Chapter VI

HUNTING

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 good hunter was held in high esteem socially.

Deer were most sought and the hunter went to considerable effort to get “deer power” (a sort of guardian spirit) to possess him. This gave him skill and good luck. Generally only men hunted, sometimes individually, at other times in small or large groups.

Before going hunting tobacco was often smoked ceremonially with prayers and singing while the shaman (medicine man) supervised and the hunters’ bodies were anointed with medicine. Weapons to be used were smoked over a fire, while the hunters talked to their bows and arrows about the coming hunt. Frequently Atsugewi, Yana, and Yahi hunters also cut themselves until they bled. This was true especially if their marksmanship had not been good of late. Cuts were made in the forearm and charcoal was rubbed in. They often took sweat baths too before hunting, but the Maidu did not. The latter, however, offered shell beads to help increase deer power. Atsugewi hunters left offerings of paint, tobacco, and eagle-down at certain spots in the mountains for luck.

After a youth killed his first game, Maidu and Atsugewi switched him, a bow string being commonly used. Then the Atsugewi father talked to his son, blew smoke on him, and sent him out alone into the mountains for at least five days to seek power. Yana and Yahi youths were not permitted to touch, skin, or eat any of their first kill of each kind of animal, lest it spoil their luck. In these tribes the father skinned the animal and dressed the hide, teaching his son how this was done.

After hunting there were often cleansing activities and ceremonies, and usually a division of meat although a lone hunter could retain all of it. It was considered quite bad to come home empty handed. After a bear had been killed he was spoken to kindly and in sympathetic terms. Deer eyes were often eaten to give good sharp eyesight to the eater.

In a popular method of deer hunting by all Indians of the Lassen area, a deer head disguise was worn by the hunter. He approached his quarry cautiously using screening bushes and moving his antlered head above them to simulate a buck feeding. Sometimes the hunter carried brush along in front of himself. The mountain Maidu always used the whole deerskin for disguise. When close enough the hunter would shoot with bow and arrow. Since this was a nearly silent weapon, there was no noise to startle the deer, and so it was sometimes possible to slay two or three deer on one occasion.

Atsugewi hunters might encircle a small brush covered or wooded mountain. They set many fires, leaving non-burning gaps where bowmen hid in holes. The deer were shot as they came out of the burning area.

Mountain Maidu sometimes concealed themselves in pits near deer licks where they shot the animals in moonlight.

Another hunting method was to drive deer along fences built of brush or stone or along ropes to which bunches of tules were tied as hanging streamers. Strategically placed hunters in shallow pits shot the driven deer as they passed through openings which had been left. Dogs were frequently used in hunting out and in driving deer.

The brush deer-blind along a well traveled deer trail was used too, as well as hanging a noose in the deer trail to snare the deer. Still another means of taking deer was like that of the northern neighbors of the Atsugewi, the Pit River Tribe or Achomawi. They employed a six or seven foot deep pit about nine feet long dug with slightly undercut side walls. This opening was covered and concealed with poles, brush, and dirt. As the deer trotted along established trails over the disguised pitfalls they fell through. Or, deer might be driven to such pits, sometimes with the aid of converging walls or fences in conjunction with pitfalls. Deer trapped in these pitfalls were killed by strangling from above with ropes.

Another popular way to secure deer was to follow the animal for one or more days. The pursuing Indian carried a small amount of food which he ate to sustain himself while moving. The deer, although swifter afoot than the hunter, was persistently followed at a steady pace. The animal did not get a chance to feed properly nor to rest. At length the deer became weakened to the point where the hunter could approach and shoot it at close range.

If a hunter were fairly close to a deer and it was moving, he might shout at it, causing the deer to stop momentarily out of curiosity. This provided a better chance of bringing the quarry down with bow and arrow. Deer were sometimes lured closer by whistling with lips, blowing on a leaf or grass blade held in the hands, or by imitating the cry of a fawn. A hunter is said occasionally to have been able to sing to a group of deer, holding their attention while he cautiously approached within arrow range.

If practical, deer or other game was killed by driving the animals over cliffs. Elk, mountain sheep, antelope, and reportedly occasionally even bison were hunted by one or more of the means. Except for the case of mountain sheep, such animals were probably rare within the territories of the tribes being considered.

