The San Joaquin Historiansanjoaquinhistory.org/documents/HistorianSummer2016.pdfIce Age mammals such as mammoth, musk ox, bison, camel, llama, ground sloth, and several species of

The Native Peoples of San Joaquin CountyIndian Pioneers, Immigrants, Innovators,

Freedom Fighters, and Survivors

Part One

ByDavid R. Stuart

Summer 2016

The San Joaquin Historian

Published bySan Joaquin County

Historical Society, Inc.Micke Grove Regional Park

P.O. Box 30Lodi, CA 95241(209) 331-2055

www.SanJoaquinHistory.org

© San Joaquin CountyHistorical Society, Inc.

The Historical Society operates the San Joa-quin County Historical Museum in Micke Grove Regional Park in partnership with the County of San Joaquin.

The Historical Society meets quarterly. Membership includes subscriptions to the San Joaquin Historian and the monthly newsletter, as well as free admission to the Museum and waiver of the parking fee for Micke Grove Regional Park.

Well-researched manuscripts on the history of San Joaquin County are welcome. The editor reserves the right to shorten and edit submitted material. Inquiry should be made through the Museum Office.

Copies of the Historian can be purchased at the Museum and viewed online at sanjoaquin-history.org/articles.php.

The San Joaquin HistorianOfficial Journal of the San Joaquin County Historical Society

Summer 2016

On the Cover: Native men in ceremonial regalia at a San Francisco Bay Area mission. Drawing (ca. 1816) and lithograph (1822) by Louis Choris. Lithograph courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Preface ....................................................................................................................................

In the Beginning ..................................................................................................................

Home to Native People for More Than 13,000 Years

The First Human Pioneers (13,000+ to 9,000 years ago) .................................................Milling Stones and Earliest Regional Traditions (9,000 to 5,000 years ago) ..................... Immigrants Adapt to the Rivers and Delta (5,000 to 2,000 years ago) .............................Emerging Regional Cultures (2,000 to 250 years ago) ......................................................

Caring for the Land: Sustainable Resources Management

Digger Stereotypes ……..……………………………....................………………...........Reciprocal Relationships with Their Homelands .............................................................Heartland Landscapes Were Carefully Tended ................................................................Harvest Diversity and Distribution ...................................................................................

The Lifeways of the Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking Nations

How the Nations Were Named and Grouped ..................................................................Map 1: Native Nations in the Early 1800s ........................................................................

Settlement Pattern: Where They Lived ............................................................................Subsistence: What They Ate .............................................................................................Material Culture: Trade and the Tools and Houses They Made .........................................

Clothing and Personal Adornments ..................................................................................Social Structure: How They Organized Themselves ........................................................Religion: How They Sought a Balanced Cosmos .............................................................

Epilogue ................................................................................................................................

Notes ......................................................................................................................................

Sources ..................................................................................................................................

Contents

1

2

4569

11111213

151718182125

252733

34

39

1

In 2011, the San Joaquin County Histori-cal Society was awarded a grant from the

Nature Education Facilities Program, admin-istered by the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The program was funded by a 2006 bond measure for water quality projects that included allocations for public access to natural resources. The grant project at the San Joaquin County Historical Museum was one of forty-four Nature Education Facilities Program projects funded from among more than three hundred applicants.

The grant application envisioned exhibits with three overarching themes:

1. Water—how its distribution and use have shaped human lifeways in San Joaquin County.

2. Population growth and migration and their impacts upon the natural environment and hu-man cultures.

3. Human manipulation of the environment and unintended consequences—from the ways Native nations managed habitats, to the intro-duction of European diseases by the Spanish, to Gold Rush hydraulic mining impacts, and so forth.

Another overarching theme for Native cultures is diversity. The California climate was, and still is, variable, and the topography, geology, soils, plants, and animals extremely diverse. California Indian cultures were also quite varied, as they still are. Native California had more language diversity than any compa-rable area on Earth—there were more than three hundred dialects of about one hundred completely separate Indian languages. Na-tive nations in California managed the natural landscape to foster diversity and used some five hundred species of plants and animals rather

than rely on a few staples. Before Europeans arrived, what is now San

Joaquin County was the most densely popu-lated region in North America except Central Mexico, but it was divided into many small, sovereign nations. Even today, California has the largest number of Indian entities of any state—about 150 organized tribes, two-thirds of them recognized by the U.S. government.

The original purpose of this document was to provide a summary from secondary sources to assist the planning, design, and development of the new exhibits supported by the grant, as well as future exhibits, programs, and media.

Included in Part One, this issue, are: (1) a summary of the ancient prehistory of what is now San Joaquin County, (2) a discussion of the complex ways in which Native nations cared for the landscapes and resources of their homelands, and (3) an overview of the lifeways of the Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking nations of this region shortly before Europeans arrived.

A future issue, Part Two, will include: (4) a summary of Indian experiences after the arrival of Europeans and Americans—San Joa-quin County history from the Native perspec-tive, and (5) a recognition of the remarkable survival of traditional Indian cultures.

Preface

2

It’s a bit of a cliché to include a traditional sa-cred narrative as the lead-in to a summary of

prehistory, culture, and history, but it serves to emphasize that Native people even today hold their own beliefs, their own truths.

The San Joaquin County Historical Soci-ety respects the traditions, beliefs, worldview, and feelings of our Miwok and Yokuts Indian neighbors, whose ancestors called this region home for thousands of years.

The Historical Society recognizes that not everyone shares the interpretation of the past presented in this document. Some American Indians in our community may object to the study of anthropology and to the public display of prehistoric artifacts.1 They may prefer that the Historical Society not share these anthro-pological and historical interpretations.

The Me-Wuk people…will tell you that they have always been in this place. Like most people, their religion speaks of a Creator, and the Me-Wuk believe that their Creator made them on this land. To these people, the terms “pre-history” and “history” hold no great meaning, as they do not divide their existence into these categories.2

Native people are reminded by the telling of their sacred creation narratives that they “were created for this land. And this land was created for [them] and all [their] relatives, everything that’s natural, grand, awesome, humbling, and good—other animals, plants, rocks, waterways, and celestial beings.”3

[Many Miwok and Yokuts Indian creation narratives] speak of a time when there were no people. Instead, the world was inhabited by supernatu-

ral beings, sometimes called the First People, who shared qualities of both humans and other animals.Still remembered and revered, the First People included Coyote-man, Frog-man, Grizzly bear-woman, Lizard-man, Cougar-man and Fish-man. It is said that Coyote-man made the world.

When the Coyote-man had the land all finished and was ready to make the people, he went all over the land and stuck two sticks in the ground where he wished people to live and also gave the places a name. When he had all the sticks out and all the places named, he turned the sticks into men and women.

It was the First People whose acts es-tablished the ways in which the people were to live. And when they were done, their love of their creation, the people, was so great that they changed them-selves into the animals of today.

And so they all became the animals and birds and flowers that are around us even yet.When the people woke up and looked upon the world they found it good. They learned by watching the animals what articles were good to eat. From the grizzly bear they learned that acorn was food. From the [heron] they learned to catch and eat fish. The cougar taught them that the meat of the deer, the elk, and the antelope was to be eaten. They gained wisdom from experience, by observing how the animals and birds and bugs lived.

In the Beginning...

The Native Peoples of San Joaquin County

3

They multiplied and grew strong and built villages, even as the ants. They were happy and worshipped the [Creator], who had given them life, and the sun which kept them warm. And in time, out of natural conditions surrounding them, and the accumulated wisdom of the ages, they slowly evolved a system of habits and customs, certain methods of [gath-ering] and preparing food, certain religious beliefs, and certain ideas of government.4

Coyote. Photo © Angel DiBilio/Shutterstock

4

The First Human Pioneers (13,000+ to 9,000 years ago)

Based on artifacts and other evidence that early Native people left behind, archae-

ologists have concluded that the first human pioneers arrived in the Great Central Valley of California at least thirteen thousand years ago. A series of small groups probably arrived in what is now San Joaquin County from the south, travelling north through the San Joaquin Valley. Routes from the north and east, over the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges, were blocked by Ice Age glaciers and heavy snow. The Pacific Ocean was a barrier on the west, although there is some evidence that Indian pioneers may have migrated along the coast-line. There is much evidence of very early Indian people to the south, around the ancient lakes in the Tulare Basin of the southern San Joaquin Valley (now in south Fresno, Kings, and Kern counties).

Distinctive stone spear points associated with these earliest pioneers have been found in San Joaquin County near Tracy Lake, north of Lodi; near Ione, in adjacent Amador County; near Copperopolis, in nearby Calaveras Coun-ty; near Farmington Reservoir, just into Stan-islaus County; and to the west in Contra Costa County.

The area that is now San Joaquin County had much different plant and animal habitats thirteen thousand years ago. It was the end of the Ice Age. The climate was colder and wetter and heavy snows extended all the way down through the Sierra Nevada foothills. Shal-low lakes fed by glacial runoff, snowmelt, and rainfall dotted the valley. Because so much of

Earth’s water was still locked up in ice, the Pa-cific Ocean was three hundred feet lower than today. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta had not yet formed and the great California rivers ran to the ocean far west of the current Golden Gate. The San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bays we know today were all then just valleys.

There were very few of the early Indian pio-neers. Although they moved around a lot, they probably spent much of their time near Cen-tral Valley lakes and rivers, where important natural resources were concentrated.

The earliest of these Indians hunted large Ice Age mammals such as mammoth, musk ox, bison, camel, llama, ground sloth, and several species of wild horses.5 Those animals became extinct about ten thousand years ago, mostly due to an increasingly dryer and warmer cli-mate, but probably also due to overhunting.

Even when these “mega-fauna” still lived, the Native pioneers probably didn’t rely that much on big-game hunting—claims that they did so may be a stereotype perpetuated by early archaeologists and their first discoveries on the Great Plains. These first Californians likely collected a wide range of plant foods, collected freshwater shellfish, and hunted many smaller mammals and birds.

