NIPINNAWASSEE REGION - POHONICHI LOCAL TRIBE

The Pohonichi, the most southeasterly Sierra Miwok-speaking group at the time of western intrusion, are well-documented as inhabitants of the portion of Mariposa and Madera counties that we label the Nipinnawassee region. Today a few tiny towns dot that Sierran region, including Ahwahnee, Usona, and Nipinnawassee itself. The Pohonichi first appear in the historic record at the time of the Mariposa Indian War. At its conclusion they were among the signatories to the 1851 Treaty N. In 1872 Stephen Powers learned that they were the “easternmost” of the Sierra Miwok groups. There is little doubt that many of them were bilingual Southern Sierra Miwok-Northern Foothill Yokuts speakers, living as they did between the unequivocal Miwok speakers of the Mariposa region to their northwest and the unequivocal Yokuts speakers of the Coarse Gold region to their southeast. By 1908 the Nippinnawassee region people no longer identified themselves as Pohonichi, according to Barrett; instead, they identified as Chowchilla Miwoks and were considered to be part of a single group with their Miwok neighbors in the adjacent Mariposa region to the northwest. Because the Pohonichi were forced to live at the Fresno River Reservation during the 1850s it is possible that some of today’s Indian people of Mariposa, Madera, and Fresno counties are partially descended from them.

Environment

The Nipinnawassee region lies in the middle and upper Sierra foothills. The lowest elevation is just below 800 feet where the Chowchilla River crosses the western border. The highest elevation, 4,000 feet, defines the eastern boundary with higher Sierran summer land use areas. Branches of the Chowchilla River run through the central and western portion of the region. The upper Fresno River drains the eastern portion of the region in the vicinity of the towns of Nipinnawassee and Ahwahnee. Natural vegetation is foothill blue oak-grey pine woodland in the western, southern, and central portions of the region. Interior live oak woodland predominates in the north-central area (the Ahwahnee and Usona vicinities), while yellow pine forest dominates the highest northeastern ridges. Of special note is a large stand of black oak woodland between Usona and Ahwahnee in the watershed of the East Fork of the Chowchilla River.

Spanish Period Expedition References

No Spanish Period expeditions are known to have entered the Nipinnawassee region.

Mission Register References

Although the Nipinnawassee region lies to the east of the mission outreach area, two Pohonichi individuals are recognized in mission baptismal record entries. In 1825 a young woman from “Pojenechtre” rancheria was baptized at Mission San Juan Bautista as part of a ten-person group led by a Chauchila Yokuts couple (JB-B 3534, by Arroyo de la Cuesta); she married a Nupchenche Yokuts man years later, in 1831 (JB-M 981). In 1826 a young “Pocheyche” woman was baptized with five young women from the eastern San Joaquin Valley at Mission Soledad (SO-B 2008, by Uria); she married Justo of the Chaneche Yokuts one week later. While no other definite Pohonichis were baptized, other individuals from the group may have been among the scores of people baptized during the 1820s and 1830s at central missions without homeland attribution.

Mexican Period Expedition References

No Mexican Period expeditions are known to have entered the Nipinnawassee region

1840-1900 Historic References

Mariposa Indian War of 1851. A regional uprising took place during 1850 and 1851 against invading gold miners and traders in the Chowchilla, Fresno, and San Joaquin river uplands (Mariposa, Nipinnawassee, Raymond, and Coarse Gold regions). The resisting groups seem to have been led by Chauchila Yokuts from the edge of the San Joaquin Valley, but the Pohonichis were one of the groups who were involved. Local Americans set up a militia at Mariposa which went into the mountains to find the resisting Indians. Documentation is unclear, but the upper portion of the Nipinawassee region may have been the site of one of the confrontations. (See the CPNC Le Grand region monograph for details and citations).

Treaty N, 1851. The “Po-ho-nee-chees” were among 16 local tribes of the upper Chowchilla, San Joaquin, and Kings rivers to sign federal Treaty N with U.S. commissioners, at a spot near the foothills on the San Joaquin River, on April 29, 1851 (Heizer 1972:71-81; Phillips 2004:27, 30). Their signatories were Po-tol, Chee-ko, Mooch-cat-e, Ho-has-see, and Cow-wal. The commissioners divided the 16 signatory local tribes into three sections for purposes of future interactions. The Pohonichi were placed with the Chauchila Yokuts, Chukchansi Yokuts, Heuchi Yokuts and Nuchu Miwok in the northern group “which five tribes or bands acknowledge Nai-yak-qua as their principal chief” (Heizer 1972:72). Naiyakqua, a Heuchi Yokuts, is discussed in detail in the CPNC Madera region monograph.

Fresno River Agency 1851-1859. The headquarters of the initial Fresno River Reservation, founded in 1851, was on the Fresno River at the east edge of the Madera region. Office of Indian Affairs reports from the agency during the 1850s, now in the National Archives, have not been examined for this report. However, Cook (1955:71) paraphrased some of the relevant documents. Agent D. A. Enyart’s 1854 report listed groups “on the Fresno Farm”, including “30 Chowchilla, 220 Choot-chances, 90 Pohonicha, and 100 Potohanchi.” In 1855 agent M.B. Lewis listed 100 Pohonichi on the Fresno River in association with the Fresno Farm (in Phillips 2004:150). On August 30, 1859, M.B. Lewis listed “105 Po-ho-nee-chees … on the headwaters of the Fresno” (in Cook 1955:71; see also Phillips 2004:222).

Powers 1877. Powers named a number of Sierra Miwok groups. Those relevant to the Nipinnawassee region are “on the Upper Chowchilla River, the Heth-to’-ya; on the Middle Chowchilla, the Chau-chil’-la; on the north bank of the Fresno, the Po’-ho-ni-chi” (Powers 1977:349-350). This statement would seem to limit the Pohonichi to the eastern portion of the Nipinnawassee region (the upper Fresno River portion), and give the Chowchilla River drainage in the western portion to a separate Hethtoya group. However, Barrett (1908:348) later pointed out that Hethtoya was probably not a group name at all, but an equivalent to “hisotoko” or easterners.

Classic Ethnographic References

Merriam 1902-1907. C. Hart Merriam visited the Nipinnawassee region a number of times between 1902 and 1907. His field notes have been selectively published over the years. One excerpt describes his early visit to a village somewhere on the Chowchilla River:

On September 19, 1902, I left Mariposa at 7 o’clock and reached Chowchilla hill (crossed the ridge, alt. 3000 feet) about 10:30. