The Aboriginal Population of the North Coast of California Part 7

THE YUKI

THE COAST YUKI

The Coast Yuki have been the subject of an admirable ethnographic study by Gifford (1939), who has a.s.sembled substantially all the data extant in modern times pertaining to families and villages. He shows very clearly that this tribe occupied its villages only in a transitory manner, that it had summer beach camps and inland winter settlements.

To quote Gifford's words concerning the point (p. 296):

I use the terms camp, hamlet, and village interchangeably in this paper. No site seems to have been occupied the year around. All were more or less temporary. The presence of an a.s.sembly house marked the more frequently occupied sites.

Hence it is necessary to examine Gifford's compilation of sites with as much care as possible in order to determine how many villages can properly be ascribed to the tribe.

It is also made clear in Gifford's paper that each of the eleven Coast Yuki groups had its own headman and ceremonial house. Each group had a frontage of seacoast together with a strip of territory which extended inland to the eastern limit of the tribe. Within this territory the group moved about with considerable freedom.

The following is a digest of the inhabited sites for the eleven groups.

The groups are numbered (but the names omitted) in the order in which they appear on pages 296 to 303 of Gifford's paper.

1. One village is mentioned but no camp sites. For the group, therefore, the maximum number of sites occupied at any given time must be _one_.

2. Two "hamlets" are given by name. Since these are quite close together and in the same terrain, it may be a.s.sumed that _two_ sites were simultaneously occupied.

3. Here are mentioned three camp sites and two villages (Esim and Melhomikem), one with 7-9 houses and the other with 8 houses. There was also a village which had been settled after the coming of the white man, with 6 houses. It appears clear that aboriginally there were _two_ semipermanent sites and a number of temporary settlements.

4. For this group Gifford mentions one beach village by name, one inland village, name unknown, and three camp sites. Although the beach and inland villages may not have been simultaneously occupied, the existence of three additional camp sites implies more people than would be contained in a single settlement at one time.

Hence it is reasonable to regard the group as consisting of at least _two_ village units.

5. There was one inland village with 6 houses (Onbit), one beach village (Lilpinkem) and one camp site with 8 houses. In view of the single camp site we have to regard the group as having _one_ site occupied at a given time.

6. Here was one winter village and one beach village with no camp sites mentioned. Thus we may count _one_ occupied site.

7. For this group there are known two villages, two hamlets, and one camp site, all with names. One hamlet had 3-4 houses and one village had 5 houses. Since there is no information on the location of the villages we may count all _four_.

8. _Three_ hamlets are mentioned by name.

9. _Two_ villages are mentioned by name.

10. _One_ village mentioned.

11. _One_ village mentioned.

The irreducible minimum number of villages therefore totals 20. It is quite probable that some of the other sites might be or ought to be counted but, since the evidence concerning them is equivocal, they will not be included. The house counts for seven sites average 6.3 and since we are here dealing with informants' memories of inhabited houses, not house pits, this number need not be reduced. With respect to family number, the Yurok value of 7.5 is probably too high. For the type of culture characteristic of the Coast Yuki the more conservative value of 6.0 is probably better. This yields a population of 756, or approximately 750. It is difficult to see how this estimate could be reduced.

_Coast Yuki ... 750_

THE YUKI PROPER

Although the Yuki were a populous and important tribe, and although Kroeber, in the Handbook, devoted three chapters to their culture, they have been the subject of but one special study. Quite recently G. M.

Foster (1944) resurveyed their ethnography and worked out their village organization in some detail. He utilized informants who were in their seventies during the period of 1935 to 1940 and who thus were born no earlier than 1860. Since the social and political organization of the Yuki was completely disrupted during the 'fifties, particularly at Round Valley, it is remarkable that Foster was able to secure so much apparently quite accurate detail. It is true that certain specific items of information derived by Kroeber from his informants of thirty or thirty-five years earlier are more reliable than the comparable data of Foster, nevertheless the over-all coverage by the latter is more complete. Foster's account will therefore serve here as the basis for a computation of population.

