Animal Foods

Brush Rabbits, cottontails and jackrabbits

Brush Rabbits, cottontails and jackrabbits were most often trapped by snares set in their trails among bushes, speared with sharp sticks, or killed with slings and arrows. Boys would try to surround jackrabbits in practice for the way men would surround deer. Blankets were often made out of twisted rabbit fur and were warm and serviceable.

Squirrels

Squirrels were usually shot out of trees with arrows. Like most small mammals, they were usually crushed before cooking. Boys chased down ground squirrels and killed them with sticks.

Valley and Mountain Quial

These were hunted with blunt arrows to stun them. A favorite way was to build brush walls in the form of a V, the birds being driven toward the point of the V where a hunter or hunters would be waiting. Quail traps were made out of open-work basktry with a large opening in which the bird entered and a small end where it would become imprisoned. Often the Eastern Pomo used quail traps as much as twenty-five feet in length. Since quail almost always moved uphill, a trap was set on such a slope, and the hunter very slowly and cautiously drove the birds uphill into it.

Ducks and Wild Geese

Ducks and Wild Geese were hunted in the marshes, by the aid of decoys and with bows and arrows, or sometimes trapped in nets when they lighted on the waters. Clear Lake was especially noted for great flocks of them and fine hunting.

Turtles

Turtles were the most common reptiles eaten, usually being cooked in hot ashes. Small lizards were also eaten.

Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers were trapped in a ring of fire in dry grass, which also cooked them, then eaten soon after.

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