Traditional Narratives (Native California)
   HOME
*





Traditional Narratives (Native California)
The traditional narratives of Native California are the folklore and mythology of the native people of California. For many historic nations of California, there is only a fragmentary record of their traditions. Spanish missions in California from the 18th century Christianized many of these traditions, and the remaining groups were mostly assimilated to US culture by the early 20th century. While there are sparse records from the 18th century, most material was collected during the 19th and the early 20th centuries. Ethnolinguistically, most of the native peoples of California can be categorized into three large groups, Penutian, Hokan and Uto-Aztecan. Of these traditions, one of the best attested and most notable in US mainstream culture is Hopi mythology, the Hopi being a Pueblo people speaking a language of the Uto-Aztecan family. History of studies A few versions of Native California traditional narratives were written down by Franciscan missionaries, notably Jerónimo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Native Peoples Of California
The indigenous peoples of California (known as Native Californians) are the indigenous inhabitants who have lived or currently live in the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after the arrival of Europeans. With over forty groups seeking to be federally recognized tribes, California has the second-largest Native American population in the United States. The California cultural area does not conform exactly to the state of California's boundaries. Many tribes on the eastern border with Nevada are classified as Great Basin tribes, and some tribes on the Oregon border are classified as Plateau tribes. Tribes in Baja California who do not cross into California are classified as indigenous peoples of Mexico. History Pre-contact Evidence of human occupation of California dates from at least 19,000 years ago. Prior to European contact, indigenous Californians had 500 distinct sub-tribes or groups, each consisting of 50 to 500 individual members ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hupa
Hupa (Yurok language term: Huep'oola' / Huep'oolaa = "Hupa people") are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group in northwestern California. Their endonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinook-wa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return". The Karuk name was Kishákeevar / Kishakeevra ("Hupa (Trinity River) People", from ''kishákeevar-sav'' = "Hupa River, i.e. Trinity River"). The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe. History Hupa people migrated from the north into northern California around 1000 CE and settled in Hoopa Valley, California (Hupa: ''Natinook''). Their heritage language is Hupa, which is a member of the Athabaskan language family. Their land stretched from the South Fork of the Trinity River to Hoopa Valley, to the Klamath River in California. Their red cedar-planked houses, dugout canoes, basket hats, and many elements of their oral literature identify them with their ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Salinan
The Salinan are a Native American tribe whose ancestral territory is in the southern Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia Range in the Central Coast of California. Today, the Salinan governments are now working toward federal tribal recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There were two major divisions, the ''Miguelino'' in the south, on the upper course of the Salinas River (which flows south to north), and the ''Antoniano'' in the north, in the lower part of the Salinas Basin, corresponding to the two missions in the Salinas Valley (Mission San Antonio de Padua and Mission San Miguel Arcángel). There were also a ''Playano'' group on the Pacific Coast in the vicinity of what is now San Simeon and Lucia. Before European contact, Salinans lived by hunting and gathering and, like most other California tribes, were organized in small groups with little centralized political structure. Etymology The Salinan people were named after the Salinas River(1856) and John Powell (1 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Yokut People
The Yokuts (previously known as MariposasPowell, 1891:90–91.) are an ethnic group of Native Americans native to central California. Before European contact, the Yokuts consisted of up to 60 tribes speaking several related languages. ''Yokuts'' is both plural and singular, ''Yokut'', while common, is erroneous. 'Yokut' should only be used when referring specifically to the Tachi Yokut Tribe of Lemoore, CA. Some of their descendants prefer to refer to themselves by their respective tribal names; they reject the term ''Yokuts,'' saying that it is an exonym invented by English-speaking settlers and historians. Conventional sub-groupings include the Foothill Yokuts, Northern Valley Yokuts, and Southern Valley Yokuts.Pritzker, 211 History Another name used to refer to the Yokuts was Mariposans. The word Yokuts itself means people; the Yokuts are a peaceful people. There are many stories, depending on the tribe, on how the yokut and their land came to be but most follow a similar ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Miwok
The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word ''Miwok'' means ''people'' in the Miwok languages. Subgroups Anthropologists commonly divide the Miwok into four geographically and culturally diverse ethnic subgroups. These distinctions were not used among the Miwok before European contact. *''Plains 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 County (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 Federally recognized tribes The United States Bureau of Indian Affairs ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Serrano (people)
The Serrano are an indigenous people of California. They use the autonyms of Taaqtam, meaning "people"; Maarrênga’yam, "people from Morongo"; and Yuhaaviatam, "people of the pines." Today the Maarrênga'yam are enrolled in the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, and the Yuhaviatam are enrolled in the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. Additionally, some Serrano people are enrolled in the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians."Serrano."
''San Diego State University Library and Information Access.'' 2010. Retrieved 25 Nov. 2012
The Serrano historically lived in the and other

