The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of

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 ...

, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and

Patwin The Patwin (also Patween and Southern Wintu) are a band of Wintun people in Northern California. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500. Today, Patwin people are en ...

(southern).Pritzker, 152California Indians and Their Reservations: W.
''San Diego State University Library and Information Access.'' 2010 (retrieved 30 June 2010) Their range is from approximately present-day Lake Shasta to

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...

, along the western side of the

Sacramento River The Sacramento River () is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River D ...

to the Coast Range. Each of these tribes speak one of the

Wintuan languages Wintuan (also Wintun, Wintoon, Copeh, Copehan) is a language family, family of languages spoken in the Sacramento Valley of central Northern California. All Wintuan languages are either extinct language, extinct or severely endangered language, ...

. Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that the Wintun people probably entered the California area around 500 AD from what is now southern Oregon, introducing

bow and arrow The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elasticity (physics), elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles (arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the ...

technology to the region (Golla 2011: 205). There has been

carbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was ...

of several artifacts by UC Berkeley that dates back to around 10,000 years, and several of these artifacts have now been repatriated. Despite being a major influence on the region's history, there is still very little history on the Wintu due to centuries of

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

and

displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

that still occur today along with continued destruction of sacred ceremonial and religious sites, often due to companies that ignore legal or ethical considerations.

Federally recognized Wintun tribes

* Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community of the Colusa Rancheria * Grindstone Indian Rancheria of Wintun-Wailaki Indians * Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, formerly known as the Cortina Indian Rancheria * Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians * Redding Rancheria * Round Valley Indian Tribes of the Round Valley Reservation * Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, formerly known as the Rumsey Indian Rancheria of Wintun Indians"Wintun Indians."
''SDSU: California Indians and Their Reservations.'' 2011. Retrieved 25 Oct 2012.

Notes

References

* Pritzker, Barry M. ''A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. . * Golla, Victor. ''California Indian Languages.'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. .

External links

Federally recognized Wintun tribes

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links