The Sinkyone occupied the territory on the west side of the South Fork
of the Eel from Scotia south to Hollow Tree Creek. From the Mattole
boundary at Spanish Flat south to the Coast Yuki line at Usal Creek they
held the coast.
We have more ethnographic information about the Sinkyone than about
most of the Athabascan groups. Merriam's material and Goddard's data
combined provide a virtually complete village list for the northern,
or Lolangkok, Sinkyone and a few villages for the southern, or Shelter
Cove, Sinkyone. Kroeber's Handbook (1925_a_, pp. 145-150) gives a fair
amount of general ethnography and this is well augmented by Nomland's
paper (Nomland, 1935).
Sinkyone territory is in the redwood coastal zone and this location no
doubt reduced somewhat the supply of vegetal food. The Sinkyone were,
however, well supplied with fish products by the Eel River, which not
only had an excellent salmon run but also provided quantities of lamprey
eel.
On the basis of Merriam's linguistic evidence the Sinkyone have been
divided into a northern group, called Lolangkok after the native
name for Bull Creek, and a southern group, called Shelter Cove after
a sheltered spot on the coast midway between the Mattole and Yuki
boundaries. This division is rendered somewhat questionable by the
unreliability of Sally Bell, Merriam's Shelter Cove Sinkyone informant.
It is doubtful, however, whether Sally Bell's linguistic information
could be falsified. In any case, the separation is partly verified by
Goddard's data and I have therefore accepted it.
The Merriam notes contain a comparatively large amount of material on
the Lolangkok Sinkyone. The following general statement on that group is
taken verbatim from that source.
The Lo-lahn´-k[=o]k. Information is from George Burt, a member
of the tribe, who was raised on Bull Creek at the rancheria called
Kahs-cho´-chin-net´-tah about seven miles upstream from Dyerville,
at a place now known as Schoolhouse Flat, and who now lives near
Fortuna (1922).
The territory of the Lo-lahn´-k[=o]k began on the north at
Shively and covered a narrow strip on the east side of the main Eel
River to Dyerville, and a much broader area on the west side, and
continued southerly on the west side of South Fork Eel River nearly
to Garberville. On the west it not only covered the South Fork
drainage, but continued over Elk Ridge to the head waters of Upper
Mattole River.
The southern boundary ran a little north of Ettersburg,
Briceland, and Garberville.
Informant states that on the east side of South Fork Eel River
their territory included only the immediate river valley.
Merriam's informant from the Southern Sinkyone was Sally Bell. She had
evidently lived at Briceland for more than thirty years when she was
interviewed in 1923. Nomland (1935, p. 149) says of her that she was
"born Needle Rock; reared from childhood by white settlers, married
Coast Yuki, Tom Bell; blind, senile, sees spirits in rafters, etc."
(See fig. 1, _d_.) This group Merriam describes only in a brief general
statement, summarized as follows.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Athabascan tattooing noted by C. Hart Merriam.
_a_, _b_. Whilkut women, _c_. Bear River woman from a sketch made by
Merriam in 1921. _d_. From a sketch made by Merriam of the Shelter Cove
woman named Sally Bell.]
To´-cho´-be ke´ah is their own name and the Lolahnkok name
for the tribe (and village) in the Briceland region (between the
South Fork of the Eel and the coast). It is used also in a larger
sense for all bands speaking the same dialect from the west side of
the South Fork of the Eel River (in the Garberville region) to the
coast. The Set´tenbi´den [Lassik] call this group Yis-sing´-kun-ne.
The name of the group is pronounced To-cho´-be ke´ah by the
Lolahn´k[=o]k and Taw-chaw´-be-ke´ah by themselves.