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“SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 78

HANDBOOK

OF THE

INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA

BY

A. L. KROEBER

a cede ere: wi a NURS ONAN MST “Wy

WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1925

<<“

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

SMITHSONIAN INsTITUTION, Bureau or American ErHNo.oey, Washington, D. C., February 18, 1919. Str: I have the honor to transmit the accompanying manuscript, entitled “ Handbook of the Indians of California,” by A. L. Kroeber, and to recommend its publication, subject to your approval, as a bulletin of this bureau.

Very respectfully, J. Watrer FEwKES,

i Chief. Dr. CHartes D. Watcort, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Tit

7 , : ; -_ : 7 1 ss ‘ 7 : } > Ul . , ce 1 1 : i ! poral - n @ t py “ y aa 1 i ¥ Ki : oF = j ‘ © a 7 » = - . : ; ~ . ’ . ' i i i ey

PREFACE.

This book is the outcome of 17 years of acquaintance and occu- pation with the Indians of California; intermittent, it is true, but with these people remaining throughout the first subject of the writer’s study. Although it may seem otherwise, it attempts to be a history.

It is not a history in the usual sense of a record of events. ‘The vast bulk of even the significant happenings in the lives of un- civilized tribes are irrecoverable. For the past century our knowl- edge is slight; previous to that there is complete obscurity. Nor do the careers of savages afford many incidents of sufficient in- trinsic importance to make their chronicling worth while.

The book is a history in that it tries to reconstruct and present the scheme within which these people in ancient and more recent times lived their lives. It is concerned with their civilization—at all events the appearance they presented on discovery, and when- ever possible an unraveling, from such indications as analysis and comparison now and then afford, of the changes and growth of their culture. There being no written documents, the element of time enters infinitely less than in works which it is customary to designate historical. In the stead of time, the geographical factor looms large. It is not that this dimension is necessarily more im- portant in savage life than that of chronology; but it is a hundred times more readily operated in, and is on the whole the most avail- able means through which some glimpses of time perspective are attainable.

It is for this reason that after long deliberation I have constituted the bulk of the book a series of tribal descriptions. A broader typical treatment of phases of native culture seems theoretically more de- sirable, especially in the case of a remote and unimportant people. But such a treatment would have led to an unfortunate dilemma. The local variations are so numerous that their consideration would have smothered. the systematic presentation of general points of view. On the other hand, the elimination of this detail would have left the presentation as an abstraction, too largely dependent upon the sub- jective attitudes of the author, and sterile in the sense of lacking the color and life in which, after all, the characteristics of civilizations are manifest.

VI PREFACE

I have, therefore, proceeded on the plan of picturing as concretely as I might the customs of each of some 50 little nations, adding dis- cussions and comparisons of broader scope wherever the knowledge in hand made such procedure seem profitable. This brings it about that the more general conclusions appear strewn at random through the course of several hundred pages, and to some this will seem un- fortunate. I have attempted to meet the difficulty in two ways — first, by a few chapters which are wholly summary and comparative, and which will be found at the end of the work; second, by a care- fully prepared subject index, which not only brings together all the references to each phase of culture but often enumerates its principal aspects or elements.

After some hesitation I have omitted all directly historical treat- ment in the ordinary sense; that is, accounts of the relations of the natives with the whites and of the events befalling them after such contact was established. It is not that this subject is unim- portant or uninteresting, but that I am not in position to treat it adequately. It is also a matter that has comparatively slight rela- tion to the aboriginal civilization. It presupposes, indeed, some understanding of that civilization; but it requires also a thorough knowledge of the local history as well as of the institutions of the superior race. It involves prolonged study and acquaintance with Spanish and mission archives, with Government. documents, with early California events and pioneer conditions. In all these things many others are more proficient than I can hope to become; and it has seemed that I might better contribute to the future writing of such a history by concentrating effort in the field to which train- ing and predilection have led me, and endeavoring to render the California Indian, as such, a more familiar object to the future historian of his political and economic relations with ourselves. 1 have, therefore, considered the effect of contacts only in special cases; as when necessary to form an estimate of an ancient vanished culture through the medium of its modern and modified represen- tative.

In the matter of population, too, the effect of Caucasian contact can not wholly be slighted, since all statistics date from a late period. The disintegration of native numbers and native culture have proceeded hand in hand, but in very different ratios according to locality. The determination of populational strength before the arrival of the whites is, on the other hand, of considerable sig- nificance toward the understanding of Indian culture, on account, of the close relations which are manifest between type of culture and density of population.

It has also appeared most profitable to attempt as little formal separation as possible of the data acquired by ethnological and

PREFACE VIL

archeological investigations. I have indeed added a chapter on pre- history, in the nature of a summary and compilation of miscellanea. In the main, however, a detailed’ survey of the prehistory of Cali- fornia on the basis of its archeology would be a catalogue of sites known to have been inhabited, a list of excavations performed, and a description of objects found. As yet there is little sequence of development traceable in these ancient remains. The objects discov- ered in any region are very similar to those used by recent Indians. A strictly archeological treatment leaves the greater part of the culture with which it is concerned entirely untouched, and is likely to have undue recourse to pure speculation in its interpretations. In an area of such unusual stability, ethnological data must accord- ingly be made use of constantly. This being true, a single treat- ment seems called for. Data from the recent and surviving Indians being on the whole very much fuller, the only practical procedure has been to incorporate the specifically archeological material in accounts that are prevailingly of an ethnological character.

The physical type of the natives is another topic that has been slighted. In this case the reason is its essential aloofness from the main thread of the work. It is a truism that physical type and cul- ture have only the slightest, if any, relation in human history; and one of the earliest maxims impressed on the student of anthropology, al- though still one of the most frequently violated, is the fallacy of in- ferring from one to the other. A compact review and analysis of all that is known on the physical anthropology of the natives of Cali- fornia would be exceedingly useful in itself, but would add little to the serviceability of this book. Moreover, it can be better executed by other hands.

As regards the province of speech, I feel no such hesitation of competence, but here again the subject matter is an essentially dis- tinct one, besides being of a nature which generally impresses as technical. The relation of language to civilization is undoubtedly closer than that of head form or skin color, but it is far from in- timate. I have therefore considered speech only in so far as the accumulating knowledge of the languages of California has led to their classification on a genetic or historical basis and thus contributes to the insight of the origin, movements, and relationship of the several nations.

One cultural activity of the profoundest emotional import I have regretfully felt compelled to refrain from considering—music. There is no question that any attempt at a well-rounded description of the culture of a people which omits music from its consideration is imper- fect. But in the present case the difficulties were enormous. Prim- itive music is so thoroughly different from our own as to be practi-

VIII PREFACE

cally unintelligible except on long acquaintance. It has been an- alyzed only imperfectly and usually is even transcribed but inad- equately. There is no work which seriously attacks the music of the California Indians. A chapter on this fascinating subject would therefore have had to be either so superficial as to be worthless or . so long and detailed as to become disproportionate.

A considerable part of the information gathered in this book has never been printed before. Some of this is my own. The remainder has been unhesitatingly put at my disposal by the present and former members of the department of anthropology of the University of Cal- ifornia: Dr. P. E. Goddard, Dr. E. Sapir, Dr. 8S. A. Barrett, Mr. N. C. Nelson, Dr. T. T. Waterman, Mr. E. W. Gifford, Mr. L. L. Loud, Prof. R. B. Dixon, Dr. J. Alden Mason, and the late Dr. Philip Mills Jones. In fact, the present work would have been impossible without the research which has been conducted for the university since 1901, as a result of the foundation of the department of anthro- pology by the late Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst. In a large sense, therefore, this book expresses the results of the work of the University of California far more than the labors of one individual. It has merely fallen to my lot to combine and present the knowledge which has accumulated through the efforts of the group of whom I am one.

Mr. F. W. Hodge, ethnologist in charge of the Bureau of American Ethnology,and Mr. J. P. Harrington, now also of the Bureau, have put further data at my disposal. Personally I wish to express to Mr. Hodge my genuine sense of obligation for the opportunity to carry through the undertaking. Without his encouragement and constant readiness to cooperate it is likely that a work of the scope of the present book would not have been undertaken by any one for many years to come.

I am at the more pains to make these acknowledgments because this is my only opportunity. It has appeared necessary to omit references to the sources and authorities for my statements. This is an unusual procedure in a work that pretends to scholarship, but there were many reasons urging its adoption. Had authorities been cited at all, it would have been desirable to cite them at every oppor- tunity. To the nonprofessional reader such an accumulation of ref- erences to sources would have been unserviceable and generally dis- tracting. The anthropologist or historian has an offhand acquaint- ance with the bulk of the published literature and its detailed cita- tion would in most cases aid him but little. Moreover, the abundant. use made of manuscript data would leave serious vacancies in any list of references to particular passages. Intending students are the only ones, it has seemed, who may now and then be seriously inclined

PREFACE Ix

to deplore the lack of citations to the original sources; but their needs, I am convinced, will on the whole be better served by the bibliography which has been appended. This bibliography makes less pretense to completeness than to being an aid to discrimination. With this feature in mind, I have ventured to add brief appraisals to the titles of many of the works there listed.

If it is remembered that at least nine-tenths of the printed infor- mation on the Indians of California, certainly in quantity of facts, perhaps also in number of pages, is contained in three sets of peri- odical publications—those of the University of California in Ameri- ean Archaeology and Ethnology, the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, and the publications of the Federal Government, particularly those of the Bureau of American Eth- nology and the National Museum under the auspices of the Smith- sonian Institution—together with a small group of books not exceeding 8 or 10 in number, it becomes apparent that the problem of authorities and bibliography for the subject dealt with in this work is in the main a simple one.

T should not close without expressing my sincere appreciation of my one predecessor in this field, the late Stephen Powers, well known for his classic “ Tribes of California,” one of the most remarkable reports ever printed) by any government. Powers was a journalist by profession and it is true that his ethnology is often of the crudest. Probably the majority of his statements are inaccurate, many are misleading, and a very fair proportion are without any foundation or positively erroneous. He possessed, however, an astoundingly quick and vivid sympathy, a power of observation as keen as it was untrained, and an invariably spirited gift of portrayal that rises at times into the realm of the sheerly fascinating. Anthropologically his great service lies in the fact that with all the looseness of his data and method he was able to a greater degree than anyone be- fore or after him to seize and fix the salient qualities of the mentality of the people he described. The ethnologist may therefore by turns writhe and smile as he fingers Powers’s pages, but for the broad out- lines of the culture of the California Indian, for its values with all their high lights and shadows, he can still do no better than consult the book. With all its flimsy texture and slovenly edges, it will always remain the best introduction to the subject. It is a gratification to remember that there was once a time when an unendowed periodical published in California felt able fo command the support of its pub- lic by including among its offerings almost the whole of a work of this merit. The “Tribes of California” was first issued in the Over- land Monthly of San Francisco,

D:€ PREFACE

POSTSCRIPT.

New information on the Indians of California has of course become available during the five years since this manuscript was written. To incorporate even a summary of this would have meant the alteration as well as the addition of numerous passages—an unfeasible procedure. I have therefore only corrected errors, and here and there added footnotes indicating the range or significance of the recent acquisitions to knowledge, and their sources. These notes will serve to guide the reader to the literature that is gradually filling the gaps in the world’s knowledge of the tribes in question. Only the bibliography has been brought as fully as possible up to date.

The chapters on the Yurok, Yuki, Yokuts, and Mohave consist almost wholly of previously unpublished data collected by myself. The chapters on the Karok, Wiyot, Kato, Huchnom, Coast Yuki, Pomo, Yahi, Wintun, Maidu, Costanoans, and Serrano combine similar data in greater or less amount with materials from pub- lished sources. The chapter on the Miwok embodies a considerable block of unpublished data put at my disposal by E. W. Gifford. The section of the chapter on Prehistory dealing with cultural stratification in the San Francisco Bay shell mounds is based on unpublished preliminary computations by N. C. Nelson.

Certain parts of the present volume have been utilized, with the approval of the Bureau and with changes of greater or less moment, in other publications. Chapter 53 forms the basis of an article, “Yuman Tribes on the Lower Colorado,” in volume 16 of the University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology; chapters 54-56, of “ Elements of Culture in Native California,” in volume 13; and chapter 59, “California Culture Provinces,” in volume 17 of the same series.

A. L. Kroeper. Berkecey, Cauir., February 1, 1923.

Chapter.

. The 2eene . The . The . The

The

CONTENTS:

WULO kes an GaandcClvili zat Ol ae= = ses oe ee ee ee AYSUIIEO Kase walt Cm CUSt OM eee see eee, a ee ee SYGTIIO Kecwr U1 21-0) 1 eeewereee serene eee a Ee Ue ee ee Wie NAS eee SR as Soe a a eee IESE) Kemer =e ee ee ee ees Se ne fee ee Repay Pee @himaniko. an GaeWayOts=— ee ae oe oe eee 2 ee se

NENA ASCAM Siet th HUD Ol ON see ee a ie ee ee ee

The

. The . The » Che . The . The eche Phe eenhe . The . The . The . The . The . The wecthe . The . The . The . The . The . The . The . The . The . The . The . The . The . The

. Athabascans: the Hupa, Chilula, and Whilkut__________-___________ MA GnabAScans|:)SOULNEEN. STOUPS 22 2222=-22=.- en eee EL . The “che . The

Nae CLONIG. SCOLTAD MY es] aa Stee ee eee BYAUE Teste CURLG UTC eee a ee A he Se PY GUI eed cee TENN TN ee eee ee ee Se ee eat OR ll Je LUT GENTNO Triiesed TCG OO US Cis aT cd a ee NYT 0) 08 ce a ae EN es af ae Bomorrcecocraph vend: politiG@ses=2- = ses eee a ee ERomoezeivilazation,= 22 2 oo Se a ee ROmMOrmrelie oO nges Ma es Be ee ee a ee wee Cortland Wake Miwoke.22—_ 225-3 2s ee SIDES Cena OO.) eee eee es ere es Sees eS eee ee eS eee SINS Ue eee Se ene 2 he ee ee ee ee ats AChomawieand AtSuUge wiles === a Ss ee IMO 0 Ceeewa = we Sem nO ee ee eee eS BYE UTY Same 1) Cle Ye ee nee ae I Pe 2 ee FES TMU GUTH) ana eee a Ee ie a Se Wintun: geography and culture VIVA tLe see INU S le CU eee oe Se a a Monctitsland sand): SOCleh yes = ee ee Naiduikeantseand sin plement = sas. ee ei ee Maidu: religion and knowledge

OKUGSHE eS eOST aD hye eee ne ee ae Dee eee ee = a WOKULSEESOCLalaAnStItULlONS= =a =a eae eee ee COLUtS {sm CULTS ae eee RE ee ae 2 Se ye ee Yokuts: the concrete basis of life HISSe lenge Ge Salina Gases eee ee eee) @humials hearers erst Men eesti 7G ae A ae ee Washo

Paiute, Mono, and Koso Chemehuevi

XII

CONTENTS

Chapter.

43. 44, 45. 46. 47,

SOTEATO HOLLY ESTO YS me ee ee ee AD aoe El avmicl inate eee ee ee ae eee Khe: Mianend: § 2.8. t. ee ee ee Mhe Wuiseno. Clements: on ClvillZeiylO Tle ee ee The Liseno . OreaniZationeole ChyUiZa GlOU eee

Pe DhewCupeno janes @aintill pes ee eee ee es

inhe Dierweno.an ds a rig a ee ee ee

The Mohave: Concrete lite. 2 Peer 2) ee ee -Dhe Mohaves dream lite... 2 > Ee ee ee Oe RAG DU <2 a ees. a Oe ee ee PaCON (ei ek Abb cee bale Mid Oy) eee ee eee ee

ANS. OF lifG. --2-..2- See 2 ae — Se ee ee SO CLOG Yen a ee ee ee ee ee Relicion and iImowled cei. nn a oe eee eee Pp Vet irs ee So A Bie ee ee ee ee PAGCOR NAM CS ts OSs. a ek PE ee eee G@ultuce* Provinces eee ee Nae ee PRON TS EOI ea ee a ce Ee ee

Appendix: Pronunciation of Native words. 2-2] = ee Bibliography. 22 22 aes he ea ee ee

Classificationof titles by Subj@Cte- = 222 ee ee ee Glassified.Ssubject Index== = 2 ee ee ee General index. o¥- .. Se e8 = fe eS eee

bo

AID oP

10.

ie

. Coast cultures of northern California, Oregon, and Washington

. Molluskan proportions (by weight) in shell mounds

LIST OF TABLES.

Principal dances and ceremonies of the Kuksu system of the cen-

tral. tibes = 2 See ee ee Principal spirit impersonations in the Kuksu system of the cen-

tral. Uri pese 2 ele 22 ee ee ee eee Maidu ‘Spirit: impersonations 2] = 22 = ee ee ee Sequence of Maidu dances and ceremonies Northern ave ili Gail era cl caine ee ee eee California shell bead money measures____-_-_--_-§_- Elements of religion in southern California YUM SONS CV ClCS = esas eee ee ee ee ee The adolescence ceremony for girls Ritual numbers and methods of numeration —_--- Indian population of California, 1770 and 1910__ Source of some California place names of Indian origin

Percentage composition of California shell mounds

Percentages of total artifacts constituted by certain implements according to depth in shell mounds : Percentages of classes of artifacts according to locality of shell mounds

00 Ol ND SB ho

aa 414]

CO (on)

880 892 898 919 940 945 967 969 973

929

932

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PLATES.

Page. 1. Map: Indians of California, by stocks and tribes__________--__- In pocket. PmVuUrok- treasures’: Obsidian blades - ===s 2S eee 26 SmiUpaeerskine dances: Yurok making boats -—- 5... 2-22 eee a eee 26 4, Yurok fishing for salmon in Klamath River____________--_- Ey acs ee 70 5. Mouth of-the Klamath; canoe shooting rapids___._______-----_----- 70 GmUoisningeatarallk of Inlamathis wltap =.= ee 70 (eeISarOkeishing teoOminSCAttO ld te = ses ee eee Se eee 70 SeINALOke deer Nea oC CCOW S22 ee ee 78 GeeVvurokehouse: fronts: and: 1m tenlOn 2 == = ee eet ee ee 78 10: Karok house; Yurok sweat house interior.-=-_._.2-....-—___-__»_~- 78 11. Yurok town and graves; Hupa measuring money—______------+___-=- 78 12. Karok sacred houses; Yurok carved door__ Ret ee A Se ae 80 lemmas sweat house: Yurol canoes) 2 WW 2. eet 80 14. Hupa woman leaching acorns; Karok sweat house___=___----------- 80 HeYUrOk purse: box, ‘anc boat’ ornament 2-89 =. ss eet 80 16. Yurok pestle, arrow straightener, knife, grease dish_______________-_ 90 ieee vuUrok Acorn -sruel ¥stirrers» (22 Seer Fak 3. Be es 90 18. Karok in armor and shooting____________ ae hice ae Pe 90 TUMMVULOKEStOOl A0ZeS" ANG. MaAUISs: 2 een 2 eee ee 90 20. Yurok carved spoons of elk antler_______ es eee Se ae 94 eal mINGSUTS) Kana UU een et ee A Ne a as ee et 94. Pen Charolk. center OfetheswOrld==<2 == 22 2 8 ee Ee 108 PD MAV VAL OMI IS KO LS een teen nee ale! Sele Ce a os 108 PAM AISST KANG Ke bls V pe ae ee en wees hie ee Us ieee oe 2 es 144 25. North central Californian types: Pomo, Wintun, Modoc, Huchnom___ 144 ZO Map ceVUKIaM @ivisionss ===) 8 a jae ee ere F 160 27. Map: Settlements of the Wappo and Lake vaneae ae wine eerie, A> 172 OMNGUliG VCS. > Seo A ee ee pd Al ee a eC Oe 172 2 ORES COC GL Iss ee ace oe te eh ete SEN te LE ee See ean Sipe ee AE 172 OME VOUUCIEESTNOKING So IPCS= a2 4. veces t. Ae Ds 6 A eee tee Bh phe: 31. Central and northern California types: Salinan, Yana, Hupa_______~ 172 82. Sierra Nevada types: Miwok, Yokuts, Mono, Washo_______________ 172 ee LOTT OM SLs tats) Sees ete Ses oe A eI AS te ee ee Be ge 34. Map: Southern part of the territory of the Wintun__________-_____ 354 iam OT? cl (IL ener ee nee ts Poe eR ie iis feat een peits RIV hed ly Dt 354 Bosmviap Hehe, Pomo and their subdivisions: J22210. 22 io 356 37. Map: Territory and villages of the Maidu and Miwek______________ 446 Some Viv OkesaCOnnonanairy secs wits ert r/o Suite tap ye ie gee Te 446 Some CLC Se ermine emir ice te ei o! oi tee ts Nis) Patt 446

