What do you think?
Rate this book
California Natural History Guides #96
California Indians and Their Environment: An Introduction
Capturing the vitality of California's unique indigenous cultures, this major new introduction incorporates the extensive research of the past thirty years into an illuminating, comprehensive synthesis for a wide audience. Based in part on new archaeological findings, it tells how the California Indians lived in vibrant polities, each boasting a rich village life including chiefs, religious specialists, master craftspeople, dances, feasts, and ceremonies. Throughout, the book emphasizes how these diverse communities interacted with the state's varied landscape, enhancing its already bountiful natural resources through various practices centered around prescribed burning. A handy reference section, illustrated with more than one hundred color photographs, describes the plants, animals, and minerals the California Indians used for food, basketry and cordage, medicine, and more. At a time when we are grappling with the problems of maintaining habitat diversity and sustainable economies, we find that these native peoples and their traditions have much to teach us about the future, as well as the past, of California.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
5 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 16, 2019
A fine introduction
Lightfoot, who is a UC, Berkeley Professor of Anthropology, and Parrish, who is an elder of the Kashaya Pomo tribe, bring the reader up to date on the latest research on California Indian culture with an emphasis on ecology from a historical and anthropologic perspective.
Much of the book is devoted to the pyrodiversity collecting economies of the California natives. The Indians routinely set fire to the land in order to increase the supply of desirable plants and animals. The main point is that because of the great range of different ecologies in California it was natural for the native Californians not to develop the kind of dependency agriculture typically found elsewhere in the world. The fact that El Nino and La Nina extremes and other phenomena made for a diverse and unpredictable abundance of various food sources made it natural for the native populations to diversify their techniques for food gathering.
There are a number of color plates showing important plants and animals harvested by the Indians as well as maps and charts showing where the various tribes and tribelets flourished. Included are notes on particular species and how they were gathered and processed by people in various parts of the state from the Northwest Coast Province to the Southern Desert Province. The writing is academic with the usual amount of specialized vocabulary but fairly easy to read.
One of the things I found out that I always wanted to know was how prehistoric people were able to make soup. It turns out that the California Indians, who were great weavers of baskets, actually made baskets that were water tight. The question then is how do you heat the water to make soup over an open fire? You don't. You heat some rocks and put the hot rocks in the basket moving them around with a wooden paddle to keep them from burning the sides of the basket. This problem had always bothered me because I liked to imagine living in the prehistory but I was stymied in my imagining by the inability to purify water by boiling it. I simply could not figure out how to do it since there were no metal containers to put over the fire.
Another thing that bothers me is the thick stand of tan, dead cattails on the pond outside my back window obscuring my view of the pond and its wildlife. I would like to see them burn, and lo and behold I found in this book a photo of cattails burning! It seems that the native Californians routinely burned the cattails.
There was much I didn't find out however. (But of course this book is merely an introduction.) The text reveals that the Indians harvested and ate the pine nuts of the Foothill or Gray pine tree (Pinus sabiniana, AKA as "Digger Pine") but how they economically got the nutmeats out of the hard shell is not explained. I've harvested the seeds myself and found them delicious roasted or not, but cracking the shells is incredibly labor intensive. There must have been some trick they used, but I haven't discovered it.
There is also mention of the California black walnut (Juglans californica) which I have also harvested and eaten. Again cracking the nuts and extracting the nutmeat is so labor intensive that by hand I was able to obtain but a third of a cup of nuts after an hour's worth of work. I wonder had the native Californians did it, but this book doesn't say.
Another problem in obtaining food is catching the abundant waterfowl, quail, rabbits and such without the use of firearms. This is a formidable task for the lone hunter, but the Indians worked co-operatively and employed nets and snares, sometimes driving the animals into a narrowing gap where they waited with clubs and bows and arrows.
Probably the most conspicuous natural food in California harvested by the natives is the acorn from oak trees. I have harvested and processed acorns myself. The book identifies the favorites of the various Indian tribes. It seems that the acorns of the Black Oak, the Blue Oak, and the Tan-oak (not really a true oak) were the most desirable. My limited experience agrees that the acorns of the Black Oak are tastier than those of the Valley Oak. However I want to note that the great Valley Oak which can yield as many as 500 pounds of acorns from a single tree (p. 320) has relatively little tannin in the acorns which need little to no leeching, whereas the Black Oak acorns need a lot of leeching.
Finally I want to report that the authors identify the California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) as a "less desirable, fall-back food source" that contains tannin like acorns that has to be leeched out before the seeds can be eaten. However I understand from other sources that the California Buckeye contains some kind of poison that is not identified. The authors do state that the seeds are "prepared" as a fish poison. (p. 224) It's not explained here but the seeds are crushed and dumped into ponds and the poison from the buckeye kills or stuns the fish so that they can be easily harvested. I have been meaning to leech some buckeye seeds myself to taste them, but I will wait until I get more information on just how extensive the leeching has to be!
The Index could use a little work, e.g., the last reference to the Valley Oak is on page 320, not 319 as the Index has it, and we are referred in the text to "fish poison" on page 224 as noted above, but there is no Index entry. There is also some avoidable word for word and paragraph for paragraph repetition in the entries on how various foods were used by the Indians from one tribe to the other. However the General References (for further research) covers 37 dense pages.
Overall though this is a fine addition to the prestigious line of Natural History Guides edited by Phyllis M. Faber and Bruce M Pavlik for the University of California Press.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
Lightfoot, who is a UC, Berkeley Professor of Anthropology, and Parrish, who is an elder of the Kashaya Pomo tribe, bring the reader up to date on the latest research on California Indian culture with an emphasis on ecology from a historical and anthropologic perspective.
