Number 37                                         December 1977
ETHNOGRAPHIC AND HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE EASTERN POMO
AND THEIR NEIGHBORS, THE SOUTHEASTERN POMO
a             a
1   -                     -           0        ?                 @06         0@
Addendum
On page 3, In the description of 9l4m (par. 4, lines 11-12), the phonemic
transcription of the Eastern Pomo word for 'swlmmers, fishermen, literally water-
people' should be xa-ku. Ma.
On page 39, of the illustrations, the notes for Figures 19 and 20 should be
amended to say:
The funeral of Johnny Bull, lewthl. rl, the last chief at ~f. kom before its
dispersal circa 1871. According to the records of Jones Mortuary, Lakeport, California,
Johnny Bull died March 12, 1907. Photographed by John L. Sylar, probably March 14,
1907. From prints in the collection of the Lake County Historical Society and Roy M.
Sylar.
CONTRIBUTIONS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH FACILITY
Number 37
December 1977
ETHNOGRAPHIC AND HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE EASTERN POMO
AND THEIR NEIGHBORS, THE SOUTHEASTERN POMO
Sally McLendon
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Department of Anthropology
Berkeley
Table of Contents
Map of Pomo Tribes and Villages of the Eastern Pomo
and the Southeastern Pornmo .......................    ...... i-ii
Introduction ....................................................... 1
Southeastern Pomo Village-communities .............................      3
Eastern Pomo Village-communities ....................................... 4
Village-community Layout and Architecture ............................... 8
Environment ....................................................... 9
Annual Subsistence Cycle .........    ......................... 9
Diet ............... ........................      .......              14
Dress and Adornmnent .................. ............................. 15
Social Organization .................. ............ .  ................... .  . 16
Kinship Terminology Systems  ............................................. 16
Descent and Residence .............................................     18
Life Cycle: Birth ...................................    ........       20
:Life Cycle: Puberty ............................................... 21
Life Cycle: Marriage ............................................... 21
Life Cycle: Death and Mourning ...................................... 22
Ceremonials                     .................................. 23
Political Organization and Chiefs .........................................  28
History Since Contact ...............................................   29
-Sources ...       00 ...... .... s................ .......  .... ......  34
Footnotes ..................................................36
Illustrations .................................................... ...37
pt.arena
P A C I F I C
FT.
O C E
A N
i
Map of Pomo Tribes and Villages of the Eastern Pomo and the Southeastern Pomo
si- kom
da. n6-xa.
x6walkeh
xa-b4-ma. tolel
Bloody Island, ba. don ba thin
Robertson Rancheria
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
qu- A-na pho
xa. be-na. ph
qasmdot
9 le'm
xqoyl
il
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
ETHNOGRAPHIC AND HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE EASTERN POMO AND
THEIR NEIGHBORS, THE SOUTHEASTERN POMO
Sally McLendon 1
Introduction
From the second half of the nineteenth century on, speakers of seven distinct
and mutually unintelligible languages in northern California have been referred to in the
anthropological literature as a single group, primarily under the rubric 'Pomo'. It is
common in this literature to speak of Pomo baskets or Pomo houses or Pomo mythology
analogous to the way in which one refers to Navajo blankets or Navajo mythology. The
social and linguistic groups referred to under the rubric Pomo, however, differ in a
number of important respects from the social and linguistic group referred to as
Navajo.
Linguistically, no two of the Pomoan languages spoken by people referred to
as Pomo are as closely related as Navajo is to any of the varieties of Apache. The most
divergent Pomoan languages are about as distantly related as the Athabaskan language
Navajo in Arizona is to Tanaina in Alaska. In fact, the most divergent of the Pomoan
languages differ from one another more than the Germanic languages -- German, English,
Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, and Icelandic -- do. Thus one cannot talk about the Pomo
language, but only about the Pomoan family of languages.
Culturally, although there were many similarities there were also important
differences, which make it useful to describe separately the societies formed by the
speakers of these seven distinct languages.
Two of the seven Pomoan languages, Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo,
were spoken by a number of village-communities around Clear Lake in the coast range
of mountains about 100 miles north of San Francisco. These people had no names for
themselves, calling themselves "people", while they referred to their neighbors by
directional or geographical terms, such as, the people of the North, or the people
from yima- 2 (in contemporary Scott's Valley). The terms Eastern Pomo and South-
eastern Pomo were assigned them in 1908 by S.A. Barrett in his The Ethnogeography
ofthe Pomo and their Neighbors.
Clear Lake is now 19 miles long (but was approximately 20 miles long in pre-
contact times) with an irregular shoreline that narrows the lake at a number of places.
Nowhere is it more than 6 1/2 to 7 miles wide (Mauldin 1960). The narrowings of the
lake break it up into smaller units called Upper Lake, Clear Lake proper, East Lake
and Lower Lake (cf. map). Upper Lake, and Tule Lake, which lay a short distance to
the west and drained into Upper Lake through Scotts Creek, were shallow, tule filled
bodies of water traversed by channels (locally called sloughs) cut by the creeks feeding
these lakes in the spring rushes of water. These shallow tule marshes provided
1
2
excellent spawning grounds for a number of lake fish, as well as feeding and nesting sites
for a wide variety of waterfowl: ducks, pelicans, herons, mergansers, bitterns, etc.
Upper Lake was drained in a reclamation project of the 1920s, leaving only the channels
of some of the main sloughs, while Tule Lake had been drained even earlier for agri-
cultural use, drastically altering the food resources available to the Eastern Pomo living
around these two lakes. Much of the remaining shoreline of Clear Lake has been changed
from its precontact form by dredging and filling. The map attempts to reflect the original
outlines of the lake as indicated in Barrett (1908).
The southeastern portion of the lake, consisting of East Lake and Lower Lake,
was the territory of the Southeastern Pomo. The northwestern portion, consisting of
Clear Lake proper and Upper Lake, was the territory of the Eastern Pomo.
The speakers of these two languages lived, then, in close geographical
proximity, in what would seem to be the same general environment, and with a tradition
of contact reflected by the many marriages between the two groups which are documented
in genealogies going back probably to at least the middle of the nineteenth century
(Gifford 1926). Yet the Southeastern Pomo and the Eastern Pomo differed in a number)
of ways.
First of all, their languages are different. As different as English and Danish
are from each other. That is, although they are later stages of a single language spoken
perhaps at least 2000 years ago, they are not mutually intelligible, and the speakers of
one must make a considerable investment of time and effort to acquire some sort of
fluency in speaking or comprehending the other, since their vocabularies, their grammars,
and their pronunciations, are quite different.
Second, the Southeastern Pomo were island dwellers, while the Eastern Pomo
made their permanent villages back from the shoreline of the lake, along streams feeding
Clear Lake, used each spring by several varieties of fish for spawning.
Third, among the Eastern Pomo "all lands, oak trees, grass seed places,
and fishing rights were communal" (Gifford 1923: 80), while among the Southeastern Pomo
Gifford collected "indubitable evidence of family ownership of lands" (1923: 80).
Fourth, the Eastern Pomo and the Southeastern Pomo differed in many details
of ritual and ceremonials.
Fifth, the Eastern Pomo and the Southeastern Pomo differed in terms of the
neighboring groups they were in contact with. The Southeastern Pomo were adjacent
to Patwin and Lake Miwok speakers with whom they intermarried, traded, and shared
ceremonial activities. The Eastern Pomo were adjacant to the Northern Pomo and Central
Pomo as well as the Patwin with whom they intermarried, traded and shared ceremonial
activities.
3
Southeastern Pomo- Village-communities
There were three main Southeastern Pomo speaking village-communities.
During the nineteenth century the Southeastern Pomo when mentioned at all, were
referred to with Eastern Pomo, Northern Pomo, or Patwin names. Barrett (1908) was
thie first to provide the Southeastern Pomo names for the three Southeastern Pomo
village-communities of qamdot, ?lem, and xqoyi. Each is listed below with its name,
its meaning, its location and an inventory of the various recordings of the name extant
in the literature.
1) qamdot was located on a small island near the western shore of East Lake (an arm
of Clear Lake) which was formerly called Buckingham Island and is now called Anderson
Island. Gifford and Barrett give qamdot as the name of the village, but it is probably the
name of the whole island, since it seems clearly to contain the form -mdot 'island',
and Merriam gives the name of this group as Ham-fo, i. e. qamfo, from i  + mfo 'people'.
qa means both a gambling game and a species of snake. Barrett (1908) gives as Eastern
Pomo names for this group le'makma (1f. makhma. meaning unknown) and ka'igi'ma
(xA-ku' Ma 'swimmers, fishermen, literally water-people'). xa-ku- M. is not now used
by Eastern Pomo speakers to refer to qamdot.
Barrett: ka'mdot, EPle'makmna, ka'itgu-'ma. Gifford: kamdot, EP limakmaiina (from
f. makhma? + wi- na- 'on top of' ?). Kroeber: Kamdot, Lemakma. Palmer: Le-mah-mah.
2) 9lem was located by Barrett (1908) on the southern shore of an island at the eastern
tip of East Lake (an arm of Clear Lake), which is now called Rattlesnake or Sulphur
Bank Island. Barrett describes it as "a low island, covering about 35 acres, with its
northern slope well wooded and its southern slope [where 9lem was located] entirely
open" (1908: 208), and says it was the largest of the Southeastern Pomo villages. The
oldest known photographs of a Clear Lake Pomoan village-community are two stereopticons
of the male and female populations of 9lm grouped in front of that village (cf. figures
land 2). Barrett also says that the people of Ol4m were called ka'-mina by the Northern
Pomo and xa'-wina by the Eastern Pomo. Actually Northern Pomo kha/mina. and Eastern
Pomo xawi- na. both mean 'water on top of' and refer to the place and not the people.
Barrett gives as another Eastern Pomo term for the people of 9lem kal'uguima (xa-ku.
hm.a 'swimmers, fishermen, literally water-people').  It is not now used by Eastern
Pomo speakers to refer to the people of 9lem.
Gibbs: How-ku-ma. Gifford: Elem, EP xaukumaiina (from xa-ku-hma + wi. na- 'on top
of'? Kroeber: Elem, Kamina, Hawina, Kauguma. Palmer: Cow-goo-mah.
3) xq6yi was located on the "eastern shore of a small, low island called Lower Lake
Island at the extreme southern end of Lower Lake" (Barrett 1908: 207). Barrett says this
village was only slightly smaller than that of ?lem. Barrett also says xqoyi was called
cuta'uiyomanuk in Northern Pomo and kaubokolai in Eastern Pomo. Neither term is known
in these two languages today with this referrent. The form credited to Eastern Pomo
could be something like x. ba. ku-la. ya 'those who run/fall into the water'. Palmer's
Shoat-owv-no-ma-nook and Gibb's Cho-tan-o-man-as (given as the name of a group living
4
near the outlet of Clear Lake but not present at the treaty negotiations) look like attempts
at representing a form something like that which Barrett attributes to Northern Pomo.
Barrett: ko'i, xo'yl. Gifford: Kol. Kroeber: Koi, Hoyl, Shutauyomanok, or Kaubokolal.
Powers apparently discusses this group as the Makh'-el-chel, which Kroeber says is
Patwin.
Eastern Pomo village-communities
A reasonably accurate picture of the Eastern Pomo village-communities extant
at the period of initial contact with Whites during the first half of the nineteenth century
can be obtained by combining three sources of information. 1) Gibbs and McKee's
mid-19th century records of the named groups and their chiefs and representatives who
came to meet with Colonel Redick McKee in August 1851 and signed the treaty agreed to
then. 2) The late-19th century inventory of Clear Lake rancherias, their chiefs, and an
estimate of the precontact size of their populations as well as the population size of each
group circa 1879-1880 in the 1881 History of Napa and Lake Counties published by
Slocum and Bowen and Company, of which Lyman L. Palmer is credited as Historian.
This inventory was collected from the Eastern Pomo Augustine (whose Indian name was
_ukh, Individual #316 in Gifford's census (1926) who was then chief of the qu: Ia-na. pho,
and had been a grown man at the time of the killing of Stone and Kelsey in 1849. 3) The
oral historical tradition collected during the 20th century by Barrett, Gifford, Kniffen,
Kroeber, Loeb, Merriam, and Stewart, and still collectable from the oldest generation
of contemporary Eastern Pomo speakers.
Leaders of four Eastern Pomo "tribes" (i.e. village-communities) partici-
pated in the negotiations and signed the treaty arrived at with McKee in 1851: qu. IA-na.
p, xa. be-na. phb, da. no-xa', and slt kom. A fifth Eastern Pomo village-community,
the xowalek l did not attend the treaty negotiations for some reason, but they are
mentioned by Palmer and subsequent researchers. Merriam (Heizer 1966) grouped the
xowalekh with the da. no-xa. without explanation, a procedure also followed by Kunkel
(1962). Palmer (1881) Kniffen (1939), and Stewart (1943), however, are quite explicit
that they were told that the two groups were independent. Billy Gilbert, who was the
source of Stewart's data on these groups was a member of the xowalekh through his
mother, but not of the da . no-xa. Gifford (1926) collected 23 names of individuals from
da. no-xa. intermarried with, or otherwise related to people from sr. kom and 32 names
of individuals from xowalekh. The father of Jim Pumpkin, Gifford's source for this
geneological information, came from da' no-xa' (but not xowalekh). It seems unlikely
that so many individuals could so consistently have been distinguished if there were not
two distinct village-communities involved. The xowalekh seem to have fished in the
spring at Bloody Island (Stewart 1943: 42). It is possible that they did not attend the treaty
negotiations out of fear, having been badly hurt by the cavalry attack the preceding spring.