There were eight major subdivisions or subtribes, the spelling of whose names and the precise boundaries of whose territories are slightly differently presented by Kroeber and Foster. Merely for convenience the description of Foster is followed here. Of the eight subtribes the most numerous and most important were the Ukomnom, who inhabited most of Round Valley. Next in importance were the Witukomnom directly to the south. Most of Foster's work was devoted to these two groups.

With respect to village organization Kroeber brought out the basic fact that the tribe was organized by communities, rather than separate and wholly independent villages (1925, pp. 161-162).

The community always might and usually did embrace several settlements.... If designated it was referred to by the name of the princ.i.p.al village. This place name therefore designates at one time a cl.u.s.ter of several little towns and on other occasions one of these towns.

Foster went one step further and clarified the internal organization of the community. He showed that within each cl.u.s.ter there was always a princ.i.p.al village of relatively large size called the _nohot_ with a constellation of small hamlets or, as he usually puts it, "rancherias"

immediately adjacent. The former he likens to a host and the latter to a group of parasites. The nohot might contain as many as twenty-five houses and as many as 150 inhabitants. There might be anywhere from "2 to 6 to 8" rancherias per nohot. (See p. 176.) It is therefore possible, for certain subtribes, to obtain some idea concerning population from the list of inhabited places remembered by Foster's informants, particularly since Foster usually specifies what type of village is meant. This list is quite complete for the Witukomnom and the Ukomnom and partially so for the Tanom. Kroeber (1925, pp. 163-164) gives parallel data for a part of the Ukomnom, which can be to some extent brought into concordance with Foster's list.

The question of local population is difficult because in only one instance does Foster mention a specific figure: the largest nohot, which he says contained 25 houses and 150 people. It is of interest that elsewhere he states that the typical Yuki house would hold 4 to 8 persons. Thus he appears to accept without reservation a family number of 6. Now of course the average nohot was smaller and must have been intermediate between the maximum possible with twenty-five houses and the smaller villages which must have contained four or five. The halfway point is fifteen, a number which may be accepted with a fair degree of confidence. The nohot population would then be taken as ninety. The parasitic village or rancheria was definitely smaller. It could not have approached 15 houses yet by far the greater number of rancheria's must have had more than one or two. A reasonable compromise would be 4 houses and 25 inhabitants. With respect to the number of these hamlets per community the indefinite "2 to 6 to 8" may be set at four. Hence the community may be regarded as having on the average 190 inhabitants during pre-invasion times. There is no clear evidence to justify a larger estimate and on the other hand the whole context of both Kroeber's and Foster's discussion gives the impression of a group approaching 200 persons in number. This is somewhat but not materially greater than the mean number for the 22 subtribes of the Wailaki according to G.o.ddard's data. That value was 153 and the subtribe among the Wailaki appears to have been very similar to the community among the Yuki.

For the Witukomnom Foster lists 15 places, of which 9 are designated as nohots and 6 as "small." Two points are apparent. First, the informants of Foster were recalling the _important_ villages which they had seen or been told about but had forgotten the minor sites, hence the great preponderance of nohots. In the second place, it is unnecessary for purposes of calculation to know the names or the number of the peripheral "parasitic" rancherias if we know the primary towns, the nohots, for, knowing a nohot, we know a community. Thus we may immediately set the population of the Witukomnom as at least 1,710 persons. If the informants gave incomplete data, then the number would be higher.

For the Ukomnom Foster lists 38 place names, most but not all of which lay in Round Valley. Of these 6 are specified as nohots. This would yield as a first approximation a population of 1,140. But for the Ukomnom we have some help from Kroeber. Many of Foster's remaining places are designated merely "rancheria," since his informants could remember no further details. For one of them, Kroeber says that there was a dance house present, which makes the site a nohot instead of a rancheria. Kroeber's group B includes the village of Pomo, which is not mentioned by Foster. This was the seat of a head chief, and therefore a nohot. In addition, Kroeber includes in this group 6 villages in Williams Valley. Foster says regarding "Flint Valley," by which he is evidently referring to the same locality, that his informants could remember no villages. This seems to be an instance where Kroeber's earlier informants could recall villages which Foster's later ones had forgotten, for there is no ground for doubting the accuracy of Kroeber's work. There is no implication that any of these sites was large, hence they may be regarded as the small type of village with about 25 persons apiece. We can therefore count 8 nohots plus 6 rancherias, which gives a population of 1,670 for the entire group.

