Acorn Moon
This register backs the factual claims Acorn Moon makes. Every fact the game states is listed here with a short statement and the public source it is drawn from — the kind of thing a museum placard, a state agency, or a university extension bulletin already says out loud. In August 2026 every claim was checked word-for-word against its live source, and the ones that survive carry the date they were verified.
The acorn is the first food of the Takelma and their neighbours of the Rogue River and Table Rocks country of southwestern Oregon. Their living descendants are the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. The author of this game is not of these nations, so the game draws a bright line.
What is in the game is the public and factual layer: oak and fire ecology, the documented acorn food process, and the public fact that acorn and salmon are the paired first foods of this land. All of it is pinned below.
What is deliberately left empty is the community layer: songs, prayers, the interior of the renewal ceremonies, sacred and origin narrative, protocols for who may gather, burn or lead, any first-person “elder voice,” and any use of the Takelma language. The game leaves clean, labelled slots for these. They are to be co-authored with the descendant communities and the Indigenous Gardens Network — not written by the author, and not generated by any model.
Design motifs, added September 2026. The background screens carry the named geometric basket designs of this region, from published ethnography: Mary Elizabeth Douglas, Oregon Indian Basketry: Types and Distribution (1947, University of Oregon). How close the attribution gets, stated plainly rather than blurred: the palette and technique are Takelma — Douglas, citing Sapir’s 1907 Notes on the Takelma Indians of Southwestern Oregon, records close twining on hazel and conifer root and that “Alnus rhombifolia and mud were the only dyes used. Xerophyllum was often used in its natural state for white designs.” Sapir names no geometric patterns for the Takelma. The named designs are Karok, the Takelma’s immediate southern neighbours in the same basketry province: the flint (a parallelogram slanted up toward the left), the divided flint (a triangle), the snake mark (zig-zags, which “should never be used alone”), and the Wax’poo Mark (a trapezoid topped by an inverted isosceles triangle). Those documented rules are enforced by the generator, not treated as decoration. It does not reproduce, and does not claim to reproduce, any particular basket. It is a published-source design element, not community-authored work.
There are no Takelma words in the game. That was a decision rather than an oversight: Sapir’s 1906 fieldwork is in the public record, so the words are recoverable in an afternoon. A published record tells you where the authority lives. It is not the same thing as holding it.
| ID | Statement | Source |
|---|---|---|
| OAK-001 | The region's acorns came mainly from two oaks — California black oak (Quercus kelloggii) and Oregon white oak (Q. garryana). | Kalmiopsis (Seevers & Borgias) — verified verbatim 2026-08-23: "Acorns of the abundant California black oak (Quercus kelloggii) and Oregon white oak (Q. garryana) were leached in the river…". ⚠ The BLM Culture page previously cited here does NOT name the species. |
| OAK-002 | Black-oak acorns were prized and are high in edible oils; white-oak acorns are sweeter and less bitter, but they do not keep — they germinate soon after falling, while black-oak acorns must overwinter before they will sprout, so they store. | Verified verbatim 2026-08-23/24. Oils: USDA FS Silvics — "black oak acorns, high in edible oils." Sweetness: USDA FS FEIS — "Native Californians considered Oregon white oak acorns sweet and palatable." Prized: FEIS — "Native Americans targeted California black oak stands in particular for frequent underburning." Keeping: Silvics — white oak "seeds are not dormant; they will germinate soon after dispersal" and "retain viability only until the next growing season", vs. black oak, where "a period of after-ripening to overcome dormancy is required." |
| OAK-003 | Oregon white-oak savanna is open, grassy land dotted with widely spaced large oaks, grading into denser mixed oak woodland. | Kalmiopsis — verified verbatim 2026-08-23: "An Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) savanna community forms the matrix of vegetation at Table Rocks that grades into a mixed woodland…". ⚠ The ODFW oak page covers savanna under Grasslands, not here. |
| OAK-004 | Oak habitats are biodiversity refuges (Acorn Woodpecker, Oak Titmouse, Western Bluebird, Fender's blue butterfly, and more). | Oregon Conservation Strategy — verified verbatim 2026-08-23, all four named |
| OAK-005 | Oregon's oak habitat shrank ~72% by 2016; with fire suppression, Douglas-fir encroaches and shades out the oaks. | Oregon Conservation Strategy — verified verbatim 2026-08-23 |
| OAK-006 | Oaks "mast" — big acorn crops come only some years, synchronized across distances (predator-satiation strategy), so wildlife food swings year to year. | Bay Nature — verified verbatim 2026-08-24: "the production of highly variable and synchronized seed crops from one year to the next"; "predator satiation, which is generally considered one of the key, if not the key, evolutionary factors selecting for masting behavior"; "the size of the acorn crop varies dramatically from year to year." Corroborated by USDA FS Silvics (kelloggii): "abundant seed crops for entire stands were produced at 2- to 3-year intervals." ⚠ baynature.org 403s automated fetchers — reachable with a normal browser user-agent. |
| ACORN-001 | Raw acorns are bitter and astringent from tannins (tannic acid), which must be removed before eating. | Hearst Museum — verified verbatim 2026-08-23: "Acorns contain tannic acid… that needs to be removed before consumption." |
| ACORN-002 | Acorns were gathered in late summer and fall as a major community activity, knocked down with poles or picked off the ground. | Hearst Museum (poles, verified verbatim 2026-08-23); BLM Seasonal Rounds |
| ACORN-003 | Acorns were dried and stored over winter, then shelled/cracked before processing. | BLM Seasonal Rounds — verified verbatim 2026-08-23. ⚠ TRIMMED: "often roasted first to kill insects" rested on Visit California alone and is not taught in the game; removed. |
| ACORN-004 | Shelled acorns were pounded and ground into meal on a stone slab, then sifted fine in a basket made for it. | Verified verbatim 2026-08-24, and Takelma-specific. Douglas (1947): "They had a circular basket which was used for sifting acorn meal," and a funnel-shaped basket "placed on a flat pounding slab." Grinding corroborated by Hearst Museum: "With a stone mortar and pestle…" |
| ACORN-005 | The meal was leached — placed in a sand basin or basketry and rinsed repeatedly with cold water to wash out the bitter tannins. | BLM Takelma Culture — verified verbatim 2026-08-23 |
| ACORN-006 | Leached meal was cooked into mush, soup, or bread — classically by dropping fire-heated stones into a watertight cooking basket. | BLM Takelma Culture — verified verbatim 2026-08-23: "Hot rocks from the fire were added to cook the mush"; "eaten like a hot cereal or formed into breads and cakes" |
| ACORN-007 | Dried, processed acorns were stored for winter as a keystone stored food. | BLM Seasonal Rounds — verified verbatim 2026-08-23 |
| FIRE-001 | Takelma women set low-intensity "cool burns" in the fall as deliberate land tending. | BLM Seasonal Rounds — verified verbatim 2026-08-23 |
| FIRE-002 | The burns made fallen acorns easier to see and gather, subdued encroaching vegetation in the oak savanna and chaparral, kept grasslands open for foraging deer and elk, and brought on new hazel and bear grass for basketry. | BLM Seasonal Rounds — verified verbatim 2026-08-23. ⚠ CHANGED: the old wording ended "(and prevented large wildfires)"; BLM does not list that among the Takelma burn purposes — see FIRE-006. |
| FIRE-003 | Fall burning killed mold and acorn pests (filbert weevil and moth) in the ground duff and maximized the next acorn crop. | Ecological Society of America — verified verbatim 2026-08-23 |
| FIRE-004 | These oak/prairie landscapes were managed, not wild — maintained with fire at a landscape scale; fire suppression since settlement has degraded them. | Oregon Conservation Strategy — verified verbatim 2026-08-23: "traditionally managed on a landscape scale by Indigenous people" |
