ABSTRACT:  The history of the Hupa in northwestern California after the California Gold Rush in 1848 includes many struggles and wars, of which the Treaty of 1864 was a climax.  This study uses an ethnohistorical approach to examine how culture guided Hupa responses during this era, and influenced the cause, course, and outcome of events.  The cultural themes of the homeland and legal systems of conflict resolution played a key role in Hupa strategies and actions.  The Hupa collectively countered the invasion of settlers in their homeland, and engaged in complex power struggles with the United States Government.  The focal motivation of Hupa efforts was in ensuring the continued possession of their homeland, which was executed through Hupa systems of law and conflict resolution.  The Hupa were successful in their struggle, as the Treaty of 1864 established a reservation encompassing a vast amount of their aboriginal territory, which has remained a foundation for the Hupa to this day.

ABSTRACT:  For the Hupa people of northwest California, reciprocity and acts of exchange are the foundation of the their spiritual relationship with woodpeckers. This article examines how woodpeckers are sacred animals for the Hupa people, and how conscious acts of reciprocity directly influence the tribe’s relationship with these birds. Through textual analysis of more than one hundred years of ethnographic and linguistic records the woodpecker serves as the entry point for discussion regarding traditional Hupa culture. Through examination of this literature it becomes possible to see how the woodpecker influences traditional concepts of spiritualism, wealth, and ceremonialism. Analysis is guided by Marcel Mauss’ The Gift, which asserts relationships are created and maintained through regular acts of gift-exchange. This work examines how reciprocal transaction cycles integrate woodpeckers into the tribe’s spiritual practices and perpetuate the relationship with the birds over generations. This work presents a model for future species-specific studies and complements an already rich body of literature about Hupa culture by describing the traits of their most important spiritual animal. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Timothy Jordan worked for the National Park Service, as an education program manager and interpretive park ranger at Muir Woods National Monument, and as a interpretive specialist and volunteer program manager at Kalaupapa National Park in Molokai, Hawaii.  He lives in Oakland, California and has a Master’s Degree in Anthropology from San Francisco State University.  He is an Editor for California Cultures: A Monographs Series.  He has been studying Hupa culture and human-animal relationships for many years.

ABSTRACT:  In 1839, just nine years before the Gold Rush, French captain Cyrille Laplace visited California for a month with one ship, l’Artémise, and some 460 men. In the “village” of San Francisco he saw few signs of habitation or cultivation, and noted that there were no ships in the harbor, which he considered could be the best in the world. The men Laplace encountered here seemed to be generally unkempt and lazy, but many of the women were graceful and pretty. The Commandant of the Presidio was absent when he called. 

In Santa Cruz he was again disappointed to see ruins and neglect, although the priest of the former mission entertained him very kindly. Here again Laplace noted the people were poor and untidy. However, Monterey appeared to him to be a pretty town surrounded by plantations of fruit trees, cultivated fields and lush pastures. He was welcomed by several California residents, and met Governor-General Alvarado who later came aboard l’Artémise. During this encounter Alvarado suffered an angina attack, and was cared for by the ship’s surgeon. Many people Laplace met believed that the invasion of California, as threatened by the Americans, would be a great advantage for this country.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Professor Colin Dyer is currently Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia. Colin Dyer was born in Portsmouth, England in January 1937. His secondary education was completed at the Portsmouth Southern Grammar School. He began tertiary education at Reading University in England and at l’Université de Nancy in France, and then at Loughborough University (then College) and Nottingham University in England. 

After teaching for several years in secondary schools in Bermuda, France and Guernsey, he completed a Doctorate in Contemporary History at l’Université de Caen in France in 1968 (directeur de thèse, Maurice Lévy- Leboyer at the Sorbonne). 

He was appointed to a position at the University of Queensland in Australia in 1968, and was Visting Professor at the University of Virginia in the U.S.A (1974-1975) and at the University of Victoria in Canada (1992-1993). He has given seminars to doctoral students at, inter alia, the Universities of Toulouse (Le Mirail), Bordeaux (Talence) and Nice in France. 

Over recent years he has taken an active interest in French explorers in the Pacific, and his recent books include “A Frenchman’s Walk Across the Nullarbor”, “The French Explorers and the Aboriginal Australians” and “The French Explorers and Sydney”. He has also published articles on this subject in Russia, New Zealand and Australia. 

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