Kato (tribe)
Encyclopedia
The Cahto are a indigenous Californian group of Native Americans in the United States
. Today they are enrolled as the federally recognized tribe, the Cahto Indian Tribe of the Laytonville Rancheria or a small group of Cahto are enrolled in the Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation
.
. The rancheria
is 264 acres large, and located three miles west of Laytonville
in Mendocino County. It was founded in 1906. The reservation's population is about 188.
The tribe operates its own housing authority, tribal police
, and EPA office. Economic development comes from the tribe's Red Fox Casino, located in Laytonville.
group, one of four Athabascan language groups in northwestern California
. They spoke the Kato language
.
Their language relates them distantly to the Athapascan people of the Alaska
n interior and northern Canada
, as well as to the Navajo
s and Apache
s of the Southwest
.
, and in general the country south of Blue Rock
and between the headwaters of the two main branches of Eel River
. This region comprises rolling hills and oak savannas and is veined with streams, most of which are almost dry during the dry summers but are torrential during the rainy winters.
In the early 18th century, the Cahto lived in approximately 50 village sites.
deer-skin, wrapped about the waist, and a close-fitting knitted cap, which kept in place the knot of hair at the back of the head. At a later period, the Cahto garment included a shirt made of two deer-skins, laced down the front and reaching to the knees. Both men and women generally had tattoo
s on their faces and the chest designs consisted largely of upright lines, both broken and straight.
In constructing a Cahto house, a circular excavation about two feet deep was prepared, and in it, at the corners of a square were erected four forked posts, the front pair being a little higher than the other, so that the roof would have a slight pitch to the rear. The roof was in fact so small that it was of much less importance in determining the final shape of the house than was the circularity of the base. The space between the posts were stuffed with bunches of long grasses, and slabs of wood and bark. An opening in the roof served to carry off smoke, and the doorway was a narrow opening in front from ground to roof. As one of many as three families occupied one of these little houses, all cooking at the same fire. For summer camps, brush lean-tos were set up. The dog was the only domesticated animal.
A favorite pastime for the females was to assemble early in the evening for singing in chorus. One of the best singers would lead, and two others kept time by striking one bone with another. The men took no part but hung around and listened.
The duty of a chief was to be the adviser of his people. When anything of great importance was to be decided, the village chief summoned the council, which comprised all the elder men. Each expressed his opinion, and the chief would go along with the majority decision.
Children of both sexes were required to observe certain rites at the age of puberty
.
Annually in midsummer, a group of boys, ranging from 12 to perhaps 16 years old, were led out to a solitary place by two men, one of whom was the teacher. Here, they received instructions in mythology
and the supposed origin of customs
, such as the mortuary rites, shamanistic practices and puberty observances. In the winter, these boys assembled again in the ceremonial house and remained there during the four winter months for instructions on tribal folklore
.
At puberty, a girl began to live a very quiet and abstemious life for five months, remaining always in or near the house, abstaining from meat, and drinking little water. She was not permitted to work, lest she catch a cold.
Marriage was arranged between the two persons concerned, without consulting anybody else. Having secured a girl’s consent, her lover would sleep with her clandestinely at night, and at dawn they stole away. The secret was preserved as long as possible, perhaps for several days, and the news of the match transpired without formal announcement, even to the girl’s parents, who would learn of their daughter’s marriage in this same, indirect fashion. His marriage no longer a secret, the young man might then erect a house of his own.
The bond was no more easily tied than loosened, for either could leave the other for any reason, the man retaining the male children and the woman the female children. Children were not regarded as belonging any more to the paternal than to the maternal side. When adultery
was discovered, the only result was a little bickering and perhaps an invitation to the offender to take up permanent relations with the new love.
The entire population accompanied the bearers to the grave and wailed loudly. Women, and occasionally men, cut their hair short as a symbol of grief. For persons of prominence, a mourning ceremony would be held in the year following their death. This ceremony marked the end of the mourning period, and those who had hitherto wept became immediately cheerful and smiling.
