Paul E. Schulz

“ In any of these regional groups, if the main food item failed, disaster struck the tribes. In contrast, the Californians, with diversified eating habits, had four major food sources: fish, game, roots, and seeds or nuts. Each was important and the failure of any one caused hardship, but by no means the serious disaster which befell the more specialized groups of Indians if their main food supply item failed. If any one item of the California Indian diet were to be selected as the most important and universal food, one of the nuts, the acorn would have to be named. ”

“ Indians fought in the only way they knew—and a disheartening losing fight it was for them with bows and arrows against rifles. For each gain in weapons and technical know-how the Indians made, the whites made many. True, it cost Americans much in the way of lives, anguish, and money, but how small were these losses in comparison to those of the Indians. ”

“ Next to the fire Atsugewi planted a short pole on which the new scalps were displayed while mountain Maidu danced with the scalps secured to hand-carried sticks. It is worth noting that while some readers may consider this gloating over human scalps to be a primitive morbidity, it is true that often white men—the very pioneers we eulogize—took and coveted human scalps themselves. ”

“ Shamans or doctors, more commonly known to modern Americans by the name medicine men, were important in the lives of all Indians but, among ours, probably to the highest degree among the Maidu. Whether we, with our scientific enlightenment today, are after all happier and of greater peace of mind, than the aborigines were or not, is a philosophical consideration beyond the scope of this book. The fact of the matter is that mankind in the past invariably has resorted to the supernatural to explain things not understood. ”

“ Indians are a case in point—being totally without scientific explanations, mysticism and the supernatural pervaded their whole culture—their every day activities—to a point which to us today seems fantastic, yet understandable in a way. ”

“ Thunder and lightning were feared by all tribes of the Lassen region. To Atsugewi thunder was the shouting of an old man who wears a rabbit skin and who goes about looking for women whom he kills. Mountain Maidu thought it to be due to an old man who lives up above and who was once a boy on earth, but who had been sent away because he was too fast and ate everything in sight. How he made the noise we do not know.
Also, according to Dixon, “Thunder is thought to be a man or boy of miraculous abilities. He eats trees chiefly. ”

“ New Atsugewi parents had a unique ritual at the time of their first meat eating after the taboos of childbirth—they chewed small amounts of meat and put this on their toes for the dogs to eat.
Garth says of Atsugewi spirit beliefs: “A man who was about to die, whether he felt sick or not, had a peculiar odor about him. If he went hunting, deer ran from him saying, ‘Phew, that man smells bad.’ Coyotes and dogs would come close to him and bark at him. He would die unless a shaman could remove this aura of death from him.” ”

“ Of course it is an over-simplification to speak of one-food tribes, for all ate quite a variety of foods. Yet, it is true that several cultures had been built upon the great abundance and importance of one particular food item as compared to all other foods eaten. North of California, Indians built their culture largely upon the salmon. To the east were tribes which depended upon the bison for most of their needs, and southeast of California the Southwest Indians built their culture around the all important maize or native corn. ”

“ Our viewpoint on such matters in the past has all too often been that might makes right, since we have always been on the winning side. Until very recently we have followed the biased opinion of the colonists and pioneers of these United States: whenever we won, it was a glorious and righteous victory, but if the Indian emerged victorious, it was regarded as a dastardly massacre. It is a viewpoint readily understandable where a person’s loved ones are involved—but not justifiable. ”

“ Yana thought the constellation we call the Belt of Orion was Coyote’s arrow. All local tribes believed the Milky Way to be a road, or river in some cases, which was traveled by departing spirits or souls of the dead. Shooting or Falling stars, (more properly meteorites) presaged good weather to the Atsugewi who thought these were torches carried by spirits from one house to another in the sky. For this tribe too, a single conspicuous star—no doubt a planet—seen near the moon was an evil sign. If the star were on the left someone nearby would die soon ”

“ The fire was built high with dry mountain mahogany ..., pine ..., and sometimes with willow ..., all woods which burned without much smoke; the ventilator door was closed and the dance began. The one singer sat in a corner and beat time with a split stick rattle.... Each of ten or twelve dancers might approach close to the fire to show his ability to endure heat, pick up burning brands, one in each hand, and alternately hit one upper arm and then the other with the brands. The heat often became so intense that water had to be thrown on the center post to prevent its catching fire. ”