Every autumn and early winter, mil-lions of aquatic birds—ducks, geese, swans, and shorebirds—descend upon the Great Central Valley of California. Dozens of species of long-distance travelers return to their ancestral wintering grounds to feed and rest in the freshwater marshes, shallow lakes,

Home to Native People for Morethan 13,000 Years


5

and river systems of California’s heart-land. Breeding, for the most part, in the northern wetlands of Alaska and western Canada, these birds have sought seasonal refuge for at least the past ten thousand centuries in the relative warmth of the Central Valley wetlands.6

The waterfowl of the Pacific Flyway pro-vided the early Indians—and all subsequent Native inhabitants of this area—with a rich food source. Imagine this:

Hundreds of ducks crowd the calm lake waters, swimming in closely packed quarters, feeding, grooming their plum-age. The calm water ripples with their passing, darkening as the sun moves to the western horizon. A hunter crouches in the shallows, his head adorned with a startlingly realistic duck mask. He stands absolutely still, head barely above the surface, birds cascading around him, just out of reach. He waits and waits, oblivious to the cold as the ducks settle down for the night. Then he moves infinitely slowly, a waterfowl swimming gently toward shore. Instinc-tively, the birds nearby swim with him toward a gap in the reeds. He stops short, but his feathered neighbors swim ahead toward the reeds. Suddenly, a fine fiber net flies across the inlet and lands atop the unsuspecting birds, gath-ered together and clubbed with light-ning speed by men and women hiding at the waters’ edge. In the confusion, the hunter in the water grabs two birds by the legs as they skelter by.7

Milling Stones and EarliestRegional Traditions (9,000 to 5,000 years ago)

Although populations remained very small in other regions of California during this

period, the population of Native people in the heartland appears to have grown. This popula-tion growth was probably due to the natural resources associated with the rivers and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which began to form about seven thousand years ago as the ice caps melted and sea levels rose.

The climate in central California was warm-er and much drier than now. There was a series of severe droughts, accompanied by periodic monsoonal rains in late summer that caused flooding, erosion, and deposits of the deep allu-vial soils that typify the Central Valley. Carbon dioxide levels in the air soared to the highest point at any time in the prior one hundred twenty thousand years, so despite the droughts, many grasses and small plants thrived.8

For most California Indians of this time, small seeds and grains were a very important part of their diet. They left behind many distinctive, flat milling stones that were used to process these abundant and nutritious seeds.

Picture how it may have been:

The Central Valley. The purple Salvia blossoms have withered in the early summer sun. The chia stems stand dry, the heads bursting with small gray seeds. Flocks of birds dart low over the branching plants, spilling seeds to the ground as they feed off the ripe stems. They take flight as the harvest-ers approach with their shallow baskets, tapping the stems and heads gently so the seeds cascade into the tightly woven tray.The men and women work steadily from one end of the densely packed Salvia plants to the other, passing laden trays to waiting children, who tip the precious seeds into deep carrying bas-kets. Across the valley, small parties of harvesters can be seen working through the yellowing chia stands as fast as they can. Humans are competing with


6

animals for the harvest, which only lasts a few days. The desiccated seeds soon separate from the stems and fall useless to the ground.Back at camp, women and girls sit and kneel, crude flat milling stones be-tween their legs, full baskets of care-fully charred seeds close at hand. They scatter seed on the stone, then grind it steadily with a soft scraping sound, add-ing more seed, sweeping the meal into another basket. Hour after hour they la-bor, turning the harvest into fine nour-ishing meal. Two men come by, hunting spears in hand, in pursuit of the deer feasting on the harvest. They grab a fistful of seeds, mix them with water in a small basket and drink deeply. The nourishing mixture will sustain them for hours.9

Because few artifacts other than milling stones have survived and because many of the living sites from this time were buried deeply under later deposits of alluvial soil, scholars have gleaned few details about the lives of these early Native people.

Recent studies at the Skyrocket site (CA-CAL- 629/630) in the Salt Springs Valley of Calaveras County have, however, revealed early differences between the Native groups of the Sierra Nevada foothills and the northern San Joaquin Valley and Delta. In the foothills, pine nuts and acorns began to become important foods—acorns on a limited basis as an emer-gency food buried in caches for use if needed in late winter or early spring.10

In what is now San Joaquin County, near the end of this period the Native groups began to develop a river adaptation that later led to large, year-round villages along the waterways. Immigrants Adapt to the Rivers and Delta (5,000 to 2,000 years ago)

About five thousand years ago], something changed. Perhaps popu-

lations in some areas rose to a critical point where many groups experienced regular food shortages, forcing major changes in the ways people lived. Or maybe the end of the [preceding four thousand-year period and]…cooler and wetter weather stimulated new direc-tions in [Native] California society. Whatever the cause, the changes...signal the appearance of new ideas and a growing web of interconnectedness.11

A new way of life in this region was first recognized by archaeologists at a number of locations near the confluence of the Moke-lumne and Cosumnes Rivers. This cultural pattern was named after the Windmiller Ranch (CA-SAC-107), about three miles southeast of Elk Grove, on the south bank of the Cosumnes River. The “Windmiller Pattern” is perhaps the most-studied and best-understood regional cultural tradition from this era of Califor-nia Indian prehistory. It spread through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into the San Francisco Bay Area, where it was in evidence at the West Berkeley Mound on Strawberry Creek (CA-ALA-307) and other locations. Although the “Windmiller Pattern” is named for a ranch in southern Sacramento County, more than half of all the known locations tied to this cul-tural tradition are in San Joaquin County.

Based on artifacts and on studies of the Native languages of California, it has been hypothesized that this new cultural pattern resulted in large part from an immigration of people into what is now San Joaquin County. These immigrants may have been displaced by drought from the shores of ancient lakes in what is now northwestern Nevada. The descen-dants of these early immigrants are the historic Miwok-speaking people, so we’ll call them the “Miwok ancestors” (see “The Lifeways of the Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking Nations,” below). They were the first of many immigrant groups to make lasting contributions to San Joaquin County.12


7

The earliest evidence of these Miwok an-cestors appeared about five thousand years ago, and it was found at Blossom Mound (CA-SJO-68), two miles northwest of Thorn-ton near the Mokelumne River. Most Miwok ancestor evidence, however, dates from about four thousand to twenty-five hundred years ago. Living strategies that started during this era were further refined over the following few thousand years and were observed by the first Europeans to arrive in this region.

Fishing became very important. Fishing artifacts such as hooks, trident spears, and net weights—along with abundant remains of small and large fish—were common at Miwok ancestor village sites. Other animal bones and seeds left behind showed wide-ranging use of all the habitats that typified San Joaquin County (detailed below).

In addition to fishing gear, a number of other new types of artifacts appeared. Impressions in baked clay of fine twisted cordage and twined basketry have been found. Bone awls for mak-ing coiled baskets and many other highly styl-ized bone tools were left behind. Finely made stone plummets or “charmstones,” bird bone whistles, marine shell beads and pendants, and other personal adornments were also common.

The Miwok ancestors traded regularly with neighboring groups. Obsidian (volcanic glass) for flaked-stone tools (spear points, knives, and so forth) was imported from Napa Valley and from quarries on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada near Mono Lake. Trade was also lively in Pacific Ocean olive snail shell beads and abalone shell pendants. Quartz crystals, greenstone, alabaster, marble, and other exotic stones were also obtained by trading.

Some of the Natives’ year-round villages were on sand dunes that survived from earlier dry periods to form natural mounds above the floodplains. Other villages were on the natural levees formed by flood deposits along the rivers and sloughs. Some of the village mounds may have been constructed or at least built up by

the Miwok ancestors. Although many of the village sites have been destroyed over the years by flooding, river erosion, levee construction, agriculture, and other modern developments, it appears that by the end of this period there was typically one Native mound village for every several miles of waterway.

The Miwok ancestors had home territories encompassing very diverse natural habitats. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta—where the state’s two great rivers, the Sacramento from the north and the San Joaquin from the south, and several smaller rivers, merge before exiting through San Francisco Bay to the Pa-cific Ocean—included more than a thousand square miles of rich freshwater marsh (much now in San Joaquin County). The roughly tri-angular Delta “stretches approximately twenty-four miles from east to west and forty-eight miles from north to south, and is bounded by the [present-day] cities of Sacramento to the north, Stockton to the east, Tracy to the south, and Antioch to the west.”13

The rivers that cross San Joaquin County from east to west—the Mokelumne River on the north, the Calaveras River and Mormon Slough in the center, and the Stanislaus River on the southern boundary of the County—all supported smaller freshwater marshes and dense swaths of riverside or riparian forest. Those forests included dense stands of cot-tonwood, willow, ash, alder, box elder, black walnut, and oak trees, all festooned with wild grape vines.14

Away from the rivers were valley oak wood-lands and savannas, often several miles wide.15 Acorns were found at Miwok ancestor village sites in amounts that indicate the beginning of their use as a supplemental food. The French Camp Slough site (CA-SJO-91), just south of Stockton, had caches of buried acorns simi-lar to those found at the Skyrocket site (CA-CAL-629/630) (see above). The oak woodlands and savannas transitioned to extensive native grasslands on higher ground, from which small

8

San

Joaq

uin

Del

ta. P

aint

ing

© 2

013

by L

aura

Cun

ning

ham


9

grass and wildflower seeds were harvested. Scientists have studied more than nineteen

thousand fish, bird, and mammal bones from one Miwok ancestor village, the Brazil Mound (CA-SAC-43) on the lower Sacramento River. The evidence at the Brazil Mound included:

Bones from several grassland mammal species ([tule] elk, jackrabbit, [prong-horn] antelope) and several species that preferred riparian woodlands (deer, cottontail rabbits, various furbearing rodents and carnivores); migratory and other waterfowl that were most common in the area during the winter months (ducks, coots, geese, grebes); anadromous fish that migrated each year from ocean to river and back (sturgeon and salmon); and fish that lived year-round in the local still-water lakes and sloughs (thicktail chub, hitch, Sacramento perch).16

Evidence of edible plants at the Brazil Mound included grassland species such as goosefoot, fescue, Brodiaea, and clover. Ripar-ian woodland plant remains included cu-cumbers, blackberries, maygrass, and acorns. Marsh plant remains included the ubiquitous cattail and tule (bulrush) species.

Manzanita berries were also found at the Brazil village, which is interesting because the manzanita plant grows only in the foothills, well above the Central Valley floor. Michael Moratto has suggested that the Miwok ances-tors made summer excursions into the Sierra Nevada foothills, where some of them later permanently relocated (see below).17

The Miwok ancestors’ cultural tradition per-sisted longer in this heartland area than else-where in its broadest range. The French Camp Slough (CA-SJO-91) people apparently contin-ued the way of life until about one thousand years ago, as did the occupants of the Bear Creek site north of Stockton (CA-SJO-112).18

Emerging Regional Cultures (2,000 to 250 years ago)

Later Indian people in what is now San Joaquin County intensified many of the

strategies of the Miwok ancestors. They con-tinued to live year-round in large villages along the major rivers and sloughs. They had grow-ing populations and they learned to utilize the diverse resources of the area even more effec-tively.

By the end of this period, when Europeans arrived, what is now San Joaquin County sup-ported a higher Native population density than any region on the North American continent except central Mexico.

The replacement of flat milling stones with large stone mortars and pestles reflected both the increasing use of acorns—the large oily nuts can’t be as easily processed on flat mill-ing stones—and the year-round nature of the villages. Milling stones had been crudely made and were left behind at multiple campsites; stone mortars were more carefully made and were too heavy to carry very far.

Growing populations may have encouraged the groups to be more interconnected, more reliant on exchanging resources with each other. At the Skyrocket site (CA-CAL-629/630) in Calaveras County, a wide range of obsidian projectile points appeared during this period, including styles from the Great Basin, east of the Sierra Nevada. For the first time, Pacific Ocean clam disc beads were used at the Sky-rocket village, perhaps as a form of money.

