The Southern Pomo and the Long Snake River
Near Healdsburg, California
Long before captains and squatters, this was Southern Pomo country. For thousands of years the Southern Pomo speaking people lived along the lower Russian River, through the Dry Creek Valley and out onto the Santa Rosa plain. Their territory covered much of what is now the corridor from Cotati and Santa Rosa north through Healdsburg toward Cloverdale, and west to the hills above today's Lake Sonoma.
They built their villages in the open, fertile bottomlands right along the river, where fish, acorns, and game were abundant. The river itself carried names long before Russian fur traders lent it theirs. The Pomo are celebrated for something that still stops people cold in museum cases today, their baskets.
Working in both coiling and twining techniques, and decorating some pieces with feathers and shell, Pomo weavers created baskets so fine they are widely regarded as among the greatest basketry traditions in the world. When you admire the wine valleys, remember they were first a homeland, shaped and tended by people who read this river far longer than any vineyard has stood here.
