Pomo people

“ One of the most conspicuous features of the religion of the Pomo, who are south of the Yuki, is their shamanistic fetishes. The medicine-man possesses a number of objects, stones, parts of animals, and other articles, which he treasures and with which his power is largely bound up. Pomo mythology is characterized by the importance of Coyote, who comes nearer than any other personage to playing the part of creator. In certain ceremonies there are exhibitions of fire-eating and the clown occurs. ”

“ The ceremonial organization of the Pomo was very loose. There was no secret society of importance, as there was among the Maidu and presumably among the neighboring Wintun, and no organized priesthood vested with control over ceremonies. The ordinary chiefs, however (or "captains," as they are more often called) , were prominently concerned with all ceremonies, and there were other officials in charge of particular rites. We may begin therefore by mentioning the various officials in the order of their importance. ”

“ But King Pomare had learnt a new lesson in war. He forbade any of his people to pursue the vanquished, or to enter their villages, either to plunder the gardens or molest their wives and families. He, however, selected a trustworthy force, and bade them march to Tautira, to the temple of Oro, and totally destroy both temple and idol, and everything connected with the old worship. At eventide he bade the chiefs call together the congregation which had been so ruthlessly disturbed in the morning, and all knelt together in solemn thanksgiving for their great deliverance from so strong a foe. ”

“ If there were 1.21 children and the family number was 5.0, the average number of adults was 3.79. For simple equilibrium or stability, such as we must assume existed in pre-white times, at least 3 children must be found in every family. Thus with 3.79 adults there would have to have been a family number of 6.79 or say, 6.80 merely to maintain the population. Considering the relative richness of the environment and the quite elaborate culture of the Pomo an average of 7.0 is by no means excessive for the aboriginal Pomo. ”

“ When one attempts to establish what were the Pomo community groups and chief villages, he encounters a great deal of divergence of opinion on detail among these investigators, due largely to differences among informants. Without extensive field work, which might in fact now be impossible, many of the discrepancies cannot be resolved. On the whole, the later students appear to have come closer to the truth and are probably more reliable. ”

“ In Potter Valley is the Tahtoo language which Mr Powers thinks may belong to the Pomo or the Yuka. [IV'-12] In the Eel River and Russian River valleys as far as the mouth of Russian River and in Potter Valley, the different tribes known by the names of Ukiahs or Yokias, Sanèls, Gallinomeros, Masallamagoons, Gualalas, and Matoles, speak various dialects of the Pomo language, which obtains in Potter Valley and the dialects of which become more and more estranged according to the distance from the aboriginal centre. The Pomo men are good linguists ”

“ The Pomo Indians make it a special point to slaughter the women of their enemies during or after battle. "They do this because, as they argue with the greatest sincerity, one woman destroyed is tantamount to five men killed" (Bancroft, I., 160) , for without women the tribe cannot multiply. ”

“ The king’s face fell, as did those of his councillors.
“Listen, O lord Macumazana, and all of you,” he said. “These Pongo are horrible wizards, a great and powerful people who live by themselves amidst the swamps and mix with none. If the Pongo catch Mazitu or folk of any other tribe, either they kill them or take them as prisoners to their own land where they enslave them, or sometimes sacrifice them to the devils they worship.”
“That is so,” broke in Babemba, “for when I was a lad I was a slave to the Pongo and doomed to be sacrificed to the White Devil. ”

“ The Fletcher-Madox vocabulary list does not resemble the Yurok words for the same items or phrases.
[40] Wagner, Drake's Voyage, p. 147. B. Aginsky ("Psychopathic Trends in Culture," Character and Personality, VII [1939] , 331-343) quotes Fletcher's description of Indian weeping and self-laceration, and calls them Pomo, asserting that Drake landed in their territory and that the ceremonies given in honor of the English exemplify the "Dionysian" phase of Pomo culture. ”

