Table of Contents

List of Illustrations List of Tables Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction PART I. CALIFORNIA AT CONTACT 1. Wildlife, Plants, and People 2. Gathering, Hunting, and Fishing 3. The Collision of Worlds PART II. INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT AND ITS ECOLOGICAL BASIS 4. Methods of Caring for the Land 5. Landscapes of Stewardship 6. Basketry: Cultivating Herbs, Sedges, Grasses, and Tules 7. From Arrows to Weirs: Cultivating Shrubs and Trees 8. California's Cornucopia: A Calculated Abundance 9. Plant Foods Aboveground: Seeds, Grains, Leaves, and Fleshy Fruits 10. Plant Foods Belowground: Bulbs, Corms, Rhizomes, Tubers, and Taproots PART III. REKINDLING THE OLD WAYS 11. Contemporary California Indian Harvesting and Management Practices 12. Restoring Landscapes with Native Knowledge Coda: Indigenous Wisdom in the Modern World Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author

M. Kat Anderson is a Lecturer in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis; Associate Ecologist at the Agricultural Experimental Station at the University of California, Davis; and a faculty member in the Graduate Group in Ecology at the University of California, Davis. She is coeditor, with T. C. Blackburn, of Before the Wilderness: Native Californians as Environmental Managers (1993) and coeditor, with Henry T. Lewis, of Forgotten Fires: Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness by Omer C. Stewart (2002).

Reviews

"This fascinating book is rich with information and beautifully written for a broad audience of both laypeople and professionals." - Sue Rosenthal, Bay Nature "Tending the Wild is an enormously rich and highly readable text on the remarkably diverse land management techniques practiced by California Indians over millennia. This book serves as an invaluable resource as we strive to conserve California's enormous cultural and biotic heritage in the new century. A triumph!" - Michael H. Horn, California State University Fullerton "Tending the Wild supports the little know fact that Indian groups in California historically practiced a kind of "environmental bonsai" through their centuries long management activities. Kat Anderson's work is timely and will make an important contribution toward a better understanding of the historic ecologies of North America." - Greg Cajete, University of New Mexico"