INDIANS IN THE VALLEY
The Miwok Indians who lived in Yosemite were called the Ahwaneechee
(Ah-wah-nee-chee). The Ahwaneechee tribe has populated Yosemite
for nearly 4,000 years. At one time the Ahwanee tribe was
struck with a fatal sickness that caused many to die and the
survivors to flee from the Valley and join other tribes. For
many years afterwards, the Valley was unpopulated. Finally
Tenaya, who claimed to be descended from an Ahwaneechee chief,
left the Monos, where he had been born and raised. He gathered
some of his father's old tribe around him, visited the Valley
and claimed it as the birth right of his people.
The Eastern Miwok Indians first saw white people when Spanish
explorers arrived in the late 1700's. The white people, especially
the white people looking for gold, began to take over the
Indian land. Soon the two groups started fighting, so the
government sent Major Savage and his men to kill or remove
the Indians from Yosemite. It was during this campaign that
Major Savage and his men discovered the Yosemite Valley. The
Yosemite Indians were moved to a reservation near Fresno.
Although they had plenty of food and a place to live, they
became very homesick. Chief Tenaya especially missed the mountains
of Yosemite. Tenaya and his family were finally allowed to
return. Soon after he returned to Yosemite they were attacked
by the Mono's, a tribe from the Eastern side of the Sierra's
and Chief Tenaya was killed. In 1855 all the Indians on the
reservation were allowed to return to their original homes.
Since that time, they have lived more or less at peace with
the ! white settlers.
Food
One of the main foods the Miwok ate was acorns. The acorns
were mainly from Black Oak trees. Acorns were a vital food
source for the people. The women would crack and shell the
acorns, then dry them. After drying, they would remove the
spoiled meats and pound the kernels into a fine yellow meal.
Then, they would leach the acorns. Leaching would remove the
bitter tasting tannin from the meal. To leach the acorns they
would pour water over the acorns while the acorns were in
a basin of sand. Acorns made mainly three things depending
on the fineness of the meal. The fine meal was used for gruel
or thin soup. The middle product was used for mush and the
coarser materials made small patties cooked on hot flat rocks.
Acorns were kept and stored in a chuck-ah. A chuck-ah is a
small building made of intertwined tree branches and bushes.
One chuck-ah could hold almost a winter's worth of acorns.
Acorns were taken as needed from a hole in the side of the
chuck-ah.
Another main source of food for the Miwoks was from hunting
and fishing. They ate deer that they killed using spears and
arrows made with obsidian points. They also ate squirrels,Quail,
rabbits and bird meat. The favorite of fish was Rainbow Trout.
The Miwok usually cooked the fish or dried them for winter
use.
The Miwok also ate mushrooms, berries, bulbs, insects and
at least 37 different plants.Some of the bulbs they ate were
Soaproots, Corn Lily and Swamp Onions. Some of the berries
were Green Manzanita Berries, White Leaf Manzanita Berries,
Gooseberries, Currants, Wild Strawberries and Elderberries.
Like most Native American Tribes, the Miwok depended a great
deal on ritual and wild plants for curing sickness and disease.
Yarrow: bad colds, influenza, leaves and flowers were soaked
and drunk or applied externally. Mashed leaves were bound
to wounds to stop pain.
Milkweed: milkweed milk applied to warts.
Monkey Flower: diarrhea, root used to make tea.
Wild Rose: leaves and berries soaked and drunk to relieve
pain.
Nettle: root used in bath to relieve rheumatism.
White Leaf Manzanita: tea brewed from bark to relieve diarrhea.
Horsetail Equisitism: tea to relieve fever and skin irritations
and a general medicine; boil the cleaned shoots for five minutes.
Mountain Misery: a tea was made of this to relieve rheumatism,
treat acne, venereal diseases, measles and chicken pox. The
leaves were soaked in hot water and drunk hot. A medicine
man or shaman would never treat skin eruption diseases.
Snow Plant: Indians dried and made a powder of this for use
as a wash for ulcers and sore mouth and toothache.
Pharmacopeia says the plant is poisonous; however, the Indians
probably never swallowed it.
This is only a small list of the plants that the Miwoks used.
