Download Acorns

California
Indian
Acorn
Culture
Before contact was made with
Europeans…
– Acorns were a major and stable food
resource
• Availability: more than 18 species of oak
• Productivity: varies, good crop 2-3 years in
fall
• Storability: caches or granaries, unshelled up
to 12 years
• Nutritional content: 18% fat, 6% protein, 68%
carbohydrates, vitamins A & C, amino acids,
high in calories
Acorns as a Food Source Continued
• Acorn oil
• Acorn shells can be
roasted and steeped
for a coffee drink
• In some groups, an
adult would consume a
ton of acorns a year
• Edible after leaching
out tannic acids
How to Process Acorns
For future use:
1. Dry acorns
2. Store in
granaries
for up to 12
years
For immediate use:
1. Dry acorns
2. Shell and winnow using
hammer and anvil
3. Pound into flour with
mortar and pestle
4. Leach out tannic acids by
flushing with water in a
shallow, sandy basin or in
a basket filter
5. Use flour to make soup,
bread, mush, etc
Traditional Preparation of Acorns
Miwok acorn
granaries in
Sierra Nevada
foothills, near
Railroad Flat,
1906
Mrs. Freddie, a
Hupa, leaches
acorn meal in a
sand basin
Rock outcrop
with holes used
to crack open
acorns by native
people at
Palomar State
Park
After contact was made with
Europeans…
– Acorns were discontinued as a major
and stable food resource
• Demographic collapse, dispossession of land,
assimilation policies
– Disrupt cultural transmission
– Inaccessibility of oak groves and traditional
maintenance practices such as burning
– Pressure to relinquish traditional ways
• Increase in nonnative people population and
environmental degradation due to resource
extraction
Present Day Acorn Use
• Alteration of processing
techniques
– Traditional ways not lost
– Modified to use modern technology
• Acorn as a connection between the
past and present
• Prepared and eaten at special
gatherings
• Logos and business names of local
tribes
“The Way We Lived”
“And you women, strike out, gather wild
onions, wild potatoes! Gather all you
can! Gather all you can! Pound acorns,
pound acorns, pound acorns! Cook, cook!
Make some bread, make some bread! So we
can eat, so we can eat, so we can
eat…Make acorn soup so that the people
will eat it!…Don’t talk about
starvation, because we never have much!
Eat acorns! There is nothing to it!”
- Song of Chief Yanapayak, Miwok
Questions?
References
ACORN - FOOD RESOURCE - OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY. (n.d.). Retrieved May
29, 2009, from http://food.oregonstate.edu/glossary/a/acorn.html
Acorns. (n.d.). Retrieved May 29, 2009, from
http://www.hastingsreserve.org/oakstory/Acorns2.html
California Indian History. (n.d.). Retrieved May 29, 2009, from
http://ceres.ca.gov/nahc/califindian.html
California Oaks Foundation: OAKS 2040. (n.d.). Retrieved May 29, 2009,
from http://www.californiaoaks.org/html/2040.html
Central Valley. (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica.
2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9022094
Retrieved May 29,
United Auburn Indian Community . (n.d.). Retrieved May 29, 2009, from
http://www.auburnrancheria.com/