In mythology, as in other phases of their culture, the Kato tribe showed their susceptibility to the double influence to which they had been exposed. With a creation story of the type prevailing in central California, they preceded it with an account of a race of animal-people who were swept from the earth by the deluge — a theme characteristic of North Pacific Coast mythology.
The creator, Chénĕśh, who is identified with lightning, dwelt in the sky. Below was an expanse of water, with a rim of land in the north. With his companion, Nághai-cho, he descended and turned a monstrous deer into land. Chénĕśh created the people, but Nághai-cho made the mountains and the streams. In everything, the latter tried to outdo Chénĕśh, playing the role (usually assigned to coyote
) of the buffoon and trickster.
Cahto people also belonged to the Kuksu religion.
The ŭtiyíņ became medicine-men by instruction, not by supposedly supernatural
agencies; but the others acquired their power solely through dreams. When the old men of a village deemed it advisable to have a new ŭtiyíņ or "sucking doctor", either because of the death of some of the shamans or because of their waning power, the active and the retired shamans selected a promising young man and with his consent took him away from the village to a solitary place in the hills. The one who had been selected to be his instructor and "father" would pray and instruct the young man in the secrets of the medicine-men.
When a medicine-man was summoned, any others of that profession who happened to be nearby could come and observe. If the medicine-man first called upon could not effect a cure, he would then ask the assistance of one more capable than himself.
While engaged in his work, a shaman would beseech the unnamed powers for help, naming the various mountains of the region and asking the spirits resident there to assist him. He would also call on Nághai-cho, and occasionally on Chénĕśh.
put the 1770 population of the Kato at 500. Sherburne F. Cook estimated the pre-contact populations of the Kato at 1,100. James E. Myers thought the total might be 500.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. Today they are enrolled as the federally recognized tribe, the Cahto Indian Tribe of the Laytonville Rancheria or a small group of Cahto are enrolled in the Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation
Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation
The Round Valley Indian Reservation is a federally recognized Indian reservation lying primarily in northern Mendocino County, California, USA. A small part of it extends northward into southern Trinity County. The total land area, including off-reservation trust land, is 93.939 km²...
.
Name
Cahto is a Northern Pomo word, meaning "lake", which referred to an important Cahto village site, called Djilbi. The Kato are sometimes referred to as the Kaipomo or Kato people.Reservation
The tribe controls the Laytonville Rancheria, also known as the Cahto Rancheria, a federal Indian reservation of Cahto and Pomo peoplePomo people
The Pomo people are an indigenous peoples of California. The historic Pomo territory in northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point...
. The rancheria
Ranchería
The Spanish word ranchería, or rancherío, refers to a small, rural settlement. In the Americas the term was applied to native villages and to the workers' quarters of a ranch. English adopted the term with both these meanings, usually to designate the residential area of a rancho in the American...
is 264 acres large, and located three miles west of Laytonville
Laytonville, California
Laytonville is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California, United States. Laytonville, is located north-northwest of Willits, at an elevation of 1670 feet...
in Mendocino County. It was founded in 1906. The reservation's population is about 188.
Government
The Cahto Indian Tribe is run by a democratically-elected tribal council. The current tribal executive committee is:- Cristy Taylor, Chairwoman
- Richard J. Smith, Vice-Chairman
- Lillian Frazier, Secretary-Treasurer
- Dewey Lucas, Member at Large.
The tribe operates its own housing authority, tribal police
Indian tribal police
Indian tribal police are peace officers hired by those Native American tribes which have a constitutional government on Reservations, as opposed to hereditary chiefs...
, and EPA office. Economic development comes from the tribe's Red Fox Casino, located in Laytonville.
Language
Kato is one of the five sub-dialects of the WailakiWailaki
The Eel River Athapaskans include the Wailaki, Lassik, Nongatl, and Sinkyone groups of Native Americans that traditionally live on or near the Eel River of northwestern California....
group, one of four Athabascan language groups in northwestern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. They spoke the Kato language
Kato language
Kato is an extinct Athapaskan language that was spoken by the Kato people of northwestern California, USA. It also referred to as Batem-Da-Kai-Ee, Kai Po-Mo, and Tlokeang.-External links:...
