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: For immediate use:
1. Dry acorns
1. Dry acorns 2. Shell and winnow using hammer
2. Store in and anvil
granaries for 3. Pound into flour with mortar and
pestle
up to 12 years
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, Mrs. Freddie, a
1906 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. Retrieved May 29, 2009, from
Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9022094
United Auburn Indian Community . (n.d.). Retrieved May 29, 2009, from
http://www.auburnrancheria.com/