included. The house counts for seven sites average 6.3 and since
we are here dealing with informants' memories of inhabited houses, not
house pits, this number need not be reduced. With respect to family
number, the Yurok value of 7.5 is probably too high. For the type of
culture characteristic of the Coast Yuki the more conservative value of
6.0 is probably better. This yields a population of 756, or
approximately 750. It is difficult to see how this estimate could be
reduced.
_Coast Yuki ... 750_
THE YUKI PROPER
Although the Yuki were a populous and important tribe, and although
Kroeber, in the Handbook, devoted three chapters to their culture, they
have been the subject of but one special study. Quite recently G. M.
Foster (1944) resurveyed their ethnography and worked out their village
organization in some detail. He utilized informants who were in their
seventies during the period of 1935 to 1940 and who thus were born no
earlier than 1860. Since the social and political organization of the
Yuki was completely disrupted during the 'fifties, particularly at
Round Valley, it is remarkable that Foster was able to secure so much
apparently quite accurate detail. It is true that certain specific
items of information derived by Kroeber from his informants of thirty
or thirty-five years earlier are more reliable than the comparable data
of Foster, nevertheless the over-all coverage by the latter is more
complete. Foster's account will therefore serve here as the basis for a
computation of population.
There were eight major subdivisions or subtribes, the spelling of whose
names and the precise boundaries of whose territories are slightly
differently presented by Kroeber and Foster. Merely for convenience the
description of Foster is followed here. Of the eight subtribes the most
numerous and most important were the Ukomnom, who inhabited most of
Round Valley. Next in importance were the Witukomnom directly to the
south. Most of Foster's work was devoted to these two groups.
With respect to village organization Kroeber brought out the basic fact
that the tribe was organized by communities, rather than separate and
wholly independent villages (1925, pp. 161-162).
The community always might and usually did embrace several
settlements.... If designated it was referred to by the name of the
principal village. This place name therefore designates at one time
a cluster of several little towns an
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