The Chimariko ( Chimariko language: ''cʼʸˈimar, tʼʸimar, čimar, čʼimar'' or ''ǯimar'' - ″person / Indian″) are an

indigenous people of California The indigenous peoples of California (known as Native Californians) are the indigenous inhabitants who have lived or currently live in the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after the arrival of Europeans. W ...

, who originally lived in a narrow, 20-mile section of canyon on the Trinity River in Trinity County in northwestern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

. ''Four Directions Institute.'' Retrieved 28 August 2012.

History

Originally hunter-gatherers, the Chimariko are possibly the earliest residents of their region. They had good relations with the Wintu people and were enemies of the

Hupa Hupa (Yurok language term: Huep'oola' / Huep'oolaa = "Hupa people") are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group in northwestern California. Their endonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinook-wa, meaning "Peopl ...

, a Southern

Athabaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific ...

people. Non-native fur trappers first entered the Chimariko's territory in 1820, followed by miners and settlers in the 1850s. The Chimariko were profoundly affected by the destructive environmental practices of gold seekers during the California Gold Rush, starting in 1848. One of the major issues involved the disruption of the

salmon Salmon () is the common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of ...

population that was the main food source of the Chimariko. In the 1860s, conflict between the Chimariko and white miners led to the near extinction of their population. The surviving Chimariko fled to live with the Hoopa Valley Hupa, and nearby Tsnungwe (South Fork or New River Hupa) (also called: Tlohomtah’hoi) and Tlohomtah’hoi (New River or Salmon River Shasta).

Language

Chimariko people spoke the Chimariko language, a Northern Hokan language. The language is currently extinct. The language probably became extinct sometime in the 1930s. It is extensively documented in unpublished fieldnotes which John Peabody Harrington obtained from the last speaker, Sally Noble, in the 1920s.

Population

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially.

Alfred L. Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...

proposed that the 1770 population of the Chimariko, together with the New River, Konomihu, and Okwanuchu groups of the Shasta, had been about 1,000. Specifically for the Chimariko, he estimated an 1849 population of 250. Shirley Silver (1978:205) put the aboriginal population at "only a few hundred".Silver, Shirley. 1978. "Chimariko". In ''California'', edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 205-210. ''Handbook of North American Indians'', William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. p. 205 Other estimates are that there were 250 Chimariko people in the 18th and early 19th centuries, moving down to 200 in 1852, 20 in 1880, and none by 1900. There may have been descendants of the Chimariko recently discovering their identity, since some Chimariko fled with the Hupa and Shasta. In the 2010 census, 60 people claimed Chimariko ancestry, 19 of them full-blooded.

References

Sources

Chimariko Bibliography
fro

External links