XIV ILLUSTRATIONS

Page. ARATE OS ae a wate Ie a ne eae 446 AT ECOrd=wrapped. LOS Terry a ity So eee eee eee eee ee ee ee 508 ADS He eat Wer Cl 1 Cet Ieee CS eee se ae we eee 508 A MATES sc ea ao 508 44, Mortar hopper; acorn gruel stirrers; bull roarers__________________ 508 45. Miwok mortars in bedrock; Yokuts mortar of oak_________________ 524 46. Cahuilla house; Yokuts booth for snaring pigeons_--___-_-_-__-___-____- 524 47. Map: The southern and central Yokuts______-_____________._______ 526 48. Map: Habitat of the Chumash and Alliklik_______________________ 526 AQ TAT TO We SUT Sel OECTA OT See aaa ec 30 DO .YOKUtS baSketry === = = 2 ee ee eee Hays) BY OK UGS DO UCC Tey, ae ow ae a a 530 H2s CHUM a SH iD aS etry se ee rae 560 53. Chumash cap and asphalted water baskets______._________________ 560 54. Chumash burden and storage baskets; Mohave beadwork___________ 560 55. Head net; baskets from various tribes______._______________________ 560 56. Mohave house interior; Koso sweat house______-_-_________-_________ 590 57. Map: Native sites in part of southern California 2225222 = eee In pocket. Soe CUUTN Tes Cy ein Cl S eee ee ee 590 59. Patwin headband; Mohave fish scoop; Chemehuevi basket___________ 596 60. Hupa_ pounding acorns; Cahuilla granary; Serrano sweat house___.__ 5596 61. Diegueno dancer; Pomo woman parching caterpillars__-____________ 664 62. Cahuilla sandal and painted jar________________________________ 664 68. Pliable bag, Buena Vista Lake__________________________ 728 G4> Mohaveéity pes'_2 =. 2-3 5 ee ee eee 728 Gb) Mohave types) =) ee ee ee 728 66: Metates: and grinding slabs ___--_---______ 2 ee UPA, 67. Mohave farm tools; Pomo rattles; Yurok, Pomo, Modoc paddies____ 740 68. Mohave pottery bowls_______________________-___ ee 740 GOs) Mohave Gren etl OT os ee eee 740 70, Yurok woman and old men_____---—-- 740 (i. Epa) WOman and. men =e ee eee 808 72. Head net and rolled hair; cotton blanket _--------_--§ 5 808 73. Baskets and caps from various tribes____-__--_--_-- S08 74. Map: Ritual cults of California____________-____________» ____-_____ 808 Mey NUL DAS KIOUS ese 2 ep a eee ee 822 CGO eMiWwOk<G@OlMEd! Dia SKe tse ea ee ea ae ne 822 77. Karok using fire drill; Patwin HEesi dancers________________________ 822 Tet MENA colo abav-errnavel GbOUNhbaver vibe ee 822 GOs pa “Lob |= ail eS ay eee 848 SO Miwok fGa ther sce psa eee ae 848 81. Skull from Buena Vista Lake region_________-________-._.--- = 934 82. Petroglyphs from the Sierra Nevada______________________________ 93 So. The Painted Rock of Garrigo JP \ains ee 938 TEXT FIGURES. 1. Yurok towns and territory__________ tds sie ase eter es Ee 9 2. Yurok town of Weitspus and associated settlements___.-____-_____- 12 3. Blanket of two deerskins, painted. Hupa___-_------_-_-_--_- 746 4. Yurok Nouse: lAdGera = se eee ee ee 79 5. End plank of Yurok sweat house, with exit hole__----______-__-____ 80 6. Plan of sleeping places in Yurok sweat house___-—---_--_--§ 5 82 pe KUO: “MOL “yl TGS ae ee 86

ILLUSTRATIONS

8. Chimariko land; towns, and neighbors_______-____________________ 9. Wiyot and Yurok in relation to the Algonkin family________________ LOM OLELOWNS=and- territory 22-2 ee ee iV AVOte Shamans OUtit==— 98a = 22 Se eo ee i2elaneoteupa town ot Lakimitiding——-.__---=_=-=-._-.-§_-___-_-_ Ij MmOniitiaeland sand TOWNS] 2-2-2222 22 See ee 14. Sinkyone ring-and-pin game of salmon vertebre______-_____________ 15. Acorn buzzer toys: Sinkyone, Pomo, Miwok__-----_-=_---_--------- IG SAV st lone I) Uae = = ee ee ee eee Ne 17. Distribution of the Hokan family in California_______-____________ lombanmilverree: of PomodialectS == 2--= = 42252 ee eee ae OM OMG ATCO mLOUSC i ae ee re ee ee ee ee eS 20. Sections of headbands of yellow-hammer quills__--_---__-__-__- > 21. Central Californian dance headdresses___________________________- 22. Coast Miwok territory and settlements____________-____-_______--___- Dom Plano tashastas MOUSSE. 2.25 Sa. Are ee ee ee ee - DAmOross ;sectioneor shasta NOUSe=——1- = - = == Dhe Achomawi-large house; skeleton” plan--—-=-—_=- .--_ ~~ = = == DOMES Ze Wilmela (ll CS aa es ea ee ee De ee oes a ee Se Ziewamath-Modoc two-horned muller]. --=----_ 22. _ 28. Klamath-Modoe fishhooks_______-----_--_--_--__-__-_-___-_ 29. Klamath-Modoe pipe bowls___--~--~~- on Ae PO Oe AE DO VAN Ae lerriLoOryeNOLunern pant -==——2—- = aa ee Pl eehindeens GeCOVasStUtheGs 2 2 ea at oe ee ee 82. Map sketched and explained by Ishi, the last Yahi-_-_-_-_-_-__-_______ 33. Penutian languages and degree and direction of dialectic variation __ 34. Penutian dialects in relation to drainage system___________________ Sasol CaneenNOUSCH as 22 =. 2 = eee 7 Se ee ke 36. Maidu settlements in American Valley______-__---_-_______________ 37. Central Californian cocoon rattles_.._______.___________ 88. Yokuts loop stirrer and Miwok paddle___--__-____________.__ eae

45.

. Women’s and men’s tattoo__ ee stele So See MRVOKUtSBDASKEE TESTE Soi ces a ss ee . Cradle types of central and southern California . Salinan and Esselen territory and settlements MW ODA UCC OT amid TNMs ee Se a es ee ee ae . Shoshonean branches, divisions, and dialect groups in California . Clustering of Shoshonean divisions in California . Carrying net. Koso of Death Valley_______

a Conemenhueva dice, of filledeshellsas_=_ = = wes . “ Boomerang” rabbit killers of southern. California . Southern California ground paintings . Cahuilla seed beater . Cahuilla pestles . Cahuilla carrying net . Face paints: Mohave men

mMivok. dance: or assembly: house==2=____--_ = =- =. 2. mhhesMiwok- village iof -Wplstini== 2 * = 1+ PEA COLMECODS weOmo, and, Miwok=o- = ==-22 2-26 622 . Costanoan dialect areas and approximate sites of some settlements __ . Yokuts topography, distribution, and neighbors_------ . Yokuts dance headdress of magpie and crow feathers

WOME Sica COO ssa et A ee et DD

ao Aa 4 8 oo Om aan

591

XVI

61. 62. 63. 64, 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

bo

orm oo

~ we ?

anda aa =I

~

ILLUSTRATIONS Hace paints: Mohave womens 2222 2) = eee 22 ee ae ae — Hace: paints 7 Mohave women == —:: = ease e ese ee eee

Plan of Mohave earth house____-- --_--_-_-__ Pee a ee) Ne ee ee, EE Mohave= Dowland 43dle= ee ee ee Mohave pottery, bOWile == 22 = Sr a se A eee Mohave: «fire “Grill Ae ee ee eee Bone awls: Pomo, Maidu, Yokuts, Yuki, Miyok ___-____--_____-_ The Californian snowshoe ___— nee are OnE AB pes Ge RT ape AO 5 Sie SN Hxocamy and totemism ine Callin r ii ea es ee Cremation and earth burial in California____._._____________ Or ee Ghost dance movements in Calitornia=2===__ = ee Decrease of native population from 1770 to 1910____________________ Subculture areas on the Pacific coast of the United States. Major culture areas and centers of development within California____ Prehistoric sites about San Diego Bay_-___----__ eee ee Prehistoric sites. on: Santa Rosa: Island 22 2 eee Prehistoric sites-on Santa Cruz island==-2 2. ee a Distribution ob Metco ota Wisma eee

Page.

ra|anD

132 733 734 738 739 739 806 807

Or Ooow

842 87]

887 903 916 920 921 922

937

MUSEUM NUMBERS OF OBJECTS ILLUSTRATED.

Unless otherwise mentioned, objects shown in the plates and text figures are in the University of California Museum of Anthropology

and their numbers bear the prefix “ l-.”

If there is no designation

of specimens by letters on plate or figure, the numbers refer to speci- mens as shown in order from left to right, or top to bottom, or both.

PLATES. ; 1542, 1327. 50: 10832, 10910, 38951, 4011, 10390, 3: armor, in Daggett collection. 10899. 15: 2259, 1952, 1866. 51: 14077, 10823, 10889, 14075, 14074, 16: 1682, 2181, 1538, 1084. 14076. 17: 1647, 1618, 2198, 1563, 1679, 1892. 52: American Museum of Natural His-

19, a—e: 2841, 1073, 937 (Hupa), 1195.

20: 2069, 1943, 1236, 1099, 2219, 1239, 1240, 1237.

23, a—c: 9415, 9394, 11626.

DA ade 241. 2530, 2547, 2534.

29: 10529, 19441, 4102, 401.

1629,

80, a-g: 2760, 2766, 9169, 10800 and 3960, 10358, 2673, 3902.

33, a—c: 2581, 2587, 26038.

85: 9461, 16573, 2307.

38: 10500.

39-40, a—o: 10259, 13841, 10057, 10235, 10216, 10055, 10731, 10830, LO7SO, 10817, 2327, 10944, 10730, 3087, 17336.

250L3 antsy

42, a—c: 1399, 9165, 9579

43, a, 9247, 9240; 6, 10435, 10227 224.-2410; 103, 2671, 13977 24 e169,

a-f: 20978, 14475, 16555, 4035, 9208, 2679.

45: 10715.

49, a-f: 19677, 19742,

14477, 4367.

3625°—25——2

44,

14057, 11043,

10484; ¢,

: 14497, : 14495, 55: a, 14524:

tory 50.1-2150, 50-5389 (Chumash attribution probable).

14508, 14502, 14998, 14999. 14496.

b, 4344, 18828; c, 10972; d, 20964; e, 20926; f, maker collection, 3, 49.

Shoe-

: 14565, 9580, 10089, 10040. : 14540, 4877,

4357.

62: 11067, 11095.

638: 14570.

66: 4801, 14071, 12971.

67, ai: 1754, 1720, 13866, 153, 1418, alr KO Ry ales ee 11235, 1704.

68: 1718, 18783, 138775, 13774, 4321

G23 VDE 14595.

foods 10956. Os dt 25.6, Obes: a,

11180, 11111; e, 1600, 1509, 1601 ; f, 1668.

: 11960, 12008, 11963. : 9920, 10120, 10851. : 10088.

: 12-1734.

VII

XVIII MUSEUM NUMBERS OF OBJECTS ILLUSTRATED

TEXT FIGURES.

3: 872. 37: 10747, 2324, 15b, 509, 2818, 10004, 4: 9572. 2835.

5: 9380. 38: 10126, 10466.

7: 1688r, 1908, 1933, 1923, 1688¢. 41: 10603, 10135,

11: 11622a, 11620, 9416, 11621. 44: 1398.

14: 2266. 538: 14567.

15: 2267, 10600, 10187. 54: 10971.

16: 4383. 55: 14498, 9215, 1753.

20: 28038, 525, 645, 2948. 57: 10979, 11107.

21: 772, 13466, 17, 10043, 10047. 58: 11121.

26; 2311. 59: 10997.

27: 4540. 65: 1722.

28: 12768. 66: 18851.

29: 12382, 12580, 141387. 67: 2773, 7457, 10439, 10802, 14087,

31: 19564. 12017, 10125, 10228.

HANDBOOK OF THE INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA.

By A. L. Kroeper.

CuHaprer 1.

THE YUROK: LAND AND CIVILIZATION.

Quality of civilization, 1; radius and focus of the civilization, 5; towns, 8; town names, 10; orgnaization of towns, 11; political and national sense, 13; directions, 15; population, 16.

This history begins with an account of the Yurok, a nation resident on the lower Klamath River, near and along the Pacific Ocean, in ex- treme northern California (Pl. 1), surrounded by peoples speaking diverse languages but following the same remarkable civilization. The complete aspect of this civilization is un-Californian. It is at bottom the southernmost manifestation of that great and distinctive culture the main elements of which are common to all the peoples of the Pacific coast from Oregon to Alaska; is heavily tinctured with locally developed concepts and institutions; and further altered by some absorption of ideas from those tribes to the south and east who constitute the true California of the ethnologist.

This civilization, which will hereafter be designated as that of northwestern California, attains on the whole to a higher level, as it is customary to estimate such averaged values, than any other that flourished in what is now the State of California. But it is better described as an unusually specialized culture, for the things in which it is deficient it lacks totally; and these are numerous and notable.

QUALITY OF CIVILIZATION.

In inventions there was no marked superiority to the remainder of aboriginal California; but most arts were carried to a distinctive pitch. Manufactured articles were better finished. Many objects which the central and southern Californians fashioned only as bare utility demanded were regularly decorated with carvings in the northwest. Often the identical object was made of wood in one re-

1

2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 78

gion and of antler or stone in the other. A new technical process is scarcely superadded by such a substitution. As regards the mere list of knowledges or faculties, the two cultures remain at par. But the northwestern preference for the more laborious material evi- dences a different attitude, an appreciation of values which in the ruder central and southern tracts is disregarded. That this differ- ence is deep seated, and that it is manifest at almost every point, is evident when the slab house of the Miwok or Yuki, the canoe or maul of the Modoc, the pipe or acorn stirrer of the Pomo, the netting shuttle and spoon of the Maidu, or the obsidian blade of the Wintun, are set by the side of the corresponding utensils of the Yurok or their northwestern neighbors. It is only among the far-away Chumash that technological activities were granted a similar interest and love ; and this localized southern culture has long since perished so com- pletely as to make a comparative evaluation difficult.

The implements that are made only in the northwest—the stool, pillow, box, purse, and the like—are not very numerous. They are at least partly balanced by central and southern devices which the northwesterners lack; and they do not in any instance involve a process or mechanical faculty of which the more typical Californians are wholly ignorant.

Much the same holds of wealth. Money is prized and establishes influence everywhere in California. It certainly counts for more in private and public life among the average Californian people than among the tribes of the plains or the settled and unsettled tribes of the southwestern United States. But whatever its influence in south- ern or middle California, that influence is multiplied among the Yurok. Blood money, bride purchase, compensation to the year’s mourners before a dance can be held, are institutions known to al- most every group described in the present work. The northwestern- ers alone have measured the precise value of every man’s life or wife or grief. Every injury, each privilege or wrong or trespass, is cal- culated and compensated. Without exactly adjusted payment, ces- sation of a feud is impossible except through utter extirpation of one party, marriage is not marriage but a public disgrace for generations, the ceremony necessary to the preservation of the order of the world is not held. The consequence is that the Yurok concerns his life above all else with property. When he has leisure, he thinks of money; if in need, he calls upon it. He schemes constantly for op- portunity to lodge a claim or to evade an obligation. No resource is too mean or devious for him to essay in this pursuit.

If such endeavors are to be realized, there are needed an accu- rately computable scheme of economic valuation, and an elaborate and precise code of rights. The northwesterner has both. His law is of

KROEBER | HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 3

the utmost refinement. A few simple and basic principles are pro- jected into the most intricate subtleties; and there is no contingency which they do not cover. The central Californian has his law also. But it is neither rigid nor ramified. Margin is left for modification according to personality or circumstance or public opinion. ‘There are phases of life in central California into which neither money nor legality enter.

With all this savoring so strongly of Kwakiutl and Haida custom, the Yurok is wholly Californian in his lack of any visible symbolism to give emotional expression to the economic values which are so fundamental with him. He is without crests or carvings or totems; there are no separately designated social classes, no seats in order of rank, no titles of precedence, no named and fixed privileges of prior- ity. His society follows the aims of the societies of the North Pa- cific coast with the mechanism of the societies of middle California.

Property and rights pertain to the realm of the individual, and the Yurok recognizes no public claim and the existence of no com- munity. His world is wholly an aggregation of individuals. There being no society as such, there is no social organization. Clans, exogamic groups, chiefs or governors, political units, are unrepre- sented even by traces in northwestern California. The germinal, nameless political community that can be traced among the Indians of the greater part of the State is absent. Government. being want- ing, there is no authority, and without authority there can be no chief. The men so called are individuals whose wealth, and their ability to retain and employ it, have clustered about them an aggregation of kinsmen, followers, and semidependents to whom they dispense assistance and protection. If a man usually marries outside the village in which he lives, the reason is that many of his coinhabitants normally happen to be blood relatives, not because custom or law or morality recognize the village as a unit concerned with marriage. The actual outcome among the Yurok may, in the majority of cases, be the same as among nations consciously or- ganized on an exogamic plan. The point of view, the guiding principles both of the individual’s action and of the shaping of the civilization, are wholly nonexogamic. Such familiar terms as “tribe,” “village community,” “chief,” “ government,” “clan,” can therefore be used with reference to the Yurok only after extreme care in previous definition—in their current senses they are wholly inapplicable.

Shamanism takes on a peculiar aspect in northwestern California in that the almost universal American Indian idea of an association between the shaman and certain spirits personally attached to him is very weakly and indirectly developed. Shamanistic power re- sides in control of “pains,” small animate. objects, nonanimal and

4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

nonhuman in shape, which on the one hand cause illness by enter- ing the bodies of men, and on the other endow the shaman with power when he brings them to reside within himself, or rather her- self, for practically all shamans are women. The witch or poisoner is usually a man and operates by magic rather than shamanistic faculty. In the remainder of California the distinction between the maker and the curer of disease is almost effaced, the shaman being considered indifferently malevolent or beneficent according to cir- cumstances, but operating by the exercise of the same powers.

Concepts relating to magic are as abundantly developed among the Yurok and their neighbors as shamanism is narrowed. Inmnitative magic is particularly favored and is often of the most crudely direct kind, such as performing a simple action or saying the desired thing over and over again. The thousand and one occasions on which magic of this rather bare volitional type is employed reveal a tensity that usually seems brought on consciously. This emotional tautness, which contrasts glaringly with the slack passivity and apathetic slug- gishness of the average California Indian, is manifest in other matters. Thus, restraint and self-control in manner and in rela- tions with other men are constantly advocated and practiced by the Yurok.

Northwestern religion is colored by the cultural factors already enumerated. The idea of organization being absent, there are no cult societies or initiations. Symbolism is an almost unknown at- titude of mind except in matters of outright magic: therefore masks, impersonations, altars, and sacred apparatus, as such, are not em- ployed. The tangible paraphernalia of public ceremony are objects that possess a high property value—wealth that impresses, but never- theless profane and negotiable wealth. The dances are displays of this wealth as much as they are song and step. All life being in- dividualized instead of socialized, the ceremonies attach to specified localities, much as a fishing place and an individual’s right to fish are connected. In the remainder of California, where stronger com- munal sense exists, the precise location of the spot of the dance be- comes of little moment in comparison with the circumstances of the ceremony.

The esoteric element in northwestern dances and rites of public import has as its central feature the recitation of a formula. This is not a prayer to divinities, but a narrative, mostly in dialogue, re- counting the effect of an act or a series of acts, similar to those about to be performed, by a member of an ancient, prehuman, half-spirit race. The recital of this former action and its effect is believed to produce the identical effect now. The point of view is distinctly magical. Similar formulas are used for the most personal purposes: luck in the hunt, curing of sickness, success in love, the accumulation

KROEBER | HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 5

of wealth. These formulas are private property; those spoken at public ceremonials are no exception: their possessor must be paid, though he operates for the good of all.

Yurok mythology is woven in equally strange colors. Stirring plot is slighted; so are the suspense of narrative, the tension of a dramatic situation—all the directly human elements which, however rude their development, are vividly present in the traditions of most of the Californians and many other divisions of American Indians. A lyric, almost elegiac emotion suffuses the northwestern myths and tales. Affection, homesickness, pity, love of one’s natal spot, in- satiable longing for wealth, grief of the prehuman people at their departure before the impending arrival of mankind, are sentiments expressed frequently and often with skill. Events and incidents are more baldly depicted, except where the effect of the action re- counted is the establishment of an existing practice or institution; and in these cases the myth is often nearly indistinguishable from a magical formula. Tales that will interest a child or please a naive stranger of another civilization do not appeal to the Yurok, who have developed refinedly special tastes in nearly everything with which they concern themselves.

RADIUS AND FOCUS OF THE CIVILIZATION.

The Yurok shared this civilization in identical form with their neighbors, the Hupa and Karok. The adjacent Tolowa, Wiyot, and Chilula adhere to the same culture in every essential trait, but begin to evince minor departures in the direction of less intensive speciali- zation. A peripheral series of tribes—the Shasta, Konomihu, Chi- mariko, Whilkut, and Nongatl—show the loss of a number of char- acteristic northwestern features as well as some elements of culture that are clearly due to the example of exterior peoples. ‘To the south the diminution of the northwestern cultural forces can be traced step by step through the Sinkyone and Lassik until the last diluted remnants are encountered among the Wailaki. The next group, the Kato, belong wholly within the civilization of central California. The progressive change from Hupa to Kato is particu- larly impressive in view of the fact that all members of the chain are of common Athabascan speech.

To the north a similar transition into another civilization could presumably have once been followed. But the societies of south- western Oregon have long since perished, and the information about them is only sufficient to show the close similarity of the Takelma and Athabascans of Rogue River to the Yurok, and their civiliza- tional inferiority. Southwestern Oregon was culturally dependent on northwestern California.

6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

Eastward, similarities to the northwestern culture appear for con- siderable distances—almost across the breadth of the State and into the northernmost Sierra Nevada. These are, however, highland tracts of rather thin populations, to whom the typical culture of central California could not easily penetrate in full form, so that they were left open to random influences from all sides.

Furthermore, it is doubtful whether the institutions of north- western type among the Yana, Achomawi, and mountain Maidu can be ascribed to specific northwestern influences. Most of the cultural characteristics common to northwestern and northeastern California appear to have been found also in Oregon for some distance north. To ascribe to the Yurok or Karok any definite share in the formation of modern Achomawi civilization would therefore be a one-sided view. The whole of the tract embracing northernmost California and western, or at least southwestern, Oregon is in some respects a larger but ultimate cultural unit. Within this unit, groups of periph- eral position like the Achomawi have acquired only the more rudi- mentary elements and generic institutions, which they have further mingled with elements derived in perhaps larger proportion from central California and in some measure even from plateau or plains sources, not to mention minor institutions of local origin. Centrally situated nations like the Yurok, on the other hand, have kept the original cultural supply in less adulterated form, and in building upon it have exerted an expansive influence on their neighbors and through them on peoples beyond.