The chief of a fifth group attended the treaty negotiations in 1851. Gibbs
transcribed the name of this group as Moal-kai. This seems to have been a group which
the Eastern Pomo referred to as bolwalkheya, which seems to be the Northern Pomo
5
bowalkheya 'the ones from the westside', who are said to have lived in Scott's Valley.
The western shore of Clear Lake proper and Scott's Valley which runs parallel to this
portion of shoreline, but separated from it by a low range of foothills, were assigned to
the Northern Pomo by Barrett (1908), but the place names he gives for this area are
mostly Eastern Pomo terms. The Eastern Pomo name for Scott's Valley is yi ma-
which could mean 'at the sinew'. Gifford in his genealogies of the Eastern Pomo village-
community of sl. kom found that a number of the residents of sfi kom had married or
were otherwise related to individuals from a Northern Pomo village in Scott's Valley
which he transcribed as yima. Merriam includes in his classification of the stocks and
tribes of California (Heizer 1966) Ye-mah'-rahch as a member of a subdivision with the
Bo'-al-ke-ah (bQwalkheya), and Loeb (1926: 280) refers to the Yemabak as a Scott's Valley
tribe. Merriam's and Loeb's forms seem clearly attempts to represent the Eastern
Pomo yi- ma. bax 'people of Scott's Valley'. It is not clear if yi. ma- was the Eastern
Pomo name for the village-community of the Northern Pomo speaking bbwalkheya, or the
name of an Eastern Pomo speaking village-community with which, perhaps, the
bowalkheya had joined. The place names indicate that this area was used by Eastern
Pomo as well as Northern Pomo (since the western shore was regularly flooded in winter
and spring, it was not a suitable location for a permanent village, but was only used for
camping). This seems to have been an area into which the Northern Pomo were moving
at about the time of contact.
Barrett (1908: 138-139) has collected oral historical evidence that another
Northern Pomo speaking group associated with Scott's Valley, the k6omli, had only moved
into Scott's Valley just prior to the time of Spanish settlement, having been forced to
move from just north of Ukiah by the Central Pomo south of them. Chief Augustine told
Palmer (1881) that the Cum-le-bah (komlibax) tribe were located in the upper end of
Scott's Valley on the Deming place, had numbered 90, but were reduced to 30 by 1879-
1880. According to Loeb (1926: 280) both the bowalkheya and the iomli intermarried
with the Eastern Pomo communities of qu' La-na,-ph  and xao be-na-  to such an extent
that they ceased to exist as separate groups during the third and fourth quarters of the
nineteenth century, which, if true, suggests that they were recent arrivals, rather than
permanent residents for a considerable period.
Chief Augustine told Palmer of another group which was not listed by Gibbs
as participating in the 1851 treaty negotiations, the yo-voo-tu-ea (yr. bu tuy) 'south-
knoll-on' tribe. Kroeber and Barrett also give yo. -bu. tuy as an Eastern Pomo village-
community. According to Barrett, yao -bu. tuy at the turn of the century consisted of
only a couple of houses with half a dozen inhabitants, but stood on the site of a very old
and once populous village, often mentioned in myths. According to Kniffen (1939: 368)
"although the identity of this group has been recognized by other investigators, it was
only by a process of elimination that the writer was able to determine the extent of its
area. " Contemporary Eastern Pomo claim that the turn of the century village at
y-. -bu. tfiy described by Barrett consisted of a small portion of the former inhabitants
of the village community of sl- kom, under the leadership of Charley Gunther, (whose
election as captain is discussed by Gifford (1926: 336)) who moved there sometime after
6
the dispersal of sl kom around 1871. Palmer transcribed Chief Augustine's pronunciation
of the name of the chief of yo. -bu. tuy as Ja-ma-toe. Contemporary Eastern Pomo speakers
find this unrecognizable, but point out that Charley Gunther's Indian name was xa ma-thiya
'big foot'. Palmer points out that although he asked for the names of the chiefs at the
time of the killing of Stone and Kelsey, he conversed with Augustine through an interpreter,
and suspects that Augustine may have given the name of the chief at the time of the interview.
This is the only Eastern Pomo village-community listed by Palmer which does not also turn
up in Gifford's census of si.kom, which supports the hypothesis that yo. bu. tuy was in
fact a post-contact community of former residents of si. kom. It is of course always
possible that they merely joined a pre-existing community, but if that were the case one
would expect to find some trace in the genealogies collected by Gifford. Probably only
archeological excavations at yo. -bu. tty could provide additional evidence at this point.
The village-community of kha. yaw 'at the head' which is usually assigned to
the Northern Pomo under the Northern Pomo name of sin l 'at the head' is said by
contemporary Eastern Pomo to have been a village where both Eastern Pomo and Northern
Pomo were spoken, and is therefore considered among the Eastern Pomo village-
communities.
There seem to have been, then, five main Eastern Pomo speaking village-
communities around the northwestern portion of the lake. Each is listed below with its
name, its meaning, its location and an inventory of the various recordings of the name
extant in the literature.
1) sf kom 'blanket-standing?' was located on the north shore of Clear Lake proper where
the town of Lucerne is presently located. We know more about it than any other Eastern
Pomo village-community because of Gifford's census (1926). Barrett: ci' gom, Gibbs:
She-kom (McKee: Che-com), Gifford: Cigom, Kniffen: Shigom, Kroeber: Shigom,
Loeb: Cigom, Merriam: She'-kum, Palmer: She-gum-ba (from MSi kombax 'people of
si kom').
2) da. no-x'a 'mountain-cut' or 'mountain-water-at' was located in Clover Valley along
Clover Creek to the northeast of the present town of Upper Lake. Gibbs: Dah-no-habe
(either from da. n6-xa. bax 'people ofda. no-xa. ', or a typologicalerror, probably
introduced because this form is listed after Habe-napo (xa be-r pho); Gifford: Danoxa;
Kniffen: Danoxa, Danoha, Kroeber: Danoha, Merriam: Dan-no -kah, Palmer: Di-noo-
ha-vah  (from da. no-xa. bax 'people of da- no-xL. '), Stewart: Danoxa.
3) xowalekh 'city of fire ?' was located just west of Middle Creek in Upper Lake Valley,
about 3/4 of a mile northwest of the present town of Upper Lake. Gifford: Xowalek,
Kniffen: Howalek, Kroeber: Howalek, Merriam: Ho-al-lek, Palmer: Quoi-lack or
Hwoi-lak, Stewart: Xowalek.
4) qu. Ld-na.-pho 'water lily-village/people'.  The exact location of the permanent village
of the qu Lg-na. p  is difficult to determine, perhaps because Vallejo's men forced them
7
to move from their former location when Vallejo began to run cattle in Big Valley in the
1840s.
-   .h
All sources seem to agree, however, that the qu. La-na p o controlled that
portion of Big Valley roughly from Lakeport to Adobe Creek (which they controlled access
to). Barrett: kiLa'napo. Gibbs: Hula-napo. Gifford: KuLanapo as the name for the
people, Bohanapwena (from b6- xaNawi. na- ? 'on top of on the west water') given as name
of village. Kniffen: Kuhlanapo. Kroeber: Kuhla-napo given as name of the people,
Kahibadon (from qa. si-ba- don 'island off shore from present town of Lakeport') given
as the main town. Loeb: Kuhlanapo, Merriam: Ku' -lenap'-po, Palmer: Hoo-la-nap-o.
5) xa. be-na pho 'rock-village/people'. Again the exact location of the permanent village
at the time of contact is unclear, but seems to have probably been along Kelsey Creek,
south of the present town of Kelseyville, along the banks of Kelsey Creek. Barrett:
kab;' napo, Gibbs: Habe-napo, Gifford: Kabenapo as the name for the people,
Kabenapwena (from xa- bNawi. na- ? 'on top of on rock') given as name of village; Kniffen:
Habe-napo, Kroeber: Habe-napo given as name of the people, Bidamiwina (bi. damiwi.
na 'on top of the creek'), Nonapoti (no-na- phti 'ash-village/people'), and Shabegok
X(a' be -kokh 'centerpost [of the ceremonial house] standing') are given as the villages;
Loeb: xabenapo; Merriam: Hah-benap'-po, Palmer: Ha-be-nap-o.
There was one village-community that seems to have spoken both Northern
Pomo and Eastern Pomo:
6) kha yaw 'at the head'(Northern Pomo sYna/l 'at the head') which was located at the
northwestern end of Tule Lake in Bachelor Valley. Barrett: (footnoot 115) xaiya' ui,
cinal-kai (from Northern Pomo sinalkhaya 'at the head of the valley'), Homtcati or
Cnaltcati, Kniffen: kaiyao (given as Northern Pomo), Mayi (Eastern Pomo ma- yy a
village on the Sleeper ranch, to the northeast of Tule Lake which was no longer inhabited
at the time of contact), Kroeber: Mayi (Eastern Pomo ma. yiy), also Haiyau, Kaiyau,
Shinal, Merriam: Ki-yow'-bahh (from kha. ywbax 'people of kha ya'w'), Palmer:
Ki-ou, Stewart: Cinal, Kaiyao.
7) yi. ma is the Eastern Pomo name for Scott's Valley. It is unclear whether it was also
Barrett: gives yima'bidame as the name of Scott's Creek (from yi m'a  + bi- dami
'creek'), Gifford: yima, Loeb: Yimabak (from yi ma. bax 'people fromyi ma'),
Merriam: Ye-mah'-rahch (from yi ma bax).
Living in Scott's Valley as well, apparently, in 1851 when the McKee expedition
came was one Northern Pomo speaking village-community, the b&walkheya, of seemingly
recent arival, and perhaps also a second, the omli.
8
village-community Layout and Architecture
We know, unfortunately very little abouthowthe permanent villages of these
village-communities were laid out. Loeb (1926: 234) claims that "villages were usually
scattered along a creek course with varying distances up to a hundred yards or more
between houses". It is not clear which of the Pomo speaking groups he was referring
to, but it seems likely that he had the Eastern Pomo in mind, since he adds that the
Eastern Pomo speaker William Benson claimed that the village-community of xa- be-na.
p\, in precontact times, had been located about two miles from the present town of
Kelseyville on Kelsey Creek, with the houses strung out for about two miles and a
ceremonial house at either end (Loeb 1926: 234). The linear arrangement of houses is
also confirmed for the village-community of kha yaw in Bachelor Valley (McLendon
1959-1976). There is no information about the layout of Southeastern Pomo villages.
We do know that each village-community had a semi-subterranean ceremonial
house, called Marakh in Eastern Pomo and ywan in Southeastern Pomo, and a sudatory
or sweat house, called x6-Marakh 'fire-M'arakh ' in Eastern Pomo and xoca 9a ?wan in
Southeastern Pomo. These looked like gently sloping knolls, with smoke rising from
the smoke hole in the center.
The inhabitants of the village-communities lived in dwelling houses constructed
of native lake reeds locally called tules. The houses (Eastern Pomo ka, Southeastern
Pomo ca_) were either circular or elliptical in shape and, at least for the Eastern Pomo,
were generally multi-family dwellings, housing several related nuclear families, each
with its own fire and entrance door adjacent to its fire, and all sharing storage facilities,
the central baking pit, and mortar stone (cf. figures 4, 5, 6 and 7). Southeastern Pomo
houses at the village-community of 91em, when still in its island location, however,
were described (Yates 1875) as circular, with a single fire in the center, a single
entrance, and an upper story formed of poles and reached by a portable ladder where
"salt fish, skins, dried acorns, wild oats, mats, material for making baskets and
arrows, baskets of various forms and sizes, and other things" were stored. The inhab-
itants slept near the walls.
Unfortunately there is no record of the number of dwellings at any of the
Eastern Pomo or Southeastern Pomo village-communities, except for a remarkable census
of the Eastern Pomo village-community of %f- kom which Gifford (1926) was able to
carry out in 1919 thanks to the extraordinary memory of Jim Pumpkin, who had been
born in sil kom in 1844 or 1845 and lived there until its population was forced to move
around 1871. Forty-eight years after 6t kom ceased to exist, Jim Pumpkin was able to
recall for Gifford the names and kin relations of every inhabitant of every house in the
t kom that existed before 1871. As described by Pumpkin, sif kom was made up of
20 dwellings, all but two of which were occupied by two, and sometimes as many as four
families, grouped around 48 fires. These 20 houses held a total population, according
to Pumpkin, of 235 individuals.
9
Environment
Clear Lake is located in an area of California characterized by considerable
rainfall in winter and a long, hot, dry period in summer, quite similar to the climate
around the Mediterranean Sea. This climate is associated with a characteristic vegetation,
called by botanists, sclerophyll. In California, grizzly bears were particularly prevalent
In this environment.
The annual rainfall in Lake County is 21.6 inches (54 cm), but from June to
September rainfall amounts to only 0. 53 inches (1. 3 cm) (Shelford 1963: 239). This
variation in rainfall affects the level of the lake, and consequently affected the life style
of the indigenous populations living around it, as well as the vegetation. During the winter
rains, the level of the lake slowly rises, gradually flooding more and more of the low
lands adjacent to it around the main body of Clear Lake. In the surrounding mountains
the rain turns to snow, and covers the mountains until the temperature begins to warm
up in spring. During the spring the melting snow from these mountains rushes down
the creek beds in torrents to raise the level of the lake still further. Thus the lake is
at its greatest extent at the beginning of summer. During the summer, the level of the
lake gradually drops, baring the shoreline flooded in winter and early spring, as water
ceases to run in most of the creeks. At the beginning of the rainy winter season in
November, the lake is at its lowest level.
