Settlement Patterns
Villages were always situated near water - near a clear spring, on a riverbank, at a river's mouth, or as in the case of the coastal groups, on bluffs overlooking the surrounding area and close to a source of fresh water. Along the coast each village claimed a tract of shoreline for its exclusive, communal use. Tracts varied in size and contained a combination of resources that more than adequately met the needs of the people residing in each village.
A typical village consisted of six or seven
redwood plank houses, partly sunken for protection from weather and bears.
The living house was mainly the dwelling of women and children, visited
by the men for meals. Otherwise, adult men and post-pubescent boys slept,
sweated themselves, gambled, and performed a wide variety of male-oriented
activities (e.g., manufacturing and repairing fishnets, bows and arrows,
and other hunting and fishing gear) in their wooden "sweathouse,"
a slightly smaller subterranean building
The sweathouse also was the center for a variety of religious activities connected with purification and special rituals, such as the "doctor-making" dance. According to one Karuk myth, the sweathouse structure, its restriction to men, and special customs of gathering firewood were given to humans specifically so that human beings could acquire dentalium shell money. It was only through the purification of the sweathouse could a man make contact with mythic forces which would bring dentalia to him, thus making him wealth. Not only the wealth quest, but other practical pursuits such as hunting or fishing required that a man be "clean," so a person ideally purified himself in the sweathouse every day.
The practice of gathering wood for the sweathouse was considered a very direct method of obtaining wealth, and boys were advised to start doing this as soon as they were old enough to understand such things. This did not mean simply bringing back firewood, but doing so in a highly ritualized manner. Among the Karuk, this meant that it must be cut from a standing tree, the tree must be on top of the highest hill overlooking the Klamath, and the branches had to be trimmed in a certain particular manner.
For additional information on the Northwest
Region,
please select a topic most applicable to your interests:
Languages | Subsistence | Settlement Patterns | Sociopolitical Organization | Religion
Northwest
Coast | Northeast | Central
Coast and Central Valley
East of the Sierra Divide | Interior Desert | Southern Coastal
Native Peoples of California - Topics
To comment on this page please send email to Chuck Smith at crsmith@cabrillo.cc.ca.us.
Page last updated: 23 August 1999