Useful as the recognition of culture areas is as a scaffolding or pre- liminary plan for the student, the conditions in this region cor- roborate wholly the realization which has been gradually arrived at through investigations of civilization in many other parts of Amer- ica, namely, that the exact delineation of such ethnographic provinces is almost invariably an artificial and unprofitable endeavor. It is the foci that can be tolerably determined, not the limits; the influences that are of significance, rather than the range of the influences.

Such a focus, in some measure for all northernmost California and southwestern Oregon, and absolutely for northwestern California, is constituted by the Yurok, the Hupa, and the Karok.

Even as between these three little peoples of such close inter- relations, some precedence of civilizational intensity, a shght nucle- olus within the nucleus, can be detected; and the priority must be accorded to the Yurok.

Geographical and populational considerations would lead to such an anticipation. The Yurok live on the united Klamath, the Hupa and Karok on its two arms, the Trinity and the unaugmented Kla- math above the Trinity. The numbers of the Yurok were as great

KROEBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA i

as those of the two other groups combined. Of the tribes of the second order or degree of participation in the civilization, the Tolowa, Wiyot, and Chilula, all three were adjacent to the Yurok, one only to the Hupa, none to the Karok. The canoe can be made, in its perfected type, only of the redwood, a tree that grows, within the habitat of the three focal peoples, only in Yurok territory; and in fact the Hupa and Karok buy their boats from the Yurok. The same tree also furnishes the best material for the lumber of which the houses of the region are built.

Actual cultural evidences are slight but confirmatory. Through- out Califonia it appears that adolescence ceremonies having direct reference to physiological functions are not only relatively but abso- lutely more elaborated among tribes of a ruder and more basic civilization. Groups that have developed other ceremonial insti- tutions to a considerable pitch actually curtail or dwarf this rite. The Yurok make distinctly less of it than either Karok or Hupa. The great ceremonies so characteristic of the region are, however, most numerous among them. The Hupa perform these rituals in two or three towns, the Karok in four, and the Yurok in seven. The elimination of animals as characters in traditional tales is distinctive of the pure northwestern culture. The Yurok are more extreme in this respect than are the Karok. Both Karok and Hupa agree with the larger nation in placing the birth of their culture hero at the Yurok village of Kenek.

Slender as are these indications, they all point the same way. They justify the conclusion that the innermost core of northwestern civ- ilization is more nearly represented by the Yurok than by any other group. Even in a wider view, the center of dispersal—or concentra- tion—of this civilization might be described as situated at the con- fluence of the Trinity and Klamath, from which the three tribes stretch out lke the arms of a huge Y. This spot is Yurok terri- tory. It is occupied by the village of Weitspus, now called Weitch- pec, and its suburbs. Either here or at some point in the populous 20 miles of river below must the precise middle of the cultural focus be set, if we are to attempt to draw our perspective to its finest angle.

Of course it can not be contended that the whole of the north- western civilization, or even all its topmost crests, flowed out from this sole spot. Even an Athenian or a Roman metropolis at its height never formulated, much less originated, all of the culture of which it was the representative; and the California Indians were far from knowing any metropoles. It might well be better, in a search such as has occupied us a moment ago, to think of the finally determined location as a point of civilizational gathering rather than radiation. But where most is accumulated, most must also be

8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

given out. The difference in cultural potence between upper and lower Yurok, between Yurok and Karok, must have been slight. For every ten ideas or colorings of ideas that emanated from the exact center at least nine must have filtered into it; and even toward remoter regions, the disproportion can hardly have been excessive. As regards any given single item of culture, it would be nearly im- possible to assert with confidence where its specific development had taken place. The thing of moment, after all, is not the award- ing of precedence to this or that group of men or little tract of land, but the determination of the civilization in its most exquisite form, with an understanding, so far as may be, of its coming into being. It is this purpose that has been followed, it may seem devi- ously, through the balancings of the preceding pages; and the end having been attained so far as seems possible in the present state of knowledge, it remains to picture the civilization as accurately as it can be pictured through the medium of the institutions, the thoughts, and the practices of the Yurok.

It may be added, as a circumstance not without a touch of the climactic in the wider vista of native American history, and as an illustration of principles well recognized in ethnology, that three of the great families of the continent are represented at the point of assemblage of this civilization. The Yurok are Algonkins, the Kkarok Hokans, the Hupa Athabascans.

TOWNS.

The territory of the Yurok, small as is its extent, is very unrepre- sentative of their actual life, since all of their habitations stood either on the Klamath River or on the shore of the ocean. All land back in the hills away from the houses served only for hunting deer, pick- ing up acorns, beating in seeds, and gathering firewood or sweat- house kindlings, according to its vegetation. The most productive tracts were owned privately. They” were occasionally camped on, though never for long periods. All true settlements formed only a long winding lane; and along this waterway Yurok life was lived.

The towns—hamlets is an exacter term according to civilized standards—numbered about 54 and are shown in Figure 1. A few of these, such as Kenekpul, Tsetskwi, Himetl, Keihkem, Nagetl, Tlemek- wetl, and some on the coast, may have been inhabited only from time to time, during the lifetime of a single man or a group of relatives. The Klamath villages mostly lie on ancient river terraces, which gradually decrease in height toward the mouth of the widening stream. Wahsekw is 200 feet up, Kenek 100, Kepel 75, Ko’otep 35, Turip 25, Wohkel 20. The coast towns are sacl invariably either on a lagoon or at the mouth of a stream. Tsurau alone overlooks a cove well sheltered behind Trinidad Head. Like the more wholly

KROEBER | HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 9

ocean-situated Wiyot and Tolowa, the Yurok did not hesitate to paddle out into open salt water for miles, if there was occasion; but their habits were formed on the river or still water. The canoe

PMERIP

e TSETSKWI AKENEK ge WAHSEKW

Fig. 1.—Yurok towns and territory. Solid squares indicate sites occupied only during certain periods. Dotted line, redwood timber belt.

was designed for stream use rather than launching through the surf; and the coast itself was designated as downstream and upstream according as it extended north or south. Fishing was done at mouths of running fresh water, or by men standing at the edge of the surf, much more than on the abounding ocean.

10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLt. 78

The important villages come in groups. The uppermost of these groups is at the mouth of the Trinity: Weitspus, Pekwututl, and Ertlerger. These must have had, a century ago, a combined population of nearly 200. Wabhsekw, next below, was isolated and not very large, but wealthy. Those that followed next were of litthe moment. Kenek, which lies at the best fishing rapids in the Klamath, except possibly the fall near the mouth of the Salmon River in Karok territory, is the town most frequently mentioned in Yurok mythology, and is celebrated even in the traditions of their neighbors, but was always a small settlement in historical times. Kepel, Sa’a, Murekw, and Himet! formed another considerable group of about the populousness of that at Weitspus. Murekw seems to have been the largest of the group, Sa’a its religious center. Several smaller settlements followed at short intervals, among which Sregon enjoyed a reputation for belligerence and wealth. Pekwan Creek brought Pekwan, Ko’otep, Wohtek, and Wohkero. This was perhaps the most popu- lous cluster of Yurok villages. For the next 20 miles the towns were strung apart and mostly quite small: Turip and Sa’aitl, also called Turip-opposite, formed the only larger group. Then, at the mouth, on opposite sides of the tidal lagoon, came Rekwoi and Wetlkwau, with Tsekwetl, Pegwolau, and Keskitsa as quarters or suburbs, and Tmeri and Otwego somewhat doubtful as separate villages. Here also the population must have approximated 200,

On the coast. Tsurau at Trinidad, several miles from its neighbors, was esti- mated the largest town; Opyuweg on Big Lagoon—also called simply Oketo, “lake ’’—was next; and Tsahpekw on Stone Lagoon third. Four smaller townlets stood with Opyuweg on Big Lagoon, and Tsahpekw had Hergwer as a minor mate, Of the other coast towns, Orekw at the mouth of Redwood Creek was the leading one, with Espau probably next.

Otsepor was really two settlements: Otsepor, and Aikoo downstream. Ehkwiyer below Tsetskwi, Tekta below Wohkero, Enipeu below Serper, Stowin below Tlemekwetl have been occupied recently, but do not seem to be old sites. Tlemekwetl is also known as Erlikenpets, Hergwer as Plepei, Metskwo as Srepor. Terwer was an important summer camp site on the north bank be- tween Sa’aitl and Wohkel, but appears to have had no permanent houses. Omenhipur included houses on both sides of the mouth of Wilson Creek. Neryitmurm and Pinpa are sometimes spoken of as towns, but may be only parts of Opyuweg.

The great fixed ceremonies were all held at the populous clusters: Weitspus, Kepel-Sa’a, Pekwan, Rekwoi, Wetlkwau, Orekw, Opyu- weg. Each of these had a sacred sweat house; and at each of them, and at them only, a White Deerskin or Jumping dance was made or begun. Sa’a alone replaced the dance with a ritually built fish weir at adjacent Kepel. It will be seen that ceremony followed population, as myth did not. Besides Kenek, little Merip, Tlemek- wetl, Turip, and Shumig—the uninhabited bluff behind Patricks Point—enter prominently into tradition.

TOWN NAMES.

It is clear from the appended list that in spite of abundant inter- course between the Yurok and Hupa, place names were not adopted into a foreign language, but were made over by these tribes. Some-

KROEBER | HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA iT

times they were translated. Thus the Yurok and Hupa names for Weitspus both refer to confluence, for Nohtskum to a nose of rock, for Serper to a prairie, for Wohkel to pepperwoods. Other places seem to have been descriptively named by the Hupa, without ref- erence to the significance of their Yurok names. Thus they call four villages after the pepperwood, tunchwin, the Yurok only one.

YUROK TOWNS. HUPA NAMES.

(ONTEYS\e\01 eas eee 5 Se ee Pe Be Hotinunding.

CWE tee ee oe Be ak Hotuwaihot.

Bblercere = <2 ae, Tunchwinta’ching.

WAY CETILLPSS OB Sf ee ae Tlenalding (Karok: Ansafrilki). Vane sys Sane ne Hotenanding (Karok: Hobira). 1Sk(o) G3) Se Se ee eee Choholchweding (Karok: Shwufum). IMG 15] yee eee see Ee ee Hongha’‘ding.

AV Vion el S@ lie = etske Seen ee oe Tunchwingkis-hunding,

ING [Beeman re Ba eS Ta’tesading (Karok: A’avunai). Min nek wees ee wa ee Tunchwingkut.

INOS syns? seat) es Senongading.

Metiee 2. 226. se ee ae ee Ninameldine.

SECS OT pee 2 se Kyuwitleding.

Gaya inert sek Ree Se Kaikisdeke (Karok: Firipama). KO Ole Die == 2 Se —~Hohochitding.

NVio nite Kees == oe 2 et Ninda’sanding.

CET) Cl ee Tlokuchitding.

UD VEY) ie et Ninuwaikyanding.

SIG I Lh ace I a eee Kitlweding.

Terwericampe— Kaubwkyokis-hunding.

WAY GO ESS (Sa oe a Tunchwingkyoding.

VOM glee es oa ee Chahalding.

RGKWO iets Mukanaduwulading (Karok: Sufip). Wietlikwvantii se 2 aes os Tsetlcheding.

1 OFS) OU Lae ee nea ee Mingkekyoding.

Oreloywees i252 es eS Chewillinding.

EY 1) IS eee Chwaltaike.

ERS UITA an Sener aais oe Muwunnuhwonding.

ORGANIZATION OF TOWNS.

Yurok houses, or their sites, had names descriptive of their posi- tion, topography, size, frontage, or ceremonial function. Many of the designations reappear in village after village. The names of abandoned houses were remembered for at least a lifetime, perhaps nearly as long as the pit remained visible. If a family grew and a son or married-in son-in-law erected a new dwelling adjacent to the old, the original name applied to both houses. Sweat houses were usually but not always called by the same name as the house to whose master they belonged, and seem normally to have been built close by.

The habit of naming house sites appears to have been restricted to northwestern California. It is but one instance of many of the

12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

intensive localization of life in this region, of its deep rooting in the soil. The origin of the custom is scarcely discernible, but the Yurok made frequent use of it to designate persons without naming them. A person referred to as “the old man of Trail Descends” would be absolutely defined to his village mates, and even in distant villages might be better known by that description than by his per- sonal appellation. The following are the houses of Weitspus, as shown in Figure 2.

Fic. 2.—Yurok town of Weitspus and associated settlements. Squares, houses; solid squares, standing in 1909; small rectangles, sweat houses. (After Waterman.)

HOUSES. 1. (With 2). 13. Otsepor (“ steep’’). 2. Wonitl or Wonoyertl (‘up’). 14. Kome’r (“last”). 3. (With 4). 15, Plel (lange 4); 4. Ra’ak (‘tin the creek”). 16. (With 17). 5. Sohtsu (‘Son top”). 17. Nikerwerk (‘close to dance’”’), 6. Ketsketl. 18. Erkigeri (‘‘ tie hair” for dance). 7 19. Wogwu (‘in middle’). 8. 20. Opyuweg (‘‘ dance”’). 9. Oslokw (‘‘ trail descends’). 21. Ta’amo (“ elderberries’’). 10. (With 11). 22. Higwop (“in the water’). 11. Tsekwetl (‘“ flat’’). 23. Petsku (“ upstream ’”’),

KROBBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 13

SWEAT HOUSES.

(Named after houses which they adjoin and to which they belong.)

A with 2. D with 11. B with 6. E with 19. C with 9. F with 22.

These are the houses of Rekwoi: Oregok (‘‘ where rolls down,’ a game), Ketsketl, Oslokw, Layekw (‘trail’) or Erkigeri (where they prepared for dancing), Ple’l (“large,”’ in which the Jumping dance was begun), Hokome’r (“end”), Knau, Ma’a, Te’wira, Ma’a-wono (‘‘up-hill from Ma’a’’), Sepora (“open place, flat’), Perkweri (‘behind the door’), Kekomeroi (“ end, last”), Kiwogi (‘in middle’), Ernerkw (‘narrow’), Kinekau (‘on the brink”), Tewolek-repau (‘facing the ocean’), Howeyiro’i, Olige’l Ma’a-hito (“this side of Ma’a”), Nekerai. Of these, Ketsketl, Oslokw, Layekw, Knau, Ma’a, Te’wira, Sepora, Kiwogi and Howiyero’i had sweat houses at one time or another; besides which there were sweat houses known as Tetl, Tsa’at’orka’i, and Ki’mo’le’n (‘‘ ugly, old”), the last being the sweat house used in the Jump- ing dance.

Pekwan contained Ereu, Tekor, Ketsketl, Opyuweg (‘‘ dance,’ in which the Jumping dance was made), an unnamed house adjacent to the last and prob- ably belonging to the same family, Etlkero, Wogi, Erkigeri-tserwo (in which the dance was prepared for), Hiwon (‘ uphill”), Lekusa (‘‘ sweat house exit’), Tetl wo’lometl (‘the tetl live in it,” they being the men who dur- ing the Jumping dance frequent the sacred sweat house), Hetlkak, Tso’oleu (‘down hill”), Olohkwetoip, Ta’amo (‘elderberries”), Hitsao, Ska’awelotl (‘buckeye hangs’). The sweat houses were Ereu, Ketsketl, Wogi, Lekusa, Hesier, and Opegoiole, the last used in the Jumping dance. The cemetery filled the center of the village, from Ketsketl to Lekusa, and between Wogi and Erkigeri on the upper side and Etlkero and Hitsao on the other.*

POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SENSE.

The national horizon of the Yurok was as confined as that of most northern Californians. Adjacent tribes were visited at ceremonies and to some extent wives were purchased from them. Of those next beyond, there was only the dimmest knowledge; and farther, neither rumor nor legend nor interest. At that distance, there was only the end of the world, or a strange unsighted ocean, and perhaps things that no one wanted to see. The Yurok did not venture into the un- known and felt no desire to. Nor did they welcome strangers. If any came, it must be for a bad purpose; and they were put out of the way at the first opportunity. A man of substance, wealth, or char- acter did not stray or nose about. He remained at home in dignity, or traveled where relatives of old or hereditary friends welcomed him. If ever he went farther, it was with their introduction. An old man of Pekwan, born there of a Tolowa mother from Kohpel, a man of property and many formulas, had traveled in his lifetime as far as Tolowa Eshpeu; Karok Kumawer, not quite as far as sacred

1 Waterman, Yurok Geography, 1920 (see Bibliography), lists the houses of Rekwoi and Pekwan with slight variations from the above, adds town plats, and gives detailed maps of Yurok settlements and habitat generally.

14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

Inam, below Happy Camp; and in Wiyot territory to Eureka. The county seat and its fairs drew him to the latter. Before the white man came he would probably not have passed beyond the mouth of Mad River.

Tt is essential to bear in mind that since there was no definite com- munity sense within a village, there was no opportunity for a larger or political community to develop out of a eroup of adjacent vil- lages. One settlement in such a group—a “ suburb ”—was sometimes involved in a feud while another directly across the river looked on. Of course, wherever kinship existed, it formed a definite bond be- tween towns as within them; but however instrumental blood rela- tionship may sometimes become as a means of political organization, it is not in itself productive of a political sense; and the replacement of the latter by a feeling of kinship or personal relation among peo- ple like the Yurok is precisely what makes it necessary to distinguish the two if this peculiar society is to be understood.

It is true that Wahsekw danced against Weitspus, and played against it at shinny, and that under threat of attack from a remote and consolidated alien foe, village might adhere to village in joint war, just as, in lesser feuds, town mates, impelled by bonds of asso- ciation or imperiled by their common residence, would sometimes unite with the group of individuals with whom the feud originated. But these are occasions such as draw neighbors together the world over, be they individuals, districts, or nations. While they are capa- ble of being utilized in the formation of civic units, they do not in themselves constitute the associated bodies into political societies.

There is one recorded instance of larger community rights. If a whale came ashore anywhere between Atlau, south of Osegen, and Tsotskwi-hipau, south of Dry Lagoon, it belonged to Espau, Orekw, and Tsahpekw jointly, each man taking a cut a half-fathom wide, the rich men a full fathom. This is anal- ogous to a recognition, probably prospective rather than ever actual, that Little River (or perhaps a certain other stream in the vicinity) marked the point beyond which a stranded whale was wholly in Wiyot ownership; to the north thereof the property of the Yurok of Tsurau (including Metskwo) ; whereas if it drifted to shore across the mouth of the stream, it was shared by the two groups. The Big Lagoon villages probably held corresponding rights for the intervening stretch of coast, and Rekwoi-Wetlkwau the privilege on another stretch of beach to the north. But a whale was an infrequent and un- controllable event, a half winter’s provisions, and yet not so wholly sporadic that definite custom was unable to erystallize about it. There is no instance of a similar law as regards fishing rights on the river, hunting territories, and acorn and seed tracts; all of which were individual or family property and not community rights. Fish dams, intercommunally erected for brief periods at Kepel, at Lo’olego above Weitspus, and on Redwood Creek at Orau at the mouth of Prairie Creek, are perhaps somewhat comparable to the whale claims of the coast.

KROEBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 15

Yurok speech was uniform along the river. On the coast a dif- ference of dialect became perceptible, according to some accounts, at Espau, a more marked one at Orekw, and a third, most divergent variety. at Tsurau. Actually these differences must have been very slight, since recorded vocabularies and texts show an appreciable difference only for the region of Big Lagoon and Trinidad; and even this dialect was intelligible on the river.

The term ‘Coast Yurok,” in the present account, is used not with reference to this rather slight speech cleavage, but geographically—for the people south of the mouth of the Klamath. These the other Yurok call Nererner. ‘Thus, ner-nererner, I speak Coast Yurok; ne-shagero, I speak Yurok. Similarly, ne-kerermerner, I speak the language of the Karok, the Petsik-la; ne-we'’yohtene, I speak Wiyot (We’yot) ; ne-tolowoe, I speak Tolowa; ne-mimohsigo, I speak the Athabascan dialect of the Hupa (Hupo-la) and Chilula (Tsulu-la).

DIRECTIONS.

The Yurok, and with them their neighbors, know no cardinal directions, but think in terms of the flow of water. Thus pu/ is the radical meaning downstream; pets, upstream; Aiko, across the stream; won, up hill, that is, away from the stream on one’s own side; wohpe, across the ocean, and so on. Such terms are also com- bined with one another. If a Yurok says “east” he regards this as an English word for upstream, or whatever may be the run of the water where he is. The name Yurok itself—which in its origin is anything but an ethnic designation—means “downstream” in the adjacent Karok language. The degree to which native speech is affected by this manner of thought is remarkable. A house has its door not at its “western” but its “downstream” corner. A man is told to pick up a thing that lies “upstream” from him, not on his “left.” The basis of this reckoning is so intensely local, like everything Yurok, that it may become ambiguous or contradic- tory in the usage of our broader outlook. A Yurok coming from O’men to Rekwoi has two “upstreams” before him: south along the coast, and south-southeast, though with many turns, along the _ Klamath. When he arrives at Weitspus, the Trinity stretches ahead in the same direction in the same system of valley and ridges; but being a tributary, its direction is “up a side stream,” and the direc- tion “upstream” along the Klamath suddenly turns north, or a. little east of north, for many miles. Beyond their Karok neighbors the Yurok seem to have a sense that the stream comes from the east. At least they point in that direction when they refer to the end of the world at the head of the Klamath.

