Yosemite History Test – An Exam about California Native Americans in Yosemite National Park

So you think you know the history of Yosemite and the Native People of that area in California.

You read all the little booklets and seen the interpretive signs that are in Yosemite, now see if you know the REAL history of Yosemite’s first people, the American Indians of one of the most famous parks in America. A park that was “discovered” during the early California Gold Rush.

So lets see how how much you budding California Historians, archealogists, anthropologists, and future and current rangers of Yosemite National Park know?

1. What is the definition of Yosemite?

A. Some of them are killers (the Paiutes)

B. The Killers or the Grizzlies

C. Yose’s tribe

D. An unknown Miwok word that means ‘edible seeds’

2. Who was the only man to meet the original Yosemite Indians and write about them?

A. Stephen Powers

B. C. Hart Merriam

C. Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell

D. Maj. James Savage

3. What year did the ‘Americans’ discover Yosemite Valley?

A. 1851

B. 1972

C. 1850

D. 1880

4. Who is credited in ‘discovering’ Yosemite Valley?

A. James Fremont and his expedition band

B. John Sutter and his men

C. James Savage and the Mariposa Battalion

D. Charles Weber and his gold mining Indians

5. Which book has everything we know about the original Indians of Yosemite?

A. The Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian war of 1851 which led to that event

B. The Yosemite Miwoks, by Stephen Powers

C. The Indians of Yosemite, by Galen Clark

D. The History of Tuolumne County

6. In the book about the first encounter with the Yosemite Indians, how did the writer describe the chief and the village of the original Yosemite Indians?

A. Chief Tenaya was the founder of the Paiute Colony of Ahwahnee

B. Chief Tenaya was the chief of the Yosemite Miwoks living in umachas

C. Chief Bautista was the chief of the Southern Sierra Miwuks of Yosemite

D. Chief Bautista was the chief of a combined band of Miwoks, Paiutes and Casson Yokuts living in Yosemite Valley

7. The writer said that the chief of the Yosemite Indians told him he was born…

A. in Yosemite Valley, where the Indian Village is located in the Park

B. at Mono Lake, in Mono County

C. in Tuolumne County on the Miwok reservation in a umacha

D. in a Miwok village at the foot of Yosemite falls.

8. The writer who met the chief of the Yosemite Indians said the chief spoke…

A. Southern Sierra Miwuk dialect

B. combined languages of Miwok, Paiute and Yokut

C. Paiute jargon and Mono

D. Central and Southern Sierra Miwok

9. When the chief of the Yosemite Indians was captured he kept escaping, where did he escape to?

A. He hid out with the Miwoks of Tuolumne who hid him out and protected him

B. He went to Mono Lake and the Paiutes gave him an allotment

C. He never escaped he stayed in Mariposa County and became the chief of the Mariposa Indians

D. The Mewuks of Calaveras helped him escape and kept him hidden for years until he died

10. What does Hetch Hetchy Valley have to do with Yosemite?

A. nothing

B. It is located above Yosemite National Park

C. It is located in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park

D. It is located in the Sequoia National forest

11. Who were the first non-Indians to enter Hetch Hetchy Valley?

A. Joseph, Nate, and William Screech

B. James Fremont and his expedition

C. Maj. James Savage and the Mariposa Battalion

D. Mexican governor Alvardo and his garrison

12. Which tribe did the first non-Indians say lived in Hetch Hetchy?

A. Tuolumne Mewuks

B. Southern Sierra Miwuks

C. Paiutes

D. Central and Southern Miwoks

13. Who documented that?

A. Stephen Powers, the journalist

B. C. Hart Merriam

C. James Savages

D. C. F. Hoffmann, California surveyor

14. What year was Hetch Hetchy Valley discovered?

A. 1851

B. 1972

C. 1850

D. 1901

15. Many of the descendants of the Yosemite Indians have three chiefs on their families 1929 California Indian applications. Which one of the chiefs does not belong in the group and why? Chief Bautista, Chief Tenaya, Cypriano?

A. Chief Bautista because he never helped the whites

B. Cypriano because he fought the whites to his death

C. Chief Tenaya because he was not aligned with the other chiefs

D. They all belong together because all three fought against the whites in a combined effort

16. Which one of these chiefs NEVER signed the Fremont or Barbour Treaty giving up their title to the land and Yosemite?

A. Chief Tenaya

B. Chief Bautista

C. Cypriano

C. Pasqual

17. Which chief, besides Russio, gave the Indians of Yosemite that name “Yosemite”?

A. Chief Tenaya

B. Chief Bautista

C. Cypriano

D. Pasqual

18. Recently California Indian expert Brian Bibby, working with the Southern Sierra Miwuk group, wrote in his book Deeper Than Gold that this chief was the leader of their people during the time of the discovery of Yosemite.

