Coast Miwok Research Articles

Managing Place and Identity: The Marin Coast Miwok Experience

Managing Place and Identity: The Marin Coast Miwok Experience

Cranioskeletal Size Variation in San Francisco Bay Prehistory: Relation to Calcium Deficit in the Reconstructed High‐seafoods Diet and Demographic Stress

An osteometric–statistical study of residual rickets (RR) skeletal plasticity has been made of a time-ordered sequence of 11 series of adult skeleton sets (n=251) from shellmound sites around San Francisco Bay (the Bay) spanning the three archaeological horizons of Central California Indian prehistory in this region: Early (EH), Middle (MH) and Late (LH). To control for major differences of subsistence ecology and ethnolinguistic affiliation, the Bay sequence was further subdivided into four subregions: East (EB, Costanoan), South (SB, Costanoan, high acorns), West (WB, Costanoan, low acorns) and Northwest (NWB, Coast Miwok). In the eight EB series, a non-linear downward trend in cranioskeletal size was observed between EH and LH2, coinciding with a modest upward trend in the RR-15B score. To ascertain if food calcium deficit (CADEF) can explain the observed secular decline in cranioskeletal size, the evolving aboriginal Bay archaeodiet—relatively high in marine mammals, birds, fish and calcium-rich mollusks—was reconstructed by the diet grid method: in the three subregions with large stands of oaks (EB, SB, NWB), CADEF rose from negligible in the EH to moderate in the LH, as the subsistence base became more dependent on leached acorn meal for energy. Temporal and areal variation in Bay cranioskeletal size relates mostly to CADEF, demographic stress in females (DS), and the ‘male nutritional advantage interaction co-factor’ (MNAIC), in descending order of importance. This study has also confirmed the existence of the San Francisco Bay Indian physical type.

Cranioskeletal Size Variation in San Francisco Bay Prehistory: Relation to Calcium Deficit in the Reconstructed High-seafoods Diet and Demographic Stress

An osteometric–statistical study of residual rickets (RR) skeletal plasticity has been made of a time-ordered sequence of 11 series of adult skeleton sets (n=251) from shellmound sites around San Francisco Bay (the Bay) spanning the three archaeological horizons of Central California Indian prehistory in this region: Early (EH), Middle (MH) and Late (LH). To control for major differences of subsistence ecology and ethnolinguistic affiliation, the Bay sequence was further subdivided into four subregions: East (EB, Costanoan), South (SB, Costanoan, high acorns), West (WB, Costanoan, low acorns) and Northwest (NWB, Coast Miwok). In the eight EB series, a non-linear downward trend in cranioskeletal size was observed between EH and LH2, coinciding with a modest upward trend in the RR-15B score. To ascertain if food calcium deficit (CADEF) can explain the observed secular decline in cranioskeletal size, the evolving aboriginal Bay archaeodiet—relatively high in marine mammals, birds, fish and calcium-rich mollusks—was reconstructed by the diet grid method: in the three subregions with large stands of oaks (EB, SB, NWB), CADEF rose from negligible in the EH to moderate in the LH, as the subsistence base became more dependent on leached acorn meal for energy. Temporal and areal variation in Bay cranioskeletal size relates mostly to CADEF, demographic stress in females (DS), and the ‘male nutritional advantage interaction co-factor’ (MNAIC), in descending order of importance. This study has also confirmed the existence of the San Francisco Bay Indian physical type.

The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Fort Ross, California, Vol. I

Editor(s): Lightfoot, Kent G.; Wake, Thomas A.; Schiff, Ann M. | Abstract: This volume inaugurates a new series on the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Ross Colony, an early nineteenth century Russian trade outpost established in northern California. Founded by the Russian-American Company in 1812, and operated as a commercial enterprise until 1841, the Ross Colony comprised an early multi-ethnic community composed of Europeans, Creoles (people of Russian/ Native American ancestry), native Alaskans, and local Kashaya Pomo, Southern Pomo, and Coast Miwok peoples. Located 110 km north of San Francisco on the scenic Sonoma County coastline, the Ross Colony is now a state historic park administered by the California Departmnent of Parks and Recreation.