This plan of orientation is characteristic of all the northwestern tribes, and is followed in some degree in central California. The

3625°—25——_3

16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

Yokuts terms of direction, in the far-away San Joaquin Valley, are at least shifted from the cardinal points in accord with the flow of water, if indeed they do not refer to it. The cognate Maidu words are said to have the same meaning as our own. But it is possible that the Maidu have given a sun-determined meaning to original drain- age terms under the ritualizing influence of their Kuksu cult. This may also be what has happened among southern Wintun, Pomo, and Yuki, who constantly use words lke “north,” while the central Wintun think in terms of waterflow. It has been customary among inquirers to assume that Pomo yo means “south” because a group consistently uses it for that direction; which, of course, is no proof. In any event it is likely that exact south, when they knew a south, was determined for most California tribes by the prevailing direc- tion of their streams as much as by the meridian of the sun. The rectangular and parallel disposition of the drainage in the greater part of the State must have contributed to this attitude. Only in southern California, where water runs far apart and intermit- tently, and the ceremonializing symbolism of the southwestern tribes is a near influence, is it certain that we encounter true terms of solar orientation. POPULATION,

Yurok population can be more accurately determined than the strength of most other Californian groups, so that a detailed analysis seems worth while.

The most valuable source of information is a census made in 1852 by a trader who spent the most of his life at Klamath. It covers the towns from the mouth of the river to the salmon dam at Kepel. Only 17 are enumerated, but some of the smaller ones may have been counted as suburbs of the more important settle- ments. Thus Wetlkwau was perhaps reckoned as part of Rekwoi, or perhaps overlooked. The figures are:

TInhab- Inhab- Houses. itants. Houses. itants. Rekwo0le. = ee 22 116.7 Mohter=5= 52 ees 3 13 HO pale] =a ee 6 (2s | STOO nM: a: 25 eee ees 7 66 Wohkel!.. 322 21 2 ED | IM Ga 2 eee ae eee 6 39 Dechy eae, a4-| INohtskiim222 22222 2 4 15 AMpiahey ae es es Sate el: OAT WeiVinire ivy a 14 105 SOG WCI eee ee 4 BD MY iS Aah eee Sea ee ee 3s 13 WiObDKGrOm = == n= a Hileul aksepell, a ee See 3 10 Wohtek 222222 4 BY) —= — = Ko oteps = 2 24 165 141 1052 Pekwan __-____________ 20 1387

The total of 1,052 comprises 354 men, 381 women, 160 boys, 157 girls. The 7 per cent deficiency in adult males is about what might be expected as a consequence of feuds.

KROEBER | HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 17

The house averages per village fluctuate from 3 to 17. This seems excessive; but there is no reason to doubt the grand average of nearly 74 souls per dwelling. The five largest towns yield 617 per- sons in 94 houses, or somewhat over 63.

In the stretch of river covered by the 17 towns of the list, Figure 1 shows 20 standard settlements and 6 others that were inhabited dis- continuously or are otherwise doubtful. According as the 141 houses and 1,052 souls are attributed respectively to 17, 20, or 26 settle- ments, the house average per village is 84, 7, and 54, the population 62, 53, or 40. The most likely averages for settlements of all sizes and kinds would seem to be:

Persons per house, 74. Houses per town, 6. Persons per town, 45.

Outside of the Kepel-Rekwoi stretch, Figure 1 designates 21 stand- ard and 7 more doubtful towns. These allow of calculations of the whole Yurok population being undertaken :

1,052 (=26 X 40) +1,183 (=28 X 40) =2,185. 1052 (=20 X53) E1105. (21 X53.) —=2,155: 1,052 (=17 X62) +1,300 (=21 X62) =2,352.

The conclusion is that the aggregate Yurok population can not have been much below and was certainly not above 2,500.

This figure is precisely the estimate arrived at from acquaintance with the settlements and sites of recent years, their house pits, and discussion with the older Indians of the number of inhabited houses they remember from their youth.

A count of the upper Yurok villages, also made about 1852 by an early resi- dent on the river, is less itemized than the preceding, but yields 544 persons in 68 houses from Wahsekw to Otsepor, and an average house population of eight. The map has only six villages in this reach.

Five hundred and forty-four added to 1,052 makes 1,596. There is a gap of nearly 10 miles, which the first authority estimates to have had 810 inhabitants. This seems a high figure, since there were only five settlements, and two of these not admitted as old or permanent by the modern Yurok. Perhaps Kepel and Wahsekw have been counted twice. A reduction to 200 still leaves the total for the River Yurok at 1,800 in 37 settlements. Seventeen coast villages, exclusive of Rekwoi and Wetlkwau, would have S800 inhabitants at the same ratio. But as the coast towns make the impression of having been somewhat smaller than those on the river, and not more than one or two were distinctly populous, this figure can be reduced to 600 or 700; which, added to the 1,800 on the river, brings us again to barely 2,500. This number seems almost cer-

tain to be true within not to exceed 100 or 200 at the time of first American eontact. ‘

These data, so far as they relate to house and village population, probably hold with little change for all the specifically northwestern groups; that is, the Karok, Hupa, Tolowa, Yurok, and with some re-

18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

duction for the Chilula. The populousness per riparian mile fluc- tuated according to local conditions, as is set forth in connection with the Wiyot; while any computation based on area of land held would be worthless. Prohibitive caution would also have to be exercised in applying any of these figures to other parts of California. Not only the topography and natural resources but customs vary enor- mously.

The Government expedition sent through the Klamath region in 1851 to negotiate with the Indians did not follow the river below Wahsekw, but 32 Yurok villages were mentioned by the Indians as lying between Bluff Creek and the mouth. ‘This tallies closely with the present map. At the ratio then estimated of 10 persons to the house and 9 houses per village, the population on the river would have been nearly 3,000; but this figure seeming excessive, it was cut in half by the recorder as still liberal. Recent counts of houses and house pits recollected as inhabited, total over 170 for the Rekwoi-lKepel stretch.

Modern Modern memo- 1852 memo- 1852 ries. count. ries, count.

Rekwoi-Wetlkwau______ 23-+ OD 4 STCCON a2. = ee 6 7 HO DCU. s 9 6G, Meta = = =e G 6 Wohkel-._-.= 2 ee 2 2 | Nohtsku' m2. 22 4 4 Sa elit) 5) 2 | Murekw-Himetl —_______ Pant 14 AN UV El Op eaemeeiee ieee ss Dr 8+ 14 | Sa’a-Kepel=_ = ees == 14 6 DeRNeh 2-2 > 4 —__ — Wohkero-Wohtek_______ 138 7 154+ 141 ISO1O0tEp =e 18 24 | Other settlements __-___ 19 Relkewant se se ee 17 20 a DUONG) ge eee ee eS 4 3 173+?

The Yurok recognize that a village normally contained more named house sites than inhabited houses. Families died out, con- solidated, or moved away. The pit of their dwelling remained and its name would also survive for a generation or two. If allowance is made for parts of villages washed out by floods and possibly by mining, or dwellings already abandoned when the American came and totally forgotten 60 years later, the number of house sites on these 30 miles of river may be set at 200 or more in place of 173. In other words, there were two houses to each three recognized house sites among the Yurok in native times.

2 Waterman, Yurok Geography, 1920, p. 206, gives a somewhat different distribution of the number of houses in the towns between Rekwoi and Kepel, but an almost indentical total of 171 plus a few in small settlements. For the Yurok as a whole he tabulates 324 houses in 47 recognized towns, besides which there were 16 minor settlements in which there remained only house pits during native memory or for which recollection failed. The total of 524 multiplied by 74 yields 2,430 as the Yurok population. Unoccupied houses in the larger towns would probably more than make up for inhabited but un- counted houses in the smaller settlements. On page 209 he lists 107 different names borne by 219 different houses. Of these, 28 names of 111 houses refer to position in the town, 17 names of 24 houses describe the structure, and 6 names of 12 houses have religious reference,

KROEBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 19

A couat of the same 17 villages on the lower Klamath in 1895 revealed a total of 151 houses, or 10 more than in 1852. But instead of 1,052 Indians only 384 were living, and these partly of mixed blood. There were 141 men, 136 women, 55 boys, and 52 girls, or only about 23 souls per house—a third of the ratio in native times.

The majority of these 151 dwellings were built in American fashion. It was customary, by this time, for a family to have two or three houses, or a native and an American house. The principal change in relative size of villages was between Ko’otep and Wohtek-Wohkero. The former was overwhelmed with mud in the great floods of 1861-62, and most of the inhabitants moved to the latter site. In 1852 Ko’otep had 24 of the 31 houses in the group, in 1895 only 6 out of 37. Turip also suffered from flood and declined from 14 houses to 5 in the interval, while Rekwoi, favored with a trading post like Wohtekw- Wohkero, rose from 22 to 30 in 1895.

On the basis of 382 people in these 17 settlements, the Yurok population in 1895 may be set at 900, or perhaps a little less on account of a more rapid decrease along the coast than on the river.

The Federal census of 1910 reported 668 Yurok. This figure probably includes substantially all full and half bloods, and part of the quarter breeds.

CHAPTER 2. THE YUROK: LAW AND CUSTOM.

Principles of Yurok law, 20; money, 22; treasure, 26; valuations, 27; blood money, 28; marriage laws, 28; debt slavery, 32; fishing privileges, 33; ownership of land, 34; law of ferriage, 35; legal status of the shaman, 35; mourners’ rights, 87; inheritance, 39; rich and poor, 89; pursuit of wealth,

40; marriage and the town, 42; the crises of life, 44; names, 47; war, 49. PRINCIPLES OF YUROK LAW.

These are the standards by which the Yurok regulate their con- duct toward one another:

1. All rights, claims, possessions, and privileges are individual and personal, and all wrongs are against individuals. There is no offense against the com- munity, no duty owing it, no right or power of any sort inhering in it.

2. There is no punishment, because a political state or social unit that might punish does not exist, and because punishment by an individual would constitute a new offense which might be morally justified but would expose to a new ‘and unweakened liability. An act of revenge therefore causes two liabilities to lie where one lay before.

3. Every possession and privilege, and every injury and offense, can be exactly valued in terms of property.

4. There is no distinction between material and nonmaterial ownership, right, or damage, nor between property rights in persons and in things.

5. Every invasion of privilege or property must be exactly compensated.

6. Intent or ignorance, malice or negligence, are never a factor. The fact and amount of damage are alone considered. The psychological attitude is as if intent were always involved.

7. Directness or indirectness of cause of damage is not considered, except in so far as a direct cause has precedence over an indirect one. If the agent who is directly responsible can not satisfactorily be made amenable, liability auto- matically attaches to the next agent or instrument in the chain of causality, and So on indefinitely.

8. Settlement of compensation due is arrived at by negotiation of the parties interested or their representatives, and by them alone.

9. When compensation has been agreed upon and accepted for a claim, this claim is irrevocably and totally extinguished. Even the harboring of a sen- timent of injury is thereafter improper, and if such sentiment can be in- directly connected with the commission of an injury, it establishes a valid counter-liability. The known cherishing of resentment will even be alleged as prima facie evidence of responsibility in case an injury of undeterminable personal agency is suffered.

10. Sex, age, nationality, or record of previous wrongs or damage in- flicted or suffered do not in any measure modify or diminish liability.

20

KROEBER] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA ah

11. Property e:ther possesses a value fixed by custom, or can be valued by consideration of payments made for it in previous changes of ownership. Persons possess valuations that differ, and the valuation of the same nonmate- rial property or privilege varies, according to the rating of the person owning it. The rating of persons depends partly upon the amount of property which they possess, partly upon the values which have previously passed in transfers or compensations concerning themselves or their ancestors.

One doubtful qualification must be admitted to the principle that the Yurok world of humanity recognizes only individuals: the claims of kinship. These are undoubtedly strong, not only as sentiments but in their influence on legal operations. Yet a group of kinsmen is not a circumscribed group, as a clan or village community or tribe would be. It shades out in all directions, and integrates into in- numerable others. It is true that when descent is reckoned unilater- ally, a body of kinsmen in the lineage of the proper sex tends to maintain identity for long periods and can easily become treated asa group. It is also conceivable that such patrilinear kin units exist in the consciousness of Yurok society, and have merely passed un- noticed because they bear no formal designations. Yet this seems unlikely. A rich man is always spoken of as the prominent person of a town, not of a body of people. In the case of a full and dignified marriage, the bond between brothers-in-law seems to be active as well as close. Women certainly identify themselves with their husbands’ interests as heartily as with those of their parents and brothers on most occasions. These facts indicate that relationship through fe- males is also regarded by the Yurok; and such being the case, it is impossible for a kin group not to have been sufficiently connected with other kin groups to prevent either being marked off as an in- tegral unit. Then, a“ half-married”* man must have acted in common with the father-in-law in whose house he lived; and his children in turn would be linked, socially and probably legally, to the grand- father with whom they grew up as well as with their paternal grandfather and his descendant. So, too, it is clear that a married woman’s kin as weil as her husband retained an interest in her. If the latter beat her, her father had a claim against him. Were she killed, the father as well as the husband would therefore be injured; and there can be little doubt that something of this community of interest and claim would descend to her children. Kinship, accord- ingly, operated in at least some measure bilaterally and consequently diffusively ; so that a definite unit of kinsmen acting as a group ca- pable of constituted social action did not exist.

This attitude can also be justified juridically, if we construe every Yurok as having a reciprocal legal and property interest in every one of his kin, proportionate, of course, to the proximity of the re- lationship. A has an interest in his kinsmen X, Y, and Z similar to

22 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

his interest in his own person, and they in him. If A is injured, the claim is his. If he is killed, his interest in himself passes to X, Y, Z—first, or most largely, to his sons, next to his brothers; in their default to his brothers’ sons—much as his property interests pass, on his natural death, to the same individuals. The only dif- ference is that the claim of blood is reciprocal, possession of goods or privilege absolute or nearly so.

It may be added that this interpretation of Yurok law fits very nicely the practices prevailing in regard to wife purchase. Here the interest in a person is at least largely ceded by her kinsmen for compensation received.

It is men that hold and press claims and receive damages for women and minors, but only as their natural guardians. The rights of a woman are in no sense curtailed by her sex, nor those of a child by its years; but both are in the hands of adult male trustees. Old women whose nearer male kin have died often have considerable property in their possession. The weakness of their status is merely that they are unable to press their just claims by the threat of force, not that their claim is less than that of a man.

It may be asked how the Yurok executed their law without po- litical authority being in existence. The question is legitimate; but a profounder one is why we insist on thinking of law only as a function of the state when the example of the Yurok, and of many other nations, proves that there is no inherent connection between legal and political institutions. The Yurok procedure is simplic- ity itself. Each side to an issue presses and resists vigorously, exacts all it can, yields when it has to, continues the controversy when continuance promises to be profitable or settlement is clearly suicidal, and usually ends in compromising more or less. Power. resolution, and wealth give great advantages; justice is not always done; but what people can say otherwise of its practices? The Yurok, like all of us, accept the conditions of their world, physical and social; the individual lives along as best he may; and the institutions go on.

MONEY.

The money of the Yurok was dentalium shells. Dentalia occur in California, the species ). hexagonum inhabiting the southern coast, and 2), indianorum perhaps the northern. Both species, however, live in the sand in comparatively deep water, and seem not to have been taken alive by any of the California Indians. The Yurok cer- tainly were not aware of the presence of the mollusk along their ocean shore, and received their supply of the “ tusk” shells from the north. They knew of them as coming both along the coast and down the Klamath River. Since the direction of the first of these

KRORBER] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 23

sources is “downstream” to them, they speak in their traditions of the shells living at the downstream and upstream ends of the world, where strange but enviable peoples live who suck the flesh of the univalves.

Dentalia are known to have been fished by the Indians of Van- couver Island, and were perhaps taken by some tribes farther south ; but it is certain that every piece in Yurok possession had traveled many miles, probably hundreds, and passed through a series of mutually unknown nations.

The Yurok grade their shells very exactly according to length, on which alone the value depends. They are kept in strings that reach from the end of an average man’s thumb to the point of his shoulder. Successive shells have the butt end in opposite direction so as not to slip into one another. The pieces on one string are as nearly as possible of one size. So far as they vary, they are arranged in order of their length. But shells of sufficiently different size to be designated by distinct names are never strung together, since this would make value reckoning as difficult as if we broke coins into pieces. The length of “strings” was not far from 274 inches, but of course never exactly the same, since a string contained only an integral number of shells and these, like all organisms, varied. The ° cord itself measured a yard or more. This allowed the shells to be slid along it and separated for individual measurement without the necessity of unstringing. The sizes and names of the shells are as follows:

Length of r , . Shells t sh ell : Y pro eaame of SS at of Y ies eas of Hous aate ot siting ot Qhecwocie ss Kergerpitl.....| Dingket...... Kohtepis. .-. - - Moanatla..-... 1] Ti a Mego1Ols ses... 5 Kiketukut-hoi | Na’apis.....-- Moananah... .- 12 TF ee ee Wie pale cretcisse Chwolahit. .. . - Nahksepitl....| Moanatak..--. 13 2—...---- Hewiyem..... Hostanhit ....| Ta’anepitl...-. | Moanadingk. .. 14 1f—..-... (Mierostamt. 22a atera.c,2'0 s's!ers} Tsepupitl..... pS ee eens 15

The Yurok further distinguish tsewosteuw, which is a little shorter than mero- stan, though still money. Possibly tsewosteu was the name of the 15-to-the- string shells, and merostan—sometimes called “ young man’s money ’’—de- noted a size of which 144 measured a string. The Yurok further specify the length, both of pieces and of strings, by adding a number of qualifying terms, especially oweyemek and wohpekemek, which denote various degrees of short- ness from standard. é

Dentalia which go more than 15 or 154 shells to the string are necklace beads. These come in three sizes, terkutem, skayuperwern, and wetskaku, the latter being the shortest. The value of all these was infinitely less than that of money, and they were strung in fathoms or half-fathoms, the grade being esti-

24 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

mated by eye, not measured. Ten half-fathom strings of ferkutem were equal to about one 13-string of money; making a rate of an American dollar or less per yard.

The Karok call dentalia ishpuk, the broken bead lengths apmananich. The largest size of money shells is pisiiraica, the next pisiwawa afishni, the third Shisharetiropaop.

All sizes of dentalia have depreciated since first contact with the whites, so that valuations given to-day in terms of American money fluctuate; but the following appear to have been the approximate early ratings, which in recent years have become reduced about one-

half:

Value of Value of

To string. shell. string. ial $5. 00 $50. 00

12 2. 00 20. 00

13 1. 00 10. 00

14 . 50 5. 00

15 . 25 2. 50

From this it is clear that an increase in length of shell sufficient to reduce by one the number of pieces required to fill a standard string about doubled its value.

Dentalia of the largest size were exceedingly scarce. A string of ‘them might now and then be paid for a wife by a man of great promi- nence; but never two strings. Possession of a pair of such strings was sufficient to make a man well known.

Shells are often but not always incised with fine lines or angles, and fre- quently slipped into the skin of a minute black and red snake, or wound spirally with strips of this skin. The ends of the cord are usually knotted into a minute tuft of scarlet woodpecker down. All these little devices evince the loving at- tention with which this money was handled but do not in the least enhance its value.

As might be expected, the value of dentalia was greater in Cali- fornia than among the northern tribes at the source of supply. In Washington or northern Oregon, as among the Yurok, a slave was rated at a string; but the northern string was a fathom long. Among the Nutka, money was still cheaper: it took 5 fathoms of it to buy a slave.

The size of the shells used in the north has, however, not been ac- curately determined. For the Oregon-Washington region, 40 shells were reckoned to the fathom, which gives an individual length averag- ing at the lowest limit of what the Yurok accepted as money, or even a little less. In British Columbia it is stated that 25 pieces must stretch a fathom. This would yield an average of considerably over 24 inches, or more than the very longest shells known to the Yurok. It may be added that the fathom measure was in constant use among the Yurok for almost everything but money.

KROEBER | HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA DD

The actual valuing of dentalia was individual or in groups of fives, the length of men’s arms being too variable and the size of shells too irregular to permit of exact appraisals by treating a string as a unit. The shells on a cord were therefore turned over and matched against each other, and then laid against the fingers from crease to crease of the joints. The largest size was gauged from the farther crease of the little finger to the fold in the palm below; according to some accounts, the measure was also taken on the index. Other sizes were matched against the middle finger. A shell from a full 18-piece string was supposed to extend precisely from the base of this finger to the last crease and was called wetlemek wega. A 12-to-the-string shell, of course, passed beyond.

Measurement was also by fives, from the end of the thumbnail to a series of lines tattooed across the forearm, These indelible marks were made from fives of known value, and served as a standard not dependent on bodily peculiarities.

The generic Yurok name for dentalium is ¢s/. Since the coming of the whites it has also been known as o¢/ we-tsik, “human beings their dentalium,” that is, “ Indian money,” in distinction from Ameri- ‘an coins. The early settlers corrupted this to “ allicocheek,” used the term to the Indians, and then came to believe that it was a native designation common to all the diverse languages of the region.

Dentalium is frequently personified by the Yurok. Pe/in-tsieh, “ Great Dentalium,” enters frequently into their myths as if he were a man, and in some versions is almost a creator. Z'ego’o is also a character in legend.

All other shells were insignificant beside dentalia in Yurok con- sideration. Olivellas were strung and used for ornament, but did not rate as currency. Haliotis, which seems to have been imported from the coast to the south of Cape Mendocino, was liberally used on the fringe of Yurok women’s dresses, on ear pendants, in the inlay of pipes, and the like. But it also never became money and did not nearly attain the value of good dentalia. Now and then a short length of disk beads from central California penetrated to the Yurok, but as a prized variety rather than an article of recognized value.

A myth, told, it may be noted, by a Coast Yurok of Eshpeu married at Orekw, narrates how the dentalia journeyed by the shore from the north. At the mouth of the Klamath the small shells went south along the coast, but Pelintsiek and Tego’o continued up the river. At Ho’opeu and Serper Tego’o wished to enter, at Turip his larger companion; but in each case the other refused. At Ko’otep and Shreggon they went in. Pekwan they did not enter, but said that it would contain money. Nohtsku’m and Meta they passed by. At Murekw they entered, as at Sa’a and Wa’asei, and left money. At Kenek, Pelintsiek wished to leave money, but apparently did not do so. At Wahsekw and again at Weitspus they went in and left three shells. At Pekwututl also they entered, and there the story ends with Pelintsiek’s saying that some money must continue upstream (to the Karok) and up the Trinity to the Hupa. The tale records the Yurok idea as to the situation of wealth; it illustrates their interest in money; and although a somewhat extreme example, is a character- istic representation of their peculiar mythology, with its minimum of plot interest, intense localization, and rationalizing accounting of particular human institutions,

26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78 TREASURE.

