The Pomo of Lake County (Images of America: California)

Secure in their isolated valley until the arrival of the white man, the Native Americans of Lake County and their ancestors lived for more than 12,000 years in this temperate Eden of abundance. The anthropologist who labeled them all by one name was mistaken though; the Pomo were actually 72 independent villages, or tribelets, that spoke at least seven distinct and mutually unintelligible languages. Theirs was a culture without war, without tyranny, without greed–until the Gold Rush. Like native plant seeds, they have blown and been carried and have taken root again and again. Though their history far predates the camera, the artifacts, stories, and historical images collected from this region and its inhabitants can portray, in part, their joy and pain and their powerful ability to change and endure.