.
Their language relates them distantly to the Athapascan people of the Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
n interior and northern Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, as well as to the Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
s and Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
s of the Southwest
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
.
History
The Kato lived farthest south of all the Athapascans in California, occupying Cahto Valley and Long ValleyLong Valley Caldera
Long Valley Caldera is a depression in eastern California that is adjacent to Mammoth Mountain. The valley is one of the largest calderas on earth, measuring about long and wide . The elevation of the floor of the caldera is in the east and in the west...
, and in general the country south of Blue Rock
Blue Rock
Blue Rock may refer to:* Blue Rock, Ohio, United States* Blue Rock Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records* Celtic Blue Rock Community Arts Festival, a charity-based festival* Blue Rock , by The Cross* Blues rock, a form of rock music...
and between the headwaters of the two main branches of Eel River
Eel River (California)
The Eel River is a major river system of the northern Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. Approximately 200 miles long, it drains a rugged area in the California Coast Ranges between the Sacramento Valley and the ocean. For most of its course, the river flows northwest, parallel to the...
. This region comprises rolling hills and oak savannas and is veined with streams, most of which are almost dry during the dry summers but are torrential during the rainy winters.
In the early 18th century, the Cahto lived in approximately 50 village sites.
Culture
Traditionally, the Cahto manufactured such articles of stone, bone, horn, wood and skin, as were commonly made in northern California. The primitive costume for both men and women was a tannedTanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
deer-skin, wrapped about the waist, and a close-fitting knitted cap, which kept in place the knot of hair at the back of the head. At a later period, the Cahto garment included a shirt made of two deer-skins, laced down the front and reaching to the knees. Both men and women generally had tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
s on their faces and the chest designs consisted largely of upright lines, both broken and straight.
In constructing a Cahto house, a circular excavation about two feet deep was prepared, and in it, at the corners of a square were erected four forked posts, the front pair being a little higher than the other, so that the roof would have a slight pitch to the rear. The roof was in fact so small that it was of much less importance in determining the final shape of the house than was the circularity of the base. The space between the posts were stuffed with bunches of long grasses, and slabs of wood and bark. An opening in the roof served to carry off smoke, and the doorway was a narrow opening in front from ground to roof. As one of many as three families occupied one of these little houses, all cooking at the same fire. For summer camps, brush lean-tos were set up. The dog was the only domesticated animal.
A favorite pastime for the females was to assemble early in the evening for singing in chorus. One of the best singers would lead, and two others kept time by striking one bone with another. The men took no part but hung around and listened.
Social organization
Each village had its chief,dog sled, and some villages, a second chief. Generally, the chief’s son succeeded to the office, but if a headman died without sons, the people, by common consent and without formal voting, selected from among themselves the man whom they regarded as best fitted for the place.The duty of a chief was to be the adviser of his people. When anything of great importance was to be decided, the village chief summoned the council, which comprised all the elder men. Each expressed his opinion, and the chief would go along with the majority decision.
Social practices
Many of the social practices of the Kato tribe show how strongly they were influenced by the culture of northern-central California.Children of both sexes were required to observe certain rites at the age of puberty
Puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...
.
Annually in midsummer, a group of boys, ranging from 12 to perhaps 16 years old, were led out to a solitary place by two men, one of whom was the teacher. Here, they received instructions in mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
and the supposed origin of customs
Customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
, such as the mortuary rites, shamanistic practices and puberty observances. In the winter, these boys assembled again in the ceremonial house and remained there during the four winter months for instructions on tribal folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
.
At puberty, a girl began to live a very quiet and abstemious life for five months, remaining always in or near the house, abstaining from meat, and drinking little water. She was not permitted to work, lest she catch a cold.
Marriage was arranged between the two persons concerned, without consulting anybody else. Having secured a girl’s consent, her lover would sleep with her clandestinely at night, and at dawn they stole away. The secret was preserved as long as possible, perhaps for several days, and the news of the match transpired without formal announcement, even to the girl’s parents, who would learn of their daughter’s marriage in this same, indirect fashion. His marriage no longer a secret, the young man might then erect a house of his own.