Of articles other than shells, those that approach nearest to the character of money are woodpecker scalps. ‘These are of two sizes, both of them scarlet and beautifully soft: those from the larger bird are slightly more brilliant. The two kinds of scalp are known as hohoneu (Karok: furah) and terker’it. The former are rated at $1 to $1.50 each, the latter variously at 10, 15, and 25 cents. The native ratio seems to have been 6 to 1. Woodpecker scalps differ from dentalia in that they have value as material, being worked into magnificent dance headdresses, and used as trimming on other re- galia. They represent the Yurok idea of the acme of splendor. Den- talium currency is never worn or exhibited in display, and being entirely without intrinsic utility or ornamental possibility, is wholly and purely money.

Deerskins of rare colors and large blades of obsidian and flint possessed high values; in fact, all objects carried in dances repre- sented wealth. But these articles varied so greatly according to color, size, fineness, or workmanship, that their civilized equivalents are jewels rather than money. At the same time, there was a strong tendency, as can be seen from the examples below, to make part of every payment of consequence in a variety of articles. When large sums changed ownership, as in the purchase of a high-class wife or settlement for the death of a rich man, not more than about half the total seems to have been in dentalia. In the same way strings paid over were of graduated sizes, not all of one value. These facts indicate that a proper variety and balance of wealth as well as quan- tity were considered desirable.

Even a common deerskin represented value when prepared for dance use. Besides the hide, there was the labor of stuffing the head, and woodpecker scalps were needed for eyes, ears, throat, and tongue. An unusually lght or dark skin was worth more, and those that the Yurok call “gray” and “black” and “red” are estimated at. $50 to $100. A pure albino skin, with transparent hoofs, is rated at $250 to $500. But this is a theoretic valuation given for the sake of comparison. The Yurok state that fine white skins did not change ownership. Their possession was known far and wide and to part with one on any consideration would have been equivalent to a king selling his crown. (Pls. 2, 3.)

Similarly with obsidians. The usual statement that these are worth $1 an inch of length is true for blades of half a foot to a foot. A 20-inch piece, however, would be held at about $50, and the few renowned giants that reach 30 and even 33 inches are, from the native point of view, inestimable. The above applies to black

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULEETIN 78 PLATE.2

YUROK TREASURES, EXHIBITED IN DANCES: OBSIDIAN BLADES, THE SMALLER RED, THE LARGER BLACK AND 133 INCHES LONG

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BUIEEE TINGS. a RiEAEmS

HUPA WHITE DEERSKIN DANCE; THE PERFORMERS IN FRONT OF THE LINE DISPLAYING OBSIDIANS

YUROK MAKING A BOAT

KROEBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 2H

obsidian. The red, which is rarer and does not come in as large pieces, is worth considerably more. Most valuable of all are the blades of white flint, which can not be chipped quite as evenly as the obsidian, but can be worked broader and somewhat thinner. The largest of these run to about a foot and a half long.

VALUATIONS.

The following are some Yurok valuations, apparently on the modern basis of a 12-dentalium string being worth 10 American

dollars: ‘

A large boat, that is, a capacious one—the length is uniform—was worth two 12-strings, one full and one short; or 10 large or 60 small woodpecker scalps.

A small boat: One 138-string or 3 large woodpecker heads.

A very small boat carrying two men: Five shells from a 13-string.

The Karok put a boat at two strings of small shells.

A blanket of two deerskins sewn together and painted is said to have been worth a small boat. This seems a high valuation; but the Karok say, 4 to 10 medium or short dentalia or a whole string of small ones, if the skins are ample, i i

A quiver of otter or fisher fur, with bow and 40 arrows, was the equivalent of a good-sized boat. The Karok reckon an otter skin worth 4 to 7 dentalia.

An entire eagle skin—the birds were shot with the bow at a bait of deer meat on mountain tops—was worth only one shell of smallest size.

A woman’s capful of tobacco, one small shell.

A house, 3 strings.

A well-conditioned house of redwood planks, 5 strings.

A fishing place, 1 to 8 strings. Two instances are known of Karok fishing rights having been sold for $5. The value must have been very variable.

A tract bearing acorns, 1 to 5 strings.

The meat from a “small” section—perheps a half fathom—of a whale, 1 string, presumably of short shells.

A “black,” ‘ red,” or mottled deer skin, dressed for dance use, 5 strings.

A light gray skin, 6 strings.

A white skin, 10 strings.

Obsidian or flint blades, 2 to 10 strings.

A headband, sraisplegok, of 50 large woodpecker scalps, 10 strings. This seems too high a rating in comparison with the others. Small shells must be meant.

Doctors’ fees were high : $10 to $20—that is, 1 to 2 strings of good money——are specified as the cost of a treatment.

A slave was rated at only 1 or 2 strings. Evidently the Yurok did not know how to exact full value from the labor of their bondsmen, not because the latter could not be held to work, but because industry was too little organized.

For a wife from a wealthy family 10 strings seem to have been expected, made up, perhaps, of one of 11 shells, one of 12, two of 12 short, and so on, with per- haps a headband of 50 woodpecker scalps, an obsidian, a boat, ete. One Yurok boasted of having paid 14 strings for his wife, plus as much more in other prop-

28 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (BULL. 78

erty, including two headbands, the whole representing $3800 American at the lower valuation here followed.

For a poorer girl 8 strings and a boat might be given,

The Karok say that a wife was worth 5 to 10 strings. Among both tribes, therefore, a man’s life came somewhat higher than what he would pay for a bride of his own rank; which rating, seeing that her relatives did not have to mourn her, is rather favorable to the woman.

For “half-marriage ”’ the price actually paid seems to have been rather less than half.

For the killing of a man of standing the cost was 15 strings, plus, perhaps, a red obsidian, a woodpecker scalp headband, and other property, besides a daughter. The Karok also quote a man’s price at 15 strings.

A common man Was worth 10 strings, probably of somewhat shorter dentalia, plus, perhaps, 20 large scalps and a good boat.

For a bastard 5 to 6 strings, presumably of small shells, and a few loose woodpecker scalps, are mentioned as usual blood money.

Seduction and pregnancy were rated as calling for 5 strings, or perhaps 20 woodpecker scalps. For a second child the compensation would be less, about 3 strings. The Karok say 2 to 8 strings for seduction, but 4 to 7 if the father took his illegitimate child.

Adultery came at about the same figure.

Uttering the name of a dead man called for the payment of about 2 strings of 18 shells. For a rich man 3 strings of somewhat better money might be demanded.

For breaking a mourning necklace, whether by accident or in play, three or four pieces of money were given.

BLOOD MONEY

The principles of weregild are sufficiently clear from what has been said; an instance or two may be worth adding.

An American at Rekwoi engaged a number of Indians to transport stores from Crescent City. In the surf and rocks at the dangerous entrance to the Klamath a canoe was lost and four natives drowned. Compensation was of course demanded; when it was not forthcoming, the American was ambushed and killed by the brother of one of the dead men. According to one version, the goods were Government property, and the trader responsible only for their transport. The Indians’ claims are said to have been forwarded to the Government, but while officials pondered or refused, the Indians, losing hope of a settlement, fell back on the revenge which alone remained to them.

In a Karok myth dealing with the establishment of institutions, it is said in so many words that “if they kill and do not pay, fighting will be perpetual. If a woman is not paid for, there will be bad repute; but if she is bought, everyone will know that so much was given for her, and she will have a good name.”

A Yurok myth, which tells of five brothers who made the sky, instituted money and property, and provided for purification from corpse contamination, has them say: “If human beings own money and valuables they will be pleased and think of them. They will not be vindictive; and they will not kill readily, because they will not wish to pay away what they have and prize.”

MARRIAGE LAWS.

In marriage the rank of husband and wife and children depended on the amount paid for the woman. People’s social. status was

KROBBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 29

determined not only by what they possessed, but by what had been given by their fathers for their mothers. Men of wealth made a point of paying large sums for their brides. They thereby en- hanced their own standing and insured that of their children. A young man of repute preserved the tradition of his lineage and honored the person and family of his wife in proportion as he paid liberally for her. A poor man was despised not only for his lack of substance, but for the little that he gave for the mother of his children, and for the mean circumstances surrounding his own origin. A bastard was one whose birth had never been properly paid for, and he stood at the bottom of the social scale.

How far the wishes of girls were consulted it is difficult to say, but marriages in which they were unwilling partners are spoken of. We are likely to think in such cases of mercenary fathers intent on profit, when perhaps the main motive in the parents’ minds was an honorable alliance and a secure and distinguished career for the daughter.

“ Half-marriage” was not rare. The bridegroom paid what he could and worked out a reasonable balance in services to his father- in-law. Of course he lived in the old man’s house and was de- pendent on him for some years, whereas the full-married man took his wife home at once—in fact had her brought to him. It is not certain how often half-marriage was the result of deliberate nego- tiations, and how frequently a device for decently patching up a love affair.

In a full marriage the groom was represented by two intermefl- aries, kinsmen, and the price was very exactly specified and carefully considered. A young man rarely possessed sufficient property in his own right, and received the purchase money from his father, or from the latter and his brothers. This was not a formal loan, the blood feeling being very strong among the Yurok. When the bride arrived, at least among the well bred, a considerable amount of property accompanied her. Ten baskets of dentalia, otter skins, and other com- pact valuables, a canoe or two, and several deerskin blankets, seem to have passed in this way among the wealthy, without any previous bargaining or specification. In this way a rich father voluntarily returned part of the payment made him, the Yurok say. However, on a divorce taking place, these gifts must be returned as fully as the stipulated purchase price.

Sometimes two men traded their sisters to each other for wives; but in such case each nevertheless paid to the other the full amount of money, as if a single purchase were being transacted. In short, the formality of payment was indispensable to a marriage.

On the death of the father of a household, his sons would be en- titled to the price received when their sisters were married. In

30 BUREAU OF AMERICAN. ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

default of sons, the dead man’s brothers arranged the marriage of their nieces and received the pay for them. A man sometimes gave to his son part of the money he received at his daughter’s wedding, or used the whole of it to buy his son a wife.

Pressing debt sometimes led to betrothal. An infant daughter might be sold to another man for his little boy, the children perhaps remaining in ignorance of their relation. As soon as the girl had passed her adolescence the marriage was consummated.

Sometimes an arrangement was entered into by which a youth re- ceived the sister of a sick or crippled man in return for labor or services rendered him.

Divorce was by wish of either party, and entailed only complete repayment. A woman could leave her husband at will, provided her kin were ready to refund; though this was not their usual dis- position unless she had been abused. A man, it seems, was not ex- pected to divorce his wife without cause; such as laziness. Probably if a reasonable allegation could not be produced, the woman’s rela- tives would refuse to repay him, in which case the divorce, while still thoroughly open to him, would be an absurd loss.

An implied condition of purchase of a wife was that she bear children. Sterility therefore meant nonfulfillment of contract, and was perhaps the most frequent cause of divorce. If a couple with children separated, the woman could take them with her only on full repayment of her original price. On the other hand, each child left with the husband reduced the repayment, and several canceled it altogether. Theoretically, therefore, the average middle-aged or elderly woman with adult children was free to return to her par- ents’ house, and remained with her husband from choice alone. This privilege is clear, but the Yurok do not seem to formulate it, perhaps because its exercise was not a normal occurrence.

Sunilarly, it might be inferred that a wife was bought for a natural span of life. If she died young a sister or kinswoman was due the husband. If he passed away first his equity did not lapse but remained in the family, and she was married by his brother. In either event, however, a payment, smaller than the original one, was made to her family. In case of the wife’s death this might be interpreted as due to a desire to distribute the loss between the two families involved, since the furnishing of a marriageable and there- fore valuable substitute, perhaps repeatedly, wholly gratis, would work hardship on the woman’s kin. The payment by the dead man’s brother. however, can not well be understood except on the basis that the woman’s family retained an interest in her after her mar- riage. A more likely interpretation of both cases is that the Yurok

KROEBER | HANDBOOK OF.INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA ol

did not operate on principles so legalistically defined, but held to a generic notion that no union could take place without a payment. The amount given appears to have been nearly half of the original price, although the Indians customarily speak of it as “a little.”

It is said that even when a married woman of some age died her kinsmen were required to provide a substitute or repay her original purchase price unless she had borne three or four children. If she had had only one or two children, partial repayment was due.

It may be added that a full year elapsed before the widow’s re- marriage to her brother-in-law. During this time she kept her hair very short, did not go about much, cried considerably, ved on in her dead husband’s house, and kept his property together.

The levirate, as it is called, and the corresponding custom of marrying the sister of the dead or living wife were universal in California, although among many tribes payment for the wife was slight or nominal and among some lacking. The particular legal ideas which the Yurok have connected with these customs can there- fore not be regarded as causative of the customs. Historically it is extremely probable that priority must be granted to the levirate, the Yurok merely investing this with the economic considerations that shaped all their life. The foregoing interpretations of Yurok marriage laws must accordingly be construed only as an attempt to make precise a point of view, not as a genetic explanation. Ethno- logically, the significance of the group of tribes represented by the Yurok lies largely in the fact that whereas their practices, when com- pared with those of the bulk of the Indians of California, are ob- viously closely similar at most points, or at least parallel, they never- theless possess a distinctive aspect and value throughout.

If a man was jealous and beat his wife without due cause she was likely to return to her parents. Sometimes her father would then dissolve the marriage by returning the purchase price. Her maltreat- ment did not of itself nullify the marriage transaction. But it did cause a claim for liability, and her relatives seem to have been entitled to keep the woman until her husband had paid them damages for his abuse of her, whereupon he resumed full jurisdiction over her. This provision appeals to us perhaps primarily as one of humanity. Juridically it is of interest as indicating that a woman’s kin retained a legal interest in her. Unfortunately we do not know how blood money for a married woman was distributed. It may be suspected that its amount was somewhat greater than her marriage price, the excess going to her relatives. ;

A curious practice was followed in the Wohtek Deerskin dance following the Kepel fish dam. Before this was finished on the hill at Plohkseu, they

8625°—25—4.

oS BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

Ganced downstream from Wohkero at Helega’au. Here the old men made men tell what their fathers had paid for their mothers. Those of moderate ancestry were permitted to dance; the rich-born and the illegitimate were both excluded.

A Karok woman born at Ashipak about the time the Americans came had relatives among the Yurok of Rekwoi, the Hupa, and the Shasta. Her grand- father had had wives in or from five different places. For some of these he had paid only partially, the agreement being that the children should remain in the mother’s house. It is likely that this is a case of a wealthy man’s love affairs legalized after pregnancy set in, rather than of formally proposed marriage ; and that the payments made, and the status of the father, were sufficient to remove serious stigma.

Adultery was of course paid for to the husband. From 1 to 5 strings are mentioned as the fine.

Constructive adultery also constituted an injury. Speech or com- munication between a woman and a former lover made the latter liable. If he met her on the trail he might have to pay a medium- sized string. If he came into a house in which she sat the husband was likely to charge that the visit was intentional, and on pressing his claim might succeed in obtaining double compensation.

Two reasons are given for the payment for seduction. A woman’s first bearing is hard and she might die; also, her price to her future husband is spoiled; that is, reduced.

DEBT SLAVERY.

Slavery was a recognized institution but scarcely an important one. The proportion of slave population was small, probably not over one-twentieth, certainly not over a tenth. One Yurok man had three slaves, but he was exceptionally rich, and may not have owned them simultaneously. Slaves entered their condition solely through debt, never through violence. Men were not taken prison- ers in war, and women and children were invariably restored when settlement was made; solitary strangers that elsewhere might have been oppressed were suspected and killed by the Yurok. Debt arose from legal rather than economic vicissitudes, Yurok industry and finance being insufficiently developed for a man to fall gradually into arrears from lack of subsistence or excessive borrowing. The usual cause was an act of physical violence or destruction of prop- erty; striking a rich man’s son, for instance, or speaking the name of a dead person of wealth. Slaves made string and nets, fished, and performed similar work. They were not killed in display of wealth, as farther north on the coast, the Yurok seeing no sense in the destruction of property except when carried away by spite. Slaves, however, were full property. An owner might buy his slave a wife to keep him contented; the children then belonged to the

KROBBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 33

master. The institution seems to have been unknown in California except for the advanced northwestern tribes.

It appears that female relatives paid in blood settlement by poor people became slaves or of kindred status. It is said that if the man to whom such a woman was handed over wished to marry her, or to give her in marriage to a kinsman, he paid a small amount to her family. This indicates that the law accorded him a right to her services, not to her person, and the former was the only right in her which he could transfer on sale.

A bastard, in burning over a hillside, once set fire to certain valuables which a rich man of Sregon had concealed in the vicinity. He was unable to com- pensate and became the other’s slave. Subsequently the Sregonite killed a Tolowa, and transferred the slave as part of the blood money. This was long after the American was in the land; but the slave knew that if he attempted to avail himself of the protection of the white man’s law, he would be liable under the native code and probably ambushed and killed by his master. He therefore arranged with him to purchase his liberty, apparently with money earned by services to Americans.

The Yurok state that their slaves did not attempt to run off. A slave might evade a new master; in which case his old proprietor would be appealed to and would threaten him with instant death if he did not return to the service of his new owner. It must be remembered that enslavement of foreigners was not practiced. Among his own.or known people, public sentiment would support the master and not the slave. If the latter fled to aliens, his status would at best remain the same, his condition would certainly be worse, and he was likely to be killed at once as an unprotected and unwelcome stranger.

Payment for a murdered slave was, of course, due his master, not his kinsmen. A rich owner would receive a high settlement. It is the old story of values being determined not only intrinsically but according to the value borne by the owner or claimant.

FISHING PRIVILEGES,

If several men jointly owned a fishing place, which seems to have been the case with nearly all the most prolific eddies, they used it in rotation for one or more days according to their share, relieving each other about the middle of the afternoon for 24-hour periods. Thus a famous Karok spot called Ishkeishahachip, formerly on the north side of the river at the foot of the Ashanamkarak fall, but subse- quently obliterated or spoiled by the river, belonged for one day to an Ashanamkarak man; for one to a man from Ishipishi, a mile above; for one to the head man of the village opposite Orleans, a dozen miles downstream; and for two days to the rich man of the village

34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

at Red Cap Creek, still farther below. A successful fisherman usu- ally gave liberally of his catch to all comers, so that it is no wonder that the Yurok have a fondness for stopping to chat with a fisher- man whom they are passing. If aman allowed another to fish at his place, he received the bulk of the catch. If only one salmon was taken, the “tenant” kept merely the tail end.

A fishing place near Wahskw was originally owned by two Weitspus men who were not kinsmen, or at any rate not closely related. One of them dying, his share passed to his son, who sold it to a Wahsekw man for $5 in American money. The new part owner also possessed a place at which he was entitled to put up a platform a short distance below.

It was forbidden to establish a new fishing place or to fish below a recognized one. This provision guaranteed the maintenance of the value of those in existence, and must have very closely re- stricted the total number to those established by tradition and inher- itance.

If one man used another’s fishing place, even without explicit per- mission of the owner, and fell and slipped there and cut his leg or was bruised, he would at once lay claim to the fishing place as damages. People would say to the owner: “It was your place and he was hurt; you should pay him.” Perhaps a compromise would be effected on the basis of the plaintiff receiving a half interest in the privilege of the spot.

OWNERSHIP OF LAND.

Up to a mile or more from the river, all land of any value for hunting was privately owned; back of this, there were no claims, nor was there much hunting. It may be that deer were scarce away from the river; but more likely, the private tracts in the aggregate represented accessibility and convenience to the game rather than exhaustive control of its total supply. It may be added that the Yurok country, being well timbered, was poor in small game, deer and elk being the principal objects of the chase. Rich men often held three or four inherited tracts, poor people perhaps a single one, others none. Poachers were shot. A small creek near Weitspus is named Otl-amo, “ person caught,” because, according to tradition, a poacher was there taken in a deer snare. A wounded animal could be pursued anywhere. It belonged to the hunter, and the owner of the tract in which it fell had no claim upon it.

Certain prairies on the Bald Hills, valuable for seed gathering, belonged to Weitspus and Wahsekw families, who had bought them from the Chilula.

A Weitspus man who had killed a fellow resident of that village fled to the

Coast Yurok, bought himself a small stream that flowed into the ocean not far from Osagon Creek, and made his home there. This case is doubly illuminat-

KROEBER] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA oo

ing. It shows the personal heterogeneity of the larger villages, and demon- strates that land was bought and sold for abode and asylum—a rather unusual feature in American Indian society.

The ownership of house sites is discussed elsewhere. LAW OF FERRIAGE,

Free ferriage must at all times be rendered. At least in theory it is extended also to these who can not reciprocate because of being boatless or in chronic poverty. The underlying assumption of this custom seems to be that ferriage is a primal necessity to which every- one is at times subject and which everyone is also at times in position to relieve. The traveler accordingly has much the status which a guest enjoys as regards food, but his claims are crystallized into a definite privilege. The Yurok and their neighbors extend the right also to Americans resident among them, charging ferriage only to transient voyagers. In the old days even an enemy with whom one did not speak had to be taken as passenger. Such a man on arriving opposite a village shouted. If no one was about but the one who bore him a grudge, the latter nevertheless paddled over. The trav- eler sat in the boat with his back to the steersman, keeping silence. For a refusal to accord ferriage from three to six short dentalia could be claimed. If a traveler finds a settlement deserted, he takes any boat at the river’s edge and puts himself across, without the least care or obligation as to its return.

The carrier being his passenger’s agent, the latter becomes liable for any injury to him. <A Yurok of Kenek had his house catch fire while ferrying an ac- quaintance. The latter was due to repay his entire loss: except for the service rendered the owner would have been at hand and might have extinguished the blaze, the Yurok said.