A. Pasqual

B. Cypriano

C. Chief Tenaya

D. Chief Bautista

19. During his second capture, which caused the death of his son, the Chief of the Yosemite Indians was trying to escape from the white military, how was he captured?

A. He tripped and fell and the Battalion scooped him up

B. There was an earthquake and the rocks fall in front of his path

C. The Pohonochee and Nutchu (Southern Sierra Miwuks) scouts blocked his escape path

D. His enemies, the Mono Lake Paiutes.

20. Which Indian language did Major James Savage learn to speak from his Indian workers?

A. Miwok, even the royal Miwok language

B. The language of the Yosemite Indian’s enemies, the Paiute language

C. Mission Indian language, because he hired Mission Indians

D. Maidu language

21. Who killed Major James Savage, the man who first captured the Yosemite Indians and was the leader of the Mariposa Battalion?

A. He was killed by the brave Yosemite Miwuks who fought bravely to the man to repel the Mariposa Battalion from their beloved Yosemite Valley.

B. He was killed by another settler named Judge Walter Harvey who shot Savage after Savage struck him.

C. He was killed by Joaquin Murrieta, the famous bandit in the area.

D. He was not killed but lived a long life with his many Indian wives, mining gold. He became a very rich man and died at the age of 101.

22. Who was with Major Savage, of the Mariposa Battalion fame, when he lay dying?

A. At the age of 101 he was surrounded by his children and servants in his mansion he built with all the gold he had prospected.

B. His men from the Mariposa Battalion as they bravely fought off the Yosemite Miwuks. Major Savage had been struck down by the bravest Yosemite Miwok warrior with an arrow to the heart.

C. A prostitute in a brothel in the mining town of Sonora

D. His Southern Sierra Miwok wives and workers who cried, screamed and wailed “Our white father is dead”.

23. Who killed the Chief of the Yosemite Indians?

A. Mono Lake Paiutes, because he repaid their hospitality with theft

B. Major James Savage of the Mariposa Battalion

C. The Yokuts

D. The Yosemite Miwoks killed their own chief in a dispute

24. What happened to the remaining Yosemite Indians?

A. The Yosemite Miwuks are still in Yosemite Valley, but they live in Mariposa County and became the American Indian Council of Mariposa.

B. They died out and there were none left

C. After the death of their chief the majority of the Yosemite Indians were taken back to Mono Lake and absorbed into the Paiute population.

D. The majority of the Yosemite Mewuks split and some became the Tuolumne band of Mewuks while the rest became Southern Sierra Miwuks. Some even became Cassons.

25. Which one of these Indian people was NOT a chief or captain in Yosemite and why?

A. Captain Sam, because he was a Paiute and no Paiutes were in Yosemite.

B. Captain John, because he was the leader of the Mono Lake Paiutes.

C. Mary Wilson, because she was not from Yosemite and no woman could be a chief/captain in Yosemite during early times.

D. Captain Jim, because he was not really a captain, but Yosemite Indian ethnologist Craig Bates, wrote he was a just some guy named Pete from Bridgeport

26. How long has the Yosemite Indian Village behind the Indian Museum been there?

A. It has always been there. It was like that when Yosemite became a park.

B. It was created by Craig Bates and other non-Indians in the mid 1970s.

C. It made during the late 1920s when the new Indian village was built.

D. It was made during the 1940s because the Yosemite Miwuks wanted to dance their traditional dances for themselves.

27. Where was the early Yosemite Indian Field Days basket making held?

A. In Mono County, because that is where the basket making Indians lived.

B. In Mariposa County, because everyone knows that the American Indian Council of Mariposa, who were the original Indians of Yosemite live.

C. Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Indian Field Days = Yosemite Indian basket making

D. Tuolumne County on the Tuolumne Indian reservation

28. On Captain Sam’s 1929 California Indian government application, with an affidavit, with his thumbprint, witnessed by his daughter, and two Indian witnesses who knew him for years, he says his wife, Susie Sam, is a…

A. Southern Sierra Miwuk

B. Yosemite Miwok

C. Chukchansi Yokut

D. Paiute

29. Chief George One-Eyed Dick, leader of the Yosemite Indians in the early 1900s, son Charlie Dick said in a 1930 General U.S. census he was a…

A. Southern Sierra Miwuk

B. Yosemite Miwok

C. Chukchansi Yokut

D. Paiute

30. Lancisco Wilson was related to Chief Dick. Lancisco was the headman of the Yosemite Indian village of Wahoga. What is engraved on his grave marker in the Yosemite Pioneer Cemetery?

A. Lancisco Wilson – Rest in Peace

B. Lancisco Wilson – Yosemite Miwok chief

C. Lancisco Wilson – Piute

D. Lancisco Wilson – Mariposa Indian leader

I will post the answers later….good luck on the test. If you can guess the majority of the answers you SHOULD be working in Yosemite National Park Service as a Yosemite ranger and interpreter.

* Here are the answers. Don’t peek now.

http://thehive.modbee.com/?q=node/5920

Did Oregon Walla Walla Indians became California Indians?

As a Indian person I have been reading early accounts of the life of the early California Indians. As I read the early history I found something very interesting. There appeared to have been a extremely large group of Oregon Indians called the Wallas Wallas who had followed their old friends, the early white explorers, they had become acquinted with while in their Columbian River homeland.

Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia River, 1853.
In the Report of the Com. Of Indian Affairs for 1849, page 160, Gold Rush; the Walla Wallas were described:

“The Walla-walla Indians posses the country on the Columbia, near Fort Walla-walla, have large herds of horses and cattle, and are well armed, and friendly to the whites.”

I had seen this tribe, the Walla Wallas, in a couple of written accounts of early California history. The name of this tribe was the Walla Wallas, Walla, Walla, or the singular Walla name. They had been extremely friendly by the early 1800s with whites up in the Pacific Northwest and followed many traders and explorers to Sutter’s new fort in what is now Sacramento.
The Walla Walla Oregon Indians were written about by historians, but as a California Indian myself I wondered what had happened to them? Then I started to realize maybe MANY NEVER LEFT. Maybe many of them STAYED in California and became tribes in California and I will show you how this could’ve been possible.

Here is what was written about them in a 1936 book Sutter of California by Julian Dana, he wrote that Elijah, son of the chief of the Walla Walla had followed early settlers like John C. Fremont to Sutter’s Fort, but that he was murdered by a local white man, here Dana writes:

and then further on about their chief Pio Max Max,

the name Max in Spanish is Moximo, and at that time in California many Indians were becoming introduced to Spanish and becoming neophytes.

In Indian Survival on the California Frontier by Albert L. Hurtado, page 81, he writes that when the whites thought there were was going to be a battle with the once friendly Walla Wallas over the death of the chief’s son;

“Montgomery advised Kern, “be prudent and watchful” Preparations for war against the Walla Wallas continued until Pio-pio-mox-mox rode to the fort (Ed. Note: Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento) and assured the military authorities that he sought only peaceful trade and justice on behalf of his murdered son. This turn of event apparently disgusted some of the white volunteers, who wanted an Indian war and suggested that their force should chastise the California Indians in the Mountains. Kern stopped short of initiating a California Indian war, but marched the volunteers northward to the Sutter Buttes to discourage native livestock raiding.

Not one to let opportunity slip away, Lieutenant Sutter decided to sign up the Walla Walla men for the California Battalion, which would soon head south to fight californios in rebellion against the new American regime. Besides providing much needed reinforcements, this adroit tactic removed the Walla Wallas from the valley, where chagrined whites wanted to fight the Oregon natives. Promising that they would be paid for their service, Sutter organized the Walla Wallas as a company under Francois Gendreau, a French-Canadian with a Walla Walla wife. These new soldiers left their families at Fort Sacramento, where (John C.) Fremont directed Kern to supply them  “with beef and flour regularly; and to give regular rations to Gendreaus’s family”.

Simultaneously, Sutter convinced the inveterate raider Jose Jesus and other Miwoks to volunteer for the California Battalion…”

“At the Mokelumne River, Bryant met “Antonio, an Indian Chief, with twelve warriors.” And the next day Jose Jesus, Felipe, Rimondo, and Carlos, whom he identified as “chiefs,” with thirteen “warriors.” The Miwoks formed the California Battalion’s Company H…”   Pio Pio Mox Mox chief of the Walla Walla. He came to California.

