ridding the cones of pitch. After this heat treatment, sugar pine nuts came out easily when cone scales were pulled back. After singeing the heavy digger pine cones were hit with rocks to obtain the large nuts they contained.

The white sweet crusty deposit occasionally found on the bark of sugar pines was relished as candy by Atsugewi. However, it had a laxative property which mountain Maidu recognized and reputedly employed as such.

A variety of small plant seeds also provided tasty nutrition. Several members of the sunflower family including balsam root species and mules ears, and others were used by all local tribes. Such seeds were usually collected by beating them with paddle-shaped basketry seed beaters into burden baskets. They were then parched with coals in flat trays, placed in flat baskets and worked about with stones until freed of skins. Seeds were winnowed by tossing them up allowing wind to carry hulls and skins away. The seeds were then pulverized with a small stone or muller, being rolled or rubbed on a larger rock slab generally referred to as a metate. Such seeds were eaten dry by Atsugewi, Yana, and Yahi without grinding, or the flour might be moistened and molded into cakes about the size of biscuits and eaten without further cooking. However, Yana also cooked certain sunflower seeds and the yellow blossoming heads of the small (Helianthella) sunflower were themselves cooked and eaten.

Clover tops were collected in summer and eaten fresh by all local tribes. Mountain Maidu also baked them in earth pit ovens, then dried and stored the material to be recooked in winter for making soup. Atsugewi cooked clover roots in ovens. Young thistle stalks were eaten raw as was the foliage of several carrot-like plants. Mushrooms, fresh, roasted, or dried were eaten also. Young soap-plant stems were eaten fresh or baked and dried for winter use by Yana tribes.

Manzanita berries were gathered by all Indians of the Lassen region in July and August. These berries were knocked into burden baskets with a stick. They were dried, stored in pits, pounded when needed, and sifted as fine meal. This was moistened and molded into biscuit-sized cakes and put away until wanted. Either fresh flour or the cakes were eaten plain or put into water and drunk. One investigator reported fermentation of manzanita cider and its use as a mild intoxicant, but this appears to have been the exception rather than the rule. The drink, of lemonade-like character, was usually consumed fresh. Manzanita cider was conveyed to the mouth by dipping a deer tail sop into the liquid, and then by sucking it. Small cakes were made of a mixture of manzanita and wild plum flours. Yana and Yahi also ate manzanita berries as such either fresh, or roasted and dried.

Red berries of skunk or squaw bush were gathered in midsummer, washed, dried, and stored. They were pounded into flour in a mortar basket, mixed with manzanita flour and drunk. Elderberries were mashed and mixed with manzanita flour and stored as cakes.

Wild plums were prepared by removing seeds. These were then eaten fresh or dried for storage.

Chokecherries and service berries were put into baskets when ripe and mashed. The paste was eaten without cooking.

Gooseberries, huckleberries, currants, Oregon-grape, buckthorn, juniper, thimble, and elderberries were eaten fresh, too, but juniper fruits might be dried and pounded into flour and stored.

Another item used as food was salt which mountain Maidu and Yana gathered locally in mineral form. The Atsugewi also imported it from Round Mountain in North Yana territory or made expeditions to this site to gather the dark salt material from a certain marsh. This salty earth was shaped into black loaves and dried. It was not only used for flavoring, but the black soil was also eaten as such by some individuals. Atsugewi had a local source of salt, however, by collecting fine whitish crystals in the early mornings from the blades of salt grass which was run between the fingers. Atsugewi used salt for salmon and venison in cooking, but not in drying processes.

Pine pitch was chewed, but Atsugewi also used milkweed chewing gum.

As for eating customs, Atsugewi ate three meals each day. Mountain Maidu just prepared two real meals. Hands were washed after eating deer and bear meats. Mountain Maidu wiped faces and hands with bark and grass after eating.

There was a well defined division of labor among California Indians. Men would carry water for unusually long distances or heavy logs for firewood, but women usually carried water, wood, acorn and root crops, and the like. In the case of moving camp, however, men carried the heaviest burdens. The most important division of labor was the delegation to men of all activities concerning animals and animal products, and to women all pertaining to vegetable materials. Women, for instance, collected materials for basketry and made all the baskets, except that men often made basketry fish traps and nets. Women dug roots and cooked all food except meat which men normally cooked. Exception to this rule was necessarily made when men were away on hunting trips or at war. Men usually built the houses, made moccasins and skin clothing too.

Among Atsugewi and mountain Maidu only men made fire, but this was accomplished by both sexes among the Yana and Yahi.

