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
The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of Northern California, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern).Pritzker, 152[Nomlaki
The Nomlaki (also Noamlakee, Central Wintu, Nomelaki) are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, extending westward to the Coast Range in Northern California. Today some Nomlaki people are enrolled in the federally recogni ...]
and the
Patwin
The Patwin (also Patween, Southern Wintu) are a band of Wintun people native to the area of Northern California. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500 AD.
The Patw ...
. The Wintu language is part of the
Penutian
Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian s ...
language family.
Historically, the Wintu lived primarily on the western side of the northern part of the
Sacramento Valley, from the
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River ( es, Río Sacramento) is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento ...
to the
Coast Range. The range of the Wintu also included the southern portions of the Upper
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River ( es, Río Sacramento) is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento ...
(south of the Salt Creek drainage), the southern portion of the
McCloud River
The McCloud River is a longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 10, 2011 river that flows east of and parallel to the upper Sacramento River, in Siskiyou County and S ...
, and the upper
Trinity River. They also lived in the vicinity of present-day
Chico, on the west side of the river extending to the Coast Ranges. Today most Wintus live on reservations and rancherias in
Colusa,
Glenn,
Yolo,
Mendocino, and
Shasta counties.
History
The first recorded encounter between Wintu and
Euro-American
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent E ...
s dates from the 1826 expedition of
Jedediah Smith, followed by an 1827 expedition led by
Peter Skene Ogden. Between 1830 and 1833, many Wintu died from a
malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
epidemic
An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time.
Epidemics of infectious ...
that killed an estimated 75% of the indigenous population in the upper and central
Sacramento Valley.
In the following years, the weakened Wintu fell victim to competition for resources by incoming European-American settlers. The settlers' sheep and cattle herds destroyed the Wintu food supply while
gold mine Gold Mine may refer to:
* Gold Mine (board game)
*Gold Mine (Long Beach), an arena
*"Gold Mine", a song by Joyner Lucas from the 2020 album ''ADHD
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characteri ...
rs' processing activities caused
pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
of rivers. The Wintu were also forced to work as laborers in gold mining operations. In 1846,
John C. Frémont and
Kit Carson
Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and ...
accompanied by local white settlers killed 175 Wintu and
Yana
Yana may refer to:
Locations
*Yana, Burma, a village in Hkamti Township in Hkamti District in the Sagaing Region of northwestern Burma
*Yana, India, a village in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, India
* Yana, Nigeria, an administrative ca ...
by force of arms
Settlers tried to take over Wintu land and relocate them west of Clear Creek. At a "friendship feast" in 1850, settlers served poisoned food to local natives, from which 100 ''Nomsuu'' and 45
Wenemem Wintu died. More deaths of Wintu and destruction of their land followed in 1851 and 1852, in incidents such as the
Bridge Gulch Massacre.
Culture
The Wintu language is one of the
Wintuan languages
Wintuan (also Wintun, Wintoon, Copeh, Copehan) is a family of languages spoken in the Sacramento Valley of central Northern California.
All Wintuan languages are either extinct or severely endangered.
Classification
Family division
Shipley ...
; it is also called ''
Wintu
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 Wintu ...
''.
The religious stories and legends of the Trinity River Wintu were told by Grant Towendolly to Marcelle Masson, who published them in ''A Bag of Bones'' (1966).
Population
Scholars have disagreed about the historic population of the tribes before European-American contact.
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 ...
estimated the combined 1770 population of the Wintu,
Nomlaki
The Nomlaki (also Noamlakee, Central Wintu, Nomelaki) are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, extending westward to the Coast Range in Northern California. Today some Nomlaki people are enrolled in the federally recogni ...
, and
Patwin
The Patwin (also Patween, Southern Wintu) are a band of Wintun people native to the area of Northern California. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500 AD.
The Patw ...
as 12,000.
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 ...
initially put the population of the Wintu proper as 2,950, but later nearly doubled his estimate to 5,300.
Frank R. LaPena estimated a total of 14,250 in his work of the 1970s.
