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 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 ...

. Today, the Salinan governments are now working toward federal tribal recognition from the

Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...

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 Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion * Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

in the Salinas Valley (

Mission San Antonio de Padua Mission San Antonio de Padua is a Spanish mission established by the Franciscan order in present-day Monterey County, California, near the present-day town of Jolon. Founded on July 14, 1771, it was the third mission founded in Alta California ...

and Mission San Miguel Arcángel). There were also a ''Playano'' group on the

Pacific Coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the Pac ...

in the vicinity of what is now San Simeon and Lucia. Before European contact, Salinans lived by

hunting and gathering 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, ...

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 (1891). The people's own name for themselves is the "Te'po'ta'ahl" or "People of the Oaks," according to current tribal leadership.

C. Hart Merriam Clinton Hart Merriam (December 5, 1855 – March 19, 1942) was an American zoologist, mammalogist, ornithologist, entomologist, ecologist, ethnographer, geographer, naturalist and physician. He was commonly known as the 'father of mammalogy', a ...

called these people the ''En-'ne-sen'' on advice from one

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

; ''En-'ne-sen'' was the native word for the Salinan headquarters.

Language

The

Salinan language Salinan was the indigenous language of the Salinan people of the central coast of California. It has been extinct since the death of the last speaker in 1958. The language is attested to some extent in colonial sources such as Sitjar (1860), b ...

, spoken until the 1950s is a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

. It may be a part of the

Hokan 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 ...

language family. Sapir included it in a subfamily of Hokan, along with Chumash and

Seri Seri or SERI may refer to: People *Jean Michaël Seri, an Ivorian professional footballer Places *Seri Yek-e Zarruk, Iran *Seri, Bheri, Nepal *Seri, Karnali, Nepal *Seri, Mahakali, Nepal *Seri, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India Oth ...

; this classification has found its way into more recent encyclopedias and presentations of language families, but serious supporting evidence has never been presented.

Population

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber put the 1770 population of the Salinan as 3,000.

Sherburne F. Cook Sherburne Friend Cook (1896-1974) was an American physiologist, who served as professor and chairman of the department of physiology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was notable as a pioneer in population studies of the native peopl ...

similarly estimated that there were at least 700 Salinans. The

2000 United States Census The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 ce ...

reported a total population of Salinan people as 681. The Wagon Cave rock formation about northwest of present-day

Jolon Jolon (; Spanish: ''Jolón''; Salinan: ''Xolon'') is small unincorporated village in southern Monterey County, California. Jolon is located in the San Antonio River Valley, west of Salinas Valley. The origins of Jolon date to 1771, when the Spa ...

is an archeological site that was used by the Salinan Antonianos subtribe who researchers believe occupied at least two villages in the area, an older site dating to approximately 450 A.D. and a later, protohistoric site with dates ranging from about 1450 to 1650 A.D. Archeologists have found a stemmed biface,

lithic flake In archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure,"Andrefsky, W. (2005) ''Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis''. 2d Ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press and may also be refe ...

shell bead Shell jewelry is jewelry that is primarily made from seashells, the shells of marine mollusks. Shell jewelry is a type of shellcraft. One very common form of shell jewelry is necklaces that are composed of large numbers of beads, where each ...

s, and non-human bones, as well as shell, bone, flaked stone, fire-affected rock, charred seeds, and mortars at the cave site. The rock overhangs and caves have fire-scarred roofs that bear evidence of occupancy over hundreds of years. The Wagon Cave Research Natural Area of contains diverse stands of Valley Oaks of varying ages and densities and has been recommended as a Research Natural Areas within the Los Padres National Forest. In the late 1800s until the Big Sur Coast Highway was completed in 1937, homesteaders near

Lucia Lucia may refer to: Arts and culture * ''Lucía'', a 1968 Cuban film by Humberto Solás * ''Lucia'' (film), a 2013 Kannada-language film * '' Lucia & The Best Boys'', a Scottish indie rock band formerly known as ''LUCIA'' * "Lucia", a Swedish c ...

and miners in the Los Burros Mining District used Wagon Cave as a resting point and overnight camp site when traveling to and from the coast. Travelers on horseback switched to wagons stored at the caves for the purpose of hauling items to market and provisions back from the railhead in Soledad.

Notes

References

* * Cook, Sherburne F. 1976. ''The Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization''. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. * Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925. ''Handbook of the Indians of California''. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C. * Hester, Thomas R. 1978. ''Salinan'', in ''Handbook of North American Indians'', vol. 8 (California). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer, eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. / 0160045754, pages 500-504. * Marlett, Stephen A. 2008. The Seri-Salinan connection revisited. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 74.3:393-399. * Sapir, Edward. 1925. The Hokan affinity of Subtiaba in Nicaragua. ''American Anthropologist'' 27: (3).402-34, (4).491-527.
National Public Radio segment by Allison Herrera, December 13, 2017
{{authority control Native American tribes in California California Mission Indians Salinas River (California) Salinas Valley Santa Lucia Range History of Monterey County, California History of San Luis Obispo County, California People from Monterey County, California People from San Luis Obispo County, California

Etymology

Language

Population

See also

Notes

References