The Aboriginal Population of the North Coast of California

by Sherburne Friend Cook

We know that the Lake people visited the coast. Perhaps Heintzelman encountered some of these kabenapo over on a salt-gathering expedition to some point on the coast north of Fort Bragg.

If Barrett is correct, then this tribe must be excluded from the present enumeration. The Kon-is-illa cannot be traced, yet the name has definite similarity to the Coast Yuki name (Pomo form) Kabesillah, as given by Kroeber in the Handbook (p. 212). Koss-ill-man-u-pomas cannot be identified, but Barrett says that Kam-ill-el-pomas is the same as kamalal pomo, a name given by the Pomo to the Coast Yuki (1908, p. 260). The term So-as is thought by Barrett to refer to the village sosatca in Sherwood Valley.

All these groups are clearly stated by Heintzelman to lie north of Fort Bragg. Nevertheless, in view of the possibility that Kab-in-a-toos may represent Clear Lake inhabitants and that the So-as may be a village in Sherwood Valley, and hence be Pomo, these two divisions may be omitted from consideration. The remainder may with considerable safety be ascribed either to the Coast Yuki, the Kato, or perhaps the Sinkyone on the coast above the Yuki. The total for the five divisions is 1,700 persons.

The next five names on Heintzelman's list are quite definitely Northern Pomo. Then come, as the last two tribes, the Ki-pomas and the Yo-sol-pomas. The former were said to inhabit Kinomo Valley, 40 miles from Fort Bragg, and the latter to live on the coast 50 miles north of Fort Bragg. According to Barrett, the Ki-pomas are probably the Kai Pomo of Powers (1908, p. 279, fn.). If so, they lived not in Kinomo Valley (Round Valley) but in the area between the headwaters of the South Fork of the Eel River and the Middle Fork of the Eel. Thus they must have been Athapascan, whether Kato, Sinkyone or Wailaki, it is now impossible to say. The Yo-sol-pomas are probably the Yu-sal Pomo of Powers, who were an Athapascan people near Usal, on the coast above Westport (see Barrett, 1908, p. 260).

The Ki-pomas and the Yo-sol-pomas had a combined population of 2,200. Thereafter Heintzelman says: "From the Yo-sol-pomas to Eel River on the north, and east to the ridge from Humboldt to Kin-a-moo Valley there cannot be less than four thousand...." The area thus delineated is very ambiguous. It may be taken roughly, however, as embracing—according to the general map in Kroeber's Handbook—the southern third of the territory of the Mattole and Sinkyone, together with that of the Kato and the Wailaki. To this must be added the region which includes all branches of the Yuki.

The population estimates based upon the village lists of the ethnographers are as follows: one-third the Sinkyone, 970; one-third the Mattole, 400; the Kato, 1,100, the Wailaki, 3,350; and the Yuki as a whole, 9,730. The general total is 15,550. By comparison Heintzelman's figure for approximately the same area is 12,450. Considering the imponderable and unassessable factors involved in both computations the correspondence is remarkably close, particularly in view of the fact that Heintzelman was not in the region until 1855, at which time the population was by no means aboriginal.

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THE POMO

From a poverty of ethnographic material with the more northerly tribes we pass to an embarrassment of riches with the Pomo. (Barrett, 1908; Gifford, 1923, 1926; Gifford and Kroeber, 1937; Kniffen, 1939; Stewart, 1943). The first major study was that of Barrett in 1908. Barrett's principal contribution was a painstakingly compiled list of Pomo tribes, villages, and camp sites as recalled by his informants during the years 1903 to 1906. However he missed the significance of the Pomo community style of social organization with its implications for evaluation of village size and importance and hence probable population. Moreover, many of his place names have since been shown to be wrongly applied. His work remains therefore chiefly valuable as a compilation and check list against more recent and more critical work.

Gifford's two papers (1923, 1926) stand as models of investigation of a single social unit, the village of Cigom. They are useful in a wider sense as a point of departure and a basis for comparison with other communities, particularly in the Clear Lake region. The work of Gifford and Kroeber (1937), although primarily dealing with cultural matters, contains much pertinent information concerning the sixteen communities investigated together with several paragraphs pertinent to the population problem.