Drills for boring holes in shell work and for making pipes and the like were used by Atsugewi only. Such drills were wooden shafts with stone points. These were rotated by rolling the shaft between the palms of the hands. Where the drill was not in use, holes were made in pieces of wood with live coals. Sometimes unfinished clamshell money was received in trade perhaps at a discount. Such pieces were strung tightly onto a cord and the whole string was then rolled between two flat stones thus grinding the shell edges to make the well formed disks characteristic of clam shell money.
Soap-root fiber acorn meal brush about 6 inches long (after Dixon)
A lava pestle, flat ended food pounder, about 10 inches long
Fire making drills were of greater importance. All local tribes employed them. Those of this area were one-piece hand rotated affairs which did not utilize the labor saving drill bow of the midwest. A long buckeye wood stick about half an inch thick was twirled on a notched block of incense-cedar or juniper wood. A bed of dry shredded grass and incense-cedar or other flammable tinder was used to nourish the spark into flame. Both sexes made fire among the Yana and Yahi, but unless the men were away, Atsugewi and mountain Maidu women did not make fire. Buckeye was uncommon or lacking in the areas of the latter tribes, so this material had to be traded from the Yana and Yahi. Buckeye fire making sticks commanded quite a price, a piece two feet long often selling for ten completed arrows. Since fire making required much effort and skill, fire was rarely allowed to go out. A “slow match” consisting of a piece of punky wood in which the fire smouldered was usually carried along.
Maidu bone awls or basket “needles” about 6 inches long
It was as true in prehistoric America as it is today that weapons were essential to existence. Weapons were necessary not only for warfare—whether aggressive or defensive—but for the securing of game for food since domestication of animals was not practiced.
The bow and arrow was the only important weapon of California Indians. Local bows were rather short and quite broad in cross-section. We quote Garth’s “Atsugewi Ethnography” on the subject as follows: