Following the Game: Hunting Traditions of Native California

A celebration of the beauty of animals, the ingenuity of Native Californians, and the bonds that connect themThe first Europeans who came to California presumed they were setting foot on a land of untouched wilderness and untapped bounty. In fact, they had come to a place that had been carefully tended for thousands of years: by an inventive people who possessed an astonishing range of technological and zoological knowledge. Whether hunting sea lions along the jagged northwest coast, deer in the Sierra Foothills, or jack rabbits in the sage brush deserts of the Modoc Plateau, native hunters drew on a body of highly evolved religious beliefs and social customs that reflected a deep understanding of the ecologies in which they lived.With vivid black-and-white illustrations, photographs from the past and present, and first-hand accounts by Native Californians, Following the Game sweeps aside previous misconceptions about the simplicity of native hunting ways and provides instead a fresh perspective into a viable, complex, beautiful way of living, parts of which persist in California Indian culture today.