Blue Lake Rancheria Overview -Native American Indian Tribes - Over 2,000 articles on native american indians, their culture & traditions.

TNB->Rancheria India: Blue Lake Rancheria Overview

Posted on Wednesday, March 30 @ 08:02:59 PST

The Blue Lake Rancheria is a California Tribe.

Blue Lake Rancheria
P.O. Box 428
Blue Lake, California 95525

Phone: (707) 668-5101
Fax: (707) 668-4272

E-mail: blrt@tidepool.com
Web Site: Alliance of California Tribes

Tribal Status: Federally Recognized
Membership - Tribe Wide: 53
Membership on Reservation: 30
Membership Criteria: Lineal Descendancy Blood Quantum, Min. 1/16 Approved by Council.
Landbase: Blue Lake Rancheria, 42 Acres
Governing Body: Blue Lake Rancheria Business Council.
Casino: Blue Lake Rancheria
Culture/Language: Wiyot, Yurok, Tolowa, Algonquian, Athabascan
Alternate Spellings: Viard , Wyot, Wyott, and Wishosk are the same as Wiyot; Alikwa, Aliquois, Cuthacs, Eurocs, Eurok, Eurooks, Eurucks, Klamath River Indians, Poh-lik, Tlamath, Weits-pek, Weitspekan, Youruk and Yurock are the same as Yurok; Etchulets, Smith River Athapaskan, Tahlewahs, Talawas, Tolewahs, Tolana, Tollowa, Tollowah and Yantuckets are the same as Tolowa; and Athabascan, Athabaskan, Athapascan and Dene are the same as Athabascan.

Overview:

Blue Lake Rancheria is a federally recognized Indian reservation shared by Wiyot, and a few Yurok and Hupa people. Located in northern California, 12 miles north of Eureka and 5 miles east of Arcata, it currently has only 42 acres. The property gained federal trust status on December 15, 1983.

During the period (1959-83) when it was terminated, the BIA deeded 2 parcels of its land to the non-Indian town of Blue Lake which is not yet recovered.

The Blue Lake Rancheria is located within the traditional territory of the Wiyot people. The Wiyot, like the Yurok, traditionally lived along the Eel and Mad Rivers in northern California, ranging into neighboring forests and prairies. During the 1850s, the Wiyot were not only forced out of their traditional territory, but were killed in large numbers by Euro-American settlers.

Blue Lake Rancheria is governed by a General Council, -- all resident tribal members over 18 -- with an elected 5-member Business Council. A Charter Development Corporation (formed in 1988) manages the tribe's economic activities. The tribe operates under an IRA constitution.

The Wiyot and Yurok are the farthest-southwest people whose language has Algonquian roots. Their traditional homeland ranged from Mad River through Humboldt Bay (including the present cities of Eureka and Arcata) to the lower Eel river basin. Inland, their territory was heavily forested in ancient redwood. Their stretch of shoreland was mostly sandy, dunes and tidal marsh, not rocky cliffs, such as begin a bit further south.

Indian Island, formerly called Duluwat Island, was and is the center of Wiyot world. On the island a ceremonial dance was held to start the new year. The ceremony was called the World Renewal ceremony. All people were welcomed, no one was turned away. The ceremony lasted seven to ten days. It was held at the village site of Tutulwat on the northern part of the island. Traditionally the men would leave the island and return the next day with the day's supplies. The elders, women and children were left to rest on the island along with a few men.

They ate mostly clams and acorns and made long carved log canoes. Healers and ceremonial leaders were mostly women, who got their powers on mountain tops at night.

History

The tribe had been comparatively little affected by the Spanish, whose string of mission-prison camps extended only as far north as San Francisco Bay. The Russian fur traders, whose 18th-century invasion in search of the sea otter devastated the Pomo, were unintersted in their sandy shorelands, not a sea-otter habitat. Destruction came to them mainly with the invasion of Americans following their victory in the Mexican war. Miners, farmers, ranchers poured into California, and many settled at what's now Eureka.

On February 25, 1860, the Wiyot experienced a tragic massacre which not only devastated their numbers, but has remained a pervasive part of their cultural heritage and identity. World Renewal ceremonies were being held at the village of Tutulwat, on "Indian Island" about a mile and a half offshore from Eureka in Humboldt Bay. The leader of the Humboldt Bay Wiyots was Captain Jim. He organized and led the ceremony to start a new year.

A group of Eureka men came stealthily to the island in the early morning after the ceremony was completed for the evening. They were armed with hatchets, clubs and knives. They left their guns behind so the noise of the slaughter would be only screams -- which don't carry far -- rather than gunshots. This was not the only massacre that took place that night. Two other village sites were raided, on the Eel River and on the South Spit. More than one hundred people were slain that night.

Eureka newspapers of the time exulted at the night massacres conducted by the "good citizens of the area". Good haul of Diggers and Tribe Exterminated! were 2 headlines from the Humboldt Times. Those who thought diffrently about it were shut up by force. Newspaper publisher and short story writer Bret Harte called it "cowardly butchery of sleeping women and children" -- then had to flee ahead of a lynch mob that smashed his printing presses.

The Wiyot people were decimated. They were corralled at Fort Humboldt. This was another California case of the Army protecting Indians from their own violent and barbaric citizens. Survivors were herded mostly to Round Valley, establishd as an Indian concentration camp ("reservation") within California.They kept escaping and returning to their homeland.

By 1850, there were about 2000 Wiyot and Karok people living within this area. After 1860 there was an estimated 200 people left. By 1910 there were less than 100 full blood Wiyot people living within Wiyot territory. This rapid decline in population was due to disease, slavery, target practice, protection, being herded from place to place (survivors' descendants describe this as "death marches") , and massacres.

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History