Much of the book is devoted to the pyrodiversity collecting economies of the California natives. The Indians routinely set fire to the land in order to increase the supply of desirable plants and animals. The main point is that because of the great range of different ecologies in California it was natural for the native Californians not to develop the kind of dependency agriculture typically found elsewhere in the world. The fact that El Nino and La Nina extremes and other phenomena made for a diverse and unpredictable abundance of various food sources made it natural for the native populations to diversify their techniques for food gathering.
There are a number of color plates showing important plants and animals harvested by the Indians as well as maps and charts showing where the various tribes and tribelets flourished. Included are notes on particular species and how they were gathered and processed by people in various parts of the state from the Northwest Coast Province to the Southern Desert Province. The writing is academic with the usual amount of specialized vocabulary but fairly easy to read.
One of the things I found out that I always wanted to know was how prehistoric people were able to make soup. It turns out that the California Indians, who were great weavers of baskets, actually made baskets that were water tight. The question then is how do you heat the water to make soup over an open fire? You don't. You heat some rocks and put the hot rocks in the basket moving them around with a wooden paddle to keep them from burning the sides of the basket. This problem had always bothered me because I liked to imagine living in the prehistory but I was stymied in my imagining by the inability to purify water by boiling it. I simply could not figure out how to do it since there were no metal containers to put over the fire.
Another thing that bothers me is the thick stand of tan, dead cattails on the pond outside my back window obscuring my view of the pond and its wildlife. I would like to see them burn, and lo and behold I found in this book a photo of cattails burning! It seems that the native Californians routinely burned the cattails.
There was much I didn't find out however. (But of course this book is merely an introduction.) The text reveals that the Indians harvested and ate the pine nuts of the Foothill or Gray pine tree (Pinus sabiniana, AKA as "Digger Pine") but how they economically got the nutmeats out of the hard shell is not explained. I've harvested the seeds myself and found them delicious roasted or not, but cracking the shells is incredibly labor intensive. There must have been some trick they used, but I haven't discovered it.
There is also mention of the California black walnut (Juglans californica) which I have also harvested and eaten. Again cracking the nuts and extracting the nutmeat is so labor intensive that by hand I was able to obtain but a third of a cup of nuts after an hour's worth of work. I wonder had the native Californians did it, but this book doesn't say.
Another problem in obtaining food is catching the abundant waterfowl, quail, rabbits and such without the use of firearms. This is a formidable task for the lone hunter, but the Indians worked co-operatively and employed nets and snares, sometimes driving the animals into a narrowing gap where they waited with clubs and bows and arrows.
Probably the most conspicuous natural food in California harvested by the natives is the acorn from oak trees. I have harvested and processed acorns myself. The book identifies the favorites of the various Indian tribes. It seems that the acorns of the Black Oak, the Blue Oak, and the Tan-oak (not really a true oak) were the most desirable. My limited experience agrees that the acorns of the Black Oak are tastier than those of the Valley Oak. However I want to note that the great Valley Oak which can yield as many as 500 pounds of acorns from a single tree (p. 320) has relatively little tannin in the acorns which need little to no leeching, whereas the Black Oak acorns need a lot of leeching.
Finally I want to report that the authors identify the California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) as a "less desirable, fall-back food source" that contains tannin like acorns that has to be leeched out before the seeds can be eaten. However I understand from other sources that the California Buckeye contains some kind of poison that is not identified. The authors do state that the seeds are "prepared" as a fish poison. (p. 224) It's not explained here but the seeds are crushed and dumped into ponds and the poison from the buckeye kills or stuns the fish so that they can be easily harvested. I have been meaning to leech some buckeye seeds myself to taste them, but I will wait until I get more information on just how extensive the leeching has to be!
The Index could use a little work, e.g., the last reference to the Valley Oak is on page 320, not 319 as the Index has it, and we are referred in the text to "fish poison" on page 224 as noted above, but there is no Index entry. There is also some avoidable word for word and paragraph for paragraph repetition in the entries on how various foods were used by the Indians from one tribe to the other. However the General References (for further research) covers 37 dense pages.
Overall though this is a fine addition to the prestigious line of Natural History Guides edited by Phyllis M. Faber and Bruce M Pavlik for the University of California Press.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
January 12, 2021
Very cool and in depth review of the relationship between Native Californian societies and their environment. It especially focuses on land management by fire and reviews some general difference of interpretation of historical findings in anthropology.
I really liked the sections about how people ate. Do you want to know how many reeds it takes to make a basket? That is also in here. There are entire sections listing individual natural resources and how they were used, split by region.
I really liked the sections about how people ate. Do you want to know how many reeds it takes to make a basket? That is also in here. There are entire sections listing individual natural resources and how they were used, split by region.
December 21, 2025
Gave me tons of great info on indigenous fire use in the state of California. We really overstate how “untouched” the states natural areas are
September 24, 2011
Current Berkeley Professor Kent Lightfoot makes valid, innovative claims that early Native Americans in California cultivated -and in some cases thinned- the land via pyrodiversity (or the burning of land to maintain potential growth). Drawing on the knowledge of his fellow author and Berkeley graduate Otis Parrish (a Pomono tribe member), Lightfoot dashes many common stereotypes to the winds while maintaining California's rich diversity of both groups and geography. Though repetitive at times, most of the text is easy to read and should be attractive to both scholars and casual readers alike. There is a vast wealth of pictures regarding native plants and various flora and fauna to add relevance and data. A well compromised, informative research tool.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews