Yurok (tribe)

Reconstruction of a Yurok Native American plankhouse constructed of redwood boards.

The Yurok, whose name means "downriver people", are Native Americans whose ancestors, by some estimates, have lived for at least 10,000 years^{[citation needed]} near the Pacific Ocean coast of Northern California and Southern Oregon, United States.

Following encounters with white settlers moving into their aboriginal lands during a gold rush in 1850, the Yurok were faced with disease and massacres that reduced their population by 75%. In 1855, most of those that remained were forcibly relocated to the Yurok Indian Reservation on the Klamath River.

On November 24 1993, the Yurok wrote a constitution that details the jurisdiction and territory of their lands. The Yurok are currently the largest group of Native Americans in the state of California. The Yurok reservation of 63,035 acres (255 km²) has an 80% poverty rate and 70% of the inhabitants do not have telephone service or electricity, according to the tribe's webpage.

Population

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. (See Population of Native California.) Alfred L. Kroeber (1925:883) put the 1770 population of the Yurok at 2,500. Sherburne F. Cook initially agreed (Cook 1976:165), but later raised this estimate to 3,100 (Cook 1956:84).

By 1870, the Yurok population had declined to 1,350, according to Cook (1976:237). By 1910 it was reported as 668 or 700 (Cook 1976:237; Kroeber 1925:883).

See also

• Yurok traditional narratives

External links

• Yurok Tribe's webpage

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Cook, Sherburne F. 1956. "The Aboriginal Population of the North Coast of California". Anthropological Records 16:81-130. University of California, Berkeley.
• Cook, Sherburne F. 1976. The Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization. University of California Press, Berkeley.
• Kroeber, A. L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.

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