LEGAL STATUS OF THE SHAMAN,

Shaman’s fees for the treatment of disease were very high, as the examples previously given indicate. Shamans are said to have fre- quently urged their female relatives to try to acquire ‘ pains ”— shamanistic powers—because wealth was easily got thereby. The rule was for payment to be tendered with the invitation to cure. Usually some negotiation followed. The doctor held out for more; but being legally obliged to go was apt.to plead indisposition or illness of her own. ‘The offer was then increased, the pay being actually shown, it appears, and, reaching a satisfactory figure, was accepted, and the shaman went on her visit. Acceptance, however, implied cure, and if this was not attained the entire amount must be returned to the patient or his relatives. This-was the old law; but the Karok state that American physicians’ example has in recent years caused the

36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

practice to spring up of the shaman retaining a small part of her fee as compensation for her time and trouble.

Usually the patient felt improved and the doctor returned claim- ing a cure. If a relapse followed, she was summoned and came again, receiving a small fee. In strict logic, she should have served for nothing, the patient not having received the complete cure that was tacitly contracted for; but a new effort being involved, there seems to have been some concession to this. The principle is analo- gous to that which compels a widower to pay a small sum for his second wife, who replaces the first. It is as if the law recognized the equity of partially distributing the loss in cases that are in their nature beyond human agency. This is a mitigating influence that contrasts rather strangely and somewhat pleasingly with the re- morseless rigor of the main tenor of Yurok law.

It is a common belief of the Yurok that some shamans would extract one of the pains from a sick person, thus effecting a tempo- rary improvement in his condition, but deliberately leave another within him, in order to be paid for a second treatment. Other shamans sometimes accused them of such malpractice, declaring they could see the remaining pain. It is very characteristic that the Yurok and their northwestern neighbors think in such cases of the shaman’s motives as greed, the other California Indians almost invariably as malice.

It is in accord with this diversity of point of view that one scarcely hears among the Yurok of shamans being killed for losing patients, one of the commonest of events elsewhere in California.

On the other hand, the law-spinning inchnation of the Yurok 1s manifest in their absolute rule that a shaman who had declined to visit a patient was liable, in the event of his death, even after treat- ment by another shaman, for the full fee tendered her, or even a little more. Only a conflicting case, or genuine sickness of the shaman herself, was ground for an attempt on the shaman’s part to evade this liability. The argument was that if the fee had been accepted and treatment extended, the sick person might not have died. Hence the hability was complete up to the amount which the patient’s family were ready to offer in his behalf. A Karok shaman who had attained some reputation by once appearing to die and then returning to tell of her experiences in the other world, subsequently laid herself open to a claim for not attending a sick person and refused to settle it. The kinsmen of her prospective but deceased patient thereupon waylaid her in the brush and choked her to death. Many a central and south California doctor has met this fate: but his supposed misconduct was intent to kill, as evidenced by failure to cure. The northwesterners took satisfaction because a claim for damages was not met.

KROBBEK |] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 3d

It is said that people were bewitched not only by shamans hunger- ing for fees and by avowed foes, but sometimes by mere enviers, who hoped to see a rich man’s wealth gradually pass from him to his physicians.

A Karok of Katimin began to suffer with headache, and accused a woman of having bewitched him, Doubtless there was ill feeling between them. He formally voiced his complaint to her brother. The family conferred and offered him three strings as damages. He refused the amount as insufficient, and they, feeling that a sincere effort at reparation had been slighted, announced that they would henceforth be inivashan, enemies. Since that time the fami- lies have not spoken.

MOURNERS’ RIGHTS.

As long as a corpse remained unburied, no one was allowed to pass the village in a boat. If a traveler attempted to go on, the kin of the dead person would lay hold of his canoe. If he suc- ceeded nevertheless, he incurred hability to them. The motive of the prohibition seems to have been that it was a slight to mourners if others transacted ordinary business in their sight or vicinity.

It is, however, specifically stated that this statute did not apply if the dead person had been killed by violence. Similarly those slain were not included among the dead of the year whose kin must be paid before a village could undertake a dance. The reason is clear: if there is a killing, the mourners have been or will be paid, and no further compensation is necessary; while those who grieve for a relative dead from natural causes are enduring an irremediable loss, and their feelings must be assuaged.

If a man died away from home his body might be taken back or buried on the spot. In the latter case the right to interment was purchased. Once payment had been accepted for this privilege, subsequent protest at the inclusion of a stranger’s body in a family graveyard subjected the critic to lability for a claim for damages.

Before a major dance could be held, the dead of the year had to be paid for. This was done by contributions of the residents of the village, or by the rich man of the locality. If a village did not hold a dance, the law nevertheless applied, no residents being en- titled to visit a ceremony elsewhere until the home mourners were satisfied. This is an extremely characteristic Yurok provision. The dances were held by them to be absolutely necessary to the pros- perity and preservation of the world: still, because they afforded entertainment and pleasure to those who assembled, the mourners resented the occasion, and prevented it, until tendered pay for the violation of their grief. In short, a private right is not in the least impaired by coming into conflict with a communal or universal necessity. Since the ceremony is desirable. let those interested in

38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

it extinguish the personal claim, rather than have the holder of the latter suffer, would be the Yurok point of view. To us, the legal sanctioning of the obtrusion of a private interest in the face of a general need seems monstrous. The native probably feels that the mourners are extremely reasonable in allowing the dance to be held at all, and that in proportion to the necessity thereof the community ought to be ready to make sacrifices. This is an- archy; but the Yurok are an anarchic people.

Before the Weitspus dance of 1901, four families were paid $2 each. The compensation thus amounts to only a very small percentage of the value of a man’s life. The rich man of Pekwututl, across the river, demanded and re- ceived $8 because he was rich. Having the money in his possession, he demanded a second payment of like amount for a relative he had lost. at Hupa. The Weitspus people demurred on the ground that he would be paid for this death by the Hupa when they held their dance at Takimitlding; but he stood firm and received what he asked.

Tf a village did not make or visit a dance for a year the mourners’ claim lapsed totally. There was the same limit to the prohibition against uttering a dead person’s name.

According to a Karok informant the dead of the year were paid for by the rich men so far as the dead were relatives of those who contributed dance regalia, whereas even fellow townsmen who were too poor to help, or had been unwilling, were passed over.

The Yurok declare that the minor “brush dance” was not preceded by pay- ments formerly, but that of late years small compensations have been exacted. The Hupa, they state, pay more heavily for the privilege of making this dance. The difference in custom may be due to an earlier abandonment of the great dances by the reservation Hupa, whereby the brush dance was exalted to a more significant position. But it seems more in accord with the spirit of Yurok institutions that the brush dance should also have been permitted only after compensation ; mourners particularly resent hearing singing. The pay is, how- ever, likely to have been small at all times, since the brush dance was in- stituted by an individual, who was at considerable expense apart from purchas- ing the privilege.

Compensation for utterances of the name of the dead went, of course, to the immediate kin—father, brother, or son. A brother might give part to the widow; but she acted only as custodian of her dead husband’s wealth, and was herself still the property of his fam- ily, unless she had borne a number of surviving children. If-it was she that was dead, payment is said to have gone to her husband, not to her kin. The Yurok state that the amount of compensation depended solely on the rank of the deceased ; age or sex were not factors. After the name was bestowed on a child of the family, a year having elapsed, the taboo was of course thereby lifted. This makes it clear that the conscious motive of the custom is respect for the mourners’ grief for a due season. If two men had the same name, the poorer,

KROPBER] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 39

on the death of the richer, would “throw his away,” so as to avoid occasion of giving offense. If the wealthy man was the survivor, he would pay his namesake’s family, perhaps as much as five strings, satisfy them, and retain his name.

INHERITANCE.

Only a small amount of property was buried with the dead, and none of this of great value. The bulk of the estate went to a man’s sons, but the daughters received a share and something was given to all the nearer relatives—at least on the male side—or they would be angry. The kinsman who actually interred the corpse—or rather, the one who assumed defilement on behalf of the others—made a particular claim; no doubt for the restrictions to which his contami- nation subjected him. Moreover, if there was no one in the family who knew a formula for purification from a corpse, it was necessary for this voluntary scapegoat to hire some one to recite on his behalf; and the fee for this service was high. It is said that poor men were sometimes compelled to give one of their children into slavery in pay- ment for this indispensable release from the excommunicating taboo.

For the building of a house, kinsmen were called upon. They were fed but not paid while they labored; and of course could expect re- ciprocation. If one of them possessed planks already cut, he fur- nished them, to be replaced at subsequent convenience. The house was inherited by the son. The brother is said to have received it only if there were neither adult sons nor daughters.

An old and sick Karok woman allowed her half-breed daughter to take possession of her property. Thereupon the sister with whom she lived at Kenek, no doubt in disappointed spite, said to her: “ You have nothing. I do not

want you,” and the decrepit woman went to a more charitable relative at _ Rekwoi to end her few days.

RICH AND POOR.

The Yurok are well aware of the difference in manners and charac- ter between rich and poor in their society. A well-brought-up man asked to step into a house sits with folded arms, they say, and talks little, chiefly in answers. If he is given food, he becomes conver- sational, to show that he is not famished, and eats very slowly. Should he gobble his meal and arise to go, his host would laugh and say to his children: “ That is how I constantly tell you not to behave.” If an obscure person commits a breach of etiquette, a well-to-do man passes the error with the remark that he comes from poor people and can not know how to conduct himself. Such a wealthy man ex- horts his sons to accost visitors in a quiet and friendly manner and invite them to their house; thus they will have friends. A poor

40 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

man, on the other hand, instructs his son not in policy but in means to acquire strength. He tells him where to bathe at night; then a being will draw him under the water and speak to him, and he will come away with powerful physique and courage.

Life was evidently so regulated that there was little opportunity for any one to improve his wealth and station in society materially.

The poor, therefore, accepted more or less gracefully the patronage of a man of means, or attempted to win for themselves a position of some kind not dependent on property. A savage temper, and physi- cal prowess to support it, were perhaps the only avenue open in this direction; shamans were women, and priests those who had inherited

knowledge of formulas. " The rich man is called si’atleu, or simply pegerk, ‘ man.” Similarly, a

wealthy or “real” woman is a wentsduks or “ woman.” <A poor person is waasoi. A slave is called wka’atl A bastard is called either kamuks, or negenits, “mouse,” because of his parasitic habits. Uwohpewek means ‘he is married ”; winohpewek, ‘he is half-married.”

Even a small village group was known as pegarhkes, “manly,” if its mem- bers were determined, resentful, and wealthy enough to afford to take revenge.

The following Yurok statement is characteristic: “The beautiful skins or headdresses or obsidians displayed at a dance by one rich man excite the interest and envy of visitors of wealth, whereas poor men take notice but are not stirred. Such wealthy spectators return home determined to exhibit an even greater value of property the next year. Their effort, in turn, incites the first man to outdo all his competitors.”

The Karok speak of a branching of the trail traversed by the dead. One path is followed by ‘“‘ poor men, who have no providence, and do not help (with regalia, payments, and entertainment) to make the dances.” The other is the trail of people of worth.

When an honored guest was taken into the sweat house he was assigned the fepolatl, the place of distinction, and the host offered him his own pipe. A common man was told to lie at legai, by the door, or nergernertl, opposite it. A bastard who entered was ordered out, the Yurok say. It is likely, however, that such unfortunates were more tolerantly treated by their maternal grandfather and uncles.

Food was sometimes sold by the Yurok: but no well-to-do man was guilty of the practice. “ May he do it, he is half poor—tmeneme ’ would. be the slighting remark passed; much as we might use the term nouveau riche or “ climber.”

eo) a) WA ASO

PURSUIT OF WEALTH.

The persistence with which the Yurok desire wealth is extra- ordinary. They are firmly convinced that persistent thinking of money will bring it. Particularly is this believed to be true while one is engaged in any sweat-house occupation, As a man climbs

KROBBER | HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 41

the hill to gather sweat-house wood—always a meritorious practice, in the sense that it tends to bring about fulfillment of wishes—he puts his mind on dentalia. He makes himself see them along the trail, or hanging from fir trees eating the leaves. When he sees a tree that is particularly full of these visioned dentalia, he climbs it to cut its branches just below the top. In the sweat house he looks until he sees more money shells, perhaps peering in at him through the door. When he goes down to the river he stares into it, and at last may discern a shell as large as a salmon, with gills working like those of a fish. Young men were recommended to undergo these practices for 10 days at a time, meanwhile fasting and exerting themselves with the utmost vigor, and not allowing their minds to be diverted by communication with other people, particularly women. They would then become rich in old age.

Direct willing, demanding, or asking of this sort are a large element in all the magic of the Yurok, whatever its purpose. Saying a thing with sufficient intensity and frequency was a means toward bringing it about. They state that at night, or when he was alone, a man often kept calling, “I want to be rich,” or “I wish dentalia,” perhaps weeping at the same time. The appeal seems to have been general, not to particular or named spirits. Magic is therefore at least as accurate a designation of the practice as prayer. How far the desires were spoken aloud is somewhat uncertain, the usual native words for “saying” and “thinking” something being the same; but it is very probable that the seeker uttered his words at least to himself. The practical efficacy of the custom is unquestionable. The man who constantly forced his mind and will into a state of con- centration on money would be likely to allow no opportunity for acquisition to slip past him, no matter how indirect or subtle the opening. .

According to a Karok myth, the sweat house, its restriction to men, and the practice of gathering firewood for it, were instituted in order that human beings might acquire and own dentalia.

The Yurok hold a strong conviction that dentalium money and the congress of the sexes stand in a relation of inherent antithesis. This is the reason given for the summer mating season: the shells would . leave the house in which conjugal desires were satisfied, and it is too cold and rainy to sleep outdoors in winter. To preserve his money, in other words to prevent his becoming a spendthrift, a man bathes after contact with his wife, and is careful not to depart from the natural positions. Strangely enough, the Yurok have a saying that a man who can exercise his virility 10 times in one night will become extraordinarily wealthy ; but there are not wanting those who consider this ideal unattainable by modern human beings.

42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL, 78

This is a case of typical blending of avarice and magic, as related by the Hupa. The grandchild of the rich man of Medilding had its mouth con- stantly open. A shaman finally saw and proclaimed the cause. An ancestor of the rich man had asked to kiss a dead friend or relative good-by. He descended into the grave and, bending over the corpse’s face, used his lips to draw out from the nose the two dentalia that are inserted through the septum, concealing his booty in his mouth until the grave had been filled. According to report, the rich man admitted that an ancestor of his had actually risked this deed; and the shaman declared that it was the same dentalia that now kept the child’s jaws apart.

A man who had borrowed a canoe and wished to buy it might report to the owner that he had broken it; but the possessor was likely to see through the ruse. This is a native instancing of the cupidity which seems to them natural and justifiable.

Gifts were sometimes made by the Yurok, but on a small scale; and while reciprocation of some sort was anticipated, it was gen- erally smaller and could not be enforced. Presents were clearly a rich man’s luxury. The host might say to a visitor whose friend- ship he considered worth strengthening: “ You had better return by boat,” thereby giving him a canoe. The guest in time would extend his invitation; and the visit would end with his presentation of a string or two of small money, or a quiver full of arrows. As the Yurok say, the first donor had to be satisfied with what he got, because he had given a gift.

MARRIAGE AND THE TOWN.

The Yurok married where and whom they pleased, in the home village or outside, within their nation or abroad. The only bar was to kindred; but the kin of persons connected by marriage were not considered kin. The wife’s daughter as well as her sister were re- garded suitable partners. The smaller villages were so often com- posed wholly of the branches of one family that they practiced ex- ogamy of necessity. That such exogamy had not risen to native consciousness as something desirable in itself is shown by numerous endogamous marriages in the larger towns. This point deserves particular consideration because the organization of the Athabascans of the Oregon coast, which seems to have been identical with that of the Yurok, has been misportrayed, simple villages—as ungentile as our country towns—being represented as patrilinear clans, and the mere rule against the marriage of kindred construed as clan exog- amy. ‘The subjoined table illustrates the degree of endogamy at one of the larger Yurok towns, Weitspus, and the following examples the distance to which its inhabitants were ready to go for wives when they pleased.

HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 43.

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44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

House 15 (fig. 2) belonged to the daughter of the former owner. Her half- married husband is of a Karok father from Katimin and a Yurok woman of Ho’opeu. Kewik of Nohtsku’m half-married into Ertlerger, but quarreled with his wife’s family, and, moving across the river with her, built himself

9

house 3 in Weitspus, whose site his grandson still owned. The father of the owner of 9 had two wives: The first a Karok from Ashanamkarak, the second a Tolowa. An old man in 10 traded sisters with a Wahsekw man.

THE CRISES OF LIFE.

Births occurred among the Yurok and their neighbors chiefly in spring. This was, of course, not because of any animal-like impulse to rut at a certain season, as has sometimes been imagined, but be- cause of highly specialized ideas of property and magic. The Yurok had made the just psychological observation that men who think much of other matters, especially women, do not often become or remain wealthy. From this they inferred an inherent antipathy be- tween money and things sexual. Since dentalia and valuables were kept in the house, a man never slept there with his wife, as already stated, for fear of becoming poor. The institution of the sweat house rendered this easily possible. In summer, however, when the cold rains were over, the couple made their bed outdoors; with the result that it seems natural to the Yurok that children should be born in spring. <A similar condition has been reported from the far-away Miwok region; but the responsible social circumstances, which were certainly different from those of the Yurok, are unknown.

Asa girl’s property value was greatly impaired if she bore a child before marriage, and she was subject to abuse from her family and disgrace before the community, abortion was frequently attempted. Hot stones were put on the abdomen, and the fcetus thrown into the river. There is little doubt that parents guarded their girls care- fully, but the latter give the impression of having been more in- clined to prudence than to virtue for its own sake. Probably habits differed largely according to the rank of the family. Poor girls had much less to lose by an indiscretion.

The prospective mother’s wish was to bear a small child. There- fore she worked hard and ate sparingly. Difficulty in labor was thought to be caused by undue size of the child brought on by the mother’s eating and sleeping too much.

In most of California women sit in childbirth. For the Hupa the same is reported, but the Yurok woman is said to have lain bracing her feet against an assistant. Her wrists were tied with pack straps to parts of the house frame. When the assistant com- manded, she raised herself by these thongs. She must shut her mouth, else the child would not leave her body. Many formulas to assist childbirth were known. The most powerful of these, as their

KROEBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 45

own content relates, were thought to become effective as soon as the reciter entered the house with her herb.

If the child during the first five or six days of its life were to _ take nourishment from its mother, the Yurok believe that its jaws would become affected and it would soon starve. During this period it is fed only a little water in which hazel or pine nuts have been rubbed, and which looks milky. For about the same number of days, or until the child’s navel is healed, the father eats apart, touches no meat or fresh salmon, and drinks thin acorn soup instead of pure water. The mother is under the same restrictions for a longer period: 50 days, or 60 for a stillbirth. She spends this time in a sepa- rate hut. :

The umbilical cord is severed with a piece of quartz clamped inside a split stick, and is carefully preserved in the house for about a year. When the child is about to be weaned the father takes the shred on a ridge, splits a living fir, inserts the little piece of precious- ness, and binds the sapling together again. On his return the baby has its first meal other than milk.

If twins of opposite sexes were born, the Yurok smothered one of the pair, usually the girl. They had a dread of such births, which they explain on the ground that if the twins lived they might be incestuous. Boy twins were believed to quarrel all their lives, but were spared. Once triplets were born at Murekw. There was much excitement and much talk of killing them; but a Deerskin dance was made and warded off the sickness which the portent foreboded.

When a girl becomes mature she is called ukerhtsperek, and sits silent in her home for 10 days with her back turned to the central fire pit. She moves as little as possible, and scratches her head only with a bone whittled and incised for the occasion. Once each day she goes to bring in firewood; on her way she looks neither to left nor right, and looks up at no one. The longer she fasts, the more food will she have in her life, it is believed. After four days she may eat, but only at a spot where the roar of the river confounds every other sound. Should she hear even a bird sing, she ceases at once. Each evening she bathes, once the first night, twice the second, and so increasingly until on the eighth she pours the water over herself eight times. The ninth night she bathes ten times; and on the tenth day, with declining day, once, squatting by the river, while the small children of the village, one after the other, wash her back. Her mother or another woman then lays 10 sticks on the sand and tells her she will bear so many sons, and places 10 sticks in a row to represent her daughters. The girl’s dress during the 10 days is a skirt of shredded maple bark, such as shamans wear during their novitiate.

46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

One in every several hundred Yurok men, on the average, pre-

ferred the life and dress of a woman, and was called wergern. This frame of mind, which appears to have a congenital or psychological basis well recognized by the psychiatrist, was not combated, but socially recognized by the Indians of California—in fact, probably by all the tribes of the continent north of Mexico. Only among the advanced peoples of that region did the law frown upon trans- vestites. The Yurok explanation of the phenomenon is that such males were impelled by the desire to become shamans. This is cer- tainly not true, since men shamans were not unknown. It is a fact, however, that all the wergern seem to have been shamans and es- teemed as such—a fact that illuminates the Yurok institution of shamanism. ‘The wergern usually manifested the first symptoms of his proclivities by beginning to weave baskets. Soon he donned women’s clothing and pounded acorns.

At death, the corpse is addressed: “Awok, tsutl (alas, good-by), look well and take with you the one who killed you with uwpunamitl” (a closure or pressing of internal organs produced magically). The body is then painted with soot, and the septum of the nose pierced for insertion of a dentalium shell. Elderberry sticks measure the length for the grave. This is lined with planks. Boards are re- moved from one side of the house and the body handed by two mourners inside to two outside. No living soul passes through the opening and the corpse does not leave by the door. The earth on which the person has lain in death is thrown away. At the grave the dead body is washed with water containing herbs or roots and then interred with its head downstream. No one in the town eats during the funeral, small children are taken aside, and all who have looked upon the dead bathe. Those of the mourners who have touched the corpse rub themselves with the grapevine with which - the body has been lowered into the grave and hand it from one to the other, thereby passing on the contamination. to the last one. This man for five days shuns all intercourse with human kind, does no work, sits in a corner of the house with his back turned, drinks no water, eats only thin acorn gruel, nightly makes a fire on the grave to keep his dead kinsman warm, and finally returns to com- munion with people by undergoing a washing purification of which the cardinal feature is a long formula.

