Sanchez Adobe

What is a tule?

Tule is a type of plant useful for many things. The Ohlone wove the tule into mats to cover their homes, and also used tules to make rain capes, stuff duck decoys, and make many other useful items. You can still see tules in Pacifica at the water's edge in the natural lake at Sharp Park Golf Course.

What is the house made of?

The house if made of sun-dried adobe bricks. The bricks are made of clay and straw. The walls are three feet thick downstairs and two feet thick upstairs.

What kinds of foods did the Ohlone people eat?

The Ohlone knew how to locate and prepare all kinds of foods.

Here's a list:

mushrooms, hazelnuts, luaren nuts, pine nuts, cherries, buckeyes, clover, poppy, mustard, miner's lettuce, cow parsnip shoots, columbine, milkweed, larkspur, cattail roots, mariposa lily bulbs

strawberries, wild grapes, currants, gooseberries, huckleberries, manzanita berries,

birds, quail, geese, ducks, seabirds and eggs

rabbits - Rabbits were especially useful because they could use the skins for clothing. You needed 200 rabbit skins to make one blanket.

raccoons, fox, deer, elk, antelope

shellfish - mussels, clams, oysters, olivellas, crabs, barnacles, abalones smelt, salmon, whales

insects - lice, grasshoppers, yellowjacket grubs lizards, snakes, moles, mice, gophers, ground squirrels, wood rats

taboo foods: eagles, buzzards, ravens, owls and frogs

What were the Ohlone people like?

The Ohlone people were seasonal migratory hunter-gatherers who came to Pruristac during mussel season and during the salmon run on San Pedro Creek. They made their homes of willow poles covered with tule mats. Visited Pruristac during mussel season and during the salmon run on San Pedro Creek.

Why does the roof have an overhang?

The roof needs an overhang to keep the rain from turning the building into one big mud pie.