| FIRE-005 | Cultural burning is a living first-food practice — Grand Ronde prescribed burns cultivate fire-resilient foods like white-oak acorns, and the ash nourishes camas. | ICT News / Underscore — verified verbatim 2026-08-24: "Burns cultivate fire-resilient food species like white oak acorns, and the ash nourishes camas growth." ⚠ ictnews.org 403s automated fetchers — reachable with a normal browser user-agent. |
| FIRE-006 | Low, cool fuel-reduction burning lowers the risk of large, destructive fire — the general fire-ecology basis for "good fire helps prevent big wildfires," which the game teaches in ~8 places. | USDA Forest Service, Prescribed Fire — verified verbatim 2026-08-24: "Reduces hazardous fuels, protecting human communities from extreme fires"; "More prescribed fires mean fewer extreme wildfires." Kept as its own row because this is general fire ecology, NOT one of the four burn purposes BLM documents for the Takelma (see FIRE-002). |
| FOOD-001 | Salmon from the river and acorns and camas from nearby gathering grounds were the staples of the Takelma diet. | Kalmiopsis — verified verbatim 2026-08-23: "Salmon from the river, and acorns and camas… were the staples of their diet." (This, not Seasonal Rounds, is what supports camas as a staple.) |
| FOOD-002 | Annual renewal ceremonies focused on the two main foods — acorn and salmon — to ensure abundant acorn crops and large spawning-salmon runs. | BLM Takelma Culture — verified verbatim 2026-08-23 |
| FOOD-003 | Camas was a companion first food, gathered in spring and also in late summer/fall when nutrient levels are higher, pit-roasted in an earth oven, then eaten soft or dried and ground. | BLM Takelma Culture — verified verbatim 2026-08-23. ⚠ REFINED: the old wording said spring only; BLM notes bulbs were "sometimes gathered in the spring to avoid confusion with death camas, but nutrient levels were much higher in the late summer/fall". |
| EDU-001 | Takelma descendants today are enrolled members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. | BLM Takelma Today — verified verbatim 2026-08-24: descendants became members of "Confederated Tribes of Siletz" or "Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, depending on where their family made their home." |
| EDU-002 | In 1856 the U.S. forcibly removed the Takelma and neighbors northward — a 33-day march on foot of some 265 miles, during which many died. | BLM Takelma Today — verified verbatim 2026-08-24: "traveled for 33 days under the 'escort' of 106 military personnel"; "a distance of approximately 265 miles"; "Many Indians died on their way to the reservation." NOTE: the game deliberately tells this gently for ages 6–9 ("a hard journey", no toll or distance) — an age choice, not a sourcing gap. |
| EDU-003 | Agnes Baker Pilgrim (Taowhywee), Takelma elder and granddaughter of George Harney — the first elected Chief of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians — restarted the tradition of both a salmon and an acorn ceremony. She walked on 27 November 2019, aged 95. | BLM Takelma Culture (verified verbatim 2026-08-23); death date: Mail Tribune / Seattle Times / ICT obituaries |
| EDU-004 | The Indigenous Gardens Network is a partnership of the Siletz, Grand Ronde, SOU, and Vesper Meadow to restore and steward Indigenous first foods. | SOU News; Vesper Meadow — both verified verbatim 2026-08-23 |
| EDU-005 | IGN's recent work includes an online Acorn Camp, acorn-processing equipment, camas-restoration tools, and a Shasta/Takelma Learning Garden at SOU. | SOU News — verified verbatim 2026-08-23, all four named |
| EDU-006 | Oregon teaches Tribal History / Shared History in public schools under Senate Bill 13; this game's shared-history content is framed to sit inside that curriculum. | ODE SB13 — verified verbatim 2026-08-24: the law "directs to Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to create K-12 Native American Curriculum for inclusion in Oregon public schools." |
| PROJ-001 | This game is an independent project; it is not produced or endorsed by any Tribe, SOU, or the IGN. | Statement of fact about this project — self-referential by nature, so there is nothing external to verify. |