When yellow-jackets, always carnivorous (meat eaters), were seen buzzing about, Atsugewi would tie a white flower petal to a grasshopper leg. When the yellow-jacket picked this morsel up and flew away with it toward its nest, the Indians would run after the yellow-jacket which was easy to follow on account of the conspicuous flower petal it carried along. Thus yellow-jacket nests were found. A line was marked around the nest area with the fingers. This line was supposed to increase the size of the nest. Pine needles were then stacked over the nest and burned to kill the winged insects. This done, the nest was dug up and roasted alongside a fire, thus cooking the maggot-like grubs inside. These were considered to be quite a delicacy. According to Dixon, mountain Maidu young folks were denied this delicacy, but not so among the Yana. Dried grasshoppers, crickets, and yellow-jacket larvae were foods often used as items of trade.
Angleworms were collected by first driving a digging stick a few inches into the moist soil, then moving the top about. The consequent disturbing of the ground made the worms crawl out. Although other California tribes made angleworm soup, Atsugewi, Yana, and probably Yahi sometimes roasted angleworms between hot rocks. Maidu reportedly dried worms for eating.
Red ant eggs were eaten by Indians too. Atsugewi baked them in earth pit ovens, while mountain Maidu parched them with coals. Mountain Maidu also ate certain caterpillars, but the other tribes of the Lassen area did not.
A. Sharpened iron rod digging stick with pine cross piece wrapped in coarse cotton cloth used for about forty years by Mrs. Mullen of Hat Creek. Length about four feet.
B. Another recent mountain mahogany digging stick made by Mr. and Mrs. Lyman LaMarr (Boonookoo-ee-menorra). The point of the green wood was toughened in flame. Stick three and one half feet long.
Indians of this region did not carry on any agriculture, that is they did not plant crops for food or other purposes, but collected those which grew wild. It was, however, a common practice to burn some areas over regularly to stimulate growth of edible seed producing plants. Women always gathered the vegetable materials and prepared them for use.
Roots and bulbs provided vital foods to the aborigines also. These were procured with a digging stick. In this region it was blunt at the top with a tapered point at the digging end. Atsugewi fastened a short cross piece on top to serve as a handle. The digging stick was made by this tribe of green mountain-mahogany wood with the digging point hardened by scorching in the flame. After the coming of white man, the same design was retained, but an iron rod replaced the mountain-mahogany digging shaft.
In use, the digging stick was thrust into the ground next to the plant whose root was to be secured. The handle portion was worked sideways a couple of times, then pulled downward toward the operator. The point very effectively brought the root out of the ground. Roots were customarily tossed into a large cone-shaped carrying basket which was held in place on the digging woman’s back by a chest band over her chest. Some of the load in the basket might also be supported by a band from the basket over the Indian woman’s forehead.
Roots were cleaned by rubbing (sometimes with sand) in a shallow bowl-shaped basket of a rough coarse mesh weave of willow ribs, like that used for cleaning acorns. The whole was dipped in water frequently. Rubbing usually continued until the skins were entirely removed.