Indians of Lassen Volcanic National Park and Vicinity

by Paul E. Schulz

Nuts of digger pine and sugar pine were highly regarded as food. Men climbed trees and picked digger pine cones or shook limbs to dislodge sugar pine cones. The cones were placed on end and covered with dry grass which was burned, ridding the cones of pitch. After this heat treatment, sugar pine nuts came out easily when cone scales were pulled back. After singeing the heavy digger pine cones were hit with rocks to obtain the large nuts they contained.

The white sweet crusty deposit occasionally found on the bark of sugar pines was relished as candy by Atsugewi. However, it had a laxative property which mountain Maidu recognized and reputedly employed as such.

A variety of small plant seeds also provided tasty nutrition. Several members of the sunflower family including balsam root species and mules ears, and others were used by all local tribes. Such seeds were usually collected by beating them with paddle-shaped basketry seed beaters into burden baskets. They were then parched with coals in flat trays, placed in flat baskets and worked about with stones until freed of skins. Seeds were winnowed by tossing them up allowing wind to carry hulls and skins away. The seeds were then pulverized with a small stone or muller, being rolled or rubbed on a larger rock slab generally referred to as a metate. Such seeds were eaten dry by Atsugewi, Yana, and Yahi without grinding, or the flour might be moistened and molded into cakes about the size of biscuits and eaten without further cooking. However, Yana also cooked certain sunflower seeds and the yellow blossoming heads of the small (Helianthella) sunflower were themselves cooked and eaten.

Clover tops were collected in summer and eaten fresh by all local tribes. Mountain Maidu also baked them in earth pit ovens, then dried and stored the material to be recooked in winter for making soup. Atsugewi cooked clover roots in ovens. Young thistle stalks were eaten raw as was the foliage of several carrot-like plants. Mushrooms, fresh, roasted, or dried were eaten also. Young soap-plant stems were eaten fresh or baked and dried for winter use by Yana tribes.

Manzanita berries were gathered by all Indians of the Lassen region in July and August. These berries were knocked into burden baskets with a stick. They were dried, stored in pits, pounded when needed, and sifted as fine meal. This was moistened and molded into biscuit-sized cakes and put away until wanted. Either fresh flour or the cakes were eaten plain or put into water and drunk. One investigator reported fermentation of manzanita cider and its use as a mild intoxicant, but this appears to have been the exception rather than the rule. The drink, of lemonade-like character, was usually consumed fresh. Manzanita cider was conveyed to the mouth by dipping a deer tail sop into the liquid, and then by sucking it. Small cakes were made of a mixture of manzanita and wild plum flours. Yana and Yahi also ate manzanita berries as such either fresh, or roasted and dried.

Red berries of skunk or squaw bush were gathered in midsummer, washed, dried, and stored. They were pounded into flour in a mortar basket, mixed with manzanita flour and drunk. Elderberries were mashed and mixed with manzanita flour and stored as cakes.

Wild plums were prepared by removing seeds. These were then eaten fresh or dried for storage.

Chokecherries and service berries were put into baskets when ripe and mashed. The paste was eaten without cooking.

Gooseberries, huckleberries, currants, Oregon-grape, buckthorn, juniper, thimble, and elderberries were eaten fresh, too, but juniper fruits might be dried and pounded into flour and stored.

Another item used as food was salt which mountain Maidu and Yana gathered locally in mineral form. The Atsugewi also imported it from Round Mountain in North Yana territory or made expeditions to this site to gather the dark salt material from a certain marsh. This salty earth was shaped into black loaves and dried. It was not only used for flavoring, but the black soil was also eaten as such by some individuals. Atsugewi had a local source of salt, however, by collecting fine whitish crystals in the early mornings from the blades of salt grass which was run between the fingers. Atsugewi used salt for salmon and venison in cooking, but not in drying processes.