In addition to Goddard's monographs, we have a tribe list for a portion of the Wailaki from Merriam entitled "Tsennahkennes Bands and Rancherias." Both investigators surveyed independently 11 of the 18 subtribal areas and obtained the names of villages from informants. In his list on page 109 and in his text Goddard identifies 53 inhabited places. For two other subtribes, the Chiskokaiya and the Kaikichekaiya, he cites the villages by name in the textual descriptions on pages 106 and 107. There are a total of 18 for the two subtribes. Villages were not determined at all for the five northern subtribes.
For the first 11 subtribes Merriam gives a total of 46 villages. Of these, 30 can be identified with names furnished by Goddard, whereas 16 are in addition to Goddard's list. Goddard on the other hand gives 23 which were not secured by Merriam. Since both these workers operated carefully through informants and both were thoroughly conversant with the local dialects, we may accept the combined total of 69 villages, large and small, occurring within the territory of Goddard's first, or southernmost, 11 subtribes. The average is 6.27 villages per subtribe. For the Chiskokaiya and the Kaikichekaiya, Merriam mentions only one village each, that bearing the subtribal name. It is quite clear from his list that he did not push his field investigations into these groups. Hence we must fall back on Goddard's data, which include 18 villages in all. The average for the 13 subtribes therefore is 6.7 villages, and the total 87.
All the villages have long since been totally deserted and Goddard could count only house pits. (Merriam made no counts of any kind.) He did this for only two groups, the Baskaiya and the Slakaiya. Here he found and mentions on pages 103 and 105 twenty sites containing house pits. In all there were 92 pits but for two localities he specifies a certain number plus "several" others. If we allow 4 to represent "several" in each of these, then, the total number of pits is 100 and the average per site or village is 5.0.
Now since we are dealing here only with pits and not counts of houses remembered by informants, a reduction according to the Kroeber principle is justified for it is quite probable that all the houses once standing on the pits were not simultaneously occupied. When Kroeber has no other data, he recommends a reduction by one-sixth. I think that in this instance it would be proper to reduce by one-fifth, or 20 per cent. This would give an effective average of 4 houses per village. In the 13 communities covered by Goddard and by Merriam there were 87 villages, which at 4 houses per village would give a total of 348. No evidence is offered by either author to the effect that the remaining 5 subtribes differed in any essential way from the first 13. Hence we must ascribe to them 134 houses, making 482 in all.
We might use the Yurok family number 7.5, but Goddard's account carries the implication that perhaps the Wailaki family was somewhat smaller, suggesting a factor of 7.0 rather than 7.5. Goddard bases his estimates upon a mean population of 15 to 30 persons per village. This would mean 4.5 persons per house, certainly too low a value for the aboriginal social family. At four houses per village the family number would be 5.6, still probably somewhat too low. Perhaps a compromise is advisable, say at 6.0. The average village size could be then put at 25 persons, a figure definitely lower than was assumed for the more northerly Athapascan tribes but still one which seems to be indicated by the social organization described by Goddard. The total population of the Wailaki proper would then be 80 per cent of 482 houses multiplied by 6.0 or 2,315 persons.
Goddard indicates on page 108 his belief that the villages were not simultaneously inhabited. However, he adduces no evidence to favor this view. On the contrary, he mentions in his text four villages which were stated by informants not to have been inhabited within their memory, a circumstance which argues strongly that the villages they did claim were actually active at the time to which they were referring, i.e., just before the white invasion. It would appear to the writer that reducing the house count by 20 per cent and reducing the family number from 7.5 to 6.0 quite adequately compensates for any errors in the ennumeration of villages. Indeed the estimate here presented may be too conservative.
With regard to the Pitch group Goddard (1924) shows that the subtribe tokya-kiyahan had 15 villages. In fourteen of these he found 66 house pits, an average of 4.72 per village. At tciancot-kiyahan there were 16 villages, 7 of which had 35 house pits, or an average of 5.0. Todannan-kiyahan had 6 villages but the area was incompletely examined and there were probably more. The area of tcocat-kiyahan was not seen at all but there is certainly no reason why they should not have had at least 6 villages. At four houses per village the total, surely an underestimate, would be 172 and at 6.0 persons per house the population would be 1,032.
For the entire Wailaki the indicated population is then 3,347 (or rather 3,350), a figure much in excess of previous estimates but justified by the data presented by Goddard and Merriam.
Wailaki ... 3,350
ATHAPASCAN TOTAL ... 15,450