Modoc Subsistence

The Modoc were hunter and gatherers (foragers), who hunted mammals, fished, and collected a variety of plant materials for food, building and basketry making. Traditionally, men did the hunting and fishing while women gathered plant foods. Although the ancestral Modoc occupied a harsh high desert territory, they were fortunate in that the Pacific Flyway provided them with over 40 different species of migratory waterfowl. They also collected the eggs from geese and ducks that used the area as nesting grounds (Howe 37-39). Analyses of the faunal remains excavated a village site known as Nightfire and historic ETHNOGRAPHIES revealed that the people living there were utilizing a wide variety of plants and animals.

Howe reports that by the historic period (after European contact), the Modoc no longer consumed dogs or coyotes, as they were considered taboo (82).

Hunting was preceded by rituals consisting of "praying to earth, mountain, and rocks" and sweating, as means of purification (Stern 449). Hunting strategies included the use of BOLAS for taking birds (Howe 45). Women dressed the birds and hung them to dry (Howe 50). Rabbits were hunted by driving them into outstretched nets (Howe 95). Hunters used deerhead disguises to stalk their prey; however, the use of dogs to drive deer into close range, where hunters with bows and arrows shot them, was a more popular method of hunting. They also stalked antelope and mountain sheep then driving them, with fires, to hilltops or into a brush enclosure (Stern 449).

Small mammals cooked by stone boiling in baskets; heated stones (basalt or lava) were placed in baskets with water and food (Howe 64-67). Larger game animals were roasted in roasting pits/ovens (Howe 64).

Fish Hooks
From Alfred Kroeber

Fishing was done by driving fish into weirs then spearing them (Howe 146). Chub were caught in canoe shaped baskets, using dried fish eggs as bait. The chub were then dried over fires and stored for winter use (Howe 148).

Wokas or yellow pond lilys, a Modoc staple food, were harvested in summer, after the "first-fruits rite" was held. All members of the community participated in the harvest. The pods were gathered from dugout canoes, and put in tule bags to transport them back to the village where they were put in pits to decompose. The seeds were then separated from the decomposed plants, parched, hulled, winnowed and stored in sacks (Stern 449).