Basket styles varied little among the several tribes of the Lassen region. Bottle shapes were never made until after the coming of white man. Cooking baskets were bowl-shaped with high, convexly curved sides, sometimes nearly globular in form. Baskets from which food was eaten individually and general utility baskets were similarly shaped but smaller. Boiling baskets were sometimes without decoration; their dimensions of height and width were about equal. Storage baskets also had about the same shape, curving less, sometimes, but were large, being three feet or more in size. Some were of open work, but usually they were of close or tight weaving.

Flattish bowls or somewhat curved trays were used for food platters as well as for winnowing, parching, and cleaning foods by chafing. Some were of open weave made of willow or hazel (?) only while others were closely woven.

Basketry acorn grinding hoppers also called milling baskets or pounding baskets, were usually regular twined baskets of suitable size and shape: wide mouthed bowl or funnel-shaped. Having no central point from which to start the warp, because of the open bottoms, hopper baskets were started by twining three pine root wefts about the bases of many willow warps to make a circle about five inches in diameter. Additional warps were built up on the radiating ribs, proceeding then in the normal manner of twining. Twined hopper baskets were usually reinforced by lashing one or two strong rings of willow or serviceberry withes. They might also be bound with buckskin along the bottom edges for improved strength and durability as well as to decrease loss of acorn meal during the pounding process. In recent years both mountain Maidu and Atsugewi, also used coiling technique in making hopper baskets, for which purpose it is well suited.

A recent innovation among Atsugewi has been the covering of bottles with basketry and also the weaving of oblong shaped closely twined and coiled baskets, as well as goblet shaped creations.

According to Garth, the seed beater “... was a paddle-shaped implement from one and a half to two feet long with a willow warp and open work twining, also of willow (spaced at three quarters of an inch between rows) across the blade. The handle was wrapped either with willow strips or with buckskin.”

Another important use of basketry was in the construction of cradle boards, or more properly, basket cradles. These are generally known to present day Americans by the incorrect term papoose baskets. The cradle basket is discussed under the heading “Birth and Babies”.

Beautifully made basketry caps for women, finely twined, spreading bowl-shaped affairs were made by all tribes of the Lassen area. These were nicely decorated on the bottoms—or rather tops—as well as on the sides, a feature lacking on all other types of local baskets. Another unique feature of the basketry cap was the fact that the inside of the hat was abraded by rubbing so that none of the pattern remained visible because all of the overlay on the inside had been worn away. It is suspected that this made the inside of the hat less slippery on the hair so that it did not slip off the head so easily. Removal of the decoration from the inside of the basketry cap in no way altered the appearance or permanence of the outside decorative patterns.

Mats were woven of viscid bulrush, more commonly called tule stalks (Scirpus lacustris or acutus). According to Voegelin, Atsugewi sometimes sewed these together by piercing them with bone needles. However the more usual method of manufacture was that of lashing together the ends of parallel tule stalks laid next to each other. This was done with double cords or strands in the regular simple twining manner which shows up well in the sketch of Atsugewi tule leggings. Such mats were extensively used as bed mats or mattresses, as earth wall coverings, as doorway and ventilator hole hangings, and so on by all of the tribes of the Lassen region. Mountain Maidu also employed broad-leaved cat-tail (Typha latifolia) or narrow-leaved cat-tail (Typha angustifolia) for such purposes on occasion. This tribe also appears to have used a string weft in making at least some of the mats.

Chapter XII
TANNING, CORDAGE, AND GLUE

Mountain Maidu buried bear skins in wet ground, but hides generally were soaked about a week in water by local Indians. Mountain Maidu used ashes to help dehair skins other than deer, but this was not a practice common to other tribes. Stone, or more frequently, shaped deer rib or pelvic bones were used as dehairing scraper tools on skins. The hide was draped over an inclined post and was soaked and squeezed occasionally during the process of scraping.

The tanning agent was a cooked soup of animal brains, particularly those of deer. This material might first have been mashed, mixed with dry moss, and then molded into small cakes for drying and storage. The deer brain agent was well rubbed into the cleaned, soaked skin. It was then allowed to soak overnight in the tanning solution. The next day while drying the skin in the sun, the operator stretched and worked the hide with his hands to make it soft and pliable.