CHAPTER IX
HOUSES AND FURNISHINGS

The Atsugewi used earth-covered lodges as their permanent winter dwellings. These varied in size from about nine feet in length, for a single family, to more than thirty feet in length for a chief’s house which was usually larger than other houses. Most frequently houses were about twenty feet long and somewhat narrower, being occupied by three to five families. The earth lodge was elliptical in shape with one center post planted firmly in the earth floor somewhat back of true center. This supported beams running to two smaller secondary posts and to earth shoulders which resulted from excavation of the entire floor to a depth of about three feet. On the beams other poles or rafters and bark slabs (usually of incense-cedar) were laid. The whole sloping roof was then covered with pine needles and a layer of earth.

The main entrance was through a hole about in the center of the roof. Over this a heavy mat was placed in bad weather. This opening also served as a smoke hole. A ladder made of two poles with cross pieces tied on with serviceberry withes was used inside.

logs or poles

a fireplace

b mainpost with forked top

c front posts with forked tops

A secondary entrance of small size, used by children, was built horizontally at ground level on the south (front) end of the house. It projected tunnel-like a short distance beyond the lodge outside wall. The main purpose of this ground-level opening was to act as a ventilator duct to supply draft for proper burning of the cooking and house warming fire which burned in front of the center post. At night the ventilator duct was closed. This reduced air supply, causing the fire to burn very slowly. Glowing coals developed as a result. These produced reduced but adequate heat for the occupants who slept with their feet to the fire. Men did all of the house construction work except for excavation. The women did this with digging sticks and wooden or basketry scoops with which they threw the dirt out of the pit. Excavation of the floor of the lodge not only made it easier to construct a strong house, but contributed materially to the warmth of the standard winter house.

There was no furniture as such. Each family used an assigned portion of the house, and cooked its own food, but utilized the central communal fire. A thin layer of grass, carefully kept away from the fire, covered the floor. The Indians slept on the floor on mats made of tule. During the day these and the sleeping blankets were rolled up and provided the only seats. However, sitting usually consisted of squatting on the floor.

Blankets of deer and elk skin were generally used. Atsugewi also used loose tule or grass blankets and all our tribes employed both woven rabbit skin and patchwork rabbit or fox blankets. Yana in addition to all the foregoing utilized bear skins; sometimes they removed the hair from their blankets.

Atsugewi pillows were of bundles of leaves or grass while those of the mountain Maidu were harder, being merely piles of small poles, blocks of wood, or rocks.

Interior earth walls of the houses were sometimes hung with tule mats or skins fastened with pegs to prevent dirt from sloughing off and rolling onto the floor. A few shelves might also be provided by laying wooden slabs on sticks driven into the dirt walls.

There were other less substantial winter houses consisting either of small double lean-tos of bark slabs or conical houses on frameworks of slender poles and with shallow excavations. Some dirt was thrown against the outside walls for added warmth. Lazy people, who were usually consequently poor in the necessities and comforts of normal Indian life, lived in this more flimsy type of house. Also, women when indisposed repaired to such huts. A doorway was left in the siding to be closed by a tule mat in these little houses. They were also equipped with small smoke holes for central fires.

Atsugewi summer houses as such really did not exist. Summer camps were little more than circular enclosures of brush, juniper, or other conifer limbs or of rock. These were ten or fifteen feet across with openings to the east. There was no roof, although branches and bark slabs might be put over crude frames in rainy weather. If a person were caught in a sudden shower he might make a temporary shelter by leaning bark slabs, if available, against a large rock or log lying on the ground.

Atsugewi did not have any separate sweat houses nor dancing or assembly chambers, but used the larger earth lodge houses for these purposes. The largest belonged to chiefs and to other well-to-do Indians. Heat for sweating was provided directly by fire and not by production of steam as was the case with Plains Indians who threw water on hot stones. In recent years, however, after introduction of the horse, Atsugewi learned the latter technique and also constructed Plains Indian type sweat houses of one to three person capacity. These were dome shaped, and built of willow poles set in the ground in a circle. The tops were bent over and tied down, and this framework was covered with skins.

Old type sweating was for men only, but Indian women—usually wives—also sweated with men in the new style separate sweat houses. Old time Atsugewi purposes in sweating were for gaining success in hunting, in gambling, and for general good luck. Some praying was done, but there were no formalized ceremonies or dances amongst the Atsugewi. Men sometimes slept in sweat houses.

In the case of all local tribes sweating was followed by a cold plunge, if available nearby. Lacking this facility, a cold sponge bath was taken.

