Culture of Yurok Native American Indians

Introduction

The Yurok, whose name means "downriver people", are Native Americans whose ancestors, by some estimates, have lived for at least 10,000 years near the Pacific Ocean coast of Northern California , United States.

Following encounters with white settlers moving into their aboriginal lands during a gold rush in 1850, the Yurok were faced with disease and massacres that reduced their population by 75%. In 1855, most of those that remained were forcibly relocated to the Yurok Indian Reservation on the Klamath River.

On November 24, 1993, the Yurok Tribe adopted a constitution that details the jurisdiction and territory of their lands. Under the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act of 1988, Pub. L. 100-580, qualified applicants had the option of enrolling in the Yurok Tribe (Thompson, pp.89-110). Of the 3,685 qualified applicants for the Settlement Roll, 2,955 person chose Yurok membership. 227 of those members had a mailing address on the Yurok reservation but a majority lived within 50 miles of the reservation. The Yurok are currently the largest group of Native Americans in the state of California. The Yurok reservation of 63,035 acres (255 km²) has an 80% poverty rate and 70% of the inhabitants do not have telephone service or electricity, according to the tribe's webpage.

Discussion

The territory of the Yurok extended from Bluff Creek 6 miles above the mouth of the Trinity, down Klamath River to its mouth, and on the coast from beyond Wilson creek, 6 miles north of the mouth of the Klamath, too probably Shad river. Their settlements in the valley were confined closely to the, river, and those along the coast were close to the beach or un the lagoons. They had no settlements on Redwood creek except at the mouth. Along Klamath river the Yurok language was everywhere uniform, but along the Coast south of the mouth of the Klamath there were three slightly varying dialects, one spoken at Gold bluff, one at Redwood creek, and a third at Trinidad, the last differing most from that of the river(Kroeber, pp.60-78 ).

Most of the so-called wars of the Yurok were private feuds, participated in by villages. These took place as frequently between Yurok village's as against alien tribes. In all cases payment for the dead and for all property destroyed was made at the conclusion of peace. Apart from a few vessels that touched at Trinidad in the 18th century, and a ...