Interesting how the development of societies can be accepted for what they were yet called upon to be a marker for some type of negative lifestyle down the road. The Yurok society is one of those.
When Yurok daughters got married, Yurok families would receive a payment from her husband. For the most part, girls were highly valued in the family. But they were expensively bought. The amount of money paid by a man determined the social status of the couple. A wealthy man, who could afford to pay a large sum, increased the couple and their children’s rank within the community. When married, both spouses held onto their personal properties but the bride lived with the groom’s family and took his last name. Men who were unable to pay the full sum of money could pay half the cost for the bride. In doing so, the couple was considered “half-married.” Half-married couples lived with the bride’s family and the groom would then become a slave for them.
Furthermore, their children would take on the mother’s last name. In cases of divorce, either spouse could initiate their split. The most frequent reason for divorce was if the wife was infertile. If the woman wanted a divorce and to take the children with her, her family had to refund the husband for his initial payment. So women were sold and husbands who couldn’t make the payment were set into slavery. Sound familiar?
And the incoming fur trappers, and gold miners wee not exactly the only one’s taking lives. The Klamath River Massacres in 1855 began from incidents between local settlers and local Indians and a rumor of an Indian uprising against the miners along the Klamath River by the Yurok and Karok Native American tribes. A rumor?
Local miners wanted the Indians armed with guns and ammunition disarmed, anyone trading them to the Indians whipped and expelled from the County and any Indian found with firearms after that time was to be killed. Some of the Indians, mainly a group called the “Red Caps”, refused to disarm, and hostilities began between them and the miners. So the tribe was just as much into the killing of settlers as was the opposite. There’s always two sides to history.
Wy69
If the libs weren’t such incredible hypocrites, they’d find a lot of weird things in Indian tribes and culture that don’t comport well with the 21st century WOKE ethos. The fact that they Yuroks sold their women like chattel should be enough to disqualify the name change.