The Winnemem Wintu ("middle river people" or "middle water people") are a Native American band of the Wintu tribe originally located along the lower McCloud River, above Shasta Dam near Redding, California.
The Winnemem Wintu ("middle river people" or "middle water people") are a Native American band of the Wintu tribe originally located along the lower McCloud River, above Shasta Dam near Redding, California.
Forty-two Winnemem men, women and children were killed by white settlers at Kabyai Creek, on the McCloud River, in 1854. This action is known as the Kaibai Creek Massacre.
Around the late 19th century and early 20th century, local militias were awarded $5 for proof of every Native American person killed. [1]
Since 1945, portions of the lower McCloud River have been flooded by Shasta Lake, the reservoir created by the Shasta Dam. [2] [3] In 1971, a group of Winnemem Wintu occupied Toyon-Wintu Center, a government-owned property where housing had been built for dam construction workers. They were granted a temporary permit to remain at the site in 1973, but the government moved to evict the thirty remaining Wintu residents in 1988, completing the eviction in 1989. [4]
The Winnemem Wintu have been in a protracted fight with State of California and the federal Bureau of Reclamation over the proposed raising of the height of Shasta Dam to secure more water for California cities and agriculture; the Winnemem Wintu argue that the proposed higher lake level would flood many Winnemem Wintu sacred sites. From September 12 to 16, 2004, one faction of Winnemem Wintu held a "war dance" as a protest. They claim it was the first war dance held since 1876.[ citation needed ]
The Winnemem Wintu claim important sacred sites on Mount Shasta and Cold Spring Mountain. They are one of several groups of Native Americans who feel that casinos and their proceeds destroy culture from the inside out, and refuse to participate in the gaming industry.[ citation needed ]
The Winnemem healer Florence Jones (Puilulimet) [5] (1907–2003) was portrayed in a nationally broadcast PBS documentary, In the Light of Reverence , in 2001, as she successfully led her community's fight to stop construction of a new ski resort on sacred Mount Shasta.
The Winnemem Wintu traditionally spoke the North Eastern Dialect of the Northern Wintun Language, a member of the Wintuan languages, and a member of the larger Penutian language "stock". Chief Caleen Sisk has been working with linguist Stefan Liedtke and the Indigenous Language Institute on revitalization of the Winnemem Wintu language. [6]
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The Winnemem are one of what anthropologists have hypothesized to be nine total bands of Wintu. They are not a federally recognized tribe, although they are working toward federal recognition. The Winnemem Wintu are divided politically into several groups, with members participating in at least three organized groups attempting to obtain federal recognition. In addition, there are several Winnemem Wintu descendants who decline to participate in these groups for various reasons.
Some Winnemem Wintu feel that it is by government error rather than termination that the Bureau of Indian Affairs does not recognize them. And some Wintu representatives, of Winnemem heritage, have been informed by Interior Officials that it was "Bureaucratic Oversight" that resulted in the entire Wintu being omitted from the list of federally recognised tribes as early as the 1940s.
One Winnemem Wintu group argues that they were accidentally erased from the Bureau of Indian Affairs list of recognized tribes during the 1980s. They have not been able to regain this recognition. Legislation sponsored by Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell in 2004 gave these Winnemem Wintu the opportunity to regain recognition. However, the Winnemem Wintu were informed that the group's inclusion on an omnibus bill related to all Native American tribal people would have put the entire bill at risk. Rather than have other tribal people put at risk, the Winnemem Wintu agreed with Senator Campbell to remove their name from the bill.
The City of Shasta Lake, known as Central Valley or CV prior to incorporation, is a city in Shasta County, California, United States. It is the closest settlement to Shasta Dam and Shasta Lake reservoir, which are popular tourist destinations. Its population is 10,371 as of the 2020 census, up from 10,164 from the 2010 census.
The Klamath River flows 257 miles (414 km) through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second largest river in California after the Sacramento River. It drains an extensive watershed of almost 16,000 square miles (41,000 km2) that stretches from the arid country of south-central Oregon to the temperate rainforest of the Pacific coast. Unlike most rivers, the Klamath begins in the high desert and flows toward the mountains – carving its way through the rugged Cascade Range and Klamath Mountains before reaching the sea. The upper basin, today used for farming and ranching, once contained vast freshwater marshes that provided habitat for abundant wildlife, including millions of migratory birds. Most of the lower basin remains wild, with much of it designated wilderness. The watershed is known for this peculiar geography, and the Klamath has been called "a river upside down" by National Geographic magazine.
