Shasta Indians: who?

The Shasta Indians are a Native American tribe who, prior to contact with Caucasian miners in the mid-1800s, were the predominant population in Northern California and Southern Oregon. They lived in structures made of wood and rammed earth that had partial basements. Organized into small villages with chiefs, or chiefs, as chiefs, the Shasta were different from many other Native American nations in that they lacked strong central tribal leadership. Their food – mainly acorns, salmon, venison, elk, bear and pine nuts – was usually shared among everyone in the community.

Population

The Shasta Indians experienced a severe population decline when the first American settlers moved west, panning for gold in the California mountains in the mid-1800s. Although the number of Shasta people was later reduced to near extinction, today it is estimated that between 2,000 and 4,000 descendants of the Shasta Indians survive. Their languages, however, are all but extinct, with only one speaker of Shasta recorded in the 1994 United States Census.

gender roles
Historically, the Shasta Indians worked together to provide for their village, as they often did with other Native American tribes. Typically, men fished and hunted for food, while women gathered many staple foods, such as nuts. Although men were often on the prowl, they did help gather some items, such as acorns, when they were ready to harvest.

Currency
The Shasta Indians had a monetary system that used dental shells as currency. Other goods that had commercial value were woodpecker scalps, deer skins and beads. It was often up to the head of the village to determine the amounts of payments and settle any village disputes, which could also be done with these forms of money.

Rituals
The customs of maturity were especially important to the Shasta Indians. Both males and females would have their ears pierced to indicate this important milestone. The rituals for girls who have reached their coming of age were generally much more involved.

When a young woman reached the time of her first menstrual cycle, she lived secluded in a hut known as a wapsahuumma, built especially for this ritual and for childbirth. The young woman would remain there for eight to ten days. During this time she would be allowed very little sleep and would wear a mask made of blue jay feathers. She danced and sang, shaking a rattle made from a deer’s hoof; if she got tired, another woman would take her place until she finished resting. After two more menstrual cycles following similar traditions, the young woman would be ready to marry.
The Shasta young men would go on a vision quest in the mountains. This was supposed to improve the young man’s hunting, fishing and gambling skills. Such missions could be repeated throughout the life of a Shasta male.
Marriage
Shasta Indian marriages often occurred between villages, to prevent intermarriage within a family. Typically, the bride left her village and moved into her husband’s community, learning his language and her customs. The bride price was fixed before the wedding, and this also determined the value of future offspring. Consequently, it was important for the bride and her family to obtain a satisfactory bride price.

If a wife died early, she was usually replaced with a sister or other close relative of the deceased bride, because the husband’s family had already paid the bride price. If a wife was widowed upon her husband’s death, she usually married a relative of her deceased husband after a period of mourning. This mourning period usually lasted about a year. Also, a man might divorce his wife on grounds of infertility or infidelity. If he did so, custom permitted him to take as his bride a sister of his rejected wife, or be reimbursed the bride price.

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