Maidu people

Maidu

A Maidu coiled basket, late 19th century.
Total population
(2,500)
Regions with significant populations
United States of America ( California)
Languages
English, Maidu
Religion
Animistic (incl. syncretistic forms), other

The Maidu are a tribal people of northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada, in the drainage area of the Feather and American Rivers. They also reside in Humbug Valley. In Maiduan languages, Maidu means "man".

There are three subcategories of Maidu:

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber estimated the 1770 population of the Maidu (including the Konkow and Nisenan) as 9,000.Sherburne F. Cook raised this figure slightly, to 9,500.

Kroeber reported the population of the Maidu in 1910 as 1,100. The 1930 census counted only 93. As of 1995, the Maidu population had recovered to an estimated 3,500.

The Maidu were hunters and gatherers.

The Maidu were exemplary basket weavers, weaving highly detailed and useful baskets in sizes ranging from thimble-sized to huge ones ten or more feet in diameter. The stitches on some of these baskets are so fine that you need a magnifying glass to see them. In addition to closely woven, watertight baskets for cooking, they made large storage baskets, bowls, shallow trays, traps, cradles, hats and seed beaters. To make these baskets, they used dozens of different kinds of wild plant stems, barks, roots and leaves. Some of the more common were fern roots, red bark of the redbud, white willow twigs and tule roots, hazel twigs, yucca leaves, brown marsh grass roots and sedge roots. By combining these different kinds of plants, they were able to make geometric designs on their baskets in red, black, white, brown or tan.

Like many other California tribes, the Maidu were hunters and gatherers and did not farm. They practiced grooming of their gathering grounds, with fire as a primary tool for this purpose, and tended local groves of oak trees to maximize production of acorns, which were their principal dietary staple. The abundance of acorns made it possible for the Maidu to store large quantities for harder times, and they used their basket-making skills to construct above-ground acorn granaries.