The Prehistory of the Pomo

The prehistoric Pomo people were in Sonoma County at least 10,000 years based upon dating the obsidian tools found at archaeological sites at SSU. There are many midden sites on the coast that have been recorded with shells, human and animal bones, as well as lithics (prehistoric tools and remains), and groundstone tools. Pomo translates into Red Earth People.

Originally there were about 10,000 Pomo in Healdsburg in prehistoric times. They gathered around a pond that is now the cetral square where there is a fountain. They had dances aqnd they woreTurkey and flicker feather headdresses. Animal hides were worn around their waist and they had flutes and whistles as well as drummers in a circle. The dancers were singing songs in different languages. The dancers were dancing as if they were birds - a connection to their Creator in the sky. They wore earings made of abalone shell and they passed around a pipe which had a native tobacco in it. The dancers were spiritual people and they sang in a very difficult language.

The men and women had very different roles. The men hunted and fished in a group, rarely alone. They built the wikiups and they built the round houses. They also spent their time making baby baskets. They did some of the fire making to keep the fires going all the time. They told stories to each other in their round houses which were off limits to the women. They also knocked the acorns down from the trees so the women could pick them up.

The women were the chiefs of the tribes as they raised the babies and wove medicine baskets. They obviously were the ones who wove the most intricate baskets and they made decisions as to what to do during different seasons and how their children should be raised. Their baskets were for medicinal purposes, for gifts, and for weddings. Grace Carpenter Hudson recorded and collected their baskets. Her husband John spent many years building a house in Ukiah and making friends withe the Pomo. He spent time examining them as his first profession was a dentist. He was then hired by the Smithsonian Institute to record many of their social and medical conditions. He found that they had many problems eating some of the native foods as they could not digest some of them. For instance, the berries of the manzanita were often eaten in quantities and this caused some of the Pomo to die as they clogged their intestines. He also found that their teeth were affected by eating too much ground up acorns with clay and some of the fine dirt used in making acorn soup.

Their house types were wikiups with willow branches and thatched tule which were about 10 X 10 feet for one family. They had separate wikiups for women in their menses. Their lodges were also made of willow and thatched tule and they were about 70 feet long for the gathering of various tribes to dance in in all seasons. They also built semi-subteranean earth lodges about 20 X 20 feet which were the men's ceremonial sweat houses.