The level of the lake changes as much as 10-18 feet in height over the course
of a year. The western shore of Clear Lake proper, from the mouth of Middle Creek
down to Lakeport, was a continuous stretch of tule marsh and willows alternately flooded
In winter and spring and relatively dry in summer. Although Barrett (1908) assigns this
stretch of shore to the Northern Pomo, no permanent villages were ever located here,
the area primarily being used for fish camps. The names of these camping sites as
given by Barrett are all in Eastern Pomo and it seems likely that the Eastern Pomo
shared the fishing potential with Northern Pomo speakers.
Clear Lake was apparently almost completely surrounded by a margin of
tules. The extent of these tule marshes is suggested by the impressive number of uses
to which the Eastern Pomo and the Southeastern Pomo put tules. They built their houses
of tules (cf. figures 5, 6, 7), their boats (cf. figures 8 and 9); the skirts the women
wore were made of tules, as was a "mantle" worn by men (Barrett 1952: 292). Men also
had worn, according to Barrett (1952) a woven-tule moccasin and legging (cf. Barrett
1952: plate 29). Food was invariably served on tule mats (cf. figure 10), shredded tules
were used for babies' diapers, and for beds, while the tender shoots and roots were
eaten.
Annual Subsistence Cycle
The Eastern Pomo (and presumably Southeastern Pomo) annual cycle of
subsistence was very finely adapted to the special characteristics of the environment in
10
which they lived. Kniffen (1939: 366) summarized the broad outlines of the Eastern Pomo
annual subsistence cycle. I The details of the Eastern Pomo cycle given below, however-
were independently reconstructed through the memories of contemporary Eastern Pomo,
primarily Mr. Ralph Holder. Mr. Holder Is particularly knowledgeable about this topic,
since he was born In 1900, lived in a tule house for his first six years, and from the
age of 6 to 15 lived with his terminological grandfather and grandmother who both had
been adolescents already at the time of the Bloody Island massacre in 1851. Mr. Holder's
grandparents continued to utilize a great deal of the traditional subsistence base when
Mr. Holder lived with them during the first decades of the 20th century, and described
to him practices common during their childhood which they no longer continued. It is not
known to what extent the Southeastern Pomo subsistence cycle was the same. It is very
likely that it differed In at least some details.
Although the lake has frequently been described as teeming with fish, the
Eastern Pomo (and no doubt Southeastern Pomo) focused their fishing activities primarily
on the spawning seasons of the lake fish, when the fish moved to shallow waters and
large quantities could be caught in a short period of time and stored for use during the
rest of the year. Several varieties of fishing techniques were used, each adapted to the
species of fish sought. (The various fishing techniques of all seven Pomo language
speaking groups are catalogued in Barrett 1952: 149-156). At least four varieties of
fish (EP a_mo_l SEPxmol 'sucker', EP sa phal, SEP kfal 'plike', i.e. 'squaw-fish',
EP h   , SEP st 'htch', EP c ay, SEP ? 'chay') went up the several creeks feeding
into the Eastern Pomo portion of Clear Lake to spawn in the spring when these creeks
v
ran full of water. At least four more varieties of fish (EP sa. xal, SEP xqal, EP mli
qus, SEP ? 'carp-like fish', EP tox, SEP ? 'bass', and EP dlth, SEP 9san 'like
tx, but larger') spawned in the shallow-edges of Clear Lake proper and Upper Lake.
Contemporary Eastern Pomo recall (McLendon 1959-76) that the first fish
to go up the creeks to spawn in February or early March, when the creeks were muddy
and turbulent, were the ISa mol or suckerflsh, which were caught with the sa-mli. ce
'conical basketry traps' which Barrett (1952: 152) claims were used only in the Clear
Lake region (cf. figure 11). Three or four men, walking abreast, would move slowly
upstream with these traps in hand, and in unison, force the cone-shaped traps down
through the muddy waters, trapping the fish passing there. They held the trap down
with their feet, while reaching in through the small opening at the top to feel around for
the fish trapped there, killed them, and picked up the traps to move ahead and repeat
the process again.
The sa phal 'pike' were the next to go up the streams to spawn, towards
the middle of March, when the water was clearer, and these were speared with a fish
gig.
Later, when the waters became warmer, the high 'hitch' and thay 'chay'
went up the creeks by the thousands to spawn. After they had gone upstream, the creek
was dammed with brush, a long basketry trap called ca. dar, being placed in the center
in which the fish were trapped as they attempted to return to the lake again after spawning
11
(cf. figures 12 and 13). These fish were caught in such large numbers that surpluses
seem usually to have existed. They were dried, stored, and eaten throughout the rest of
the, year, and were traded to the Northern Pomo and the Central Pomo who were invited
to the lake, and feted, and gave beads in return for these fish (Vayda 1967; Loeb 1926:
192-194). Barrett (1952: 352-353, 416) describes the purchase of stream fishing rights
by Southeastern Pomo from neighboring Patwin or Lake Miwok. The same purchase seems
to have been described in less detail by Powers (1877: 200).
Later still, during April and May when the weather got warmer, the fish went
close to the edge of the lake, especially Upper Lake and Tule Lake to spawn in the flooded
tule swamps there. The Eastern Pomo moved at this point to various fish camps along
the lake edge (cf. figures 6 and 7), using a fish trap called bu. xal (cf. figure 14), a dip
net, sa.phu.wa?yaxx, and possibly nets, to catch sa.xal 'blackfish' and mi-q6s 'native
carp'. (After contact they began to use large seines to catch the fish spawning on the
lake's edge). The people attacked by the U. S. Cavalry, May 15, 1850, on Bloody Island,
were camped there fishing for these lake-spawning fish. Although the captain in charge
of the cavalry troops claimed they had sought refuge on the island, Eastern Pomo accounts
make it clear that they were in fact there for the important annual fishing always carried
out at this time of year in this location, when they learned of the arrival of the soldiers
at the southern end of the lake. It is possible that they stayed there fishing, rather than
hiding in the mountains as the Eastern Pomo in Big Valley and Scott's Valley did, because
the fish to be caught at this time constituted such an important source of protein that they
would have been hard-pressed to do without it through the subsequent year.
It is unknown to what extent the Southeastern Pomo fishing practices followed
this outline, although it seems possible that they utilized lake fishing more than stream
fishing, living as they did on islands in the lake.
After the suckers and pike went up the creeks to spawn, the first of the tender
greens eaten in the spring by the Eastern Pomo (and probably the Southeastern Pomo)
appeared. These spring greens were referred to in Eastern Pomo as so which is commonly
translated as 'clover' although the term refers to a variety of plants, most of which are
not clovers. The first sd or 'clover' to be ready for eating the last part of March and
beginning of April was t'. ' dandelion'. It was frequently found while fishing for pike.
Next in April came two other varieties of clover, first ba hol 'clover species (3-leaf
clover ? and then xa. b6. so which was smaller than ba. hl and had a small red flower
when the plant matured past the tender stage when the leaves were eaten. Finally around
May the varieties du- ma and xacom were ready to eat, and possibly also cu. ma. 'fireweed'.
Around the last part of March when the first clover were ready, the young tule
shoots, thi be appeared around the edge of the lake and were eaten. Towards the end of
May or June, around the time of lake fishing, a second growth of tule shoots appeared
and was eaten. The first tenderyoung stalks of angelico, ba- k6, which look like asparagus
and taste like celery were also eaten around this time. Later in the summer the young
tops were eaten.
12
Towards the beginning of summer in May and June the various tubers were
ripe for digging. These were never stored but were eaten fresh. At least two varieties
were eaten at this time. bu?. 'Indian potato' which was baked in hot ashes, and qu.mas
'Indian beets' which were eaten raw or boiled. Sometime later in June or July, a third
tuber, si. bi 'Indian carrot' was eaten.
In late spring when the ash trees first got their leaves, the Army worms,
hl_, which infested the trees then, were gathered, parched and eaten.
In early summer (June to July) young grasshoppers were collected before
their wings had developed sufficiently for flight. A circle of fire was set in a grassy
area where grasshoppers had been seen. The fire, while destroying their cover, forced
them into the center of the circle where they could be easily collected after the fire
burned itself out. The grasshoppers were further parched like the Army worms before
being eaten.
- During the summer, ground wasp nests were searched for, and the wasps
were smoked into a stupor by blowing the smoke from a fire built in front of their hole
into the nest. The comb-like nest was dug out, baked in hot ashes and the grubs contained
in it eaten.
Manzanita berries ripened the last part of June or in July. Some were eaten
fresh, many more were sun dried and stored to be eaten in pinole during the winter.
Both the stem and flower of another plant, ba'ba, were collected and used for pinole
as well.
In July the gooseberries, ci. buy, and blackberries, ciikop, became ripe
and were eaten.
During this same period the fresh water clams xa. la were collected by
feeling for them in the soft mud of the lake bottom with the feet and diving down to pick
them up. They were boiled and eaten.
In July and August tule roots, ya. 9o, were collected, peeled and eaten.
In spring and summer traps were set for field mice along the trails they left
in the grass, or they were smoked out of their holes with the same technique used to
smoke the ground wasps into a stupor. Summer and fall were also the time for trapping
ground squirrels, gqu mar, which hibernated during the winter. Quail, saqx, di
tfldi. til, a little brown bird variously identified as a kingbird, a wrentit, bushtit, peewee,
or California towhee, si. wa 'Spanish robin?', sa. walwal   'crested bluejay', ma. yu
'dove' and probably other birds were trapped in baited bird snares. Cottontails,
ma. khiw, and jack rabbits mo' Ya were trapped year round, and also taken in rabbit
drives with nets. Deer seem to have been hunted year round, as were grey squirrels,
sa. xalalig and woodrats, cl- Noh.
13
In August and early September the wild cherries, du- ma. kh, were ripe, as
were the wild grapes, ha y and the si. phu  'juniper berries?' which were boiled before
eating.
During this same period of early fall the grains for pinole were collected
and stored.
In the fall wild honey was collected from hollow logs. It was obligatorily
shared, although it is not clear if only the kinsmen of the collector were shared with,
or whether the whole village received equal parts.
In the middle of October the acorns were usually ready to be collected. The
Eastern Pomo primarily used two varieties: li' suy 'black oak' out of which 1o '>I.
'acorn mush' wag made, and ci* pha 'mush oak' which was used for acorn bread, xa- r6*.
Some of the ci" p a trees produced a sweet acorn which did not require leaching to remove
the tanic acid. These acorns were called kasa* ma&. They were boiled in their shells
until they cracked open, separated from their shells and eaten. Except for the sweet
kasa. m'a' both varieties of acorns were cracked with a small pestle rock, ku- b'yku-. ay,
their shells removed, and then the cracked acorns were pounded into a fine flour with
~ ,
the long pestle, da. q6n, on a mortar rock, ku. si-xa-be, using a mortar basket, mi- ce,
to contain the acorns while they were being pulverized. Figure 15 shows the long pestle
in the center front, with the mortar stone just behind it, and the mortar basket in the
upper right. The two baskets on the upper left and lower right, are twined storage
baskets called kf' s-sa- ri (literally 'twined-basket'). The mortar basket was held securely
by the outstretched legs of the pounder as in Figure 15. The acorns were pounded with
the right hand while the left redistributed the material being pounded after each blow with
the right. The pounding used to take the better part of a day. Then the flour was sifted
in a sa. Iab, like the one to the left of the pestle in Figure 15 (slightly hidden behind the
big twined storage basket on the lower right), but of a much finer weave. (The coarser
sa' lap] pictured was used for storing fish and sifting buckeyes). The pounded and sifted
flour was then leached (in a sand-lined basin scooped out of the ground) bt slowly pouring
water through it against a water-breaker. The leached flour, called wi t a, was then
mixed with water in a cooking basket. Smooth round rocks were heated in the fire and
dropped with tongs into the basket bringing the water to a boil, while the mixture of
water and acorn flour was stirred with a wooden paddle, tho- 90- -ba- LIw. More heated
stones were added as needed to keep the mixture boiling until it was cooked. It was
served in a thi. rf-bu. k~u and dipped up with the first two fingers of the right hand (cf.
figure 10).
Both varieties of acorns were stored in their shells until needed during the
rest of the year. They were stored within the house and not in acorn caches by the Eastern
Pomo, since the Eastern Pomo never left anything of value or utility which they planned
to use again outside overnight for fear of poisoning.
After the acorns were collected, buckeyes, ba. , were gathered in November
14
and stored for use during the winter. Buckeyes kept less well than acorns, however,
and so were used up before the winter was over. Buckeyes, like acorns, had to be leached
to remove the bitterness before cooking.
In the last part of November and beginning of December the peppernuts,
be he were ready to be collected. The outer, fleshy, avocado-like covering, ha. li was
eaten and the nuts were stored in the house during the winter. The following spring
they were ground, heated until sticky, and shaped into biscuit-like cakes, called be. hg-
so y. These were wrapped and stored in a cool place to be eaten with the spring clovers.
During the fall the leaves of Indian tobacco, sa xa- were gathered and dried
for smoking during the rest of the year, and string, lasu. lim, was manufactured from
the dried stems of the milkweed plant, ma.*a, for use throughout the rest of the year.
