Hupa

The Hupa are an Athabaskan-speaking people of northwestern California, whose ancestors moved south from the north around 1000 and settled the Hoopa Valley on the Trinity River. Their territory ran from the Trinity's South Fork toward its Klamath confluence, bordering the Yurok.

Red cedar-planked houses, dugout canoes and basket hats linked them to their northern Athabaskan kin, while sweat-house ceremonies and acorn bread were customs shared with neighboring California peoples. They fished the salmon runs of the Trinity and Klamath, maintained communal fish weirs, and traded acorns and baskets to the Yurok for salt and canoes. Their closest relatives, the Tsnungwe, Chilula and Whilkut, spoke kindred Athabaskan dialects.

Through the centuries up to 1837 the Hupa remained beyond Spanish missions and the maritime fur trade, their valley life undisturbed by outside settlement.