Maidu Indian Country

Music, Wind In The Woods, by elan Michaels

Maidu Indians Page Two

The Maidu seldom hunted grizzly bears, but when they did, they valued the hide for the warmth it provided in winter.           For hunting deer and other animals the Indians used the sinew-backed bow. They drove rabbits into nets  and trapped and snared birds. They  fished with harpoons, nets and shell fishhooks.           Men often wore tattoos with patterns of vertical lines on the chin or sometimes a single vertical line rising from the root of the nose. Women tattooed themselves with an odd number of lines on their chin, and occasionally with dots on the backs of their hands.           Religion and ceremonialism were extremely simple in many parts of California. Probably the most elaborate ceremonies were those held in the central region. Here religion consisted of a long series of dances and rituals representing mythical or supernatural beings. One of the most widespread ceremonies was that for a girl's coming of age. Boys were also initiated into the male secret society with ceremonial dances. Costuming for some of these dances often included the lavish use of bright-colored feathers and flowers. In Northern California the most important ceremonies were associated with salmon fishing, particularly with the catching of the first salmon of the year.           To decorate themselves in preparation for ceremonials, they used paint made from white and red clay, charcoal, and the grindings of red stone.           When it came to disposing of their dead, California Indians were equally divided between cremation and burial. Burial predominated in the north, cremation in the south. The Maidu burned not only the dead but also his house and possessions. Some tribes held elaborate mourning ceremonies for the dead.           For water transportation the northern tribes used small dugout canoes of redwood. Except for the lower Feather River, navigable rivers didn't exist in Maidu territory. Since they were swift flowing, the natives crossed the lakes in dugout canoes, using poles or single blade paddles. Occasionally they rode on simple log rafts.           A fraternal feeling among the many villages failed to exist. Grudges beteen offended individuals sometimes grew into threats and even to warfare between Maidu villages. When one group raided an enemy camp, the enemy usually received warning of the attack before it came. Smoke signals and fire served for the warning. Besides arrows, they fought with sticks, spears, and slings. male prisoners were usually killed and scalped and the scalps displayed in front of the victors' huts.           As you might expect, most California Indian tribes lacked complicated social and political organization. Although some tribes had social groupings tracing their descent through the father, many had none. Most lived in small villages of not more than a couple of hundred people. Each village was independent of the others in the tribe. In some villages the office of chief was hereditary; in some it was based on wealth and prestige.           You wouldn't call these Indians warlike. They didn't go around with a chip on their shoulders looking for a fight. Yet each little group was jealous of its slice of territory with its groves of acorn-bearing oaks and its rivers. Some even posted guards against trespassers. If trouble arose between two groups, they would line up and each would select a champion to fight for the honor of their side. Afterwards, there might be conciderable speech making and arguing before the losers agreed to pay so many shells or other booty to the winners.           California may have been weak in chiefs and politics, but it more than made up for this lack in its medicine men. Among the Maidu for example, the shaman was more powerful than the chief. Frequently it was the shaman, by revealing the will of spirits, who chose the next chief.           Shamans gained their power through dreams and visions produced by fasting or taking drugs made of certain wild plants. Many shamans were specalists. Some controlled the weather. Some cured or prevented snake bite. Some cured other diseases. Some were bear shamans who could turn themselves into bears. If a shaman failed to cure his patient, he received no payment.           The Indians were afraid of shamans who practiced black magic and who could, they believed, kill them if the shamans got hold of pieces of their hair or fingernail clippings or other parts of the body.           The Maidu lived in well watered mountains for hundreds, even thousands of years. They neither decimated the animal life they depended on nor polluted their fishing streams. While violence existed after occasional disagreements, no record of annihilation of one group by another is known.           The Maidu Indians were neither rich or poor. Their way of life may have been simple. Yet most of them had one thing that the Indian residents of several other areas didn't have. That was economic security. In fact, these Indians seem to have gotten along very well as long as they were left in peace.

The Maidu survived it all until the white man came to dig up the ground for the yellow metal or brought his hundreds of cattle to graze where deer browsed from time immemorial.           Ethnologist Alfred Kroeber estimated that 9,000 Maidu populated their territory before the white invasion. Even the 21 missions had no effect on these people, since more than 100 miles seperated them from the closest mission.           Not until 1833, when Hudson Bay Company trappers spent a winter at Marysville Buttes, avoiding the high water of that winter, did any prolonged contact exist between the foreigners and the natives. An epidemic of malaria decimated the natives in that area the same year.           In 1839, captain John Sutter started building his fort at New Helvetia, now Sacramento. He pressed into his service the most southerly of the Maidu, the Nishinam. The blow from which the Indians never recovered came with the discovery of gold, and from the tens of thousands of foreigners who spread across Maidu territory, beginning in 1848.           The gold rush in 1849 didn't make things any better for the central and northern tribes who hadn't been under the influence of the missions. The miners took more land away from the Indians and often hunted them down like wild game.           By 1850 many streams had been torn up, the fish depleted, and the deer killed off or driven back into the hills so far as to be out of hunting range of the natives. Many Indians went to work for miners and stockmen, given virtually no compensation but second-hand clothing and very little money.           As the American population increased, the Indians decreased. Today, many tribes are extinct, while others have only a handful of survivors.           One-third of the native population is reliably estimated to have been alive in 1856. The 1880 count totaled only 2,100, and by 1910 only 1,100 survived.                                            The End    Maidu descendants still gather annually for their traditional Bear Dance.

This page was last updated on: April 9, 2006

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