The changes at Skyrocket village are thought to be partially the result of the expansion—about two thousand years ago—of Miwok-speakers from their homeland on the east side of the Delta. They expanded into the Sierra Nevada foothills that Miwok-speaking nations occupied when Europeans arrived (see “The Lifeways of the Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking Nations,” below).

The ancestors of the historic Yokuts-speaking


10

Indians had moved into what is now southern San Joaquin County by about one thousand years ago. A village site (CA-SJO-3) near Pes-cadero or Mossdale, on the San Joaquin River south of Stockton, is representative of early Yokuts-speakers who lived in this region.19

Throughout California about one thousand years ago, there is increased evidence of aban-doned villages, groups moving, and of warfare. Perhaps a prolonged drought and growing populations that competed for limited food and other resources caused these reactions. In this area, the big villages seem to have remained occupied as new groups, such as the Yokuts at CA-SJO-3, moved in to establish smaller vil-lages.

The bow and arrow was introduced about the same time (one thousand years ago), re-placing the throwing spear and atlatl (throwing extension). Some scholars think that the in-troduction of this more-effective weapon may have added to strife and warfare; Native na-tions that adopted the bow and arrow certainly had a weaponry advantage over those that did not. Arrowhead styles ranged from small corner- and side-notched types to the unique Stockton serrated type. During this period of emerging local cultures, the manufacture of obsidian flaked-stone artifacts (such as arrow-heads), Pacific olive snail beads, and clam shell disk beads was decentralized; raw materials—rather than completed artifacts—began to be imported so that the finished products could be crafted locally.

[In earlier eras it appeared that Native societies were] basically egalitarian, with leadership in the hands of respected elders, people with long experience or with unusual spiritual powers. From the earliest times…an unpredictable climate of extremes unleashed powerful dan-gerous forces. Those with the ability to intercede with the spiritual world ac-quired considerable power…. This was the realm of the shaman…who were

spiritual forces in the community, not secular leaders.

Rising populations, finite food supplies, much more confined hunting [and gathering] territories, and increasing interconnectedness—all the ingredients for conflict and competition were [pres-ent in this era]. Inevitably, some indi-viduals became community or kin lead-ers…. California society was changing. Egalitarian [groups] gave way to societ-ies with distinct social ranks.20

This new leadership structure (see “The Lifeways of the Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking Nations,” below) may have been related to the increasing need to maximize important re-sources by trading with adjacent nations and by more intensively caring for the land.

11

Caring for the Land: Sustainable Resources Management

To live in spiritual and physical balance in the same small area for thousands of years without feeling the need to go somewhere else, as was the case with my people, requires restraint, respect, and knowledge of the ways of each animal and plant.…By managing the land—burning it, pruning it, digging it properly—we enhance the growth of the plants that sustain us, and the animals upon which we rely.

Kathleen Rose Smith (Yoletamal/Bodega Miwok and Mihilakawna/Dry Creek Pomo)21

Digger Stereotypes

Mainstream American culture has char-acterized California Indians as lazy and

so blessed with a mild climate and rich natural resources that they remained “primitive dig-gers” and did not evolve beyond the hunting and gathering of wild foods to practice ag-riculture. Or, fight and hunt bison as did the Indians on the Great Plains….22

For example, an article from 1948 published in the Sacramento Union stated that Indians were “unenergetic people, low in the cultural scale, satisfied with the comparatively easy living the climate gave them and almost entirely unwar-like.”23

California [Natives were] often por-trayed as living the good life in a land of plenty—with seeds, fruits, and nuts dropping from heavily laden plants, fishes practically jumping out of the water into their arms, and fat, lethar-gic game ready for the taking. But in reality, the productivity of specific species of plants and animals [in Cali-fornia] can vary tremendously from season to season and year to year.24

Reciprocal Relationships with Their Homelands

Recently, there is growing appreciation that Native groups throughout much of Cali-

fornia actively managed diverse habitats for the maximum production of valuable wild resourc-es. They had long-term reciprocal relationships with their homelands.

M. Kat Anderson, Michael G. Barbour, and Valerie Whitworth point out that what early Europeans and Americans perceived as primeval California wilderness was, in fact, usually carefully tended Indian landscapes. “Native American manipulations…allowed certain plants to regenerate so completely that virtually every Euro-American explorer, gold miner, and missionary was fooled into thinking that the land was a wilderness—unaffected by humans.” Ironically, the early chroniclers often used words such as “garden” and “park-like” to describe these beautiful California land-scapes.25

Innovative habitat management supported very high Indian population densities, stable villages, and a myriad of rich cultures—all of which flies in the face of early anthropological theories on the evolution of human societies, theories that emphasized the importance of horticulture, agriculture, and irrigation.

The social organization typical among Native Californians also failed to fit the molds of early anthropologists, the “bands,” “tribes,” “chief-doms,” and “states” used to categorize societ-ies. Most of the day–to–day social interactions of California Indians were within groups that were very small in both territory and popula-tion. The landscape in California was jam-packed with small, autonomous, sovereign na-


12

tions, each consisting of a few hundred people living in one or sometimes two main villages.26

This pattern of social organization starts to make sense when we consider the need to make very specific, local decisions to manage care-fully landscapes and natural resources.

As Sharon Waechter has succinctly stated,

As population grows, it needs more food (and other resources). One way to meet this need is to expand the size of the hunting, fishing and gathering grounds. But if neighboring groups also are expanding, there is likely to be conflict; many wars have started over this com-petition for land and resources, even in our own times. Another solution is to use the same amount of land, but use it more intensively, either by collecting resources that were ignored before, or by managing the land to make it more productive (for example by farming).27

Over the centuries, many California Indian nations developed complex landscape manage-ment practices. Most emphasized controlled burning, but strategies also included pruning, coppicing (pruning a shrub to a few inches above the ground), tilling or digging, thinning, weeding, sowing, transplanting, and selective harvesting. These integrated management practices were coupled with communal bulk harvesting, the storage of resources for winter or year-round use, and distribution via gath-erings, feasts, and trade. It was a sustainable approach to caring for the land that M. Kat Anderson has called “tending the wild.”28

Knowledge of the natural history of places grew out of watching those places for hours, days, years, lifetimes, and generations. [Indians] carried the inherited memory of an ancient, organic, incalculably valuable body of knowledge that was passed down, added to, and passed again through many generations of elders.29

Sophisticated taxonomies, taboos, and harvesting strategies for key resources evolved…. Two overarching maxims…were “do not waste resources” and “do not hoard resources.” Indigenous folklore is rich with messages concern-ing the dire ecological consequences of excessive consumption of resources. According to many tribal legends, inappropriate human behavior toward nature through greed, wastefulness, or disrespect for other lifeforms cause[d] the world to go out of balance.”30

Heartland Landscapes Were Carefully Tended

Controlled burns enhanced many of the plants that served Native people as im-

portant sources of food, medicine, and raw materials (for baskets, cordage, clothing, and so forth), especially through seed germination or sprouting. Purposeful fires also reduced insects and pests (such as acorn weevils and worms), removed debris from the ground surface, opened up pathways in woodlands, fertilized the soil, encouraged straight shoots for basket-ry, facilitated the collection of acorns and other resources, and provided forage that attracted desirable birds and mammals.

In the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and smaller fresh-water marshes, Native groups used intentional fires to manage cattails and tules (bulrushes), which were used for food, as well as for baskets, clothing, houses, boats, and other purposes (see “The Lifeways of the Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking Nations,” be-low). Indian burns expanded open water areas within the marshes, providing habitat for fish and creating feeding, resting, and nesting areas for ducks, geese, and other birds. Removing the dense climax vegetation also promoted the production of seeds that served as important food for waterfowl.31

The park-like valley oak woodlands and savannas paralleling the region’s rivers and sloughs were not wilderness landscapes; they


13

were the product of generations of manage-ment by Native peoples. Burning maintained the structure of the valley oak woodlands, lim-iting brush and encouraging an understory of grasses and wild flowers, valuable themselves for their seeds.32

Valley oak acorn production var-ies considerably from year to year. So-called mast years, when the trees produce heavily, are followed by two or more years of relatively low production. Wildflowers and grasses, on the other hand, will produce abundant seeds and grains almost annually—providing a consistent, dependable food supply.33

To be excellent acorn producers, valley oaks must not be crowded. Fire pro-motes a stand structure of trees with broad, rounded canopies that bear many more acorns. And older trees are more productive: a fifty-year-old val-ley oak may produce only five pounds of acorns, compared to five hundred pounds for a mature tree.34

Although Central Valley grasslands no longer

exist except in a few preserves, they were im-portant and productive. Several bunchgrasses, such as purple needle grass, dominated the rich grasslands, as did many species of annual and perennial wildflowers. Native Americans harvested them for greens and especially for their rich, small seeds (see “Milling Stones and Earliest Regional Traditions,” above, and “The Lifeways of the Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking Nations,” below). Dry-lightning strikes some-times ignited the grasslands, but those natural fires were supplemented by fires purposely set by Native managers. Annual fires favored the grasses and herbs—as opposed to invading woody plants—and stimulated growth the fol-lowing wet season.35

Harvest Diversity and Distribution

As these examples imply, controlled burn-ing by Indians wasn’t as simple as igniting

one big burn at the end of each dry season. Rather, the land was carefully managed with a series of small, planned burns and many other methods and practices to create a patchy mosaic in different stages of regeneration, with

Planned burn of valley grasslands. Painting © 2013 by Laura Cunningham


14

many edges, transitions, or ecotones between habitats. “It is a general principal of ecology that it is the ecotone areas in which the diversi-ty and variety of life are the greatest.”36 Thus, Native management increased local biodiver-sity and, in turn, gave local Native groups the most harvesting choices in response to inevi-table weather perturbations.

Mainstream Americans have oversimplified California Indians’ use of natural resources by emphasizing food “staples” such as acorns, salmon, and deer. But as Alfred L. Kroeber noted, “the food resources of [Native] Califor-nia were bountiful in their variety rather than in their overwhelming abundance along special lines.”37 Many local nations may have harvest-ed more than five hundred species. The annual yield of each of these many species varied substantially, especially when the local weather fluctuated, as Californians know it is prone to do. So the long-term approach was to maintain a very diverse array of natural resources and therefore provide the most harvest choices, the most flexibility.

Acorns certainly became a very important food resource—they were abundant, highly nutritious, easily harvested, and easily stored.