“ Whirlwinds were generally regarded as evil omens which sickened people with bad dreams and captured peoples’ shadows or spirits. Indians tried to dodge or hide from them. They spoke informally to whirlwinds. Mountain Maidu said that they put pains into people. Whenever possible, Maidu smoked tobacco when talking to whirlwinds. Atsugewi threw dirt and water at the dust devils in an effort to destroy them. Yana did likewise, but they did not believe that spirits were inside of whirlwinds. ”

“ Then, as all local Indians apparently agreed, the ghost or spirit went to a distant place in the west via the Milky Way. Yana thought that there was some distinction in destination of good and bad persons’ ghosts, but our other tribes conceived only of one place for all spirits finally. We do not today have a very clear understanding of the aboriginal Indian concept of heaven except that people lived in this land of the dead in sweat houses, hunting, eating, loving, and sleeping, but with complete absence of sickness. ”

“ Also the spirit on occasion left a person voluntarily if it didn’t like the body, as for instance, if it smelled badly. When a person’s spirit or soul were gone, only the heart was left to keep him alive, and he would succumb easily to the first sickness. For this reason, Atsugewi shamans periodically examined all the people to see if any spirits were missing. When anyone was found lacking his spirit, the shaman had to work to bring it back, sucking it into the person’s head. If several spirits were missing at once, it was not easy to get the right spirit back into its own body. ”

“ Each tribe in the Lassen area had the all important Sucking Shaman. Atsugewi and mountain Maidu also had special Bear, Rattlesnake, and Weather Shamans while only Yana had Singing Shamans in addition.
The power of shamans was much more potent than mere “luck” which came easily to the majority of ordinary mortals in dreams, 167 during puberty ceremonies, and the like. This “luck” was a weak supernatural blessing which was not sought, but came voluntarily and gave the person skill and success in crafts and daily pursuits such as fishing, hunting certain animals or birds, canoe making, et cetera. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Atsugewi chiefs seem to have possessed greater prestige and authority than those of the mountain Maidu, the Yana, and the Yahi. The decisions of Atsugewi chiefs were final, but these had to be diplomatic if the chief were to remain popular. If a chief were unpopular some of his people would move to another village leaving the first chief’s community numerically weaker. Chiefs were generally well obeyed by rich and poor alike. ”

“ Shamans were men of influence in the village, with prestige second only to that of the chief. Women shamans were uncommon and usually possessed less potent power. The life of a shaman was precarious because if he failed to effect a high percentage of cures or if he were “proven” responsible for sending pains which caused death to persons, he might be killed—sometimes even with the advance approval of the chief, and without retaliation by the offending shaman’s relatives. ”

“ The Yana way of life was a strange one to the white observer, but the tribes prospered under it until white emigration from the East threw them into conflict with a new and unfriendly people. The Indians, of course, resented the white incursion and revolted against it. That happened in all sections of the country where whites displaced Indians, but it would be hard to imagine a more inept way of handling the situation than that used by the white men in the Sacramento Valley. Some of the large land owners protected the Indians of their holdings ”

“ There are examples in California; the local one is the survival of valley Maidu and Wintun populations as compared to the surrounding mountain people with poorer cultures: the Yahi, Yana, Okwanuchu, Shasta, New River Shasta, Chimariko, and the Athabascan tribes of the west with survival percentages today of up to only 5% at best.
There is another factor which caused greater devastation of the economically insecure mountain tribes. White settlers were able to use to their own advantage some of the labor, services, and even food which the valley Indians afforded them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus it was not to the interest of the whites to wipe out these Indians. On the other hand, the mountain tribes with a poorer economy were prone to steal livestock to supplement their food supplies as they had no means to gain wealth to enable them to buy from the whites. Such depredations were a major cause of retaliation by white man in the form of bloody punitive attacks on Indians from whom the settlers had nothing to gain. ”

“ These potential human beings had been made “... as tiny wooden figures by the Creator, and planted here and there in pairs, that they might grow in secret and safety during the time of monsters and great conflicts....” ”

“ 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 common bark hut dwelling of the Yana was apparently built 65 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. ”

“ 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. ”