The Salinan are a Native American tribe whose ancestral territory is in the southern

Salinas Valley The Salinas Valley is one of the major valleys and most productive agricultural regions in California. It is located west of the San Joaquin Valley and south of San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley. The Salinas River, which geologicall ...

and the

Santa Lucia Range The Santa Lucia Mountains (sæntə luˈsiːə) or Santa Lucia Range is a rugged mountain range in coastal central California, running from Carmel southeast for to the Cuyama River in San Luis Obispo County. The range is never more than fro ...

in the Central Coast of

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 ...

. Today, the Salinan governments are now working toward federal tribal recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Salinan_map

There were two major divisions, the ''Miguelino'' in the south, on the upper course of the Salinas River (which flows south to north), and the ''Antoniano'' in the north, in the lower part of the Salinas Basin, corresponding to the two

missions Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion * Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

in the Salinas Valley ( Mission San Antonio de Padua and Mission San Miguel Arcángel). There were also a ''Playano'' group on the

Pacific Coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the P ...

in the vicinity of what is now San Simeon and Lucia. Before European contact, Salinans lived by hunting and gathering and, like most other California tribes, were organized in small groups with little centralized political structure.

Etymology

The Salinan people were named after the Salinas River(1856) and John Powell (1891). The people's own name for themselves is the "Te'po'ta'ahl" or "People of the Oaks," according to current tribal leadership. C. Hart Merriam called these people the ''En-'ne-sen'' on advice from one

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informant ...

; ''En-'ne-sen'' was the native word for the Salinan headquarters.

Language

The Salinan language, spoken until the 1950s is a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...

. It may be a part of the Hokan language family. Sapir included it in a subfamily of Hokan, along with Chumash and Seri; this classification has found its way into more recent encyclopedias and presentations of language families, but serious supporting evidence has never been presented.

Population

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber put the 1770 population of the Salinan as 3,000. Sherburne F. Cook similarly estimated that there were at least 700 Salinans. The 2000 United States Census reported a total population of Salinan people as 681. The Wagon Cave rock formation about northwest of present-day Jolon is an archeological site that was used by the Salinan Antonianos subtribe who researchers believe occupied at least two villages in the area, an older site dating to approximately 450 A.D. and a later, protohistoric site with dates ranging from about 1450 to 1650 A.D. Archeologists have found a stemmed biface,

lithic flake In archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure,"Andrefsky, W. (2005) ''Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis''. 2d Ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press and may also be ref ...

shell bead Shell jewelry is jewelry that is primarily made from seashells, the shells of marine mollusks. Shell jewelry is a type of shellcraft. One very common form of shell jewelry is necklaces that are composed of large numbers of beads, where each i ...

s, and non-human bones, as well as shell, bone, flaked stone, fire-affected rock, charred seeds, and mortars at the cave site. The rock overhangs and caves have fire-scarred roofs that bear evidence of occupancy over hundreds of years. The Wagon Cave Research Natural Area of contains diverse stands of Valley Oaks of varying ages and densities and has been recommended as a Research Natural Areas within the Los Padres National Forest. In the late 1800s until the

Big Sur Coast Highway Big Sur Coast Highway is a section of California State Route 1 through the Big Sur region of California that is widely considered to be one of the most scenic driving routes in the United States, if not the world. It is both a National Scenic ...

was completed in 1937, homesteaders near

Lucia Lucia may refer to: Arts and culture * ''Lucía'', a 1968 Cuban film by Humberto Solás * ''Lucia'' (film), a 2013 Kannada-language film * '' Lucia & The Best Boys'', a Scottish indie rock band formerly known as ''LUCIA'' * "Lucia", a Swedish c ...

and miners in the Los Burros Mining District used Wagon Cave as a resting point and overnight camp site when traveling to and from the coast. Travelers on horseback switched to wagons stored at the caves for the purpose of hauling items to market and provisions back from the railhead in Soledad.

Notes

References

* * Cook, Sherburne F. 1976. ''The Conflict between the California Indian and White Civilization''. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. * Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925. ''Handbook of the Indians of California''. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C. * Hester, Thomas R. 1978. ''Salinan'', in ''Handbook of North American Indians'', vol. 8 (California). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer, eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. / 0160045754, pages 500-504. * Marlett, Stephen A. 2008. The Seri-Salinan connection revisited. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 74.3:393-399. * Sapir, Edward. 1925. The Hokan affinity of Subtiaba in Nicaragua. ''American Anthropologist'' 27: (3).402-34, (4).491-527.
National Public Radio segment by Allison Herrera, December 13, 2017
{{authority control Native American tribes in California California Mission Indians Salinas River (California) Salinas Valley Santa Lucia Range History of Monterey County, California History of San Luis Obispo County, California People from Monterey County, California People from San Luis Obispo County, California

Etymology

Language

Population

See also

Notes

References