He first took note of her in days --- really years --- long ago when he and his family would make occasional trips down the running channels of the Kaweah River to the delta-like eastern shore of the great lake. He and his father would float a load of equipment downriver on a raft and, when they put up camp along the shoreline, they would spend their days fishing and hunting waterfowl. In the right season, they would build new canoes made out of long tules. And when they paddled along the shoreline, looking for good spots, they would occasionally pass the village of Yimel and, sometimes, he would catch glimpses of children playing in the shallow water or helping their parents with household chores.

Later on, he had inquired of village boys about her and learned that her father was of the moiety connected with the totemic animal antelope. He had been delighted to hear this since his father was a coyote, from a different moiety group. While Chunuts did not require marriages outside of the moiety group, it was the normal accepted course.

He had never seen this girl at any of his own family feasts that brought together many branches of his own extended family. And he had tried hard to question older members of his family to assure himself that there was no chance that she was a remote part of his lineage. Perhaps, in fact, he had been too questioning, for some of his aunts had taken note of his interest in this girl from Waitatshulul.

When they had both grown older, they had met, once, at a social gathering on the lake. He had teased her and she had blushed and run away. Some other girls had teased her for her "interest" in him. He knew that she might be his but he wondered if there were other boys in competition with him.

In the end, it would be their families who would decide. He would arrange to have one of his favorite uncles take a trip to Waitatshulul and, there, he would coincidentally renew some acquaintance with her family. He would probably talk about his brother's son, now almost fully grown and an excellent hunter, who had caught more fish last spring than his own father. He would probably talk about the Big Time, next autumn, and how he was sure that his nephew would be there and would win in some of the competitions. And he would promise some gifts of deer meat and acorns from the Black Oaks near his own village.

Her parents would not take this chatter naively and would know that they should look into the background of this family and the character of this young man. And, eventually, they would send some presents of their own to the uncle and to the boy's parents. Perhaps one of these would be a perfectly fashioned basket made by the girl herself, demonstrating that she had learned her skills well.

On this day in late spring, the boy looked across the grassy hillside and past one of the Kaweah's numerous channels and felt strong and manly. He thought how fortunate he would be if, that winter, he could move into the household of this girl and demonstrate both his love for her and his qualities as a man. His mind jumped ahead to the next year when, all being well, he would bring her home to his father's village and build their own thatched house and he would return to his life within his extended family. Perhaps she would be pregnant and they would have a child who would be a coyote like him.

All of the aspects of material culture, enumerated in the previous two chapters, proceeded and developed within the overarching structure of indigenous society. With few exceptions, these were small cooperative societies. The skills of food acquisition and manufacturing were taught and learned within this context. And, here, people passed from birth through maturity to death.

When we think of the Indians of North America, it is natural to think of tribes as their primary social institutions. A tribe is essentially an ethnic nation which is unified by its possession of a common history, language, and culture. As generally understood, the tribe also possesses political unity which reflects clear leadership and the ability to act collectively. Early experiences with tribes of the Eastern Coast confirmed these traits. Early in the 20th Century, however, Alfred Kroeber observed that California tribes, recognized for their participation in a common language and cultural heritage, did not identify themselves politically and, consequently, rarely acted collectively or recognized any particular political authority over them. "Tribes did not exist in California in the sense in which the word is properly applicable to the greater part of the North American continent," Kroeber wrote. And he continued, saying, "when the term is used it must therefore be understood as synonymous with 'ethnic group' rather than as denoting political unity." (Kroeber, 1922; 283)

In seeking political unity and collective activity of any kind, Kroeber asserted, we must subdivide the tribe into regional groups and these have come to be called tribelets. A tribelet occupied a small region, representing an habitual association of people and including several villages or settlements. While these people identified with the cultural heritage of their tribe, they had defined their own heritage sufficiently to establish independent aspects of oral history and probably spoke a distinct dialect of the tribal language. Only in the dynamics of the tribelet did Kroeber and others find signs of collective activity and recognition of some central authority, in other words, a true political identity. However, even this level of tribalism seemed lacking along the Northwestern Coast where even a single village could fail to possess political unity.

