Acorn gathering occured in the autumn and was a community activity supported with a wide variety of ceremonies, which will be described in a later chapter. Typically, the early fall of acorns was ignored since these were usually insect infested; then the second, heavy fall was harvested about a month later. Men and older boys often climbed into the larger trees to shake the acorns loose, while women and children gathered the fallen acorns from the ground. The acorns were carried in conically shaped burden baskets, some finely woven and decorated with patterns and others merely in wicker style.

One of the virtues of the acorn, as a staple food source, was its sturdy shell; because of this shell and the gradual dehydration that it allowed, acorns could be stored in large granaries through the year and withdrawn for further processing as needed. Needless to say, the granaries had to be weatherproofed and protected against the invasions of insects and other animals. Insects were usually repelled by lining the granary with various leaves (such as bay laurel or wormwood) and herbs; rodents were discouraged with bark lining; and larger animals were usually excluded by building the granaries on stilts or placing them otherwise out of reach.

Heizer and Elsasser reported that a large oak tree could yield about 500 pounds of acorns. A family of Indians (perhaps six people average) could harvest more than a ton of acorns in a full day's work. The average household granary is likely to have stored more than 2.5 tons of acorns, and the nutritional yield from this would be 5636 kcal. per person per day throughout the year, more than the body required. Harvesting usually continued for several weeks and a single family may have harvested as many as seventeen tons, far more than needed personally; but the acorn crop needed to be re-distributed throughout the village.

All acorns contain some tannic acid and most contain quite a bit. To be eaten the meal must be processed to eliminate the tannin, and this was done by passing large amounts of cool water through it. Acorns were removed from the granary and the shells, now hardened by dehydration, were split by hammering the blossom end with a rock. (If needed, acorns could be dried more quickly by allowing them to sit out in the sun or by warming them in a wicker basket over a fire.) The acorn meat was split and the fiberous sheath discarded. The cream colored meats were then hammered with a rock pestle until fine enough. Acorns were not ground since their high content of oil will emerge under pressure, yielding something like peanut butter. As pounded proceeded, new acorn meats were added. Periodically, the whole mixture was sieved, using a basket or tray, and the fine meal was put aside. This whole process was achieved usually with a rock mortar and pestle; sometimes the mortar depression was in bedrock. Often, women used a basketry hopper (a bottomless conical basket) cemented around the mortar depression with asphaltum or pine pitch in order to keep the acorns from flying out during the pounding process.

The leaching process was almost universally achieved by placing the meal in a sand "basin" built up above ground, shaped somewhat like a very wide-mouthed volcano, usually lining it with leaves and covering it with small branches to provide even flow, pouring successive portions of spring water over it. The leached edible acorn meal could be baked into cakes or mixed with warm water to provide a porridge or mush. Dried (often ground) meats could be added to the mush to provide greater nutrition and diverse tastes; also, various berries or fruits could be added for sweatening and taste. A "bread" was prepared by molding an acorn paste (mixed with a tiny amount of red clay) into a two-inch thick loaf and baking it wrapped in a leaf jacket overnight. The baked product was jet black but had the consistency of soft cheese and had sweatened somewhat by the conversion of starch to sugar. This bread would harden in a few days and could be carried easily while traveling.

Other Staple Grains

There were, of course, some areas of California where oak trees did not grow and where the trip involved in finding acorns was too taxing and unprofitable. While people dwelling in these areas often traded for acorns, they needed alternative staple grains or nuts. Two of the most important groups of people, in this category, were those living to the east of the Sierra crest and those living in the desert regions of Southern California.

The staple food for people in the Great Basin regions east of the Sierra was the pine nut, especially the nut of the single-needle piñon pine, or pinus monophillia. Piñon pines are especially prevalent in the foothill areas east of the Sierras, though they are also present occasionally in the foothills of the southern deserts. Compared with the black oak, in Table #3, piñon nuts have the same amount of protein but three times the amount of fat and only a third the amount of carbohydrate.

Pine nuts were harvested in the late summer or very early autumn as the pine cones began to drop. This too was a significant social occasion, and the stands of pines were sacred territory. Piñon cones, which are small, hard, and pitch covered, were knocked off the relatively small trees with a long harvesting pole, shaped with a hooked end for this purpose. The cones had to be beaten and were sometimes roasted near a fire in order to open them and allow removal of the nuts. Piñon nuts are covered with a sturdy brown shell, similar in quality to the acorn shell, and have to be roasted in order to harden this shell so that it can be easily cracked. Roasting was achieved by rocking the nuts back-and-forth and flipping them in a large basketry tray, or winnowing tray, with hot coals from the fire. Once roasted, the shells were lightly cracked on a metate or mortar, exposing the blonde colored nuts. The shell fragments were winnowed away.