During the winter the Eastern Pomo lived on food stored earlier plus snared
or trapped birds, rabbits, deer and waterfowl. The ducks, coots and other waterfowls
were hunted with nets at night. During the day slingshots employing small baked clay
pellets were used, as well as traps. Gophers were shot with bows and arrows when
winter rains flooded them out of their burrows.
h     The two important Eastern Pomo ceremonials, the kuksu and the qa. luy-kat
wk took place in the spring. Both involved feeding large numbers of people, on acorn
mush and pinole primarily, and pinole balls and grain were thrown during one point in
the kiiksu ceremonial. Since both the grains for pinole and acorns were collected much
later in the season, a sufficient supply must have been saved from the preceding year's
collection.
The midwinter months were, as Kniffen (1939: 366) points out, ones of little
activity. Generally there seems to have been a sufficient supply of stored food to go
with whatever fresh game could be acquired. The winter time was the appropriate time
for telling myths, and for the men to spend a great deal of their time in the sweat house,
talking, visiting, sweating, and gambling. Every man belonged by birth (?, the details
of inheritance are not clear) to one of the two opposing sides in the sweat house (North
versus South for the Southeastern Pomo; East versus West for the Eastern Pomo).
During the winter men sweated daily, apparently either in the morning or the evening.
The opposing sides competed with each other to fan heat back and forth to see which side
would be forced to exit first (Loeb 1926: 222-223). (A similar sweating competition
seems an important part of the ga I1v-kh. wlk ceremonial).
Diet
The diet of the Eastern Pomo and the Southeastern Pomo depended in part on
the time of the year. Fish, acorns for bread and mush, grains for pinole, and pepper-
wood nuts and buckeyes were stored, and eaten year round. The most common daily
meal through the year consisted of dried fish and acorn mush (illustrated in figure 10).
15
This was supplemented with fresh meat or waterfowl when available, and during the spring
and summer fresh greens and roots and bulbs, berries and fruits in season.
Dress and Adornment
According to contemporary Eastern Pomo (McLendon 1959-1976), men wore
their hair long, with their slingshot wrapped around their head just above the eyebrows,
so that the hands were always free but the slingshot was instantly available if needed.
According to Kroeber and Gifford (1939) men wore their hair tied at the nape of the neck,
while Barrett (1952 II: 297), speaking of all seven language groups, says "Ordinarily the
hair was allowed to hang loosely, or at most tied at the back of the neck. " However, a
paragraph later he also says "upon most occasions the men wore the hair confined by
means of a specially woven hairnet made of very fine string... Such a net might be worn
by a hunter, a fisherman, or anyone doing work which made it necessary for the hair to
be kept out of the way". William Benson, the Eastern Pomo speaker primarily consulted
by Loeb (1926: 270), claimed that when a boy became eight or ten, his parents gave a
feast in his natal season, and he was presented with a hairnet, eleborately made with
beads if the boy was destined to become a secret society member, otherwise, simply
made of milkweed fibre. However, Benson says it was put away for ceremonial occasions.
Men wore ear plugs, at least on ceremonial occasions, which according to
Barrett were "made of wood and decorated either with simple pyrographic designs and
beads... or more elaborately with feather work and beading" (1952 II: 300, plate 38,
figures 1-2), while women wore delicate ear ornaments of etched bird bone with feather
ornamentation at one end, or feathered basketry disc and bead ornaments (cf. Barrett
1952 II: plate 37).
Whenever Eastern Pomo men left their village, on a trip, or for hunting, for
example, they carried their spear, ba. cuy, their bow, u Muy and on their back, in a
quiver made from a grizzly cub's hide, q6t, their arrows, bao fy, as well as their
cu. lu. or hunting bag.
Although most sources claimn that Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo men
usually went naked, Gifford and Kroeber (1937: 127) record disagreement between both
of their Eastern Pomo informants as well as both of their Southeastern Pomo informants
on this point, and a few entries later in their list of elements of culture the Eastern Pomo
-speakers claim to have used a breechclout, while both the Eastern Pomo and Southeastern
speakers claimed to have used a man's apron or kilt of buckskin or rabbit or some other
material. Barrett (1952 II: 414) quotes an early settler, Mr. Goldsmith, to the effect
that at Lower Lake in 1858 the men (presumably Southeastern Pomo men) wore breech-
clouts or rabbit or other skins, while the older women wore similar, slightly larger
garments, and the young women had already begun to wear calico slips. Earlier in the
same publication Barrett (1952 II: 292) had claimed that in the lake region "it would
appear that the tule skirt was the regulation attire the year round and that skirts made of
skins were only rarely used. " As he gives only the Eastern Pomo word for skirt, it is
16
possible that he was referring primarily to this group.
According to Barrett (1952 II: 292) and Kroeber and Gifford (1939: 127) the
Eastern Pomo wore a mantle of shredded tule tied around the neck and belted at the
waist in inclement weather. All sources agree that Eastern Pomo and Southeastern
Pomo men manufactured a rabbit skin blanket, EP sf. E, SEP tone, which could be
worn for warmth. Although most sources agree that both the Eastern Pomo and the
Southeastern Pomo went barefoot, Barrett describes a deer skin boot which reached
the knee especially designed to give protection from brush, of which the fullest description,
he says was provided by Eastern Pomo speakers. He also includes an illustration of
tule moccasins and leggings formerly used in the lake region.
Social Organization
Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo societies were organized largely on
the basis of kinship. Kinship determined who lived logether in the communal houses, and
to a large extent one's adult specilizations. Access to membership in the secret society
was only through kinsmen, and there is considerable, evidence that chiefly succession
was based on kinship as well. Knowledge of the society through its folklore and oral
history was transmitted through kinsmen, and kinship ties enabled the Eastern Pomo and
Southeastern Pomo to move beyond the confines of their own villages into trading networks
and ceremonial networks. At one point, for example, the chiefs of (- kom, kha. yaw,
and ?lem were all related to one another through marriage (cf. genealogies in Gifford
1926c).
Kinship Terminology Systems
With regard to the terms used to label cousins, the Eastern Pomo and the
Southeastern Pomo had what anthropologists call Omaha type systems. That is, while
the children of two brothers or two sisters (parallel cousins) call each other by sibling
terms, children of a brother and sister (cross-cousins) call each other by terms classing
the two individuals with generations above or below their own. Specifically, the son of
one's mother's brother Is also called mother's brother: EP che'., SEP 9insen3,
while the daughter of one's mother's brother is called mother's younger sister: EP se.x,
SEP ?tmnxyaq, according to Gifford (1922: 105), but 9ijnxyaq hta 'mother's older sister
old lady' according to Halpern (1936, 1939). One's father's sister's child, however, is
referred to with the same terms used to refer to a sister's child. That Is, a man would
call that child sister's child: EPx, also xa. (archaic; cf. McLendon 1975: 119 for
details), SEP xiain, also w&xad according to Halpern (1939), while a woman would call
that child by terms meaning offspring, just as she would refer to her real sister's
children by terms  meaning offspring: EP wax qa wt. 'my son', wax dahaJ 'my daughter',
harika 'son!',   'daughter!' (In addressing them, SEP wxad 'my son', wfmfad 'my
daughter'. (There is thus no kin term In either Eastern Pomo or Southeastern Pomo
meaning 'cousin' in the sense that the term has in English).
17
Up until twenty years ago, the relationship of two brothers or two sisters
among the Eastern Pomo continued to be a special one. Children of a brother and sister
treated each other with affection, of course, but also with a certain degree of deference
and respect, more like what American society considers appropriate behavior between
aunts and uncles and their nieces and nephews.
In the grandparent generation, mother's mother: EP q  c, SEP ?imqa, is
distinguished from father's mother: EP ma tc, SEP ?imnma, and father's father:
EP ma. ile, SEP 9imba'c, from mother's father: EP k. S, SEP 9imcen. As usual in
Omaha systems, mother's mother's sisters are called by the same term as mother's
mother, just as father's mother's sisters are called by the same term as father's
mother. Father's father's brothers are called by the same term as father's father,
while mother's father's brothers are called by the same term as mother's father.
The Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo kin terms deviate from what is
usually described as the Omaha pattern, however, with respect to the labeling of the
siblings of parents. Father: EP harik, SEP wfm oe, is distinguished from father's
older brother: EP ma. tile, and father's younger brother: EP ke. x for some Eastern
Pomo speakers, while for other Eastern Pomo speakers (cf. McLendon 1975: 117-119),
and all Southeastern Pomo speakers, father is distinguished from father's brother:
EP ke- x, SEP '4mcex. For both Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo speakers,
s  '   -  v                                               ht )
mother: EP nik, SEP wi mse, is distinguished from mother's older sister: EPthu. c,
SE P wf mvsud, and mother's younger sister: EP se.x, SEP ?[mxyaq. However, according
to Halpern (1939) in Sc theastern Pomo any mother's sister can also be called mother,
while in Eastern Pomo the terms used by mother's sisters and father's brothers in
addressing the children of their siblings of the same sex follow the Omaha pattern. That
is, my mother and her sisters, or my father and his brothers all refer to my and my
parallel cousins in the same way, using the term for child or offspring: E P wax qa. wi.
'my boy' or wax dahac, 'my girl' and when addressing us would use the address forms:
h6rila 'son! (also father!)', nrka 'daughter! (also mother!).'
The Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo systems of kin terms differ in a
number of details. The most striking point of difference, probably, is that in Eastern
Pomo a basic distinction is made between a speaker's own relatives and another's
relatives, by either suppletion (using two non-resemblant forms, like go: went in English),
prefixation, or suffixation. Thus 'my father' is harik, but 'his father' is ha. me.
'My mother' is ni. k, but 'his mother' is ha- mi- the. No such distinction seems to be
made in Southeastern Pomrno.
Southeastern Pomo has terms for greatgrandfather: wowo, and greatgrand-
mother: woqta, but Eastern Pomo does not. Southeastern Pomo distinguishes between
spouse's mother: wf mxa, wife's father: w( mcac, andhusbandcs father: w b'a, and
child's spouses' parent: to9mela, while Eastern Pomo has only parents-in-law:
wl ma- s . Both Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo have terms for sister's husband:
EP k6.t, SEP 9lmqon, and brother's wife: EP my; SEP wfyaqmed. Southeastern Pomo
18
distinguishes wife's brother w mfaq from wife's sister: wf mfq bled, and husband's
sister: wl maq%atin, from husband's brother: w( mxutaq, while Eastern Pomo only
distinguishes wife's sibling: wima. ha, from husband's sibling: wtma. qar. Both Eastern
Pomo and Southeastern Pomo distinguish older brother: EP mex, SEP 9fmmeq, from
older sister: EP de. x, SEP '9mdeq, but Southeastern Pomo also distinguishes younger
brother: wi md'utaq from younger sister: wf mtaq, while Eastern Pomo has a single term
for younger sibling of either sex: du.xaE.
Descent and Residence
Although Omaha systems of kin terms are overwhelmingly associated through-
out the world with patrllineal descent, the Eastern Pomo, at least, seem to have had
bilateral descent. That Is, they reckoned descent evenly and symmetrically along both
maternal and paternal lines. Residence for both the Southeastern Pomo and the Eastern
Pomo was either bllocal, that is, the newly married couple resided alternately with the
wife's or the husband's family, or ambilocal, that is, the new couple resided on a relatively
permanent basis with either the wife's or the husband 's ambilineal kinsmen. For
example, the chief of BI4 kom, lew-thi. ri (his English name was Johnny Bull), seems to
have practiced bilocal residence, since he is described by Gifford (1926: 335) as spending
considerable time, sometimes a whole winter at his wife's natal village (the Southeastern
Pomo village-community of 91em), while another chief, ci. pha-xa. e., is described as
spending a year at a time at the natal village of his wife, (the Southeastern Pomo village-
community of qamdot). At the same time, ci. pha-xa. le. 's father, bi- t4., seems to have
elected to live with his wife's kinsmen rather permanently, chosing ambilocal residence,
since he broughthis second wife back to live with his first wife's family, in their house.
There seem unfortunately to be no direct reports as to the principle that
determined which individuals shared a communal house. An analysis of the kin ties
binding the residents of the 20 houses in sf. kom which Qifford (1926) consused through
the memory of Jim Pumpkin reveals two striking patterns, however.
Of the 18 houses that contained two or more fireside or hearth groups, all
but one possible exception (House 16) showed a consistent pattern of siblings or parallel
cousins (who are terminological siblings, of course) and their immediate families sharing
the communal house. For example, in House 1 there were three hearth groups each
including the family of one of three siblings: 1) Kodoloye3, individual #14 in Gifford's
census, 2 da-ci. lo, his sister, individual #12 in Gifford's census, and their brother
3) Pateli , individual #1 in Gifford's census. House 16 is probably not actually an
exception, in fact, since it contains 2 hearth groups and the son of the head of one hearth
group is said by Gifford to be the maternal parallel second or third cousin of the head of
the second hearth group which implies that their mothers were terminological siblings.
The pattern of sibling linkage of hearth groups within a communal house is reminiscent
of the pattern of sibling set linkage in local groups of Northern Athabaskan hunters and
gatherers identified by Helm (1965; 1968).
19
2) With the exception of one house inhabited solely and aberrantly by an old
couple, hearth groups always included at least two generations of kinsmen, usually re-
lated as parent and offspring, or more typically, three generations, consisting of older
grandparent (s), parents and their offspring.
