The first residents of Cloverdale were tribe of Native Americans referred to as 'Pomo Indians'. The Pomo nation was one of the largest Native American tribes in the California. The whole Pomo population lived in territory that includes what we know as today as Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma Counties. There were seven distinct tribes within the Pomo nation at least as the Spaniards saw it, for they are the people who gave these native people the name "Pomo."

"The word 'Pomo' which some believe is derived from Poma, the name of a particular village, was given to us by anthropologists at the turn of the century. Because of similarities of our basketry and culture, anthropologists conveniently saw us as one group. Actually, there are more than 70 different tribes within what is known as Pomo country. We originally had 7 different languages, but only 3 are still spoken. In terms of basketry, though, there is a commonality in our weaving -- the shapes, materials, and techniques we use." -- Susan Billy, Ukiah Pomo, master weaver, teacher

The mineral of magnesite has the name of "po" in all Pomo languages. Today there is speculation that perhaps there was a sacred meaning or story, and if this had something to do with the fact that almost all the Pomo communities called themselves by a name that had this word in a suffix. Magnesite was one kind of material used by the Pomo people to make their money.These seven tribes however all spoke different languages and one did not understand the other. In our county, Sonoma County, the Pomo lived in and today have Rancherias at Cloverdale, Dry Creek, Stewarts Point, Lytton.Pomo Indians are considered the worlds best basket weavers. Baskets were made for practical purposes, but also as medicine and gifts.

"Among our people, both men and women were basket makers. Everything in our lifestyle was connected to those baskets. Our lives were bound the way baskets were bound together." Susan Billy, Ukiah Pomo, master weaver, teacher

In the summer Bodega Bay was an important place for the Pomo. They looked for clams, fished, and hunted seal and got bird eggs from offshore rocks.Pomo people traditionally were what has been described as "the moneyers" of north-central California. There were two kinds of trade items that served as money, that is as items of more or less standard trade value. (The value became greater the further these items were from their source.) Money was beads. Mostly from Bodega Bay came the clamshell beads seen around the edges of both baskets, above, flat, button-like disks which took on a luster and polish with years of handling. For trade, these were kept in strings, made to careful widths and exact diameters, so the number of bead-disks on a string could be measured, as well as counted. The Pomo had an elaborate numbering and arithmetic system -- base 20 and units of 400 -- to keep track of their value, which varied by diameter, thickness, and fineness of polish. The second kind of money-beads, which were controlled by the southeastern Pomo, were made of a grey-white-buff mineral called magnesite, a deposit of which was at White Buttes, near Cache Creek. When fired, these turn beautiful banded shades of pink, orange, buff, often with bits of melted quartzite and other minerals adding to the complex shadings. These were made into tapered cylinders (and sometimes round beads). While the clamshell disks were traded in values based on strings, magnesite beads were valued much higher and traded individually -- Pomo people called the clamshell disks "our silver" and the magnesite ones "our gold." when telling Americans about it. Pomo were invaded during the 18th century by Russian fur-traders.

Through the center of Pomo Country runs the river still called the Russian River. The Russian fur trade was regularized in 1799 when one company received a monopoly charter from the Czar. In 1812 the Russians established a permanent base at Fort Ross on Bodega Bay, which was the main source of the fur animal they sought: the now nearly-extinct sea otter. Russians abandoned this outpost and the Americans began to arrive with the discovery of gold in 1848.The Russian River which the Pomo people counted on during so much of their lives, runs right through Cloverdale. The Pomo's called it, "Shabaikai" or "long snake". The Russians had their own name for the river. They called it, "Slavianka" which translate into "pretty little slav girl."Pomo culture and way of life included many things which we do not have the expertise to include thoroughly here. A short list follows:

The Pomo was a matrilineal people.

Pomo people did then and still do make use of Sweat lodges.

Fishing and Collecting was their main form of gathering food. Acorn collecting was important to them as it was a staple food, it was used to make bread.

Pomo people also practiced "of burning vegetation for the production of better wild crops".

Widows were expected to crop or singe their hair and then cover their face and scalp with pitch and leave it there for a year after their loved-one's death.

There were a few social taboos one which did not allow parents-in-law and children-in-law to look each other in the face or speak or communicate.

In general the Pomo People cremated their dead.

In the practice of their religion they used amulets and fetishes. There was the 'bear doctor' who for the Pomo people was a supernatural power. The Bear Doctor "operated by means of bearskin and other paraphernalia in which he encased himself. " These bear shamans were considered invulnerable and capable of returning to life. These shamans represented the Grizzly and were able to kill all of the tribes enemies. The 'Bear Doctor' also sung, danced, and smoked in order to 'diagnose and suck out disease' .

The author would like to mention here that this small piece of work does no justice to the Pomo people or their culture. It is simply and assembly of facts. Pomo basketry is beautiful and so are the the people. To see fine examples of Pomo work and exhibits of how they lived go take a trip to the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, Mendocino County, CA. or the Jesse Peter Museum at Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, CA.

Bibliography:
www.kstrom.net/isk/art/basket/pomohist.html Paula Giese 1996. The California Indians, Second Edition. Heizer & Whipple University of California Press, Berkeley 1973.

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