In When the Great Spirit Died: The Destruction of the California Indians, 1850-1860 by William B. Secrest, page 14, he writes:

“…anxious to add to his ragtag army. Some Walla Walla warriors joined his force, along with various San Joaquin Valley Indians. Among the latter was a Tachi Yokuts named Gregorio. The named indicates he was a mission Indian, but when he enlisted with Fremont as a ‘servant’, his age was not given.”
“The same month the Walla Wallas had entered the Sacramento Valley,…”

Not only where the Walla Wallas now on friendly terms with John Sutter, he even had several thousand Walla Walla and Miwoks in his Indian regiments. Some thought that was the end of the Walla Wallas, that they went back to Oregon. It was written that some did go back, but it is possible many more stayed and this is what I believe became of that group.
Stephen Powers, a journalist for the Overland Monthly stumbled onto a group called called the Wallies, as he was doing a story about the Miwoks of Stanislaus and Tuolumne areas.
Here is what Powers wrote when he wrote about “Mewuks” of Tuolumne:

“The name “Walli” has been the subject of a great deal of discussion among white men, as to its meaning and derivation. Some assert that it is a word applied by the pioneers to the Indians, without any signification; others, that it is an aboriginal word, denoting “friends”. Probably the latter theory is due to the fact that the Indians, in meeting, frequently cry out “Walli! Walli!” (ed. Note; looks like Walla Walla to me, which were friends of the local whites) As a matter of fact, (ed. Note: he is guessing)  it is derived from the word wal’-lim, which means simply “down below”; and it appears to have been originated by the Yosemite Indians and others living high up in the mountains, and applied to the lower tribes with a slight feeling of contempt. The Indians on the Stanislaus and Tuolumne use the term freely in conversing among themselves, but on the Merced it is never heard except when spoken by the whites.”

Here is what Yosemite area archealogist James A. Bennyhoff wrote in his Report of the University of California Archaeological Survey, no 34, May 15^th, 1956:

“Very Little is known of the Central Mewuk who occupied the higher altitudes. Their usual designation is simply “Tuolumne Indians” (ed. Note: actually that was identified by Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell as Paiutes) because they lived on the river. No mountain group can be identified in the treaty lists. In 1857 there were over 100 “Wallalshimmes” or Tuolumne Indians still living (Lewis). Powers (1873, p. 325) obtained some information on the “Wallies” in 1871-72. He wrote of them as an extensive tribe occupying the Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers, and statements concerning the group indicate a Valley location. The term was expanded by the whites to include all Indians on the Tuolumne. The only village known is Hetchhetchi, placed in the valley which bears this name (Kroeber, 1925, pg. 37, No. 85).”

Here is the actual text:

It appears that Stephen Powers did not know about the Oregon Walla Wallas who were in the area and friends of the whites who lived in and around Sutter’s Fort. Bennyhoff and Kroeber were looking for California Indians called “Wallies”. Hetch Hetchy was a Paiute area and not Walli (Mewuk). It be possible they met Wallas instead? Since they were in the immediate area and worked for Sutter and Fremont.
Later on around 1985 Helen Harding Bretnor translated a French Belgian’s account of gold mining in the early days around Tuolumne and Mariposa Counties. The book is called Gold Seeker; Adventures of a Belgian Argonaut during the Gold Rush Years, Jean Nicolas-Perlot.

Jean Nicholas-Perlot, early Belgian Gold miner.

In this book Helen Harding Bretnor discusses the quandary of the word “Walli” and its several variations. This is what she writes on pages 38-39;

