Plan of Maidu open basketry fish trap (after Dixon) several feet long. The pointed end was untied to extract the fish.
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.
Atsugewi basketry fish trap (after Garth).
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.