Unlike acorns, pine nuts needed no chemical processing; they could be eaten raw. Commonly, they were roasted further, ground into a fine meal, and eaten in the form of a mush. Like acorn mush, this could become the basis of a more substantial meal by addition of ground dried meats. Roasted pine nuts could be stored for later consumption; and large baskets, sacks, or ollas were used for this purpose.

While the pine nut harvest was an essential staple to those living east of the Sierras, we should not ignore the fact that pine nuts were gathered, processed, and eaten by almost all Californians. Where piñon pines did not occur, there were other pine trees to be exploited.

In most of the Southern California desert regions, pines are rare and occur only in the higher surrounding mountains. For these people mesquite beans and screwbeans (both of the genus prosopis) acquired comparable importance to that of the acorn as a staple food. Compared to barley, the honey mesquite bean has similar protein and fat content and only slightly less carbohydrate value. Like pine nuts, the mesquite bean required no chemical processing to make it edible. In fact, the crop was utilized at three times of the year. Blossoms were harvested in spring; the green newly formed beans were harvested in early summer; and the ripe, dried bean pods were harvested in early autumn. All were eaten.

Blossoms were roasted somewhat, until sticky, and were rolled into balls which were eaten. The green beans were pounded into a pulpy mass in a wooden mortar made of a large mesquite stump hollowed out. The aqueous mass could be stored in an olla (where it may have fermented slightly) and was drunk throughout the summer. The dried pods could be stored in granaries for use throughout the year. They could be eaten whole but were more commonly ground with a Southwestern style stone mano and metate to produce a meal. The bean meal was usually first molded into a thick cake which could be eaten directly but could also be reduced to a mush later.

These were the basics in California diet, like bread and hot cereals in our own diet; everything else was additional. And there was very much more. Virtually every locale included a multitude of flowering plants and grasses whose seeds were harvested, stored in large baskets or pottery jugs (in the South), and ground into fine flours that could be added to mush to produce special flavors or used otherwise. In addition, many green plants were selected as vegetable stock, in season, and bulbs or tubors were harvested all over the state. For example, the desert Indians were especially dependent on the various subspecies of agave (century plant); and virtually all parts of the plant could be eaten at some time during the year.

Mammals and Birds

Native Californians hunted mammals and birds, but neither could be called a staple food. Hunting was usually seasonal and, while meats could be dried, salted, or smoked, they were rarely so plentiful that a supply would sustain people throughout the year, until the next season. Availability was strongly dependent on the locality.

Large game animals, such as bear, mountain lions, and bighorn sheep, were available in the state, though they were not hunted commonly. The Grizzly bear was more often a competitor and adversary than an object of exploitation. Along the Pacific Coast sea mammals could be hunted on nearby rocks; however, this activity was highly localized.

California's indigenous people did hunt deer, commonly and successfully. Heizer and Elsasser report that deer covered more than half of the state and may have numbered around 1.25 million. If so, Natives could have utilized only one tenth of the deer population annually and acquired a pound of venison per person per day, far in excess of actual need.

With the exception of a throwing stick, used for small game, the bow-and-arrow was the hunting weapon. But the bow-and-arrow was limited in range and accuracy so the hunter had to know an animal's behaviors very well and employ that knowledge to bring himself within acceptable range. One had to know when animals would be feeding and where they usually found food and water. One had to note wind directions and control sounds. Men often wore a deer's head mask in order to sneak through brush to a place among grazing deer and from which one or more could be easily shot. The hunting of deer was taken very seriously, and a man usually followed strict precautions beforehand --- abstaining from sexual relations, cleasing himself spiritually, and caring for equipment. It was not uncommon for a hunter to wait long hours next to an animal track leading to water. But individual deer could also be shot in larger groups, browsing low brushy plants.

Next in size were tule elk and antelope, mostly found east of the Sierras. Antelope, in particular, are so fast and easily stirred up that they had to be hunted cooperatively and usually by herding them into some kind of trap. Antelope, who were known to be curious, could also be attracted to investigate some object, like a banner, placed in their usual ranging territory. Most hunters knew a whole range of sounds or calls that would attract the animals they hunted.

Small mammals, such as wood rats, squirrels, and rabbits, were found throughout the state and were hunted regularly. Rabbit populations were often so large as to allow "rabbit drives" which were cooperative hunting expeditions in which large numbers of rabbits might be driven out of a large plain, directed into nets or enclosures, and killed with beating sticks. As we will see in a later chapter, rabbits were so abundant in some areas that the skins were cut into strips which were twisted into a thick yarn and, then, woven into blankets.

The meat from large game animals was butchered, usually into strips, and dried or smoked. Ocassionally, freshly butchered meat was roasted and eaten directly. Drying racks, with meat strips hung over long horizontal poles, was a common sight. Dried meat was usually eaten like jerky or ground into a meal that was added to mush; it was not usually re-hydrated. Rodents were frequently skinned, crushed, and stirred into cooking mush to provide a protein rich meal.