“ We must remember that the Indians have no chroniclers of their wrongs, and yet the colonial historians furnish us with abundant incidental evidence that outrages were perpetrated by individuals of the colonists which were sufficient to drive any people mad. No one can now contemplate the doom of Pometacom, the last of an illustrious line, but with emotions of sadness. ”

“ The names and the location of the villages differ widely as presented by the three investigators of the area. The confusion is rendered even more profound because Barrett in his terminology takes account of the Pomo occupancy of Alexander Valley in the early years of the nineteenth century, whereas Merriam and Driver ignore, not only the presence of the Pomo, but also the names applied by them to settlements. On the other hand, Driver's study is the most thorough of them all and for this reason alone may well serve as the basis for consideration of population. ”

“ But the men pay considerable attention to linguistic studies, and there is seldom one who cannot speak most of the Pomo dialects within a day's journey of his ancestral valley. The chiefs, especially, devote no little care to the training of their sons as polyglot diplomatists; and Robert White affirms that they frequently send them to reside several months with the chiefs of contiguous valleys to acquire the dialects there in vogue" (519. 150) . ”

“ Already, a few cultivated fields adorn the desert; houses insensibly take the place of black tents. At length, the shepherds vanish altogether, and you find yourself amidst an agricultural people.
On the fifteenth day after our departure from Na-Ptchu, we arrived at Pampou, which, on account of its proximity to Lha-Ssa is regarded by the pilgrims as the vestibule of the holy city. Pampou, erroneously designated Panctou on the map, is a fine plain watered by a broad river, a portion of whose stream, distributed in canals, diffuses fertility all around. There is no village, properly so called ”

“ This sad condition has lasted for centuries; and by force of misery the people became grouped into two classes: the poor, who were constant to their faith and national feeling, and the wealthy and prosperous, who adopted Islam in order to escape persecution and save their property. To this latter class may be added the Pomaks, a predatory tribe inhabiting a mountainous district between the provinces of Philippopolis and Serres. They live apart, and pass for Mussulmans because they have some mosques; but they have no knowledge of the Koran nor follow its laws very closely. ”

“ Pomo women are not allowed to learn any dialect but their own.
The following comparative table of numerals will illustrate the relationship of these tribes, among which I include the Kulanapo spoken near Clear Lake, and of which Mr Gibbs has also noticed an affinity to the Russian River and Eel River languages; also, the language spoken by the natives of the Yonios Ranchería in Marin County. ”

“ See Barrett, Ceremonies, passim; Loeb, The Western Kuksu Cult and Pomo Folkways, passim; Kelly, "Coast Miwok Ethnography" passim.
[93] Wagner, Drake's Voyage, p. 492, n. 37. Wagner says that this word "sounds" to him like an exclamation. To Elmendorf and me it "sounds" like the Coast Miwok word for chief or friend. The latter proposal rests upon both phonetic and semantic resemblances.
[94] For the Coast Miwok words for "chief" and "friend" see Barrett, The Ethno-Geography of the Pomo Indians, words nos. 62, 64, pp. 70, 71. The Pomo words (p. 58) are totally unlike those of the Coast Miwok. ”

“ Southward of Horowhenua, as far as the present harbour of Wellington, the country was subsequently given over to Ngati-Awa, who were in settled possession when the {113} first European colonists arrived. Here in 1825-26 Pomare, their chief, led the Ngati-Mutunga hapu of the Ngati-Awa people, who forcibly occupied the shores of the great bay, where they hoped to cultivate the friendship of the whalers, [74] whose commerce was so profitable to them. ”

“ The earliest Pomo conversions which are recognizable from the mission records were at San Rafael in 1820. These Pomo had therefore been subjected to intense missionization for at least ten years prior to Cooper's appearance. The population consequently must have been seriously depleted when he first saw the Santa Rosa Valley.
If we disregard entirely the factor of depletion and accept Cooper's 1834 estimate of 2,000 Canimares around Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, we may allow an equivalent population for the other three Southern Pomo provinces. This yields a total of 5,000. ”

