LE GRAND REGION
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LE GRAND REGION – THRAYAPTHRE LOCAL TRIBE
A few Thrayapthre Yokuts were baptized at Mission San Juan Bautista in the 1820s, where a priest noted that they were the “most distant” San Joaquin Valley Yokuts speakers (see the Mission Register References section below). The Thrayapthre disappeared from all records by the mid-1830s. It is argued here that the Chauchila Yokuts originally held only the Dairyland region on the lower courses of the Chowchilla River, and that they moved eastward, absorbing the Thrayapthre or pushing them up into the Sierra (perhaps some of both), during the horse raiding era of the late 1820s and 1830s. In the year 1845, John C. Fremont encountered and fought the “Chauchiles” somewhere in the Le Grand region. Subsequent authors have been content to give the entire east San Joaquin Valley plain north of Fresno Creek and south of Mariposa Creek to the Chauchila Yokuts.
Today’s Indian groups of Mariposa and Madera counties may include individuals with Thrayapthre Yokuts ancestry. There may also be families with Thrayapthre Yokuts ancestry among the Mission San Juan Bautista descendant community.
Environment
The Le Grand region is predominately flat valley land at 200-400 foot elevation along the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, with some low foothills up to 500 foot elevation on the east. The Chowchilla River enters the region from the foothills just to the east and immediately braids out into three distributary streams—the main Chowchilla, Ash Slough, and Berenda Slough—that flow westward through the southern portion of the region. Small Deadman Creek and Dutchman Creek flow westward through the central area, while small Mariposa Creek flows westward through the north portion of the region. Historic vegetation was predominately valley grassland, with willows and cottonwoods along the perennial streams. Valley oaks were occasional in the eastern half of the region, while blue oak woodlands covered some of the eastern upland hills.
Spanish Period Expedition References
Moraga-Muñoz 1806. The Moraga-Muñoz expedition seems to have camped in the region on the night of October 10, 1806, on its way southeast from the Merced River to the San Joaquin River:
- A river with two or three channels was encountered, but with water only in pools on account of the great expanse of sand. It has grass, willows, oaks, and ash. At this place we spent the night. A scouting party went into the mountains but found nothing worth noting. All the country traversed today has very poor grass and is very stony. … [The arroyo] at which the camp is situated is [called] the Tecolote ["owl"] because of the great abundance of these birds [Muñoz in Cook 1960:251].
The camp was probably in the area of the old Santa Fe railway east of Chowchilla. In other areas along their route, Muñoz wrote of encounters with local Indian people, but none were mentioned along this portion of the route.
Mission Register References
The Thrayapthre local tribe are known only from the San Juan Bautista mission records between 1821 and 1831. Thirty-one Thrayapthres were baptized there, of whom only 13 were adults. Clearly only a small percentage of the population was ever baptized. The first group to appear at the mission consisted of six children baptized on June 2, 1821 in a mixed group with children from areas farther north, primarily Silelamne Yokuts (presumably) of the adjacent Planada region (among SJB-B 2790-2809). A young woman was baptized with Quithrathre Yokuts (Atwater region) later that year, another with the Silelamne in 1822, and two more with Quithrathres and Silelamnes in 1823 (SJB-B 2840, 3183, 3295, 3341). Also in 1823 three young Thrayapthre men were baptized in mixed groups with Silelamnes, Quithrathres, and Telehua Miwoks, the latter of the Sierra foothill Catheys Valley region (SJB-B 3352, 3353, 3392). One of those young men, Sexto, was identified as a son of the Thrayapthre captain (SJB-B 3352); in a later baptism of a relative, Sexto was said to be San Juan Bautista’s “interpreter of the third language” or Sierra Miwok. No Thrayapthres were baptized in 1824 or 1825. In the summer of 1826 three Thrayapthres were baptized with Geuche Yokuts (Madera region), Cuccunu Yokuts (Hopeton region), a Chauchila Yokuts (Dairyland region), and a Sutununthro Miwok (Mariposa region).
The largest single Thrayapthre baptismal group, three children and four adults, was baptized in July of 1827 in a highly mixed group that included an Uthrocos Yokuts (El Nido region), a Cuccunu Yokuts (Hopeton region), a Siucsianthre Yokuts (Chukchansi of the Raymond region), two Huathscomno [Putoyunthre] Miwoks (Hunter Valley region), a Telehua Miwok (Catheys Valley region), and a Sutunuthro Miwok (Mariposa region). Among that 1827 group was Thromquilmu, identified as the Thrayapthre captain (SJB-B 3659). In one entry for that group, Father Arroyo provides another language:
- Teodomiro … de la misma tribu y nación Thrayapthre, últimos por aquel rumbo de la lengua común de los Tulares, o llano o bien, tierras bajas de los Rios [of the same tribe and nation of Thrayapthre, the farthest in that direction of the common language of the Tules, or plains, or better, of the low lands of the rivers] (SJB-B 3664).
