Description
The Maidu are a Native American people of northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada, in the watershed area of the Feather and American Rivers and in Humbug Valley. In Maiduan languages, maidu means "man". The Maidu people are geographically dispersed into many subgroups or bands who live among and identify with separate valleys, foothills, and mountains in northeastern Central California. There were somewhere between 310,000 and 500,000 Indians living in what is now California when the first Europeans arrived. This was approximately 10% of the Indians living north of Mexico. The greatest number lived in the Central Valley because of its rich resources.
Language
Maidu, North American Indians who spoke a language of Penutian stock
Culture
The Maidu women were exemplary basketweavers, weaving highly detailed and useful baskets in sizes ranging from thimbles to huge ones 10 or more feet in diameter. Like many other California tribes, the Maidu were primarily hunters and gatherers and did not farm. They practiced grooming of their gathering grounds, with fire as a primary tool for this purpose. They tended local groves of oak trees to maximize production of acorns, which were their principal dietary staple after being processed and prepared. Especially higher in the hills and the mountains, the Maidu built their dwellings partially underground, to gain protection from the cold. Maidu lived in small villages or bands with no centralized political organization. Leaders were typically selected from the pool of men who headed the local Kuksu cult.