For the most part, then, each tribal area in California was made up of several tribelets. Kroeber himself estimated the existence of 500 tribelets, ranging from 100 to 500 people in size; however, later population estimates make it clear that tribelet sizes must have ranged upward to 1000. The tribelet region allowed for a number of village sites; and the density of sites, hence the overall population, depended upon the wealth of resources available within the ecological zone(s) involved. Individual village names were usually determined by specific features of the village locale.

As quickly as we accept the basic political strength of the tribelet, however, we have to acknowledge various exceptions and divergencies; the generalization was violated in both directions. There were, indeed, some California tribes that behaved along more classical lines --- perhaps the Yokuts, Yumans, and Chumash. At the same time, there were tribes that apparently expressed little political coherence at all no matter how small a region one considered --- perhaps the Yurok and Washo. Even within regions where California's indigenous people conformed to the generalization of tribelet political unity, there were other organizational structures, or institutions, that tended to bond tribelets to tribes or even bond people beyond normal tribal boundaries. The restrictions imposed upon marriage often made marriages across tribelet, and even tribal boundaries necessary; thus, intermarriage and consequent family alliances bound tribelets together in various ways. Furthermore, even if there was little formal structure for inter-tribal alliances and trade associations, the economic and strategic importance of such associations was often strong enough to exert real political force. When family relations crossed tribal boundaries, they often tied together diverse topographical and ecological features of the environment; thus, they achieved enduring strength because of the ways in which they tied together resources that might otherwise be disfunctionally separated by tribal barriers. (Bean, 1976; 103-4)

As I have mentioned above, the tribelet contained several villages, depending upon the density of resources. These villages were typically of different sizes; but while the larger villages typically enjoyed higher political status, each village had the same essential structure, including its own political and social hierarchies. The smallest villages were little more than extended families with, perhaps, a few "resident aliens." Other villages involved several family lineages. Few villages in California grew larger than 100 people.

The Family

The family was the principal starting place for all social organization. The specific pattern of family formation and association chosen by a cultural group resulted directly, over a long period of time, in the formation of villages and tribelets. One was born into a family; the family provided nourishment and security; the family educated its children and associated with them, later, as married adults; one died within one's family and was mourned by them. Family was the context in which all life was lived; the extended family was the actual expression, for any present, of the timeless path of people (ancestors and successors) spanning past-into-future.

The basis of family lies in marriage customs. Whom could a young person marry and when? In California, marriage followed puberty rather closely and most first marriages involved little difference in age. Later marriages either came as a result of divorce or death and might result in significant age differences. Both marriage and divorce were largely "family affairs" and neither was more formally institutionalized. What was culturally institutionalized was the pattern of acceptable marriages. This pattern was dictated by lineage and by moiety, where moiety groups existed. For most Californians, marriage was exogamous (or outward bound) with respect to both.

When an acceptable marriage partner had been identified, the central custom that regulated marriage was a negotiation between families that rested on the concept of a "bride price." This did not always mean literally that a young man, or his relatives, had to pay a specific amount to the bride's family; it could mean that he might contribute to her family's well being in other ways, even working off the "bride price" as a debt to them. Furthermore, it could be a more subtle negotiation of "suitability" based on subjective assessments of family status and objective assessments of personal strengths and capacities. Was the young man a good hunter? Could the young woman weave baskets? Where in a stratified social milieu did the families lie? The seriousness with which the "bride price" was taken varied considerably throughout the state. For instance, it was taken quite seriously in the Northwest and was trivialized or even ignored in the Great Basin, east of the Sierra.

Marriage was a practical rather than romantic institution. This is not to say that passion, love, and affection were not involved, especially in first marriages; but it is to say that marriage was fundamentally a partnership that was critical to survival. A young man's character and skills were carefully scrutinized for his ability to provide for the bride and future family through hunting and manufacture. A young woman's character was equally scrutinized for her ability to provide food gathering and preparation as well as women's manufactures, basketry in particular. The family unit was the fundamental economic unit in which basic production occured. People outside of the family unit were, more often than not, burdens to the village community; that is, not being in a strong position for productivity, they had to rely on cooperative sharing by the community.