Among Atsugewi the skin was then smoked over a fire of moist rotten logs or green juniper boughs burning in a shallow pit. The skin was laid on a domed framework of willow branches arched over the fire. The hide was turned occasionally to insure uniform treatment. Mr. Garth believes that this smoking process was recently learned. It was not generally practiced by neighboring tribes, but produced superior buckskin which resisted stiffening as a result of subsequent wetting. Even Atsugewi did not smoke other skins.

Men did all this work as well as the hunting, skinning, and fashioning of garments from hides. Skins were sewn with bone awls and deer sinew thread which was made by rolling fine deer sinew strands on the thigh with the open hand.

Like other local tribes, the Maidu used many woven skin blankets. These were fashioned from one inch strips of rabbit fur, especially, but also of the skins of wildcat, cougar, geese, or crows. These were not tanned so that upon drying they twisted or curled like the strands of a rope with the fur or feather side out. Ends were tied together to form a long fur or feather covered rope. This was wound about two poles set upright in the ground six feet or so apart to form the warp for the blanket. More of the same material was then woven up and down as weft to produce a soft and very warm skin blanket which was also quite durable. When bird skins were employed a cord core was threaded thru the center of the twisted strands before weaving for greater strength.

Mountain Maidu also did feather work like that of the Atsugewi, however foothill and valley Maidu did so to a greater extent and of a more elaborate nature.

Willow, serviceberry, and redbud withes, and at lower elevations, lengths of wild grape vines were used for tying purposes. However, Indians also had need for strong and more versatile and more durable string, cord, and rope. These were usually made from vegetable fibers. Atsugewi and mountain Maidu used Indian hemp and milkweed but not nettle or iris fibers as did some other tribes. When mature, but before they became old and brittle, the plants were collected and dried, stripped of leaves, and the flesh was scraped and pounded off leaving the free fibers. String was made by placing two small bundles of fibers parallel and close together on the thigh of the leg. These were rolled up into two strands side by side with one stroke of the open hand moving either up or down the thigh. On the return stroke the two separate and now twisted strands were twisted together into one string. Stout cord was made by repeating the process, substituting two strings for the two bundles of loose fibers this time. To make rope the process was repeated several times, successively doubling the cordage product. As the cordage strands were twined together, the product was held in the left hand, the rolling being done by the right hand on the right thigh.

Nets of good quality were fabricated in a variety of mesh sizes, the uniformity of which was controlled by use of squarish wooden blocks. Shuttles to hold the string for net tying were straight pieces of wood notched at each end and into which the strand was wrapped. As has been pointed out, nets were used chiefly for hunting, fishing, and carrying, although small nets were often worn in the hair by men.

Adhesives were important in the economy of the Indians too. Pine pitch and glue made from the skins of fish were used. A solution of the latter was mixed by the mountain Maidu with certain internal organs of fish and boiled vegetable materials to improve the quality of their glue.

Chapter XIII
TRANSPORTATION

It was the lack of transportation rather than the existence of any which was important to the aboriginal Americans. This was responsible for the degree of isolation which was required to produce the variety of customs and languages in most parts of the “New World”. Introduction of the horse in historic times materially changed the habits of Plains Indians. Likewise the somewhat aggressive Modoc tribe to the north of the Pit River, whose conflict with the whites has been memorialized in Lava Beds National Monument today, became mobile, even prior to the gold rush days, through use of the horse. As a result the Modocs made a number of hit and run raids upon Atsugewi and other tribes and were able to carry off slaves. This was not the traditional mode of warfare.

Transportation among Indians was by foot or by water until recent times. California Indians did not use dogs as beasts of burden as Plains Indians did and as the Eskimos still do. Women did general hauling; men, however, did most of the really heavy carrying. Women used the conical burden basket extensively, but the men did not. Both sexes used the buckskin pack strap which in the case of mountain Maidu passed over the top of the head. Atsugewi pack straps went over the forehead and also over the shoulder across the chest. The brimless basketry cap or hat was used with the packstrap especially among the women. Heavy loads were frequently carried by men upon the shoulder; such burdens were often rolled in mats or animal skins.

Carrying nets made of twisted fibers were commonly employed by men and women among local tribes. Atsugewi used a folded buckskin bag sewed at the edges, with a handle on top, and opening at the side. Yana manufactured an open-work carrying basket too.

In this region loads were never carried on the head, but on occasion might be suspended on a pole and carried between two men. The mountain Maidu also used a litter for the sick, but Atsugewi carried sick persons in burden baskets on their backs.