But acorns have disadvantages. They are inedible without lengthy process-ing because of the bitter-tasting tannic acid in them, which has to be leached out before they can be eaten. And this leaching process is very labor intensive. This may be why acorns were only a supplementary food for many thou-sands of years. It’s tempting to talk of an acorn “revo-lution” akin to that elsewhere in the world, when people turned from [wild foods] to agriculture. This grossly overstates the case. All that happened was an intensification of acorn harvest-ing and an acceptance of the greatly increased effort required to process food.38

The managed landscape “patches” were large enough to permit Native nations to mo-bilize their people to harvest resources en masse. Usually such bulk harvesting required people to travel from their year-round village(s) to specific clusters of resources to collect large quantities of nuts, seeds, fruits, bulbs, roots, leaves, or stalks. They transported the harvested resourc-es back to the main village(s) and stored them, usually in baskets specifically designed and made for those purposes.

Stockpiles of bulk-harvested resources pro-vided food during the lean late winter/early spring months, when few food resources were available, and year-round. Stockpiles also supported the groups’ social organization and sacred ceremonies. The size of each Native na-tion’s territory was large enough to provide ad-equate habitat diversity to buffer local weather fluctuations, yet small enough to be carefully managed from one or two main villages.

The small nations also had regional alliances and exchange systems that acted as safety nets against short-term, local resource shortages. Regional trade, ceremonies, dances, and feasts helped distribute surplus resources from one group to another and among families within the group. As Native nations got better at man-aging these interconnected local and regional systems, a sort of standardized monetary sys-tem developed in which certain types of shell beads and other items had a fixed value and served as mediums of exchange.

Of course there were errors in landscape management and breakdowns in these ex-change systems that sometimes led to resource shortages. There were occasional shifts to less-preferred emergency foods, rare periods of malnutrition and related illnesses, and even sporadic violence between groups as a result of raiding or warfare during shortages. But overall, Native care for the land was sustainable and supported very high populations for many hundreds of years, well into the historic period. (See Part Two.)

15

How the Nations Were Namedand Grouped

When Europeans first arrived in what is now California, the region that would

become San Joaquin County was home to many nations of Yokuts-speaking people and many nations of Miwok-speaking people. (Miwok is also spelled Mi-wuk or Me-wuk, de-pending on the preference of each nation.) The names for these Native language groups were devised by anthropologists and linguists based on the Native words for people or persons.

The terms Yokuts and Miwok should not be interpreted as implying any broad overarching political unity. Rather, the terms refer to col-lections of many small, independent, sovereign nations that spoke dialects of shared languages, had cultural similarities, and lived in contigu-ous territories.

Individuals identified themselves as mem-bers of their local nations rather than these broader—and to them largely meaningless—language groupings. Just as we might identify first with our home town or region rather than as English-speakers, the Native people of this area were loyal to their local sovereign nation and found their identity there.

Miwok-speaking nations had homelands in what would become northern San Joaquin County along the Mokelumne River, as well as farther north along the Cosumnes and Sacra-mento Rivers, reaching as far as present-day Sacramento (south of the South Fork of the American River). These many valley-dwelling, Miwok-speaking nations are sometimes collec-tively referred to as the Plains Miwok nations.

Other nations, speaking different dialects and

collectively referred to as the Bay Miwok na-tions, lived in the East San Franciso Bay Area on all flanks of Mount Diablo. The Coast Mi-wok nations lived on the Marin Peninsula and along Petaluma and Sonoma Creeks. Other Miwok-speakers, grouped as the Lake Miwok, and closely related to the Coast Miwok, lived along small creeks southeast of Clear Lake.

A fifth area of Miwok dialect groups occu-pied the west slope of the Sierra Nevada along the Cosumnes, Mokelumne, and Calaveras Rivers on the north; through a center area along the Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers; and south along the Merced, Chowchilla, and Fresno Rivers. These Miwok-speaking nations are sometimes grouped as the Northern, Central, and Southern Sierra Miwok.

Yokuts-speaking nations lived in what would become the south part of San Joaquin County, along the Calaveras, Stanislaus, and San Joa-quin Rivers. These and other Northern Valley Yokuts nations lived on the floor of the San Joa-quin Valley, on the banks of the San Joaquin River and on the lower Tuolumne, Merced, Chowchilla, and Fresno Rivers—south to the present-day city of Fresno.

Farther south were many Southern Valley Yokuts nations along the shores of Tulare, Buena Vista, and Kern Lakes and the lower Kings, Kaweah, and Kern Rivers—the entire Tulare Basin and the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. In the Sierra Nevada foothills to their east—and south of the Southern Sierra Miwok nations—were nations referred to as the Foothill Yokuts.

In San Joaquin County, the dividing line between the territories of the historic Miwok-speaking nations to the north and the historic

The Lifeways of the Miwok- and Yokuts-Speaking Nations


16

Yokuts-speaking nations to the south has often been described as the Calaveras River—a frame of reference that resonates with the use of rivers as modern political boundaries. However, most Native territories in Califor-nia included both banks of all but the largest waterways. It is more accurate to say that the historic boundary was between the Calaveras and Mokelumne Rivers, thus also between the current cities of Lodi and Stockton. But even that oversimplifies, because on the east edge of modern San Joaquin County the Miwok-speak-ing Chilamne and Seuamne nations lived south of the Calaveras River.

The homelands of these Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking nations shifted through the centuries and a confusing range of names and spellings have been applied to them. But through care-ful research of the early records from Missions San José and Santa Clara de Asís (see “The Coastal Frontier,” in Part Two), we can view a snapshot of the names and locations of some of the nations that lived in what is now San Joaquin County during the early 1800s. (See Map 1.)39

• Along the northeast border of San Joaquin County (Dry Creek) into Sacramento County were these Miwok-speaking nations:

The Locolomne, near the present-day town of IoneClose to the City of Galt, the SonolomneOn the Cosumnes River, the Cosomne

• Following the Mokelumne River westward from the Sierra foothills were these Miwok-speaking nations:

The Machemne, whose homelands reached into Calaveras and Amador Counties

The Lelamne, near the town of LockefordNear Lodi, the MuquelemneAt the junction with the Cosumnes River

near the current towns of Walnut Grove and Thornton, the Unisumne

• Other Miwok-speaking nations lived up-stream, on the Sacramento River, into Sacra-mento County, from north to south:

The Ochejamne, near the towns of Hood and Courtland

Near the current town of Isleton, the Quen-emsiaThe Guaypem, north of TerminousSouthwest of Isleton, the MusupumNear Oakley, the Julpun

• In central San Joaquin County, along the Calaveras River, east to west:

The Sacayaquimne Miwok-speaking nation, into Calaveras County

In the vicinity of the town of Bellota, the Chilamne Miwok-speakers

Near Stockton, the Yatchicumne Yokuts-speaking nation

• Along the San Joaquin River and in the San Joaquin Delta, north to south, were the fol-lowing Yokuts-speaking nations:

Around the mouth of Bear Creek, the Tauquimne

Near Old and Middle Rivers, the JalalonThe Tamcan, near the current town of

ByronEast of French Camp, the Nototomne

• Other Yokuts-speaking nations were south of Stockton, along the San Joaquin River:

Near present-day Lathrop, the CoybosThe Cholvon, near Tracy and Mountain

House• On the plains between the Calaveras and

Stanislaus Rivers were the homelands of these nations:

Near present-day Peters, the Yokuts-speak-ing Passasimi

The Tihechemne (Yokuts-speakers), near Farmington and Escalon

17

Map 1. Native nations in the early 1800s. Modern county lines shown for reference, with San Joaquin County high-lighted.


18

Further east, into Stanislaus and Calaveras Counties were the Seuamne (Miwok-speak-ers)

• Along the Stanislaus River, east to west, were other Yokuts-speaking nations:

Near the town of Riverbank, the Gualen-semne

Around Ripon, the LaquisemneThe Josmite, near the junction of the Stan-

islaus and San Joaquin Rivers and the town of Vernalis

• In Stanislaus County, between the Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers:

The Tahualamne Yokuts-speaking nation. • In the Coast Range, and the southwest tip of

San Joaquin County, were Ohlone-speaking nations:

The Luecha, along Corral Hollow CreekNorthwest of the Luecha nation, in Alam-

eda County, the YulienA summary follows of some of the cultural

elements of these historic Miwok-speaking and Yokuts-speaking nations. For more details, see the works listed in Sources, below. Because many cultural elements of the historic Plains Miwok nations and the Northern Valley Yokuts nations were very similar, the two groups will be described together, with significant differ-ences noted.

Settlement Pattern: Where They Lived

The historic Native nations in this area typi-cally had their permanent villages on high

ground along the major rivers and sloughs, spaced a few miles apart, as had their ancestors in prehistoric times. Each was an autonomous sociopolitical entity that controlled and man-aged an array of local habitats, a home terri-tory “seldom larger than ten miles from edge to edge.”40 Historic records document ten or more Plains Miwok villages on both sides of the Sacramento River, from south of present-

day Sacramento, to Rio Vista in the heart of the Delta. A similar number of villages was recorded along the Cosumnes River, as well as on both sides of the Mokelumne River.

Plains Miwok [nations] were rather populous for central California, aver-aging about 400 [people] each. The population density of the Plains Miwok was probably the highest of any group in aboriginal California, averaging over 10 persons a square mile.41

A similar population density has been at-tributed to the northernmost Northern Valley Yokuts nations, especially along and east of the San Joaquin River, as well as along the lower Calaveras and Stanislaus Rivers. Fewer loca-tions and names of villages and specific na-tions were recorded, but the settlement pattern seems to have been similar to that of the Plains Miwoks.

James Warner reported in 1833, before a malaria epidemic of that year (see “Furs and Footholds,” in Part Two), that “On no part of the continent on which I had then or since trav-eled, was so numerous a population subsided upon the natural products of the soil and water [as] in the valley of the San Joaquin.”42 Subsistence: What They Ate

As described in “Caring for the Land,” above, local Native nations supported high

populations by efficiently managing and using the diverse local habitats of the region, supple-mented with resources exchanged with groups in adjacent regions.

They knew the goodness that each of the seasons would reveal.Springtime’s newness meant an abun-dance of fresh greens to eat, both cooked and uncooked, many dried and stored for later use: the succulent stems, leaves, and flowers of miner’s lettuce, [sweet clovers], the as-yet-unrolled fronds of bracken ferns, the herbage of wild pea, and so many more.


19

Summertime brought the ripening of flower seeds, such as those of purple Clarkia, lovely farewell-to-spring, and pungent tarweed. Toward summer’s end and during autumn’s shortening days, [they gathered] blue elderberries…sweet-ened to perfection.In autumn there were also the “wild potatoes,” like the delectable bulbs of Mariposa lily, Brodiaea, and wild onions…. Fall was also time for nuts, like hazel and acorn. During winter the people opened food stores and made and repaired various tools, including nets and baskets, in anticipation of the coming spring.43

Although each local nation’s territory had a slightly different array of habitats and natural resources, all groups gathered a wide range of plant resources. Acorns from valley oak trees—the largest North American oak—were historically a very important part of the diet. The Indians collected them when they fell from the trees in autumn. “An average [Miwok or] Yokuts family would consume about two thousand pounds of acorns in a year.”44 Acorn harvesting, storage, and processing are depicted in the film “Indians of California” and in a number of the listed sources.45 Nuts from the gray pine, California laurel or bay, and Califor-nia hazel were also collected, as were buckeye nuts as a less-preferred, emergency food.

