Maidu

Member of an American Indian people who lived in the eastern drainage system of the Sacramento River in northeastern California. Their language belongs to the Penutian family. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers, whose main staples were acorn flour, small game, and salmon. Valley dwellers lived in semi-subterranean communal houses with a rough wood frame covered in bark and thatch, while those of the foothills and mountains built brush and bark lean-tos. Since 1977 they have petitioned unsuccessfully for federal recognition. Most now live on the Round Valley Reservation and number about 300 (1990). Their chief occupation is basket weaving.

Politically the Maidu lived in small independent bands, each with its own territory and chief. Chiefs were hereditary in some groups and in others had to achieve their position. Their religion centred on the Kuksu, a secret male society, and naturalistic rituals involving the use of masks that represented the spirits, who were called Kakeni. The dead were burned in their brush houses with their belongings, and were commemorated on the anniversary of their death by burning baskets and exchanging shell money.

Western contact was first made with the Maidu in the 1830s and it introduced diseases that devastated their communities. After 1848 the miners and settlers of the California gold rush took a large part of the Maidu's food resources, and starvation became rife. They were eventually forced onto the Round Valley Reservation in 1863.