Red Rhythmic Serpent/ Red Planetary Earth - Resonant Monkey Moon of Attunement, Day 24

Atsugewi Storage Basket. Ralph T. Coe Foundation.

Pit River Tribes

The name Pit River Indians comes from the group’s unique hunting technique, which involved digging pits along the river for deer to fall into. The tribe is made up of descendants of the Achumawi (pronounced ah-CHOO-ma-wee; also spelled “Achomawi”) and Atsugewi (at-SOO-gay-wee ). The name Achumawi comes from a word meaning “river.” Atsugewi comes from atsuke, the Native name for a place along the Hat Creek; they were also called Hat Creek Indians.

The Achumawi lived along the Pit River in northern California, in an area bounded by Mount Shasta to the northwest, Lassen Peak to the southwest, and the Warner range to the east. There were two Atsugewi groups: the Pine Tree People, who lived in the densely wooded area north of Mount Lassen; and the Juniper Tree People, who lived in the drier plains in and around Dixie Valley, northeast of Mount Lassen. Today both groups live, often with members of other tribes, on several rancherias in northern California. They also own 79 acres in the town of Burney, CA, where their tribal headquarters is located.

In the early 1800s there were about three thousand Achumawi and nine hundred Atsugewi. In a census (count of the population) done in 1990, when the two groups had combined as the Pit River Indians, 1,753 people identified themselves as Pit River Indians. The 2000 census showed 1,765 Pit River Indians; of those, 1,733 were from the Pit River Tribe of California.

The Achumawi lived in a collection of villages that were organized individually, but maintained ties with one another. The Atsugewi tribe was made up of two distinct groups: the Pine Tree People and the Juniper Tree People who shared a language. The Achumawi and the Atsugewi were on good terms and frequently renewed friendship ties through marriage. Both tribes fought with the Modoc, Paiute, and Klamath, who sent raiding parties into Pit River territory to enslave women and children. In the early twenty-first century the eleven bands of Pit Indians share several of their rancherias with other tribes including, Yana, Maidu, Pomo, Paiute, Wintun, and others.

Although they inhabited a fairly small region, the Pit River Indians traveled every part of it, looking for food and visiting with neighbors. They rowed swiftly down California rivers in canoes they dug out of pine trees. They fished in those rivers and in countless lakes and streams. They hunted in high and low mountain regions, plains and valleys, swamps and marshes, and grasslands and meadows. Mountain groups often endured winters lasting six months. When one group fell on hard times, neighbors were always willing to help out.

The Pit River Indians were a fairly peaceful people. They did not like to fight and usually did so only when provoked. When challenged they sometimes sent a peacemaker to try to resolve issues with hostile tribes. The Modoc, Paiute, (see entries) and Klamath made frequent hostile invasions into their territory and captured and enslaved their women and children. Some historians think Pit River Indian slaves may have been handed over to the Spanish in the Southwest in the early or mid-1700s, marking their actual first encounters with white people.*

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_River_Tribe

CHICCHAN

Kin 45: Red Rhythmic Serpent

I organize in order to survive

Balancing instinct

I seal the store of life force

With the rhythmic tone of equality

I am guided by my own power doubled.

We operate in an evolutionary test tube or self-reflective evolutionary medium.*

*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2015-2016.

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The Sacred Tzolk'in 

Ajna Chakra  (Gamma Plasma)