The Cahto (also spelled Kato, especially in anthropological and linguistic contexts) are an Indigenous Californian group of Native Americans.

Economic development comes from revenues generated by the tribe's Red Fox Casino, located in Laytonville.

[2] Several villages were organized into bands (band names, village name + gentilic suffix (tribe, people of place) kiiyaahaan(gn)): Traditionally, the Cahto made such articles of stone, bone, horn, wood and skin, as were commonly made in northern California.

The primitive costume for both men and women was a tanned deer-skin, wrapped about the waist, and a close-fitting knitted cap, which kept in place the knot of hair at the back of the head.

At a later period, the Cahto garment included a shirt made of two deer-skins, laced down the front and reaching to the knees.

Both men and women generally had tattoos on their faces and the chest: designs consisted largely of upright lines, both broken and straight.

In constructing a Cahto house, a circular excavation about two feet deep was prepared, and in it, at the corners of a square were erected four forked posts.

Many of the social practices of the Cahto tribe show how strongly they were influenced by the culture of northern-central California.

Annually in midsummer, a group of boys, ranging from 12 to perhaps 16 years old, were led out to a solitary place by two men, one of whom was the teacher.

Here, they received instructions in mythology and the supposed origin of customs, such as the mortuary rites, shamanistic practices and puberty observances.

At puberty, a girl began to live a very quiet and abstemious life for five months, remaining always in or near the house, abstaining from meat, and drinking little water.

The secret was preserved as long as possible, perhaps for several days, and the news of the match transpired without formal announcement, even to the girl’s parents, who would learn of their daughter’s marriage in this same, indirect fashion.

The religious conceptions of the Kato tribe are grouped around two deities: Chénĕśh or T'cenes, the creator, who is identified with thunder and lightning, and his companion, Nághai-cho or Nagaicho, the Great Traveler.

[9] The latter is a somewhat mischievous personage, who in the myth, constantly urges Chénĕśh to acts of creation, while pretending that he has the knowledge and power to perform them, if only he has the desire to do so.

In mythology, as in other phases of their culture, the Kato tribe showed their susceptibility to the double influence to which they had been exposed.

With a creation story of the type prevailing in central California, they preceded it with an account of a race of animal-people who were swept from the earth by the deluge — a theme characteristic of North Pacific Coast mythology.

[9] The shamans of the Kato tribe were of three classes: The ŭtiyíņ became medicine men by instruction, not by supernatural agencies.

While engaged in his work, a shaman would beseech the unnamed powers for help, naming the various mountains of the region and asking the spirits resident there to assist him.