The Wintu (also Northern Wintun) are Native Americans who live in what is now

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 ...

. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun (or Wintuan). Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wintu language is part of the Penutian language family. Historically, the Wintu lived primarily on the western side of the northern part of the

Sacramento Valley , photo =Sacramento Riverfront.jpg , photo_caption= Sacramento , map_image=Map california central valley.jpg , map_caption= The Central Valley of California , location = California, United States , coordinates = , boundaries = Sierra Nevada (ea ...

, from the Sacramento River to the Coast Range. The range of the Wintu also included the southern portions of the Upper Sacramento River (south of the Salt Creek drainage), the southern portion of the McCloud River, and the upper Trinity River. They also lived in the vicinity of present-day

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, on the west side of the river extending to the Coast Ranges. Today most Wintus live on reservations and rancherias in Colusa, Glenn, Yolo, Mendocino, and Shasta counties.

History

The first recorded encounter between Wintu and Euro-Americans dates from the 1826 expedition of Jedediah Smith, followed by an 1827 expedition led by

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. Between 1830 and 1833, many Wintu died from a

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epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious d ...

that killed an estimated 75% of the indigenous population in the upper and central

. In the following years, the weakened Wintu fell victim to competition for resources by incoming European-American settlers. The settlers' sheep and cattle herds destroyed the Wintu food supply while gold miners' processing activities caused pollution of rivers. The Wintu were also forced to work as laborers in gold mining operations. In 1846, John C. Frémont and Kit Carson accompanied by local white settlers killed 175 Wintu and Yana by force of arms Settlers tried to take over Wintu land and relocate them west of Clear Creek. At a "friendship feast" in 1850, settlers served poisoned food to local natives, from which 100 ''Nomsuu'' and 45 Wenemem Wintu died. More deaths of Wintu and destruction of their land followed in 1851 and 1852, in incidents such as the Bridge Gulch Massacre.

Culture

The Wintu language is one of the Wintuan languages; it is also called '' Wintu''. The religious stories and legends of the Trinity River Wintu were told by Grant Towendolly to Marcelle Masson, who published them in ''A Bag of Bones'' (1966).

Population

Scholars have disagreed about the historic population of the tribes before European-American contact. Alfred L. Kroeber estimated the combined 1770 population of the Wintu, Nomlaki, and Patwin as 12,000. Sherburne F. Cook initially put the population of the Wintu proper as 2,950, but later nearly doubled his estimate to 5,300. Frank R. LaPena estimated a total of 14,250 in his work of the 1970s.LaPena, p. 325 Kroeber estimated the population of the Wintu, Nomlaki, and Patwin in 1910 as about 1,000. Today the population has recovered somewhat and there are about 2,500 Wintun, many of whom live on the Round Valley Reservation, and on the Colusa,

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, Grindstone Creek, Redding, and Rumsey rancherias.

Notes

References

Christopher Chase-Dunn Christopher K. Chase-Dunn (born January 10, 1944, Corvallis, Oregon) is an American sociologist best known for his contributions to world-systems theory. Education and career Chase-Dunn earned his PhD in 1975 at Stanford University (studying ...

, Christopher K., and Kelly M. Mann. 1998. ''The Wintu and Their Neighbors: A Very Small World-system in Northern California''. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. . * * * Demetracopoulou, Dorothy. 1935. "Wintu Songs". ''Anthropos'' 30:483-494. * Du Bois, Cora A. 1935. "Wintu Ethnography", ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'' 36:1-148. * Du Bois, Cora A., and Dorothy Demetracopoulou. 1931. "Wintu Myths", ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'' 28:279-403. * Hogue, Helen S., and Margaret Guilford-Kardell. 1977. ''Wintu Trails''. Revised edition; originally published in 1948. Shasta Historical Society, Reading, California. * Hoveman, Alice R. 2002. ''Journey to Justice: The Wintu People and the Salmon''. Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, California. . * Kroeber, A. L. 1925. ''Handbook of the Indians of California''. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C. * LaPena, Frank R. 1978. "Wintu", in ''California'', edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 324–340. ''Handbook of North American Indians'', William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. * LaPena, Frank R. 1987. ''The world is a Gift''. Limestone Press, San Francisco. * LaPena, Frank R. 2004. ''Dream Songs and Ceremony: Reflections on Traditional California Indian Dance''. Great Valley Books, Berkeley, California. . * McLeod, Christopher. 2001. ''In the Light of Reverence''. Videocassette. Bullfrog Films, Oley, Pennsylvania. . * McKibbin, Grace, and Alice Shepherd. 1997. ''In My Own Words: Stories, Songs, and Memories of Grace McKibbin, Wintu''.

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, Berkeley, California. . * Towendolly, Grant. 1966. ''A Bag of Bones: The Wintu Myths of a Trinity River Indian''. Edited by Marcelle Masson. Naturegraph, Oakland, California. ; .