Ms. Lucy Says

To the American Indian: reminiscences of a Yurok woman By Lucy Thompson

http://books.google.com/books?id=TEn1O3rGzPAC&lpg=PR22&ots=LYrIG8TgjK&dq=yurok%20cultural%20landscape&pg=PA67#v=onepage&q=yurok%20cultural%20landscape&f=false

Chapter IV (Page 81): Traditions of the Ancient White People (the Wa-gas or Wo-ge)
("White" may be a metaphor for "Old" - as in "White Hair" - not necessarily skin pigmentation.) 

The Yurok, coming into the Klamath River region for the first time, found the area inhabited by “a white race of people known among us as the We-gas.” For a time the We-gas and Yurok lived together, but one day the We-gas “abandoned their ancient homes.”  Lucy Thompson writes:

“…in their farewell journey across this land they left landmarks of stone monuments on the tops of high mountains and places commanding a view of the surrounding country. These landmarks we have kept in repair down through the ages in loving remembrance. I have seen many of these landmarks myself and often repaired them…Oh how little we know of the depths of the ages gone; how wide, how profound and deep is the knowledge we seek. A monument of stone, a stone bowl, a broken symbol, a hallowed spot, a lodge of ruins: all this makes a golden page glittering with diamonds that trills the emotions with mysterious longings for truth and light in the depths of the unknown.”

[There’s also something about the uma’a, the wild Indians who “lived apart from towns in caves back in the hills (xviii).”]

Curtis photos (http://www.tendreams.org/curtis/40.htm; http://www.tendreams.org/curtis/50.htm; http://www.tendreams.org/curtis/42.htm & http://www.tendreams.org/curtis/53.htm)