The Patwin (also Patween, Southern Wintu) are a band of

Wintun The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of Northern California, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern).Pritzker, 152 Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500 AD. The Patwin were bordered by the Yuki in the northwest; the

Nomlaki The Nomlaki (also Noamlakee, Central Wintu, Nomelaki) are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, extending westward to the Coast Range in Northern California. Today some Nomlaki people are enrolled in the federally recogniz ...

(Wintun) in the north; the

Konkow The Maidu are a Native American people of northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada, in the watershed area of the Feather and American rivers. They also reside in Humbug Valley. In Maiduan languages, ''Maidu'' means "man." ...

(Maiduan) in northeast; the

Nisenan The Nisenan are a group of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans and an Indigenous people of California from the Yuba River and American River watersheds in Northern California and the California Central Valley. The Nisenan peopl ...

(Maiduan) and

Plains Miwok The Plains and Sierra Miwok were once the largest group of California Indian Miwok people, indigenous to California. Their homeland included regions of the Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, and the Sierra Nevada. Geography The Plains and ...

in the east; the

Bay Miwok The Bay Miwok are a cultural and linguistic group of Miwok, a Native American people in Northern California who live in Contra Costa County. They joined the Franciscan mission system during the early nineteenth century, suffered a devastating p ...

to the south; the

Coast Miwok Coast Miwok are an indigenous people that was the second-largest group of Miwok people. Coast Miwok inhabited the general area of modern Marin County and southern Sonoma County in Northern California, from the Golden Gate north to Duncans Po ...

in the southwest; and the

Wappo The Wappo (endonym: ''Micewal'') are an indigenous people of northern California. Their traditional homelands are in Napa Valley, the south shore of Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and Russian River valley. They are distantly related to the Yuki ...

Lake Miwok The Lake Miwok are a branch of the Miwok, a Native American people of Northern California. The Lake Miwok lived in the Clear Lake basin of what is now called Lake County. Culture The Lake Miwok spoke their own Lake language in the Utian lin ...

, and

Pomo The Pomo are an Indigenous people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point. One small gr ...

in the west. Patwin_reed_hut

The "Southern Patwins" lived between what is now Suisun, Vacaville, and

Putah Creek Putah Creek (Patwin: ''Liwaito'') is a major stream in Northern California, a tributary of the Yolo Bypass, and ultimately, the Sacramento River. The creek has its headwaters in the Mayacamas Mountains, a part of the Coast Range, and flows ...

. By 1800 they had been forced by Spanish and other European settlers into small tribal units: Ululatos (Vacaville), Labaytos (Putah Creek), Malacas (Lagoon Valley), Tolenas (Upper Suisun Valley), and

Suisunes The Suisunes (also called the Suisun and the "People of the West Wind") were a Patwin tribe of Wintun people, originating in the Suisin Bay and Suisun Marsh regions of Solano County in Northern California. Their traditional homelands stretched be ...

(Suisun Marsh and Plain). Patwin Indian remains were discovered at the

Mondavi Center The Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts venue located on the UC Davis campus in unincorporated Yolo County, California. It is named for arts patron and vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a planta ...

construction site beginning in 1999, and consequently the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

built a Native American Contemplative Garden within the

Arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, m ...

, a project honoring the Patwin.

Language

The Patwin spoke a Southern Wintuan language called

Patwin The Patwin (also Patween, Southern Wintu) are a band of Wintun people native to the area of Northern California. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500 AD. The Pat ...

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 ...

put the 1770 population of the Wintun, including the Patwin, Nomlaki, and Wintu proper, at 12,000. Sherburne F. Cook (1976a:180-181) estimated the combined population of the Patwin and Nomlaki at 11,300, of which 3,300 represented the southern Patwin. He subsequently raised his figure for the southern Patwin to 5,000. Kroeber estimated the population of the combined Wintun groups in 1910 as 1,000. By the 1920s, no Patwin remained along Putah Creek and few were left in the area. Today, Wintun descendants of the three groups (i.e. the Patwin, Nomlaki, and Wintu proper) total about 2,500 people. Only three federally recognized Patwin (Wintun)

ranchería The Spanish word ranchería, or rancherío, refers to a small, rural settlement. In the Americas the term was applied to native villages or bunkhouses. Anglo-Americans adopted the term with both these meanings, usually to designate the resident ...

s remain.

Villages

Chief_Solano_(Namesake_of_Solano_County,_California)

* Aguasto * Bo´-do * Chemocu * Churup * Dok´–dok * Gapa * Ho´lokomi * Imil * Katsil * Kisi * Koh´pah de´-he * Koru * Kusêmpu * Liwai * Lopa * Moso * Napato * Nawidihu * No´pah * P’ālo * Putato * Si'-ko-pe * Soneto * Sukui * Suskol * Tebti * Til-til * Tokti * Tolenas * Tulukai * Ululato * Yo´doi * Yulyul

Notable Patwin people

* Mabel McKay (1907–1994), basket weaver and healer * Sem-Yeto (), 19th-century leader and diplomat, also known as "Chief Solano"

Notes

References

* Cook, Sherburne F. 1976a. ''The Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization''. University of California Press, Berkeley. * Golla, Victor. 2011. ''California Indian Languages''. University of California Press, Berkeley. * Kroeber, A. L. 1925. ''Handbook of the Indians of California''. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.

External links

"Native Tribes, Groups, Language Families and Dialects of California in 1770"
(map after Kroeber), California Prehistory
"Patwin Language"

Survey of California and Other Indian Languages The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages (originally the Survey of California Indian Languages) at the University of California at Berkeley documents, catalogs, and archives the indigenous languages of the Americas. The survey also hosts ...

, University of Berkeley *For a map of regional Native American territories, see map o
Sacramento Valley Bioregion
b

an

"The Patweèns"
(1874), Stephen Powers' ''

Overland Monthly The ''Overland Monthly'' was a monthly literary and cultural magazine, based in California, United States. It was founded in 1868 and published between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. History The '' ...

'' article on the Patwin
Interview with historian Clyde Low
on Sem-Yeto and the Patwin Indian presence in Suisun Valley, part of a 2003 documentary produced by the City of Fairfield
NPR story featuring an interview with Patwin elder Bill Wright (2008)
{{authority control Wintun Native American tribes in California California Mission Indians History of Napa County, California History of Solano County, California History of Yolo County, California Sacramento Valley Vaca Mountains