Yahi
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The Yana are a group of Native Americans indigenous to
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 ...
in the central
Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...
, on the western side of the range. Their lands, prior to encroachment by white settlers, bordered the Pit and
Feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and an exa ...
rivers. They were nearly destroyed during the California genocide in the latter half of the 19th century. Descendants of the Central and Southern Yana continue to live in California as members of Redding Rancheria.


Etymology

The Yana-speaking people comprise four groups: the North Yana, the Central Yana, the Southern Yana, and the Yahi, two of which - the Central and Southern - have living descendants. The noun stem ''Ya''- means "person"; the noun suffix is -''na'' in the northern Yana dialects and -''hi'' iin the southern dialects.


History

Anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber put the 1770 population of the Yana at 1,500, and Sherburne F. Cook estimated their numbers at 1,900 and 1,850. Other estimates of the total Yana population before the
Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...
exceed 3,000. They lived on wild game, salmon, fruit, acorns and roots. Their territory was approximately 2,400 square miles, or more than 6,000 km2, and contained mountain streams, gorges, boulder-strewn hills, and lush meadows. Each group had relatively distinct boundaries, dialects and customs."Ishi's Hiding Place", Butte County
, ''A History of American Indians in California: HISTORIC SITES'', National Park Service, 2004, accessed November 5, 2010


Yahi

The Yahi were the southernmost portion of the Yana. They were
hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...
s who lived in small
egalitarian Egalitarianism (; also equalitarianism) is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds on the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all h ...
bands without centralized political authority, were reclusive and fiercely defended their territory of mountain canyons. The Yahi initially numbered around 400. The Yahi were the first Yana group to suffer from the Californian Gold Rush, as their lands were the closest to the
gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
fields. They suffered great population losses from the loss of their traditional food supplies and fought with the settlers over territory. They lacked
firearms A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originated ...
, and armed white settlers committed
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 ...
against them in multiple raids. These raids took place as part of the California Genocide, during which the U.S. Army and vigilante militias carried out killings as well as the relocation of thousands of indigenous peoples in California. The massacre reduced the Yahi, who were already suffering from starvation, to a population of less than 100. On August 6, 1865, seventeen settlers raided a Yahi village at dawn. In 1866, more Yahis were massacred when they were caught by surprise in a ravine. Circa 1867, 33 Yahis were killed after being tracked to a cave north of Mill Creek. Circa 1871, four cowboys trapped and killed about 30 Yahis in Kingsley cave.


Ishi

The last known survivor of the Yahi was named Ishi by American anthropologists. Ishi had spent most of his life hiding with his tribe members in the Sierra wilderness, emerging at the age of about 49, after the deaths of his mother and remaining relatives. He was the only Yahi known to Americans. Ishi emerged from the mountains near
Oroville, California Oroville (''Oro'', Spanish for "Gold" and ''Ville'', French for "town") is a city in and the county seat of Butte County, California, United States. Its population was 15,506 at the 2010 census, up from 13,004 in the 2000 census. After the 20 ...
, on August 29, 1911, having lived his entire life outside of the settler-colonial culture. Ishi would teach Saxton T. Pope archery as referenced in Pope's book on archery by the last Yana Indian. He died in 1916.


See also

* Yana language * Yana traditional narratives *
Indigenous peoples of California Indigenous peoples of California, commonly known as Indigenous Californians or Native Californians, are a diverse group of nations and peoples that are indigenous to the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and afte ...


Notes


References

* Cook, Sherburne F. 1976a. ''The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization''. University of California Press, Berkeley. * Cook, Sherburne F. 1976b. ''The Population of the California Indians, 1769–1970''. University of California Press, Berkeley. * Heizer, Robert F., and Theodora Kroeber (editors). 1979. ''Ishi the Last Yahi: A Documentary History''. University of California Press, Berkeley. * Johnson, Jerald Jay. 1978. "Yana" in ''Handbook of North American Indians'', vol. 8 (California), pp. 361–369. Robert F. Heizer, ed. (William C. Sturtevant, general ed.) Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. /. * Kroeber, A. L. 1925.
Handbook of the Indians of California
'. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C. * Kroeber, Theodora. 1961. '' Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America''. University of California Press, Berkeley. * Sapir, Edward (1910)
"Yana Texts"
''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'', vol. 1, no. 9. Berkeley: University Press.


External links


''Ishi: The Last Yahi'' (1992), documentary
IMDB

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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 ...
Journal'', 1875, online at University of Michigan
Map: "Native Tribes, Groups, Language Families, and Dialects of California region in 1770"
California Prehistory ---- {{Authority control Indigenous peoples of California History of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Extinct Native American tribes Extinct Native American peoples