The pragmatism of marriage was so great, in fact, that a variety of customs were practiced that seem either unusual or outright unacceptable to the European mind. One of these was an almost automatic remarriage to a sister or brother rather quickly after the death of a spouse. Even more surprising to the European, polygyny (a man marrying two women) and polyandry (a woman marrying two men) were also practiced. A man, for instance, might marry two women so that their combined work would effectively maintain the household, provide for child care, and offer mutual support. When the man married sisters in this way, it was an especially effective formula for smooth running of the household, presuming that the sisters had a long, affectionate, and cooperative past. A woman might marry another man so that more food would be brought into the household. Polyandry was especially valuable in ecological regions where the food quest was very challenging and cooperative hunting was already a necessity --- hence, in the Great Basin and desert regions of Southern California. Polygyny was more common and is reflected in various ways --- in language, in the similarity of terms used for a wife's sister and, in practice, in the preference of a widower to marry his deceased wife's sister.

Divorce stemmed from common, if not universal, complaints --- sexual incompatibility, lack of fertility, infidelity, lack of adequate provision for the family, or abuse. One partner simply moved back to his/her family; usually it was the bride who moved back in with her parents. In that respect, marriage was either a fact of actual day-to-day life or it did not exist; though the families might urge a reconciliation, at least until that seemed practically hopeless. If blame could be directed toward the bride, then the husband's family might request some form of reimbursement for the "bride price."

After marriage, where, or with whom, would the young people live and begin their new family? To whom would the children of this family relate most directly? The possibilities are three --- traditional affiliation with the young man's family (patrilineal), traditional affiliation with the young woman's family (matrilineal), and an ambivalent tradition that allowed the couple to decide their own residence, usually, on the basis of economic opportunity (ambilocal). The most common custom in California was a patrilineal arrangement in which the new couple moved in with the man's parents and, when they did set up an independent residence, did so within the patrilineal village. This permanent residence usually followed a preliminary residence of up to one year with the bride's family. In this situation, the husband's character and abilities could be further scrutinized and much of his productivity during the period would go to her family, establishing an obligation to her family and village that would connect him to them over the long term. When born, the children would associate with the father's lineage.

In the patrilineal situation, the young woman almost always retained relations and rights with her parents, within the matrilineal village; this was a factor of great importance in binding together villages and tribelets, both internally and externally. Since marriages were arranged between families who perceived themselves as being near each other in economic and social standing, the cross-binding of families produced by these customs held chiefs and others of significant status together across villages and tribelets and established a unity in the leadership that had to be appreciated in all situations, even in warring raids or spiteful attempts at revenge.

Having considered some of the practical details, we need to consider the systematic details of custom and culture. Virtually all California families followed a principle of kinship exogamy; that is, an eligible young person could not consider marrying a person related by kinship. But who is kin? Each culture had its own particular formula for kinship relations, usually best reflected in their language. In some tribes no one could marry within five generations of kinship associations; among the Cahuilla, for instance, this led to an extremely complex vocabulary of kinship terms through which all of the associations could be mastered. More commonly, no marriages were allowed within three generations. In most situations, the kinship rules forced at least an informal "village exogamy," though the Chumash are interesting for their preference of "village endogamy" even at the sacrifice of lesser kinship distinctions. In Table 3, next page, there is a chart illustrating a very simple patrilineal village for three generations. Note the number of diverse relatives that the young man, at bottom left, must keep in memory in order to select a prospective bride.

In a simple patrilineal village such as the one illustrated here, all of the young women of appropriate age are related. Furthermore, since women have been marrying outside of the village for three generations, there are other young women in surrounding villages who are also related. It is essential, in this situation, that families remain in contact and that children learn their relationships by mastering the complex vocabularies that characterize even the most indirect of relationships. In contrast, consider the widely used English term "cousin" which fails to distinguish the varieties of ways in which a person can be a cousin. This lack of linguistic caution reflects the European's occasional acceptance of cousins marrying cousins.

