Chapter 2. Insect Foods of North American Indigenous Populations ...

Chapter 226 of 68 9/20/2012 1:34 PMGifford (1932: 22-23) notes that the acorns used by the Northfork Mono were more than 50% wormy,but the wormy meats were not thrown out. Earlier workers are cited relative to chrysalids (piagi) of the pandoramoth (Coloradia pandora) being eaten, after parching with coals in a winnowing basket. Gifford states that theEastern Mono are reported to eat the caterpillars, while the Klamath Lake Indians and Western Mono eat thechrysalids.Regarding the taste of pe-ag-gie, the stew made from larvae of C. pandora, Essig (1934) says that hungrywhites who tasted the food claimed that boarding with the early Californians on the "American plan was not sogood."Emma Davis (1964: 261; vide Sutton 1988: 38-39) suggested that small structures for drying and storagewere used to dry roasted piagi (pandora moth larvae), although this interpretation has been questioned (seeWeaver and Basgall 1986: 169).Carolin and Knopf (1968) mention that, in collecting pandora moth larvae (the Paiute tribe) and pupae(the Modoc and Klamath), the Indians must have effected some direct control of this damaging pest in localizedareas. The Paiute smoked the larvae out of trees with smudge fires and caught them in trenches. They weredried and cooked with vegetables in a stew called "peage". The pupae were called "bull quanch" and considereda delicacy.Furniss and Carolin (1977: 195), in discussing the biology and outbreaks of the pandora moth, note itssporadic abundance limits its use as a food staple.Bettinger (1982: 55) discusses the nature of archaeological evidence of pandora moth harvesting sites.Bettinger (1985: 43) states that insects were a useful supplementary source of food for the Owens Valley Paiuteand illustrated a loosely twined basket for caterpillar collecting.In June, 1981, at Bishop, California, Fowler and Walter (1985) observed elderly Paiute harvesting andprocessing pandora moth larvae, Coloradia pandora lindseyi, or piagi. The larvae were harvested by hand thatseason rather than by the frequently described trenching method. The authors accompany their report with aseries of excellent photographs. Their description of the two-year life cycle is similar to the summary by Blakeand Wagner (1987) (see below). Their description of harvesting and processing is the most detailed available andis quoted nearly in full below:Caterpillars are ordinarily collected in trenches (odiabi) dug around the bases of trees selected fortheir accumulations of caterpillar frass (Fig. 2). According to the elders, old trenches werecleaned and new ones dug when the people first arrived at the harvesting grounds. Old trenchestake a person roughly ten minutes to clean, 'if you get right at it.' The trenches wereapproximately one-third meter deep and roughly one-third to one-half meter from the tree, andtotally encircled it. Cleaning takes the trenches to the level of the old soil or just below. All littersuch as pine needles and twigs...was removed. The elders noted that trenches had either verticalor back-cut walls to prevent the caterpillars from climbing out.New trenches were made in the same manner [as the old]. In former times a wooden digging stick(woobi) was used for excavating the trenches. . . The only social restriction placed on excavationof new trenches was that they must be located in one's own family area. Trenches were privateproperty, usually inherited through the female line.None of the Owens Valley elders felt that building fires around the bases of trees, as reported by [earlierinvestigators] to smoke the caterpillars would necessarily bring them down faster. 'They come down ontheir own,' the elders said, and indeed in June, 1981, they were observed descending the trees in largenumbers.Trenches were cleaned of caterpillars twice daily and processing took place coincidently. Duringthe 1981 harvest, caterpillars were merely gathered from the ground at a rate of roughly 100 per30 minutes (Fig. 3). In the past, the caterpillars were kept in the shade in open-twined globularbaskets (Fig. 4) or in a 'large pit'. . . while awaiting processing. Today, plastic buckets serve aswell, as the caterpillars are prevented from climbing out by the slick sides.Processing begins in a sandy area with the construction of a roasting pit about one meter indiameter. In the past, larger pits may have been used depending on the catch. A conical moundof sand is first made and then hollowed in the center. A fire is built to heat the surrounding sand.The coals are removed and the live caterpillars are then placed in the hollowed center of the pit(Fig. 5). They are mixed with the hot sand at the bottom of the pit, covered, and left to roast for30 minutes to one hour, depending on what additional processing is planned.