In this fascinating book readers will explore the traditional customs of the Miwok of California. The Miwok people once lived across California, living in a variety of different environments including coastal areas, portions of the Central Valley, and the Sierra Nevada. Readers will discover how the Miwok used the resources available to them to survive, and how conflict with outsiders transformed their lives. With primary sources to augment the text, this informative book is a strong supplement to the California social studies curriculum.
"As an Indigenous scholar researching the history and archaeology of his own tribe, Tsim D. Schneider provides a unique and timely contribution to the growing field of Indigenous archaeology and offers a new perspective on the primary role and relevance of Indigenous places and homelands in the study of colonial encounters"--
This fascinating book brings to life the Miwok of California. They lived in a variety of different environments, including coastal areas, portions of the Central Valley, and the Sierra Nevada. During the early Spanish era, the western groups came into conflict with outsiders. The eastern communities suffered greatly as a result of the gold rush that began in 1849.
Imagine you live in a self-contained village where your parents and their parents and all your forebears from the beginning of time have lived. Imagine that within a day's walking distance from your village are the villages of other People-to the east and west and north and south. They are PEOPLE because they speak words you mainly understand. There are in these foothills 9000 such PEOPLE. Then imagine that in the space of a few months 90,000 ûyeayû-white men-come uninvited to all the PEOPLE'S villages to tear away the ground under the PEOPLE'S feet looking for rocks. For each one of you there are 10 of them. Imagine!