“ The population, which has been recruited for many years past by a constant influx of refugees from the surrounding tribes, falls roughly into three divisions. These are: the Popos, chiefly engaged in fishing, forestry, and farming, but averse to steady work of any sort, and much addicted to theft; the Yombas, the most enterprising people in the district; and the Houssas, who are farmers and palm-nut gatherers. The Mohammedans among them are more enterprising and industrious than the fetish worshipers; while the Christians, though few in number, form a fairly thriving community. ”

“ Pomabamba is a province bounded on the north by Tomina; east by the lands of the independent tribes; west by Porco and Amparaes, and south by Pilaya y Paspaya. It is about 24 leagues in length, and has no other town than its capital, the inhabitants being dispersed in their plantations.
Its population is only 3000 souls, who gain a scanty subsistence from their farms, which are often plundered by the Chiriguanos Indians. It has the river Parapeti on the north, and the Rio Nuevo on the east, which separates it from the Indian territories. ”

“ At 8 P.M. those who have provisions at home enter the hut to refection with ugali or holcus-porridge; those who have not, join a friend. Pombe, when procurable, is drunk from the earliest dawn.
After breaking his fast the African repairs, pipe in hand, to the Iwánzá—the village “public,” previously described. Here, in the society of his own sex, he will spend the greater part of the day, talking and laughing, smoking, or torpid with sleep. Occasionally he sits down to play. As with barbarians generally, gambling in him is a passion. ”

“ Pombal was convinced that he could separate the youth of the Society from their elders; and he was extremely anxious to do so, because of the family connections of many of them, and because of the loss to the nation at one stroke of so much ability and [466] talent. But he failed egregiously. They were all gathered in the colleges of Coimbra and Evora. No seclusion was observed. Everybody was free to visit them from the world outside; and inducements of every kind were held out to them to abandon the Society: family affection, worldly ambition, etc. ”

“ The Pimos have ever been most friendly to Americans, and I have yet to learn of a single instance in which they ever harmed a white man. These Indians are not nomads. Their villages have remained in the same localities for hundreds of years. As their country affords no game, and they are by no means a warlike tribe, they maintain themselves in comfort and abundance by tilling the ground, and limit their warlike propensities to punishing the raids made upon them by other tribes. These Pimos profess to have originally come from the far south. ”

“ Then the chiefs starved in council until Rain sent them a pony-load of meat, so that their hearts were warm, and they consented to her plea. If the tribe lived at the full moon, in the moon of falling leaves she should be made a priestess, and dedicate a temple to the Sun.
"My prayer is heard," she said, in her great joy. "My man is saved from death, the Sun has given us food, and the animals will be kind to us and pity us. In three suns, the wicked agent will be sent away, and there will be food for all our people." ”

“ As for weave, it is asserted upon the highest authority that there is not a weave or stitch known to modern art that was not given to our civilization by the aborigines. And they have many stitches of great effectiveness that we have not availed ourselves of. Take the Pomas alone—a tribe of basket-makers who live in northern California. ”

“ For they will euer liue like Rogues, and not fall to worke, but be Lazie, and doe Mischief, and spend Victuals, and quickly weary, and then Certifie ouer to their Country to the Discredit of the Plantation."
"Sabino" shuns the usual expression "planted" for the more pretentious "founded," as if the affair was a reality, and had a foundation. A thing may be planted, and that be the end of it. If the seed be bad, it rots in the hill. Such was the fact, and fate of the Popham Colony.
2. The religious history of the Popham Colony is the briefest narrative of the kind on record. ”

“ Pomo, [87] Lake Miwok, and Wappo. Kroeber states that these baskets "served as gifts and treasures; and above all they were destroyed in honor of the dead." [88] It is clear that, in 1579, feathered baskets similar in manufacture and use to the native baskets of today were known in this Coast Miwok area.
The scepter bearer, prompted in a low voice by another man, delivered a long oration. The Coast Miwok have such orators; among those Indians the office of speechmaker is a special one. [89] The Pomo have orators, [90] as do most other central Californians. ”