In rough country crude trails were sometimes built, but this was not a common practice. Generally trails as such were not constructed, but where they existed they had developed as the result of long use along logical routes, in much the same manner as deer and other game trails develop.

To cross streams advantage was taken of logs which had fallen of natural causes. On occasion single logs were felled by burning to serve as bridges. Yana at lower elevations frequently had large streams to cross and smaller trees to utilize. Two logs might be felled parallel and cross sticks lashed on with grapevine for better footing.

a, Dugout canoe

b, Dugout canoe

c, Tule balsa

In swimming most Indians used a pseudo-breast stroke or swam on their backs with a frog style stroke. Atsugewi also did a “dog paddle” keeping arms under water. Mountain Maidu used swimming techniques which embraced principles like those of white man’s side stroke and crawl. They jumped into the water feet first in preference to headfirst diving. When swimming under water to collect crawfish or mussels a rock was often tied loosely to the back.

Water transportation was not of the same degree of importance to the tribes of the Lassen region that it was to Sacramento Valley, Coastal, and Northwestern Indians. Nevertheless Atsugewi used sharp or blunt ended canoes while that of the mountain Maidu had a shovel-like prow and stern. These were made from pine logs, usually windfalls about two feet in diameter and had a capacity of two to four persons. The logs were hollowed out by controlled burning so that the walls were an inch or two thick. Pitch was rubbed onto portions needing more burning. Water or mud were used to check burning and the charred wood was scraped out with rough angular stones. Local dugout canoes were rather crude affairs. Cracking of the wood was prevented by keeping the boats wet. They were propelled by an unadorned poling rod or by a single bladed square-ended paddle about three feet long. A raft, consisting of three or four logs lashed together, was used as well by all local tribes and propelled by poling.

Atsugewi had another type of craft: the tule balsa—a five foot long raised prow affair made of bundles of tules lashed together. It might be poled or else pushed by a swimmer. Often this raft-like boat was towed by a rope of willow. Atsugewi occasionally ferried children or goods in baskets, while among mountain Maidu swimmers carried children on their backs and carried goods in one hand, raised above the water level, swimming with the other hand.

Chapter XIV
DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PETS

We are apt to think of Indians, especially Plains Indians, riding horses as part of the natural prehistoric scene, yet this was not the case. Although fossil remains in the rocks show clearly the development of the horse over a period of several millions of years on this continent, the horse, the camel, and the rhinoceros—to mention but a few of the spectacular mammals—became extinct on the American continents before the advent of prehistoric man. American Indians had never seen a horse until the coming of the Spanish to the New World in 1540. Likewise domestic cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens were unknown to the aborigines.

The dog was widely distributed, however. Some tribes had large as well as small dogs of a variety of colors. In the Lassen area the dogs were all about the size of small coyotes, mostly with fairly short hair, but there are some reports of long haired dogs. Typically the dogs had small rather erect and pointed ears. Coloration was chiefly fawn colored to brown. Amongst Atsugewi, dogs were usually quite numerous, but certain villages seem to have had only a few. In such cases and among the mountain Maidu, who generally had only few dogs, they were borrowed for hunting. Dogs were almost always named.

Dogs served to warn their owners of the approach of strangers to the village or camp. Mountain Maidu taught their dogs not to bark, but to “sniff” conspicuously as a signal of stranger approach.

Tribes of the Lassen area did not normally keep dogs in their dwelling houses. Atsugewi built separate, domed, bark-covered dog houses, and mountain Maidu built two kinds of shelters for their dogs. One was a subterranean earth-covered dog house, and the other a conical affair of bark slab type construction.

Dogs were widely used in hunting. They were efficient in catching rodents and other small mammals such as ground hogs. They were also useful for treeing mountain lions and were adept at bringing down wounded deer by jumping up and seizing the deers’ ears.

Dogs were not often eaten by tribes in this section of California. Upon death, dogs were not buried, but the bodies were merely thrown out.

Upon death of the dog’s owner, among Atsugewi, the dog was retained by the widow, but among mountain Maidu the dog was suspended in a tree because “It makes dog’s spirit glad”! Although not being generally considered in this account, it is curious that among Modoc and eastern Achomawi dogs were burned at the deaths of their owners.

Bear cubs were commonly kept. Atsugewi also kept fawns and other small mammals as pets. Birds of various sorts were kept by certain tribes. Atsugewi plucked or cut wings of birds, especially of eagles whose feathers were prized for arrow making, and for ceremonial and decorative purposes.

