The Tolowas are the southernmost of five groupings of Athabaskan-speaking peoples of modern-day southwestern Oregon and northwestern California, all with similar cultures. Historic Tolowa territory comprised over six hundred square miles in extreme northwestern California, more or less coinciding with present-day Del Norte County, California, but extending slightly north across the Oregon border. The land encompasses ocean coastline, a narrow, dense strip of redwood forest as well as fir and oak forests, and Lake Earl and the Smith River and its tributaries.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, there seems to have been no strong sense of tribal identity among the Tolowas. They referred to themselves as simply Hush or Huss—their word for "person" or "people." The name Tolowa came from Yurok neighbors to the south, and referred to only one of three bands, the other two being the Hennaggi and the Tataten. According to contemporary Tolowa, Tolowa may be translated as "Those People Who Live at Lake Earl." However, the Tolowas did have a strong sense of village identity. The basic unit of their society, the village consisted of family houses made from redwood planks, occupied by patrilineal kin groups having exclusive rights to the food resources of their area. Tolowa villages were located along the coast but were abandoned during the summer months, when the Tolowas traveled to beaches to harvest smelt and inland to harvest acorns.
Villages were autonomous, and were governed by headmen determined by individual wealth in chipped obsidian, redheaded-woodpecker scalps, and dentalium. Village lineage tended to be centered around the headmen. Formal ties between villages occurred through blood kinship or marriage. Marriages were typically between men and women from different villages, with the couple residing in the man's village. Frequently Tolowa men even married women from neighboring Yurok, Karok, or Chetco tribes.
The Tolowas' first recorded contact with Europeans occurred in 1828 when they encountered Jedediah Smith as he traveled through California and Oregon. At that time the tribe was located in eight different villages. The precontact Tolowa population may have been as large as 2,400, but it had declined significantly by the mid-1800s because of epidemics of cholera, measles, and diphtheria (and perhaps smallpox). The population declined further in the next several decades, largely because of massacres suffered at the hands of Euro-American settlers. In 1870, the Tolowa population was estimated at only 200, and in 1910, at less than 150.
Between 1852 and 1855, the Tolowas were relocated to what they refer to as the Klamath Concentration Camp on the Klamath River, to the south of their territory. In 1860, they were removed to the Siletz Reservation in western Oregon as a result of the Rogue River War. In 1872, the 1870 Ghost Dance reached the Tolowas via the Siletz Reservation, and developed into a local Dream Dance cult among them. In 1929-30, the Tolowas became involved in the Indian Shaker movement.
In the twentieth century the Tolowa population has recovered somewhat; today there are perhaps 500 Tolowas. During the last two decades, the Tolowas have experienced a resurgence; they have revived their language and some cultural practices. The tribe has petitioned the Bureau of Indian Affairs for formal federal recognition. Their application is pending.
Richard A. Gould, Handbook of North American Indians "Tolowa," ed. William C. Sturtevant, vol. 8, California, ed. Robert F. Heizer (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1978); Russell Thornton, Ethnohistory "Social Organization and the Demographic Survival of the Tolowa," 31 (1984): 187-96.
Russell Thornton
Cherokee
University of California at Los Angeles
