The Bridgeport Indian Colony of California ( pao, A'waggu Dükadü, ''lit. those who eat suckers''), formerly known as the "Bridgeport Paiute Indian Colony of California", is a

federally recognized tribe This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the Unite ...

of Northern Paiute Indians in

Mono County, California Mono County ( ) is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,195, making it the fourth-least populous county in California. The county seat is Bridgeport. The co ...

, United States.California Indians and Their Reservations.
''San Diego State University Library and Information Access.'' 2009 (retrieved 8 Dec 2009)

Reservation

The Bridgeport Indian Colony has a federal reservation in Mono County, close to the

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

border, in the unincorporated community of Bridgeport, California. The reservation is large. Approximately fifty-five (55) Tribal Members live on the Colony, currently one hundred and five Tribal members (105) enrolled, and a registered population of 120 today. The reservation community consists of descendants from

Miwok The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word ...

, Mono,

Paiute Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Pa ...

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, e ...

, and the Washoe tribes. The reservation site is near the southeast corner of

Bridgeport Reservoir Bridgeport Reservoir is a lake at the lower end of Bridgeport Valley in Mono County, California. Its earth-filled dam was constructed in 1923 by the Walker River Irrigation District, along the East Walker River. The lake has a storage capacity of ...

Language

The Bridgeport traditionally spoke the Northern Paiute language, which is part of the Western Numic branch of the

Uto-Aztecan Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The na ...

language family. Their dialect is sometimes called "Southern Nevada Northern Paiute." They used the Bridgeport writing system. There is currently a language project, held by

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Fran ...

, Santa Cruz, dedicated to preserving and dedicating the Northern Paiute Language.

Education

The reservation is served by the Eastern Sierra Unified School District.

History

The Bridgeport Indian Colony was federally recognized on October 17, 1974.

Today

The tribe is governed by a five-person Tribal Council,Pritzker, 227Bridgeport Indian Colony - HOME PAGE
(retrieved 15 March 2017) who currently are as follows: *John Glazier, Tribal Chairman *Thomas Crawford, Vice-Chairman *Herb Glazier, Member-at-Large (on reservation) *David Rambeau, Member-at-Large (off reservation) *Art Sam, Secretary-Treasurer

References

External links

Bridgeport Indian Colony Website
* https://web.archive.org/web/20100110062812/http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/guides/calindians/calinddict.shtml#b * http://paiute.ucsc.edu/ {{authority control Paiute Native American tribes in California Federally recognized tribes in the United States