Northcentral California

I. The people include the Huchnom, Yuki, Wappo (Yukian); Pomo, Yana (Hokan); Maidu, Miwok, Wintun (Penutian).

A. Environment is generally mild, mixed valley, riverine, lake, foothill, coastal, and montaine.

        B. Northern core of California culture.

1. Greatest diversity in terms of basketry, twinned and coiled.

2. Largest portion of food derived from seeds.

a.  What is a seed - nuts, acorns, annual and perennials seeds, seeds surrounded by fruit.

C. Ideas of law are less clear than among the people of the Northwest.

D. Clam shell disc beads were used as currency.  Other treasures collected.

1. Shells broken into pieces, bored, strung, sanded smooth. 

a. Saxidomus aratus or gracilis used by Coast Miwok and Pomo.

b. Value depended on size, thickness, age, and sheen, the more the better.

i. Some sheen acquired by human touch.

                                ii. Size ranged from 1/3” to 1” dia. and from 1/3” to ½” thick.

2. Treasures included things which could not be made to a specific enough scale to assure uniformity in value, but still had monetary value.

a. Longitudinally perforated shell cylinders (Coastal). 

b. Longitudinally perforated magnesite cylinders (Pomoland).

c. Olivellai. shell disc beads found in early graves.  Whole univalves used as attachments.

d.  earrings and necklaces.

E. Arts and material culture.

1.  Music and dance.

a.  Kuksu cults required props and costume and varied greatly from village to village.

i. A secret society entered by men who assert they hold the ritual formula for the resurrection of the dead.  So relates to healing.

aa. Female deities roles are assumed by men.

ii.  Practiced predominantly by the Patwin subgroup of the Wintun.  Practiced by the Pomo, Yuki, Wappo, Maidu, Miwok. Shasta learned the cult since 1870.

iii. Required a structure, usually a circular, domed, earth-covered room supported by posts and lintels.

aa. Foot drum at back of chamber.

bb. Seating arrangements in the house are dictated by tradition and were strictly adhered to.  The places were named and it was imperative that someone of the proper rank occupy each place.

iv.  Dancers wore a “bighead” headdress. Identity is disguised further by painting faces with thick paint.

aa.  They carry the identity of one of more than 16 spirits or “gods.”

bb. Moki - highest ranked god.  Impersonator wears a full length cloak of heron skins.  Others are not represented.  The Kot-ho is completely plastered with thick mud.  The most important deities were dangerous to impersonate, not a job for noninitiates.

v. Performance conducted by director from the roof of the cult house.

b.  Ghost ceremony, related to cremation practices.

i. Women must not even see what goes on in the dance house.

aa. Old women could spectate.

bb.  Rich women were given visits from dead male relatives in exchange for strings of shell money.

ii.  Four day ceremony where initiates kept noninitiates away through fear tactics.

iii.  Ghosts wore headdresses of yellow-hammer quills which trailed down their backs.  They wore a garland of pepper blossoms and painted the rest of the body.  Ash ghosts had power over fire.  They wore only a few feathers in the hair and painted the rest of their body.  They carried a stick bent to imitate the form of the crane.

aa.  At times the ghosts carried live rattlesnakes.

bb. Ash ghosts ate fire, and plunged their hands into fire.  All ghosts scattered glowing coals.

cc.  Ghosts and ash ghosts play clown, doing everything reversed.

2. Clothing, a Maidu example.  Richer folks wore skins, poorer folks wore vegetal substitutes: tule, redwood inner bark, and willow bark.

a. Men’s clothing included a breechcloth of buckskin; Puma hide, deer fur (hair toward body), or rabbit-skin robes in winter, sometimes a two piece mantle was made from hide; one-piece moccasins with front seam; deer-fur leggings lashed in place; and netted cap.

i. Leggings and moccasins usually only worn away from home.

ii.  Nudity preferred in the warm months.

b. Women’s clothing consisted of front and back aprons of shredded willow bark, falling to between ankle and knee, fringed, strung with ornaments, in winter a robe of woven rabbit skin or deerskin, one-piece moccasins with front seams, face or body tattoos, and a basket hat.

3. Basketry and other textiles, a Patwin example.

a. Basketry was based on a one-rod or three-rod willow warp.  The design patterns were created by using a weft of black dyed bulrush, darkened and spring-cut red bud for red and tan, willow root (rare use by others), pine root and sedge root used in the old days.  Merriam suggests Rhus diversiloba, Rhus trilobata, and Ceanothus sp.

i. Both coiling and twinning used with coiling favored. Few twinned baskets. Note: The Pomo made twinned and coiled ware with equal facility.

ii. Color of material varies from location to location depending on salinity of water, according to time of year the material was harvested, and the method of preparation of materials.

iii. Used for food gathering and preparation, storage, traps and weirs, cradles, gambling trays, dance accessories.

iv. Weavers are able to reproduce the outward appearance of other groups basketry style, but frequently treated fag ends as they would in a basket for their own household.

aa. Baskets made for trade and on consignment for outsiders.

v. Materials, designs, shapes, and sizes governed by strict rules.  Innovation not necessarily viewed as a good thing.

aa.  Pomo use only one color for design (red or black) in each basket.  Only polychrome baskets are feathered.

bb.  Although women are considered the superior artist with California basketry, men made many kinds of baskets.  Pomo men made cradles, wood carrying baskets, portable traps, and weirs.

b. Tule rafts plied the Bay and the marshes of the Sacramento River.  Duck decoys.

c.  Feather work applied to baskets, “bighead” headdresses, the end of staffs for Kuksu ceremonies.  Hair pins and headbands of quills.

d. String and cord made of wild iris fibers (2 fibers per leaf).

4. Wood work.

a. Coastal Pomo houses made of slabs of Redwood bark leaned against a center pole. Not earth covered. Inland people made wickiup-style houses, a bent pole frame thatched with grass bundles.  One family to a small, 15’ dia., house.

b.  Dance or assembly houses 40”+ dia. earth covered.

c. Fire bow and bow-drill (later introduced by Spanish).

d. Mush-paddles and spoons.

e. Yew-wood bows, hazel-wood bows imported from Kato. Also made arrows, harpoons.

f. Game pieces.

g. Pipes, tool handles.

h. Wooden clappers, flutes, foot drums.

5. Horn, bone and shell.

a. Stone bolas. 

b. Deer-hoof rattles, bone whistles.

c.  clam shell disc beads.

d.  longitudinally-perforated cylindrical shell beads.

e.  mussel-shell spoons for women.

f.  Bone awls and scrapers.

g.  Shell dice.

h.  Pendant shell ornaments, beads.

6. Stone implements.

a.  Stone mortars and pestles.

b. Stone points, knives, hammers, and scrapers.

c. Quartz fire starters.