Tolowa

The Tolowa people or Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni’ are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. They still reside in their traditional territories in northwestern California and southern Oregon. Tolowa are members of the federally recognized Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation,Elk Valley Rancheria, Confederated Tribes of Siletz, Trinidad Rancheria, as well as the unrecognized Tolowa Nation.

History

Their homeland, Taa-laa-waa-dvn (“Tolowa ancestral-land”) lies along the Pacific Coast between the water sheds of Wilson Creek and Smith River basin and vicinity in northwestern California and the Winchuck, Chetco, Pistol, Rogue, Elk and Sixes Rivers, extending inland up the Rogue River throughout the Applegate Valley in southwestern Oregon in the United States; roughly what are today Curry, Josephine and Del Norte Counties. The area was bounded by Port Orford, Oregon to the north and Wilson Creek, north of the Klamath River, in California to the south. They lived in approximately eight permanent villages in what is now California and Oregon, including on Crescent Bay and Lake Earl. The most important Tolowa village is Yan’-daa-k’vt. Their tribal neighbors are the Coquille and Umpqua to the north, Takelma, Shasta and Karuk to the east and the Yurok to the south.