The Wukchumni () are a

Yokuts 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 ...

tribe 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 ...

with about 200 members, residing on the

Tule River Reservation ''Schoenoplectus acutus'' ( syn. ''Scirpus acutus, Schoenoplectus lacustris, Scirpus lacustris'' subsp. ''acutus''), called tule , common tule, hardstem tule, tule rush, hardstem bulrush, or viscid bulrush, is a giant species of sedge in the pl ...

. 3000 years ago, they broke off from the main Yokuts group and settled in the region of the east fork of the

Kaweah River The Kaweah River is a river draining the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare County, California in the United States. Fed primarily by high elevation snowmelt along the Great Western Divide, the Kaweah begins as four forks in Sequoia National Park, ...

History

Approximately 3000 years ago, the Wukchumni permanently settled in the East Fork

. During the summer they occupied villages in the Atwell Mill area as well as the floor of Mineral King Valley. For food, they gathered bulbs, berries, and acorns and hunted bear, deer, and mountain sheep. They went to Hockett Meadow and White Chief Bowl in

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing ...

to hunt and trade with the neighboring

Paiute people Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Paiu ...

Population

It was estimated before European contact the Yokut population reached 50,000, but today, there are less than 200 self-identified Wukchumni people alive. Some members of the Tule River Reservation are of Wukchumni heritage; however, majority of Wukchumni descendants are not federally recognized. One of the most famous members of today's Wukchumni society was Marie Wilcox, the author of the Wukchumni dictionary, and the last native speaker of the language.

Language

The Wukchumni spoke traditionally a dialect of the

Tule-Kaweah Yokuts Tule-Kaweah is a Yokuts dialect of California. Wukchumni, the last surviving dialect, had only one native or fluent speaker, Marie Wilcox (both native and fluent), who compiled a dictionary of the language.

language, also called

Wukchumni The Wukchumni () are a Yokuts tribe of California with about 200 members, residing on the Tule River Reservation. 3000 years ago, they broke off from the main Yokuts group and settled in the region of the east fork of the Kaweah River. History App ...

Marie Wilcox Marie Desma Wilcox (November 24, 1933 – September 25, 2021) Als, October 9, 2021. was a Native American who was the last native speaker of Wukchumni, a dialect of Tule-Kaweah, which is a Yokutsan indigenous language spoken by the Tule-Kaw ...

, born 1933, was the last native speaker of Wukchumni. She died October 7, 2021. In the early 2000s, she and her daughter Jennifer Malone aimed to create a Wukchumni dictionary. She also worked on an audio dictionary with the aid of her grandson. Wilcox said that her grandparents taught her the language, but when her grandmother died, she had temporarily abandoned the Wukchumni language. When she realized that young tribal members were taking an interest in learning, she worked to make a lexical dictionary. Marie Wilcox and her daughter taught weekly classes around

Tulare County Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. ...

.‘Who Speaks Wukchumni?’

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

, 19 Aug 2014.

was in 2014 the only fluent speaker of Wukchumni. Due to her efforts, as of 2021 at least three people are fluent in the language, and her great-great-grandson is being raised to speak it from birth.

References

External links

Central Valley woman works to preserve dying Native language

Marie’s Dictionary
{{authority control Yokuts Native American tribes in California