The only statements as to how hearth groups were formed occur in the descrip-
tion of marriage in Loeb (1926: 279):
"The married couple kept moving from one family to
the other, but when a child was expected they always
went to live with the wife's family. After the child
was born if either the husband's or wife's? family
house was sufficiently large another doorway and
fireplace was installed and the married couple took up
permanent residence. If neither house were sufficiently
large, the married couple built one of their own."
There are no instances of a young couple living alone in a house in sl. kom,
and very few examples of couples with non-married (and therefore presumably relatively
young) children who do not also have an older parent sharing the fire with them. It would
seem then that even after the birth of a child many young couples did not separate them-
selves from the parental fire. It is possible that only the marriage of other siblings and
the arrival of their children ultimately produced such a crowd around the fire, that one
or more of the siblings and their spouse and children set up a separate fire and doorway.
There are several reports (McLendon 1959-1976) that boys when old enough,
consistently slept with their terminological grandfathers (either maternal or paternal,
and including, of course, the male siblings of the boy's actual grandfather who are termin-
ological grandfathers), when these grandfathers were without spouses. In the house
illustrated by figure 1 (Barrett 1916: 3) Barrett's consultant remembered that as a boy he
slept withhis terminological grandfather, at location A, on the opposite side of the fire
from his mother and stepfather at B, while at location E at another fire, there was another
old man with a boy, who is likely to be in a grandson relation to him. This tradition
seems to have resulted in a warm and affectionate bond between old man and boy and have
been an extremely important source of instruction for the boy and physical assistance for
the old man. The grandfathers told the boys myths, stories of their experiences as young
men, and those of others they had heard during the winter months spent largely in the
sweathouse, and generally inculcated the ways of the Eastern Pomo world. The boy's
young body kept the grandfather warmer at night, and he saw to his grandfather's comfort
in a number of ways, particularly by giving him a much appreciated form of massage that
involved the boy walking on his grandfather's back.
The Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo practice of three or four generations
of kinsmen sharing a communal house was an admirably efficient system, it seems, for
simultaneously seeing successfully to the time-consuming and vital task of child care and
20
education, and the equally demanding task of caring for the aged, while freeing parents
who were the most efficient food acquirers. Each communal house could be expected to
have a number of older people who stayed close to the house, supervising the fire and
the non-nursing children, as well as various food-preparing activities, and the manufac-
ture of wealth (beads in the case of men, baskets in the case of women). This freed the
younger members of the family complex with more energy and stamina for the important
food acquiring activities. They thus were able to provide the aged with the food they
might have had difficulty in collecting and preparing entirely on their own. This maxi-
mization of the Eastern Pomo exploitation of the environment, in conjunction with the
annually collectable and storable food supplies of acorn and fish, made possible a
remarkably high population density for hunters and gatherers. (Kunkel (1962) estimates
the Southeastern Pomo population density as 5.27-14.46 persons per square mile, and
the Eastern Pomo population density as 2. 00-16. 67). The division of labor implicit in this
system also permitted the accumulation of wealth (in the form of beads of clam shells and
magnesite and the beautiful, non-utilitarian feathered baskets and beaded and feathered
belts) so necessary for proper participation in births, marriages, and funerals.
Life Cycle: Birth
A detailed description of the Eastern Pomo rituals and restrictions to be
observed after childbirth and during the subsequent caring for the child are given in Loeb
(1926: 251-256). There are no known sources on specifically Southeastern Pomo practices.
The child was born in its mother's family's house. Its father's mother or
father's sister came morning and evening to wash the baby in a special thi. rf-bu. ku
basket which was saved'and given to the child when he or she grew up.
Pregnancy and the birth of a child were the occasion for an exchange of gifts
between the father's family and the mother's family reminiscent of the exchange that
marks marriages. The father's family gave the mother an especially valuable and
beautiful necklace called xe-bil nar during her pregnancy, and after the birth of the child,
the mother's family presented the mother with a very valuable belt of beads, called M4ki,
and the most valuable of baskets, the {a. -si. thol, which had instead of a design, the red
topknots of woodpeckers woven in, and which was filled with pinole balls, all of which the
mother in turn presented to the father's mother when she came to wash the baby. If the
father's family was satisfied with their gift they returned the next day with two strings of
approximately 800 beads each, each of which ended in an inch and a half long piece of
magnesite, which they tied around the mother's wrists, adding a necklace too if they were
pleased. The mother wore these a day or two and then her mother removed them and
gave them to one of her relatives for keeping.
For eight days after the birth of the child the father could not leave the house,
then for a month he could not hunt, fish, gamble, dance or make beads. As long as the
child was nursing, both the father and the mother abstained from several varieties of
fish, a number of vegetable foods, and bluejay and ground squirrel.
21
Life Cycle: Puberty
Loeb also gives an extensive description of the special behaviors required on
agirl's first menstruation (1926: 270-273). There are again no known sources on
specifically Southeastern Pomo practices.
Among the Eastern Pomo, according to Loeb, the girl was isolated in a small
tule structure attached to her house, where she lay on a bed of heated coals covered with
fresh tules, purifying herself with a sort of steaming, during the whole period. She
abstained from all food except acorn mush and pinole, did not scratch herself, feed her-
self, comb her own hair, or wash her own face. Her mother or aunt did this for her. On
the fourth night or fifth morning she bathed, was given a good skirt, and a string of beads,
and a hair net in which she dressed, and then was given a large, shallow basket of acorns
to grind into meal, leach, and then cook. The acorn mush thus prepared was served to
her family and a few friends who complimented her. The basket used for washing was
saved and never used again for another purpose, unless for the first menstruation of her
sisters. Such a basket seems to have been photographed by Curtis (1907-1930: facing 68).
There was no specific puberty ceremony for boys among the Eastern Pomo
although Loeb claims that boys were given a hairnet and toy bow and arrows and bathed
in angelica root water at a feast given when they were eight or ten.
Life Cycle: Marriage
There are three sources that explicitly describe Eastern Pomo marriages
(Kroeber 1925: 255; Loeb 1926: 277-279; McLendon 1959-1976), and one source for
Southeastern Pomo marriages (Halpern 1936).
Marriage, like so much else in Eastern Pomo life, and probably in Southeastern
Pomo life, seemed ideally to permit individual initiative in a context of consensus. Young
people seem to have made their own choices, but these choices had to be approved of, or
at least agreed to by the young couple's respective families, before a marriage could take
place. There seems to be considerable agreement between the sources, that, among the
Eastern Pomo, two young people when attracted to each other, first worked out a relation-
ship between themselves to their satisfaction. If it seemed that their intentions were
serious, the families of the two potential spouses had to determine if they were willing to
support this particular alliance by taking an appropriate role in the ceremonial exchanges
that celebrated a marriage.
Apparently the formal commitment to marriage began when the prospective
son-in-law publicly spent the night at his bride's house, "going in as son-in-law" the
Eastern Pomo say. However, this was not merely a matter of individual initiative, as
the parents of the girl had first to be willing to have him as son-in-law, to "call him son-
in-law" as they say. If they refused him the title, no marriage could take place.
22
All three sources agree that the exchange of presents began the next morning
with the arrival of the man's relatives bringing food. The sources disagree somewhat on
the relative timing of these exchanges and the items exchanged. Kroeber gives no infor-
mation on the items exchanged, but Loeb (1926) and McLendon (1959-1976) agree that
three types of valuables were exchanged: 1) food, 2) beads, 3) rabbit skin blankets and
fine baskets. The items involved had a symbolic as well as a potentially practical
function. First, a valuable produced by women, food, was exchanged (Loeb says both
sides gave pinole, McLendon's source says the man's side gave acorn soup, while the
woman's family gave the pinole -- as they also do at the birth of a child). Then a
valuable produced by men, beads, was exchanged, the man's family giving the woman's
family the fine, small beads appropriately worn by women, the woman's family giving the
man's family the large, thick beads appropriately worn by men. Last, a valuable produced
by men, rabbit-skin blankets, is given by the man's family, while a valuable produced
by women, baskets, was given by the woman's family (Curtis (1907-1930) has photographs
picturing the non-food valuables exchanged at a wedding, Vol. 14: facing 58, 60).
Although the items exchanged all seem potentially of use in the new household,
the young people do not in fact receive them. Rather it is the relatives of the husband
and wife who exchange with each other, and keep the items exchanged. McLendon was
told that the small beads were put around the girl's neck and admired by every one for a
half hour or so and then removed by the bride's mother and put"aside where they have
hired someone to count them, so they'll know how much to pay". Benson told Loeb (1926:
279) that the beads given in payment to the bride were divided up by the mother of the
bride. "She kept half the beads for her side of the family and gave the other half to the
father's side."
Halpern (1936) has recorded the gift by the groom's family of beads to the
bride's family, among the Southeastern Pomo, which is reciprocated by a gift of baskets
from the woman's family to the man's.
Life Cycle: Death and Mourning
Loeb (1926: 286-291) gives an extremely detailed and lengthy account of
Eastern Pomo funerary practices. We have much less information on specifically
Southeastern Pomo practices, although we do know that both groups cremated their dead
up until the 1870-1880s.
Death for the Eastern Pomo was the ultimate disaster, and the heartfelt grief
of the surviving kinsmen was expressed in a number of institutions. Mourning began
before death had actually taken place. According to Loeb, both men and women started to
cry and the women scratched themselves with their fingernails from the temples down to
their cheeks, deeply enough to often leave scars. William Benson, Loeb's Eastern Pomo
authority, remembers in his Autobiography (deAngulo 1935) that when he was extremely
sick with whooping cough during an epidemic as a boy, his mother's mother thought at one
point that he was dying and picked up a stone pestle and rammed herself in the chest with
it in her grief.
23
According to Loeb, the body was left in the house for three or four days
during which time people came in and piled gifts on the body of robes and blankets, beads,
and fine baskets, particularly the extravagantly beautiful feathered baskets the Pomo
groups are so famous for. The relatives kept track of these gifts and gave back presents
of an equal value at a later date.
. The deceased was cremated in a special burning area at the edge of the
permanent village on a funeral pyre, face down, with the head pointing south. During
the cremation the mourners together with the chief kept the pyre encircled, crying, and
throwing still more objects on the funeral pyre in their grief. The women cried and sang
mourning songs, ma' x[raxr, some of haunting beauty, which they continued to sing
whenever they thought of the deceased during the subsequent period of mourning. Women
and men cut their normally long hair short, and women rubbed little pellets of white
clay into it. During this period a woman would also sprinkle pinole and acorn meal
while singing the mourning songs where the deceased used to pass.
Loeb (1926) says that for important people and the young the period of mourning
lasted a year, and that just after the cremation, the father or a close relation came and
picked up any pieces of bone not burned and reburied them. At the close of the mourning
period these bones were disinterred and reburned with valuables such as beads, or the
valuables were simply burned on the site of the bone interrment.
Ceremonials
There are several sources of information about specifically Eastern Pomo
ceremonials (Freeland 1928; Benson in de Augulo 1935a; Loeb 1926: 322-347, 352,
353-354; Kroeber 1925: 254; and 1903 and 1902 fieldnotes). Barrett's 1917 "Ceremonies
of the Pomo Indians" includes many Eastern Pomo terms, and presumably was based in
part on fieldwork with the Eastern Pomo, but so merges Northern Pomo,' Central-Pomo,
and Eastern Pomo practice in its description, that it is difficult to extract information
as to specifically Eastern Pomo behavior. There is one source describing specifically
Southeastern Pomo ceremonials (Halpern 1936).
Several lists of names of dances have been collected (Barrett 1917; Curtis
1907-1924, Vol. 14; Loeb 1926), but very little is known about the nature of, timing of,
or reputed function of some of them. It appears that some dances could be held at any
time, sometimes to mark the recovery of a seriously ill person, and probably for other
functions as well.
There were two major ceremonial events among the Eastern Pomo, and
apparently three among the Southeastern Pomo, during the course of which a variety of
dances was performed. All of these were held in the spring. (Benson also described to
Loeb and to Freeland a Thunder ceremonial, qa lfIma. totow-xe, which could be held
separately in the fall, if not performed during the spring pole ceremony which was
accompanies by the appearance of kiksu).
24
The most awesome was clearly the Ghost Ceremony, called In Eastern Pomo
qa' luy-ka. wah xe 'ghost dance' and in Southeastern Pomo cvnamfo xe 'ghost dance'.
It seems not to have been given every year, certainly not by the same village every year.
According to Freeland, among the Eastern Pomo, the ghost dance was "supposed in a
general way to follow not too long -- several months perhaps -- after the death of some
important individual who might be man or woman, secret society member or not" (1923:
14). Among the Eastern Pomo, the ghost dance also obligatorily involved participation
by other village-communities In addition to the one at which it took place.
The qa. luy-kawkh xe was a ceremonial tied to the intense feelings of the
Eastern Pomo around death. It involved the impersonation of the dead by specially trained
and initiated men, called ma. tiuci. It took place primarily in the semi-subterranean
Marakh, called on this occasion qa. luy-ka. wkh Marakh, but also involved the surrounding
hills and village. In Eastern Pomo three categories of participants were distinguished.
The qa. luy-ka. wkh 'ghosts', the no qa. lay-k'a wkh 'ash ghosts' who knew the secrets
of handling the live coals without apparent harm, and the ma* tuci 'initiates' those who
knew the rules of the dances and ceremonies.
