This will be a shocker to most of the people who have entered Yosemite and read the story of Chief Tenaya. Chief Tenaya was NOT a Miwok, but a Paiute. Yet the Yosemite National Park service has committed literal genocide against the Paiute people.
Here is the story that the NPS (National Park Service) seems to not remember.
Around the early 1800s there was a plague that killed most of the Native population of the California Indians of the Central Valley. Tenaya's father took the last remaining handful of his band of people, the Ahwahnees, to the east, to the capital of the Mono Lake Paiute people at Teniega Bah.
There Tenaya's father married a Mono Lake Paiute woman and had Tenaya. Tenaya grew up at Mono Lake and when he was old enough married a Mono Lake Paiute woman. They had several children.
One day a medicine man advised Tenaya (Tenieya) that it was safe to go back into Yosemite. So Chief Tenaya went back to the homeland of his fathers tribe. Who were unlike any other of the surrounding tribes. He took back 200 to 300 people.
Now where those 200 to 300 Miwoks? From a handful of Ahwahnees? Higly unlikely, since most likely the Ahwahnees were absorbed into the Mono Lake Paiute population.
Also during that time Paiutes and Miwoks were not friends or allies. They had several battles over resources in many locations like Hetch Hetchy, Stoddard Springs, etc. The Paiutes won all those battles. It was falsely written that they "traded" with each other, but that was written by an employee of Yosemite who has an agenda. They didn't become "friendly" with each other until around 1900s. So that is why the Ahwahnees could not have been Miwoks.
The Paiutes during that time were extremely war like and would not allow some male from an enemy tribe to come live in peace and take one of their women. Why didn't the Ahwahnees go up north to the Central Miwok area which was closer? Why did they instead make the long hard journey over the Sierras to land of the Miwok's enemy, the Mono Lake Paiute country? Because they had to be a band of Paiutes.
Lafayette Bunnell, the doctor of the Mariposa Battalion, wrote in Chapter XVIII"Ten-ie-ya was recognized, by the Mono tribe, as one of their number, as he was born and lived among them until his ambition made him a leader and founder of the Pai-Ute colony in Ah-wah-ne. His history and warlike exploits formed a part of the traditionary lore of the Monos. They were proud of his successes and boasted of his descent from their tribe...". He also wrote that Tenaya spoke a "Pai-Ute Jargon", which meant that Tenaya was a Paiute.
Now the Yosemite NPS is promoting and working with the Southern Sierra Miwoks, not a tribe, but a non-profit group who are mainly made up of Yokuts, to make them a federally recognized tribe. Some of them are even employees of the park and getting help from within the park service.
Most of those who now claim to be Miwoks were actually from tribes that had chiefs that hated Chief Tenaya and coined the name "Yosemites". Because they were afraid of them. Yet those same people are now being promoted by Yosemite park service as the "Real" Yosemite Ahwahnees. Most aren't even Miwoks, but can be traced to Central Valley Yokuts who were forced onto the Fresno reservation by Savage. They later drifted off the reservation and started working in the park around 1900. Most are not the descendents of Chief Tenaya, but of Chief Bautista aka Vowchester who, with Chief Russio, coined the term "Yosemite".
cc: National Park Service
Last edited by Yosemite Indian : 12-14-2005 at 08:28 AM.
OK, ok, ok, so Black Oak Casino isn't run by the MiWuk tribe, its run by others.
Frankly - who gives a damn? It's one of the best employers in the area, the place is a great club and tons of fun. Whoever the tribal fathers are, is matters not - they have done a LOT to help their community and the rest of the county. Probably more than our elected leaders, the idio.... folk at the EDC and others.
MiWuk Indians and all the others involved get the respect, because they deserve it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yosemite Indian
This will be a shocker to most of the people who have entered Yosemite and read the story of Chief Tenaya. Chief Tenaya was NOT a Miwok, but a Paiute. Yet the Yosemite National Park service has committed literal genocide against the Paiute people.
