Kroeber, A. L.

1976 Handbook of the Indians of California (reprint). New York: Dover Publications, Inc. (Pp. 391-441).

Territory

Their territory may be described as consisting of the drainage of the Feather and American Rivers; or differently stated, the region from the Sacramento River east to the crest of the Sierra Nevada (p391).

Divisions

A comparison of vocabularies shows very quickly that Maidu speech falls into three languages: a southern one ( Nissinan ), spoken over a full half of the entire Maidu area, and two northern tongues which pass under the appellations of northwestern and northeastern (Maidu). The northeastern Maidu ( Yamani ) inhabit a distinct topographic area: the upper reaches of the ramified drainage of the north and middle forks of the Feather River. The eastern language is not known to have been split into dialects. The northwestern Maidu ( KonKau ) were below the high Sierra, part of them in the foothills where the south, middle, north, and west branches of Feather River converge, and on upper Butte and Chico Creeks; and part in the open Sacramento Valley along the lower courses of the same streams. Habits of life were diverse as were customs of speech (p392).

Settlements

Northeastern Maidu settlements: 1) Oidoing-koyo; 2) Nakong-koyo; 3) Hopnom-koyo; 4) Ko-tasi; 5) Tasi-koyo; 6) Yota-moto; 7) Silong-koyo (p393).

Northwestern Maidu settlements: 8) Paki; 9) Yaku; 19) Bahyu; 11) Tadoiko; 12) Michopdo; 13) Eskini; 14) Yunu; 15) Nim-sewi; 16) Otaki; 17) Tsulum-sewi; 18) Konkau; 19) Taikus; 20) Toto-ma; 21) Tsam-bahenom; 22) Hokomo; 23) Benkumkumi; 24) Kalkalya; 25) Hoholto; 26) Kulayapto; 27) Tsuka; 28) Tsaktomo; 29) Yuma; 30) Ololopa; 31) Bayu; 32) Botoko; 33) Taichida; 34) Bauka (p394).

Political Organization

A group owning a certain territory in common, knowing themselves as a group, acting largely as a unit, but actually residing in several settlements (p396). The area claimed by each village community was very definitely known and sometimes marked. It is stated that four communities in eastern Butte County between Oroville and Mooretown once met to agree on the precise limits of their lands and on certain devices by which these should be marked.. There is no trace of any system of social or political classification other than the village communities, nor of any fictitious or exogamic kinship groups (p398).

The Chief

The chief is said to have been chosen for his wealth and popularity, irrespective of descent. He could be disposed of whenever he became unsatisfactory to the majority (Mountain Maidu). Their chief was hereditary. Evidences of descent as succession in office and inheritance of property rights afford invariably point to the Maidu counting in the male line (p 399).

War

Feuds are likely to have been as common between Maidu villages as between them and foreigners. There is no evidence that any considerable group of Maidu towns ever united in a common movement against aliens (Pp. 400-01).

Marriage

Among all the Maidu, kinship alone is said to have been a bar to marriage. The man was free to wed in his own village or another village. Since his home settlement, however, consisted largely of kinsman, he more commonly went elsewhere for his wife. In normal cases the permanent home of a couple was in the man's village, but a first residence with the bride's parents was the rule everywhere. This was clearly to render services as whole or partial purchase payment, and not a reminiscence of any principle of exogamy (p402).

The Kuksu Cult

The Maidu form of the Kuksu religion is the best known of any (p432). Its general features having been already presented in the comparative discussion of the cult in a chapter on the Wintun, It remains only to indicate tribal individualization (Pp. 432-33).

Kroeber A. L.

1947 Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kroeber breaks Maidu groups into the Mountain Maidu (northeastern), the Northern Hill (northwestern), the Northern Valley (northwestern), the Southern Hill (Nisenan), and the Southern Valley (Nisenan).

 Kroeber divides the California culture area into three portions California (2a) from Kato, Yuki, Wintun, Yana, south to Yokuts and Salinan, the Califronia Climax (2b) which includes the Valley Nisenan and Maidu, Patwin, and Pomo, and the California-Northwest Transition (2c) which includes the Trinity, Wintu, Shasta, Chimariko, Whilkut, Nongatl, Mattole, Sinkyone, and Wailaki

 Kroeber A. L.

3. Basic Report On California Indian Land Holdings. In California Indians IV. New York: Garland Publishing Inc.

 Group ownership of land: triblet and tribe. &endash; In aboriginal times all the Indians of California belonged to definite groups. These groups were characterized by a sense of cohesion; each formed a unit. People belonged to one or another. There was never doubt as to which group an individual was a member of. In second place, each group was autonomous or self-governing, in naive opinion. And in third place, each group claimed, and was admitted by others, to own and use a certain territory (page 8).

 However, the size of the characteristic groups over most of California was much smaller than of the groups in most of the present United States and Canada. In most of this vast area, the group we are accustomed to think of as characteristic is 'the tribe.' Now a tribe might have only a few hundred members, but more often it had a thousand or two thousand, and would run up from there to three of four or five thousand. Around these higher figures something seemed to set an upper limit to cohesiveness. The result is that instead of tribes of ten or fifteen or twenty thousand people, in the aboriginal United States, we are likely to find clusters of several related tribes from two to four thousand each. Such then was the characteristic tribe among American Indians generally (page 8).