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.
Atsugewi Bow-type net. This kind was usually used in small streams where it covered the full width of the stream bed. Fish were commonly driven into it, then the handle was raised.
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.
A northeast Maidu bow-fish net about forty inches long. It was used for fish other than salmon. Northwest and southern Maidu did not use such nets, employing seine nets instead (after Dixon).
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.