This clue supports the conclusion that the Thrayapthre Sexto became a Miwok interpreter because he came from a Yokuts group that neighbored the foothill lands of such Miwok-speaking groups as the Telehua of the Catheys Valley region. Six more Thrayapthre children were baptized in 1828, three of whom were children whose mother was a Sutunuthro Miwok, presumably from the Mariposa region (SJB-B 3724, 3743, 3751). The last Thrayapthre baptism occurred in February of 1832, that of a woman (SJB-B 3965) with a mixed group of Chauchila Yokuts (Dairyland and La Grand regions) and Joyima Yokuts (Herndon region).
Mission Marriage Patterns. Only renewed marriages are documented for the Thrayapthre at Mission San Juan Bautista. None were internal to the group, suggesting that all of the baptized Thrayapthres were people who went to Mission San Juan Bautista with larger groups from other places. Two of the out-marriages (SJB-M 805, 844) were with Silelamne Yokuts (Planada region). One each were with a Quithrathre Yokuts (Atwater region), a Cuccunu Yokuts (Hopeton region), and a Putoyunthre Miwok (Hunter Valley region) (SJB- 692, 878, 931).
Arroyo’s 1822-1827 Padron. The Thrayapthre were one of three local Yokuts-speaking tribes that Father Arroyo de la Cuesta associated together in his 1822-1827 padron. In the document introduction to the padron he wrote:
- Following these [Hualquemne and Notoaliths] come the few from Cothmejait, Achila, and Thrayapthre, all descended from the same people [Arroyo de la Cuesta 1822-1827].
Further on, at the head of the ninth list in the padron, Arroyo wrote:
- Continuing with the Cothmejait, Achila, and Thrayapthre, who are very few here and often confused with the the Notoaliths, Huohual, Hualquimne, and Quithrathre … [followed by a list of 23 people, mainly Thrayapthre] … Of these, today, without doubt they are quite confused with all of those of the Merced River, and due to its good land they are as prone to flee as to remain here [Arroyo de la Cuesta 1822-1827].
Of the two groups with whom Arroyo specifically associated the Thrayapthre, the Achila are presumably the Atsnil of the Turlock region, while the Cothmejait are a mystery Yokuts group that may be equivalent to the Apelamene, who went to Mission Santa Clara from the confluence of the Merced and San Joaquin rivers (the Hilmar region). Thus, the Thrayapthre are linked to the Merced River Yokuts groups, who are believed to have spoken a Delta Yokuts dialect.
Mexican Period Expedition References
Expeditions into the Le Grand region from the 1820s forward do not mention any group called Thrayapthre. Instead, they usually refer to the local people in the region as Chauchilas. Thus, it is suggested here, the Chauchilas removed themselves eastward from the Dairyland region into the Le Grand region to escape interaction with the Mexicans, absorbing some of their Thrayapthre neighbors and scattering others to live among groups to the north (Silelamne), east (Telehua and Chukchansi), and south (Heuchi).
Pico 1826. Sergeant José Dolores Pico led a Mexican army expedition against horse thieves and fugitive Christians in the central San Joaquin Valley during the winter of 1825-1826. From Mission San Juan Bautista he came over Pacheco Pass and then went to the San Joaquin River in the Firebaugh region. From that point his diary is somewhat confusing. The interpretation put forth in the CPNC monographs is that he next moved east to the San Joaquin River in the eastern Herndon region, then turned north, arriving at Berenda Creek in the Madera region on the evening of January 4. He raided a village on a fairly large river the next morning, January 5, 1826, implying that is was a Joyima village:
- At about 4:00 o’clock in the morning I decided to make an attack on the village. … I then marched to attack the village mentioned above. I executed the assault and took by surprise as many as possible. However none of the malefactors who were being hunted was caught, because the houses of the village were buried deeply in the forest and were close to a stream. The latter formed an obstacle which could not be overcome, both because no one could be found who would give us a true statement of where it could be forded. All that was accomplished in this place was to capture forty natives, big and little, and one Christian from San Juan Bautista. This man had been married to a heathen woman for about four years and, since the latter had a very small daughter, I was obliged to leave her behind….