Bird populations were large in pre-Columbian California and can be divided into two groups --- range birds and waterfowl. Range birds occured throughout the state and the most common of all was the State Bird, the California Valley Quail, accompanied by several related species. Quail could be shot with a small-game arrow, using a sharpened hard-wood tip; they could be struck with a throwing stick, somewhat like a boomerang; they could be snared with a tripped noose, usually where a trail passed through an obstruction, like rocks or brush; and they could be trapped, using a wicker funnel-shaped basket, also positioned along a small trail. Quail were skinned, roasted, and eaten. Their feathers were commonly used decorations, especially prominent in some basketry styles (the Pomo in particular).

While the Pacific Flyway covers the entire length of the state, on both sides of the Sierras, waterfowl were commonly hunted only in areas where bays, lakes, marshes, and larger rivers provided birds safe landings and feeding spots. Again, while waterfowl could be shot with hard-wood arrows, this was not the primary means of hunting them. By far more common were techniques of netting the birds. Nets could be positioned in areas neighboring watering and feeding zones where birds were likely to fly out if startled. Once snared in the nets, the birds could be killed with beating sticks. Waterfowl were often attracted to land in hunting areas by floating decoys made of tules woven into appropriate forms. Again, waterfowl feathers were used in decorations, especially headdresses.

Natives also utilized a wide variety of insects, from larvae and worms to grasshoppers. Grasshoppers were especially plentiful in some regions and might be flushed from a field by burning it off, capturing them in a large hole prepared downwind, where they would instinctively take cover, only to become overwhelmed by the heat.

It should be noted that certain animals were virtually never hunted and were even "protected" by taboos. Snakes and lizards were among these; but most notable, perhaps, was the coyote. When asked, a Native would typically suggest that the coyote's meat was foul because of its diet of scavanged meat. However, when we consider the complex roles of coyote as a figure in creation myths and other Native narratives, it seems reasonable to believe that there were other extenuating circumstances. The bear, too, was approached with caution, as an object of hunting, since it was not commonly thought that a shaman might take the form of a bear.

Fish and Shellfish

Rarely were either fish or shellfish considered staple foods. The salmon was the single exception to this generalization and was clearly the staple food for almost all of the riverine people of Northern California. Also, people of the southern coast thrived on fish and shellfish in abundance. Almost all Californians outside of the southern deserts depended heavily on fish; Powers estimated that fish constituted as much as 28% of their diet.

Fish were taken from three different environments, the ocean, inland lakes, and rivers. Rivers can be divided further into those that flow into the ocean and those that merely flow into inland basins. The importance of the distinction is that salmon and stealhead were common in all rivers connected to the ocean; in other rivers there were only freshwater trout. By far the majority of California rivers flowed into the ocean, including almost all of the rivers of the Western Sierra, which connected with the ocean through the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers and San Francisco Bay. The Kings River and the Kern River, however, flowed into a basin lake system at the south end of San Joaquin Valley; and the creeks and rivers of the Eastern Sierra all flowed into inland lake basins. One of the exceptional river-lake systems was the Truckee River which flowed out of the eastern Sierra into Lake Tahoe and, then, out of Tahoe and down into Truckee Meadow, where it ultimately flowed northeast into Pyramid Lake in Western Nevada. This system was utilized by both the Washo and the Northern Paiutes; and since Tahoe was such a deep lake, there were actually seasonal runs of trout and land-locked salmon in the creeks and rivers flowing into it.

Fishing was accomplished by using a wide variety of hooks-and-lines, harpoons, nets, and traps. Wicker traps were especially useful in small creeks and were designed so that fish would swim upstream into a funnel-shaped opening into a larger basket from which it was very difficult to return downstream. Nets could be set out everywhere, in larger rivers, lakes, and in the ocean; but triangular-shaped dipping nets, with very long handles, were used in many locations where Natives could fish from a platform on a shoreline or along a river. In one variation, these long dipping nets were used to catch salmon on larger rivers; while in another variation, dipping nets with shorter handles and larger nets were used in the ocean surf to catch large amounts of small fish, such as grunion and smelt. Harpoons were built on long poles with two or three prongs made of sharpened hardwood or bone; they too were commonly used from platforms overlooking rivers or lakeshores. A harpoon might be rigged with a detachable shank attached to the harpoon shaft with a length of cording, allowing the snared fish more freedom of movement before being lifted out of the water. Coastal Natives manufactured hooks and even flashers, or lures, from shells (usually abalone), though bone hooks could be used as well.