According to Loeb (1926), his Eastern Pomo authority, William Benson,
claimed that the mas. t1i were presided over by a man whose title was "yomta". Eastern
Pomo consulted since 1959 have denied that this is an Eastern Pomo word, and Gifford
found in 1919 that Jim Pumpkin, his Eastern Pomo authority, denied knowledge of the
word, although Pumpkin was himself a ma. toCi (and Benson was not). "yomta" Is
clearly a Patwin word meaning "Indian doctor" derived from a Proto Wintun source *yom
probably meaning "poison" (personal communication, K. Whistler and H. Pitkin) and
related to a Proto Maiduan form *yom referring to shamanistic curing and shamans
themselves (personal communication, W. Shipley). "yomta" also appears in Kashaya
Pomo, however, and possibly Central Pomeo, as the name for the leader of the 1870 Ghost
Dance. The Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo agree that the 1870 Ghost Dance was
diffused to them through the Patwin, and Barrett (1908: 188-189) documents that they in
turn introduced it to the Pomoan language speaking groups further to the west (such as the
Kashaya and the Central Pomo) during the two years of ceremonials (one of which was
witnessed by Powers in 1872) held at the lake to await the predicted end of the world. The
leader of the 1870 Ghost Dance, or "Dreamer" is called bo le in Patwin, as Is the cult
itself (K. Whistler, personal communication), from a stem having to do with telling
stories, analogous to the Eastern Pomo form, ma. r6. meaning both 1) the 1870 Ghost
Dance and its Dreamer-leader, and 2) "to tell myths".  The Eastern Pomo, many of
whom were bilingual in Patwin, thus employ maj ru 9, a loan translation for the name of
the leader of the 1870 Ghost Dance. The Kasahya and Central Pomo, however, who were
presumably not bilingual in Patwin, seem to have acquired the Patwin word "yomta"
while at the lake to refer to the leader of the New Ghost Dance. (Barrett documents that
Patwin shamans were brought from Grand Island on the Sacramento River to conduct
these ceremonies). William Benson Is not known to have spoken Patwin, but he did speak
Central Pomo, having married a Central Pomo and spent a major part of his adult life
in a Central Pomo speaking community outside of Ukiah. It seems likely then that he
25
accidentally introduced into his discussion of pre-contact Eastern Pomo ritual, a term
borrowed into Kashaya and Central Pomo to refer to the leader of the New Ghost Dance,
probably because there was no native name for the leader of the ma* tu. i. Gifford felt
that among the Eastern Pomo chiefs were probably the leaders of the ma. tiici and the
role assumed by the chief in the qa lu4y-k. wkh x5 witnessed by Benson as a boy seems
to support this hypothesis. The only known description of an actual Eastern Pomo Ghost
Ceremony is this one witnessed by Benson at Upper Lake as a boy (probably in the late
1860s) and described in his unpublished autobiography (deAngulo 1935a).
The first night, the ghosts made their presence known by fires in the hills
surrounding the village (they are ghosts of the cremated, of course, and thus have a
special, non-human relationship to fire), and the thunder-like sounds of dancing in the
subterranean Marakh, plus occasional glimpses of flaming figures. The next morning,
the chief from the knoll that is the roof of the Marakh ritually called the ghosts, who
then appeared, some, at least, flaming, from the four cardinal directions, starting in
the south. The chief specifically urged them to run without faltering for the health of
the village and various categories of its inhabitants. Barrett (1917: 408) quotes a version
df this exhortation which is virtually identical to that given by Benson. At this point,
one ghost was identified by the chief as that of a recently dead man, whose relatives
were instructed to line up on either side of the entrance to the Marakh. He was caught,
laid down, covered with beads by his grieving female relatives and then taken into the
SMarakh. All the men of the village-community entered the ghost house with the ghosts.
When they were through with the ceremony inside (the timing is unclear in Benson's
narrative) the women brought pinole and acorn mush on the command of the chief, and
placed it in front of the Mtfrakh for the visiting people. (The ma. ts.- i may eat no meat,
fat, or even fish while ritually prepared for performing in the ceremony and are said
to only eat pinole and acorn mush. It seems that the whole village joined them, at least
in public, in their semi-fast). The chief invited the women to eat too and the food was
divided up by the visiting chief. Everyone laughed, joked and happiness reigned, which
strongly contrasted with the preceding period of seriousness and mourning. Towards
evening, the rumbling thunder noise began again and with darkness there were once
again fires in the hills. Throughout the night there was the noise of thunder (probably
made by the bull-roarer) and dancing. Towards morning, the sounds changed, and
Benson was told by his mother that the fire dance, during which the ash ghosts, no-qa.
wiy-lA wkh, handle live coals and "eat" fire, was beginning. In the early morning
Benson saw steaming men thrown from the Marakh where they lay until washed and re-
vived by their female relatives. (They were apparently unconscious as a result of the
sweating contest that took place at this time). Eventually 15-20 men were thrown out,
and when revived, re-entered. The chief at this point announced a grass game, du. we-qa,
which was played on the west side of the Marakh. The ghosts came from all sides, the
men lined up on both sides of the entrance, shouting "hu-hu-hu, " while the ghosts
entered (going backwards) and the dancing began. After four sets of dances, the men
emerged to say Ihat the ghosts were going to do the fire dance, they were going to sweat
with them, and the boys to be initiated should be brought. The following morning, after
the finishing rituals, a big feast was held after which everyone returned to their homes.
26
During the course of the ritual, all sources agree, the ghosts behaved in
certain prescribed ways. They always talked in a special language, using Eastern Pomo
lexical items and grammar, but always talking in terms of antonyms and opposites.
Thus if they wanted to go on the west side, they said east side, etc. There were in
addition some ritually symbolic substitutions. The live coals which were played with
and "eaten" were called buG 'Indian potato', while the young boys to be initiated were
called mu* ly 'young ground squirrel'. (Loeb (1926: 254) says that the ma. tuci were
permanently forbidden to eat bluejay and ground squirrel). The young initiates were said
to be "hunted" and "shot" wvhen they were caught during the initiation. The ghosts were
both deliberately mirth-provoking in their behavior, trying to induce the participants to
laugh, and irascible, easily irritated into terrifying, fire-throwing anger.
The descriptions Halpern (1936) was given of the vcfaamfo xe or ghost dance
among the Southeastern Pomo are very reminiscent of the Eastern Pomo ceremony, and
yet at the same time, seem very different in mood and purpose. The Southeastern Pomo
ritual is explicltly associated with the important sources of food in the Southeastern
Pomo environment -- acorns, wild seeds, fish, and mammals. The movement back and
forth between the wilderness area beyond the village and the ceremonial house seems
concerned with the provisioning of the population more than with the supernatural forces
which reside there. Although fire is used in the initiation of boys (who are called Xolnaq),
it seems to play a much smaller role than among the Eastern Pomo. It is also a
ceremonial in which only men participated.
The cfnamfo xe began with the ghosts hollering from the hills. The Swan xqowi
'ceremonial house-doctor' called them from the roof of the semi-subterranean _w<n
'ceremonial house' in a special language which was not comprehensible to the Southeastern
Pomo. He told the ghosts to come putting acorns on their body. When they came, one
ghose had a long pole striped with charcoal, which he threw in the air, and which was
then caught by a man In the group who entered the Swan first with it. The ghosts
announced which acorns they were bringing, made motions as If shooting deer and catching
fish. The second day they were called to bring the wild seeds for pinole. Again they
came, announcing what they were bringing, and this time some had bull snakes. The
third day they were called to bring fish of all sorts; the fourth day they were called to
bring rabbits.
In addition to the ghost ceremony, the Southeastern Pomo had two other
ceremonials during which the boy Initiates, xlnaq, were shot or speared in the navel
as part of the initiation. Although the boys bled, they were never seriously injured.
Participants claimed to have passed out when struck and come to the next day to find
themselves completely well. The shooting was said to make the boys grow quickly. The
two rituals were called bquq xv 'spear dance' and bt4qal xe 'bear dance'. In the bqdq x
the boys were collected on the third and last night of the ceremonial, taken outside, and
then shot in the navel from within the ceremonial house. In the btgqal xe, which followed
the bquq xe, there were two main figures, sallis and his older sister bt6qal 'bear' (who
27
was dressed as a bear). After a certain period of dances, sallis came on the north side,
btqal on the south, sallis speared each boy once, while two women, identified as
cfnamfo stood, one on the north, one on the south, and threw beads four times. (It is
not clear from Halpern (1936) if this event was followed by more dancing and a second
appearance of the supernaturals, or whether the supernaturals appeared on the last day
of the ceremony. It is also not clear precisely where the events took place, although it
seems that the bVqal xe/ - spearing took place outdoors, while the bqdq xe - shooting
seemed to involve a ceremonial structure of some sort.
( ) The kuksu ceremonial witnessed by Benson was held a few weeks before the
ghost ceremonial he described, during the same spring, but in a different village-com-
munity. It began with an all night dance starting at dark. The next day a bear appeared
suddenly and a group of boys were made to stand in front of the dance house where the
bear was running back and forth. Someone pushed a boy in front of the bear who three
times knocked him over and as he got up knocked him over again. The bear then ran into
the Marakh followed by the people. Inside he ran around the centerpole ritually,
accompanied by the sound of birds which Benson's uncle told him came from the two
little bears on either side of him. The bear climbed the centerpole, turned over back-
wards and fell to the floor, turning over four times as he did. The bear then went to the
drum at the back of the Marakh and ritually took off his bearskin and returned to sit
down as a man. He was given a pipe filled with tobacco and smoked it while praying for
the health of the village and its occupants. He then put on his bearskin, performed some
more and left. The children were told to go out, and while playing saw a tall black figure
approaching. The was the supernatural kcksu, and on the occasion witnessed by Benson
there seem to have been several kutksus who herded the boys together into a s4-M[rakh
'brush ceremonial house'. That night the boys (including Benson) were made to stand in
a row outside, then lie down blindfolded, while their backs were ritually scratched. At
dawn when they awoke, they found a group of people approaching with a long pole which
was ritually installed in a previously prepared hole in front of the entrance. Eight
young men ran up the pole with stiff legs and arms (like bears) and hung there, while their
female relatives pelted them with pinole balls, beads and grain. When they came down
they were washed by their female relatives andlater more dancing took place, followed
by a feast after the closing ceremonies.
Among the Southeastern Pomo the supernatural called kciksu by the Eastern
Pomo is called sqo6yqyo 'the one who cuts many.' He appeared during a spring ceremonial
in which the young boys were ritually cut, but again, although sharing may details with the
Eastern Pomo ceremonial, the Southeastern Pomo one had a quite different character.
The sqoyqyo came the first day, before the s e ca 'brush house' was built, was given
beads, and went away. There were grown up initiates, called qowitsmfo who entered
the brush house singing, after its construction, and called sqoyqyo. He came in the
morning, they shook the brush house and he went away. On the second day the boys to be
cut were brought by the cumfo 'non-initiates'. From this time on the boys stayed in the
brush house. The second night they sang all night, but nothing happened. If sqoyqyo
came, he went away when they shook the brush house. On the third day, sqoyqyo came,
.-.I
28
and the fire tender went from house to house announcing that the boys had been cut. He
cried and said, "Alas, my grandsons". On the fourth day the boys played shinny,
sqoyqyo came again and chased them Into the water from where they raced to the brush
house, he roughed up those he caught, but once in the brush house they were safe. They
shouted, shook the house and ultimately drove him away.
Political Organization and Chiefs
Anthropological observers of the various Pomo groups have long struggled
to understand the function of the leader the Eastern Pomo called ki xa lilkh and the
Southeastern Pomo called balakwl. The ka. xa- likh and bilakwl were by no means
authoritarian powers, and at first struck observers as having no power at all. In fact,
Eastern Pomo government seems to have been achieved In large part through consensus
against a shared background of expectations as to what constituted appropriate behavior
in all expectable situations. Contemporary Eastern Pomo remember being told as
children by grandparents that "In the old days there were many rules to follow," and "if
you didn't follow them you'd get bad luck and get killed" (McLendon 1959-1976). There
were thus sanctions, but they were not directly exercised by the kk xa. likh or bilakwi,
except for banishment. Rather, during the ceremonlals offending individuals could be
singled out for various kinds of punishment, and it seems also to have been felt that
offenses involving ritual prohibitions of various sorts would be taken care of by super-
natural forces. (Thus menstruating women who broke the prohibition on going for water
while menstruating invariably became sick, and usually saw a supernatural who lived in
the water, ba kfl )
The ka. xa. likh's (and probably balakwi's) function seems to have been to
continually re'mind the community of the nature of this background of shared expectations,
through the example of his own behavior and through his speeches. All published sources,
as well as contemporary Eastern Pomo agree that the primary qualification for a
k&. xa. llkh was that he must be a good man. He must epitomize In his own behavior the
ideal for Eastern Pomo men, I. e. he must be good to others, observing willingly,
graciously, but without pride or self-praise, all kinship and familial obligations. He
must be neither too poor nor avariciously rich; he must be modest but able.
The ka. xa likh's duties included organizing all the communal activities of
the village-community, such as the spring trapping of spawning fish, the fall gathering of
acorns, trading for supplemental food in the case of famine or shortage, the arranging
of trade feasts with neighbors when there were surpluses of fish In the spring or of
acorns In the fall, and scheduling the ceremonlals, ncluding arranging for the construc-
tion of the ceremonial house appropriate to the occasion, He apparently did these things
in consultation with others, but it was his responsibility to feel out his community, arrange
for a consensus to be reached and then communicate it to the group, His seems to have
been a rather difficult job, requiring great delicacy, tact, and ability, precisely because
he had few direct sanctions to exercise. He seems to have carried out his functions in
large part through speech making, but also by giving copious amounts of beads (sometimes
29
from his own resources, most often collected from wealthy men in the group).
