The Aboriginal Population of the North Coast of California

by Sherburne Friend Cook

In the Mitom region Merriam is very explicit. He mentions Me-to-mah-chut-te, which corresponds to Stewart's Mitom, and says that it was the "name applied by Me-tum-mah to all their villages in Metumki of Little Lake Valley. There were 4 important permanent winter villages containing about 600 people." These 4 villages were, according to Merriam: Cha-bo-cha-kah-chut-te, Po-ka-hil-chut-te, She-o-kah-lau-chut-te, and Tsah-kah-chut-te. The last corresponds to Stewart's Tsaka. Of the first village he says it contained 40 to 50 house pits. This must be excessive for it would mean a population of 560 persons in this village alone. Stewart says that Tsaka had 8 pits, or 112 persons. If we reduce the count for Cha-bo-cha-kah-chut-te to 300 instead of 560, we can still accept Merriam's figure of 600 for the group of four.

We still have to account for Kah-be-shal-chut-te of Barrett and Merriam (Stewart's Kabecal), Tsam-mom-dah-chut-te of Barrett and Merriam (Stewart's Tsamonda). Nabo of Merriam and Stewart (also mentioned by Gibbs). and Talel of Stewart. Talel and Nabo may have been part of the Mitom complex but Tsamonda and Kabecal are too distant. If Tsamonda was small, as Stewart says, we may allow 50 inhabitants. Kabecal must have contained at least 100.

For the entire area, including all three of Merriam's linguistic groups, we get a population of 1,650 inhabitants.

Sherwood Valley.—In this valley lived the Mato or Mato-poma of Stewart, or the Mah-to-poma of Merriam, whose permanent villages were inland but who ranged a large territory extending to the coast. According to Stewart there were three minor divisions of the group, with three permanent villages, Mato, Kabedile, and Kulakau, each of which had its own chief. On no other evidence would we be justified in ascribing 200 persons to each subgroup. Stewart says (p. 33): "The best guesses of my informants placed the primitive population at about 500 persons, half of them in the main village of Mato." That would give 250 to Mato and 125 each to Kabedile and Kulakau. This estimate appears too low, particularly since the informants were all born in the 1860's, twenty years after the first contact with the white man.

Merriam (in his "Northern Pomo," together with a separate manuscript entitled "Sherwood Valley rancherias") transcribed and checked Barrett's village list. As was his custom he initialed in ink those names which he confirmed by independent investigation, leaving unmarked those for the existence of which he considered he had no certain evidence. For Sherwood Valley he gives 25 names. Of these, 3 were taken from Barrett without confirmation, leaving 22. Seven of the latter are given by Merriam alone, in addition to those appearing on Barrett's list. Merriam mentions Mah-to-chutte and also Ma-chah-tah, each of which he says was a "big rancheria." It is very probable that these were variants of the same name or were parts of the same village. Hence they may be combined as representing Stewart's Mato. Merriam also mentions Kah-ba-de-la-chut-te and Kah-baht-be-dah-chut-te, which appear to be variants for Stewart's Kabedile. Also included are Bo-shahm-koo-che (Bocamkutci), Cha-bo-tse-y-chut-te (Kabotsiu), and Tan-nah-shil-chut-te (Tanacil), all of which are stated by Stewart (p. 35) to have been parts of Kulakau. This reduces Merriam's effective list to 17.

Mato is stated by Merriam to have been a "big rancheria." This is in line with Stewart's impression that the village contained at least 250 persons. This number may therefore be accepted without much hesitation. Kabedile (or Kah-baht-be-da-chut-te) is said by Merriam to have had 30 to 40 house holes. He also mentions the fact that the Mexicans perpetrated a massacre here in 1846, in the course of which 25 were killed and many children stolen for slaves. If we take the lower limit mentioned for houses and reduce one-third, we still get a probable 20 houses, which at 14 persons per house gives a minimum population of 280 persons. Stewart gives Kulakau and the three villages considered to be parts of it equal rank with Mato and Kabedile. Merriam says of Cha-bo-tse-y-chut-te (Kobotsiu) that it was a "big village." Hence we may safely ascribe 250 persons to the town.

Merriam adds certain comments on the villages. Boo-tah-kah-chut-te had a "big round house." Che-ah-po-y-chut-te was of "fair size but no roundhouse." She-ko-ki-chut-te consisted of "two big rancherias and roundhouse." The other 10 villages are listed merely by locality without additional information. We encounter here a clear instance of the perplexity which pursues us throughout the Pomo area. We must accept either the combined word or Barrett and Merriam that there were numerous subsidiary villages inhabited in Sherwood Valley during aboriginal times or the word of Stewart that there were not. At this point it must be emphasized again that by 1840 the Northern Pomo had been invaded by Spanish-Mexicans from the San Francisco Bay region and their aboriginal social order had been partially disrupted. Furthermore, we know that they had been exposed to serious inroads by disease, such as the great smallpox epidemic of the 1830's. In particular, that of 1837, the so-called "Miramontes epidemic," began at Fort Ross and is known to have seriously involved the Russian River Valley. There is much reason to believe, therefore that the population decline began by 1830, with its accompanying shifting and consolidation of villages. Both Barrett and Merriam did their field work among the Pomo from 1900 to 1910, say as an approximate date 1905. A seventy-year-old informant at that time could thus actually remember the year 1840. But a similar individual in 1935 could remember of his own knowledge only to 1870. He would have to draw on second- and third-hand information imparted by his forefathers. As Stewart (p. 29) says of one of his Sherwood Valley informants his "father's father told JMc of 'old times'." It is hardly to be expected that an old man could very accurately transmit population data secured as a small boy at his grandfather's knee. For these reasons I think Merriam's village names cannot be discarded, unless specific evidence proves that they are errors. They must be accepted as villages which at one time were inhabited. There remains of course the possible contingency that some of these places had been abandoned before the advent of the first white influence or that they were spots inhabited for a short time during the upheaval accompanying the American invasion. Since there is no conceivable way in which we may ascertain the true facts in detail, perhaps some arbitrary correction is desirable. Consequently the following procedure is suggested: estimate the population on the basis of all the Merriam names, then reduce by one-third. Such a method should take care of all instances of temporary villages, camp sites etc.

Applying the above principles, we may assign 150 inhabitants to Boo-tah-kah-chut-te ("big roundhouse"), 50 to Che-ah-po-y-chut-te ("fair-sized but no roundhouse"), and 200 to She-ko-ki-chut-te ("two big rancherias and roundhouse"). Two houses, or say 30 persons, may be allocated to the other 10 sites of Merriam. The total would then be 700, which, reduced by one-third, gives as a final value 470.

For the Mato-pomo as a whole the population figure is 1,250. It is difficult to see how a much lower figure could be set for the area.

For the Northern Pomo collectively there has been derived a population estimate of 5,040. It is of interest to compare this figure with the values cited by Heintzelman.