Yuki

Ian Skoggard

Euka, Coast Yuki, Huchnom, Tanom, Tatu, Uca, Ukonom, Wappo.

The Yuki-speaking peoples of Northern California include the Coast Yuki, Huchnom, and Yuki. The name "Yuki" comes from the neighboring Wintun tribe's word for "stranger" or "foe". The Yuki live in the coastal mountains of northern Mendocino County, California. They are divided into the Coast Yuki and two interior groups, the Yuki proper and Huchnom. The interior groups originally occupied an 1100-square-mile area along the Eel River and its tributaries, including the 40-square-mile Round Valley. The interior group was separated from the coastal group by an intrusion of Athabascan- and Pomom-speaking peoples, who influenced the cultures of both the Coast Yuki and Huchnom. Two smaller groups of Yuki-speaking people, the Wappo and Lile'ek lived among the Pomo to the south independent of the above Yuki groups.

Kroeber estimated the pre-contact aboriginal population around 2000, although some estimates have put it as high as 12,000. A 1956 reassessment of the pre-contact population yielded a total estimate of 6,880. This figure was reduced to 238 by 1870, 168 in 1880, and only 95 in 1910. The 2000 census population was estimated at 100.

Yuki is a small isolated speech family that is distinct from the neighboring Athabascan, Hokan, or Penutian language families. According to Kroeber, the Yuki may have been one of the original Californian tribes.

The Yuki suffered greatly at the hands of white settlers, who desired the lush Round Valley land, since the day they first set eyes upon it in 1854. Beginning in 1856, the Yuki were rounded up and relocated to the Nome Cult Farm in the Valley to free up land for white settlement. Between 1856 and 1874 a dozen Indian tribes in the region were forced to relocate to the Farm now called the Round Valley Reservation. The tribes were the Cahto (Kato), Lassik, Wailaki, Pomo, Maidu, Yana, Wintun, Pit River, Little Lake, Nomelaki, and Concow. Relations with white settlers were hostile from the beginning as Yuki did not remain on the reservation and continued to roam through their original home territory. Although some missionaries and government agents tried to protect the Yuki--Fort Wright was established in 1858 for this purpose--the majority of white settlers regarded them as dangerous and sought their extermination. In 1859, a white militia, the Eel River Rangers, was established and commissioned by the governor. The Rangers waged a campaign of extermination against the Yuki and by 1864 their population was reduced to 300 souls from Kroeber's original 2000 estimate. In the 1870s, the Ghost Dance came and left the reservation. The 1887 Allotment Act resulted in the 1894 subdivision of the reservation into five- and ten-acre private lots, which freed up more land for white settlers. In 1920 the Indian landowners were free to exchange their land's trust status for deeds, which lead to further loss of land for those people unable to pay taxes or other expenses. The Indian Recognitions Act of 1934 promoted self-government and reservation members formed a tribal council and wrote a constitution. The council repealed the Allotment Act and put all reservation land back into trust. After years of intermarriage, living in close proximity, sharing common resources the Indian tribes on the reservation refer to themselves as the Round Valley Indian Tribes. In 1972 approximately 350 Indians lived on the reservation and in the nearby town of Covelo.

The Yuki lived by streams along the edge of valleys of the Eel River and its tributaries. The settlements were named after local geographical features and ranged in size from single dwellings to larger groupings, called NOHOT ("to live big"). NOHOT could have as many as 25 buildings, including out buildings and a dance house. NOHOTs formed the center of a cluster of settlements. The cluster was under the authority of the NOHOT headman or chief and named after the central NOHOT. Houses were round in shape; ten feet in diameter by eight feet high, with a pole frame and bark walls. In the center was a fire pit, surrounded by a skin-covered bed of pine needles and boughs. Storage baskets ringed the edge of the room. Two brothers and their families or a chief built larger sized homes. Each NOHOT had a dance house, which was 30 to 40 ft in diameter and dug as much as 4 to 5 ft into the ground. Dance houses were used for singing, dancing, healing, sweating, and just hanging out. In summertime, families dispersed to smaller camps for several weeks at a time living in brush huts. The Coast Yuki built their homes on the beach near the mouths of creeks.

The Round Valley was rich in fish, game, berries, nuts, tubers and acorns and could support a relatively dense population, which impressed the early white settlers, who noted the many lights of Yuki campfires dotting the valley. The Yuki practiced hunting, gathering, and fishing. They hunted deer with bows and arrows, and snares. Venison was roasted and jerked. Bears were hunted occasionally. Small game included rabbits, wood rats, ground squirrels, gray squirrels, raccoons, and mice; all roasted whole. Panther, foxes, wolves, coyotes, flying squirrels, otters, moles gophers, and weasels were killed for only their hides. They also hunted a variety of birds, including quail, blackbirds, larks, grouse, pigeons, doves, and robins. Salmon were available year round, different species running at different times of the year, and were fished communally using spears, dip nets, seining nets, brush weirs, corrals, and sometimes poison. The fillets were dried in the sun. The Coast Yuki surf fished. Acorns were hulled, dried in the sun, and stored. Later they were pounded into flour and leached. The flour was used to make soup and bread. Other sources of food were Pinole nuts, clover, anise root, and tubers of various kind, berries, worms, insects, fungi, eggs, grasshoppers, and mushrooms. In general, food was plentiful and Yuki myths and legends contain no record of famines.

