The Maidu people are geographically dispersed into many subgroups or bands who live among and identify with separate valleys, foothills, and mountains in northeastern Central California.

The Maidu women were exemplary basketweavers, weaving highly detailed and useful baskets in sizes ranging from thimbles to huge ones 10 or more feet in diameter.

By combining these different kinds of plants, the women made geometric designs on their baskets in red, black, white, brown or tan.

[9] Maidu elder Marie Potts explains, "The coiled and twining systems were both used, and the products were sometimes handsomely decorated according to the inventiveness and skill of the weaver and the materials available, such as feathers of brightly plumaged birds, shells, quills, seeds or beads- almost anything that could be attached.

They tended local groves of oak trees to maximize production of acorns, which were their principal dietary staple after being processed and prepared.

According to Maidu elder Marie Potts: Preparing acorns as the food was a long and tedious process that was undertaken by the women and children.

The tannic acid in the acorns was leached out by spreading the meal smoothly on a bed of pine needles laid over sand.

The women and children also collected seeds from the many flowering plants, and corms from wildflowers also were gathered and processed as part of their diet.

Especially higher in the hills and the mountains, the Maidu built their dwellings partially underground, to gain protection from the cold.

For summer dwelling, a different structure was built from cut branches tied together and fastened to sapling posts, then covered with brush and soil.

They did not exercise day-to-day authority, but were primarily responsible for settling internal disputes and negotiating over matters arising between villages.

The Maidu incorporated these works into their cultural system, and believe that such artifacts are real, living energies that are an integral part of their world.