A NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT IN NORTH‐CENTRAL CALIFORNIA

HE Indians of the several rancherias around Clear lake (a hundred miles north of San Francisco), are now in the throes of a new religious movement, which bids fair to spread soon to the rest of the Pomo culture area. This is not the first time that a new religion has appeared among Indians. We only have to think of the Peyote cult of the Southwest, the Ghost Dance of the ’70s and ’90s in California, the Shaker religion of Oregon, and others. In fact, new religions seem to appear as frequently among modern Indians as they do among modern whites. Whether this has always been so or is a result of the upsetting conditions of modern civilization, is a debatable question. Very little is known positively about the beginnings of most of the modern Indian religions. Since it has been our opportunity to witness the beginning of the present movement, the principal personages of which we have known for several years, it seems worth while to make a record of it. I t is necessary first of all to have in mind the religious-cultural background of this area of California. I t is a sub-area of what may perhaps be called the “Dance for the Dead of the YearInitiation of Boys into the Kuksu Secret Society” complex. This complex forms a wide band, which cuts across the state from west to east, regardless of tribal affinities. I t is a highly ritualized system, with all mystical and religious emotions canalized into prescribed channels, numerous traditional taboos. As against this complex one may set up the religious background of the north of the state (with the exception of the northwest Hupa-YurokKarok nucleus) : no ceremonies, no ritualizations of any kind, no secret societies, very few taboos; but the individual search for “spiritual power” carried to an extreme, merging by insensible degrees into shamanism (among the Pit River people, a t least one man in twenty is a medicine-man). The shamanism of the north T