Here is the story that the NPS (National Park Service) seems to not remember.
Around the early 1800s there was a plague that killed most of the Native population of the California Indians of the Central Valley. Tenaya's father took the last remaining handful of his band of people, the Ahwahnees, to the east, to the capital of the Mono Lake Paiute people at Teniega Bah.
There Tenaya's father married a Mono Lake Paiute woman and had Tenaya. Tenaya grew up at Mono Lake and when he was old enough married a Mono Lake Paiute woman. They had several children.
One day a medicine man advised Tenaya (Tenieya) that it was safe to go back into Yosemite. So Chief Tenaya went back to the homeland of his fathers tribe. Who were unlike any other of the surrounding tribes. He took back 200 to 300 people.
Now where those 200 to 300 Miwoks? From a handful of Ahwahnees? Higly unlikely, since most likely the Ahwahnees were absorbed into the Mono Lake Paiute population.
Also during that time Paiutes and Miwoks were not friends or allies. They had several battles over resources in many locations like Hetch Hetchy, Stoddard Springs, etc. The Paiutes won all those battles. It was falsely written that they "traded" with each other, but that was written by an employee of Yosemite who has an agenda. They didn't become "friendly" with each other until around 1900s. So that is why the Ahwahnees could not have been Miwoks.
The Paiutes during that time were extremely war like and would not allow some male from an enemy tribe to come live in peace and take one of their women. Why didn't the Ahwahnees go up north to the Central Miwok area which was closer? Why did they instead make the long hard journey over the Sierras to land of the Miwok's enemy, the Mono Lake Paiute country? Because they had to be a band of Paiutes.
Lafayette Bunnell, the doctor of the Mariposa Battalion, wrote in Chapter XVIII"Ten-ie-ya was recognized, by the Mono tribe, as one of their number, as he was born and lived among them until his ambition made him a leader and founder of the Pai-Ute colony in Ah-wah-ne. His history and warlike exploits formed a part of the traditionary lore of the Monos. They were proud of his successes and boasted of his descent from their tribe...". He also wrote that Tenaya spoke a "Pai-Ute Jargon", which meant that Tenaya was a Paiute.
Now the Yosemite NPS is promoting and working with the Southern Sierra Miwoks, not a tribe, but a non-profit group who are mainly made up of Yokuts, to make them a federally recognized tribe. Some of them are even employees of the park and getting help from within the park service.
Most of those who now claim to be Miwoks were actually from tribes that had chiefs that hated Chief Tenaya and coined the name "Yosemites". Because they were afraid of them. Yet those same people are now being promoted by Yosemite park service as the "Real" Yosemite Ahwahnees. Most aren't even Miwoks, but can be traced to Central Valley Yokuts who were forced onto the Fresno reservation by Savage. They later drifted off the reservation and started working in the park around 1900. Most are not the descendents of Chief Tenaya, but of Chief Bautista aka Vowchester who, with Chief Russio, coined the term "Yosemite".
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Not about Casino, but about Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite
Frank, I am sure that the Black Oak casino hires a lot of people and does community service, but we are talking about historical facts and tribal recognition.
The Yosemite National Park Service should be telling the true historical story of park. They should be looking for the true accounts of the Indians in Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy and not fables.
Some think it really doesn't matter, but it does. It is like France took claim of Seattle WA, when they were not the original people of Seattle.
The park service has an educational progrom that teaches the local children the wrong history of the area.
It is important that the original people of Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy tell the truth.
That persons got paid for over 30 years with our taxpayer's money to write untruths. That was a waste of tax payers money.
cc: National Park Service
Last edited by Yosemite Indian : 12-15-2005 at 10:22 PM.
I agree. I don't know if what you post is fact or not, as I know little about it. I do however agree that it is important that subjects presented as fact, should resemble as close as possible the truth.