Chapter XV
CLOTHING

The members of all tribes, especially the Yana and Yahi, went bareheaded much of the time. However, basketry caps nearly hemispherical in shape and of fine tightly twined weave were worn regularly by Indian women. The caps were probably worn to prevent chafing of the pack straps originally, but Atsugewi women wore them most of the time. Such hats were well decorated with overlaid designs typical of the tribes under consideration. Those of Yana and Yahi were usually of tule with black and white overlay. Mountain Maidu made some coiled basketry caps, not infrequently employing tules or reeds.

Men of all our tribes wore fur headbands on occasion and among Atsugewi, fur or buckskin caps too, especially in winter, when shallow bucket shaped skin hats of coyote, raccoon, mink and the like afforded protection against the rather intense cold.

Eyeshades attached to a band around the head were worn by some Yana women so as not to see their sons-in-law! Atsugewi men and possibly others might wear side blinds when spearing fish at night to keep torch light out of their eyes.

Children up to about six years of age ran about naked, and often the older men and women did likewise, particularly among the Maidu.

Buckskin dresses were worn to some extent by the women of most local tribes. The mountain Maidu dress was tied at both shoulders and tied or belted at the waist. The garment was provided with flaps over the upper arms but lacked sleeves. Buckskin dresses were worn by some Indian women rich in worldly goods, and usually for special occasions. Recent buckskin dresses, of course, are sewn on sewing machines, neatly tailored, and follow the general pattern of the conventional dress, including regular sleeves.

In normal everyday garb Indian women were naked above the waist. A wrap-around skirt, or, more frequently two narrow or wide aprons were worn. Sometimes one apron went around the hips, being tied in back and provided with a buckskin flap which covered the wearer’s buttocks. The Indian women’s aprons were commonly made of shredded incense-cedar, willow, or juniper bark, or of tules. In the case of Yana and Yahi women, frequently grass or shredded, spring-gathered, broad-leaf maple bark were used. The latter was a favorite valley Maidu skirt material. The double aprons might however be made of whole buckskin or of strips or cords of buckskin, and in winter furs might be used for the purpose. The double apron is recognized as the standard garb of California Indian women. That of the Maidu was often very narrow, being not much more than a front and a rear tassel.

Women’s casual aprons and other clothing were not highly ornamented, but “dress-up” clothes might be fairly elaborately trimmed. Fringing of buckskin, spangles of shell money and ornaments, strings of shell beads, pine nuts, deer hoofs, and special white grass fringes commonly decorated their better clothes.

In the summer some men, and particularly old ones wore nothing at all. Most others wore very little clothing besides a sort of loin covering of buckskin or fur which went between the legs and was held in place back and front by a belt about the waist. A crude buckskin shirt without sleeves was sometimes used.

During winter above aprons, skirts, or loin covering other garments were worn. Then men commonly wore the sleeveless buckskin shirt. Both sexes usually wore robes of woven rabbit skins (usually imported by the Atsugewi), or made of deer or bear fur and worn with the hair side inside. Or else the robes were of a patchwork of small mammal skins sewn together. These same robes were frequently used for bedding at night. As a matter of fact almost any sort of skins available might be used as robes. These were tied on in a variety of ways. The wearers must have presented a rather motley appearance. On occasion small poncho style robes with a central hole for the head and neck clothed the upper bodies of local Indians during cold weather.

Thumbless mittens were made of cased skins of weasels, rats or small cottontail rabbits and tied at the wrist with a thong. Atsugewi also utilized their fur-lined quivers as muffs when hunting.

California Indians spent much of the time barefoot, but wore buckskin moccasins at war, on long hunts or journeys. Different styles were made by each of the local tribes. None, however, were normally decorated. Mountain Maidu also made moccasins of fur with the hair side in, and Atsugewi stuffed pounded grass or grass into their footwear or wore grass or tule slippers inside their moccasins during the winter. Maidu put soft grass or sedges in their moccasins for added warmth. An extra sole of tougher leather such as elkskin was sometimes sewn onto the moccasin, but this was not customary.

Occasionally open sandals held on by three or four thongs were worn by Atsugewi and Yana.

Knee length leggings of various materials were common in winter. These were tied on with buckskin strips at ankle and knee. Yana used hip-length pantleg type leggings held on with waist bands. Atsugewi sometimes employed fur pieces, twined tule, or spiral wrap-around fur strip leggings. Maidu used deerhide leggings with the hair side inside. These went from ankles to above the knees where they were tied, and were held close to the leg by an outside spirally wound thong from top to bottom.