Keeping slug woman alive: a holistic approach to American Indian texts

This remarkable collection of eight essays offers a rare perspective on the issue of cross-cultural communication. Greg Sarris is concerned with American Indian texts, both oral and written, as well as with other American Indian cultural phenomena such as basketry and religion. His essays cover a range of topics that include orality, art, literary criticism, and pedagogy, and demonstrate that people can see more than just 'what things seem to be'. Throughout, he asks: How can we read across cultures so as to encourage communication rather than to close it down? Sarris maintains that cultural practices can be understood only in their living, changing contexts. Central to his approach is an understanding of storytelling, a practice that embodies all the indeterminateness, structural looseness, multi valence, and richness of culture itself. He describes encounters between his Indian aunts and Euro-American students and the challenge of reading in a reservation classroom; he brings the reports of earlier ethnographers out of museums into the light of contemporary literary and anthropological theory. Sarris' perspective is exceptional: son of a Coast Miwok/Pomo father and a Jewish mother, he was raised by Mabel McKay - a renowned Cache Creek Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman - and by others, Indian and non-Indian, in Santa Rosa, California. Educated at Stanford, he is now a university professor and recently became Chairman of the Federated Coast Miwok tribe. His own story is woven into these essays and provides valuable insights for anyone interested in cross-cultural communication, including educators, theorists of language and culture, and general readers.

Environmental Variation and the Plausibility of Religion: A California Indian Example

Coast Miwok Indian religion before the European conquest of California appears to have been bimodaL Its public face - a world-renewal cult - brought together peoples from surrounding regions in great celebrations. More privately, sorcery pitted neighbor against neighbor, village against village. This essay - an exercise in historical reconstruction - argues that the variable California environment let both aspects of this religion make sense, but at different times and to different degrees. The Coast Miwok environment was rich in resources, but each was subject to periodic failure. In most years there was enough food for all, and the common ceremonies were an expression of good fortune. In bad years, all sought common renewal. In some years, however, only certain lineages' resources might faiL Because all property was private, and there was no system of redistribution, sorcery explained (and provided retribution for) such inequities in fortune. In each situation, one or another aspect of native religion sense. Contradictions in a religion are nothing new. Many religions contain seemingly antagonistic elements which nonetheless coexist in the lives of their adherents. Observers explain the coexistence of such contradictions in several ways. They may be political: the result of a religion attempting to appeal to two (or more) social groups, each of which takes part of the religion for its own (Levin, 1980). They may be fumctional: contradictory beliefs often preventing groups from acting in ways that might compromise their survival (as implied by Pagels, 1979). Or they may be purely theoretical: matters of dispute among theologians rather than among everyday religious adherents. I wish to suggest another possibility, perhaps of less generality than these, but having the virtue of focusing directly on the tangible world in which religious adherents live. The Coast Miwok Indians of central California had a bimodal religion of great contradictoriness, which, I believe, was made plausible for them by the variability of their

The Missionization of the Coast Miwok Indians of California

The Missionization of the Coast Miwok Indians of California

Comparative Miwok-Mutsun with Notes on Rumsen

1. The Costanoan languages were formerly spoken by Indians living along the coast of California from Monterey to the San Franciscan peninsula.' These were first grouped into a single family by Albert S. Gatschet in 1877.2 The Miwok family consists of at least seven languages; Northern, Central, and Southern Sierra Miwok, spoken in the Sierra Nevada Mountains; Plains Miwok, formerly spoken in the area between Ione and Stockton; Saclan, possibly once spoken in the region near Lafayette and Walnut Creek; Coast Miwok, formerly spoken from the Marin peninsula north to Bodega Bay; and Lake Miwok, spoken near Clear Lake. Robert Gordon Latham in 18563 and Gatschet in 18774 were the first to suggest kinship between certain of the Miwok and Costanoan languages. In 1913 Dixon and Kroeber recognized Miwok and Costanoan as two separate but closely related language families within the Penutian stock, which also included Wintun, Maidu, and Yokuts;5 and they justified these assumptions with a

Francis Drake's California Anchorage in the Light of the Indian Language Spoken There

Research Article| June 01 1942 Francis Drake's California Anchorage in the Light of the Indian Language Spoken There Robert F. Heizer, Robert F. Heizer Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar William W. Elmendorf William W. Elmendorf Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (1942) 11 (2): 213–217. https://doi.org/10.2307/3633770 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Robert F. Heizer, William W. Elmendorf; Francis Drake's California Anchorage in the Light of the Indian Language Spoken There. Pacific Historical Review 1 June 1942; 11 (2): 213–217. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3633770 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentPacific Historical Review Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1942 The Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.