The Yuki made various kinds of weapons such as spears, daggers, clubs, slings, and bows and arrows. Bows were three-and-a-half feet in length and oval in shape. Arrows were two-and-a-half feet long and used several types of arrowheads depending on the game hunted. Tools included mortar and pestles, knives, awls, wedges, mauls, and scrappers. Other manufactured items included mats, pipes, nets, rattles, whistles, flutes, drums, and baskets. The Yuki were the most northerly practitioners of the Central Californian basket-making tradition, incorporating their own distinct style. They also made necklaces and feathered capes for dancing.

The Yuki traded dried venison, fish, hides, and rope for salt, obsidian, and rare items used as status symbols, such as fine bows and clamshell beads. The Coast Yuki gathered once a year to trade with the neighboring Sherwood Pomo and Kato tribes, who sent messengers with sticks and reeds to communicate their wish list of coastal goods. The Coast Yuki from different villages would then fill the order according to their specialty, whether it was mussels, fish, shellfish, kelp, or dentalia. Goods were carried on the back. They then sent their own wish list of sticks and reeds for interior goods such as mush oak, manzanita, buckeye, peppernut, wild oats, and altar weed. The interior Yuki traded furs for Pomo salt, shells, and beads. Clamshell disc beads were used as currency.

Labor was divided by gender and status. Men hunted, manufactured weapons and tools, and built houses. Women made baskets, collected food and prepared it. Men fished by spear and nets, women used poison; both cleaned and dried fish. Both men and women were involved in limited craft specialization. There was some specialization in bow making and stone working. Some women specialized in midwifery and others in basket making. Other specialties included storytelling and cradle making. Chiefs and medicine men lived off surplus.

Land was communally owned. Boundaries were unmarked. Within each settlement rights to resources was based on a first come first serve basis. Outsiders had to gain permission, usually obtained through gifts, to get access to another settlement's territory and resources. Villages owned springs. Men and women had loose rights to the things they made.

Descent was in the male line.

Kin terms followed the Central California type, which differentiated between maternal and paternal relatives lines, but lumped all cousins as siblings.

Girls married shortly after puberty for girls. Boys waited until they were around eighteen. In general, the Yuki married outside the local group. Newlyweds could live with either parents or by themselves. Polygamy was practiced in the past. Among the Coast Yuki, husband and father-in-law exchanged small gifts. The well-to-do paid more for a bride.

Single families occupied a house. Brothers sometimes joined their families forming larger domestic units and homes. Some households did contain hanger-ons, too.

A naming ceremony was held at age three. Children were seldom chastised. Girls from age five and up accompanied their mothers into fields to gather food and firewood. Boys played with toy bows and arrows. Girls and boys were tattooed, girls on the face and boys on the arms and chest. Girls underwent puberty rites (HÚMNUM-WOK) at first menses. The ceremony involved dancing followed by periods of quiet seclusion. Boys aged 8 to 16 attended a "school," a period of intense instruction called HULK'ILAL-WOKNAM, where they learned creation myths, songs, dances, magic formulas, and how to make feather capes and headdresses. In the 1990s eighty percent of adults did not finish high school and 87 percent are unemployed. In response to this need the reservation established the Round Valley Indian Education Center, which is a comprehensive, community-based, non-threatening learning environment that provides childcare with a Head Start program, adult vocational training, and other educational programs and services.

The basic social unit was the nuclear family. Related families lived together in settlements. Large settlements contained several lineages. Territorial subdivisions based on dialectical similarities and including several settlements formed the six major Yuki subgroups.

The TIOLHOT, or big chief, was usually a wealthy man. Facile in speech, he mediated disputes, provided council, and gave out advice. He visited bereaved families, made decisions when to hold dances, and fed the hungry. He could have several wives. He wore a bearskin robe and was addressed as "my father you." The chief's successor was decided on in a public meeting, the old chief's choice often influential. The new chief was usually a younger man and not necessarily the oldest of his family or generation. Other officials included the war chief and village headmen who played a supporting role to the TIOLHOT.

Part of the chief's responsibility was to admonish people to behave themselves. He did have the power to authorize the killing of troublemakers and lend his support to revenge killings. A wergild was practiced between tribelets. From the 1860s on, the United States government was responsible for serious cases.