Meat of such large game was prepared for eating after skinning by roasting in the earth pit ovens to be described in succeeding chapters or by cutting up and boiling. Much venison and the like was also stored for winter use. In this case the meat was cut into strips and dried in the sun or on wooden frames over fires. This was not a smoking, but rather a drying process. Such jerked meat was stored in large, tightly woven baskets. Meat fresh or dried was almost invariably eaten with acorn mush.

Bear hunting was common among tribes of the Lassen area. The American Black Bear is not aggressive and by no means always black. He is of moderately large size and often is light or dark brown in color. Indians liked to hunt the Black Bear in winter, two hunters entering the hibernating den. One carried a torch and the other a bow and arrow. They rolled a large block of wood in front of them and shot the bear at point blank range, then quickly ran out. Wounded, frightened, and in a semi-stupor, the bear usually stumbled over the wooden block. If he did not die in the den, but came out, he was shot by other waiting hunters. Mountain Maidu instead of entering the den smoked the bear out with pitchy torches planted at the den entrance.

The California Grizzly was much larger, fiercer, and more aggressive. This grizzly is now extinct, but was common especially in the foothill and lower mountain slopes of California before the coming of the white man. Grizzlies were normally engaged only by a large group of hunters and after considerable ceremonial preparation. Hunters never entered the den. Two stout poles were crossed in front of the opening with one or two men holding each—a dangerous job. The bear was spoken to nicely and urged to come out which he usually soon did. As the bear started to climb over the poles at the den entrance, the Indians pushed up forcing the bear’s body against the roof so that he could most easily be shot. If this maneuver was not successful, a brave hunter enticed the bear to pursue him while the others shot arrows into the grizzly. Especially sharp and heavily poisoned arrow points were used on grizzly bear by the Atsugewi.

It was believed that a man who drank fresh bear blood would be very healthy thereafter, if he were strong enough. If he were weak, however, drinking the blood would kill him promptly.

Mountain lion were tracked, sometimes with dogs, sometimes in the snow, then treed and shot. Wildcats were generally killed in the same way. A hunter might coax a mountain lion to leap at him by simulating a deer feeding, using the deer head and skin disguise, but this was a dangerous practice.

Except in the eastern part of Atsugewi territory where the Apwaruge lived, rabbits were not plentiful. Yana, Yahi, and Maidu hunted them more, driving cottontail, snowshoe, and jack rabbits into long nets and clubbing them to death. In the winter rabbits were sometimes tracked and shot with bow and untipped arrows.

Other small mammals were shot, caught by dogs, and dug, smoked, or drowned out of burrows. A stick split at the end was thrust into a burrow and by twisting was entangled in the creature’s fur sufficiently to drag him out. Ground squirrels could be outrun and killed by stepping on them. Skunks, badgers, rats, and more often porcupines were eaten—the latter being clubbed or stoned to death.

Small and medium sized animals were also caught under stone or log deadfalls which were propped up to drop on the victim while it was traveling along a runway, crossing a stream on a log, or when the animal pulled on a baited trigger. Similar placing was used for setting spring snares which took advantage of bent tree limbs for power. Long fences with nooses placed in gaps were used for rabbits, quail, and the like, and on occasion for creatures as large as deer. Some nooses were even operated by hand from a place of hiding.

Birds of all sorts were caught too, but live or imitation decoys were never employed as lures. Woodpeckers were removed from the nest by hand or else a noose was hung around the nest opening. Some birds were taken in basketry traps. Waterfowl were shot with bow and arrow and the young were run down. Eggs were also taken. Some ducks were speared at night from canoes or driven into nets by use of a canoe with fire at one end. Frequently nets or snares were suspended at intervals just above a stream where waterfowl commonly alighted. Ducks and geese were also driven into the traps in taking off from the water.

Grouse and small birds like robins and blackbirds were shot with blunt or untipped arrows, usually of one-piece construction.

It is interesting to note that in contrast to other local tribes, the Yana and Yahi tribes did not employ the following hunting techniques: burning brush, using bird snaring booths, nets for ducks, geese, rabbits, or deer, nor was game driven into enclosures or quail secured by use of net traps or drive fences. Furthermore Yana and Yahi did not believe that game was immortal.

It was not an uncommon practice, especially among the mountain Maidu, to frequently burn off their lands to make for easier travel and to minimize the possibility of ambush by enemies. The frequent “light” burnings do not seem to have generated enough heat to have destroyed the forests. Never the less this practice is not regarded as a wise conservation as it is definitely injurious to tree and much other plant reproduction as well as being destructive of organic material in the soil, damaging the watershed and being unfavorable to certain animal species, as well as accelerating erosion.