Snowshoes were a necessity too in the rigorous climate of even the lower portions of the areas inhabited by tribes of the Lassen area, particularly in those of the Atsugewi and mountain Maidu. Snowshoes of the former Indians were circular in plan; those of the latter were oval. Snowshoes were fashioned from small green wooden limbs shaped while hot, and then crisscrossed with strips of buckskin or hide with the fur side down for better traction. Atsugewi used green juniper limbs for the purpose. Since the whole foot was bound firmly to this footgear, there was no heel play as in the case of white mans’ snowshoes.

Chapter XVI
BEAUTY AND PERSONAL GROOMING

Of Atsugewi standards of beauty Garth states: “The ideal woman was short but plump and solidly built so that she could do much work. A slim woman was considered too weak, and a very tall woman was made fun of and called lohkata (stick woman). Heavy breasts, a straight slim nose, large eyes, long black hair, and small feet were all admirable qualities. A girl with big feet was likely to be lazy, also a small foot was desirable because it would not take so large a moccasin. A mother pressed her girl child’s foot together to make it slender. The ideal man was of average height and was heavy set. If a child had a flat nose, his mother pinched it and tried to give it a higher bridge. Bow legs, it was said, might be straightened by the mother when the child was young. Also a child’s ears were pressed against his head; if the ears stood out, this was thought to indicate poor hearing. A slim hand indicated a lazy person; a short stubby hand signified a good worker.”

Garth also comments to the effect that evidently the ideals of Indian beauty had a very practical basis. The same general criteria of beauty and desirability of women seem to have prevailed among the other tribes of this region also, but Yana preferred a rather flat and broad faced feminine beauty.

The hair of both men and women among California Indians was generally worn long. The tribes of the Lassen area were no exception. However, bangs on the forehead were known. Boys and girls let their hair hang loosely, except that Atsugewi sometimes cut small boys’ hair short to make it grow better later.

Women usually parted their hair in the middle wearing it in two hanks, one hanging in front of each shoulder. Each was tied with a piece of rawhide. Women of Yana tribes often used strips of otter or mink fur for the purpose as did some Atsugewi. Yana women might add further decoration in the form of a small string of shell beads. Atsugewi women might paint their scalps at the part in the hair with red paint.

The male Indian tied his hair in a bunch which hung down the back. All local tribes, except mountain Maidu, seem also to have frequently used a small mesh hairnet made of plant fibers with a buckskin band to hold a man’s hair in a sort of roll at the back of his head. Maidu called the net wee-kah. In preparation for war or for the hunt Yana men coiled their hair on their heads with well defined top knots. For dances and other special events, male Maidu and Yana, if rich, wore mesh bonnets thickly covered with white eagle down feathers tied in so that the net strands were not visible. Bone hairpins were sometimes used among Yana and mountain Maidu men.

NET

BUCKSKIN

DRAWSTRING

CORD

Adults cut their hair off with stone knives to show grief and mourning when relatives died. Both men and women cropped their hair closely, but mountain Maidu women sometimes only trimmed it off to shoulder length. Singeing instead of cutting the hair was sometimes resorted to.

For combing the hair, Atsugewi might use a single stick, a pine cone, or a teasle burr. Mountain Maidu might use stiff pine needles, but the item most commonly used by all tribes for the purpose was the porcupine tail. The animal’s tail was skinned out, stuffed with grass, and sewed shut at the open end. Sharp ends of the porcupine quills were blunted with hot stones.

Hair was not dyed in this region. It was, however, rubbed with animal fat or bone marrow to make it look nicer by aboriginal standards. Atsugewi are said to have perfumed their hair on occasion with aromatic plant foliage. Hair and body lice were not uncommon; these were hunted and removed by hand. Maidu washed their hair frequently with common soaproot (Chlorogalum pomeridianum).

Faces of adults were painted for a number of occasions. Black was used to some extent by both sexes to prevent sunburn and snow-blindness if long exposure in the bright sun were expected. Although Yana men and women used red and white paint when dancing, among our other tribes face paint was used chiefly by men for dances and ceremonies.

