The Patwin (also Patween and Southern Wintu) are a

band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary * Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania * Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, ...

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 (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...

. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500. Today, Patwin people are enrolled in three

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

: * Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community of the Colusa Rancheria *

Kletsel Dehe Band of Wintun Indians The Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation of the Cortina Rancheria is a federally recognized tribe of Indigenous people of California. They are Wintun people, who historically spoke Wintuan languages. They're headquartered in Williams, California, and they ...

Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation ( ) is a federally recognized tribe of Wintun people, specifically Patwin people or southern Wintun, in Yolo County, California. They were formerly known as the Rumsey Indian Rancheria of Wintun Indians of Californi ...

Territory

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 and in Humbug Valley. In Maiduan languages, ''maidu'' means "person". Local divi ...

(Maidu) in the 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. According to a ...

(Maidu) 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 Americans in the United States, Native American people in Northern California who live in Contra Costa County, California, Contra Costa County. They joined the Franciscan missi ...

to the south; the

Coast Miwok The Coast Miwok are an Indigenous people of California that were the second-largest tribe of the Miwok people. Coast Miwok inhabited the general area of present-day Marin County and southern Sonoma County in Northern California, from the Golde ...

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 Yu ...

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. While they did not have an overarching name for themselves, the Lake Mi ...

, and

Pomo The Pomo are a Indigenous peoples of California, Native American people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to ...

in the west. The "Southern Patwins" have historically lived between what is now Suisun,

Vacaville Vacaville is a city located in Solano County, California, United States. It is located from Sacramento, California, Sacramento and from San Francisco, it is on the edge of the Sacramento Valley in Northern California. The city was founded in ...

, 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 ...

. By 1800, the Spanish and other European settlers forced them 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 Suisun Bay and Suisun Marsh regions of Solano County in Northern California. Their traditional homelands stretched bet ...

(Suisun Marsh and Plain).

Language

The

Patwin language Patwin (Patween) is a critically endangered Wintuan language of Northern California. As of 2021, there was one documented first language speaker of Patwin. As of 2010, Patwin language classes were taught at the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation (forme ...

is a Southern Wintuan language. As of 2021, one Patwin person was a documented first-language speaker of Patwin. The Patwin language also has two main dialects. The two dialects differentiate based off location. The first Patwin dialect known as River Patwin, which is mainly used along the Sacramento River located in Colusa County. The second dialect is Hill Patwin, which is the language commonly used in the hills and plains to the west of the Sacramento River. The Patwin language is also in a family of other known Indigenous languages such as Nomlaki and also as mentioned before Wintu. All together these three languages belong to the Penutian language family. However these languages are also have close relations to other Indigenous languages such as; Maiduan, Miwokan, Ohlone, and the Yokuts. As stated earlier, one Patwin person was documented as first-language speaker. However, many tribal members and activist are pursuing the reclamation of the Yocha Dehe Wintu Nation. Bertha Wright Mitchell also known as Auntie Bertha, by many is responsible for keeping the language and culture of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation together. Teaching Patwin to the younger generation was the key component that Auntie Bertha gave to the community, keeping the language and culture thriving and from steering away of the notion that the Patwin language was becoming extinct after being listed as a at-risk language in 1997.

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 fi ...

put the 1770 population of the Wintun, including the Patwin, Nomlaki, and Wintu proper, at 12,000.

Sherburne F. Cook Sherburne Friend Cook (1896–1974) was an American physiologist and demographist, who served as professor and chairman of the department of physiology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was notable as a pioneer in population studies ...

(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. The migration of American settlers during the Gold Rush, which began in 1848, profoundly affected the indigenous populations of California, particularly the Patwin people. Thousands of migrants, predominantly men, flocked to California in search of wealth. This influx led to the displacement of Native communities, exposing them to diseases, violent raids, and the degradation of their environment due to resource extraction. Prior to the Gold Rush, the Patwin resided in settled villages throughout the western Sacramento Valley, engaging in traditional practices of hunting, gathering, and fishing. The arrival of Western migrants severely disrupted this way of life as settler expansion encroached on their lands. Areas crucial for acorn gathering and access to water were taken or destroyed to make way for mining, ranching, and agricultural development. Historian Sherburne F. Cooke documents a significant population decline among the Patwin during this period, primarily attributed to disease outbreaks such as smallpox and measles. The indirect effects of colonization and displacement further exacerbated this decline. The Patwin were also compelled to perform unpaid labor in various settings, from domestic residences to mining operations, a practice that has been described as a form of “the other slavery.” By the late 1850s, the Patwin population had dwindled to a mere fraction of its pre-contact numbers, mirroring the widespread decline experienced by Indigenous tribes in California throughout the Gold Rush era. 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.

Villages

* 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

Archaeology

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 operator Robert Mondavi, who donated U ...

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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, built a Native American Contemplative Garden within the

Arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

, a project honoring the Patwin.

Notable Patwin people

Mabel McKay Mabel McKay (1907–1993) was a member of the Long Valley Cache Creek Pomo Indians and was of Patwin descent. She was the last dreamer of the Pomo people and was renowned for her basket weaving. She sat on California's first Native American Heri ...

(1907–1994), basket weaver and healer *

Sem-Yeto Sem-Yeto () was a leader of the Suisunes, a Patwin people of the Suisun Bay region of northern California. Baptized as Francisco Solano and also known as Chief Solano, he was a notable Native American leader in Alta California because of his all ...

(), 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 Stephen Powers (1840–1904) was an American journalist, ethnographer, and historian of Native American tribes in California. He traveled extensively to study and learn about their cultures, and wrote notable accounts of them. His articles w ...

' ''

Overland Monthly The ''Overland Monthly'' was a monthly literary magazine, 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 centu ...

'' 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 Indigenous peoples of California Mission Indians History of Napa County, California History of Solano County, California History of Yolo County, California Sacramento Valley Vaca Mountains