A further check on the Ukomnom is provided by Foster's map of Round Valley (p. 158). In the valley proper he shows 37 inhabited villages, of which 25 are named and 12 are unnamed. Of the former, 7 are known to have been nohots. Taking the nohots at 90 persons and the other sites at 25 persons, one gets a total population of 1,380. A balance of 300 is by no means excessive for Williams Valley and the peripheral hills.

Incidentally, this figure for Round Valley yields a density of roughly 45 persons per square mile, one which surpa.s.ses any other in California but one which is quite in accord with all the accounts of early settlers and explorers.

The Tanom, living on the Eel River to the northwest, are credited by Kroeber with six "divisions," the names for which he gives. Foster lists also six names, which he says are "probably districts named after the princ.i.p.al rancheria" (p. 159). There is no doubt that both authors are referring to communities or, as Kroeber calls them, "political units." Hence at 190 persons their aggregate population would have been 1,140.

For the other five subtribes we have very little direct information.

Among the Huitinom Foster knows of two nohots and two rancherias, all at considerable distances from each other. The country was rugged but the area large and served by Black b.u.t.te Creek, a fis.h.i.+ng stream with several tributaries. Two nohots and two rancherias would indicate a minimum of 330 people. It would not be excessive to place the number at 400.

The Suksaltatamnom lived to the northeast on the headwaters of the South Fork Eel River, close to the Pitch Wailaki. They are all dead and nothing whatever is known of their villages. Their number may be tentatively placed at 400, since in all other respects their habitat resembled that of the Huitinom.

On Onkolukomnom lived to the southeast in a large area centering around Lake Pillsbury. There are none left but Foster thinks (p. 160) "they are undoubtedly numerous." Certainly they must have exceeded the two preceding subtribes and an estimate of 600 should not be too much.

The Lalkutnom and the Ont.i.tnom lived close together south and west of Round Valley. Regarding the former Foster says there were "a number of nohots and rancherias." If we allow four to be "a number" and a.s.sume that the rancherias were all subordinate to the nohots, the population would have been 760, a not excessive estimate. The Ont.i.tnom, as far as Foster could determine, consisted of one nohot or, let us say, 200 persons.

_Yuki proper ... 6,880_

THE HUCHNOM

This important subdivision of the Yukian stock lived along the South Eel River and its affluents from a point below the junction with Outlet Creek to the head of Potter Valley, at which region they merged with the Pomo. They were a river people, with their villages all placed on the banks of the Eel and one or two of the larger tributaries.

The original modern ethnographic account of the Huchnom was by Barrett (1908), whose description of villages is accepted almost verbatim by Kroeber in the Handbook (pp. 202-203). A more recent account, derived from one informant, is given by Foster (1944, pp. 225 ff., App. 1).

Barrett describes and shows on his map 13 villages, of which 11 are on the Eel and 2 on Tomki Creek. Of the former 5 are located close together along the boundary between the Huchnom and the Northern Pomo.

This territory is shown on Foster's map as being within the confines of the Pomo; hence some confusion might arise, were it not that both Barrett and Kroeber are very positive in ascribing the sites to the Huchnom, not the Pomo. Barrett's map is undoubtedly more accurate for this area than Foster's.

Barrett calls all these "old village sites," as opposed, for example, to modern inhabited villages. He makes no distinction as to size.

Kroeber in taking over Barrett's list refers to them as "main settlements." Foster states (p. 227) that "village organization and society in general were about like the Yuki." Hence it could be inferred that the 13 places were all of the nohot type, and thus that a total population of 2,470 is implied.

This may not, however, be entirely justified. Kroeber says _settlements_ not _communities_ and Barrett says _villages_. Reference therefore may have been to individual dwelling places not to groups or constellations.

Foster begs the question entirely by referring merely to the work of the previous investigators as "ample." On the other hand, if the Huchnom organization was similar to that of the Yuki, as Foster avers, then at least some of the names mentioned must have been community capitals, or nohots, the smaller villages peripheral to which have been forgotten.