What is the Maidu tribe known for?

The Maidu tribe inhabited the Sierra Nevada and the adjacent valleys of northern California. The Maidu were a semi-nomadic people who hunted in the summer, building wigwams (wikiups) as temporary shelters. In the winter lived in semi-subterranean pit houses or earth lodges.

What happened to the Maidu people?

When gold was discovered in 1848, the Maidu homelands were destroyed and taken away. Through epidemics brought to them by the colonizers, and by bounties placed on their lives by the government, the Maidu population dropped from 10,000 to 330 individuals in a matter of three decades.

Who were the Maidu people?

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. They also reside in Humbug Valley. In Maiduan languages, Maidu means “man.”

How did Maidu houses adapt to the climate?

Some Maidu built cone-shaped houses from poles covered with bark. These were smaller than the earth-lodges. In the summer, the people made temporary shelters near where they were hunting or gathering food. These shelters were made with poles and a flat roof of oak branches and leaves.

What are some of the things Maidu tribe made?

They weaved baskets using such materials as willow, yellow pine, and bear grass. They also valued beadwork. Beads were used for decoration as well as a trading item. In addition to beads, the Maidu traded salmon, salt, and nuts for bows, arrows, deerskins, and obsidian.

What kind of food did the Maidu eat?

As with other tribes of California Indians, the Maidu ate seeds and acorns and hunted elk, deer, bears, rabbits, ducks, and geese; they also fished for salmon, lamprey eel, and other river life.

Is Maidu a federally recognized tribe?

The Greenville Rancheria of Maidu Indians of California is a federally recognized tribe of Maidu people in Plumas and Tehama Counties, California.

Where did the Maidu tribe come from?

Maidu, North American Indians who spoke a language of Penutian stock and originally lived in a territory extending eastward from the Sacramento River to the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountains and centring chiefly in the drainage of the Feather and American rivers in California, U.S.

What natural resources did Maidu use?