If we compare the Miwok medicine to that of the white man's
medical practice 150 years ago, we find that the Natives were
not the lazy and ignorant people some historians have made
them to be.
Shelter
Have you ever thought about how lucky you are to have a nice
house with electricity and and modern appliances? How about
your TV, you probably couldn't live without your TV now could
you? Well, Miwok kids were not half as lucky as us. Just think
a Miwok child, maybe your age, lived in a bark slab u-ma-cha
house, where a"modern" appliance was the acorn granary
outside where their mom ground acorns for dinner. The u-ma-cha
was made of bark slab sometimes with an inner layer of pine
needles.An outer layer of dirt and mud was piled against the
lower reaches. It was usually eight to fifteen feet in diameter.
For the door a smaller slab of bark was used. An u-ma-cha
could house six people at one time. Can you imagine being
stuck in an u-ma-cha with all of your brothers and sisters?
Well, you would be able to if you were a Miwok.
Instead of taking a bath you would get in a sweat house get
all hot and sweaty then run out and jump into a nearby stream.
And then you wouldn't smell so bad anymore. At night you would
sleep on a deerskin and if you were well-to-do you slept on
a willow frame that would just barely lift you off the ground.
If you were the chief you slept on a bearskin. The fire was
in the center of the u-ma-cha and it was used for cooking;
depending on the food and weather.
The ceremonial house was a very large structure in the center
of the village. The roof was carefully laid in a certain fashion.
The first layer had willow brush laid sideways on top of the
horizontal roof timbers. Over it was placed at a right angle
a second layer of willow brush.After it a layer of thick shrub
then a layer of earth.And after it was all finished it must
measure 5inches thick. The structure was built over a large
pit. Center poles and beams supported the roof.Miwok shelters
were simple yet they never had to move, because they had such
a plentiful food source in Yosemite Valley.
Hunting
Tools and Weapons
The Yosemite Indians used bone and deer antlers to make a
variety of tools and implements. Limb bones of the jack rabbit
and grouse became whistles used for ceremonial dances. The
great obsidian quarries near Mono Lake supplied material Piqutes
brought chunks of the obsidian up to the large trading sites
in the Sierra where the Yosemites met them. The Yosemites
bartered acorns and other goods for the obsidian they needed.
They hammered off pieces of suitable size for tools and arrowheads
from the larger chunks, and then carried these "blanks"
back to their villages in deerskin sacks. Small pieces of
obsidian were roughly shaped with an antler tool and finished
with a smaller antler implement. The Yosemites grasped the
obsidian in the palm of the hand, protected by a buckskin
pad, and exerted pressure on it with the end of an antler
tool.
Before The Hunt
To cleanse the body until it was free of odors that might
frighten the prey and to loosen up their muscles for the chase,
the Miwok's would go through a thorough course of sweating
and cleansing. A fire was built inside a sweat house that
produced heat and not steam. After they got very hot and sweaty
the hunters would jump into the icy stream. Sometimes this
process was repeated from before dawn of the day of the hunt
until they felt free of bodily odor. They also rubbed their
bodies and clothing, top to bottom, with Mugwort, a minty
smelling plant.
Hunting Deer
The deer was the Miwok's most important source of meat. Deer
were obtained in five ways: (1) stretching a net over a deer
trail during winter and spring migrations; (2) V-shaped brush
fence with traps set in openings at the angle of the V and
hunters would drive the deer into the V; (3) by driving the
animals over a cliff; (4) by sitting close enough to shoot
them with a bow and arrow or (5) by running down an animal.
Some hunters wore a false deer head and were able to get closer
to the deer.
Hunting Other Mammals
The rabbit was the Miwoks next most important food animal
after the deer. They were caught with nets and snares. Beavers
and squirrels were hunted down by bow and arrow. The quail,
the most important food bird of the Miwok, were taken by means
of human hair snares set in small openings along a brush fence.
Fishing
Fish were caught by means of a net, spear, or by hand. When
the water was low in late spring or summer the Yosemites stupefied
fish with pulverized soaproot mixed with soil and water. For
the fish, it was a form of strangulation, causing them to
rise to the surface where they could be easily captured by
Indians with scoop baskets. The Indians were lucky to live
in a place where food was easy to get to.
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