Every morning at dawn the k-. xa. likh awoke the village-community with a
speech, exhorting them to be good and announcing the group activities to take place that
day. At marriages, funerals, trading feasts, and all ceremonials, he opened the event
with a speech appropriate to the occasion. Among the Eastern Pomo he seems always
to have been a member of the secret society.
History Since Contact
The Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo are just to the north of the north-
ernmost expansion of the Spanlsh missions in California: Dolores at San Francisco,
founded 1776, San Rafael, founded 1817, and Sonoma, founded 1823. That they did not
escape contact is demonstrated by the extensive Spanish loanwords in both languages
(McLendon 1969), and the many contemporary Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo
who remember having been told by grandparents of their capture by the Spanish.
There is a published account of a party of American trappers for the Hudson
Bay Company passing through the Clear Lake area in 1832 or 1833 (Maloney 1945).
In 1841 Salvadore Vallejo, who was said to own an extensive ranch in Clear
Lake Valley, sent there for Indians to help in the harvesting of his grain In the Napa
Valley. When they refused, he sent a small detachment of Mexican troops who ultimately
massacred the men of an island village in their sweathouse. These were undoubtedly
Southeastern Pomo (Sherman 1945). Additional evidence that Vallejo had begun to run
cattle in the lake area before 1841 comes from the Eastern Pomo chief, Augustine,
who recalled that Vallejo had come some ten years before the murder of the two abusive
White settlers, Stone and Kelsey in 1849 (Palmer 1881: 49). Vallejo's heirs much later
produced an instrumient dated 1844 and purporting to be signed by Manuel Micheltoreno,
conveying to Salvador and Juan Antonio Vallejo the land known as Laguna de Lup-Yomi
(from Lake Miwok luppu-jomi 'rock-place/people', the Lake Miwok name for the Eastern
Pomo village-communityxabe'-naj ph  'rock-vlllage/people') (Palmer 1881: 41). Oral
histories collected (McLendon 1959-1976) document that Augustine and at least three
other Eastern Pomo were forced by the Spanish to become riders and herd cattle for
them, for which they were recompensed with beef, but no money.
In 1850 the United States cavalry under the command of a Captain Lyons
entered the lake area near Lower Lake with the specific goal of punishing the Indians for
the killing of Stone and Kelsey the year before. The Southeastern Pomo and the Eastern
Pomo of Big Valley seem to have largely been able to avoid the troops, who finally
massacred a group who were fishing at ba. don-ba* thin, now called Bloody Island, at
the northwestern end of Upper Lake. They then continued west towards Ukiah, massacring
along the way other Indians who must have been Northern Pomo and Central Pomo and in
no way involved in the killings.
30
In 1851 Colonel Redick McKee was sent as Indian agent to negotiate a treaty
and establish a reservation. He was accompanied by the ethnographer-journalist-llnguist
George Gibbs, who acted as interpreter, although he apparently knew no native languages
of northern California (Schoolcraft 1852). The treaty was never ratified by Congress
and no reservation was established.
American settlement of the lake area began in earnest three years later in
1854, with farms and ranches being established and the Eastern Pomo and the South-
eastern Pomo being pressed into service on them. By the time of the eighth census of the
United States in 1860, just nine years after the McKee expedition there was a non-Indian
population of 972 living in 270 dwelling houses that included schoolteachers, preachers,
doctors, merchants, carpenters and blacksmiths in addition to ranchers and farmers.
Ten years later, at the time of the 9th census in 1870 the population had tripled to 2870
(plus an additional 100 Chinese employed to build roads), living in 623 dwellings. The
Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo were gradually forced to give up the traditional
sites of their village-communities, as well as much of their traditional subsistence base,
since the settlers frequently did not welcome them on their newly homesteaded lands,
even merely to gather acorns, buckeyes, peppernuts, and the wild seeds used in pinole.
The introduction of grazing, starting with the Spanish in the 1830s or 1840s, contributed
to a rapid change in the plants growing, as did the American mania for chopping down
trees and clearing lands.
The extensive settlement of the lake area by Whites was preceded apparently
by their diseases. Gibbs in 1851 (Schoolcraft 1853) noted signs of smallpox on the
inhabitants he encountered. Not only dread diseases like smallpox, but diseases associatled
with childhood in European societies, such as whooping cough, measles, and even the
common cold were lethal to whole societies who had never previously been exposed to
them and therefore had no immunities.  William Benson recalled in his autobiography
(deAngulo 1935a) being one of only 3 children in his age grade in the xa* b-na. po village
to survive,a whooping cough epidemic which probably occurred in the late 1860s. Gifford
(1926) documents an infant mortality rate of 51% among the inhabitants of sf- kom as
remembered by Jim Pumpkin for the period roughly from 1850-1871. By the turn of the
century tuberculosis can be documented to have killed many. The result was a drastic
reduction in the size of the population in a relatively short period of time (assisted, of
course, by the various massacres along the way).
The effects of these European introduced diseases went deeper, however,
than their devastating effects on the size of the population.
All the important ceremonials, most of the rituals concerning childbirth
and child raising, among the Eastern Pomo at least, had as their explicit stated goal the
assurance of health and well-being. Suddenly, with the arrival of the Europeans, the
ceremonials must have seemed to lose their efficacy. It must have been intensely
demoralizing to undergo the rigors of participation in a ceremonial and find that the
population continued to die in large numbers, nevertheless.
31
Moreover, among the Eastern Pomo at least, virtually all Illness was attributed
tohuman causes. Either 1) the sick person had transgressed in some way, broken some
taboo and therefore become sick, or 2) some other members of the group had reason to
wish him ill and had caused the illness through a variety of techniques commonly referred
to In English as "poisoning". As Loeb (1926: 305) said: "Sickness and misfortune are
always believed to be the results of the breaking of a taboo, or the work of a malicious
enemy; health and prosperity, of proper prayer, charms or ceremony. " Contemporary
Eastern Pomo remember that at the turn of the century there was even a poison that
caused tuberculosis. Thus the increased mortality was accompanied by a concomittant
Increase in divisive suspicions: for each death, a human agent was frequently implied
and sought, while health and prosperity could no longer be assured by proper prayer
and ceremony.
The traditional ceremonies gradually ceased to be given, the prayers ceased
to be said (although Loeb (1926: 313) said that in 1924-1925 it was "still the custom of
the old men to pray at least twice daily before washing their faces"). There are still
Eastern Pomo alive today who remember seeing kdksu. The last Eastern Pomo ash
ghost died in 1960 or 1961. But the ceremonials seem to have ceased to be given before
1900. In part, the rapid depopulation must have frequently produced situations where
there were not enough ma. tuil to successfully perform a ceremony, and the high infant
mortality rate, and the new range of options available to the younger generation must
have left the ma. tui frequently with the choice of transmitting the tradition to someone
not perfectly appropriate in some way or not transmitting the tradition at all.
The results of the rapid White settlement of the lake area (2870 by 1870)
combined with the rapid depopulation caused by their diseases and the concomittant dis-
location of traditional society can be inferred from the response of the Eastern Pomo
andthe Southeastern Pomo and their neighbors to the 1870 Ghost Dance which began
among the Northern Palute of western Nevada and spread through the Patwin to the
Eastern Pomo and the Southeastern Pomo (cf. figure 17). According to the Eastern
Pomo of sf.kom, it was brought by a resident of ~i. kom  (whose father was a Patwin from
Long Valley) named Poni (individual #73 in Gifford's census). According to the South-
eastern Pomo it was brought to them by Lame Bill, an early Patwin prophet, together
with a Southeastern Pomo named 9awotu who was also called t6. to and was informant
to Barrett (1952) and Gifford (1926), who gives Wokox as his name (individual #469 in
Gifford' s census).
The 1870 Ghost Dance was called ma. ru- in Eastern Pomo and '9bqo in
Southeastern Pomo. Both terms mean a myth or sacred story, and now also refer to
the ceremonial leader who is called the "Dreamer" In English ",..who leads the people
by means of dreamed rules of ceremonial behavior" (Meighan and Riddell 1972: 9).
According to Loeb (1926: 395) "a man or woman does not become a maru [ma. ru. ] by
right of inheritance or by instruction from childhood but through dreams experienced as
a mature individual. Some unknown person or possibly someone who has recently died
appears in a dream as a messenger... and teaches the dreamer. " Since the source of
32
authority as to ceremonial behavior was in dreams, an alternative was provided to the
breakdown in the-traditional techniques of transmitting ceremonial information, and in
fact much fewer personnel were required. The 1870 Ghost Dance as adopted by the
Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo also permitted women to assume ceremonial leader-
ship which was not possible in the old ceremonials. The new religion also seems to have
offered a new focus of cooperation and political integration at a time of dwindling population
and hostile White populations (Treganza, Taylor and Wallace 1947: 124-125). 4
But the truly compelling feature of the 1870 Ghost Dance was the revitalistic
dream which it offered: that the Whites would be destroyed, all traces of their presence
would be erased and the precontact old ways returned to if the new religion were followed
with fervor. Thus in the first year or two of the 1870s a ma. ru" dancehouse was built
in Big Valley and people gathered at the lake to ceremonially await the predicted end of
the world. Barrett says the series of ceremonies celebrated at this time extended more
or less continuously over a period of two years, Native Americans coming from as far
away as the coast, the Kashaya, for example, to await the end of the world, and numbering
three or four thousand according to the local Whites. Powers (1877: 210-213) described
one of these ceremonies which he attended in Big Valley during the summer of 1872.
Robert Oswalt (1964: 283-287) has collected an oral historical account from the grandson
of odie oftheKashaya participants, describing the movement oftheKashaya to Clear Lake
to await the end of the world and the difficulty with which they subsequently returned home.
Gradually the realization must have dawned that the wonderful dream was not
to be. The assembled visitors began the return trips to their homes. These were frequently
arduous since they had come unprepared to return. The Eastern Pomo and Southeastern
Pomo, with characteristic fortitude, turned to working out a viable adaptation to the new
terms of their existence. Some continued the practices of the new religion. Certainly
some continued the old ways as best they could. Some became Christians. Apparently
only a few took to drink, despite the awful pressures, until the beginning of the 20th
century. During this period, the former village-communities were frequently forced to
move from site to site by the ever homesteading Whites.
In 1867, a Franciscan, Father LucianoO'Suna, had begun missionlzing activities
among the various Pomoan groups, apparently focusing his activities at Clear Lake.
In 1875, 160 acres were bought on the edge of Clear Lake in Big Valley for the St. Turibus
Mission and the Eastern Pomo of Big Valley had then the option of moving to the mission
for some security from White encroachment in exchange for renouncing the old ceremonials.
By 1880 there were about one hundred people living at the mission (Palmer 1881: 184-185).
Around the same time (1875-1876), members of the former village-commun-
ities of Si kom, xAwalekh, da. no-xa., kha. yaw/Kinal, bowalkheya, and/or yi. ma, banded
together and developed their own solution -- they arranged to buy back some of their own
land. Combining their wages from agricultural labor for three summers (at a remembered
wage of $2. 00 a day) they paid at least $2, 000 in gold in 1879 for 90 acres of land north of
the present town of Upper Lake. There they organized a successful transitional community,
33
xa. b-ma. tolel, along essentially traditional lines. By the turn of the century it consisted
of wooden houses built on the same model as that of the White settlers, as well as a
wooden dance house completely above ground (cf. figure 16), several barns, and a school-
house built on an acre of land which the residents gave to the Methodist Eplscopal church
for this purpose. The residents kept horses and buggies or wagons, poultry, practiced
some agriculture in conjunction with as much hunting and gathering as was still possible,
and continued to harvest crops as a group for wages. Barrett (1908: 186) described
this community as consisting of 24 houses and about 100 inhabitants, as well as 19 other
out buildings in 1903. A census of this community as remembered by Ralph Holder from
the period of roughly 1906-1910 produced a total of 29 dwellings with additional outbuildings
and barn and a population of at least 130. In 1905-1906 C. E. Kelsey (Heizer 1971)
censused the native population of northern California in order to encourage the federal
government to purchase land for reservations. He lists 162 individuals as owning land at
Upper Lake (i. e. at xa- be-ma- tolel).
The community seems to have flourished until 1912 when several houses and
the dance house were destroyed by fire on August 19, while most of the residents were
camped a few miles away at the cannery picking beans for wages. This disaster occurred
during the period of purchase of reservation land by (called locally rancherias) the
government. In 1909 the government bought 144 acres adjoining the 90 acres already
owned by the Eastern Pomo north of Upper Lake. In 1911 a tract of 29 acres was purchased
in Big Valley and the remaining 92 inhabitants of the St. Turibus mission moved to the
Big Valley Reservation in 1912. Land was also bought just south of Tule Lake at da. no-bi.
daw for the Robertson Rancheria to which primarily the former inhabitants of the village-
community of 8t. kom and their descendants moved. Two reservations were also set up
at the bwer end of the lake for the Southeastern Pomo, one at Lower Lake and one at
Sulphur Bank. Most of those who lost their homes in the fire at xa. b6-ma. 1tlel chose to
move to the reservation ad oining xa. b4-ma. t?lel or to the Robertson Rancheria If they
were former residents of iS kom, accepting the free house the government offered in
preference to re-building. This seems to have been the beginning of the decline of
xa. be-ma. 'tolel, although a few people continued to live there until after the Second World
War.
