How acorns got to be what they are today: A Charming Story from the Karuk Indian Tribe

“…Once, Acorns were Spirit-people. They were told, ‘You will soon have to leave the Spirit world. You are going to Earth. You must all have nice hats to wear. You will have to weave them.’ So they started to weave good-looking hats… Then they left. They spilled from the Heavens into humans’ world. They were Spirit-people, those Acorn Maidens. They shut their eyes and then they turned their faces into their hats when they came to this earth….And nowadays they still have their faces inside their hats.”

John P. Harrington, “Karuk Indian Myths,” Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 107 (1932). In Native Ways: California Indian Stories and Memories, edited by Malcolm Margolin and Yolanda Montijo, 92-93. Berkeley, Californi: Heyday Books, 1995.