The Wintu are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun. Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wintu language is part of the Penutian language family.
The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of Northern California, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern). Their range is from approximately present-day Lake Shasta to San Francisco Bay, along the western side of the Sacramento River to the Coast Range. Each of these tribes speak one of the Wintuan languages. 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 technology to the region.
Shasta Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam across the Sacramento River in Northern California in the United States. At 602 feet (183 m) high, it is the eighth-tallest dam in the United States. Located at the north end of the Sacramento Valley, Shasta Dam creates Shasta Lake for long-term water storage, flood control, hydroelectricity and protection against the intrusion of saline water. The largest reservoir in the state, Shasta Lake can hold about 4,500,000 acre-feet (5,600 GL).
The McCloud River is a 77.1-mile (124.1 km) long river that flows east of and parallel to the upper Sacramento River, in Siskiyou County and Shasta County in northern California in the United States. Protected under California's Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1972), it drains a scenic mountainous area of the Cascade Range, including part of Mount Shasta. It is a tributary of the Pit River, which in turn flows into the Sacramento River. The three rivers join in Shasta Lake, formed by Shasta Dam north of Redding.
In the Light of Reverence (2001) is a documentary produced by Christopher McLeod and Malinda Maynor (Yumbee). It features three tribal nations, Hopi, the Winnemem Wintu, and the Lakota Sioux, and their struggles to protect three sacred sites. Such sites are central to their understanding of the world and their spiritual responsibilities to care for their homelands.
The Okwanuchu were one of a number of small Shastan-speaking tribes of Native Americans in Northern California, who were closely related to the adjacent larger Shasta tribe.
The Shastan peoples are a group of linguistically related indigenous peoples from the Klamath Mountains. They traditionally inhabited portions of several regional waterways including the Klamath, Salmon, Sacramento and McCloud rivers. Shastan lands presently form portions of the Siskiyou, Klamath and Jackson counties. Scholars have generally divided the Shastan peoples into four languages, although arguments in favor of more or less existing have been made. Speakers of Shasta proper-Kahosadi, Konomihu, Okwanuchu, and Tlohomtah’hello "New River" Shasta resided in settlements typically near a water source. Their villages often had only either one or two families. Larger villages had more families and additional buildings utilised by the community.
The Nomlaki are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, extending westward to the Coast Range in Northern California. Today some Nomlaki people are enrolled in the federally recognized tribes: Round Valley Indian Tribes, Grindstone Indian Rancheria or the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians. The Nomlaki were bordered by the Wintu (Wintun) in the north, the Yana in the northeast and east, the Konkow (Maiduan) in the east, the Patwin (Wintun) in the south, and the Yuki in the west.
The Patwin 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.
The Redding Rancheria is a federally recognized tribe with a reservation in Shasta County, Northern California. It is a leader in the development of their people in their traditional homelands. The Bureau of Indian Affairs purchased the land that is now considered the Redding Rancheria in 1922, in order to provide Indigenous peoples with a place to camp and live. They had been made landless by European-American settlers in the area. Three groups of Native Americans in the area organized as a tribe and were recognized in 1979.
In the United States, an American Indian tribe, Native American tribe, Alaska Native village, or Tribal nation may be any extant or historical tribe, clan, band, nation, or community of Native Americans in the United States. Modern forms of these entities are often associated with land or territory of an Indian reservation. "Federally recognized Indian tribe" is a legal term in United States law with a specific meaning.
The Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation of the Cortina Rancheria is a federally recognized tribe of Indigenous people of California. They are Wintun people, who historically spoke Wintuan languages.
The Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Native Americans of the Colusa Native Americans Community of the Colusa Rancheria is a federally recognized tribe of Wintun Native Americans from central California.
The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Wintun people, specifically Patwin people or southern Wintun, in Yolo County, California. They were formerly known as the Rumsey Indian Rancheria of Wintun Indians of California.
Kabyai Creek massacre or Kaibai Creek massacre was a massacre against Winnemem Wintu people. A party of white settlers attacked a Winnemem Wintu village at Kabyai Creek, on the McCloud River. 42 Winnemem Wintu men, women and children were killed.
Kabyai Creek or Kaibai Creek is a tributary of the McCloud River in Shasta County, California. It flows into the river opposite the McCloud Bridge Campground in the Shasta–Trinity National Forest.
The Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, or in their own language Nomlāqa Bōda, is a federally recognized tribe of Nomlaki people. The Nomlaki are Central Wintun, or River and Hill Nomlaki, an indigenous people of California, located in Tehama and Glenn counties.
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