“While Perlot could hardly be called a pathmarker as he made his way to Mariposa, he had already begun to make orgingial contributions to our knowledge of California Indian culture. Shortly after crossing the San Joaquine he and his friends encountered Indians who shouted, “Walai! Walai” (ed. Note: Possibly Walla Walla; the friendly Indians) on seeing the whites. Assuming that it was a form of greeting, Perlot also shouted, “Walai! Walai!” After the company shared some biscuits with the Indians they left peacefully. These may have been Miwok Indians, probably Tuolumne and Mariposa, although at the time Perlot was on the lower Merced, where Yokuts tribes could be found.
Instantly attracted to the language these Indians spoke, Perlot began to keep a list of Indian words and phrases which correspond with those found in the Mariposa and Tuolumne dialects.
Perlot’s Indian word walai presents an intriguing mystery. In his list of Indian words, found in his notes deposited in the Brancroft Library, he state that oualai or walai means “ami” (ed. Note: friend), camarade, compagnon, sembable…convenable.” He always greeted Indians with the term by which he meant “friend.” Stephen Powers, who wrote about the California Indians and their languages in the 1870s, observed that the “extensive tribe of Wallies” lived on the Stanislaus and the Tuolumne; but he went on to say that “some assert it is a word applied by the pioneers to the Indians without any particular meaning; others, that it is an aboriginal word denoting ‘friend’. The latter theory probably had its origin from the that these Indians on meeting each other, frequently cry out ‘Wallie! Wallie!’
Powers himself believe that “wallie” came from the word wallim, meaning “down below,” which the Yosemite Indians (ed. Notes: Paiutes) “applied to the lower tribes with a slight feeling of contempt.” Powers noted that the Indians on the Stanislaus and Tuolumne used the term freely in conversing among themselves, (ed. Note; Possibly because they were talking about their tribe Walla Walla?) “but on the Merced it is not heard, except among Americans.” Power’s conclusions, while interesting, do not seem that persuasive.
A quick search through the most common words in the Mariposa and Tuolumne dialects, however, suggests only one word that resembles Perlot’s “oualai”, and that is oyea, which means “mean man” (Tuolumne: uyeayu). While the Mariposan word for earth, dirt, or world is walli, it seems to make no sense as a greeting. The Pomo word for the phrase “on both sides” is wa’li, Perlot used it as a greeting so often and so successfully that his friends jokingly called him “Mr. Oualai.”

Ms. Helen Harding Bretnor tried in earnest to figure out why when the Indian “friendlies” yelled out to the white man “Wallie! Wallie!”

She didn’t know about the friendly Oregon Walla Wallas who lived in and around Sutter’s fort and worked for the whites in the area. It would appear to me and make sense that if Walla Wallas approached white men, they would throw down their rifles, and put their hands up and yell “Wallie, Wallie” or “Walla Walla” to tell the men that they were not those ‘bad’ Paiutes in the area, but the friendly Walla Walla Indians. It would be more likely a form of self-preservation, so they wouldn’t get shot by the white men in the mountain areas.
Here is another interesting tale from the Pony Express. In our language we called Miwoks “Wah-Wahs”, probably a shorter version of Walla Walla, but when I re-read this story in this old 1930s historical magazine I noticed that the “Diggers” or Miwoks were called “Walla” by the white people. Once again showing the Walla Walla presence;
http://thehive.modbee.com/?q=node/2911

A Piute Card Game
 

(Editor’s Note – The following description of a Piute car game was written by William R. Gillis some years ago and appeared in his “Memories of Mark Twain and Steve Gillis.” The Dan DeQuill mentioned was editor of a paper in Virginia City, Nevada, and gained fame as the author of “The Big Bonanza,” “The Wealth and Wonders of Washoe,” and “A History of the Comstock Mines.”

 “If you will go with me to their camp on Cedar Hill tomorrow, you will see the game for yourself. I saw two Digger bucks from California on their way to the camp this morning and they will stay until they are skinned down to their breech-clouts.”

 When we reached camp we found a dozen or so Indians including the “Walla” bucks, surrounding a big blanket, which was spread on the ground, and old Piute John was sitting on a soap box shuffling a half dozen decks of cards together, preparatory to dealing them. When this process was completed, he scattered them over the blanket. He then took a stick with a crook on one end in his hand, straightened up and grunted, “Hiskee.”

So it would appear that if someone was looking you could probably find the friendly Oregon Walla Wallas who came down by the hundreds to work for John Sutter and the local whites. It would appear they might be right under our noses now claiming to be original California Indians. The similarity in names is just too interesting to me. Why would the Mewuks be called Wallies? I Also read that John C. Fremont and a man named Johnson knew the Walla Wallas. This the same John C. Fremont that had a large ranch in Mariposa county around Bear Valley, which was a Miwok area. Mr. Johnson also had a ranch at Bear Valley.

Speaking of Pio-pio Mox-Mox, the chief of the Walla Wallas around Sutter’s Fort in 1847, there was an Indian chief of the area who was named Moximo, which is the Spanish version of Mox, You can see that there was a Moximo who lived around Lockeford, California, who was a chief on this blog;

http://thehive.modbee.com/?q=node/2270

I wonder if they were related?

(P.S. this link – webpage above, has mysteriously disappeared from Google Search…I wonder why?)

CC: NPS

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