Table 3. A Single Patrilineal Village

The chief was the principal ceremonialist and most ceremonies involved the economy, either explicitly or implicitly. "First-fruit ceremonies," for instance, were announced and staged by the chief, and they played a very important role in controlling the harvesting of crucial resources so that the harvesting would be a collective experience and not available to a me-first appropriation by individuals. Even ceremonies, like the Cahuilla's "Ceremony for the Dead," or nukil, that have no obvious orientation to economics, played an essential economic role of re-distributing resources over a wide region and across ecological boundaries by a simple tradition of obligatory gift giving. (Bean, 197-;--)

The regular occurrence of ceremonies was also essential to the renewal process of bringing children together from distant villages (sometimes from as far away as 50 to 75 miles) and, ultimately, arranging marriage matches. Because family connections already existed between villages and tribelets, and were continually being established through new marriages, ceremonies served the additional purposes of bringing extended families together and suggesting opportunities for cooperative work or providing opportunities for re-distribution of resources. Continued intra-family and inter-village contact was essential to many aspects of indigenous economy, for instance, setting the boundaries for hunting and fishing grounds and assuring that rights would be respected. Ceremonial practice was important both in binding people and in organizing their activities. It was also important in maintaining a tribe's oral history and passing on gossip and news gleaned from outlying sources and experiences.

While the chief was the traditional, institutional host for these ceremonies, the annual cycle of ceremonies was far too demanding to rest on a single person. Tribelet organization included various lay ceremonialists and priests, as well as dancers and singers, who mastered traditions, took responsibility for passing tradition onward to the young, and implemented ceremonies at appropriate times. By no accident most of these roles were taken on by members of the chief's extended family so that both the system of hereditary chieftainship and of inter-village marriage-at-social-level knitted together all of the people who were mainly responsible for the ceremonial, economic, and cultural life of the tribe.

Another character who figured into most ceremonies was the shaman; but the shaman was not necessarily a member of the chief's extended family. Shamans, indeed, were "credentialled" in quite different ways, and the role of the shaman takes us beyond mere social organization. The following chapter is devoted to discussion of the shaman and the spiritual order that was served by the shaman's role in the community.

Initiation and Other Ceremonies

Two functions of the ceremonialists were of special importance in maintaining tribal culture; these were initiation of the young and laying the foundations for continuation of the tribe's oral history, songs, and dances. The ceremonialists, or priests, who accepted these responsibilities were usually older men or women within the tribelet village. They were respected and feared because of their social stature as well as wisdom. Perhaps they had also gained reputations among the young as strict disciplinarians. At any rate, when a boy was deemed ready, shortly prior to puberty itself, he would be adopted by one or more of these male ceremonialists who would begin his preparation for initiation. Much of the initiation consisted of instruction in the "manly arts" of crafting utensils, hunting, fishing, and engaging in warfare; some of this had already begun years before under parental supervision. But a new element was added to this, namely, more abstract instruction in the spiritual aspects of being a man within the tribe.

A part of this instruction was bearing up to burdens and even extremes of pain; thus, the initiation itself usually involved some ritual infliction of pain on the boys. Actual practices varied throughout the state, but they included being staked down to ant hills, having stinging nettles rubbed all over the body, and even being lightly wounded with arrows. Perhaps the actual form of pain was far less important than the boy's "possession" of an event that truly, once and for all time, marked his passage into manhood.

In other parts of the initiation experience, especially in the southern half of the state, the boys were conducted through an hallucinagenic experience through which, in the ideal, they successfully identified an animal guide. Since this aspect of the ritual initiation relates more directly to the spiritual life, I will defer discussion until the next chapter.

Girls received a similar kind of initiation from older women, though it came with puberty and bore less of the "initiation" character. The issue for girls was that of giving proper instruction, laying down the duties of the woman, exploring the woman's sexual and family life, and informing the girl about the preliminaries to pregnancy and child-birth. The girl's initiation did not involve trials or pain, though a girl under initiation training often had to remain secluded for a long period. And, while the girl usually did not pass through any hallucinagenic ritual to acceptance by the community, her emergence from this training period was certainly celebrated publicly. In some cultures, the Washo, for instance, the girl's "coming out" ceremony was one of the most elaborate, dramatic, and happy celebrations for the community as a whole.

