Northwestern California
by A. L. Kroeber
Figure A – Early Indian Tribes, Culture Areas, and Linguistic Stocks
(western U.S. excerpt).
National Atlas of the United States.
Legend to map.
A
This history begins with an account of the Yurok, a nation resident on the lower Klamath River, near and along the Pacific Ocean, in extreme northern California (Pl. 1
[Fig. A]),
surrounded by peoples speaking diverse languages but following the same remarkable civilization.
The complete aspect of this civilization is un-Californian.
It is at bottom the southernmost manifestation of that great and distinctive culture the main elements of which are common to all the peoples of the Pacific coast from Oregon to Alaska; is heavily tinctured with locally developed concepts and institutions; and further altered by some absorption of ideas from those tribes to the south and east who constitute the true California of the ethnologist.
This civilization, which will hereafter be designated as that of northwestern California, attains on the whole to a higher level, as it is customary to estimate such averaged values, than any other that flourished in what is now the State of California.
But it is better described as an unusually specialized culture, for the things in which it is deficient it lacks totally; and these are numerous and notable.
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