Yokut

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The Yokuts (also known as Mariposans) are an ethnic group of Native Americans that live in central and northern California. The Yokuts consisted of up to 60 ethnically and linguistically separate tribes pre-contact. The Yokuts lived in the San Joaquin Valley from the Delta south to Bakersfield.

Some tribes also lived along the northern edges of the Coast Range. Yokuts also inhabited the foothills of the Sierra Nevada from the Delta south to Bakersfield. Although the numbers of Foothill Yokuts were reduced by around 93% from 1850 to 1900, there are still a number of Foothill Yokuts extant today. A few Valley Yokuts remain, Tachi (Táchi) being the most prominent tribe. Only a few Yokuts tribes have been federally recognized. Many Yokuts Indians are not yet recognized by the U.S. government.

Mariposa Indian Encampment Yosemite Valley California painted by Albert Bierstadt
Mariposa Indian Encampment Yosemite Valley California painted by Albert Bierstadt

Contents

[edit] Etymology

Many Yokuts Indians reject the name Yokuts as an exonym invented by English-speaking settlers and historians, and prefer to refer to themselves by their tribal name.

They were also called the Mariposan (for example, by Stephen Powell in 1891[1]) after the county they lived in, Mariposa. The word mariposa is the Spanish word for butterfly.

[edit] Population

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. (See Population of Native California.) Alfred L. Kroeber[2] put the 1770 population of the Yokuts at 18,000. Several subsequent investigators suggested that the total should be substantially higher. [3] Robert F. Heizer and Albert B. Elsasser[4] suggested that the Yokuts had numbered about 70,000.

Kroeber estimated the population of the Yokuts in 1910 as 600.

[edit] Tribes and villages

[edit] Historical communities

The following historical list of Yokut villages and tribes is taken largely from John Wesley Powell, 1891 under the name Mariposan:[1]

  • Ayapaì (Tule River).
  • Chainímaini (lower Kings River).
  • Chukaímina (Squaw Valley).
  • Ch[-u]k´chansi (San Joaquin River above Millerton).
  • [´C]hunut (Kaweah River at the lake).
  • Cocon[-u]n´ (Merced River).
  • Ititcha (King's River).
  • Kassovo (Day Creek).
  • Kau-í-a (Kaweah River; foothills).
  • Kiawétni (Tule River at Porterville).
  • Mayáyu (Tule River, south fork).
  • Notoánaiti (on the lake).
  • Ochíngita (Tule River).
  • Pitkachì (extinct; San Joaquin River below Millerton).
  • Pohállin Tinleh (near Kern Lake).
  • Sawákhtu (Tule River, south fork).
  • Táchi: a larger tribe living on the plains north of Tulare Lake[5] (Kingston [1])
  • Télumni (Kaweah River below Visalia).
  • Tínlinneh (Fort Tejon).
  • Tisèchu (upper King's River).
  • Wíchikik (King's River).
  • Wikchúmni (Kaweah River; foothills).
  • Wíksachi (upper Kaweah Valley).
  • Yúkol (Kaweah River plains).

In addition the Cholovone are thought to be either Miwok or Yokuts, but most probably Yokuts:

  • Tammukan: A Cholovone village was east of the lower San Joaquin River in Contra Costa County[6]

[edit] Current communities

[edit] Trading routes

Yokuts are known to have engaged in trading with other California tribes of Native Americans including coastal peoples such as the Chumash of the Central California coast, with whom they are thought to have traded plant and animal products.[7]

[edit] Notable Yokuts

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c Powell, 1891:90-91.
  2. ^ Kroeber 1925:883.
  3. ^ Baumhoff 1963; Cook 1955; Wallace 1978.
  4. ^ Heizer and Elsasser 1980:16.
  5. ^ Webb 1910:667.
  6. ^ Webb 1910:684; Kroeber 1910:370; Powell 1891:90-91.
  7. ^ Hogan, 2008

[edit] References

  • Baumhoff, Martin A. 1963."Ecological Determinants of Aboriginal California Populations". University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 49:155-236.
  • Cook, Sherburne F. 1955. "The Aboriginal Population of the San Joaquin Valley, California". Anthropological Records 16:31-80. University of California, Berkeley.
  • Heizer, Robert F., and Albert B. Elsasser. 1980. The Natural World of the California Indians. University of California Press, Berkeley.
  • Hogan, C. Michael, Los Osos Back Bay, The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham, January, 2008 [1]
  • Kroeber, A. L. 1910. On the Evidences of Occupation of Certain Regions by the Miwok Tribes, University of California Press, Berkeley, Vol. 6 No. 3 p. 370 [2]
  • Kroeber, A. L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
  • Powell, John Wesley Powell 1891. Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico, Government Printing Office, Washington, pages 90-91.[3]
  • Wallace, William J. 1978. "Southern Valley Yokuts". In California, edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 448-469. Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
  • Webb, Frederick 1910. Tachi and Tammukan, in Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Government Printing Office.[4]
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