Indigenous Uses, Management, and Restoration of Oaks of the Far Western United States. Technical Note No. 2

摘要

For more than 9,000 years before the arrival of Europeans, native peoples in the West led lives enmeshed with the oaks that surrounded them. Oaks and hands interacted in a myriad of ways as people in each of the many ethnic groups went about their daily routines of gathering, tending, and preparing oak parts: acorns, bark, leaves, and branches. The sharp sound of Dumna Yokuts women pounding blue oak (Quercus douglasii) acorns echoed across the oak-dotted canyons of the Sierra foothills of California. In the savannahs of the Willamette Valley in Oregon, and Puget Sound in Washington, the crackling of fire could be heard as the Kalapuya and Chehalis burned under Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) to discourage insect pests, keep areas open, and promote the abundance of wildflowers that were important for foods (Boyd 1999; Johannessen et al. 1971; Thysell and Carey 2001).