Miwok

From NativeWiki

Miwok (also spelled Miwuk or Me-Wuk) can refer to any one of four linguistically-related groups of Native Americans, who lived in what is now Northern California, who spoke one of the Miwokan languages in the Utian family. The word Miwok means people in their native language. There are four geographically and culturally diverse ethnic subgroups of Miwok people, each with a different history and culture, as follows:

Valley and Sierra Miwok

from the western slope and foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Coast Miwok

from present day location of Marin County and southern Sonoma . (This includes the Bodega Bay Miwok and Marin Miwok).

Lake Miwok

from Clear Lake basin of Lake County.

Bay Miwok

from present-day location of Contra Costa County.

Generally all Miwok were a hunting and gathering people who lived in small bands without centralized political authority before contact with European americans in 1769 and generally Miwok mythology and narratives were similar to other natives of Northern California. Miwok believed in animal and human spirits, and saw the animal spirits as their ancestors. Coyote was their ancestor and creator god.

In the year 1770, Alfred L. Kroeber estimated that there were 500 Lake Miwok, 1,500 Coast Miwok, and 9,000 Plains and Sierra Miwok, totaling about 11,000 people, but this may be a serious undercount, for example he did not identify the Bay Miwok. <ref name="Kroeber>Kroeber.</ref> The 1910 Census reported only 670 Miwok total, and the 1930 Census 491, see history of each Miwok group for more information.<ref name="Cook">Cook, 1976, pages 236-245.</ref>

U.S. Recognition

The United States Bureau of Indian Affairs officially recognized seven tribes in 2003 with the name of Miwok or Me-Wuk in California state, as follows:

Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians
California Valley Miwok Tribe
Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians
Ione Band of Miwok Indians, of Ione[1]
Jackson Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians
Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, of Shingle Springs Rancheria (Verona Tract)
Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians, of the Tuolumne Rancheria

Other Federally recognized Miwok tribes are:

Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, formerly known as the Federated Coast Miwok[2]

References

Access Genealogy: Indian Tribal records, Miwok Indian Tribe. Retrieved on 2006-08-01. Main source of "authenticated village" names and locations.
Barrett, S.A. and Gifford, E.W. Miwok Material Culture: Indian Life of the Yosemite Region. Yosemite Association, Yosemite National Park, California, 1933. ISBN 0-939666-12-X
Cook, Sherburne. The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1976. ISBN 0-520-03143-1.
Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Washington, D.C: Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. (Chapter 30, The Miwok); available at Yosemite Online Library.
Silliman, Stephen. Lost Laborers in Colonial California, Native Americans and the Archaeology of Rancho Petaluma. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8165-2381-9.
U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs