Handbook of the Indians of California. Athabaskans: Southern Groups

• Main Author: Kroeber, A. L. (Alfred Louis), 1876-1960
• Language: English
• Published: Smithsonian Institution 1925
• Subjects: Athapascan Indians > Rites and ceremonies; Sinkyone Indians > Rites and ceremonies; Wailaki Indians > Rites and ceremonies; Kato Indians > Rites and ceremonies; Indians of North America > California > Rites and ceremonies; Pacific; South Fork; Athabascan
• Online Access: http://cdm16085.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/p16085coll13,16421

E51 .U6 no.78 20 Series: Bulletin (Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology), 78.; Pages 142-158.; Includes ill. "The Mattole or Mattoal are one of the rare Athabascan coastal tribes. Cape Mendocino was in their territory. They held the Bear River and Mattole River drainages; also a few miles of Eel River and its Van Dusen Fork immediately above the Wiyot. The Nongatl or "Noankakhl" or Saia are the northernmost of five bodies of people into whom the Athabascans of the southern dialect group, whose habitat is in Eel River drainage, appear naturally to divide. The Nongatl territory is that drained by three right-hand effluents of Eel River: Yager Creek, Van Dusen Fork, and Larrabee Creek; also the upper waters of Mad River. They are scarcely to be distinguished from the Lassik, except for their adjacent range and perhaps some consciousness of their own separateness. The Sinkyone are those Athabascans of the southern group who live on Sinkyoko, the South Fork of Eel River. The Wailaki were the uppermost Athabascan tribe on Eel River, which they held to the Big Bend, from where on all its tributaries were Yuki. Wedged in on three sides by the Yuki, the Kato or Kaipomo, the southernmost Athabascans on the Pacific coast, held the uppermost courses of the South Fork of Eel River, their only neighbors of their own stock being the Sinkyone to the north and the Wailaki to the northeast."