Paint pigments were mixed with animal fat, especially deer grease, or with marrow and applied with the fingers. It was smeared on upper arms, legs, chest, and cheeks. Atsugewi and mountain Maidu blackened their eyebrows. Red pigment was either red soil, usually roasted or burned to make the color brighter, or the spores from a fungus which grows on the bark of fir trees. The fungus material was dried over a slow fire to prepare it for use. Black pigment was universally charcoal. Ashes were not used as white pigment. Students of local tribes state that chalk was employed for white paint. However, chalk is lacking in the Lassen vicinity and it is highly probable that the suitable and readily available white diatomaceous earth deposits were used for this purpose instead. Atsugewi also used blue color which was obtained in rock form by trade with their northern Pit River or Achomawi neighbors.

The light beards which started to grow on male Indians’ faces were universally removed completely by plucking with the fingers.

Earlobe and nose piercing was generally practiced by both sexes. Among Atsugewi rims of their ears as well as the lobes were perforated in some instances.

Tattooing was occasionally done by Yana, but not as commonly as among Atsugewi where women not infrequently wore tattooed vertical lines across their mouths. Both sexes commonly tattooed their cheeks with horizontal lines or with two or three lines radiating from the corners of the mouth. Arms and legs were also tattooed to a certain extent. The mutilation was done by rubbing charcoal into cuts which had been made with stone knives or by rubbing charcoal on the skin and then pricking it with bone awls or porcupine quills. However, even among Atsugewi, tattooing was by no means universal. Mountain Maidu women were sometimes tattooed with three, five, or seven vertical lines on the chin.

Earrings were worn by nearly all men and women. Atsugewi employed bone rings, clamshell beads, feathers and even painted ear ornaments. Mountain Maidu and Yana usually used bone or wooden ones, plain or decorated with feathers or shells. Abalone, like other sea shells, were received only in trade and were fashioned into pendants for ears or noses.

Nose piercing consisted of making a hole through the septum of the nose. This practice was popular among all local tribes. It was done to permit the wearing of jewelry although Yana ascribed a deeper meaning to the custom as well. They believed that no person would go to his equivalent of heaven unless the nose septum was pierced. Hence this was done to the dead and a stick inserted if it had not been done in life. Two-pointed bone nose-pins were popular inserts as were long narrow dentalium shells, or nose pendants of beads. Only among mountain Maidu were nose ornaments highly decorated.

Necklaces were common adornments too, but local tribes did not use bracelets. Items used for necklaces were perhaps bear teeth and bear claws among Atsugewi and Yana. More commonly, certainly, and used by all of our tribes were olivella shells, shaped pieces of abalone shells, small animal and bird bone rings or tubes, clamshell discs, long tooth-shells (dentalia), and Digger Pine nuts which had been parched until blackened. Their ends had then been rubbed off or holes bored through ends or sides and cleaned out. Yana also made mussel shell disks locally, not only for necklaces but as ear pendants. In later years all tribes used glass trader beads, usually interspersed with native items.

Maidu, especially their tribes of the lower elevations, went in for elaborate feather decorations and headdresses. Valley Maidu even had feather cloaks for ceremonial use.

Chapter XVII
WEALTH

Among local tribes wealth was the direct result of skill and industry and was highly regarded by all. A person’s social status in the tribe varied directly with his wealth. Lazy persons not able to properly care for their own needs were considered as bums and looked down upon by all other members of the village. With wealth went a certain amount of power. Chiefs, although empowered by heritage, were always well to do, and the wealthiest men in smaller units acted in the capacity of head-men.

As with modern man, money among Indians was an arbitrary medium of exchange, yet it was of more practical value to the Indians than our own coins are to us. Their money was prized not only for what it would buy in material things, but as possessing important decorative value as well.

The long tooth-shell or dentalium was used whole and unmodified. It was the currency of the northwest California coast. The money of central and southern California was the clamshell disk. This was cut, smoothed into disk shapes about half an inch in diameter, and each was perforated with a central hole by means of which this money could be strung onto cords. In no case did local tribes travel the California coast to obtain these shell coins. Instead, this item found its way to Indians of the interior through progressive or step-by-step trading from coastal tribes through intermediate aboriginal traders.

As we might expect, dentalia, having a northern origin, were secured by Atsugewi not from their neighbors to the south, but from the northern Yana in exchange for buckskins, arrows, wildcat skin quivers, and woodpecker scalps. The mountain Maidu did not have dentalia at all.