- I observed in the vicinity of this village that there were a great many almost fresh bones and hides of horses which the Indians had slaughtered [Pico in Cook 1962:182].
The only specific local tribe mentioned over those days was the “Jollimas” near the “Santa Ana” river, the latter name variously applied to the Fresno River and to Cottonwood Creek by the early expeditions. All travel directions and distances in the expedition suggest, however, that the village he attacked was on the Chowchilla River in the Le Grand region, to the north of Hoyima territory (the Herndon region). After attacking the village, he returned to Berenda Creek for the night, then moved south to the San Joaquin River and on to other adventures on January 6. In summary, this attack suggests that the Hoyima (Herndon region), Heuchi (Madera region), Thrayapthre (Le Grand region), and Chauchila (by then in the Le Grand region) were seen by the Mexicans as a single group, and may have been acting that way in response to the Mexicans.
Rodriguez 1828. Sergeant Sebastian Rodriguez led a party into the east-central San Joaquin Valley against horse-stealing Indians in April and early May of 1828. The precise route of the party is impossible to reconstruct from its diary, but the groups they attacked were the Chauchila, Heuchi, and Hoyima, and the areas they raided seems to have been on Cottonwood Creek (Herndon and Friant regions), the Fresno River (Madera and Raymond regions), and the Chowchilla River (Le Grand region). Rodriguez’s men raided a community they called the “Chausila,” probably in the Le Grand region, on April 30, 1828:
- I ordered Corporal Simeon with 17 soldiers and 16 Indian auxiliaries to go to the village of Chausila to see if they could catch either Christians or heathen, for these people are also horse eaters [in Cook 1962:185].
They returned to Rodriguez, who was also raiding the Heuchi (Madera region) and Hoyima (Herndon region), the next day. The May 1 entry reads:
- At 8:00 o'clock in the morning Corporal Simeon rejoined us. He had not encountered a single Indian in the Chausila country. They had all run to the mountains [Cook 1962:185].
The precise Chauchila village locations that Rodriguez raided in 1828 are unclear, but they were probably along the Chowchilla River in the Chowchilla region. The unbaptized portion of the Chauchila may already have amalgamated with Thrayapthre along the middle Chowchilla River in the Le Grand region by the time of this 1828 event.
Ferguson, 1834. Mexican raids against horse-stealing Indians were common during the 1830s, during which Indian children were often carried back to the settlements to become house servants. Mission baptismal or death records are the only surviving documentation for some of the raids. That being said, it is noted that naturalized Mexican citizen George Ferguson and his wife served as godparents for a little Chauchila Yokuts girl baptized at Mission Santa Clara on October 10, 1834. Father Moreno wrote that Maria Dolores Refugio, age five, was the “hija de Padres Gentiles, de los Chauchiles, traida por los del Pueblo de Guadalupe en una expedicion q.e hicieron a la Sierra Nevada; no se supo si tenia Padres vivos o si estan muertos [the child of non-Christian parents of the Chauchiles, brought by the townspeople of San Jose on an expedition they made to the Sierra Nevada; it is not known whether her parents are living or dead]” (SCL-B 8675).
Fremont, 1845. When John C. Fremont brought his third exploring expedition into the San Joaquin Valley from Sutter’s Fort in December of 1845, his men stumbled upon a “Chauchiles” village and engaged them in a battle. The diary description suggests the event’s location was not in either the Dairyland or Le Grand regions, but in the first hills of the Sierra just to the east. (See the CPNC Raymond region monograph for more details.)
1846-1910 Historic References
Mariposa Indian War of 1851. The Chauchila local tribe was a leading group in the Mariposa Indian War, a resistance against American traders and settlers which began in the fall of 1850 and culminated with the signatures of their leaders on US government Treaty N in April of 1851. At the time the Chauchila Yokuts seem to have been ranging through the Dairyland, Le Grand, and Raymond regions. (Since most of the events took place in the foothills and mountains, context and details about the war are presented in the CPNC Raymond region monograph.)