In the northwestern riverine communities, salmon was a staple food and salmon fishing was a cooperative activity. The Hupa, for instance, annually built a salmon dam, or weir, across the Trinity River, allowing them to fish the river's full width. Since there were several heavy runs each year, every community was able to put away enough salmon to supply them for the whole year. Californians of this region, like their close cultural neighbors in the entire Northwest, learned to smoke fish by hanging them in the rafters of their wooden plank houses so that the fish meat kept for a long period of time without spoilage. At other times, freshly caught salmon were simply split open, fitted into a simple wooden frame, staked next to a hot fire, and roasted.

For others in the state, fishing was a hand-to-mouth activity; or fish were dried for use within a very limited time frame. Fish were eaten in a wide variety of ways --- barbequed at fireside, baked, fried on rock grills, smoked, dried as fish jerky, and ground/pulverized and (yes) added to mush.

In addition to fish, the ocean environment also offered a wide variety of shellfish and mollusks. Virtually all Natives who lived along the coast harvested shellfish and mollusks, as demonstrated by huge shell mounds that have been discovered at habitation sites. Analysis of these mounds shows not only that shellfish were eaten in great quantity but also that virtually every variety of shellfish was utilized.

Agriculture

Throughout this discussion, nothing whatsoever has been said about agriculture. The vast majority of California's indigenous people were sufficiently supplied by their natural environments so that resorting to special technologies --- beyond simply hunting, fishing, and gathering --- was entirely unnecessary. The single exception to this rule was the eastern desert region where the lack of natural foods, the fortuitous wealth of water provided by the Colorado River, and the cultural connections with Southwestern agriculturalists created a small group of California pre-Columbian farmers.

In spite of the fact that few Californians were forced into agriculture, there is clear evidence that most California Indians nurtured certain plants in ways that they understood to favor improved growth and productivity. Grasses could be burned off, after they had dried and seeds had been harvested, so that they would re-grow productively during the following year. A burning could be combined with a rabbit hunt or taking of grasshoppers. Burning brush in upland areas kept trees healthy, for acorn and pine nut harvests, but also provided fresh growth for deer browsing. Californians also pruned certain plants in order to improve the quality of growth. This activity was especially important for basketry resources but also applied to providing straight lengths of willow for arrow shafts. There is even strong evidence east of the Sierra, especially in Owens Valley, that the growth of desirable grasses was enhanced, annually, by irrigation. Creeks flowing down the eastern slopes of the Sierra were dammed and irrigation canals were constructed, fanning outward to cover the widest possible downstream growing areas. (Blackburn and Anderson, 1993)

Where agriculture did exist, along the Colorado in the eastern-most desert regions, local Indians followed Southwestern agricultural customs that had been in development for millenia. In fact, agriculture began in Central America and Mexico as early as 5500 BP. Maize (corn) evolved from a native grass, teosinte, which was hybridized into hundreds of species suitable to diverse microclimates. Around 4000 BP, along with many other changes taking place in the West, maize agriculture gradually moved northward along the Sierra Madre of the Mexican highlands and into the Mogollon Rim of the Southwest. However, the arrival of maize does not seem to have affected Southwestern material cultures greatly until around 2500 BP. At that time, along with the arrival of beans and squash, agriculture became the focus of cultural life, leading to the distinctiveness of Anasazi and Freemont cultures. Throughout the period 2500 - 1500 BP, agriculture expanded into the Southwest and the Great Basin, though the agriculturalists of the Colorado River, who learned to grow maize, squash, beans, peppers, etc., still did not build extensive villages like their cultural benefactors to the east. Agriculture, of course, required commitment to the land and the preparation and maintenance of irrigation canals. For California's desert people, it meant freedom from hunting and gathering in their bleak ecosystem.

This concludes our discussion of the quest for food. As one can see, California was a richly endowed environment and Natives utilized it thoroughly. In a very general way, if we merely added fish and deer meat to the basic seed and grain crops discussed, it is clear that California Natives enjoyed an exceptionally varied and healthful diet. Since food stands so high in importance in human survival, it seems inevitable that the quest for food should determine many social institutions and involve many ceremonial and ritual traditions. This was certainly the case in California, and it will figure heavily in later chapters and in our detailed discussions of several tribes.

Bean, Lowell John and Katherine Siva Saubel. Temalpakh: Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants (Morongo Reservation, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1972)

Blackburn, Thomas C. and Kat Anderson. Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1993)

Heizer, Robert F. and Albert B. Elsasser. The Natural World of the California Indians (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980)

Ortiz, Bev. It Will Live Forever: Traditional Yosemite Indian Acorn Preparation (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1991)

Pavlik, Bruce M., Pamela C. Muick, Sharon G. Johnson, and Marjorie Popper. Oaks of California (Los Olivos, CA: Cachuma Press, 1991)

Simpson, Richard. Ooti: A Maidu Legacy (Milbrae, CA: Celestial Arts, 1977)

Wheat, Margaret M. Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1967)