Page 35 - Fall2012

tion in the landscape. As native peoples managed of hot coals. Then the hide might or might not Cooked yellow
their landscapes for the plants they valued, they be removed. The head was cut off and the ribs
were also managing for the benefit of animals. extracted along with the other large bones. The jacket larvae
Indian-set fires increased forage available for body was then pounded, bones and all, until it are described
large grazing animals. Karuk elder Georgia was fine and crumbly.” as tasting like
Orcutt told anthropologist Edward Gifford in
1940 that the scarcity of deer in the Orleans area BIRDS AND REPTILES sweet corn.
of northwestern California then was due to the Many kinds of birds were eaten including
lack of fires, which formerly burned brush and mourning doves, band-tailed pigeons, gulls,
encouraged the growth of grass. Studies have grebes, blue grouse, mud hens, sage hens, quail,
shown that with pruning or burning, numbers sandhill cranes and a great variety of ducks and
of larger game animals increase. geese. The late Felix Icho, Wukchumni, de-
scribed how to cook quail: "We used to make a
MAMMALS soup out of quail. You pull the feathers off. Dip
Large mammals that were hunted for their the bird in water and the feathers come off better.
meat included tule and Roosevelt elk, pronghorn Then cut the bird open and gut it. We roasted it
antelope, black bears, black-tailed and mule deer, in live oak ashes—when the ashes turn red you
sea lions, seals, whales and mountain sheep. put the bird in the fire.”
Organ meats—such as the livers, kidneys, lungs, Reptiles such as certain kinds of lizards,
small intestines and hearts of deer—were widely desert tortoises, snakes and western pond turtles
eaten and valued. To the Miwok of the Sierra were also eaten.
Nevada, the liver of mule deer was considered
a delicacy. The Shasta and other tribes made INSECTS
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a blood pudding by filling the paunch or large Invertebrates were gathered and eaten—
intestine of a deer with blood and fat from the grasshoppers, the pupa and larva of moths and
outside of the paunch and cooking it in ashes. butterflies, the larva of yellow jackets and adult
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The Atsugewi, Coast Yuki and other tribes broke June beetles. Cooked yellow jacket larvae are
up the long bones of deer and scraped out and described as tasting like sweet corn. Roasted
ate the marrow raw; the Lassik of the Mt. Lassen
National Park region sought out the marrow from
the bones of bears. Some tribes ground up the
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bones of deer and salmon and combined them
with various plant products to create a hash or
stored the pulverized bones for making soup in
the winter. The vertebrae of deer were pounded
and made into little cakes and baked. The old
people especially drank the broth of deer meat
or salmon. Oil retrieved from deer, bear, whale,
seal and sea lion was preserved and warmed for
eating with dried berries.
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Small mammals, such as porcupines, mar-
mots, pine martins, cottontail and jack rabbits,
chipmunks, raccoons, gray and ground squirrels,
opossums, beavers and wood rats were often ten-
derized with pounding and then roasted, bones
included. In 1935 anthropologist Cora Dubois
described how the Wintu in northern California
generally cooked small game: “It was singed, Figure 4. Harvesting edible Indian potatoes with
the paws and tail were cut off, and the entrails a digging stick aerated the soil and prepared the
removed. The animal was then roasted in a bed seedbed.
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