My question is why the truth (as you present it....remember I don't know either way) is being distorted. Who stands/stood to gain from it. Generally, when a blatant lie is told, somebody is coming out ahead in some way.
I agree. I don't know if what you post is fact or not, as I know little about it. I do however agree that it is important that subjects presented as fact, should resemble as close as possible the truth.
My question is why the truth (as you present it....remember I don't know either way) is being distorted. Who stands/stood to gain from it. Generally, when a blatant misinformation is told, somebody is coming out ahead in some way.
8Ball, in the early 1940's the story started to change that it was Yosemite Miwoks who lived in Yosemite.
Now to go back to Yosemite. One of the descendents of the first mailman of Yosemite, Tom Hutchings, saw the book at the library and checked it out. When he read it HE WAS SHOCKED. They had a picture of his ancestor Tom Hutchings, the first mailman of Yosemite, and under his name it said MIWOK. Well Tom Hutchings had always been Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute and so were his wife and children. Then we passed the book around and in the book it was filled with misinformation from cover to cover. The Paiutes were outside of the park or visitors while the Miwoks were inside the park year round which was not true. Almost every basket weaver in the book was "Possibly" or "full blooded" Miwok. When we knew the truth. They were not. They were either Yokut or Paiute.
So some of our people went to Yosemite to check it out and in the research library most of the photos that we have seen of our people were not there and some had been changed. Then we went to the museum and they had all the baskets identified as MIWOK/Paiute or Miwok or Paiute. Not one of the basket makers in the Yosemite Park museum was a Miwok. They were either Chuchansi Yokut or Paiute.
Then one of our people bought the Yosemite Cemetery guide and then it was the biggest blow. They had actually changed the tribal affilication from Paiute or Mono to MIWOK. Even the dead had been changed. But they could not change the grave marker on Lancisco Wilson, who the Southern Sierra Miwoks claim was one of their earliest chiefs. On his grave it read "PIUTE", yet in the guide he was full blooded Miwok. That is like someone had written that George Washington was Russian.
cc: National Park Service
__________________
"Chief Tenaya, the founder of the Pai-Ute Colony of Ahwahni...Tenaya spoke a Pai-Ute Jargon" From the written accounts of one of the first non-indigenous person to meet Tenaya, Lafayette H. Bunnell, doctor of the Mariposa Battalion, 1851.
Last edited by Yosemite Indian : 12-15-2005 at 10:27 PM.
Hey - I have a BA in Anthropology and lived both in West Marin (where the coastal Miwuk are said to have been) and in Tuolumne County. I have always found it odd how there is little evidence for a connection between the two bands of Miwuk.
There are many other displays of misinformation - in Murphys at Ironstone and at Columbia State Park.
It is time for accurate information to be told and taught...and it is just as important that whites recognize the identity of tribes and nations appropriately.
I have been out of school for ten years now, but you may want to contact Columbia College and CSU Stanislaus' anthropology departments and see if there are students or professors who are willing to put in the research and make some more noise.
Hey - I have a BA in Anthropology and lived both in West Marin (where the coastal Miwuk are said to have been) and in Tuolumne County. I have always found it odd how there is little evidence for a connection between the two bands of Miwuk.
There are many other displays of misinformation - in Murphys at Ironstone and at Columbia State Park.
It is time for accurate information to be told and taught...and it is just as important that whites recognize the identity of tribes and nations appropriately.
I have been out of school for ten years now, but you may want to contact Columbia College and CSU Stanislaus' anthropology departments and see if there are students or professors who are willing to put in the research and make some more noise.
That is a great idea egraham. I will ask the other members what they think about that idea.
Thanks
__________________
"Chief Tenaya, the founder of the Pai-Ute Colony of Ahwahni...Tenaya spoke a Pai-Ute Jargon" From the written accounts of one of the first non-indigenous person to meet Tenaya, Lafayette H. Bunnell, doctor of the Mariposa Battalion, 1851.
Chief Tenaya was not a Miwok, NPS untruths.
