The Nongatl are almost entirely confined to the drainages of the Van
Duzen River and upper Mad River. Their culture is the least known of
any group in northwestern California. Merriam evidently did not work
in their area although he recorded a few of their words given him by
George Burt's wife. George Burt was a Sinkyone, but his wife was born
and raised near Bridgeville. Goddard recorded some villages for this
group, whose names are given below. Nomland worked with someone from the
Nongatl in 1928 (Nomland, 1938, p. 9), but her results have not been
published.
The territory of the Nongatl lies, for the most part, east of the main
redwood belt. It is therefore no doubt well supplied with oaks, and
plant foods are thus readily available. Salmon are abundant in the Van
Duzen River (pl. 10, _c_) and Yager Creek but not in the Mad River
in eastern Nongatl territory. In much of their territory then, the
subsistence patterns of the Nongatl must have differed from those of
most of northwestern California, where fishing was of primary importance.
According to Merriam (1923) the word Nung-kah^{hl} is "a general or
blanket name used by themselves for all the southern Athapaskan tribes,
from Iaqua and Yager Creek on the north to the northern border of
Round Valley on the south, thus including the Athapaskan Wilakke." In
anthropological literature, however, especially in the work of Kroeber
and Goddard, this name has come to be used for the group living between
Iaqua Buttes and Mad River on the north and Dobbyn Creek on the south.
Merriam's name for this group is Kit-tel´. He does not seem to have
obtained any information from them although one of his notes mentions
the fact that the wife of George Burt, his Lolangkok Sinkyone informant,
was a Kit-tel´ woman.
At times Merriam seems to have confused the Nongatl with the Lassik. In
his general statement on the Nongatl, which follows, he lists them as
Lassik although the area in which he places them marks them as Kit-tel´
or Nongatl.
Las´sik ... Name (from Chief Lassik, now dead) in common use
for a Non-ga´h^{hl} tribe occupying a rather large area, extending
from Iaqua Butte in the latitude of the mouth of Eel River,
southerly to Dobbyn Creek and to the head of Van Duzen River, and
from the eastern boundary of the Lolahnkok of Bull Creek and South
Fork Eel River easterly to Mad River and the crest of the long
ridge known as South Fork Mountain, and southerly to within about
two miles of Ruth on Mad River; to the headwaters of Van Duzen
River (but not reaching Kettenshaw Valley), and to Dobbyn Creek on
the main Eel; thus including the entire course and drainage area of
Larrabee Creek.
There is doubt as to the northern boundary of the so-called
Las´sik for the reason that I have not been able to obtain the
necessary vocabularies for comparison. Goddard's information points
to a division south of the Bridgeville region but I have been told
by both the Nek´-kan-ni´ of Bear River and the Lolahnk[=o]k of Bull
Creek and South Fork Eel that the language is exactly the same from
Iaqua Butte southerly and that the languages of the Nek´-kan-ni´
and Lo-lahn-k[=o]k do not differ essentially from that of the
Larrabee Creek region.
The Indians over whom Chief Lassik held sway had no common
tribal name but consisted of a number of bands or subtribes, now
mostly or quite extinct, said to have spoken the same or closely
allied dialects.
However, since the entire drainage basin of Larrabee Creek is
included in their territory, it may be desirable to adopt the term
Kos´-ten ke´-ah, by which term the Larrabee Creek band was known to
neighbors on the south--the Set-ten-bi´-den ke-ah.