Among neighboring tribes, the Yuki had a reputation for being warlike and ferocious. The various causes of war included murder by someone outside the tribe, witchcraft, poaching, insults, kidnapping or molesting women, saying someone's death name. The preparation of war involved making bows and arrows, followed by a war dance. Fought with sticks amongst each other. In more recent times, alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic abuse have been a serious problems. Also there is tension between "traditionalists" and "assimilationists" on the reservation, which erupted into the shooting and death of one Indian in 1995. When police officers intervened a deputy sheriff and another Indian were killed in the famous Incident at Round Valley. A third Indian was indicted for the officer's death but acquitted when evidence proved he acted in self-defense.

Yuki believed in the Supreme Being TAIKOMOL, "he who walks alone," and his assistant Coyote. Lesser spirits included the MUMOLNO'M, which lived in the mountains and were the sources of both healing powers and illness. The Yuki also believed in water spirits (UKSA) and in spirits that controlled the soul of deer. Methodist and Catholic ministers followed white settlers in the area and in 1930 a Pentecostal church was established.

Shamans gained their power as a result of a supernatural encounter, including the Supreme Being, Taikomol. Another group of practitioners, doctors and sorcerers, were not divinely inspired. Bear shamans were particularly powerful and dangerous.

Chiefs convened dances, bringing people together from within and outside the village for a few days of fun and fellowship. Dances were performed in the dance house or outside depending on the weather. Men and women participated. Feather dances (KOPA-WOK) were a class of dances danced with feather headbands, owned by individuals and considered sacred.

Public dances were convened for both ceremonial and social reasons and were a source of great amusement and gaiety. The Yuki had a rich oral literature of myths and legends, many centered on the antics of Coyote.

Disease had supernatural or non-supernatural causes. Home remedies were used for the latter ailments, including headaches, earaches, toothaches, stomachaches, sore eyes, sore throat, diarrhea, constipation, boils, sprains, broken limbs, wounds. Tattooing was practiced to remove or prevent pain. Serious diseases were caused by intrusive objects, breach of taboo, rattlesnake bites, mocking tribal lore, bad water, or fright and poisoning. Shamans could cure any of the above except for fright and poisoning, which was the purview of regular doctors. The Round Valley Indian Health Center was established in 1968 with physicians, registered nurses, outreach public health nurses, vocational nurses, and community health representatives.

Messengers informed friends and relatives in neighboring villages of a death. The corpse was washed and folded into a "fetal" position, knees under chin and hands on ankles, and sometimes placed in a basket. On the reservation coffins are used. Corpses were buried the next day in a hole 4 to 5 feet deep, several hundred yards from the residence, and facing east. Some personal property, such as baskets, bows, and whistles were included in the burial. Women relatives singed their hair and smeared pitch over their faces to mourn. Mourning lasted from one to five years. Additional property was burned a month afterwards as a further show of respect. The mentioning of the personal names of the deceased was a serious taboo. Breath (OYUM), or soul, was considered the essence of life. After death, the soul visited all the familiar spots of his lifetime before going to a final resting place in the sky (MIT). Spirits could return to earth although they caused no harm. Coastal Yuki buried corpses on thon back or side facing north. Houses were moved or burned. Mourning practices were similar to the above.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

There are eighteen documents in the eHRAF Collection of Ethnography collection on the Yuki. A general introduction to the three main Yuki groups, Yuki, Coastal Yuki and Huchnom, can be found in Kroeber's articles from the Handbook of Californian Indians (1972, no. 9; 1972, no. 6; 1972, no. 7). Two other entries by Kroeber are on religion (1972, no. 8) and myths (1932, no. 10). Gifford (1937, no. 4) also wrote about myths and pre-contact culture of the Coast Yuki (1965, no. 3). Foster (1944, no. 2) wrote about pre-contact culture of the Round Valley Yuki. Miller (1979, no. 12; 1975, no. 13; 1978, no. 14) writes about the history of the Yuki in Round Valley and about changes in leadership before and after land reform (1989, no. 11). Treganza (1950, no. 16) writes about the archeology of Round Valley. An account of Yuki warfare is found in Goldschmidt (1939, no. 5) and plant use in Curtin (1959, no 1). Powell (1976, no. 17; 1976, no. 15) has written the earliest and extremely ethnocentric accounts of the Yuki.

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in the collection, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

The culture summary was written by Ian Skoggard in October, 2002.

Foster, George M. A Summary of Yuki Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1944.

Gifford, E. W. The Coast Yuki. Sacramento, CA: The Sacramento Anthropological Society, 1965.

Kroeber, A. L. Handbook of the Indians of California, Vol. 1. Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, 1925.

Miller, Virginia P. Ukomno'm: The Yuki Indians of Northern California. Socorro, New Mexico: Ballena Press, 1979.