The Chochenyo (also called Chocheño, Chocenyo) are one of the divisions of the indigenous Ohlone (Costanoan) people of

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

. The Chochenyo reside on the east side of the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

(the

East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa countie ...

), primarily in what is now

Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a List of counties in California, county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and List ...

, and also

Contra Costa County ) of the San Francisco Bay , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_name1 = California , subdivision_type2 ...

, from the

Berkeley Hills The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" (from the original Spanish ''Sierra de la C ...

inland to the western

Diablo Range The Diablo Range is a mountain range in the California Coast Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Coast Ranges in northern California, United States. It stretches from the eastern San Francisco Bay area at its northern end to the Salinas Valley are ...

'' Chochenyo'' (also called ''Chocheño'' and ''East Bay Costanoan'') is also the name of their spoken language, one of the Costanoan dialects in the Utian family. Linguistically, Chochenyo,

Tamyen The Tamien people (also spelled as ''Tamyen'', ''Thamien'') are one of eight linguistic divisions of the Ohlone (Costanoan) people groups of Native Americans who lived in Northern California. The Tamien traditionally lived throughout the Santa ...

(also Tamien) and

Ramaytush The Ramaytush or Rammay-tuš people are a linguistic subdivision of the Ohlone people of Northern California. The term Ramaytush was first applied to them in the 1970s, but the modern Ohlone people of the peninsula have claimed it as their ethn ...

are thought to be close dialects of a single language. The Ohlone tribes were

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 who moved into the San Francisco Bay Region around 500 CE, displacing earlier Esselen people. In Chochenyo territory, datings of the ancient Newark,

West Berkeley West Berkeley is generally the area of Berkeley, California, that lies west of San Pablo Avenue (though sometimes it may also refer to the larger area west of Sacramento Street though this includes Westbrae, Berkeley, California, Westbrae), abutti ...

, and

Emeryville Shellmound The Emeryville Shellmound, in Emeryville, California, is a sacred burial site of the Ohlone people, a once-massive archaeological shell midden deposit (dark, highly organic soil, temple and burial ground containing a high concentration of human ...

s attest to people residing in the Bay Area since

4000 BCE 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

. Chochenyo territory was bordered by the Karkin to the north (at

Mount Diablo Mount Diablo is a mountain of the Diablo Range, in Contra Costa County, California, Contra Costa County of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. It is south of Clayton, California, Clayton and northeast of Danville, Califo ...

), the

to the south and southwest, the San Francisco Bay to the west, and overlapped a bit with the

Bay Miwok The Bay Miwok are a cultural and linguistic group of Miwok, a Native American people in Northern California who live in Contra Costa County. They joined the Franciscan mission system during the early nineteenth century, suffered a devastating ...

and

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 ...

to the east. West Berkeley shellmound

During the California Mission Era, the Chochenyos moved en masse to the

Mission San Francisco de Asís Mission San Francisco de Asís ( es, Misión San Francisco de Asís), commonly known as Mission Dolores (as it was founded near the Dolores creek), is a Spanish Californian mission and the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco. Located i ...

(founded in 1776) in San Francisco, and

Mission San José Mission San José may refer to: *Mission San José (California), a Spanish mission in Fremont, California * Mission San Jose, Fremont, California, a neighborhood * Mission San Jose High School, a high school in Fremont, California *Mission San José ...

of Fremont (founded in 1797). Most moved into one of these missions and were baptized, lived and educated to be Catholic ''neophytes'', also known as

Mission Indians Mission Indians are the indigenous peoples of California who lived in Southern California and were forcibly relocated from their traditional dwellings, villages, and homelands to live and work at 15 Franciscan missions in Southern California and ...

, until the missions were discontinued by the Mexican Government in 1834. Then the people found themselves landless. A large majority of the Chochenyo died from disease in the missions and shortly thereafter, only a fragment remaining by 1900. The speech of the last two native speakers of Chochenyo was documented in the 1920s in the unpublished fieldnotes of the

Bureau of American Ethnology The Bureau of American Ethnology (or BAE, originally, Bureau of Ethnology) was established in 1879 by an act of Congress for the purpose of transferring archives, records and materials relating to the Indians of North America from the Interior D ...

linguist

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 ...

. Today, the Chochenyo have joined with the other San Francisco Bay Area Ohlone people under the name of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe. As of 2007, Muwekma Ohlone were petitioning for U.S. federal recognition.

Chochenyo tribes and villages

The East Bay and eastward mountain valleys were populated with dozens of Chochenyo tribes and villages. See: * Ohlone tribes and villages, East Bay Area

References

* Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925. ''Handbook of the Indians of California''. Washington, D.C: ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'' No. 78. (map of villages, page 465) * Milliken, Randall. ''A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910'' Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1995. (alk. paper) * Milliken, Randall. ''Native Americans at Mission San Jose'' Banning, CA: Malki-Ballena Press Publication, 2008. (alk. paper) * Teixeira, Lauren. ''The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area, A Research Guide''. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1997. .

External links

Chochenyo revival ("Release")

Chochenyo revitalization – language at UCB "Faith in Words" 2004archived version

Chochenyo language
overview at the

Survey of California and Other Indian Languages The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages (originally the Survey of California Indian Languages) at the University of California at Berkeley documents, catalogs, and archives the indigenous languages of the Americas. The survey also hosts ...

Muwekma Ohlone Tribe website

Muwekma request for federal tribal recognition Court opinion 9/21/06

{{authority control Ohlone Native American tribes in California California Mission Indians History of Alameda County, California History of Contra Costa County, California Berkeley Hills Diablo Range Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area History of the San Francisco Bay Area

Chochenyo tribes and villages

See also

References

External links