Six Bands of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation August 2023 Abstract (original) (raw)

2023, . “Six Bands of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation: Potoyunte, Awalache, Ahwahneechee, Siyante, Chowchilla, Nutchu.” Draft Report. Mariposa, CA: Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation

Coats, Waylon, Sandra Gaskell, and Danette Johnson with the assistance of Anthony Lerma, William Leonard, and John Pryor. “Six Bands of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation: Potoyunte, Awalache, Ahwahneechee, Siyante, Chowchilla, Nutchu.” Draft Report. Mariposa, CA: Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, 2023. ABSTRACT This report describes the lives and locations of the dominant governing culture of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation (SSMN) during the transformational historic period after the Spanish occupation and into the military movements at the onset of the California gold rush. It includes a brief biography of each of the captains before the turn of the nineteenth century, a detailed description of how the origination of this history began, and efforts to simplify the family use routes and village occupancy based on the explanation of Whitney (1871) by describing the "tracts" of each band. The descriptions of each band will include an explanation of how the populations became consolidated due to environment and circumstances out of their control, and examples of past and current cooperative projects at locations of historic importance with persons of historic significant status. The 1978 chapter written by Richard Levy and referenced within the 2018 OFA Proposed Findings (PF) will be addressed to correct the map perception which is counter to the band's understanding of their own territory. There will be a listing of the 7.5 quadrangle maps that represent the full region of all of the bands, and the nomenclature of the Indigenous names for the regional occupation sites over the entire landscape. Based on the diaries of the Mariposa Indian War, the camps and military movements will be used to identify how the captains moved throughout the war. Additionally, seven land allotments claimed and assigned to particular families of the captains of the bands of the SSMN around the turn of the century will be described and shown to be part of the ancient civilization places and trail systems. Finally, a chapter will be dedicated to placing the captains into their regional settlements with a geographic landmark description for the tracts of each band. The regional geographic names of the Six Bands of the SSMN were traced to the captains of the contact period and the Treaty signers. Ceremonial settlements of Captains following the specific geographic areas hold key information for defining leadership and family relationships in these six bands: 1) Potoyunte, 2) Awalache, 3) Ahwahneechee (Yo-ke-mi-te), 4) Siyante, 5) Chauchilla, and 6) Nutchu.