On Robert Spott:
As already noted, by 1926 Robert Spott felt increasingly burdened. Foremost was the matter of his Promise. "He was the last Sweathouse Indian on the Klamath River," Harry said, attempting to encapsulate in one sentence the meaning of Robert Spott's trained Indian mind, his comprehensive Indian knowledge, and his finely honed human memory.

But Robert Spott possessed other qualities: Level-headedness. Humility. Selflessness. Qualities which Florence Shaughnessy said an Indian leader needed. Qualities which may have eluded Harry Roberts, being more or less a stranger to them himself!

Perhaps even more important was Robert Spott's ability to express his thoughts in English. Well, at least most of them.

"The Captain had sent him to Whiteman's school at Martins Ferry until he learned English, then when he was eight or nine, taken him out.. .because he had too much Indian to learn," Harry said. I:66

(His) mind was completely full.., as far as Indian Law, Religion, and History ...this is the opinion of the old men: Waukell Harry and George Flounder. They felt that a human mind just could not hold everything. And Robert Spott, forty years ago, knew all that any one Indian could know. I:75

On Education:
The very basis of all their education was to produce an individual. I:77

On Redwoods:
I am a trained botanist. I can sit down and talk with the redwood. It is the reason why I grow plants better than most. I:81

On Indian Thinking:
We are a funny people, these people who think the way we think. We have an awful time trying to communicate with people who don't think the way we do.... .It's not that we don't want to. It is that we do, but we have no contact.

The Whiteman only wants to hear his own answers in his own way. He never stops to hear anything else. So why does he bother to ask the Indian anything?

The Whiteman does not believe what the Indian says. The Whiteman never says what he means. The Indian was trained to.

The Indian's ability to communicate is distinct from his hatred.. .You have no conception of the hatred.. In the younger people it is greater than when I was young. Yes, all Whitemen. It is not reasonable. Yes, it is hatred. There is no explanation.

And that's what I've been trying to do....trying and trying...and I've had a hell of a time. You can't write with hate. I:90

On Anthropology:
Robert Spott wanted me to tell how it felt to be looked at like you were a bug. This is what the anthropologist did. What everybody did. Today I have given you some of The Law. The Law goes on and on. He wanted the story of his people written. He didn't feel different from anybody else in the world. Just like a human being. And he got a little fed up. I:169

On Sentiment / Ritual Crying:
Indians are sentimental. They're real slobs. They're worse than the Irish. They say if you live a life in which you are not ashamed of yourself or what you do, good, bad, or indifferent....Whatever the Yurok did, he gave it his Sunday punch. He didn't give a damn what you or anyone else thought about him. That kind of animal...Christ there is so much...is not ashamed of his emotions. I would say, in the ultimate, when he has made his medicine, and is a Man, in the ultimate nature of things, if he wills to be himself, if his emotions are great, he cries right out in public.

It is the nature of someone who won't quit, who isn't ashamed of himself, who always acts honorably in his own sight.

The Indian feeling about crying: If you can't cry, you cant feel. If you can't feel, you are not alive. I:196-197

On Women:
Understand this: there are many things women were taught. It was considered that women came to knowledge not by study or learning, but by intuition and therefore women weren't taught. Men had to work for their knowledge. This is why women were Doctors. It just came to them. I:88

On Florence Shaughnessy:
Florence Gensaw (Shaughnessy) she knows more than a woman should know. She knows an awful lot no women were ever taught. You can take what Florence says. It is straight stuff. But remember it is a woman speaking and therefore it is limited. She must have learned it as a child. She has knowledge that is man's knowledge. She can tell me things about the things I had (like the sacred stone dishes) that I know no woman was ever told. How she got that knowledge I do not know. I:88

On The Tribal Stone:
I wear a tribal stone.. all the time... .The wearer of this stone is the possessor of the Yurok heritage at all times the stone is worn. The Yurok believed he came from across the sea.. .he believed in a sense of continuity. He believed an object passes from one man to the next for thousands of years. I:79

On The Ocean:
The ocean presented hazards, as well as bounties, dangers as well as greatness. II:1

On Making Love:
They felt anything that was hidden was bad medicine. Making love..they always did this in the daytime...things that were done in the dark were dark things... ...The one exception was fishing with gillnets, that was done at night. II:68

