Wiyot

The Wiyot, who call themselves Ku'wil, the people, are an Algic-speaking people of the Humboldt Bay coast of northwestern California, close kin in language and custom to the Yurok. Their homeland ran from the Mad River through Humboldt Bay to the lower Eel River, a country of redwood forest behind sandy dunes and tidal marsh.

Dialect and geography made three divisions: the Mad River, Humboldt Bay and Eel River Wiyot. Each year they held World Renewal ceremonies, centered on the island village of Tuluwat, to begin the new year.

Spanish missions never extended beyond San Francisco Bay, and although Russian sea-otter traders reached the coast in 1806 they did not stay, so the Wiyot remained among the most isolated peoples of California through the early nineteenth century.