Piwiva was a

Acjachemen The Acjachemen (, alternate spelling: Acagchemem) are an Indigenous people of California. They historically lived south of what is known as Aliso Creek and north of the Las Pulgas Canyon in what are now the southern areas of Orange County and t ...

village located at the meeting place of the

San Juan Creek San Juan Creek, also called the San Juan River, is a long stream in Orange and Riverside Counties, draining a watershed of .7.5 Minute Quadrangle Map, U.S. Geological Survey, San Juan Capistrano, 1968, photorevised 1981 Its mainstem begins in ...

and

Cañada Gobernadora Cañada Gobernadora is a tributary to San Juan Creek, about long, in southern Orange County in the U.S. state of California. The creek begins in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains (), at an elevation of , and flows south through residential ...

tributary in what is now

Rancho Mission Viejo, California Rancho Mission Viejo (Spanish: ''Rancho Misión Vieja'', meaning "Old Mission Ranch") is an active ranch and farm, habitat reserve, residential community, and census-designated place in South Orange County, California. Rancho Mission Viejo origi ...

. The name for the village was closely related to the Payómkawichum word for wild tobacco ''piivat''. It was located north of Mission San Juan Capistrano, downstream from the village of Huumai and upstream from the village of Sajavit. Alternative names for the village include Pii'iv, Pivits, and Peviva.

History

The village was visited by the

Portolá expedition thumbnail, 250px, Point of San Francisco Bay Discovery The Portolá expedition ( es, Expedición de Portolá) was a Spanish voyage of exploration in 1769–1770 that was the first recorded European land entry and exploration of the interior of t ...

in January 1770, after being missed on the first pass through the area in July 1769.

Juan Crespí Joan Crespí or Juan Crespí (1 March 1721 – 1 January 1782) was a Franciscan missionary and explorer of Las Californias. Biography A native of Majorca, Crespí entered the Franciscan order at the age of seventeen. He came to New Spain in ...

described the encounter as follows: "We met with no villages here on the way going up, but now we came upon some small houses roofed with tule rushes, with a good many gentile men, women and children living encamped here in the hollow. No sooner did they see us than, as if pleased, they set up a great hubbub, and all came over weaponless to the camp, very well pleased, and spent the rest of the afternoon staying with us." In 1964,

Clarence H. Lobo Clarence H. Lobo (c. September 12, 1912 – July 1, 1985) was the elected spokesperson for the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, a non-profit organization that self-identifies as a Native American tribe, from 1946 to 1985. He notably made a bid to ...

, chief of the Acjachemen people, made a bid to reclaim the village site, which was a campground at the time. Lobo spoke how the US Senate Act of 1891, which established the Mission Indian Commission, was supposed to provide native people with 640 acres of land after it had been lost to white settlers in the 1850s, but that the act was broken, like many before: "it is apparently just another treaty made to be broken in the long history of whites take over Indian's lands. Maybe now we can see if the federal government will finally live up to its word."

References

Former Native American populated places in California History of Orange County, California Juaneño populated places California Mission Indians Acjachemen {{OrangeCountyCA-geo-stub

History

See also

References