Bay Miwok
Tribe of Native America people / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Bay Miwok are a cultural and linguistic group of Miwok, a Native American people in Northern California who live in Contra Costa County. They joined the Franciscan mission system during the early nineteenth century, suffered a devastating population decline, and lost their language as they intermarried with other native California ethnic groups and learned the Spanish language.
Total population | |
---|---|
1770: 1,700 1850: not known 1880: not known | |
Regions with significant populations | |
California: Contra Costa County | |
Languages | |
Utian: Bay Miwok (Saclan) | |
Religion | |
Shamanism: Kuksu: Miwok mythology | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Miwok |
The Bay Miwok were not recognized by modern anthropologists or linguists until the mid-twentieth century. In fact, Alfred L. Kroeber, father of California anthropology, who knew of one of their constituent local groups, the Saklan (Saclan), from nineteenth-century manuscript sources, presumed that they spoke an Ohlone (a.k.a. Costanoan) language.[1]
In 1955 linguist Madison Beeler recognized an 1821 vocabulary taken from a Saclan man at Mission San Francisco as representative of a Miwok language.[2] The language was named "Bay Miwok" and its territorial extent was rediscovered during the 1960s (see Landholding Groups or Local Tribes section below).