Indians of Lassen Volcanic National Park and Vicinity

Conflict—prolonged, tragic, and violent—flared during the period when Europeans wrested control of North America from the native Indian. In viewing the struggle between Indian a...

As has been pointed out earlier under “California Indians”, these tribes had a common food pattern. Although there was some difference in the relative importance of the four maj...

The outstanding art of the Indians of California was their basketry. In fact the excellence of California basketry generally is not exceeded elsewhere in North America. Size var...

Dr. A. L. Kroeber’s map shows all tribes within the present political boundaries of the State of California. The tribes of the extreme northwest corner and those of the southern...

Shamans or doctors, more commonly known to modern Americans by the name medicine men, were important in the lives of all Indians but, among ours, probably to the highest degree...

The Atsugewi used earth-covered lodges as their permanent winter dwellings. These varied in size from about nine feet in length, for a single family, to more than thirty feet in...

All local Indians believed in a mythical age when animals were persons and talked to each other. Both Atsugewi and mountain Maidu thought that floods played a part in the past s...

Hunting was obviously a very important activity of the Lassen Indians, not only for survival, but as a means of acquiring the comfort and security which success brought. Also a...

Implements for grinding foods were important. Mountain Maidu, in fact all Maidu tribes, ground some acorns on flat bed rock. When the resultant holes which eventually developed...

Atsugewi and mountain Maidu left the corpse in the house for one day. They prepared it for burial by dressing it well and adding bead necklaces, then wrapping it in a hide. Yana...

Of Atsugewi standards of beauty Garth states: “The ideal woman was short but plump and solidly built so that she could do much work. A slim woman was considered too weak, and a...

Archeological studies of human remains from all over the world have shown beyond serious question that man originated in the Eastern Hemisphere about a million years ago. Meager...

The fact that skeletons of primitive forms of man have so far not been discovered in the Western Hemisphere does not mean that ancestral forms preceding modern man did not migra...

The natural function of birth obviously varied only in details of handling the situation, delivery assistance, disposition of the afterbirth, and methods of cutting and treating...

Fishes were one of the four important food categories consumed by Indians of the Lassen region. Land-locked and other non-migratory Rainbow Trout were abundantly available in mo...

Wars were commonly small scale encounters and might be either within tribes or between tribes. Atsugewi were not often aggressive. Most tribes at one time or another had differe...

Examples were: carrying a turtleshell on one’s belt which rendered a person immune to rattlesnake strikes, or, among Maidu the rubbing of the root of _Angelica breweri_ on the l...

The members of all tribes, especially the Yana and Yahi, went bareheaded much of the time. However, basketry caps nearly hemispherical in shape and of fine tightly twined weave...

Heavy betting on games was the rule. Games were commonly played between neighboring villages or even on occasion with neighboring tribes. Gambling was an important element in th...

Ghosts and spirits were one and the same, and were to local Indians as souls are conceived by white man, yet the Indian conception was more variable. Some spirits were good and...

Lassen Peak with an elevation of 10,453 feet above sea level is the central high point of a somewhat topographically isolated mountain mass of volcanic origin. The slopes descen...

Arrow points found in the park area, in the territory of both Atsugewi and mountain Maidu are most frequently of obsidian, but sometimes are of a dense dull black basalt lava. T...

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...

It was the lack of transportation rather than the existence of any which was important to the aboriginal Americans. This was responsible for the degree of isolation which was re...

Music of local tribes was limited indeed. It was usually made by men. Only Atsugewi among the Lassen tribes possessed the drum, and this is believed to have been of recent intro...

Mountain Maidu and Atsugewi believed the sun to be a female human—the wife—and the moon to be a male human—the husband. This is a reversal of the sex ascribed to these bodies by...

Counting on the fingers was usual practice. Mountain Maidu started with their thumbs while Atsugewi began on the little finger of one hand and counted across to that on the othe...

The bulk of the important doctoring was done by shamans or medicine men. This was all based on supernatural faith and fear. As we know from advances of our modern civilization i...

The self governing unit was always a village or a group of small closely adjacent villages. This is the political unit which was governed by the chief. Villages might consist of...

Atsugewi assumed it to be the natural thing that it would sprinkle a little after a funeral. They also felt that rolling rocks down mountain sides or loud shouting in the mounta...

Marriage itself was not formalized with any ceremony. It was common practice for parents to arrange marriages when children were young and these arrangements, which involved som...

A girl’s attainment of puberty or womanhood was an event of obvious importance and it was recognized as such by all tribes of the Lassen region with extensive formal ritual and...

Among local tribes wealth was the direct result of skill and industry and was highly regarded by all. A person’s social status in the tribe varied directly with his wealth. Lazy...

We are apt to think of Indians, especially Plains Indians, riding horses as part of the natural prehistoric scene, yet this was not the case. Although fossil remains in the rock...

Lassen Peak and its vicinity are subject to many local earthquakes today. The geologic nature of the area indicates that this has been so for thousands of years. Lassen Peak was...

The knowledge and use of tobacco are among the important elements which our own culture of today has inherited from the Indians of North America. Of what benefit this has been i...

Mountain Maidu had more dances and more types of dances than other tribes of the Lassen area. Tribes of the Sacramento Valley had many more and more complicated dance ceremonies...

All local tribes used the beautiful salmon colored feathers of the Red-shafted Flicker, a woodpecker also known to us by the name Yellowhammer. A headband of the bird’s feathers...