Treaty N, 1851. Five “Chow-chil-lies” chiefs signed the second federal treaty (later designated Treaty N) at a spot near the foothills on the San Joaquin River (in the Herndon or Friant region) on April 29, 1851 (Heizer 1972:71-81; Phillips 2004:27, 30). Although the Le Grand region was probably the location of the signing of the first treaty (now called Treaty M) on “the Little Mariposa river” on March 19, the Chauchila had not signed it because they were part of the Mariposa Indian War resistance that month. The Chauchilas were among the representatives of 16 local tribes signing Treaty N, including most of the extant local tribes of the upper Chowchilla, San Joaquin, and Kings rivers. The Treaty N reservation was designed to stretch along the base of the Sierra from the Chowchilla River to the Kings River. Of note, the 16 signatory tribes were assigned to three groups by the commissioners, each under the leadership of one chief. The Chauchila, Heuchi, Chukchansi (all three Yokuts), Pohonichi, and Nuchu (both Sierra Miwok) were assigned to the northern group, with the Heuchi leader Nai-yak-qua as principal chief (Heizer 1972:72). Also of note, none of the Chauchila signatoriess had a Spanish name; they were Po-ho-leel, E-keeno, Kay-o-ya, A-pem-shee, and Cho-no-hal-ma (Heizer 1972:72-79).
Fresno River Reservation 1854-1859. The headquarters of the Fresno River reservation, established in 1854, was on the Fresno River at the east edge of the Madera region. Office of Indian Affairs reports from the Fresno River agency during the 1850s, now in the National Archives, have not been examined for this report. However, Cook (1955:71) did paraphrase the documents and noted a report by D. A. Enyart that 30 “Chowchilla” were at the Fresno Farm [a temporary federal reservation] in November of 1854, as well as a report by M.B. Lewis on August 30, 1859 to the effect that 85 “Chow-chillas “have moved from the Chowchilla to the Fresno River.”
Powers 1877. Powers did not publish information about Indian groups within the Le Grand region, or any areas of the east San Joaquin Valley plains between the Merced and San Joaquin rivers. His information came from his tour of the foothills farther east. In his chapter on Miwok-speaking groups, Powers (1877:349) listed a “Chau-chil’-la” group on the “Middle Chowchilla” River, essentially in the northern and central Raymond region. Since it is very clear that the original Chauchilas were Northern Valley Yokuts speakers, one wishes that more information was available about Powers’ source for his information.
Classic Ethnographic References
None of the classic ethnographers seem to have worked with Indian people who lived in the Le Grand region or claim to have hailed from it. Those who did address the area at all—Kroeber, Gayton, and Latta—seem to have received their sparse information from Chukchanci people living at Raymond, in the Coarse Gold region, and at Table Mountain in Fresno County.
Kroeber 1925. Kroeber mapped the Le Grand region as part of the very large area of the Chauchila, an area also including the Dairyland region and parts of the adjacent El Nido andMadera regions. He wrote:
- The Chauchila or Chauchili, more correctly Chaushila or Chaushilha (plural Chaweshali), sometime also called Toholo, “lowlanders, westerners,” by the hill tribes, were in the plains along the several channels of Chowchilla River, in whose name their appellation is perpetuated [1925:485].
Kroeber mapped one village, Shehamniu, within the CPNC Le Grand region, which he assigned to his Chauchila:
- They lived at Shehamniu on this stream [Chowchilla River], apparently at the eastern edge of the plains, some miles below Buchanan [1925:485].
Kroeber’s map locations for villages are typically imprecise, and his location for Shehamiu village is probably no exception (Kroeber1925:Plate 47). It may have been anywhere from the distributary branching of the Chowchilla River upstream toward, but short of, Buchanan Reservoir.
Earlier mission records indicate that the Thrayapthre were the easternmost Yokuts speakers of the plains, as has been noted in the Mission Records discussion above. Kroeber (1925:485) noted, “The Chauchila are the first Yokuts tribe to have no upland neighbors of their own stock, the southern Miwok now being the easterners.” Kroeber’s information would be explained if the Chauchila had absorbed the Thrayapthre during the Mexican raids of the 1820s or following the Central Valley malaria epidemic of 1833. (Kroeber’s field notes indicate that his documentation for the Chauchila tribe was obtained in 1904 from Molly, a Hoyima Yokuts woman living on the Fresno River (Kroeber Field Notes, [BANC MSS C-B 925], Notebook 5709-21 column 1, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley).
Gayton 1948. Gayton understood that the original local tribe name “Chausila” came to be expanded, after the Mariposa Indian War, into a global term for all Northern Valley Yokuts speakers on the plain between the San Joaquin and Merced rivers:
- The Chowchilla were believed to be the ringleaders in resisting white domination, and their name at that time was used to cover native groups which lived on the Fresno and San Joaquin rivers, as a dialectic difference was recognized between their speech and that of the tribes to the south on the Kings and Kaweah rivers, who were called collectively Kaweah. (Or so do I interpret Bunnell’s usage of the names “Chowchilla” and “Kaweah.”) [Gayton 1948:153].
