Tattooing was occasionally done by Yana, but not as commonly as among Atsugewi where women not infrequently wore tattooed vertical lines across their mouths. Both sexes commonly tattooed their cheeks with horizontal lines or with two or three lines radiating from the corners of the mouth. Arms and legs were also tattooed to a certain extent. The mutilation was done by rubbing charcoal into cuts which had been made with stone knives or by rubbing charcoal on the skin and then pricking it with bone awls or porcupine quills. However, even among Atsugewi, tattooing was by no means universal. Mountain Maidu women were sometimes tattooed with three, five, or seven vertical lines on the chin.
Earrings were worn by nearly all men and women. Atsugewi employed bone rings, clamshell beads, feathers and even painted ear ornaments. Mountain Maidu and Yana usually used bone or wooden ones, plain or decorated with feathers or shells. Abalone, like other sea shells, were received only in trade and were fashioned into pendants for ears or noses.
Nose piercing consisted of making a hole through the septum of the nose. This practice was popular among all local tribes. It was done to permit the wearing of jewelry although Yana ascribed a deeper meaning to the custom as well. They believed that no person would go to his equivalent of heaven unless the nose septum was pierced. Hence this was done to the dead and a stick inserted if it had not been done in life. Two-pointed bone nose-pins were popular inserts as were long narrow dentalium shells, or nose pendants of beads. Only among mountain Maidu were nose ornaments highly decorated.
Portion of Atsugewi (probably) necklace of dentalium shells (one and one fourth inches long) and glass trader beads.
Maidu necklaces: bear claw and insect perforated acorn.
Atsugewi necklace of clamshell disks and digger pine nuts which are a full half inch long.
Necklaces were common adornments too, but local tribes did not use bracelets. Items used for necklaces were perhaps bear teeth and bear claws among Atsugewi and Yana. More commonly, certainly, and used by all of our tribes were olivella shells, shaped pieces of abalone shells, small animal and bird bone rings or tubes, clamshell discs, long tooth-shells (dentalia), and Digger Pine nuts which had been parched until blackened. Their ends had then been rubbed off or holes bored through ends or sides and cleaned out. Yana also made mussel shell disks locally, not only for necklaces but as ear pendants. In later years all tribes used glass trader beads, usually interspersed with native items.