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The market is a circular open area with a great fire pit in the center. Around the pit are a variety of villagers looking to sell whatever they can, their goods situated on large wooden racks propped up and displayed at a diagonal. Coyote moves slightly ahead of you, telling you the various items for sale that you can’t identify, as well as their prices and his personal opinion on the character of the seller.
His opinions rarely relate to anything other than whether this person or that can or cannot take a joke. Still, absolutely nobody here speaks English, and you are relieved that you didn’t come here yourself to try and barter via finger wagging. You don’t quite know what you are looking for, but when Coyote asks you decide you’d like to try and find anything that would be rare or difficult to obtain back down the mountain.
With the criteria in place, the hunt begins in earnest. The mood is subdued here, and though people don’t whisper, they keep their voices contained to their immediate area. Only twelve or so traders inhabit the market today, a pitiful showing for as large a village as P’oilkat. Of the twelve, about four catch your attention as selling something possibly worthwhile.
A woman stands by a series of gorgeously woven baskets of many differing sizes. They are decorated with geometric patterns, laced with feathers and shells, and colored with bold and appealing swatches of red, dark blue, dark green, white, and bronze. Coyote tells you that these are the most famous elements of Maidu culture. You’d heard that yourself, yet you can’t recall seeing any while in California or elsewhere. They are stitched so fine that they’re waterproof, and often used to cook, treated so as not to catch fire. Some even use a special treatment of stone dust on the bottom that spreads its rusty color irregularly when it's heated, resulting in some very striking asymmetries from older cook baskets. There are some as large as ten feet across, but a cook basket is one sixth of your braid, and a larger, decorative basket is one third.
A man in full travel clothing puffs out his chest beside a truly enormous showing of furs. Fox, beaver, muskrat, and squirrel mostly. The sheer volume is a marvel. The fur trade is ever popular, as many, many european fashions require fur as a basis for entry. Europe has long since reduced its population of animals such as beavers to the point that hunting them en masse is not practical. Russia competes well in the fox trade, but otherwise it is the vastness of the American continent that provides the great majority. Increased tension with natives all across the country after the relocation of the Choctaw and Cherokee back east has seen the fur trade become more dangerous, and command higher prices. A single beaver fur in pristine condition could net as much as twenty five dollars. The Indian trader here is offering ten of them for another third of your tusk braid.
