Political Organization of Native Californians
Tribes did not exist in California in the sense in which the word is properly applicable to the greater part of the North American continent.
From: Unknown To: 1922 C.E.
Location: California
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Political Organization” from Elements of Culture in Native California by Alfred Louis Kroeber, 1922.
Tribes did not exist in California in the sense in which the word is properly applicable to the greater part of the North American continent. When the term is used it must therefore be understood as synonymous with "ethnic group" rather than as denoting political unity.
The marginal Mohave and the Yuma are the only Californian groups comparable to what are generally understood as “tribes" in the central and eastern United States: namely, a fairly coherent body of from five hundred to five thousand souls usually averaging not far from two thousand; speaking in almost all cases a distinctive dialect or at least sub-dialect; with a political organization of the loosest, perhaps; but nevertheless possessed of a considerable sentiment of solidarity as against all other bodies, sufficient ordinarily to lead them to act as a unit. The uniquely enterprising military spirit displayed by the Yuma and Mohave is undoubtedly connected with this sense of cohesion.
The extreme of political anarchy is found in the northwest, where there was scarcely a tendency to group villages into higher units, and where even a village was not conceived as an essential unit. In practice a northwestern village was likely to act as a body, but it did so either because its inhabitants were kinsmen, or because it contained a man of sufficient wealth to have established personal relations of obligation between himself and individual fellow-townsmen not related to him in blood. The Yurok, Karok, and Hupa, and probably several of the adjacent groups, simply did not recognize any organization which transcended individuals and kin groups.
In north central California the rudiments of a tribal organization are discernible among the Pomo, Yuki, and Maidu and may be assumed to have prevailed among most other groups. A tribe in this region was a small body, evidently including on the average not much more than a hundred souls. It did not possess distinctive speech, a number of such tribes being normally included in the range of a single dialect.
Each was obviously in substance a "village community," although the term "village" in this connection must be understood as implying a tract of land rather than a settlement as such. In most cases the population of the little tribe was divided between several settlements, each presumably consisting of a few households more or less intimately connected by blood; but there was also a site which was regarded as the principal one inhabited. Subsidiary settlements were frequently abandoned, reoccupied, or newly founded.
The principal village was maintained more permanently. The limits of the territory of the group were well defined, comprising in most cases a natural drainage area. A chief was recognized for the tribe. There is some indication that his elevation may often have been subject to popular consent, although hereditary tendencies are likely to have been rather more influential in most cases. The minor settlements or groups of kinsmen had each their lesser chief or head-man.
There was no proper name for the tribe. It was designated either by the name of its principal settlement or by that of its chief. Among foreigners these little groups sometimes bore names which were used much like true tribal names; but on an analysis these almost invariably prove to mean only “people of such and such a place or district.”
This type of organization is likely to have prevailed as far south as the Miwok in the interior and the Costanoans or Salinans on the coast, and northward to the Achomawi and possibly the Modoc.
The Yokuts, and apparently they alone, attained a nearer approach to a full tribal system. Their tribes were larger, ranging from a hundred and fifty to four hundred or five hundred members; possessed names which usually did not refer to localities; and spoke distinctive dialects, although these were often only slightly divergent from the neighboring tongues. The territory of each tribe was larger than in the Maidu-Pomo region, and a principal permanent village looms with prominence only in some cases.
The Shoshoneans of Nevada, and with them those of the eastern desert fringe of California, possessed an organization which appears to be somewhat akin to that of the Yokuts. They were divided into groups of about the same size as the Yokuts, each without a definite metropolis, rather shifting within its range, and headed by a chief possessing considerable influence. The groups were almost through out named after a characteristic diet, thus "fish eaters" or "mountain-sheep eaters."
It is not known how far each of these tribes possessed a unique dialect: if they did, their speech distinctness was in most cases minimal. Owing to the open and poorly productive nature of the country, the territory of each of these groups of the Shoshonean Great Basin was considerably more extensive than in the Yokuts habitat.
Political conditions in southern California are very obscure, but are likely to have been generally similar to those of north central California. Among the Chumash, towns of some size were inhabited century after century, and these undoubtedly were the centers if not the bases of political groups.
The Mohave and other Yuman tribes of the Colorado valley waged war as tribal units. Their settlements were small, shifting, apparently determined in the main by the location of their fields, and enter little into their own descriptions of their life. It is clear that the Mohave’s sense of attachment was primarily to his people as a body, and secondarily to his country as a whole.
The Californian Indian, with the partial exception of the Yokuts, always gives the impression of being attached first of all to a spot, or at most a few miles of stream or valley, and to his blood kindred or a small group of lifelong associates and intimates.
It should be added that the subject of political organization is perhaps the topic in most urgent need of investigation in the whole field of California ethnology.
Kroeber, A. L. Elements of Culture in Native California, University of California Press, 1922.
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