a state society (i.e., Euro-American) in the historic past, manu- factured either by direct political or indirect economic pressures (1975). Thus, the concept "triblet" may, indeed, describe the situation in the entire Country.

To reiterate, in California, triblets were organized around a central community for a number of nearby sub-ordinate settlements. However, in northwestern California, political organization was characterized by extreme fractionalism; the triblet was a loosely connected set of separate settlements, and people clustered in a town or village which did not have the sense of cohesiveness and continuity of other areas. Individualism, or atomism, was the rule for the Tolowa, Hupa, Chil- ula, Wiyot, Karok, and Yurok. Within certain class boundaries, north- western California was characterized by a man struggling for himself and his immediate family--competition rather than cooperation was the ideal (Bean 1974).

Factionalism of the typical triblet pattern was reflected in other aspects of northwestern California culture. For instance in regard to marriage practices:

... apart from the generic tendency to seek wives 'downstream,' the Tolowa and Karok sought wives not only in the immediately adjacent Yurok dis- tricts, but also to some degree in farther ones; and the Yurok reciprocated correspondingly. The Hupa and Chilula, on the contrary, exchanged wives and husbands with the Yurok almost exclu- sively in the Weitspus district. This differ- ence seems to be connected with the Tolowa and Karok being on the upstream-downstream line, as the Yurok construe the world, but the Hupa and Chilula living in a 'side-stream' or 'up-hill' direction. Intercourse and relations evidently flowed most freely along the main thoroughfare of the Klamath and its coastwise 'continuation' (Waterman 1934: 3-4).

and, continuing;

There is an unexplained tendency of men to seek their wives downstream. This holds not only as between most of the Yurok districts, but for Karok and Hupa in respect to Yurok and for Yurok in respect to Tolowa (Waterman 1934: 14).

Also, in terms of kinship;

The five little ethnic groups that carry the northwest California culture in its most devel- oped form--the Yurok, Wiyot, Tolowa, Karok and

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