Native California Quiz | Native American

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Though they were neighbors, intermarried with each other frequently and shared an almost identical material culture, these three tribes spoke three completely unrelated languages;

Answer: Hupa, Yurok and Karok

The Hupa, Yurok and Karok, considered by many anthropologists to represent the southernmost extremity of the Northwest Coast Culture Area -- extending from southeastern Alaska to Humboldt and Del Norte Counties in Northern California -- shared virtually identical material cultures while speaking Algonkian, Athabaskan and Uto-Aztecan languages respectively.

The difference between these language groups is similar to what we find, in European terms, between the Romance/Latin, Slavic and Germanic languages.

They are almost totally unrelated. While this linguistic situation is not totally without parallels in other parts of the world, the Hupa, Yurok and Karok are a striking example.

2. This tribe had what anthropologists, perhaps arbitrarily, describe as being the only truly maritime economy in California:

Answer: Chumash

With multiple sea-side towns whose inhabitants numbered in the thousands and with large ocean-going canoes, it is argued by some scholars that the Chumash were on the verge of achieving a state-level society at the time of European contact. Since the large conifers used to build ocean-going canoes in the Northwest were not available to the Chumash, they fabricated their vessels by stitching together planks to build flexible crafts that were able to withstand the pounding surf of the central coast. With the use of these canoes, they were able to build a largely marine-based economy.

3. The following is the only region of California in which tribes were known to have practiced systematic sustenance agriculture;

Answer: The Colorado River Drainage.

There were several tribes along the Colorado River Drainage that had mastered the use of both irrigation, and alluvial horticulture. Separated as they were from the rest of California by some of the world's most inhospitable desserts, they shared little in common with the rest of the state's residents. By all indications, they had much more in common with the agrarian societies of the American Southwest -- Hopi, Zuni, Acoma and even Navajo.

4. The following tribe spoke a language that has no known relatives in California and that is still something of a mystery in terms of its origins;

Answer: Yuki

In a situation similar to that of the Basques of Europe, no one really knows where the Yuki language came from. While it is in some ways superficially similar to Lakota, it is not similar enough to warrant a direct linguistic relationship and there is little in North America that is even remotely similar.

5. Which Californian tribe is famous for producing some of the finest basketry in the world?

Answer: Pomo

Pomo basket-weavers are world-renowned for their virtuosity. Among most collectors theirs is considered the highest form of the art though the Washoe of Nevada and several African groups excel as well.

6. Ishi, Theodore Kroeber's "last wild Indian of North America," was a member of which tribe?

Answer: Yana

Ishi was a Yana, though by the time of his interaction with Kroeber and the University of California, his tribe had been so decimated that it can hardly be said that he was raised in a typical tribal setting.

7. In the early 19th century, representatives of England's Hudson Bay Company entered the northern Sacramento River Valley and reported encountering riverside towns of over 10,000 inhabitants.

Answer: True

Ten years later, upon their return, these same representatives reported a once thickly populated landscape that had since been reduced to a few small nomadic bands. What had happened is the same story that one sees all over the Americas; a brutal small-pox epidemic had wiped out upward of 90 percent of the population.

8. As did many other peoples along the Pacific coast of North America, Native Californians relied heavily upon annual salmon runs for food. During the 18th and 19th centuries the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers are thought to have hosted some of the world's largest salmon runs.

Answer: True

Old accounts from pre-gold-rush California are absolutely staggering in their descriptions of the millions of fish moving through the systems of these two major rivers. This salmon fishery, thought to be among the richest in the world, was completely destroyed in a few short years during California's gold rush.

9. This tribe, while not governed by any single unit, was spread across North-Central California, from the Yosemite region in the Sierra Nevada, to the coastal region around San Francisco Bay.

Answer: Miwok

The Miwok were an adaptable folk who were able to survive in environments as different as Yosemite Valley and coastal Marin County.

10. True or false; During the 1850's the newly enacted California state government put out a bounty of fifty dollars for every dead native.

Answer: True

Many of the participants in the California gold rush were tenant farmers from back east. They were lucky to see fifty dollars in a year of hard labor, had little or no education, and leapt at the opportunity to kill natives for easy money. It has been argued by many historians and anthropologists that the term genocide is not at all inappropriate when applied to indigenous Californians.

Source: Author maddogmorgan

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor thejazzkickazz before going online.
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Native California Trivia Quiz

Do not recommend trying this one unless you are somewhat familiar with pre-European contact California.

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