Cemeteries adjoined towns; often lay in their very heart. Large settlements sometimes had two or three graveyards. Each family plot was small, so that in time numbers of bodies came to be buried in one grave. Old bones were always reinterred. At present each plot is neatly fenced with pickets and posts; but the Yurok say that even in the old days their graves were inclosed with boards. The clothing and some of the personal belongings of the dead were set

KROEBER] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 4”

or hung over the grave; but there was no extensive destruction of property, much less any subsequent offerings to fire, as among most California tribes. People dying away from home were, if possible, transported back for interment; or, a grave was purchased for them where they died.

The dead, called so’o or kesamwi—the words are used alike for “ vhost” and “skeleton ”—were thought to go below. The entrance was pointed out at a small tree not far above the river just upstream from Sa’aitl, opposite Turip. The Coast Yurok knew a spot in their own territory, and the Karok made the path of the dead go up the ridge southeastward from the mouth of the Salmon. Underground, the dead Yurok came to a river, across which he was ferried by a Charon in a canoe. Occasionally the boat tipped over. Then the corpse revived on earth. Once the crossing had been accomplished, return was impossible. People killed with weapons went to a sepa- rate place in the willows; here they forever shouted and danced the war dance. Contentious and thievish men also remained apart: their place was inferior. A rich, peaceable man, on the other hand, who had constantly planned entertainment for dances, came to the sky. Long ago, a young man once followed his beloved, overtook her at the bank of the river, and in his anger broke the ferryman’s boat, it is said. He brought back his bride, and for 10 years while the canoe of the lower world was being repaired or rebuilt, no one died on earth.

If a person revived “after having died,” a special dance, called wasurawits, was considered necessary to bring him back to human intelligence. This seems to have been a modified form of the brush dance, with similar step and positions, held indoors. Only a few feathers were used. All available dresses heavily fringed with haliotis were shaken to drown the voices of the ghosts which the patient had heard and which were rendering him insane. If he was violent, he was lifted on the drying frame within the house and held by two men; when his strength began to return, he was supported and made to dance to speed his recovery.

Should a person already buried make his way out of the grave, the Yurok believed him a monster, from whose insatiable desire for destruction they could only save themselves by killing him once more; but this was only to be accomplished by striking him with a bowstring !

NAMES.

The Yurok avoid addressing each other by name, except sometimes in closest intimacy. It is the height of bad manners to call a person by name, and a Yurok who is so addressed by an American looks

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shocked. Of course, English names and nicknames do not count. It is not even proper to speak of an absent person by his name before his relatives. All sorts of circumlocution come into use, many of them known to all the Yurok: HAkwiyer omewimar, “ Ehkwiyer its old man;” Meta keryern, “the proud one of Meta;” Ra-hiwozi, “(he has his house) on the side of Ra (a streamlet in Murekw)”; and the like. An old man at Wahsekw was designated by the fact that his house faced upstream. Most of the following names of the women reputed about 15 years ago the ablest shamans among the Yurok, are of this descriptive type.

At Wahsekw (farthest upstream of the towns mentioned) : Petsi-metl (pets, “upstream ’’).

At Sa’a: Sa’-awayo-metl.

At Murekw: Jsmeyowega and IMureku-tsewa.

At Sregon: Was-netl and Pekiwisau.

At Wohtek: HKevwei.

At Wohkero: Jlerit-mela (Merip, a town, presumably her birthplace).

At Sta’‘awin: Nosi-tsewa.

At Espau: Adirepu and O’men-mela (O’men, 2 town).

At Tsurau: T'surau-tsewa.,

Most of the true personal names of the Yurok are untranslatable in the present knowledge of the language, but may have meanings: Tsinso, Melotso, Ninowo, Penis, Woilo, Tskerker, O’pe’n, Wilets, Kwegetip (‘yearling deer”), Petsuslo (“thrown upstream”). Nicknames like Segep, ‘ covote,” are of course trans- parent.

As in all California, an absolute taboo is laid on the names of the dead. The violation of this constitutes a mortal offense, voidable only by a considerable payment. We are wont to think of the hardship entailed by such a law on the unwitting and careless; but the Indian, reared since earliest recollection in the shadow of this regulation, makes no mistakes, and when he utters a dead man’s name may justly be presumed to do so deliberately. De mortuis nil, the Yurok would paraphrase our saying, and live up to it with even greater emotional vehemence. A namesake drops his name at once. Even words that resemble a name are not used. When 7egis died, the common word tsis, “ woodpecker scalps,” was not uttered in the hearing of his rela- tives or by them. Other people, if no tell-tale ill-wishers were about, would be free from such seruple. Whatever may have been the orig- inal basis of the custom, it is clear that its force among the Yurok is now more social than religious. They no doubt hold that calling a ghost might bring it, but they hardly entertain such dread about the conversational mention of a dead person.

The name taboo has sometimes been invoked as a contributory ex- planation of the dialectic diversity of native California. It can not have had much influence. The custom prevails in the Great Basin, throughout whose broad extent no language is spoken but

KROEBER ] HANDBOOK OF INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA 49

Shoshonean, and that in only three closely similar forms. More- over, the Yurok, and with them apparently many other tribes of California, formally end the taboo at the end of a year, by bestow- ing the dead person’s name on a younger relative or child of the same sex. A youth abandons his name to assume that of a dead brother, father’s brother, or even mother’s brother. This may happen to him several times; but after middle life he changes no more. Children remain unnamed until after they can walk; sometimes they are 6 or 7 years old before a kinsman’s name becomes vacant. Some sort of designation for them, of course, comes into use, but this appellation is “ picked up” for them and not considered their name. The Yurok state that after a year the family that has lost a relative wishes his name to be out of taboo again.

WAR.

No distinction of principle existed in the native mind between murder and war. It is rather clear that all so-called wars were only feuds that happened to involve large groups of kinsmen, several such groups, or unrelated fellow townsmen of the original partici- pants. Whoever was not drawn into a war was as careful to remain neutral as in a private quarrel. When settlement came it was made on the sole basis known: all damage was compensated. Every man slain or hurt was paid for according to his value, all captive women and children restored, burned houses were paid for, seized property handed back. It seems that actual payments for the aggregate amounts due were made by each side instead of the lesser value being deducted from the greater and the net difference alone paid. This practice was perhaps necessitated by the fact that Yurok money with all its refinement of measurement was not really standardized in the same sense as our own, no two strings, generally speaking, being of exactly the same value. In any event the greater financial drain bore on the winner. There is no group of tribes in California better developed to enjoy tribute than the Yurok and their neighbors, and none to whom the idea was so utterly foreign. The wae victis of civilization might well have been replaced among the Yurok, in a monetary sense at least, by the dictum: ‘* Woe to the victors.”

When blood money was offered, the exact length of each string was shown by a rod of the precise dimension. This stick was kept by the payee, and subsequently measured against the row of dentalia. To the ends of the rod were lashed little tabs of buckskin, to make possible its being held between the fingers that clasped the string of shells. This device enabled the precise value of each string to be determined during the period when contact between the principals

50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 78

in conflict, or even handling of the property of one by the other, would have been precarious.

The Yurok took no scalps. They did not trouble to decapitate a fallen foe unless it was to make sure of his death. They held no scalp dance or formal victory celebration. They did have a war dance known as the wert/kerermer, the songs to which are of a lively if not stirring character. This was essentially a dance of settle- ment. The participants stood in a row, fully armed, with their faces painted black. A bowshot or less away their opponents per- formed. Before the actual dance took place, the money or property to be paid over by each side was “cooked.” It was laid in baskets, held over the fire, blown upon, and sung over, while the party danced about. No doubt a formula was also recited over the money. The purpose of this practice was to insure that if the recipient of the pay continued to harbor thoughts of revenge against the payers, his wishes would recoil upon himself. After this came the war dance proper, performed by each side standing abreast, very much as in the great dances; and finally the payments by each side were actually handed over, provided the reconciliation had not broken up in a bat- tle meanwhile. It seems that the same or a similar dance was also made as a preparation before war parties started out, but this is not certain,

The chief weapon was the bow. In close fighting, a short stone club, spatula shaped and blunt edged, was used for cracking heads. This was called ohawaya. Spears were known, it appears, but very little employed. There were no shields, but two types of body armor. One was of thick elk hide, the other a strait-jacket of rods wound together with string. Some men preferred not to be encumbered with so stiff a protection. Women are said sometimes to have rushed into a fight and seized men as if to allay the quarrel, but in reality to hold them for their brothers or husbands to smite.

The greatest war of which the Yurok know took place some years before the Americans came into the country, probably about 1830 or 1840. Some Weitspus men who had married Hupa wives were attacked while visiting there. The cause of the grievance has not been recorded. In the course of the resulting feud the Hupa attacked Weitspus. During the fight a woman was killed who was born of a Weitspus father and Rekwoi mother, and who was herself half married, that is, living at her father’s home. Her death angered her relatives at Rekwoi, it is said. At any rate they gathered their forces, to which were added a number of Tolowa. There were 84 altogether, including 6 women to cook for the party. This number shows conclusively that even this war was an affair of families or at most villages. If the Yurok as a whole had mustered against the Hupa they would have been able to assemble nearly ten times as strong. The party traveled toward Hupa by way of Redwood Creek or the hills above it. They journeyed three nights, resting during the day. Early in the morning they waited at Takimitlding. The first Hupa who emerged was

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killed. Then the fight was on. Many of the Hupa fell, the others fled, and the entire village was burned by the victors, who thereupon seized all the canoes and started homeward down the Trinity River. Two of the men had taken young women whom they intended to marry. But at Weitspus, where the party stopped, probably to eat after the morning’s work and no doubt to recount its adventures, some people who pitied the girls enabled them to escape. These connivers may have been individuals with Hupa blood affiliations, per- haps even direct relatives of the two women.

About half a year later the Hupa retaliated. They were helped by their kins- men up toward the south fork of the Trinity and by the Chilula. Nearly 100 of them are said to have gone. They descended by boat, traveling at night and drawing their canoes up into the brush during the day. Rekwoi was attacked and burned much as Takimitlding had been. Those who were not slain had difficulty living through the winter because their stores of food had been de- stroyed. The Hupa returned as they had come. This fact again indicates the private nature of the quarrel. Canoes must be laboriously poled and in some spots dragged upstream. Had the Yurok been possessed of any national senti- ment in the matter, they could have easily mustered several hundred warriors to overwhelm the Hupa while these were occupied with their difficult naviga- tion. As a matter of fact, the Yurok relate, the villages along the Klamath made no attempt to stop the war party. They concluded that scores being now substantially even, a settlement would soon follow. The Hupa indeed sent to ask for a settlement, and this took place, large amounts being paid on each side.

A feud of some note took place between Sregon and Kxo’otep. When the lead- ing man of Sregon lost his brother by sickness, he accused an inhabitant of Wohtek or Wohkero of having poisoned him. The suspect was soon killed from ambush. After this a Sregon man was attacked and killed at Ko’otep, which is only a short distance from Wohtek. This act involved the people of Iko’otep, which was at this time a large village. After a time, settlement was proposed, and the two parties met in an open place below Sregon to conclude the negotiations. Each side was ready to make the customary dance, when some one fired a shot. In the fight that resulted, a Meta ally of the Sregon people was killed. The headman of Sregon now went down river with his friends and lay in wait at an overhanging and bushy bank at Serper, where the current takes boats close in shore. When a canoe of his foes came up, he attacked it and killed four of the inmates. The feud went on for some time. Sregon, never a large village, fought, with only some aid from Meta, against Ko’otep, Wohtek, and Pekwan, but lost only 3 men to 10 of their opponents’. The headman at Sregon was sufficiently wealthy, when settlement came, to pay for all the satisfaction he had earned. He once said with reference to his ex- perience in this and other feuds, that open battles often took place without any- one being killed. Somehow men are hard to hit, he philosophized: arrows have a way of flying past a human being when a hunter is sure to strike a deer at the same distance; as modern military handbooks also tell.

A small feud occurred between Meta and Pekwan. A number of families were camped along the river for fishing, when a man from Wohtek or Wohkero was killed by enemies from Meta, The grievance is not reported. Those who had slain him fled to Osegon, presumably because they had relatives there. The Wohkero kinsmen of the dead man followed them and a fight took place. An Osegon and a Meta man fell in this little battle. Subsequently another Meta man was killed. Afterwards settlement was made.

Many years ago, probably before the arrival of the Americans, Opyuweg, the largest village on Big Lagoon, became involved in a quarrel with the Wiyot,

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who attacked the town and killed a number of people. Opyuweg subsequently retaliated, but was unable to even the score, the Wiyot being too numerous. Consequently when settlement was made Opyuweg received a large balance. The village fought this feud alone.

Soon after 1860 the Chilula attacked Herwer on Stone Lagoon and killed 10 people, This was at the time the Chilula were in feud with the Americans and Herwer was very likely made to suffer for aid or information given the whites, or thought by the Chilula to have been given. The main grievance of the Chilula, as well as their danger, must have been from the Americans, but satisfaction was more easily taken against the Yurok.

Once there was sickness at IKo’otep. Three Orekw women married at Ko’otep were blamed. An attempt was made to kill them, but one of the Ko’otep men protected them against the others. This angered his fellow towns- men, who, with the aid of friends from Weitspus, succeeded in killing him when he was at Ayotl One of his kinsmen, probably feeling himself impotent against the actual slayers, revenged himself by killing one of the three women from Orekw, whom he held responsible because it was on their account that his relative had become involved in the quarrel which resulted in his death. This act, of course, meant war between Orekw and Ixo’otep. The two parties met several times to negotiate the difficulty before they succeeded. On each occasion some one became excited and fighting commenced over again. Sev- eral men were wounded in these skirmishes, but no one was killed. In the final settlement one of the two surviving Orekw women returned to her home, and the other was married by @ housemate of the man who had lost his life through championing her cause.

Other wars were waged between Wetlkwau and Ho’opeu; between Rekwoi, aided by Oketo and Tsurau, against the Tolowa of Smith River; and by Weitspus, as an ally of the Karok of Orleans, against the Hupa and Chilula,

CHAPTER 38.

THE YUROK: RELIGION.

Great dances, 58; costume and steps, 55; the dances at Weitspus, 57; the Kepel Dam dance, 58; the Jumping dance at Pekwan, 60; dances at the mouth of the river, 60; dances on the coast, 61; the brush dance, 61; the

modern Ghost dance, 62; shamanism, 63; disease and witchcraft, 66; special classes of shamans, 67; taboos, 68; formulas, 69; mythology, 73; calendar, 74.

GREAT DANCES.

The major ceremonies of the Yuork reveal the following qualities:

1. The motive is to renew or maintain the established world. This purpose includes bountiful wild crops, abundance of salmon, and the prevention of famine, earthquakes, and flood. To a greater or less extent, the expression of these objects takes on the character of a new year’s rite. This is particularly plain in the first salmon ceremony at Wetlkwau and the fish dam building at Kepel. Other ceremonies reveal thé motive less outspokenly, but all those of the Karok and most of those of the Hupa are distinct world renova- tion or first fruits rituals; and the equation by all three tribes of the ceremonies of direct with those of indirect new year’s type confirms the interpretation. Most of the rites are made in Sep- tember or October, the remainder about April.

2. The esoteric portion of the ceremony is the recitation of a long formula, narrating, mostly in dialogue, the establishment of the ceremony by spirits of prehuman race and its immediate bene- ficial effect. This formula is spoken in sections before various rocks or spots that mark the abode of these spirits. The reciter is an old man, usually accompanied by an assistant; any prescribed symbolic acts are performed by them alone. They fast and other- wise refrain from ordinary occupation; inhabit a house sanctified by tradition for this purpose; and spend a number of nights in the associated sweat house, sometimes in the company of several men who also observe restrictions, though they do not directly par- ticipate in the acts of magic or recitation. The only offering made is of small quantities of angelica root thrown into the fire, or of tobacco.

3. After the recitation of the formula, or the major portion, a dance begins, and goes on every afternoon, or morning and after-

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noon, for 5, 10, or more days. The regalia are of forms strictly standardized by custom, but are wholly unsymbolical and in no sense regarded as sacred. They comprise the most valuable things in the world known to the Yurok—all their great treasures, in fact, except dentalium shells; and the largest obsidian and flint blades, and whitest deerskins, far outvalue any of their money, while the bands of woodpecker scalps are each worth more than a string of the largest shells. The dances are therefore the one occasion on which the wealthy can make public display of the property on which their position in the world) depends; while the entertainment of visitors from far and near is a burden they are reluctant and yet proud to bear. Any man can dance: the lesser regalia are often intrusted to boys. The singers are those noted for their ability, and constantly compose new songs, although the character of the melodies for each type of dance is so uniform that the novel improvisations prove to be little but minor variations of one theme, or of a set of similar themes cast in one rigid style. Women watch but never dance. The valu- ables are not only those of the home town, but of the whole river, or of long stretches of it. Men carry their treasures far, and when they are responsible for a dance, receive reciprocation from those whose dances they have aided.

4. The dances are of two kinds, known to the Americans as White Deerskin and Jumping dance. In some spots only the latter is made; wherever the Deerskin dance is made, it can be followed also by a Jumping dance. In both, the dancers stand in a line abreast facing the audience of men, women, and children, and some glowing embers by which sits the formula reciter with angelica incense in his hand. The chief singer is in the middle of the line, with an assistant on each side; the remainder of the rank form a sort of chorus that adds little but occasional monotone grunts or shouts. They sway or swing the objects they hold in time to the step or leap which constitutes the dance.

5. The localization of these ceremonies is extreme. The formulas abound in place names. They are spoken at a series of places in and about the village which are exactly prescribed. The sacred house and sweat house of each ceremony are believed to have stood since the time when there were no men in the world: the planks, it is true, are replaced, but the structures occupy the identical spot. The dance ground itself is always the same; and when a dance moves from village to village or hillside, it is in invariable sequence. The selection of the places that enter into the ceremonies is traditionally arbitrary. It is true that the largest villages are the ones in which dances are held, and that some of the spots of ritual are landmarks; but there is no appearance of anything symbolic or inherently re-

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ligious in their choices. The places are usually not prominent in myth, and it is evidently the fact that the dance is made at a par- ticular site that has caused the nameless and colorless spirit referred to in the formula to be associated with it, not the reverse. It is the locality that has ceremonial preeminent sanctity to the Yurok. Else- where in California the Indian thinks first of his spirit or god and his characteristics or history; if a certain spot counts at all, it is because of its connection with the deity. There is something strangely old world and un-American in the Yurok attitude, a reminiscence of high places and fanes and hallowed groves.

6. The dances are conducted with a distinct attempt at climactic effect. On the first days they are brief and the property carried is inconsiderable. Gradually they grow in duration, intensity, and splendor. The famous treasures begin to appear only toward the last day: the most priceless of all are reserved for the final appearance of that day. The number of dancers, the vehemence of their motions, the loudness of the songs, the crowd of spectators, increase similarly ; even on each day of the series, an accumulation is noticeable. The performances are always conducted by competing parties. Each of these represents a village—the home town and from one to five of those in the vicinity. These match and outdo one another, as the rich man of each village gradually hands over more and more of his own and his followers’ and friends’ valuables to the dancers to display.

The gradual unfolding of the ceremonies is illustrated by the progress of the Weitspus Jumping dance on its way uphill. At the first stop, on one occasion, 7 dancers, mostly boys, stood in line, and the songs continued for about 14 leaps. Only two dancers wore woodpecker scalp headbands. Gradually the dancers became more numerous, the boys disappeared, the songs lengthened, the head- bands became 5, then 6, then 9; until, at the summit, 16 men, each with a standard band, danced to songs of nearly 40 leaps.

Sach is the character of the great ceremonies.

All ceremonies are likely to have been annual in the old days, but for many years the custom has been to hold them only in alternate years at each locality. Those on the coast have not been performed in a long time, and of late even the river dances have become very irregular.

Opyuweg is the name the Yurok apply to any form of major dance, and to that only: the “brush” dance is wmeleyek or worero, the war dance wertlker- ermer, the shaman’s dance remohpo. The Jumping dance is sometimes called wonikulego’ but this is a descriptive term: ‘they leap up.” The Karok new year’s rites at Katimin and Orleans are named welailek by the Yurok, the one at Amaikiara uwpuntek, that of the Hupa at Takimitiding uplopu.

COSTUME AND STEPS.

The Deerskin dancers wear aprons of civet cat or a deer-hide blanket about the waist, masses of dentalium necklaces, and forehead bands of wolf fur that shade the eyes. From the head rises a stick on which are fastened

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two or four black and white eagle or condor feathers, so put together as to look like a single feather of enormous length, its quill covered with wood- pecker scalp; or, three slender rods of sinew, scarlet with attacbed bits of scalp, rise from the stick. The dancers also hold poles on which are white, light gray, black, or mottled deerskins, the heads stuffed, the ears, mouths, throats, and false tongues decorated with woodpecker scalps, the hide of the body and legs hanging loose. <A slightly swaying row of these skins looks really splendid. The singer in the center of the line, and his two assistants, add to the costume of the others a light net, reaching from the forehead to the middle of the shoulders and terminating in a fringe of feathers. Their apron is always of civet-cat skins. The step of the entire row is merely a short stamp with one foot. At each end of the line and in front of it is a dancer who carries an obsidian blade instead of a deerskin. Over his wolf-fur forehead band is a strap from which project like hooks half a dozen or more curve-cut canine teeth of sea lions. From the head hangs down a long, close- woven or crocheted net, painted in diamonds or triangles, and feather fringed. A double deerskin blanket passes over one shoulder and covers part of the body ; or is replaced by an apron of civet or raccoon skins. Under the left arm is a fur quiver. These two dancers advance and pass each other in front of the row of deerskins several times during each song, crouching, blowing a whistle, and holding their obsidians out conspicuously. In the final drama of the ceremony they may number four instead of two. All the dancers are painted with a few thin lines of soot across the cheeks or down the shoulders and arms; or the jaw is blackened, or the chin striped. The painting is quite variable according to individual, and decorative, not symbolic.

