LORAINE REGION – KAWAIISU FAMILY GROUPS

By David Earle

The two-part Loraine region of east-central Kern County contains a single modern town, the tiny hamlet of Loraine. The region was year-round territory of speakers of Kawaiisu, a Numic language closely related to Chemehuevi/Southern Paiute. Families from this area used the pinyon covered mountains above their year-round range in the summer and autumn, and ventured out onto the Mojave Desert to the east in the spring.

Environment

The western and eastern watersheds of this region are separated by the crest of the south Sierra Nevada Range. The western area is the seasonal upper Caliente Creek watershed, including the south branch called Indian Creek, at elevations from 2,100 feet in the west up to the 4,550 feet elevation that defines the upper boundary of year-round land use at this latitude. Small seasonal streams on the east side include multi-branched Cottonwood Creek and smaller Lone Tree Canyon. East side elevations range from 4,750 feet at the upland edge down to 2,500 on the floor of Fremont Valley, a western portion of the Mojave Desert. Peaks between the two subareas rise to with peaks in this area of 6,000 to 6,500 feet range, although a 4,800 feet pass connects the two sides in the Emerald Mountain vicinity. West side native vegetation is predominately blue oak woodland, with canyon live oak in cooler canyons. East side vegetation is primarily Mojave mixed woody scrub. Pinyon woodlands cover the Cache Peak uplands south of the region.

Early Expedition References

To Be Developed

Mission Register References

To Be Developed

0-1900 Historic References

To Be Developed

Classic Ethnographic References

Merriam 1902, 1905. Merriam visited the area of Piute, either in the northern part of this Loraine region or on Rancheria Creek just into the neighboring Havilah region, on October 12, 1902. He reported:

I visited two Indian camps (one-half mile and two miles north easterly from Piute) of a tribe of Indians I have never met before. They call themselves No-woo’-wah or New-woo-ah…. The upper camp is over the ridge and is obviously a very old Indian home. It consists of a ranch with garden and fruit trees—mainly apple. There is a good adobe house inhabited by two families. … A few rods away is an interesting hut …. Covered with large round rushes, made into a coarse mat [Merriam 1967:444-445].

Merriam gathered information at the Tejon Ranch headquarters in the Tejon Creek region about contact-period ethnogeography of the entire south Sierra between November 10-12, 1905. One reference seems to have been to the Loraine area, but might have been to the Caliente region.

On and near head of Caliente Creek (in the mountains). Tribe, Nuwuwah (Shoshonean). The people call themselves Nuwuwah and are not more than a subtribe of the Tehachapi stock. In Ak’-ke-ke’-tam (Ham’me-nat) language:

The place: Hi’-hin-ke-ah’-ve
The people: Too’-tse-am (or Toot’-se-am), which obviously is an abbreviated form of Ah-koo-toot’-se-am, the name for the same tribe in the Tehachapi Valley [Merriam 1967:433]

Elsewhere in the same series of notes, Merriam (1967:429) stated that the New-oo’-ah "in mountains from Tehachapi to Piute Mt." are "so close to Tol-chin-ne [Kawaiisu he identified in the northern part of the Tejon Creek region] that the two at most are only subtribes."

Kroeber 1925. Kroeber (1925: Plate 47) mapped the Tehachapi region as territory of Kawaiisu speakers in his Handbook. He did not comment upon the Loraine region specifically, but did report that the Serrano and Kitanemuk call the Kawaiisu "Agutushyam, Agudutsyam, or Akutusyam" (Kroeber 1925:602). This name is the basis for tentatively assigning Mission San Fernando converts from Acutsinga to the Loraine region and from Tusinga to this Tehachapi region.

Recent Ethnographic References

To Be Developed