Native Americans website
American indigenous languages
American Indian tribes list
Yurok [archive]
This article has been archived from the now-defunct MSU E-Museum (http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/)
for educational purposes. Please visit our Article Archive Index for
further information. If the author of this article would like to make changes to it, or if you are the author of another article you would
like us to add to our archives, please contact us.
Yurok
Land:
The Yoruk tribe settled at the mouth of the Klamath River and the Pacific coast. Today they live on some small reservations in California.
Language:
The Yurok language is Macro- Algonquian, closely related to many of the dialects of neighboring tribes.
Traditions:
The Yurok traditionally lived in villages in the winter and wandered in bands in the summer. The Yurok villages consisted of small rectangular structures made of cedar posts and poles and split cedar planks. These homes were owned by individual families. Along with these houses came the rights to such privileges as fishing, hunting, and gathering. These villages also had sweathouses that served as dormitories for the men, as well as small separate women’s menstrual huts. The traditional dress of the Yurok men included a deerskin loincloth and deerskin moccasins with elk hide soles. The women wore knee length deerskin skirts that were heavily ornamented.
The Yurok had two staple sources of food, acorns and salmon. According to Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Their basic food was the acorn, which was ground and stored as flour.” Along with the acorn, the Yurok tribe fished the Klamath River for the staple food of the Northwest tribes - salmon. The Yurok also sgathered berries and roots and hunting wild fowl and deer. The Yurok’s also produced a magnificent array of basketry and produced canoes from plentiful redwood trees. These objects were many times sold to inland tribes for currency.
The Yurok tribe had a monetary system which was based on the shell of the dentalium. The denatlium is a type of mollusk found in Pacific coastal waters. These small tube-shaped shells were strung into 27 inch long strings that formed the basic unit of currency. Along with dentalium shells, obsidian blades, woodpecker scalps, and albino deerskin were items of wealth. Wealth was an extremely important concept in the Yurok culture. Unlike many of the Native American tribes, the Yurok’s believed in individually owned land. A man’s wealth was measured by the amount of land he owned and it was often sold to one another. The value of a man’s life determined his social status.
History:
In the early 1800’s, the British and American trappers started to settle on the Yurok land. Soon afterwards a rush of settlers came to profit in the California Gold Rush of 1826. As for the Yurok’s, they lost most of their land, although some small reservations still exist in California today.
Additional Reading
Yurok Language
Yurok Tribe
California Native American Tribes
Read our article submission guidelines
Yup'ik language
Aztec
Navajo code talkers
Selu
Would you like to help support our organization's work with endangered American Indian languages?