On Fishing Partners:
Your fishing partner.. had to be somebody you could row with. -- There were all kinds of signals you give the other guy. Maybe just the way youre standing or kneeling.. no time to talk, believe me.. .so when you came to run your line, it's night, you lean over the bow and grab the cork line and pull yourself along it... .Double enders. . .were dories.. supplied by the cannery. - - .A standard net used all over the world. Exactly the same net as the Indians had used .... no difference. II:68-69

On Gambling:
Gambling games were an example of mind projection. Two groups stand behind two men who are facing each other. The purpose of one group and one player is to project a mental barrier into the opposite player and group. Captain Spott ......his ability for concentration. He never lost a gambling game ever. II:34

On War:
In a war women would stand in circles around each of these Men.. .this was to let the enemy see and count these men and to keep the men from attacking the invaders in order to let the invaders go away in peace, before the men were turned loose to annihilate them. The records of wars are about one every 200 to 300 years, with tentative, small raiding parties in between. II:128

On Telepathy:
[The Yurok] was subtle and intuitive in social situations. Might visit two or three hours, no talking. Just feeling the emotional tone of the atmosphere. If the conclusion that here were disturbed individuals or families, then one would simply go away. Maybe there has been no conversation whatsoever. II:129-130

On Communication:
These people do not express emotion in the same way the European does. Most of their talking was telepathic anyway. They could be sitting in the room with Dr. Kroeber, and be holding a very complicated conversation. I'm afraid that Kroeber wouldn't have any notion that anything was going on.

In council meetings and things like that all through America, it was wondered at. No one was making a lot of noise and doing a lot of talking. And they would sit around in a circle and smoke a pipe, and every once in a while somebody would get up and say a few words or he would sit down and say them. And then there would be this long period of quiet. These boys were just communicating ... on different wave lengths than the European does. It's very confusing if you don't know what's happening. It gets confusing even if you do.

This is a thing that runs into the realm of psychiatry and psychosomatic experience. It means that you do not deny that which you perceive. If I perceive anything, I accept it. For example, someone calls me over a great distance and I have a feeling that this person is calling me. I don't deny it. This is extrasensory perception.

Now at the end of the paragraph, Kroeber says, "They did not address themselves romantically or riot in emotion." Well, I am sorry as all get out, I don't think Mr. Kroeber was aware of emotion when he saw it. II:137

On Romance:
What could be more stirring than the Madrone Tree throwing away her clothes and dressing in new bark so that her lover the Northwind shall touch only clean skin which has nothing on it to detract from the two lovers having total contact? Just to recite the bare essentials of this myth was stirring enough to cause two lovers to dissolve in ecstasy. II:199

On Treaties:
In California, although treaties were negotiated, they were never ratified by the Senate of the U.S. and so had no force or effect. There are no treaties for California Indians. II:218

On Power Over The Sea:
It was said that in a heavy sea Captain Spott would stand in the bow and spank the ocean down with his paddle. The thing that I know is how he felt. Because I've been in the position to feel it too. And I can tell you just how he stood there, and what he said, because I would too. These paddles were not toys. They were 8 to 10 feet long. They had blades 4 or 5 inches wide. It took men to pick them up, let alone paddle with them. And so if combers were coming in against me, breaking over the boat, I would hook my feet in the boats necklace and I would brace against that and I would beat the ocean and all the time I would be singing to it: "You get back in your place. Dont you know I'm here. Get out of my way." And he would just whale hell out of that ocean. II:258

On Memory Joggers:
Symbolism was expressed by using something gathered at the spot where an experience or thought was acquired. One gathered dried flowers, leaves, rocks, bits of wood, or anything that caught ones eye. These bits of flotsam were call Medicines. Whenever you looked at them again your thoughts went back to that time and you would think those thoughts again. It was a kind of personal notebook. Let me call these symbols memo joggers. A sacred spot....it is necessary to think that spot, have your mind there.. .it is not necessary be there. II:243-244

On Acorns:
Then when the acorns were ripe, that was the deer hunting time too, or just before. Acorns were ripe when they started out of their cups. Then you would go back there again. And you would get to the top of the ridge with all the kids and they would sweep it again. Just as clean, all the dropped leaves and things. You'd get them all off. Then you would take all the kids and go to the top of the ridge and line them up and they would climb the trees and then they would swing and sway back and forth and shake the acorns off, and would all go down the ridge together. The game was to stay together and not get lost. II:299-300

On The Brush Dance:
(The Brush Dance was) the most social ceremony. The Indians believe songs represent curing power, by creating a mood, binding the spectators and the performers into one powerful force.. .the interaction between the crowd and the participants generates a healing power to cure a sick infant or child and sometimes even an adult. II:318-319