The Aboriginal Population of the North Coast of CaliforniaCook, Sherburne Friend
History
The Aboriginal Population of the North Coast of California
Cook, Sherburne Friend
Indians of North America -- California; Indians of North America -- Statistics
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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