Clear Lake Pomo 111
Northern Pomo 112
Central Pomo 116
Southwestern Pomo 117
Southern Pomo 117
Northeastern Pomo 119
Summary 119

The Coast Miwok 120

The Wappo and the Lake Miwok 121

Summary of Estimates 127

Bibliography 128

THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION OF THE NORTH COAST OF CALIFORNIA

BY

S. F. COOK

INTRODUCTION

The present manuscript attempts a reassessment of the aboriginal
population of Northwestern California, from the Oregon line to the Bay
of San Francisco. There are no natural and fixed limits to the
territory. Its outline serves merely the purposes of convenience. For
this reason the individual units within the whole area are based, not
upon natural ecological provinces such as mountain ranges, valleys, or
river basins, but upon ethnic or "tribal" boundaries. Moreover, since
there is no necessary interrelationship between the component parts,
each is considered as a separate entity, and its population is computed
separately. There is no final grand total to be added up, the
significance of which transcends that of any of the constituents.

Since the objective here is the calculation of pure numbers, it is
irrelevant that the natural habitat, the mode of life, the reactions
to environment of the various tribes and linguistic stocks vary
enormously. Such a disregard for the basic principles of ethnography
and human ecology will be tolerated only because the limitations of
space and time demand that the fundamental question "What _was_ the
population?" be answered before opening up the problem of _why_ the
population was no greater or no less. We must know how many people
there were before we can study their equilibrium with the physical or
cultural environment.

The outcome of this study is to augment markedly the previously
estimated number of inhabitants in the region at hand, and, by
implication, the number in the whole state. The magnitude of the
aboriginal population has steadily diminished in our eyes for many
years. I believe it was Powers who thought that the natives numbered as
high as 750,000 or mo