Small seeds and grains continued to be very important, as they had been for millennia (see “Milling Stones and Earliest Regional Tradi-tions,” above). “Tiny seeds harvested on the grasslands may have been as important a carbohydrate source as the flour of the acorn, although the latter was more commonly noted by the early ethnographers.”46 Seeds of balsam root, evening primrose, red maids, spikeweed, Clarkia, tarweed, valley tassels, sunflower, and many other species were harvested. A basketry seed beater dislodged the seeds, which were of-ten caught on a flat basket tray. The seeds were

carried to the village in conical burden baskets and stored in storage baskets.

Bryant described in 1846 “Indian women, gathering grass-seed…with two baskets…. The…women appeared at a distance like so many mowers cutting down grass of a mead-ow.”47

Dame Shirley in 1851 recorded a similar scene:

We passed…a number of Indian women…gathering flower seeds.… Each one carried two brown baskets…woven with a neatness which is abso-lutely marvelous…. One of these…baskets is suspended from the back and is kept in place by a thong of leather passing across the forehead. The other they carry in the right hand, and wave it over the flower seeds, first to the right and back again to the left alternately, as they walk slowly along…. When they have collected a handful of seeds they pour them into the basket behind, and continue this work until they have filled the [burden basket]…. The seeds thus gathered are carried to their [villages] and stowed away with great care for winter use.48

Underground bulbs, corms, rhizomes, and tubers from plants such as Brodiaea, mariposa lily, and many other species were routinely har-vested using digging sticks. Many plants were also eaten as greens, including goosefoot, lark-spur, wild pea, lupine, monkey flower, miner’s lettuce, and clovers. Chokecherries, blackber-ries, gooseberries, elderberries, currants, wild plums, and wild grapes were eaten fresh and sometimes dried and stored.

Two species of tobacco were smoked in tubu-lar pipes. Native people harvested wild tobacco species and sometimes transplanted and culti-vated the plants.

Fishing was very important. Techniques varied from the use of dip nets, seines, casting

20

Gathering small wildflower seeds. Photo by Edward S. Curtis, courtesy of Northwestern University Library


21

nets, and fish traps to spearing/harpooning, deployment of hook and line, and stupefying fish in stagnant pools. Indians caught salmon, sturgeon, and smaller species such as river perch, western suckers, lampreys, and Sacra-mento pike in significant quantities. They ate freshwater turtles, crayfish, clams, and mussels, too.

In the Delta region…the Plains Miwok captured ducks and geese with nets in two distinct ways, either pulling a net over them while they were feeding or raising a net in the path of a flock of low-flying birds, presumably as they were landing or taking flight. …Next to fishing, waterfowling was probably the most important source of animal protein….49

Local Natives caught California quail in large numbers with various devices that included snares, traps, and nets; into the 1870s, coveys of thousands of quail were considered com-monplace. They also took band-tailed pigeons, flickers, and many other birds for their meat and feathers. Jackrabbits and cottontails were hunted in communal drives using nets up to four hundred yards long. Squirrels, beavers, woodrats, and other small mammals were snared or trapped and eaten.

Local Natives preferred deer as large game, which they hunted both communally and on an individual basis with snares and with bows and arrows. Indian hunters were highly skilled at stalking deer. In contrast, they hunted herd animals such as tule elk and pronghorn (ante-lope) by surrounding them with as many as two hundred pedestrian “drivers.” The herd ani-mals were more easily hunted after the Indians acquired horses from Europeans. (See Part Two.)

Grasshoppers…were much esteemed as food and were [also] taken in systematic drives…. An entire village…assembled in an open grassy area, where the insects were abundant. …The people

then formed a large circle…and drove the grasshoppers toward…pits. Men, women, and children swung bunches of grass back and forth like brooms.…When the insects had been corralled in the pits…dry grass was lighted. This singed the wings of those that tried to fly and smothered most of the remain-der. The grasshoppers were in part immediately eaten and in part dried for winter use. In either case they were cooked further [typically parched with coals tossed on a basket tray or baked in an earth oven].50

The only domesticated animal was the dog. (After the horse was reintroduced by Europe-ans, Indians also kept herds of horses. See Part Two.)Material Culture: Trade and the Tools and Houses They Made

To supplement local resources, Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking nations in what is now

San Joaquin County traded with surrounding groups. Their main exports included dried fish and small seeds. They obtained obsidian (vol-canic glass) for flaked-stone tools from quarries on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada (near Mono Lake) via the Northern and Central Sierra Miwok nations. Salt from Salt Springs Valley and other sources came via the same routes, as did pine nuts and certain species of acorns, such as those from black oaks. Marine shells came from the west, from Indian nations near Monterey Bay and the San Francisco Bay Area. Bows came from both directions, as did certain kinds of baskets.

Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking people knew of pottery but preferred to use baskets. They made baked clay cooking “balls” to replace cooking stones, the cobbles for which were scarce in the Central Valley. They traded with groups that regularly made pottery. Yet baskets better met their needs. Baskets were light-weight, strong and durable, and they could be made in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

22

Tule canoe on freshwater marsh. Painting © 2013 by Laura Cunningham


23

California Indians—including those from the California heartland—were among the most accomplished basket makers in the world. The variety of forms, the functionality, and the beauty of their baskets were noteworthy.51

Among the functionally specialized baskets were:• Conical burden baskets for transporting

materials on the back and shoulders (usu-ally with a tumpline over the forehead). The size and type of construction (open or closed weave, for instance) was based on the mate-rial to be carried (acorns, small seeds, berries, and so forth).

• Watertight baskets for storing and transport-ing water.

• Watertight baskets for cooking, in which soups and gruels were heated with hot rocks or baked-clay cooking “balls.” (The hot rocks were stirred to prevent burning the basket.)

• Bowls for serving food and holding other things.

• A variety of storage baskets—often with lids—for keeping seeds, bulbs, nuts, raw ma-terials, medicines, dance regalia, and other goods dry and safe within houses.

• Cradlebaskets for carrying infants.• Seed beaters for harvesting small grass and

flower seeds.• Trays for harvesting seeds, for winnowing

and sifting, for parching seeds by tossing them with live coals, for serving food, and for certain games.

• Scoops or dippers for pouring liquids.• Traps for capturing birds, fish, and small

animals.• Bags for transporting and storing materials.• Gift or exchange baskets for exchange, cer-

emonies, and funerals.This array of baskets was made by twining—

weaving or twisting pliable weft strands around stiffer warp elements—and by coiling, in which

a spiraling foundation coil is wrapped and sewn or stitched to the preceding coil.

Because the Plains Miwok nations were so heavily affected by the Gold Rush (see Part Two), few baskets from this area have survived.

[But] it is known that the warp and weft of twined baskets was usually of redbud or willow… Coiling could have either a 1-rod or 3-rod foundation of willow shoots that coils to the left. Sewing materials included split peeled and unpeeled redbud, sedge root, and bulrush [tule] root… In general Plains and Bay Miwok coiled basketry is said to have been very similar to that of the Pomo [nations from the Fort Bragg and Clear Lake area and famous among California Indian basket makers] and Patwin [nations from the southwestern Sacramento Valley].52

Similarly,very little is known of Northern Valley Yokuts [nations’] basketry due to early disruption…[but most] Yokuts coiled baskets spiral clockwise or to the right (stitches slant left), with non-interlock-ing stitches. The foundation is usually grass stems, though redbud, bulrush [tule], and willow rods are known. The sewing materials are usually split sedge root, split redbud, and imported and dyed bracken fern root for black. Common [Yokuts design] motifs in-clude the diamond or rattlesnake pat-tern, kingsnake and gophersnake pat-terns, zigzags, arrows or triangles, and the quail plume motif. [Animal] and human dance figures are popular, as are ants depicted as lines or clusters of small squares. Ants and quail are con-sidered the enemies of snakes and often occur on baskets with snake designs to warn the snake to behave.53

Mats woven from tules were used for a wide

24

Miwok woman with baskets, El Dorado County. Photo courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley


25

variety of purposes. Bundles of tules were fashioned into buoyant watercraft and the typi-cal house made by Plains Miwok and Northern Valley Yokuts families was comprised of a wil-low-branch framework covered by tule thatch or mats. A semi-subterranean, earth-covered house was sometimes used in winter, primarily by wealthy families or chiefs.

The household group was not large; normally its personnel included a mar-ried couple, their immature offspring, and a possible orphaned sister of either spouse, or an aged relative.54

Houses had a central hearth, sometimes with an earth oven next to it. Tules or tule mats served as mattresses; grizzly, deer, and other skins were used as bedding. Many foodstuffs were stored in baskets inside houses, but there were also exterior acorn granaries. Brush-topped ramadas (shades) provided sun-protected work and living areas. Men used dug-out, earth-covered sweathouses for daily purifica-tion, especially prior to hunting.

Main villages also often had circular brush enclosures for certain community ceremonies. The Miwok-speaking groups that lived in the Sierra Nevada foothills built large, semi-subter-ranean, earth-covered assembly houses. Plains Miwok nations also apparently built these “roundhouses,” which were forty to fifty feet in diameter. According to Frank Latta, archaeo-logical evidence confirms that Northern Valley Yokuts peoples made them, as well.55

Serving as cathedral, university, theater, and town hall, roundhouses are archi-tectural marvels. Semi-subterranean, they are warm in the winter, cool in the summer. The enclosed space with its earthy smells feels as safe and intimate as a womb, yet also feels timeless and infinite. Here in a space both comfort-able and sanctified, stories are told, the sick are healed, weddings and first fruit festivals are performed. Babies are named and the dead mourned, and in

the great cycle of annual ceremonies the Creator is thanked for the gift of life.56

Clothing and Personal Adorn-ments

Men in this area wore buckskin loin cloths; women wore skirts made of tules (bul-

rushes); young children wore no clothing. When the weather was cold, all people used robes or capes of dressed skins (deer, bear, mountain lion, coyote, and so forth) or woven blankets of rabbit skins or bird skins/feathers. Chiefs and their “royal family” members (see below) often wore buckskin belts decorated with woodpecker scalps and shells.

Hair was worn long and uncut, except when cropped or singed short as a sign of mourning, as seen in so many historic photographs.

The hair was brushed with a soaproot fiber brush and washed every few days with the lather of the soaproot plant. The hair was sometimes allowed to flow loosely but a headband of beaver skin, a piece of string, or a leather rope was sometimes used to tie the hair back. Hair nets were worn only on special occasions by most people; only chiefs wore them every day.57

Native men in this region were often heavily bearded.