Except for the central Yana custom of measuring the length of strings of clamshell disks, amounts of money were determined by counting and not by measuring length on arm tatoos as was so commonly the case in other parts of California. Skins of small mammals which had been skinned by making only one slit in the hind quarters and whose mouth openings had been tied shut, served as purses.

All of our tribes used clamshell money. Among Yana clamshell disks were not as valuable as dentalia, and they were more common also among Atsugewi, the dentalia being used more for decoration than as money. The tribes of the Lassen region generally received the finished clamshell money; almost never did they manufacture this, although they did work traded abalone shell into jewelry pieces.

Material wealth or treasure other than weapons, skins, baskets, and food also consisted largely of imported seashells. Whole olivella shells were commonly used as dress ornaments and also for paying shamans for services. Bone cylinders, columellae of shells, and especially polished cylinders of the mineral magnesite were highly prized. These might be used as the central piece of a necklace in the same manner that we might utilize a precious gem.

Chapter XVIII
CEREMONIAL DRESS

All local tribes used the beautiful salmon colored feathers of the Red-shafted Flicker, a woodpecker also known to us by the name Yellowhammer. A headband of the bird’s feathers—the stiff quills—was worn on the forehead. Mountain Maidu doctors wore this item also as a belt. In addition Atsugewi made a full feather band which was worn in a variety of ways including hanging down the back. This was usually used only by the shamans.

Another ceremonial item was the California or Acorn Woodpecker scalp headband. This usually had a buckskin strap base, however, mountain Maidu glued these gay feathered patches onto fur bands, Yana wore woodpecker scalps on buckskin as belts.

Mountain Maidu made belts of bands on which the showy greenish feathered neck skins of male Mallard Ducks in mating plumage were strung.

For ceremonial use it was generally customary to tuck small tufts of feathers into the top of the hair. Among Atsugewi, chiefs only used eagle feathers for this purpose. This tribe also fastened single feathers into the crown of buckskin caps in a radiating manner, and also onto strips hanging down the back. Sometimes feathers were tipped with small white feathers to make the former even more decorative. Feathers were also fastened to head nets in a number of ways which differed somewhat among our tribes. Among Atsugewi, women wore these on occasion, but generally it was the males who decked themselves with feathers. Feather plumes of various sorts, employing either twisted buckskin or stick bodies, were also in general use.

Chapter XIX
TOBACCO AND SMOKING

The knowledge and use of tobacco are among the important elements which our own culture of today has inherited from the Indians of North America. Of what benefit this has been is a debatable matter, but its effect has been profound, both on our customs and our economy.

Local tribes used simple one piece wooden pipes of tubular design for the most part in smoking tobacco. Atsugewi and mountain Maidu commonly employed elder and other woods with a pithy and easily removed center. Although not otherwise being considered in this account, the Shasta Indian technique of pipe making is mentioned here because of its uniqueness. These folks hollowed pipe stems by soaking the end of a suitable stick in salmon oil. The larvae of the salmon fly were then introduced, and these worm-like creatures, eating the nourishing fishy core, would bore their ways lengthwise through the center of the heartwood where most of the salmon oil was concentrated. The Yana habitually used the wood of ash as pipe stock. Mountain Maidu found but did not manufacture a few simple stone pipe bowls also of tubular design. These had considerable spiritual significance and were treated with great care. Garth states that Atsugewi also had short stone pipes, tubular in shape, to which elder or rose wood extensions up to eleven inches in length were applied. Stone pipes were apparently not common in the Lassen region, however.

Pipes were used at social gatherings, after sweating, and at bed time. The pipes of the local tribes did not have any bends or curves. These straight tubular pipes were therefore most conveniently smoked when the Indians were reclining on their backs thus keeping the tobacco from falling out. Pipes were normally passed around, and used only by the men. However, women shamans of the mountain Maidu also smoked them. Shamans regularly used pipe smoking in ceremonies, especially when healing the sick.

Tobacco grew wild and burning of brush was performed in certain localities to promote the growth of Nicotiana plants. Tobacco was not cultivated, but mountain Maidu did collect and scatter seeds in favorable areas. Tobacco was prepared merely by collecting the leaves when fully developed but still green, then drying, preferably in the shade, and finally crumbling the cured leaf in the hand. Tobacco was carried in buckskin pouches usually. Atsugewi often added manzanita and deer grease to their smoking tobacco. Indians of this region did not chew tobacco nor did they eat it with lime as was the custom elsewhere in California. Native tobacco is quite strong.