In a note, Gayton wrote that her 90-year-old informant Bill Wilson told Stanley Newman that he was a “Chowchilla,” although he represented himself as a Dumna to her (Gayton 1948:153). Gayton did not retrieve many details about the Yokuts people of the plains north of the San Joaquin River. From Bill Wilson, she learned the following seemingly-faulty (or poorly-contextualized) information.
At the present town of Chowchilla were the Nu’tsču. And on the Fresno River at Madera were the Čauši’la (Chauchila) whose head man was Opa’mči [1948:153].
The attribution of Chauchilas to the town (and region) of Madera, ethnographic Heuchi territory, reflects the post-1850 disruptions. Opa’mči, by the way, was probably the same person as “A-pem-shee,” one of the Treaty N signatories for the “Chow-chil-lies.” Also, other sources indicate that the “Nutscu” (Nuchu and Sutunuthro) were Miwoks originally from the Mariposa region. Some of them may well have lived and worked at Chowchilla, in the western portion of the Le Grand region, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Latta 1949. Latta’s very general map in the inside cover of his 1949 edition shows the “Chauchila” in the Chowchilla River country from the San Joaquin River on the west to the edge of the Sierra foothills on the east, thus including most of the El Nido and Dairyland regions and all of the Le Grand region. He mapped the village of Shehamniu approximately where Kroeber had mapped it in 1925. Latta called the Chauchila (his Chauchila) “the first Yokuts tribe about which anything definite is known,” perhaps in reference to Fremont’s 1845 documentation about them:
- These people were the only warlike tribe of Yokuts. They ranged along the Chowchilla River from the San Joaquin River on the west to the Sierra foothills on the east [1949:3].
Latta (1949:33-38) chose the Chauchila as the exemplary Yokuts tribe of the San Joaquin Valley plains. “This tribe has been known since its earliest contact with white people for its hostile attitude and horse stealing,” he wrote (1949:34). He sketched out a brief description of their probable pre-contact life ways, based upon extrapolation from better-documented groups. He then devoted four pages to Fremont’s Memoir excerpt regarding an 1845 encounter with Chauchilas at the edge of the foothills, probably in the adjacent Raymond region (see the CPNC Raymond region monograph for details). All in all, Latta’s 1949 information for the region does not reflect the rich ethnographic knowledge available to him from his informants for areas south of the San Joaquin River.
Recent Ethnographic References
Cook 1955. In his study of the aboriginal population of the entire San Joaquin Valley, Cook (1955:76) mapped the combined Dairyland, southern El Nido, southern Le Grand, northern Madera, Raymond, and Nipinnawassee regions as lands of the “Chauchila.” In text, he noted that the vicinity was “very poorly represented in the early documentary sources,” but did cite Rodriguez to suggest that the original “Chauchila” population was probably 400 (Cook 1955:51). While Cook’s (1955:50-54) textual discussion of population density in the area does not comport with his mapping units, he did suggest an aboriginal population of 5.05 persons per square mile in the San Joaquin Valley here.
Latta 1977. In his 1977 edition, Latta continued the identification of the Chauchila with the Le Grand region and surrounding plains, but he changed the group name spelling to “Chauchela” and re-wrote his material on the group. He reprinted the Fremont Memoir excerpt in one section (Latta 1977:237-241), then added another section on their geography, in which he attributed the villages of Halau and Shehámniu to the Chauchela group on the basis of information from Pahmit (Dumna) and George Rivercomb (half-blood Chukchanci)(Latta 1977:156-159). (See the CPNC Dairyland monograph for more new “Chauchela” by Latta in 1977.)
Wallace 1978. The California volume (Heizer 1978) divided Yokuts groups into Northern Valley, Southern Valley, and Foothill segments to discuss the large Yokuts language territory in three conveniently-sized chapters. The Le Grand region was included within the arbitrary Northern Valley Yokuts chapter, written by William Wallace. Wallace (1978:462) mapped only one tribal group, the “Chawchila,” on the east San Joaquin plain north of the Fresno River. In text, he wrote, “Below the Merced came the Chawchila, on the plains along the several channels of the Chowchilla” (1978:466). Also in text, he followed Kroeber in giving them the villages of Shehamniu in the Le Grand region and Halau in the Madera region (Wallace 1978:470). Like all twentieth-century ethnographers, he was not aware of the Thrayapthre Yokuts. Overall, Wallace’s (1978) presentation of ethno-geographic information for his Northern Valley Yokuts area is not systematic and not always accurate.
