Wiyot
The Wiyot are a Native American tribe located in California, known for their rich cultural heritage and historical significance. Traditionally, they established their villages along major streams flowing into the Pacific Ocean, residing in distinctive rectangular dwellings made of split redwood planks. The Wiyot are recognized for their exceptional basketry skills and their adept use of redwood canoes for fishing and hunting sea mammals. Their cultural practices include complex ceremonies aimed at resource renewal and the maintenance of moral order, notable among them being the World Renewal and Jumping Dance ceremonies.
Historically, the Wiyot experienced significant adversity following European American contact, including violent conflicts and displacement, most notably the 1860 massacre at Gunther Island. The tribe's ancestral lands, particularly Indian Island, have faced erosion and unauthorized excavation, leading to the loss of vital cultural sites. Despite these challenges, the Wiyot have made strides in reclaiming their land, with recent returns of significant parcels by local governments. As of 2023, the Wiyot Tribe has approximately 600 registered members, embodying resilience and a commitment to cultural preservation.
On this Page
Wiyot
- CATEGORY: Tribe
- CULTURE AREA: California
- LANGUAGE GROUP: Algonquian
- PRIMARY LOCATION: Northern California
- POPULATION SIZE: 600 (Wiyot, 2024)
The patrilineal, socially stratified Wiyot located their villages of split redwood planked, rectangular dwellings on major streams flowing into the Pacific Ocean. The group was part of the Indigenous American culture of California, and like many central California people, they excelled at Indigenous American basketry. Their redwood canoes permitted effective exploitation of sea mammals and other tidewater resources. When fishing inland waters, they utilized various fish poisons. The Wiyot had numerous complex rites of intensification, particularly the World Renewal, Big Time, Jumping Dance, and White Deerskin ceremonies, whose collective intent was resource renewal, the prevention of natural catastrophe, and a reiteration of the mythical and moral order among the people.
By the time of the initial ethnographic research on Wiyot culture, they had suffered considerable deprivation stemming from contact with European Americans. Whites had slaughtered them in small groups; a massacre at Gunther Island in 1860 killed approximately 250 Wiyot; survivors were forced onto the Klamath Reservation (with the Klamath) and the Smith Reservation.
Indian Island in Humboldt Bay, part of the city of Eureka, California, had been home to two Wiyot villages, Tulawat and Etpidolh. Starting in the late nineteenth century, White settlers built dikes and channels, which caused the erosion of a six-acre clamshell mound beneath Tulawat. The mound was thought to be more than one thousand years old and contained burial sites and artifacts of daily life and ceremonies, all of which are significant culturally and/or sacred to the Wiyot people. In addition to erosion, the site was subject to depredations by unauthorized diggers in the early twentieth century. Furthermore, between about 1870 and 1990, a ship-repair facility operated on part of the site. During this time, the Wiyot were denied federal recognition in the 1950s but regained it in 1990. The Wiyot set up its Sacred Sites Fund to purchase back other portions of Indian Island as they are put up for sale. The fund made it possible for the Wiyot to buy back 1.5 acres of the Tulawat site in 2000. In the twenty-first century, the Wiyot people experienced considerable success in regaining their land. In May 2004, the Eureka City Council unanimously voted to return forty-five acres of Indian Island back to the Wiyot and to protect the island from unwanted development. In 2019, this trend continued, and the city of Eureka returned 202 acres to the Wiyot. Then, in 2022, the Wiyot acquired forty-six acres through a partnership with the Ocean Protection Council. In 2024, Digawututklh, a 357-acre area on the Samoa Peninsula, was returned to the Wiyot as well.
The Blue Lake Rancheria, which includes members of Wiyot, Yurok, Tolowa, and Cherokee descent, belongs to the federally recognized Wiyot tribal grouping, along with the Wiyot. The rancheria was first established in December 1908 via executive order as a refuge for homeless Indigenous Americans. Like the Wiyot and others, the Blue Lake Rancheria lost federal recognition and traditional lands in 1954, which caused many members to leave the area. In 1983 the Blue Lake Rancheria were one of seventeen rancherias who won a class action lawsuit, Tillie Hardwick v. United States, that restored their federal recognition. The Blue Lake Rancheria was finally reorganized in 1989. In the twenty-first century, members of the Wiyot and related Indigenous groups continue to preserve their culture and traditions while promoting community development.
Bibliography
“About Blue Lake Rancheria.” Blue Lake Rancheria, www.bluelakerancheria-nsn.gov/about. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.
Helvarg, David. “Island of Resilience: The Wiyot Reclaim Their Land and Culture from a Dark Past” American Indian Magazine, 2020, www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/wiyot. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.
Kowinski, Bill. “Home at Last.” News from Native California, vol. 18, no. 1, 2004, pp. 16.
“Tulawat Project.” Wiyot Tribe, www.wiyot.us/186/Tuluwat-Project. Accessed 2 Jan. 2024.