Skip to main content

Carmichael Times

Rehab Flooded with Artifacts

Nov 19, 2015 12:00AM ● By Story and photos by Seraphim Winslow

Last Friday, Nov. 13th, was not an unlucky day for the patients at the Rosewood Post-Acute Rehab facility in Carmichael.

In honor of National Native American Heritage Month, Bryan Lee of the Roseville Maidu Museum and Historic Site loaded the facility’s dining room tables with deer antlers, animal furs, bow and arrow replicas, bone scrapers, water-resistant baskets, and dozens of other models of authentic artifacts—currently on display at the museum. Lee treated Rosewood’s patients with an excellent talk, followed by a hands-on presentation called the Life and Culture of the California Indian.

Imagine east Sacramento County without the shopping malls and the city halls; the freeways and the fairways; the city streets and places to eat. Great grassy plains spotted by stands of oak, framed by streams and rivers teeming with deer, bear, fox, and beaver, stretching as far as the eye can see. For transportation: not cars, but canoes. For habitation: not housing tracts, but clusters of reed dwellings which the original inhabitants of this land called “Kish.” This is how the Maidu, Miwok, Pomo, and other people of the First Nations in our area lived.

At one time, more than 150 Native American tribes occupied the land we now call California. The First Nations of this land enjoyed a natural lifestyle that was efficient, frugal, and dependent on what the surrounding countryside and wildlife provided them. Their primary construction tools were made from either stone or bone. Other important materials included redwood, animal hide, and obsidian. Wetted animal sinew was an excellent gluing and binding substance for arrowheads, because when wet, it gets sticky like glue. Needles, scrapers, and other tools were made from deer antler, and that same animal’s jawbone was made into a saw or a knife, while its shoulder bone became a multi-purpose tool. Chemicals in the deer’s brain were even used for tanning. In short, local Native Americans used every part of the animal in their rich and fascinating culture.

The patients and staff of Rosewood who attended Lee’s presentation not only heard many fascinating facts about California Indian life and culture, but they were even invited to approach the artifacts, to handle the tools, touch the baskets, and pet the many furs on display. There was even a skunk fur. “Most people tend to avoid that one,” said Lee with a sly smile.

At one point in the presentation, Markesha Stancil, one of the staff members of the rehab center, asked if she could come up and pet the beaver skin. “I have never done that in my life,” she said.

Having direct contact with California Indian culture like this was a great opportunity for Rosewood’s patients and staff to celebrate the way of life of this country’s Native Americans and First Nations.