Teenagers of both genders were tattooed, typically with straight parallel lines on the chin, some extending to the navel. Earlobes and the nasal septum were pierced in childhood—chil-dren wore flowers in their ears, women shell earrings, and men earplugs of bird bone with white feathers. Nose sticks were of polished bone or shell. Necklaces of marine shells were popular.

Social Structure: How They Organized Themselves

Each nation had a chief or captain who in-herited the office from his father. In the ab-


26

sence of a male heir, the responsibility could be passed to a daughter. The chief was the advisor to the group and the manager of the natural resources within the group’s territory (see “Car-ing for the Land,” above). The chief arbitrated community disputes and, as the wealthy host of visitors and provider for the poor, served as the main distributor of group surpluses. The chief sponsored religious and social gatherings and provided food and underwrote the costs of cer-emonies. He or she also conducted foreign rela-tions with surrounding nations, which included issuing invitations to ceremonies, making trade arrangements, and settling disputes. “One native term often used to identify a hereditary leader…means ‘one who watches out for,’ or simply ‘watcher,’ alluding to a leader’s respon-sibility for community welfare.”58

The chief was often differentiated from commoners by the hairnet and decorated belt mentioned above, as well as by a special, bearskin-covered seat. The chief did not do his own hunting or fishing, but was supplied by his sons and other members of his line, typi-

cally young, unmarried men. Meat and fish were provided not only for the chief ’s family to eat, but especially for ceremonies. The chief had ceremonial cooks, designated servers who distributed food to guests at ceremonies, and a fire-tender for the ceremonial assembly house or roundhouse.

In addition to the chief, each nation had one or more speakers or criers who made procla-mations—often from the top of the ceremonial roundhouse—and solicited donations of food and ceremonial regalia on behalf of the chief. “Desirable behavior was reinforced through…these speeches [at the] beginning of each day, reminding people of the personal attributes necessary to maintain the harmony of the group, and to encourage people to behave ac-cordingly.”59 Each group also had a messenger or herald—a kind of secretary of state—to deliver invitations to surrounding groups.

The local Native nations divided all living things and other elements of their environment into two categories (called moieties by anthro-pologists). Each person belonged to one or the

The roundhouse at Chaw’se, Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park. Photo © Jeff Banke/Shutterstock


27

other of these categories based on the person’s male family line. These two halves or sides of the world were called by Miwok-speakers “land” and “water” and were represented by totemic animals, such as Bluejay and Frog. Yokuts-speaking groups farther south used the terms “upstream” and “downstream” for the two categories, but the Northern Valley Yokuts in this region may well have used the Miwok terms. The sides played special roles in many ceremonies (see below), and people usually married a spouse from the other side.60

Mission-register evidence for pre-mis-sion marriages suggests that about half the people found spouses among other families within their own local [nation]. Another 40 percent of a local group’s spouses came from villages of directly neighboring [nations] up to 16 miles away. Only rarely would someone mar-ry and move to a village 30 or 40 miles distant from their original home.61

Religion: How They Sought aBalanced Cosmos

For thousands of years, the ancient Californians regarded the universe

as a complex network of interactions between humans and spirit beings, which controlled the movements of heavenly bodies, the changing seasons, and the living things that inhabited the earth. They believed that people could deal with the uncertainties of human existence by performing the proper rituals and correctly using the power acquired from the supernatural. This involvement with the supernatural brought understanding of the cosmos, of a complex, cyclical world. From the very beginning, the living and spiritual worlds intersected in a seamless human existence, a masterly synthesis of myth, legend, and storytelling that defined the world, validated [leaders’] authority, and proclaimed another web of inter-

connectedness between living people and the demanding territories in which they lived.62

The sacred narratives of the Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking nations were similar. They told of pre-human beings that bore animal and bird names (see “In the Beginning,” above).

The major characters…are Coyote, Prairie Falcon, and Condor. Condor is the father of Prairie Falcon, and Coy-ote is Condor’s father and Prairie Fal-con’s grandfather. Many…Miwok [and Yokuts sacred narratives] relate the victories of Coyote and Prairie Falcon over monsters that formerly inhabited Miwok [and Yokuts] territory.63

Grandparents and other elders told many entertaining stories, especially on long winter nights. These stories were fun to hear, but they also had morals and they taught children prop-er behavior. The stories answered many of the questions that children always asked about the world and the mysteries of life. They taught and reinforced the values of the society and connected children to their living surroundings.

The homelands that Native people knew so intimately were filled with stories, stories shared for generations that gave meaning to and united all aspects of their world,

stories that turn[ed] raw space into meaningful space…. The message…, the big story, [was] something like this: Everything is alive. All life is sacred and mysterious. Everything, every life, is interwoven, the warp and weave of a precious basket. The basket holds all we are and can hope to be.64

A Yokuts prayer end[ed] this way:My words are tied in oneWith the great mountains,With the great rocks,With the great trees,In one with my body


28

And my heart.Do you all helpWith supernatural power,And you, day,And you, night!All of you see meOne with this world!65

One ancient ceremony to which surrounding nations were invited was the annual mourning ceremony, or “cry,” which honored the group’s dead. The multiple-day affair included feasting and gambling, but the ceremonies focused on a symbolic reviving of a costumed dancer, effi-gies of the dead, the ritual washing of mourn-ers by visiting chiefs, and the destruction of property to honor the dead.66

Alfred L. Kroeber pointed to the nations of present San Joaquin County as the originators of a grizzly bear ceremony:

The uzumati or grizzly bear ceremony came to the central Miwok from the west or northwest, they say; that is,

probably, the northernmost Yokuts such as the Chulamni of Stockton, or the Plains Miwok. The performer, who was a dance impersonator and not a bear doctor or shaman [(see below)], carried curved pieces of obsidian attached to his fingers in place of the bear’s claws. He imitated the animal in his dancing. This description accounts for the hith-erto unexplained “Stockton curves,” as antiquarians have come to call the semilunar flaked objects of obsidian found in…the San Joaquin delta.67

Anna H. Gayton described a bear dance among Yokuts-speaking nations:

The Bear Dance was one of the most important ceremonies of the year. It always took place in the fall after the new acorn crop had been gathered and stored. …The dance was supposed to be a replica of real bears’ antics; they were said often to dance with trees. A man was out hunting once about sundown and saw a little bear dancing

“The Coyote’s Coming.” Painting by Grace Hudson, 1902. Collection of Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House, City of Ukaiah, Calif.

29

Obsidian “Stockton Curves.” Photo courtesy of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and the Regents of the University of California


30

mourning ceremony, first seed and acorn rites, and the bear dance oc-curred in the fall.69

Dancers in the most-sacred ceremonies were often chosen because of their social, political, or economic status. They underwent initia-tions and strict instruction. They had to make, handle, and care for their dance regalia prop-erly. The dancers typically wore elegant feath-ered regalia, such as headbands made of flicker feathers, special hairnets, headdresses, belts, earrings, and cloaks. Along with the prestige the dancers enjoyed, they had huge responsi-bilities because if they did not behave as they should, illness or catastrophe could befall the entire nation.

There also were more “secular” dances primarily for entertainment. Singing was ac-

beside a small oak tree. He was stand-ing on his hind legs and holding up his paws; he jumped at the tree three times. Then he clawed up some earth and threw it at the little tree. The tree was his singer and the little bear was mad because the singer made a mistake. The human dancers act just the same way….68

Other ceremonies included celebrations of the first salmon run(s) and the acorn harvest, girls’ puberty rites, and a ceremony at which boys being initiated as young men partook of a tea made from the roots of the hallucino-genic datura (jimsonweed) to gain rapport with spirit helpers—a ceremony best known among the Southern Valley Yokuts nations and their Chumash-speaking neighbors on the south-central California coast.

The jimsonweed ceremony, the snake dance, and the first salmon ceremo-nial took place in the spring, and the

“Matu.” Painting by Grace Hudson, 1912. Collection of the Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House, City of Ukiah, Calif.

“The Seed Conjurer.” Painting by Grace Hudson, 1896. Collection of the Grace Hudson Museum and Sun House, City of Ukiah, Calif.


31

companied by split-elderberry-wood clappers, rattles, bird-bone whistles, and perhaps elder-berry cane flutes and log foot-drums.

Each community included important spiritu-al specialists, often called spirit doctors or sha-mans. Spirit doctors held an important place in Indian societies and were usually aligned with the chiefs. Spirit doctors obtained supernatural powers through dreams and vision quests and the use of datura (jimsonweed) and tobacco. They cured people by locating and removing disease objects.

The most common cause of illness was believed to be the intrusion into the body of some foreign object which had been projected by the evil magic of a doctor. The extraction of this object by cutting and sucking theoretically consti-tuted a cure. The intruding object was always exhibited upon its extraction by the curing shaman; it might be a few hairs, finger-nail clippings, insects, a blood clot, the moustache of a moun-tain lion, and so on.70

There were also herb doctors that healed by administering medicinal plants; weather shamans that brought rain—probably using plummet-shaped “charmstones”; deer doctors who could locate deer and aid the hunt; bear doctors who could transform themselves into bears; and rattlesnake shamans.

Rattlesnake shamans…gained the power to cure and prevent snake bites by cultivating dream communications with the rattlesnakes. The shamans also acted together to conduct public ceremonies…to protect people against snake bites. Toward the end of the ceremony…the entire community filed past [a pit containing live rattlesnakes], each person touching it with his right foot. This completed the communica-tion between people and rattlesnakes; in gratitude for having been spared, the rattlesnakes would not strike blindly

at people…but would rattle a warning whenever a person approached.The following chant was sung by Yokuts people during the rattlesnake ceremony. It repeats the mythic words which King Snake used against Rattlesnake in ages past to gain immunity from Rattle-snake’s bite. By reciting King Snake’s words, people too would become im-mune.

The King Snake said to the Rattle-snake:Do not touch me!You can do nothing with meLying with your belly full,Rattlesnake of the rock pile,Do not touch me!There is nothing you can do,You Rattlesnake with your belly full,

Man in ceremonial regalia. Photo by Edward S. Curtis, courtesy of Northwestern University Library


32

Lying where the ground-squirrel holes are thick,Do not touch me!What can you do to me?Rattlesnake in the tree clump,Stretched in the shade,You can do nothing;Do not touch me!Rattlesnake of the plains,You whose white eyeThe sun shines on,Do not touch me!71

The Indians in what became San Joaquin County apparently assimilated the Kuksu religion, which flourished in the Sacramento Valley. Kuksu featured elaborate ceremonies staged by societies of dancers that imperson-ated special spirits or deities associated with the origin and maintenance of the world. Although the timing of the spread of the Kuksu religion is not clear, it appears to have been adopted by the Miwok-speaking nations that inhabited present-day San Joaquin County. It may have even been adopted by the Northern Valley Yokuts nations here—making this its southern-most occurrence and only adoption by Yokuts-speaking people. The Kuksu religion was associated with the large, semi-subterranean ceremonial assembly structure or roundhouse (see above).