[LaPena, p. 325]
Kroeber estimated the population of the Wintu, Nomlaki, and Patwin in 1910 as about 1,000. Today the population has recovered somewhat and there are about 2,500 Wintun, many of whom live on the
Round Valley Reservation
The Round Valley Indian Reservation is a federally recognized Indian reservation lying primarily in northern Mendocino County, California, United States. A small part of it extends northward into southern Trinity County. The total land area, incl ...
, and on the
Colusa,
Cortina,
Grindstone Creek,
Redding, and
Rumsey rancherias.
See also
*
Winnemem Wintu
The Winnemem Wintu ("middle river people" or "middle water people") are a band of the Native American Wintu tribe originally located along the lower McCloud River, above Shasta Dam near Redding, California.
History
The Winnemem are one of what ...
*
Wintun
The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of Northern California, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern).Pritzker, 152[Wintu language
Wintu is an extinct Wintuan language which was spoken by the Wintu people of Northern California.
It was the northernmost member of the Wintun family of languages.
The Wintuan family of languages was spoken in the Sacramento River Valley and in ...]
*
Nomlaki
The Nomlaki (also Noamlakee, Central Wintu, Nomelaki) are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, extending westward to the Coast Range in Northern California. Today some Nomlaki people are enrolled in the federally recogni ...
*
Patwin
The Patwin (also Patween, Southern Wintu) are a band of Wintun people native to the area of Northern California. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500 AD.
The Patw ...
*
Wintuan languages
Wintuan (also Wintun, Wintoon, Copeh, Copehan) is a family of languages spoken in the Sacramento Valley of central Northern California.
All Wintuan languages are either extinct or severely endangered.
Classification
Family division
Shipley ...
*
Wintu-Nomlaki traditional narratives Wintu-Nomlaki traditional narratives include myths, legends, tales, and oral histories preserved by the Wintu and Nomlaki
The Nomlaki (also Noamlakee, Central Wintu, Nomelaki) are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, exte ...
Notes
References
*
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Christopher K., and Kelly M. Mann. 1998. ''The Wintu and Their Neighbors: A Very Small World-system in Northern California''. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. .
*
*
* Demetracopoulou, Dorothy. 1935. "Wintu Songs". ''Anthropos'' 30:483-494.
* Du Bois, Cora A. 1935. "Wintu Ethnography", ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'' 36:1-148.
* Du Bois, Cora A., and Dorothy Demetracopoulou. 1931. "Wintu Myths", ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'' 28:279-403.
* Hogue, Helen S., and Margaret Guilford-Kardell. 1977. ''Wintu Trails''. Revised edition; originally published in 1948. Shasta Historical Society, Reading, California.
* Hoveman, Alice R. 2002. ''Journey to Justice: The Wintu People and the Salmon''. Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, California. .
* Kroeber, A. L. 1925. ''Handbook of the Indians of California''. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
* LaPena, Frank R. 1978. "Wintu", in ''California'', edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 324–340. ''Handbook of North American Indians'', William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
* LaPena, Frank R. 1987. ''The world is a Gift''. Limestone Press, San Francisco.
* LaPena, Frank R. 2004. ''Dream Songs and Ceremony: Reflections on Traditional California Indian Dance''. Great Valley Books, Berkeley, California. .
* McLeod, Christopher. 2001. ''In the Light of Reverence''. Videocassette. Bullfrog Films, Oley, Pennsylvania. .
* McKibbin, Grace, and Alice Shepherd. 1997. ''In My Own Words: Stories, Songs, and Memories of Grace McKibbin, Wintu''.
Heyday Books
Heyday is an independent nonprofit publisher based in Berkeley, California.
Heyday was founded by Malcolm Margolin in 1974 when he wrote, typeset, designed, and distributed ''The East Bay Out'', a guide to the natural history of the hills and b ...
, Berkeley, California. .
* Towendolly, Grant. 1966. ''A Bag of Bones: The Wintu Myths of a Trinity River Indian''. Edited by Marcelle Masson. Naturegraph, Oakland, California. ; .
External links
"Wintu", College of the Siskiyous
(map after Kroeber)," California PreHistory
"Wintu language" ''Ethnologue''
{{authority control
*
California genocide
Native American tribes in California
History of Butte County, California
History of Colusa County, California
History of Glenn County, California
History of Mendocino County, California
History of Napa County, California
History of Shasta County, California
History of Tehama County, California
History of Yolo County, California
Sacramento Valley