A NORTHEASTERN CALIFORNIAN DUG-OUT CANOE T BY HUGH W. LITTLEJOHN HE dug-out canoe, shown in plates 59 and 60, was found in Gold Lake, Sierra county, California. For a number of years it had been seen by the people of the vicinity lying on the bottom of the lake under about sixteen feet of water about 150 yards off Fisherman s point on the south shore of the lake. In the autumn of 1925 Forest Ranger Gould hauled the dug-out to the shore, where it remained until the spring of 1926. At that time it came into the possession of Mr. Fenton J. Zehner, who brought it to Gray Eagle lodge, near Blairsden, Plumas county, where it remains at the present time. It was through the courtesy of Mr. Zehner, who is manager of Gray Eagle lodge, that the Department of Anthropology of the University of California was enabled to secure photographs and a description of this dug-out, and to obtain the short and inadequate history given above. The canoe or dug-out is 20 feet and 8 inches long over all, and is a very massive affair throughout. Its outside width at the center is 27i inches; 25 inches from the tip of the bow the outside width is 25 inches; 25 inches from the end of the stern the outside width is 26 inches. For the greater part of its length the sides of the canoe are almost parallel. The outside height at the center is 21 inches; the inside height at the same point is 18 inches. The writer s informant gave the opinion that the log from which the canoe was made came from either a yellow or a sugar pine, but it is a difficult matter to decide, for the wood is badly checked and its character changed from being so long under water. The canoe is in fair condition, the greatest damage being the splitting off of part of the left side due to checking of the wood. In spite of the evident crudeness of the dug-out, considerable effort has been expended in shaping the bow and the stern. The bow is cut under and brought to a decided point, so that in appearance it is not unlike that of the fisherman s dory used along the New England coast. The stern is shaped so as to appear broad and somewhat flattened, and the curve at the bottom is abrupt, with no tapering as in the case of the bow. The outer surface is so checked and cracked and waterworn that to say that the shaping was done with stone or with metal tools would be a guess. 777
778 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST IN. S., 31,1929 Inside, the marks of the tool used in shaping the dug-out are very distinct, and from their sharp, deep, and well-defined character it seems evident that they are the marks of a metal adz. Fire was employed in hollowing out the interior, for the sides and especially the ends are still very much charred. A large amount of wood has been left intact in both the bow and the stern, probably for the purpose of giving added strength, and this is largely what gives the appearance of massiveness to the dug-out. The shaping of the sides and bottom has been neatly and carefully done, for the bottom is smoothly and evenly curved to conform to the shape of the log, and the sides are of uniform thickness throughout the length of the main body of the dug-out. Near the middle of the side which is intact are two places where the edge has been gouged out for the apparent purpose of holding two boards or seats, which doubtless extended to the opposite side, now broken away. The assumption is strengthened by the appearance of the broken ends of rusty iron nails in the places gouged out. The presence of nails in the dug-out would indicate that, no matter what its age, it has been in use at least since the white man came to this part of California. In the stern is cut a deep notch which could have had no other purpose than that of acting as a seat for a rudder, oar, or scull. This notch seems to have been made later than the canoe itself, and it may have been contemporaneous with the gouges and the iron nails on the side, and even perhaps with the deep, sharp adz-marks on the interior. It is the writer s opinion that the canoe was originally made by the aborigines of the region and that it was later found and used by some white settler, who adapted it to his special purpose. A white informant of some three score years and ten, now living in Blairsden, told the writer that when he was a young man living near Manzanita lake, Shasta county, he and a friend found an old Indian dug-out similar to the one described in this paper. He and his friend were accustomed to do night fishing in the lake, so they rigged a contrivance for holding an iron basket of fire in the dug-out. One man fished while the other propelled the boat from the stern. Something similar may have happened to the dugout we are describing, and the adz-marks may have been made by
[LITTI.RJOHN] PLATE 59 * a tb F;
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, N. S., VOL. 31 [LlTTLI: JOIIN] PLATE GO
LITTLE JOHN] CALIFORNIA DUG-OUT CANOE 779 the white owners who wished to shape the interior of the canoe better to suit themselves. This cannot be stated with any certainty, however, for the canoe may have been hollowed out by the Indians at a time when they knew the use of metal tools. If the dug-out is ofindianmanufacture, to what tribe of Indians did it belong? Gold lake is some 6400 feet above sea level, and according to the writer's Indian informant living near Quincy, the adjoining territory was never occupied permanently due to the severity of the winter climate. This same informant stated that during the summer the Washo and the Northeastern Maidu would go to Gold lake to fish, and that warfare was of frequent occurrence between these two tribes. Mohawk valley, wherein lies Blairsden, was considered as neutral hunting territory, and no one tribe was allowed to appropriate any portion of it for permanent or temporary camps. Moreover, near Lake Hawley, which lies at about the same altitude as Gold lake, but about three miles to the west, there is a large flat rock covered with Indian petroglyphs. That Indians were frequent visitors to the whole of this so-called Lake Basin area is further shown by the large number of artifacts, especially arrowpoints, that have been picked up in this area. Maidu, Washo, Paiute spent their summers fishing and hunting in this Lake Basin area, and, provided an Indian origin for the dug-out of Gold lake is accepted, we cannot say for sure that it was the property of any one tribe more than another. None of these tribes was prolific in boat-making in any sense of the term, so it is interesting to find such a dug-out canoe coming from a region of long cold ice-bound winters and short summers, where, on account of its weight and bulk it could be used only upon the lake where it was first hollowed out.' UNIVERSITY OE CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA Dixon, The Northern Maidu (Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 17: 140, 1905) says: The rude dug-out canoes, in use only among the northeastern Maidu, were made from fallen pines, as a rule. A section of the requisite length was burned off, the bark stripped, and the canoe excavated by fire...,. The charred wood was scraped off with rough axes or adzes, and the fire kept up till the canoe was completely hollowed out. Elkantler wedges were used to split trees, being driven by a round hammer-stone held in the hand.