One should mention, in this context, that all California cultures institutionalized a woman's menstruation so that menstruating women confined themselves to separate quarters, removed from the village's center. During this period, the women were relieved of family responsibilities. While the confinement was "justified" by the community as a way of dealing with the "impurity" of menstruation and the spiritually powerful forces linked with it, one can only imagine that this institution also provided a monthly pattern of communication among women, similar to the communication that was provided for the men through the sweatlodge.

We have alluded to the importance of ceremonies but have not really made clear how and why ceremonies were so important. A good, illustrative example is, perhaps, the ceremony for the dead; this was usually an annual ceremony that recognized those who had died since the previous one. (Blackburn, 1976; 225-44) We will discuss the spiritual import of this ceremony later, but the social and economic factors were of almost equal importance. In Southern California, this was the largest ceremony. The village offering the ceremony invited villagers from great distances away; in fact, participation across tribal boundaries was common among certain Southern tribes. (Blackburn, 1976; --) While the host village provided feasting for all participants, those whose deceased were being celebrated were responsible for many generous gifts of thanks to participants, and all participants were expected to bring offerings of foods, resources, or crafted items. In short, the ceremony was an opportunity for a very broadly based re-distribution of resources; and advanced communication, especially within extended families, prepared the way for this by sharing news about scarcities, local hardships, etc.

It is also of great importance that ceremonies provided periodic occasions for the performance of specific rituals important to the maintenance of culture. The Cahuilla's nukil, a ceremony for the dead, was a seven-day re-enactment of their creation story, the birth, rule, and death of Mukat. Thus, the ceremony provided an opportunity to tell or sing or dance all of the society's most sacred stories and to bind them once again within their tribal identification.

Societies and Guilds

There were other social institutions within California tribes and these were recognized as specific societies. These served the further purposes of binding people together and in directing social activity. Some societies were organized around religious practices, special seasonal ceremonies, or ritual celebrations; others were organized around hunting, fishing, and specialty crafts. Since some animals could be hunted effectively only by cooperative activity, the traditional associations that formed hunting parties came to develop wider and more permanent significance. Among the Washo, for instance, there were associations of rabbit hunters and antelope hunters, and there were men in each who were recognized as "head men," e.g., the "rabbit boss;" these men, in fact, loomed larger than chief's in Washo village authority.

In some tribes, craft guilds assumed the proportions of powerful secret societies. Among these were the makers of sinew-backed bows, shell money, and plank canoes. Crucial resources and procedures in the crafts became "trade secrets" and membership was jealously guarded. Where present, craft societies usually produced further social stratification, and members assumed positions of economic and social stature between the chiefly leaders and the common villagers.

In sum, indigenous society in California was closely linked with marriage, child rearing, and maintenance of extended families. People closely identified themselves with village and tribelet and, hence, geographical location. Beyond the tribelet, there was a traditional association with tribe and culture. The place of a particular tribelet, even a particular family, in tribal history was carefully documented in oral history and passed on through story telling. In all California societies there was a certain amount of social differentiation, and this was based primarily on age, wealth, and accomplishment. Because all people felt a deep sense of continuity with the past, family status was transferred to individuals, who guarded it carefully. Survival and security were based on the continuity of past and present, repetition of seasonal activities, revisiting of traditional resources, and reliance on carefully articulated understandings. These were not societies that aimed at individualistic innovation; rather they were based on long-standing cooperation and conformity to tradition.

Bean, Lowell John. "Social Organization" in HNAI, 8

Blackburn, Thomas C. "Ceremonial Integration and Social Interaction in Aboriginal California" in Bean, Lowell John and Thomas C. Blackburn (eds.) Native Californians: A Theoretical Retrospective (Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press, 1976)

Kroeber, Alfred L. "The Tribe in California" in Heizer, R. F. and M. A. Whipple. The California Indians: A Source Book (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971)

Kroeber, A. L. "California Kinship Systems" University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 12, No. 9, pp. 339-396 (1917)