The mountain Maidu earth lodge for dwelling and sweating was similar to that of the Atsugewi. However, northeast Maidu earth lodges “koom” were simpler and smaller than those of northwest and southern Maidu. Three posts, often forked were used in place of 10 or 11 employed for valley lodges. Excavation was about three feet deep, circular in plan, and from 18 to 40 feet across. A large flat stone was placed upright at the foot of the mainpost between it and the fire in the center. The vertical walls of the excavation were usually covered or lined with vertically placed whole or split logs or with bark slabs. Logs were lain horizontally on the three posts as indicated on the accompanying sketch. Radial rafters supporting the roof were placed on these beams and sloping downward to the ground surface outside as well as to two small posts at the small openway or ventilator passage. Cross poles were placed horizontally on the rafters and on these, large pieces of bark, branches, and pine needles were successively laid. Lastly, a heavy covering of soil 8 to 20 inches thick was heaped on the structure. On top in the center a smokehole was left, large enough to serve as the main entrance originally, but after the coming of white man, the smokehole was made smaller, and, instead, the originally small ventilator tunnel which sloped from floor level up to the ground surface outside was enlarged, thus supplanting the smokehole as the main entrance. Originally a ladder of two poles with cross pieces tied on with grapevine or other withes gave vertical access from the floor to the smokehole entrance. Dixon reports that a notched log was sometimes used for the purpose among mountain Maidu.

The koom or lodge was occupied from November to March and was situated on the edges of wide meadows in mountain Maidu areas. At lower elevation occupancy was more or less continuous.

Mountain Maidu did not have separate sweat houses. They always used a large earth dwelling lodge for the purpose. This was similar to the Atsugewi practice. These Maidu did, however, have a formalized sweat dance. Also different from the Atsugewi was the practice of men using the sweat house for gambling, handicraft work, and competitive singing.

The “hoe-bow” of the mountain Maidu was a hut, 8 to 15 feet in diameter and excavated 12 to 15 inches deep. Two main poles were securely tied near the end. From the resulting “V” at the top, shorter poles were laid to a pair of slender posts about three feet high and set about three feet apart along the edge of the excavation. Against this frame branches, bark, and leaves were piled and earth was heaped around the bottom. The doors of all such bark huts opened to the south and were hung with a skin or tule mat.

The rude summer shelter or shade provider was just like that of the Atsugewi.

Information on Yahi house details are somewhat scanty, but in all probability they were small conical bark-covered huts while some larger earth lodges were built to house several families—in general similar, but perhaps smaller than those of the other tribes of the Lassen area. The large pretentious lodge, constructed solely for sweating and ceremonies, of the Sacramento Valley tribes seems to have been lacking among all of our local tribes.

The common bark hut dwelling of the Yana was apparently built over a circular depression two feet deep, the top of the house rising about six feet above the ground. It was probably like the mountain Maidu huts, being a series of poles resting on the edges of the excavation. These met and were tied at the top to form a cone of low slope, although some informants claimed that the posts were set so firmly that tying together was omitted. The frames were covered with pine and incense-cedar bark slabs leaving a smoke hole near each apex. Earth was probably banked on the lower sloping walls. Entrance was never through the smoke hole as in the case of Atsugewi and some mountain Maidu earth lodge houses, but by means of a small door at ground level on the south side. The entrance was protected by a little covered way extending outward three feet from the house wall, and decked over by a gable roof of low pitch. A ramp of low pitch extended from the floor of the house through this antechamber to the ground level outside as no steps were constructed.

The Yana lodge houses were not numerous. The ground plan was long, usually wedge or oval in outline and designed for several families, each with its own fire. As with the other tribes discussed in this booklet, such buildings also served as sweat houses. A ladder consisting of a notched log extended down from the smoke hole to the floor. One, two, or three center posts with radiating rafters and shorter side posts were employed. The Yana followed the Atsugewi practice of providing each earth lodge with a south facing, ground level, tunnel-like ventilator entrance of small size. It is possible that Yana did have a few special sweating lodges of the same design, but the matter is debatable. During sweating Yana men talked and played; the main purpose of sweating was to make men strong.

It has already been pointed out that all four tribes which used what is now Lassen Volcanic National Park did so only during the summer. During their high mountain sojourn, the local Indians did not live in houses as such. There, residence during the three or four summer months was in temporary camps, usually roofless circular areas to accommodate several families. These were fenced in with brush and were entered by one or more openings somewhat in the same manner as campsites reserved for visitors at their permanent villages at lower elevations. Four-posted horizontal roofs, to provide shade, were sometimes constructed too. Yana seem to have made a lean-to or hut with grass and bark covering for summer roofs.