In later historic times, many of the surviving Native people in this region reinforced their resistance to the Europeans and Americans (detailed in Part Two) by joining the Adventist or so-called Ghost Dance religion. The religion originated in Nevada in 1869 and called for a commitment to a life of virtue that would lead to the return of Indian dead and the elimina-tion of the invading white people. It spread into Northern California in 1871 and 1872. In 1872, a related revival of Kuksu in connec-tion with the Adventist movement, taught by a

dance leader named Chiplichu, was recorded in the Pleasanton area among expatriated Plains Miwok and Northern Valley Yokuts peo-ple. Many family relationships existed between the Pleasanton Indians and Miwok-speakers in the Ione area (Amador County); the Ghost Dance was introduced near Ione at about the same time.72

33

The mission of the San Joaquin County Historical Society includes showcasing

“the county’s traditions of ingenuity, innova-tion, and invention.” Such traditions clearly extend back to prehistory and to the many Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking nations that called this area home. Ingenuity and innova-tion certainly apply to: • The first human pioneers arriving in a new

environment more than thirteen thousand years ago and adapting their lifeways over the centuries as that environment changed in quite dramatic ways and as their populations grew,

• The Miwok ancestors who first effectively tapped the rich Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, riverside, and upland habitats that typified this region, and

• The many Miwok- and Yokuts-speaking na-tions that figured out how to care for their homelands in the California heartland in unique, sustainable ways and developed such populous communities and rich cultures here.These are stories that must be clearly told

to counteract stereotypes and “promote com-munity pride, continued learning, and an appreciation of regional history among county residents and visitors.”73

It is hoped that this document and Part Two, to follow, as well as the exhibits developed with the Nature Education Facilities Program grant, and many future exhibits, media products, and programs will contribute to that goal.

Epilogue

34

Notes1. It is the policy and practice of the San Joaquin County Historical Museum not to include in its collections any human remains, artifacts associated with graves, or sacred objects. Nor will the Museum display such materials in its exhibits. If the Museum discovers such materials in its col-lections, it will work to repatriate them promptly to appropriate Native descendants.

2. Kelly McGuire and Jeffrey Rosenthal, Stealing the Sun (Sacramento, Calif.: California Depart-ment of Transportation, 2004), 8.

3. Kathleen Rose Smith, in Margaret Dubin and Sara-Larus Tolley, eds., Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider: A California Indian Feast (Berkeley: Heyday, 2008), xi.

4. Julia Parker, in Beverly Ortiz, It Will Live Forever: Traditional Yosemite Indian Acorn Preparation (Berkeley: Heyday, 1991), 1–2. This is from the viewpoint of the Indians in the Yosemite area. Local versions of these creation narratives had different details, including references to Mount Diablo and other natural features in the region that includes San Joaquin County. Comments on the Plains Miwok narratives can be heard in an audio message by Glen Villa, Jr. in the Native Peoples Gallery of the San Joaquin County Historical Museum.

5. Mammoth bones were recovered during the 2007 construction excavations for the San Joa-quin County Administration Building on the corner of San Joaquin Street and Weber Avenue, in Stockton. The bones are displayed in the lobby of that building.

6. Philip Garone, The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California’s Great Central Valley (Berkeley: Uni-versity of California Press, 2011), 1.

7. Brian Fagan, Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants (Lanham, Md.: Row-man and Littlefield/Alta Mira, 2009), 53.

8. Ibid., 80–81.

9. Ibid., 79–80.

10. John Pryor and Russell Weisman, “Archaeological Investigations at the Skyrocket Site, CA-Cal-629/630: The Royal Mountain King Mine Project,” Society for California Archaeology Proceedings 4 (1991): 159–92.

11. Fagan, Before California, 33.

12. Terry L. Jones and Kathryn A. Klar, eds., California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complex-ity (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield/Alta Mira, 2007); Joseph L. Chartkoff and Kerry K. Chartkoff, The Archaeology of California (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1984); Michael J. Moratto, California Archaeology (Salinas, Calif.: Coyote, 2004); Nathan E. Stevens et al., “Worka-day Windmiller: Another Look at Early Horizon Lifeways in Central California,” Society for Cali-fornia Archaeology Proceedings 23 (2009): 1–8.

Notes

35

13. Garone, Fall and Rise of the Wetlands, 27.

14. Remnants of riparian woodlands are preserved in Caswell Memorial State Park, Lodi Lake Park, the Cosumnes River Preserve, and elsewhere.

15. Relic groves of oak woodlands are preserved at Micke Grove and Oak Grove Regional Parks and elsewhere.

16. Sharon A. Waechter, The Brazil Mound: Archaeology of a Prehistoric Village (Davis, Calif.: Far Western Anthropological Research Group, 1997), 25. The Brazil Mound is now within the south-west city limits of Sacramento.

17. Moratto, California Archaeology, 206.

18. William H. Olson and Norman L. Wilson, “The Salvage Archaeology of the Bear Creek Site (SJo-112): A Terminal Central California Early Horizon Site,” Sacramento Anthropological Society Paper No. 1 (1964).

19. Tammara Ekness Norton, People of the Tules: Archaeology and Prehistory of California’s Great Central Valley (Sacramento, Calif.: Department of Transportation, 2009).

20. Fagan, Before California, 30–31.

21. Kathleen Rose Smith, in Dubin and Tolley, Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider, xi.

22. “More often than not, the white man simply lumped the Miwok and their neighbors into a non-existent ‘tribe’ he called ‘Digger.’ This unfortunate name came from the fact these na-tive California people used digging sticks to harvest bulbs and tubers.” Eugene Conrotto, Miwok Means People: The Life and Fate of the Native Inhabitants of the California Gold Rush Country (Fresno, Calif.: Valley, 1973), 1. Part Two discusses how Euro-Americans characterized California Indians in different ways, reflecting the changing needs of the white communities.

23. Sacramento Union, Dec. 5, 1948.

24. Kent G. Lightfoot and Otis Parrish, California Indians and their Environment: An Introduction. Cali-fornia Natural History Guide Series, no. 96 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 70.

25. M. Kat Anderson, Michael G. Barbour, and Valerie Whitworth, “A World of Balance and Plenty: Land, Plants, Animals, and Humans in a Pre-European California,” in Contested Eden: California Before the Gold Rush (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 14.

26. These nations are called by other researchers “local tribes,” “tribelets,” or “village-commu-nities.” The author has chosen to use the term nation because it connotes the independent, sov-ereign nature of these groups. All of these terms probably oversimplify the complexities of the communities and their relationships. For example, James A. Bennyhoff, Ethnogeography of the Plains Miwok, Center for Archaeological Research at Davis, no. 5 (Davis: University of California, Da-vis, 1977), 167, writes of a “Cosumnes River cooperative group” of main village communities.

27. Waechter, Brazil Mound, 8.

28. M. Kat Anderson, Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 2. See also, Malcolm Margolin


36

and J. Gendar, eds., California Indians and the Environment, News from Native California Special Reports, no. 1 (Berkeley: Heyday, 1992); and T. C. Blackburn and K. Anderson, eds., Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Americans, Anthropological Papers, no. 40 (Menlo Park, Calif.: Ballena, 1993).

29. Anderson, Barbour, and Whitworth, “World of Balance and Plenty,” 18.

30. Ibid., 33. A Yokuts story with this sort of moral can be heard in the Native Peoples Gallery at the San Joaquin County Historical Museum, told by Sylvia Ross (Chukchansi Yokuts).

31. Anderson, Tending the Wild, 88. See also, Laura Cunningham, A State of Change: Forgotten Land-scapes of California (Berkeley: Heyday, 2010), 74–75; and Garone, Fall and Rise of the Wetlands, 50.

32. Helen McCarthy, “Managing Oaks and the Acorn Crop,” in Before the Wilderness, eds. T. C. Blackburn and K. Anderson, Anthropological Papers, no. 40. (Menlo Park: Ballena, 1993), 220–24.

33. Anderson, Tending the Wild, 177–78.

34. Ibid., 179. A “mature” tree might be two to three hundred years old and they can live four to five hundred years.

35. Anderson, Barbour, and Whitworth, “A World of Balance and Plenty,” 26.

36. H. T. Lewis, “Patterns of Indian Burning in California: Ecology and Ethnohistory,” in Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians, eds. T. C. Blackburn and K. Ander-son, Anthropological Papers, no. 40 (Menlo Park: Ballena Press, 1993), 113.

37. Alfred L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology Bul-letin, no. 78 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1925), 524.


39. Randall Milliken, Native Americans at Mission San Jose (Banning, Calif.: Malki-Ballena, 2008), 3–4, Map 5, 54–58. See also, Bennyhoff, Ethnogeography of the Plains Miwok; Glen H. Doran, “Paleodemography of the Plains Miwok Ethnolinguistic Area, Central California” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Davis, 1980); Richard Levy, “Eastern Miwok,” in Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8: California, ed. Robert F. Heizer (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Insti-tution, 1978), 398–99; and William J. Wallace, “Northern Valley Yokuts,” in Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8: California, ed. Robert F. Heizer (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institu-tion, 1978), 462–63. See note 26, above.

40. Milliken, Native Americans at Mission San Jose, 19.

41. Levy, “Eastern Miwok,” 402.

42. Olive Davis, Tales of a Gold Rush City: Stockton, California, Vol. 1 (Pre Gold Rush Era-1900) (Stock-ton, Calif.: Bluebird, 2003), 17.

43. Ortiz, It Will Live Forever, 3–4.

44. Frank F. Latta, Handbook of Yokuts Indians, 2d ed. (Santa Cruz: Bear State Books, 1977), 393.

Notes

37

45. Arthur Barr and Donald Barr, Indians of California, rev. ed., Native American Series (Barr Films, 1991). See especially Ortiz, It Will Live Forever.


47. Bryant, What I Saw in California…In the Years 1846, 1847 (1849; Palo Alto: Lewis Osborne, 1967), 352.

48. Louise Clappe, The Shirley Letters: From the California Mines, 1851-1852 (Berkeley: Heyday, 2001), 6–7.

49. Garone, Fall and Rise of the Wetlands, 50.

50. Samuel A. Barrett and Edward W. Gifford, “Miwok Material Culture,” Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 2, no. 4 (1933): 190–91.

51. The California Arts Council recently supported an exhibition called “American Masterpieces: The Artistic Legacy of California Indian Basketry.” See Brian Bibby, Essential Art: Native Basketry from the California Indian Heritage Center (Berkeley: Heyday, 2012), xv–xvi.

52. Christopher L. Moser, Native American Basketry of Central California (Riverside, Calif.: Riverside Museum Press, 1986), 77.

53. Ibid., 70.

54. Anna H. Gayton, “Yokuts-Mono Chiefs and Shamans,” University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 24, no. 8 (1930): 408.

