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Camp Internet History & Social Studies - Miwok Studies

Migrations

The Miwok were a Penutian speaking people who lived in three areas of early California - Coast, Lake, and Interior Miwok groups are recognized by Anthropologists. For our study, we will focus on a specific group of the Interior Miwok, those who lived in the foothills of the Sierras, on the western side, for many thousands of years. The word 'Miwok" is this peoples name for their people, and for people in general. They also had names for each area of their settlements that gave them a geographic distinction among the Interior Miwok who lived primarily in the Sierra foothills.

Higher up in the Sierras, into the Yosemite Valley, before the arrival of the Miwok, lived another small tribe of Native Americans whose name there is no verifiable record of. These peoples had entered into Yosemite valley from the east, many thousands of years ago, which made them part of the Great Basin migrations that took place over many generations from Canada, down into Montana, and further south, east and west, between the Rocky mountains and the Sierras. When this earliest group of people reached the Yosemite Valley, they became one of the westernmost outposts for their language group.

Down below them in the western foothills of the Sierras lived the Miwok. These foothill tribes were impacted upon by other tribes who were in numerous concentration in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys of inland California. These larger tribes crowded some of the Miwok to the point that they were willing to leave their ancestral foothill lands and move up deeper into the California Backcountry. A band of the Miwok migrated again, this time moving up the Merced River and into Yosemite Valley. When the Miwok arrived in the Yosemite Valley, they learned to live as neighbors and friends with the Great Basin peoples already living there. In time, all were absorbed into a Miwok culture and way of life. The Camp reading track is studying the life of Tupi, an example of a Yosemite Valley Miwok boy.



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