picture info

Shasta (tribe)
The Shastan peoples are a group of linguistically related indigenous peoples from the Klamath Mountains. They traditionally inhabited portions of several regional waterways, including the Klamath, Salmon, Sacramento and McCloud rivers. Shastan lands presently form portions of the Siskiyou, Klamath and Jackson counties. Scholars have generally divided the Shastan peoples into four languages, although arguments in favor of more or less existing have been made. Speakers of Shasta proper-Kahosadi, Konomihu, Okwanuchu, and Tlohomtah’hello "New River" Shasta resided in settlements typically near a water source. Their villages often had only either one or two families. Larger villages had more families and additional buildings utilised by the community. The California Gold Rush drew in an influx of outsiders into California in the late 1840s eager to gain mineral wealth. For the Shasta, this was a devastating process as their lands soon had thousands of miners operating along v ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Yana People
The Yana were a group of Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada, on the western side of the range. Their lands, prior to encroachment by white settlers, bordered the Pit and Feather rivers. They were nearly destroyed during the California genocide in the latter half of the 19th century. The Central and Southern Yana continue to live in California as members of Redding Rancheria. Etymology The Yana-speaking people comprised four groups: the North Yana, the Central Yana, the Southern Yana, and the Yahi. The noun stem ''Ya''- means "person"; the noun suffix is -''na'' in the northern Yana dialects and -''hi'' iin the southern dialects. History Anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber put the 1770 population of the Yana at 1,500, and Sherburne F. Cook estimated their numbers at 1,900 and 1,850. Other estimates of the total Yana population before the Gold Rush exceed 3,000. They lived on wild game, salmon, fruit, acorns and roots. Their terri ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Achomawi
Achomawi (also Achumawi, Ajumawi and Ahjumawi), are the northerly nine (out of eleven) bands of the Pit River tribe of Palaihnihan Native Americans who live in what is now northeastern California in the United States. These 5 autonomous bands (also called "tribelets") of the Pit River Indians historically spoke slightly different dialects of one common language, and the other two bands spoke dialects of a related language, called Atsugewi. The name "Achomawi" means river people and properly applies to the band which historically inhabited the Fall River Valley and the Pit River from the south end of Big Valley Mountains, westerly to Pit River Falls. The nine bands of Achumawi lived on both sides of the Pit River from its origin at Goose Lake to Montgomery Creek, and the two bands of Atsugewi lived south of the Pit River on creeks tributary to it in the Hat Creek valley and Dixie Valley. Population Achomawi speaking territories reached from Big Bend to Goose Lake. This land ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Pomo People
The Pomo are an Indigenous people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point. One small group, the Northeastern Pomo, lived in the vicinity of present-day Stonyford in Colusa County, separated from the core Pomo area by lands inhabited by Yuki and Wintuan speakers. The name Pomo derives from a conflation of the Pomo words and . It originally meant "those who live at red earth hole" and was once the name of a village in southern Potter Valley near the present-day community of Pomo, California in Mendocino County. It may have referred to local deposits of the red mineral magnesite, used for red beads, or to the reddish earth and clay, such as hematite, mined in the area. In the Northern Pomo dialect, ''-pomo'' or ''-poma'' was used as a suffix after the names of places, to mean a subgroup of people of the place. By 1877, the us ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Anna Hardwick Gayton
Anna Hadwick Gayton (1899-1977) was an American anthropologist, folklorist and museum curator. She is most recognized for her role in "compiling and analyzing Californian Indian mythology" and was elected President of the American Folklore Society in 1950. Early life and education Born in Santa Cruz, California, Gayton attended the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a BA degree in 1923 and MA degree in 1924. In 1928, Gayton completed her PhD in anthropology under Alfred L. Kroeber and Robert H. Lowie and a minor in psychology under Edward C. Tolman. Gayton was the first woman to receive a PhD in anthropology from Berkeley. Her dissertation was titled 'The Narcotic Plant Datura in Aboriginal American Culture'. As part of her research for her PhD, Gayton conducted fieldwork with the Yokuts and Western Mono peoples: she would go on to publish nine essays based upon Yokuts and Mono myth and oral tradition. During her studies, she also served as an editorial assistant to ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Yuman Languages
The Quechan (or Yuma) (Quechan: ''Kwatsáan'' 'those who descended') are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the Mexican border. Despite their name, they are not related to the Quechua people of the Andes. Members are enrolled into the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation. The federally recognized Quechan tribe's main office is located in Winterhaven, California. Its operations and the majority of its reservation land are located in California, United States. History The historic Yuman-speaking people in this region were skilled warriors and active traders, maintaining exchange networks with the Pima in southern Arizona, New Mexico, and with peoples of the Pacific coast. The first significant contact of the Quechan with Europeans was with the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and his party in the winter of 1774. Relations were friendly. On Anza's return fr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]