 |
| Picture credit: California Intermountain Culture |
Living in a land
of great plenty … There is no record of starvation anywhere in Central
California. Even the myths of this area
have no reference to starvation. All
around the Ohlones were virtually inexhaustible resources; and for century
after century the people went about their daily life secure in the knowledge
that they lived in a generous land, a land that would always support them.
Malcolm
Margolin, The Ohlone Way -
Indian life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay area (Berkeley, CA: Heyday
Books, 1978), 40.
The
groups of Indians we call the Ohlone lived between Point Sur and the San
Francisco Bay. (Margolin, 1) They had available to
them shellfish, fish, rabbits and other small mammals, birds, eggs, seeds,
greens, pine nuts, acorns, and more. (Margolin, 13-23)
California
is geographically and ecologically diverse, so it is unreasonable to expect the
entire state to be a land of “inexhaustible resources.” Yet non-Indian observers who recorded the
food gathering and eating habits in various locations found, sometimes to their
surprise, a wide variety of items available, even in the desert.
“I
cannot pretend to have exhausted the food supply for these Indians, but I have
discovered not less than sixty distinct products for nutrition … all derived
from desert or semidesert localities …,” wrote David Prescott Barrows when
studying the Cahuilla Indians in southeastern California in the late 19th century. David Prescott Barrows,
“Desert Plant Foods of the Coahuilla” in
R. F. Heizer and M. A. Whipple, eds., The California Indians - A
Source Book, 2nd ed; rev. ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1971), 306. He listed honey mesquite, screwbean mesquite
(tornillo), various species of Chenopodium
(amaranth), agave, yucca, date palms, junipers, acorn, pine nuts, various
cacti, and more. (Heizer and Whipple,
308-314)
It
is that ecological diversity and the abundance it provided that allowed most California
Indians to remain hunter-gatherers. S. J. Jones, “ Some
Regional Aspects of Native California”, in R.
F. Heizer and M. A. Whipple, eds. The
California Indians - A Source Book, 2nd ed; rev. ed. (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1971), 88-89. They didn’t require traditional agricultural
methods because a generous environment provided a more-than-adequate diet. (Margolin, 45) The Chumash Indians of
the Santa Barbara area, in particular, were noted for their hunter-gatherer skills:
They had a technology – the tools and techniques
– for collecting, processing and storing these foods efficiently. And they had a trade network, stretching from
the Channel Islands to the highest pine forests, which assured them access to a
wide variety of foods all year round.
Because of their success in using the natural environment, they did not
plant crops of corn, beans, and other vegetables as so many other American
Indians did. Nor did they raise domestic
animals. They relied, instead, on acorns
and other nuts, seeds, roots, bulbs, and leaves from an incredible variety of
native plants. They also enjoyed an
abundance of fish and shellfish from the rivers and ocean. They were skilled at hunting the plentiful
wild game: deer, antelope, rabbits,
birds and seals. Beached whales provided
an occasional feast. Even such small
animals as ground squirrels and grasshoppers were trapped and eaten. …
[Food] was usually so plentiful that they had
ample time for leisure activities … There was time, too, for religious
festivals and for the development of their arts and crafts to the highest
standard. … [The] Chumash were able to
go beyond survival, to develop a truly unique and fascinating culture. Lynne McCall and Rosalind Perry, project
coordinators. California's Chumash
Indians. (Santa Barbara, CA: John Daniel, Publisher, 1986), 12.
Only
the groups who lived in the desert along the Colorado River bottomlands and the
south end of the Imperial Valley did any farming, adding corn (maize),
pumpkins, and beans to their diet. Ralph L. Beals and
Joseph A. Hester, Jr., “A New Ecological Typology of the California Indians” in
R. F. Heizer and M. A. Whipple, eds., The California Indians - A Source Book,
2nd ed; rev. ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971), 82.
So
where the people lived dictated what they ate.
Ralph L. Beals and Joseph A. Hester, Jr. provide a broad classification
in “A New Ecological Typology of the California Indians”:
|
Coastal
Tidelands Gatherers |
shellfish, surf
fish, acorns, game including deer |
|
Sea hunters and
fishers |
sea fish,
shellfish, game, acorns, sea mammals |
|
Riverine (salmon
cultures) |
fish especially
salmon, acorns, tule, game |
|
Lake |
fish, tule,
acorns, waterfowl, game |
|
Valley or Plains |
acorns, tule,
game, fish including sturgeon and salmon, fresh or brackish water shellfish |
|
Foothill |
acorns, game,
fish |
|
Desert hunters
and gatherers |
piñon, mesquite,
game, a wide variety of vegetable foods |
|
Desert farmers |
farm produce,
mesquite, fish |
(Heizer and Whipple, 74-81)
Their diet was also influenced by the pacing of the
seasons:
During the rainy
winter the Ohlones collected mushrooms, and in the early spring, they gathered
greens. Clover, poppy, tansy-mustard,
melic grass, miner’s lettuce, mule ear shoots, cow parsnip shoots, and the very
young leaves of alum root, columbine, milkweed, and larkspur were all used, some
as salad greens, some as cooking greens.
Seaweed was gathered, dried, and used as salt.
Soon after the
spring greens appeared came time for gathering roots. With their digging sticks the women pried out
of the ground cattail roots, brodiaea bulbs, mariposa lily bulbs, and soaproot
bulbs. …
Finally,
throughout the summer there were berries.
There were berries to cook, to eat out of hand, to dry for later use, or
to make into a refreshing cider: strawberries, wild grapes, currants,
gooseberries, salal berries, elderberries, thimble berries, toyon berries,
madrone berries, huckleberries, and manzanita berries – all of them growing in
great numbers. (Margolin, 50)
This description
of the Chumash diet appears to be applicable to any group found anywhere in the
state: “Their diet was broadly based and
included virtually every good source of protein and nutrition in the area.”
Bruce
W. Miller, Chumash, A Picture of Their
World, (Los Osos, CA: Sand River Press, 1988.), 87. The primary food staples changed according
to the ecosystem the people lived in, but they were adept at finding and
utilizing the resources available to them.
My Intent
I will utilize a
variety of resources to learn how California native people across the state
prepared their foodstuffs: books,
articles, blogs. One particularly
excellent book is Temalpakh, Cahuilla Indian knowledge and usage of plants,
by Lowell John Bean and Katherine Siva Saubel.
Lowell
John Bean and Katherine Siva Saubel, Temalpakh:,
Cahuilla Indian knowledge and usage of plants, (Banning, CA: Malki Museum,
1972; reprint 2003) It provides a long list of plants and their
uses as documented by David Prescott Barrows and other observers of native
culture, and the authors interviewed members of the Cahuilla to verify and
expand on that knowledge.
It is also a convenient
book as I live in Southern California close to the Cahuilla region, making it
easy to venture out to find the plants.
Keeping in mind the hazards of eating plants that have not been
correctly identified, I will also utilize A California Flora and Supplement
by Philip A. Munz and David D. Keck, which provides botanical keys for accurate
identification. Munz, Phillip A. in collaboration with
David D. Keck. A California Flora and Supplement. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1973.
Preparation descriptions in my resources vary; some are detailed while others mention only the final product. If I am unable to find a description of
Native American preparation methods for a known food item, I will utilize modern
sources that appear to be using techniques comparable to what Native Americans
would have had available at pre-contact. When I acquire the food item, I will try the
instructions and write about my experiences.
