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The Kawaiisu Nation (pronounced: "ka-wai-ah-soo"[needs IPA]) are a tribe of indigenous people of California in the United States. The Kawaiisu Nation is the only treatied tribe in California, Ratified Treaty (No. 256), 9 Stat. 984, Dec. 30, 1849. This Treaty with the Utah Confederation of tribal nations. They have never given up their territorial rights to any of their ancestral land to the United States. The Kawaiisu Nation had preexisting treaties with Spain and those were recognized by Mexico until 1849 when California was becoming a State.
 A Kawaiisu family | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 2010: 60 alone and in combination[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 United States ( California) | |
| Languages | |
| English, Kawaiisu[2] | |
| Religion | |
| Indigenous religion, Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Ute, Chemehuevi, and Southern Paiute |
Tribal members lived in a series of small and large permeant villages in the Tehachapi Valley and to the north across the Tehachapi Pass in the southern Sierra Nevada, toward Lake Isabella and Walker Pass and all the way to the Pacific. Historically, the Kawaiisu also traveled eastward and westward on food-gathering trips to areas in the northern Mojave Desert, to the north and northeast of the Antelope Valley, Searles Valley, as far east as the Panamint Valley, the Panamint Mountains the western edge of Death Valley and to the Pacific Coast. - The Kawaiisu considered the Coso Range near Ridgecrest Ca. the site of their creation and their most sacred land.
They are well known for their rock art/Po-o-ka-di that exists throughout their territory, including on the Chana Lake Naval Weapons Center. Kawaiisu complex basket weaving was recognized as the finest in the Americas. Much of inventory of the Kawaiisu baskets are held and hidden by UC Berkley in a private collection.
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The Kawaiisu language is a member of the Southern Numic division of the Uto-Aztecan language family.[2] The Kawaiisu homeland was bordered by speakers of non-Numic Uto-Aztecan languages.
The Kawaiisu have been mislabeled and mistakenly known by several other names, including the Caliente, Paiute, Tehachapi Valley Indians, and Tehachapi Indians, but they called themselves depending on dialect Nuwu, New-wa, Nu-oo-ah or Niwiwi, meaning "The People." The tribal designations as "Kawaiisu" are English adoptions of the Yokutsan words used by the neighboring Yokuts. They self-identification term Nüwa ("People") is commonly used by themselves and in the newspapers and media.[3]
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Before European contact, the Kawaiisu lived in hundreds of permanent winter villages of 60 to 100 people. They often divided into smaller groups during the warmer months of the year and harvested plants(included pinon nuts) in the mountains and deserts. They hunted animals and fished for food and raw materials. They were known for their mining and trading of obsidian throughout the western Americas and deep into Mexico. They were also known for their building of sturdy tulle boats used for fishing and transportation. Some believe they were divided in two regional groups: the "Desert Kawaiisu" and the "Mountain Kawaiisu".
The Kawaiisu are related by language and culture to the Southern Paiute of southwestern Nevada and the Chemehuevi of the eastern Mojave Desert of California. They may have originally lived in the desert before coming to the Tehachapi Mountains region, as early as many thousands of years ago.
The Kawaiisu participated in cooperative antelope drives (driving herds of antelope into traps so they could be more easily slaughtered) with the Yokuts, another group living in the San Joaquin Valley.Since 1863 after the Kawaiisu Massacre at Tillie Creek, they have often been in conflict with the tribe in the mountains north of them.
The Kawaiisu are famous for their petroglyphs and rock art.[4] Starting in the early 1850s, a 175 year genocide of the Kawaiisu people and their culture begin by European settlers, militias and the US Army. The ongoing cultural genocide continues to this day centered in Kern County,Ca.
In 2011, The Kawaiisu Project received the Governor's Historic Preservation Award for its efforts to document the Kaiwaiisu language and culture, including "the Handbook of the Kawaiisu, language teaching ... the Kawaiisu Language and Cultural Center, [and] the Kawaiisu exhibit at the Tehachapi Museum."[5][6] A local newspaper noted in 2010, "There are also several hundred living Kawaiisu descendants, even though a pervasive misconception believes them to be all gone."[6][7]
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Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially.[8] Alfred L. Kroeber proposed the combined 1770 population of the Kawaiisu as 1,500. He estimated the surviving population of the Kawaiisu in 1910 as 500.[9]
The Kawaiisu culture is matriarchal. The estimates of the Kawaiisu tribal membership is grossly under counted. Tribal members were hunted down and enslaved or killed from about 1850 until the late 1880's. A major massacre and a death march occurred in 1863 and 1864. Tribal members learned to escape to the remote mountains and hid their true heritage. Kawaiisu members sometimes called themselves the "Coso People" or even joined other tribes to protect themselves and their families. Today , the Kawaiisu's own tribal records indicate that total eligible members may be as high as 100,000 and with one family having up to 10,000 eligible members.
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