The Chimariko (

Chimariko language Chimariko is an extinct language isolate formerly spoken in northern Trinity County, California, by the inhabitants of several independent communities. While the total area claimed by these communities was remarkably small, Golla (2011:87–89 ...

: ''cʼʸˈimar, tʼʸimar, čimar, čʼimar'' or ''ǯimar'' - ″person / Indian″) are an

indigenous people 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. ...

, who originally lived in a narrow, 20-mile section of canyon on the Trinity River in Trinity County in northwestern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. ''Four Directions Institute.'' Retrieved 28 August 2012.

History

Originally

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s, the Chimariko are possibly the earliest residents of their region. They had good relations with the

Wintu people The Wintu (also Northern Wintun) are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun (or Wintuan). Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wint ...

and were enemies of the

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 "Peopl ...

, a Southern

Athabaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...

people. Non-native fur trappers first entered the Chimariko's territory in 1820, followed by miners and settlers in the 1850s. The Chimariko were profoundly affected by the destructive environmental practices of gold seekers during the

California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...

, starting in 1848. One of the major issues involved the disruption of the

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

population that was the main food source of the Chimariko. In the 1860s, conflict between the Chimariko and white miners led to the near extinction of their population. The surviving Chimariko fled to live with the Hoopa Valley Hupa, and nearby Tsnungwe (South Fork or New River Hupa) (also called: Tlohomtah’hoi) and Tlohomtah’hoi (New River or Salmon River Shasta).

Language

Chimariko people spoke the

, a Northern

Hokan language The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in California, Arizona and Baja California. Etymology The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan ...

. The language is currently extinct. The language probably became extinct sometime in the 1930s. It is extensively documented in unpublished fieldnotes which

John Peabody Harrington John Peabody Harrington (April 29, 1884 – October 21, 1961) was an American linguist and ethnologist and a specialist in the indigenous peoples of California. Harrington is noted for the massive volume of his documentary output, most of which h ...

obtained from the last speaker,

Sally Noble Sally Noble was the last speaker of the Chimariko language. She worked with linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and preci ...

, in the 1920s.

Population

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially.

Alfred L. Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...

proposed that the 1770 population of the Chimariko, together with the New River, Konomihu, and Okwanuchu groups of the Shasta, had been about 1,000. Specifically for the Chimariko, he estimated an 1849 population of 250. Shirley Silver (1978:205) put the aboriginal population at "only a few hundred".Silver, Shirley. 1978. "Chimariko". In ''California'', edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 205-210. ''Handbook of North American Indians'', William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. p. 205 Other estimates are that there were 250 Chimariko people in the 18th and early 19th centuries, moving down to 200 in 1852, 20 in 1880, and none by 1900. There may have been descendants of the Chimariko recently discovering their identity, since some Chimariko fled with the Hupa and Shasta. In the 2010 census, 60 people claimed Chimariko ancestry, 19 of them full-blooded.

References

Sources

Chimariko Bibliography
fro

External links