Karuk

How did I get here? Um, well, this is where my family's all from.

My mother is Yurok and Karuk from Humboldt County about, if you know California, we're about five and a half hours north of San Francisco.

I'm currently in San Jose at San Jose State University.

And in college, I just started taking Native studies classes and learning more about the longer history.

Thus the Sacramento River was formed.

The Fable of the Animals Karok, near Klamath River, California A great many hundred snows ago, Kariyah, sitting on the sacred stool, created the world.

First he made the fishes in the big water, then the animals on the green land, and last of all man.

But at first the animals were all alike in power.

Then they cut the sinews, but the sun had burned a great hole in the ground.

The Indians know the story is true because they can see the hole where sun burned.

The theft of fire, Karok, near Klamath River, California.

There was no fire on earth, and the Karoks were cold and miserable.

Critically important.

critically important to the survival of salmon and the survival of the Yurok and the Karuk people, salmon people.

And I can tell you that institutions like the agency that I lead for decades told tribal leaders that it would never happen.

It could never happen.

Ancient indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge and the leadership of first peoples have become foundational elements of California's nature-based solutions policy.

What had long been violent historical conflicts are starting to transform into respectful partnerships.

The Karuk tribe in the Klamath Basin has been among the most powerful teachers for me and my team.

So this is a tribe that is a salmon tribe, and they have lived in this far northern region of California along with the Yurok people and others since time immemorial.

This culture centers about the lower Klamath River and extends to the south as far as lower Eel River.

The Indians showing this culture most conspicuously are the Karok, the Yurok, and the Atabascan Hupa.

Only these three tribes practice the so-called white deerskin dance.

The Weshuks of Humboldt Bay, the Atabascan tribes of Redwood Creek and more southern streams, the Atabascan Tolowa of Smith River on the coast to the north, and the Shimiriko of Trinity River to the southeast all show more or less the same culture.

It would seem that the idea of this previous creative race is ever present in the minds of these Indians but has not been carried out either consistently or thoroughly in their myths.

The belief in a previous world or existence of men-like beings or of fabulous races of the past is not uncommon.

The tornet of the Eskimo, for instance, possesses some of the qualities of the Ixeria of the Karok, the Walks of the Yurok, the Kixunai of the Hupa.

Among the tribes of Northwestern California, there is, however, always the underlying idea of the connection between this race and the origin of the present condition of the world, and this fundamental belief distinguishes their conception from the more widely spread similar conceptions.