Miwok

The Miwok are four linguistically related Indigenous peoples of California whose homelands span the Sacramento Valley, the Sierra Nevada foothills and the San Francisco Bay Area. They spoke Miwok languages of the Utian family: Plains and Sierra Miwok inland, Coast and Lake Miwok toward the ocean. Acorn harvests, salmon runs, deer and waterfowl supported populous villages of bark-slab houses around ceremonial roundhouses, where the Kuksu cult dances ordered the ritual calendar. Miwok basketry, coiled so tight it held water, is among the finest ever made. Inland groups traded salt, obsidian and pine nuts for coastal shell beads along trails that crossed the Coast Ranges. Spanish missions, Mexican ranchos, the Gold Rush and state-sponsored extermination fell on Miwok country in waves after 1800; survivors regrouped on rancherias and reservations. Federally recognised Miwok tribes and unrecognised lineages keep the clapperstick songs, the language nests and the fight for federal acknowledgment alive across the Sacramento Valley, the Sierra foothills and the Bay Area homelands.