Today Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo live in frame houses on the
rancherias, most of which were built by the government and many of which have since been
remodeled. They own and drive cars, and shop in supermarkets. Traditional foods
such as acorn mush and game meat have become delicacies rather than staples. White
bread and beans probably constitute now the two most frequent staples of diet.
Many Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo no longer live on the rancherias,
however, having moved to the nearby towns, and even as far away as Chico and San
Francisco. All of the Eastern Pomo rancherias were "terminated" in the 1960s. That is,
the rancheria lands were divided up among the then residents and othershavingeclaims to
membership in each rancheria, and individual Eastern Pomo were given title to individual
parcels of land. This made it possible, for the first time, for an Eastern Pomo to sell
34
or mortgage his land. It also introduced the necessity of paying taxes, an expense which
was generallynot accompanied by access to any increase in income. Many Eastern Pomo
no longer live on the rancherias because they lost their parcels of land either through
default for back taxes, or because a mortgage was foreclosed, or to satisfy debts
contracted through installment buying, or they sold them. These parcels were frequently
taken over by Whites, with the result that there are now a number of White families living
in the former Eastern Pomo rancherias of Upper Lake, Big Valley,. and Robertson.
Although family income remains low for many, Eastern Pomo and Southeastern
Pomo now find it somewhat easier to acquire access to jobs other than seasonal fruit
picking and agricultural or domestic labor, which were virtually the only sources of
employment up until the 1960s. Some Eastern Pomo now attend college. There seems
to be a revival of interest in ma. r6/9abqo ceremonies, particularly among the young.
The setting up of an Indian Health Service Office in Lakeport seems to have provided a
new focus of cooperation and communication as well as facilitating better access to
health facilities.
The use of Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo in daily conversation is
rare despite survey information which suggests that the knowledge of these languages is
still held by up to a third of the population. It seems likely that both languages will soon
cease to be spoken.
The Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo are a resilient, resourceful people
who have survived over a hundred years of tragedies -- massive forced culture change,
drastic depopulation, massacres, alcoholism, factionalism, wide-spread discrimination
and misunderstanding. They have survived, however, and now seem on the threshold
of a new and perhaps more satisfactory relationship to American society -- one which
involves a more comfortable and sure participation In the larger society, coupled with,
hopefully, a growing realization that the old ways, while no longer viable, were neverthe-
less complex, functional, admirable in many ways, and satisfying.
Sources
The archeology of the Clear Lake region remains largely unknown. Harrington
(1942) provides the only archeological survey -- an incomplete one -- of a historic village,
that of Ol'm. There are, in addition, two sites, one in Southeastern Pomo territory at
Borax Lake (Harrington 1948), and one in Eastern Pomo territory on Kelsey Creek in
Big Valley (the Mostin site), both of which have provided samples of obsidian dated as in
excess of 10, 000 years old. The Mostin site also included burials from which fragments
of bone yielding a date (UCLA-1795A) of 10, 260 + 240 years were taken (Ericson and
Berger 1974; Meighan and Haynes 1970). There is no evidence at present bearing on the
question of what, if any, relationship the contemporary Eastern Pomo and Southeastern
Pomo might have to these ancient occupants of the lake area, but it is clear that human
beings have found the Clear Lake area an attractive one for at least 10, 000 years.
35
Aside from the two first hand accounts of Gibbs (Schoolcraft 1853) and Powers
(1877), the bulk of the published ethnographic information comes from the memory of
four members of these groups who were consulted from the turn of the century until the
end of the 1930s: For Eastern Pomo, William Benson (Loeb 1926; deAngulo 1927,
1935a; Freeland 1923; Kroeber 1925), and Jim Pumpkin (Loeb 1926; Gifford 1923,
1926); for Southeastern Pomo, Wokox or t. to  (Gifford 1923, 1926; Barrett 1952),
and Tom Johnson (Barrett 1908, 1916, 1952).
The published data are strongly biased towards material culture, food
acquisition, and ceremonial activity. In addition, over 100 versions of Eastern Pomo
myths have been collected by Barrett (1933), Kroeber (1911), deAngulo (1927, 1935b),
deAngulo and Freeland (1928), Halpern (1939-1940), and McLSendon (1959-1976). Several
versions of Southeastern Pomo myths have been collected by Halpern (1939-1940),
Mauldin (1945-1975), and deAngulo and Freeland (1928). A wide range of ethnographic
topics is covered by long lists of culture traits recorded in interview sessions of a
day or two (Gifford and Kroeber 1939). Gifford's census of the village-community of
It.kom provides us with raw data for inferring much about the social and political
organization of the Eastern Pomo.
Except for Gifford (1923, 1926), and Freeland (1923), the published ethno-
graphic sources (Kroeber 1925; Barrett 1917, 1952; Loeb 1926) merge specifically
Eastern Pomo practice with that of the Central Pomo and Northern Pomo in an attempt
to describe the behavior of members of all seven Pomoan language speaking groups
simultaneously. (The Southeastern Pomo were only consulted by Barrett (1952)). One
can only be sure that claims made in these sources are actually true about the Eastern
Pomo or the Southeastern Pomo if 1) they are specifically attributed to either of these
groups; 2) they are attributed to an informant who can be clearly identified as belonging
to one of these groups; or 3) the behavior described is accompanied by a native term
for it which is, or can be, identified as an Eastern Pomo or Southeastern Pomo form.
There is very little published information on the history, acculturation, or
modern conditions of the Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo. Some oralhistorical
information has been collected (McLendon 1959-1976). Much more could be done.
In the extant museum collections it is difficult to determine, usually, which
of the seven Pomoan groups a given object comes from. Probably if an object is identified
as collected at Upper Lake it is Eastern Pomo. There does not seem to have been much
collected from the Southeastern Pomo, except for a tule balsa which S.A. Barrett
commissioned Harry Holmes, a Southeastern Pomo residing in Big Valley among the
Eastern Pomo, to manufacture in the 1950s. There is a small museum in Lakeport with
a quite fine collection of Pomo baskets most of which are probably of Eastern Pomo
manufacture. The Lake County historian, Henry Mauldin, has a particularly fine
collection of Eastern Pomo material culture objects as well as baskets and dance regalia.
36
FOOTNOTE S
1         This is an expanded version of a paper first prepared for volume 8, California
(edited by Robert F. Heizer), of the Handbook of North American Indians (William C.
Sturtevant, general editor), soon to be published by the Smithsonian Institution. It is a
pleasure to acknowledge the support of the Survey of California Indian Languages, the
American Philosophical Society and the National Institute of Mental Health Research
Grant R01 MH22887 for fieldwork with the Eastern Pomo from 1959 to 1976. Last,
but not least, whatever understanding I may have of Eastern Pomo society is due to the
insight, patience and understanding of the many Eastern Pomo who have guided me,
particularly Leonard Bateman, Maude Bateman Boggs, Agnes Fisher Bateman, Frances
Dennison, Lincoln Dennison, Ralph Holder, Mike Gomez, and William Graves. I can
never thank them enough.
2         Underlined Eastern Pomo forms are given in the phonemic transcription of
McLendon 1975. Underlined Southeastern Pomo forms are given in the phonemic tran-
scription of Moshinsky 1974.
3         The Eastern Pomo and Southeastern Pomo kinship terms actually mean
'my    '     .
4         However, it did not always or consistently replace the old ways. The infor-
mation we have about the Southeastern Pomo sqoyqyo xe, cinamfo xe and bquiq xe comes
from information supplied A. M. Halpern in 1936 by several Southeastern Pomo who had
witnessed and participated in these ceremonies as boys or young men in the 1880s when
the then "abqo or Dreamer, Suzy Book, the wife of cayic, had a dreamed revelation that
these ceremonies should be revived, and prevailed on the men to put them on.
37
Illustrations
Figures 1 and 2
The Southeastern Pomo village-community of al1m, at the eastern tip East
Lake with traditional tule dwelling houses In background. Mt. Konocti can be clearly
seen in the background of figure 2. The darker strip of terrain running in front of the
twin peaks of Konocti is the ridge separating East from Lower Lake. On the right in
front of this ridge, two patches of East Lake can be glimpsed beyond the houses.
Photographed by R. E. Wood, landscape photographer of Santa Cruz, probably in the
1870s-1880s and probably when 91dm was still in Its pre-contact location on Rattlesnake
Island (cf. figure 3). From two stereopticons in the collection of the Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley. Reproduced with permission of the Bancroft Library.
Figure 3
Sulphur Bank or Rattlesnake Island and the shore along the eastern extremity
of East Lake. The high mountain on the extreme right is Mt. Konocti. The darker
projecting point which appears here to run along the base of Mt. Konocti is the ridge
which separates East from Lower Lake. The notch which separates the eastern and
western extensions of the mountains in the background is known as the straights or narrows,
which connect East and Lower Lakes with the main body of Clear Lake. Photograph and
description by S.A. Barrett, October 1906. Photograph in the collection of the Lowie
Museum, University of California, Berkeley. Reproduced with permission of Lowie Museu
Figure 4
Ground plan of an actual Eastern Pomo multi-family dwelling about 20 by 40
feet, formerly located on a knoll which projected out into Tule Lake, after a sketch drawn
by a former resident of this house (Barrett 1916: figure 1) who had slept with his termin-
ological grandfather (actually his mother's father's uncle) at A, opposite his mother and
stepfather at B. The typical location for storage of a small amount of firewood is shown
at W. Stores of acorns, buckeyes, peppernuts, pinole seeds and dried fish were kept
in the storage area at the back of the house. For details of occupants' kin relations
see Barrett (1916: 3).
Figure 5
Tule-thatched house, probably Eastern Pomo, possibly photographed by 0.
E. Meddaugh circa 1912. From a print in the collection of the Lowie Museum, University
of California, Berkeley.
Figure 6
A temporary Eastern Pomo tule house constructed for use during the period
of early summer lake fishing. Photographed by Edward S. Curtis before 1924. From
a print in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
38
Figure 7
A temporary encampment of Eastern Pomo, around the turn of the century,
probably at Lakeport to participate in the Fourth of July ceremonies and parade. (The top
of a square float can be seen behind the three standing men, center left). Photographer
unknown. From the collection of the Lake County Historical Society.
Figure 8
An Eastern Pomo tule boat, Wu* na, probably photographed on Rodman Slough
on Upper Lake before it was drained. Photograph by Edward S. Curtis before 1924.
From a print in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
Figure 9
Demonstration of how tule boat was paddled, probably also on Rodman Slough.
Photograph probably by Edward S. Curtis before 1924. From a print in the collection of
the Southwest Museum, Highland Park, Los Angeles, California.
Figure 10
A typical individual's meal of dried fish and acorn mush in a thi. rf-bu- k1u
basket on a tule mat, with Ralph Holder illustrating the customary technique for eating
mush with the first two fingers of the right hand. Demonstration using objects In the
Lake County Historian's collection, Big Valley, 1973. Photographed by Judy Tucker.
Figure 11
sa-mi. c, conical basketry fish trap used for catching fish in the muddy,
turbulent creek waters of early spring, especially suckerfish, sa-m61. From the
collection of the Lake County Historial, Henry Mauldin. Photographed In 1973 by Judy
Tucker.
Figure 13
A Southeastern Pomo fish dam in course of construction in 1906. Old
Salbador, who was building this dam, is seen at the extreme left wading across the
creek. This dam was made near the mouth of the small stream which flows from the
town of Lower Lake down into Cache Creek. Photograph and description by S.A. Barrett.
From a print in the collection of the Lowie Museum, University of California, Berkeley.
Figure 14
bu. xal basketry trap used for birds as well as fish, consisting of a smaller
cone leading into the larger cone where bait is placed, similar to the principal employed
in contemporary Maine lobster traps. Trap from the collection of the Lake County
Historial, Henry Mauldin. Photographed in 1973 by Judy Tucker.
39
Figure 15
Storage baskets, sifter, mortar stone, pestle, and mortar basket used in
storing and processing acorns. Photographer unknown. From a print in the collection
of the Southwest Museum, Highland Park, Los Angeles, California.
Figure 16
Woman pounding acorns using traditional techniques. Photograph taken by
H. W. Henshaw circa 1890, probably in Ukiah. From a print in the collection of the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
Figure 17
Early photograph, probably by S.A. Barrett, of the 1870 Ghost Dance,
labeled " Lake County Maru Ceremony" which suggests it may have been an Eastern
Pomo ceremony. The three "big heads" can be seen behind the leader who carries the
traditional ma. ru- flag and a split stick beater. From a print in the collection of
Professor David Peri, Sonoma State College.
Figure 18
Eastern Pomo hintil xe, male dancers, chorus, singer, and women dancers
in front of the xa. be-ma. tolel dance house. Parts of three frame dwellings can be seen
in the background. Photograph taken prior to 1902 by O. E. Meddaugh. From a print in
the collection of the Lowie Museum, University of California, Berkeley.
Figures 19 and 20
The funeral of Johnny Bull, lewthi. ri, the last chief at s;. kom before its
dispersal circa 1871. Photographed possibly around 1906. From a print in the collection
of the Lake County Historical Society.
40
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Bibliography
Barrett, S. A.
1908.    The Ethno-geography of the Pomo and neighboring Indians.
University of California Publications in American Archaeology
and Ethnology 6: 1-332.
1916.    Pomo buildings. In: Holmes Anniversary Volume, edited by F.
W. Hodge, pp. 1-17. Washington, D.C.
1917.    Ceremonies of the Pomo Indians. University of California
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