(Yana) guts
(Atsugewi) skunk’s ear
Beautifully made basketry caps for women, finely twined, spreading bowl-shaped affairs were made by all tribes of the Lassen area. These were nicely decorated on the bottoms—or rather tops—as well as on the sides, a feature lacking on all other types of local baskets. Another unique feature of the basketry cap was the fact that the inside of the hat was abraded by rubbing so that none of the pattern remained visible because all of the overlay on the inside had been worn away. It is suspected that this made the inside of the hat less slippery on the hair so that it did not slip off the head so easily. Removal of the decoration from the inside of the basketry cap in no way altered the appearance or permanence of the outside decorative patterns.
Mats were woven of viscid bulrush, more commonly called tule stalks (Scirpus lacustris or acutus). According to Voegelin, Atsugewi sometimes sewed these together by piercing them with bone needles. However the more usual method of manufacture was that of lashing together the ends of parallel tule stalks laid next to each other. This was done with double cords or strands in the regular simple twining manner which shows up well in the sketch of Atsugewi tule leggings. Such mats were extensively used as bed mats or mattresses, as earth wall coverings, as doorway and ventilator hole hangings, and so on by all of the tribes of the Lassen region. Mountain Maidu also employed broad-leaved cat-tail (Typha latifolia) or narrow-leaved cat-tail (Typha angustifolia) for such purposes on occasion. This tribe also appears to have used a string weft in making at least some of the mats.
Chapter XII
TANNING, CORDAGE, AND GLUE
Mountain Maidu buried bear skins in wet ground, but hides generally were soaked about a week in water by local Indians. Mountain Maidu used ashes to help dehair skins other than deer, but this was not a practice common to other tribes. Stone, or more frequently, shaped deer rib or pelvic bones were used as dehairing scraper tools on skins. The hide was draped over an inclined post and was soaked and squeezed occasionally during the process of scraping.
The tanning agent was a cooked soup of animal brains, particularly those of deer. This material might first have been mashed, mixed with dry moss, and then molded into small cakes for drying and storage. The deer brain agent was well rubbed into the cleaned, soaked skin. It was then allowed to soak overnight in the tanning solution. The next day while drying the skin in the sun, the operator stretched and worked the hide with his hands to make it soft and pliable.
Among Atsugewi the skin was then smoked over a fire of moist rotten logs or green juniper boughs burning in a shallow pit. The skin was laid on a domed framework of willow branches arched over the fire. The hide was turned occasionally to insure uniform treatment. Mr. Garth believes that this smoking process was recently learned. It was not generally practiced by neighboring tribes, but produced superior buckskin which resisted stiffening as a result of subsequent wetting. Even Atsugewi did not smoke other skins.
