Serra Museum Education Program
Water ~ Barter ~ Shelter ~ Food ~ Dig Box ~ City Life ~ Mission & Rancho Life

Gathering Food

The first people who lived in the San Diego area ate what the land and the oceans and rivers provided. They ate parts of many plants, fish and shellfish, and even insects and snakes! The people spent a lot of time each day just trying to find the food for that day's meals, and scattering seeds so the plants would grow again. Women and children did most of the harvesting work, while the men used their throwing sticks to kill small animals.

Because some plants and animals lived in different parts of the land, people like the Kumeyaay either made long walking trips into the mountains or down to the coast to gather food, or they traded with other groups for the kind of food they wanted.

Kumeyaay loved acorns, and in the Fall after a long walk into the mountains to find the oak trees, the women climbed the trees to shake the ripe acorns loose. Acorns gathered from the ground were taken to holes in the nearby rocks, where the shells were pounded off, and the softer nut inside was ground into a coarse flour that was used to make different kinds of food.

The large rock with the hole in it is called a metate. The smaller stone used to pound and grind is sometimes known as a mano.

Things to do:

Take one or two acorns and put them in the hole in the metate. Pound them with the mano until the shells are cracked. Be careful not to squash the nut inside! Pick the shells out of the acorn nut and lay them to one side. Put the nut of the acorn into the metate hole and crush it with the mano and grind it into a coarse flour or meal.

DON'T TASTE THE ACORN FLOUR.
(The Kumeyaay did something else to take away the bitter taste.)

Things to think about:

Do you have to be strong to break the shell of an acorn? Who do you think did this work?

Did you get very much flour from one acorn? How many acorns do you think it would take to make a meal for you?

Acorns are only ripe and ready to eat in the Fall. Kumeyaay did not have calendars or watches. How did they know when it was time to make the long walk to the mountains to gather the acorns?