The Jumping dance varies between two steps, which are never changed While a song is in progress. In the first the hand holding a dancing basket is raised, then swung down and the knees bent until the fingers touch the ground, whereupon the dancer hops about half a foot into the air. In the second form of dance one foot is stamped violently as the basket descends. The drop or stamp coincides with the beat of the music; the leap itself is therefore begun at the end of a bar of song.

The principal ornament worn in this dance is a buckskin band, tied over the forehead with the ends flapping. Its central portion is carefully covered with 50 large woodpecker scalps, and bordered with lines of other feathers and a strip of white fur from a deer belly. Before the dance reaches its height, this band is often replaced by a stuffed head ring of skin, to which about five large woodpecker scalps are glued ind sewed with sinew. Wither headdress is topped by a long white plume on a stick. From the neck hang masses of dentilium beads; about the hips is folded a double deerskin blanket, the fur side inward. In one hand is a cylindrical basket, slit along one side. This has no utilitarian prototype, nor do the Yurok put anything but grass stuffing into it or attach any symbolic association to it. This basket, ego’or, suggests in its shape an enlarged native money box; but the Yurok do not see the re- semblance. Face and body paint is slight, as in the Deerskin dance.

Not one of the ornaments worn or carried in either of the two ceremonies appears to have the least mythological or ritualistic significance. All the dress is standard, but by meaningless custom alone. Also, not a single one of the numerous ornaments is in use among any of the California tribes except the few adjacent to the Yurok who practice the identical ceremonies. The wood- pecker scalp bands alone have some analogues in the lower Sacramento Valley, where belts and headpieces of the type appear in the Kuksu ceremonies. These seem, however, to have been often made on a close network, instead of buck-

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skin, and when intended for headwear to have been broad in the middle and tapering toward the ends. One such specimen of this shape has been found among the Hupa, only a few miles from Weitspus; but its history is unknown, and it may either represent an ancient type or be a traded article. Outside of the partial similarity of these bands, there is no specific resemblance between the northwestern regalia and those of central and southern California. Whether the same uniqueness applies also toward Oregon is not known,

THE DANCES AT WEITSPUS.

The Deerskin dance at Weitspus comes in autumn, and is held on a little terrace facing the village (fig. 2). It lasts 12 to 16 days, according to the number of visitors present, their requests, and the quantity of treasures they bring. There is a short dance late each morning, another before sunset. By the last day the evening dance has grown to occupy most of the afternoon. Wahsekw, Loolego, Pekwututl, and Weitspus equipped the competing parties of dancers in the old days. The concluding dance was formerly made in two large canoes that crossed the river from Pekwututl to Weitspus.

The Jumping dance at Weitspus lasts two days. The formula reciter, followed by a girl assistant or wood gatherer, prays and makes offering, beginning early in the morning at three rocks or bushes in the village, then at five on the way up the mountain KXewet, at a ninth spot near the summit, at a tenth on top, which subsequently serves as a dressing place, and at an eleventh, under a venerated cedar, where a fire is kindled and the dances of the remainder of the afternoon and next day are held. The people fol- low him up at respectful distance, breakfastless. There is no danc- ing in the village. At the fourth to eighth halts, small groups of men and boys dance in line to three songs. At the ninth and tenth stops, a larger number of men dance in a circle; under the sacred tree they dance to three songs in a circle and then to three in line. All the way up, the older people occasionally weep as they think of their dead of long ago who used to come with them to these cher- ished spots; and each man’s and woman’s wish is to be similarly remembered after he or she is gone. When the tree is finally reached and the dance reaches its height, there is an outburst of wailing: the song and lamentations, the brilliance of the ornaments, and the streaming tears, make an impressive scene. Then everyone, hungry and tired, goes to eat and relax amid merriment.

In the afternoon the village parties begin to dance against each other, and visitors from a distance arrive. Wahsekw has made its own way up the mountain and now endeavors to surpass Weitspus. As it grows dark the dancing ends, and the people camp for the night.

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The next day dancing is resumed. The line grows in length, more and more of the gleaming headbands are produced, until in the afternoon the ceremony comes to a magnificent climax of half an hour with hundreds of spectators weeping aloud. Then all pack up and journey well satisfied back to Weitspus.

Here is a case of Indian allegation versus action.

The Deerskin dance at Weitspus is usually stated to continue from 12 to 16 days. In 1901 it commenced on September 3 and ended 18 days later, on September 20, in a great quarrel. Too many old men had. saved out their most precious obsidians for the final appearance at the end of the afternoon, no one would withdraw, the altercation soon developed recriminations, old jealousies were awakened, all the men present took sides and participated in the argument, and the end was that everyone wrapped up his regalia and went away. Thus the climax of the dance never came off. The Jumping dance was announced for two days later, and most of the visitors went home to stow away their deerskin ornaments and bring those for the Jumping dance— ostensibly. Actually most of them were much embittered, and there was a general feeling that the Jumping dance would not be held. On September 21 it rained, and the old man who knew the sacred formula for both dances an- nounced that the weather would prevent the dance. The Indian opinion was that he was still angry. He was a poor man, but had become involved in the quarrel.

On September 26 an American visitor attempted to get the dance under way, but the old man refused to take part “because a moon had now gone by since the Deerskin dance begun.” Really only 24 days uad elapsed. On Sep- tember 30 he alleged the same reason with more accuracy; if it rained the following day the dance would have to be definitely omitted for the year, because of the interval of a moon. The American persisted, however, and the old formula speaker remaining obdurate, another man who had several times assisted him volunteered to act. He did not know the entire formula, he admitted, but enough of the essential parts to answer. He fixed the payment due him at $4 in American money. This was regarded by the Indians as a reasonable amount, but no one wished to contribute now. Some tentative pledges of small amount were made, however, and by dint of persistent dun- ning and soliciting, with an addition by himself, the interested outsider after several days succeeded in bringing together the whole of the stipulated sum. As soon as this was handed to the assistant, the native attitude changed to one of interest. The new formula reciter began his preparation. At once his chief decided to officiate in person. and claimed the fee. Part of this having been already spent by the substitute at the trader’s store for flour and a shirt, the old man accepted the balance and next morning was at his task. The dancers followed him, and about noon, when the assemblage reached the sum- mit, all differences seemed to have been forgotten and the ceremony developed undisturbed to the end of the next day.

THE KEPEL DAM DANCE.

Perhaps the most famous of all ceremonies among the Yurok is the Deerskin dance associated with the building of a salmon dam at Kepel in early autumn. The dam is made at the upstream edge of that village; the sacred house and sweat house of the ceremony stand in adjoining Sa’a; most of the dancing is in villages downstream.

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The ceremony is in charge of the usual formulist, who, with an as- sistant, restricts himself to a diet of thin acorn gruel and visits many hallowed spots for 10 days. For gathering firewood he has a woman assistant. During the 10 days a band of at least 60 men— a smaller number would be unable to complete the work in time— assemble the posts, stakes, and withes and erect the weir. These materials are obtained in specified ways at designated spots, and, with all the sanctity of the occasion, custom provides many occasions for merrymaking. The weir is built in 10 named sections by as many companies of men. Each group leaves an entrance, behind which is an inclosure: when salmon have run into this, the gate is shut and the fish easily taken out with nets. Comic interludes increase toward the end. On the last day the formulist’s assistant, wearing a beard and personating a Karok who has eloped with another man’s wife, pretends to be fleeing vengeance and allows his canoe to be capsized in midstream. He swims to Kepel, crouches, and the mass of men, armed with long poles, clash them together over his head and lay them on his back until he is almost covered from sight. This episode is repeated with but little improvised change from year to year, but is received by the multitude with appreciation that grows with familiarity. The end of the dam building is a period of freedom. Jokes, ridicule, and abuse run riot; sentiment forbids offense; and as night comes, lovers’ passions are inflamed.

The formula for this ceremony is imperfectly known; but many of the actions, as well as the purpose of the dam, accentuate its tenor as a new year’s and world establishing rite.

Before the great weir is finished, a sort of imitation Deerskin dance is held, with long flat cobbles to represent obsidian blades, by the river at Murekw, just downstream. The night of the completion, and the next day, the proper Deerskin dance is danced at Kepel. A few days pass; and then the people gather again about Wohtek-Wohkero, camping in groups, and dancing, for 10, 12, 14, or 16 days, at a spot just downstream from the village, with Wohtek, Ko’otep, Pekwan, Sregon, Murekw, and Kepel-Sa’a competing. After another “ten days,” the Jumping dance is made, for a night and a day, at Murekw, or in alternate years on the hill above Merip. Other accounts place the main Deer- skin dance at Wohtek, and alternate a brief supplementary Deerskin dance at Halega’u, downstream from Wohkero, with the Murekw and Merip Jumping dances.

Kepel-Sa’a has not been a large community in historic times. Its selection for the dam is no doubt due to a favorable condition of the river bed. The asso- ciated dancing is mostly held at larger villages. That at Wohtek-Wohkero may be suspected to have taken place at Ko’otep before the ruination of this town by the floods of 1861-62. Myths tell how the woge spirits were about to insti- tute the dam at Turip, and how, when it was moved to Kepel, the Turip people, coming over the hills to take back their rights by force, were turned into red- wood trees still visible from Kepel—the farthest of the species upstream. The lie of river and hills at the two places is very similar, and this resemblance to the eye, with the outposts at Kepel of the trees that dominate the view at

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Turip, may be the sole foundation of the tale; or a dam at Turip may have been a former actuality.

The dam and dance have not been made for many years, primarily because enough men can no longer be assembled for the construction, but in native opinion because no one can recite the entire formula. A Woman married in Meta is reputed to be the only person who knows certa‘n passages, and she will not teach them. She has lost her parents, all her brothers and sisters, and 10 chil- dren, it is said. The ceremony would be for the health of the world; and in her own grief, she wishes no one else to be happy among the undiminished array of all his kin. So tell the Yurok; and while they regret her sentiment, they seem to find it natural and scarcely disapprove.

THE JUMPING DANCE AT PEKWAN,

The Pekwan ceremony is a Jumping dance, partly held in a large house. For 10 days the formulist—with a number of elderly com- panions, women as well as men, the te¢/—fasts, restrains himself, and spends his time in the sacred house and sweat house. It appears that this group of persons sings much of the time.’ The last night they remain awake in the sweat house. The next day the people dance by the river, and in the afternoon or evening go up into the sacred house, whose roof and walls have been removed to give a view inside. They dance first before it, then in the interior, which, how- ever, accommodates only about 10 dancers. After this they dance at four spots in or by the village, proceeding in upstream order from one to the other. The competing parties represent Wohtek, Sregon, Murekw, and Pekwan. This continues for two days, after which the old people again sing in the sweat house one night, beating the walls with sticks. This is an early autumn ceremony.

DANCES AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER.

Rekwoi had a similar Jumping dance, held partly in a sacred house. ‘The climax was a dance made in two large canoes, which approached across the broad lagoon abreast. The season for the ceremony seems to have been autumn.

Wetlkwau, on the opposite side of the mouth, formerly had a more venerated rite. There was a sacred house and sweat house, and the formulist kept a pipe that was regarded with the greatest fear. Each year, it may be presumed about April, he and his assist- ant proceeded to the very debouch of the river and speared the first salmon. This was cooked on the beach and the assistant attempted to eat it entire. Should he ever succeed it was thought that he would become extremely wealthy. Some fragments of the formula that are known tell of the coming of the great salmon leader from the miraculous country across the ocean.

*More on the ¢etl is to be found in Lucy Thompson (see Bibliography).

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Wetlkwau also made a Deerskin dance, which, with the shriveling of the village, has long been abandoned. It was evidently an after- math to the salmon rite. In this the competing towns were Turip, Rekwoi, and Wetlkwau. On the last day they danced across the lagoon in boats and finished on the hill above Rekwoi. No one was allowed to witness the boat dance whose father’s payment for his mother had not included either a canoe or one of the large Hudson Bay Co. knives, which before 1850 were extremely valuable. Some- times at Wetlkwau the final dance above Rekwoi was omitted and a separate Jumping dance substituted. This is said to have been held 20 miles upstream on the hill back of Pekwan.

DANCES ON THE COAST.

Orekw, at the mouth of Redwood Creek, held a Jumping dance associated with a traditional house.

Another Jumping dance was made at Oketo, or more exactly at the main village of Opyuweg, “they dance,” on Big Lagoon, Oketo. This included dancing indoors and in boats on the lagoon. It must have been an important ceremony, since it lasted 10 to 12 days. The formula is reported similar to that spoken at Rekwoi, and different from those of Orekw and Pekwan.

It is rather remarkable that Tsurau at Trinidad, sometimes reck- oned the largest Coast Yurok village, possessed no dance. The Coast Yurok frequented a Jumping dance made by the Wiyot on Mad

tiver, and sometimes went to a ceremony of another type made by

the Wiyot of Olog on Humboldt Bay. They declare that these far- ther Wiyot rarely visited them at the Oketo dance, except one famous rich man named Munters, “ white,” to whom story accredits 10 wives who all drowned at once on Humboldt Bay.

THE BRUSH DANCE.

A minor dance is called the “ brush dance” by the Americans. It is ostensibly held to cure an ailing child. As a matter of fact it is often made when the younger men are desirous of a_ holiday. Whether, however, the initiative comes from an alarmed mother or from those who wish to enjoy themselves, the sick child must be pro- vided. It is kept at the dance all night, and the woman who recites the formula speaks it for the child’s benefit. The dance is held in the living house, but the roof and most of the walls of this are taken down for the occasion. On the first night young men dance about the fire for a few hours. They wear no ornaments but hold boughs of foli- age up before them. The following night is an intermission, and on the third or fourth night the dance proper takes place from dark

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until dawn. The regalia are somewhat variable, especially as regards headdresses, but represent no great value. Arrow-filled quivers and sometimes small obsidian blades mounted. on sticks are carried. All ornaments of considerable intrinsic value are reserved for the two great dances. The participants enter the house in competitive par- ties, each dancing to three songs on every appearance. Two formu- las are in use for the dance, or, it would be better to say, two types of ceremonial action in connection with the formula, since the latter is always somewhat different according to the individual reciting it. The wmeleyeh formula is spoken on the first and third nights; the alternative worero, which is considered stronger, on the first and fourth, and is followed by the waving of pitch-pine brands over the child.

THE MODERN GHOST DANCE.

The first Ghost dance movement that originated among the north- ern Paiute reached the Yurok about 1872 via the Shasta, Karok, and Tolowa, but endured only a short time, and vanished with scarcely any effect. It seems that groups like the southern Wintun and Pomo, whose institutions had long been suffering under Spanish and Amer- ican contact, embodied considerable elements of Ghost dance doctrine into what remained of their religion.

From the Shasta of Scott River the Ghost dance spread to the Happy Camp Karok. Report traveled, and both Tolowa and lower Karok came to see and learned to believe. A woman of Amaikiara seems to have been the first to dream among the latter. Many Yurok were attracted and came to Amaikiara with their dance orna- ments. Perhaps they were shocked at the announcement that when the great change came these precious things would vanish. At any rate, most of them grew tired and went home. The Hupa either never came in numbers or failed to be seriously influenced.

The dance actually reached the Yurok from the Tolowa. An old man from Burnt Ranch instituted it at Sta’awin, above Turip, where he came to visit a Yurok nephew. After his return, the nephew be- gan to dream. The dance was then taken down the coast to Big Lagoon, and up the river to Ko’otep, then not yet resettled after the flood of 1862. This was in the summer after the Karok had become converted. The Yurok prophet and his Tolowa uncle announced that the dance must be held also at Weitspus if the dead of that vi- cinity were to return; but the movement waned before they could effect their purpose. There seem always to have been a number of Yurok who remained unconvinced, and none, except the immediate

family of the dreamer, on whose minds the doctrine had more than a passing hold.

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The beliefs and practices sound as if taken from a description of the Dakota 20 years later. The world was to end; the dead would return, true converts among the living survive, disbelievers turn to stone. The new world was to be sexless; and in preparation men and women were instructed to bathe together without shame, and hus- band and wife to ignore each other. All planking was removed from graves to facilitate the resurrection. The prophets visited the dead in dreams and carried messages from them—once even that they would appear the next day. The dancers, men, women, and children, formed concentric circles, revolving in opposite directions.

Local custom, however, colored the doctrine at several points. Dogs were killed. All valuables would turn to rubbish, it was pro- claimed, unless exposed in the dance. When there was dancing in the morning, breakfast must be deferred until after it, as in old native ceremonies. Sometimes the dance took place indoors. The officiating prophet remained aloof from the crowd in a house of his own, like the formula reciter of a typical Yurok rite.

SHAMANISM.

A Yurok woman goes through the following stages to become a shaman:

First she dreams of a dead person, usually if not always a shaman, who puts into her body a “pain.” The possession of this animate object in her person is what essentially constitutes her a shaman.

Then the remohpo, or “ doctor dance,” is made for her in the sweat house for 10 days, during which she fasts and dances severely under the direction of older shamans. The pain is thereby induced to leave her body, is exhibited, and is then reswallowed by her. The purpose of this dance is to give the novice con- trol of her “pain.”

After this, in summer, she goes to a “seat” or little monument on a mountain top, where she spends one night in speaking or dancing. The function of this act is obscure.

After her return she usually goes through the remohpo once more.

Then follows the ukwerhkwer teilogitl, a dance around a large hot fire, to “cook the pains.” The idea perhaps is that the pains are rendered more pliable or amenable to her will. This rite includes a formula. The shaman is now ready to practice her profession.

The Yurok accept as a self-evident fact, which they do not at- tempt to explain, their conviction that possession of one or more pains enables the carrier to see and extract similar pains from people who have been made sick by their internal presence. The emphasis, in their ideas, is wholly on the “pain.” The spirit enters into belief only to bestow the first pain, and seems not to be con- sidered active thereafter. Moreover, the spirit is the spirit of a human being, sometimes of an ancestor, in human form; not of an

3625 °—25—_6

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animal or mountain or lake, rarely of a disembodied divinity. The customary North American concept of the “guardian spirit” is therefore reduced to a minimum among the Yurok. The pain, on the other hand, as a material though animate object operating homeo- pathically, as it were, and therefore sympathetically, brings Yurok shamanism a step nearer magic than is usual.

This is a native summary of a shaman’s inception:

A woman on her way for firewood perhaps begins to think of the dead who formerly lived in her town, notes how grass-grown and dim the path is, clears it of brush, and weeps in recollection. Not long after she dreams. A person says to her: “I pity you as you always cry when you gather wood. You should become a shaman, Eat this!’ The woman, not knowing what it is, eats what is offered. She wakes and realizes that what she thought reality was a dream. The base of her sternum hurts; it is a pain growing in her. But perhaps when she is on the path again, she may decide: ‘‘ Well, I dreamed it so. I will try.” Then she tells them in the house of her experience, and her relatives take her into the sweat house and make the remohpo for her for 10 days, so she will acquire (her power) readily. The purpose of the dance is to make the pain which she dreamed to have been put into her come out of her body. Per- haps it is displayed on a flat basket. Then she drinks it again. Later, in summer, in the seventh month, a male relative accompanies her to a stone chair (tsektseya) on a mountain. There are such on Kewet, the mountain behind Weitspus, and on other ridges. These seats are good for other things also. They can be used to acquire luck in gambling or power of bewitching people; but they can not be used ignorantly. One must know how long to fast, how to offer tobacco, what formula to speak. The seats have been there since the time of the woge. The shaman dances by a fire near the chair, and speaks things that are not known to other people. Her kinsman watches that she does herself no harm. In the morning he leads her back. They are already dancing in the sweat house. At last she enters; and then for 10 days the remohpo goes on again. Men sing for her; when she is exhausted, one of her relatives dances for her until she recovers. This is the only time a woman enters the sweat house (sic; but see below).

According to further accounts, a shaman becomes a shaman by dreaming of a dead shaman, who gives her the initial power. Often a woman seeks to be a shaman. At every opportunity she cries and cries, until finally the desired dream comes to her.

A man who knew the formula and ritual for the “ pain cooking ” after the second remohpo described it as follows:

Two kinsmen of the new shaman bring four limbs of pitch-pine wood and four large slabs of bark from a mountain. <A fire is made with these eight pieces of fuel in the house after the roof has been taken off. The novice has been painted, in the sweat house, with black vertical stripes. She now joins the people in the house, who dance in a circle alternately to the right and left about the fire, wearing fir branches in their belts to shield them from the heat. When the ordeal becomes unendurable, they pour over themselves a little water which the ritualist has prepared with herb in it. There is a separate vessel for the novice. Spectators look on from outside. The dancing continues Without pause until the fire is wholly consumed. Then some one pretends ill- ness, and the novice seizes and begins to suck him as if to extract his pain. Svmetimes, too, a woman falls down during the dance, seized with a pain

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which will ultimately make her a shaman. Some older practitioner then at once diagnoses her condition. This pain-cooking rite is not indispensable, but novices like to undergo it because it increases their power and enables them to earn more in their profession. The ritualist is in charge because he knows the necessary formula and herbs. He is generally not a shaman himself.

The following is an account given by a shaman of repute of her acquisition of her powers:

I began with a dream. At that time I was already married at Sregon. In the dream I was on Bald Hills. There I met a Chilula man who fed me deer meat which was black with blood. JI did not know the man, but he was a short-nosed person. I had this dream in autumn, after we had gathered acorns.

In the morning I was ill. A doctor was