55. Latta, Handbook of Yokuts Indians, xx, 79, 345, 349–50. Ceremonial roundhouses may be seen at Chaw’se Indian Grinding Rock State Park in Amador County, Yosemite National Park, Was-sama Roundhouse State Historic Park in Madera County, and at Point Reyes National Seashore.

56. Malcolm Margolin, “Wahhoga Village: A Place to Meet,” News from Native California 27, no. 1 (2013): 26.


58. Brian Bibby, Deeper Than Gold: A Guide to Indian Life in the Sierra Foothills (Berkeley: Heyday, 2005), 162. See also, Gayton, “Yokuts-Mono Chiefs and Shamans,” 361–420.


60. See “What’s in a Name?” by David Roche, in Bibby, Deeper Than Gold, 119–25.




64. Douglas C. Sackman, Wild Men: Ishi and Kroeber in the Wilderness of Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 318–19. See also, Richard L. Burrill, Ishi’s Untold Story in His First World: Parts III–VI, A Biography of the Last of His Band of Yahi Indians in North America (Red Bluff,


38

Calif.: Anthro, 2012), 301–305, 376–408, 491–92, 621–22.

65. Malcolm Margolin, ed., The Way We Lived: California Indian Reminiscences, Stories, and Songs (Berkeley: Heyday, 1981), 85.

66. For a description of a ceremony in nearby Calaveras County, see C. Hart Merriam, “The Mourning Ceremony of the Miwok, 1906,” in California Indians: A Source Book, 2d ed., eds. R. F. Heizer and M. A. Whipple (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 520–32.

67. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, 450.

68. Gayton, “Yokuts and Western Mono Ethnography II,” 152. See also, C. Hart Merriam, ed., Dawn of the World: Myths and Tales of the Miwok Indians of California (1910; reprint, Lincoln: Uni-versity of Nebraska Press, 1993), 209; and Edward W. Gifford, “Central Miwok Ceremonies,” Anthropological Records 14, no. 4 (1955): 261–318.

69. Gayton,” Yokuts-Mono Chiefs and Shamans,” 379.

70. Ibid., 390.

71. Margolin, The Way We Lived, 106–107. See Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, 504–506.

72. Jack D. Forbes, Native Americans of California and Nevada: A Handbook (Healdsburg, Calif.: Na-turegraph, 1969), 67–68, 74, 91. See also, Anna H. Gayton, “The Ghost Dance of 1870 in South-Central California,” University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 28, no. 3 (1930): 57–82.

73. From the mission statement of the San Joaquin County Historical Society, approved by the Board of Trustees on December 10, 2008.

39

Anderson, M. Kat. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natu-ral Resources. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

________, Michael G. Barbour, and Valerie Whitworth. “A World of Balance and Plenty: Land, Plants, Animals, and Humans in a Pre-European California.” In Contested Eden: California Before the Gold Rush, edited by Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Richard J. Orsi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Barr, Arthur, and Donald Barr. Indians of California. Rev. ed. Native American Series, Barr Films, 1991.

Barrett, Samuel A., and Edward W. Gifford. “Miwok Material Culture.” Bulletin of the Public Mu-seum of the City of Milwaukee, vol. 2, no. 4 (1933): 117-376.

Bennyhoff, James A. Ethnogeography of the Plains Miwok. Center for Archaeological Research at Davis, no. 5. Davis: University of California, Davis, 1977.

Bibby, Brian. Deeper than Gold: A Guide to Indian Life in the Sierra Foothills. Berkeley: Heyday, 2005.

__________. Essential Art: Native Basketry from the California Indian Heritage Center. Berkeley: Heyday, 2012.

Blackburn, T. C., and K. Anderson, eds. Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians. Anthropological Papers, no. 40. Menlo Park, Calif.: Gallena, 1993.

Bryant, Edwin. What I Saw in California…In the Years 1846, 1847. A facsimile of the first edition by Appleton. 1849. Palo Alto, Calif.: Lewis Osborne, 1967.

Burrill, Richard L. Ishi’s Untold Story in His First World: Parts III-VI, A Biography of the Last of His Band of Yahi Indians in North America. Red Bluff, Calif.: Anthro, 2012.

Chartkoff, Joseph L., and Kerry K. Chartkoff. The Archaeology of California. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stan-ford University Press, 1984.

Clappe, Louise. The Shirley Letters: From the California Mines, 1851-1852. Berkeley: Heyday, 2001.

Conrotto, Eugene. Miwok Means People: The Life and Fate of the Native Inhabitants of the California Gold Rush Country. Fresno, Calif.: Valley, 1973.

Cunningham, Laura. A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California. Berkeley: Heyday, 2010.

Davis, Olive. Tales of a Gold Rush City: Stockton, California, Vol. 1 (Pre Gold Rush Era-1900). Stockton, Calif.: Bluebird, 2003.

Doran, Glen H. “Paleodemography of the Plains Miwok Ethnolinguistic Area, Central Califor-

Sources


40

nia.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Davis, 1980.

Dubin, Margaret, and Sara-Larus Tolley, eds. Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider: A California Indian Feast. Berkeley: Heyday, 2008.

Fagan, Brian. Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants. Lanham, Md.: Row-man and Littlefield/Alta Mira, 2009.

Forbes, Jack D. Native Americans of California and Nevada: A Handbook. Healdsburg, Calif.: Nature-graph, 1969.

Garone, Philip. The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California’s Great Central Valley. Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press, 2011.

Gayton, Anna H. “The Ghost Dance of 1870 in South-Central California.” University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 28, no. 3 (1930): 57-82.

________. “Yokuts and Western Mono Ethnography II: Northern Valley Yokuts and Western Mono.” Anthropological Records 10, no. 2 (1948): i-x, 143-301.

________. “Yokuts-Mono Chiefs and Shamans.” University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 24, no. 8 (1930): 361-420.

Gifford, Edward W. “Central Miwok Ceremonies.” Anthropological Records 14, no. 4 (1955): 261-318.

Jones, Terry L., and Kathryn A. Klar, eds. California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield/Alta Mira, 2007.

Kroeber, Alfred L. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, no. 78. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1925.

Latta, Frank F. Handbook of Yokuts Indians. 2d ed. Santa Cruz, Calif.: Bear State Books, 1977.

Levy, Richard. “Eastern Miwok.” In Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8: California, edited by Robert F. Heizer, 398-413. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978.

Lewis, H. T. “Patterns of Indian Burning in California: Ecology and Ethnohistory.” In Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians, edited by T. C. Blackburn and K. Anderson, 55-116. Anthropological Papers, no. 40. Menlo Park: Ballena Press, 1993.

Lightfoot, Kent G., and Otis Parrish. California Indians and their Environment: An Introduction. Califor-nia Natural History Guide Series, no. 96. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

Margolin, Malcolm. “Wahhoga Village: A Place to Meet.” News from Native California 27, no. 1 (2013): 26-31.

________, ed. The Way We Lived: California Indian Reminiscences, Stories, and Songs. Berkeley: Heyday, 1981.

________, and J. Gendar, eds. California Indians and the Environment, News from Native California Special Reports No. 1. Berkeley: Heyday, 1992.

Sources

41

McCarthy, Helen. “Managing Oaks and the Acorn Crop.” In Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians, edited by T. C. Blackburn and K. Anderson, 213–28. An-thropological Papers, no. 40. Menlo Park, Calif.: Ballena, 1993.

McGuire, Kelly, and Jeffrey Rosenthal. Stealing the Sun. Sacramento, Calif.: California Department of Transportation, 2004.

Merriam, C. Hart. “Mourning Ceremony of the Miwok, 1906.” In California Indians: A Source Book, 2d ed., edited by R. F. Heizer and M. A. Whipple, 520–32. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.

__________, ed. Dawn of the World: Myths and Tales of the Miwok Indians of California. 1910. Reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

Milliken, Randall. Native Americans at Mission San Jose. Banning, Calif.: Malki-Ballena, 2008.

Moratto, Michael J. California Archaeology. Salinas, Calif.: Coyote, 2004.

Moser, Christopher L. Native American Basketry of Central California. Riverside, Calif.: Riverside Museum Press, 1986.

Norton, Tammara Ekness. People of the Tules: Archaeology and Prehistory of California’s Great Central Val-ley. Sacramento, Calif.: Department of Transportation, 2009.

Olson, William H., and Norman L. Wilson. “The Salvage Archaeology of the Bear Creek Site (SJo-112). A Terminal Central California Early Horizon Site.” Sacramento Anthropological Society Paper No. 1, 1964.

Ortiz, Beverly R. It Will Live Forever: Traditional Yosemite Indian Acorn Preparation. As told by Julia F. Parker. Berkeley: Heyday, 1991.

Pryor, John, and Russell Weisman. “Archaeological Investigations at the Skyrocket Site, CA-Cal-629/630: The Royal Mountain King Mine Project.” Society for California Archaeology Proceedings 4 (1991): 159-92.

Sackman, Douglas C. Wild Men: Ishi and Kroeber in the Wilderness of Modern America. New York: Ox-ford University Press, 2010.

Stevens, Nathan E., Jelmer W. Eerkens, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, Richard Fitzgerald, Joan E. Good-sell, and Jamie Doty. “Workaday Windmiller: Another Look at Early Horizon Lifeways in Central California.” Society for California Archaeology Proceedings 23 (2009): 1–8.

Waechter, Sharon A. The Brazil Mound: Archaeology of a Prehistoric Village. Davis, Calif.: Far Western Anthropological Research Group, 1997.

Wallace, William J. “Northern Valley Yokuts.” In Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8: California, edited by Robert F. Heizer, 462–70. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978.

David Stuart has been the executive director of the San Joaquin County Historical Society since 2006. He is a fourth-generation native of the region and grew up in Ripon, California, as did his grandfather and both parents. He began his career and interest in Native people when he worked at Caswell Memorial State Park in the early 1970s. Stuart studied anthropology at California State University-Fresno and the University of Colorado, after which he worked in the Colorado Historic Preservation Office and Museum and for the National Park Service. In 1983, Stuart returned to California and developed programs, events, and three historical museums for the City of Ventura. More recently, he directed the Sacramento Science Center (Discovery Museum) and the Sacramento History Museum, in Old Sacramento.

About the Author

This issue sponsored by The Grupe Company

John Carsten Grupe Freight Line. Photo courtesy of Bank of Stockton.

The Grupe Family

Proudly serving San Joaquin County since 1849

San Joaquin County Historical Society, Inc.P.O. Box 30 Lodi, CA 95241-0030Return Service Requested

Non-Profit Org.

U.S. Postage PAID

Permit No. 48Lodi, CA

Documents

The San Joaquin Historiansanjoaquinhistory.org/documents/HistorianSummer2016.pdfIce Age mammals such as mammoth, musk ox, bison, camel, llama, ground sloth, and several species of