The bond was no more easily tied than loosened, for either could leave the other for any reason, the man retaining the male children and the woman the female children. Children were not regarded as belonging any more to the paternal than to the maternal side. When adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
was discovered, the only result was a little bickering and perhaps an invitation to the offender to take up permanent relations with the new love.
Funerals
In preparation for burial, a corpse was washed, clothed in good garments, and wrapped in deer skins. A pit was excavated on a dry hillside and the bottom, laid with a floor of poles, covered with bark and several deer skins. On this was deposited the corpse, which was then covered with bark before throwing in the earth.The entire population accompanied the bearers to the grave and wailed loudly. Women, and occasionally men, cut their hair short as a symbol of grief. For persons of prominence, a mourning ceremony would be held in the year following their death. This ceremony marked the end of the mourning period, and those who had hitherto wept became immediately cheerful and smiling.
Religion
The religious conceptions of the Kato tribe are grouped around two deities: Chénĕśh or T'cenes, the creator, who is identified with thunder and lightning, and his companion, Nághai-cho or Nagaicho, the Great Traveler. The latter is a somewhat mischievous personage, who in the myth, constantly urges Chénĕśh to acts of creation, while pretending that he has the knowledge and power to perform them, if only he has the desire to do so.In mythology, as in other phases of their culture, the Kato tribe showed their susceptibility to the double influence to which they had been exposed. With a creation story of the type prevailing in central California, they preceded it with an account of a race of animal-people who were swept from the earth by the deluge — a theme characteristic of North Pacific Coast mythology.
The creator, Chénĕśh, who is identified with lightning, dwelt in the sky. Below was an expanse of water, with a rim of land in the north. With his companion, Nághai-cho, he descended and turned a monstrous deer into land. Chénĕśh created the people, but Nághai-cho made the mountains and the streams. In everything, the latter tried to outdo Chénĕśh, playing the role (usually assigned to coyote
Coyote
The coyote , also known as the American jackal or the prairie wolf, is a species of canine found throughout North and Central America, ranging from Panama in the south, north through Mexico, the United States and Canada...
) of the buffoon and trickster.
Cahto people also belonged to the Kuksu religion.
Shamans
The shamans of the Kato tribe were of three classes:- the 'ŭtiyíņ', who removed, by sucking, the foreign object that caused disease;
- the 'náchǔlna', who cured illness caused by woodland creatures; and
- the 'chģhályiśh', who were not healers at all but the restored victims of the diminutive "outside people", possessing the faculty of foreseeing the future in dreams.
The ŭtiyíņ became medicine-men by instruction, not by supposedly supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
agencies; but the others acquired their power solely through dreams. When the old men of a village deemed it advisable to have a new ŭtiyíņ or "sucking doctor", either because of the death of some of the shamans or because of their waning power, the active and the retired shamans selected a promising young man and with his consent took him away from the village to a solitary place in the hills. The one who had been selected to be his instructor and "father" would pray and instruct the young man in the secrets of the medicine-men.
When a medicine-man was summoned, any others of that profession who happened to be nearby could come and observe. If the medicine-man first called upon could not effect a cure, he would then ask the assistance of one more capable than himself.
While engaged in his work, a shaman would beseech the unnamed powers for help, naming the various mountains of the region and asking the spirits resident there to assist him. He would also call on Nághai-cho, and occasionally on Chénĕśh.
Population
Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. KroeberAlfred L. Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber was an American anthropologist. He was the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and played an integral role in the early days of its Museum of Anthropology, where he served as director from 1909 through...
put the 1770 population of the Kato at 500. Sherburne F. Cook estimated the pre-contact populations of the Kato at 1,100. James E. Myers thought the total might be 500.
External links
- Cahto Indian Tribe, official website
- Round Valley Indian Tribes, official website
- Cahto (Kato), Four Directions Institute