BEAR RIVER
This small group, occupying the entire drainage of Bear River and the coast near its mouth, has been fairly well documented by ethnographers. Aside from linguistic material, our chief source, a paper by Nomland (1938), gives as complete an account as could be obtained at such a late date. Although some villages are noted by Goddard (1929), Nomland, and Merriam, they do not appear to have been recorded by any of the scholars in a systematic fashion. The village count therefore is probably not complete.
The resources of the Bear River group are substantially the same as those of the Mattole, except that the salmon run is smaller.
Merriam's information on the Bear River tribe is limited but it helps to augment the data now in print (Nomland, 1938; Goddard, 1929). Merriam's informant among these people was an old woman named Mrs. Prince. She came from Bear River, but at the time Merriam spoke to her (July and September, 1921) she was living at the Rohnerville Reservation. She used to visit her granddaughter, Ethel Hecker, at Scotia.
Merriam gives the following brief note about these people.
Nek´-an-ni´ ... Athapaskan coast tribe formerly inhabiting Cape Mendocino and adjacent region from Bear River Hills southward to Mattole River, and reaching inland (easterly) to the headwaters of the Bear River. [Nek´-an-ni´ was] their own name for themselves.
TRIBELETS
All evidence would seem to indicate that the Bear River people constitute a single tribelet as well as a single dialect group. Even the village on Oil Creek (village no. 7) was evidently in the same political division; Goddard (1929, p. 291) says: "There was, however, one village at the mouth of Van Duzen creek which was allied to Bear river both in its dialect and politically."
VILLAGES
Some villages are given by Merriam (M), Nomland (1938) (N), and Goddard (1929) (G), but most of the locations are not very certain.
1. chal-ko´-chah (M). Name of the village N of the mouth of Bear R., used for both the place and the village.
tc'alko´ (N). Largest and most western village in the area. It included the flat at the mouth of Bear R.
Goddard mentions two villages as being on the ocean N of the mouth of Bear R. — ƚ'adAlk'AsdAñ and goldElco'dAñ. He gives the word tc'alko as the word for Bear R. In Nomland's personal copy of Goddard's paper (1929) she has written the word "tchankok" as the word for Bear R. She gives the following explanation of the discrepancy (1938, p. 92): "In checking words given by Goddard with my Bear River informant, Nora Coonskin, it developed that most of his information (gotten from Nora's uncle, Peter) was not in accordance with hers. Upon close questioning, the latter told me that her uncle preferred to speak Mattole. I checked Peter's words with Isaac Duncan, my Mattole informant, and found this to be true."
2. sā-cho-tung (sĕ-cho´-tah) (M). On the ocean on the S side of the mouth of Bear R.
setcodAñ, "rock big" (G). By the lighthouse, a populous place. The present-day lighthouse stands about 2 mi. S of the mouth of Bear R.
3. chil-shĕck (N). On the site of the present town of Capetown.
atcAnco'xEbi' (G). Said to have been where the store and hotel are at the town of Capetown.
4. chil-en-chĕ (N). Near the present Morrison Ranch.
chul´-lŏ-ko (M). This was the name of the village at Morrison's, 5 or 6 mi. above the mouth of Bear R.
5. sels-che'o-ch (N). About 3 or 4 mi. up the river from the Morrison place. The site is now marked by a large red rock. It may correspond to Goddard's sEtcixEbi, "rock stand in the water", which is not located.
6. seht-lá (N). About 7 mi. up Bear R. from Capetown.
7. ko-stah-che´ (kōs-tah-che´) (M). Name of the camp on Oil Cr.
Each author gives some additional villages, which cannot be located.
esta-kana (N). On the largest flat in the upper valley, Gear's place.
IstEγnadaibi', "madrone stands place" (G).
klaht-el-kōs´-tah (M). Name of the village near the head of Bear R. (at least 15 or 20 mi. upstream). It was a large town with a big dance house.
ƚ'adAlk'AsdAñ (G). Where a schoolhouse stands on Bear R.
tlanko (N). Above chil-sheck.
ETHNOGRAPHIC NOTES
At low tide in the spring the Bear River people waded out to lighthouse rock to gather the eggs of seabirds—gulls, shags, and others. They would climb up a sort of stairs in the steep rock, wrap the eggs in buckskin, and let them down with long ropes.
The illustration (fig. 1, c) is of an old woman, about ninety years old, from Bear River, sketched in the fall of 1921.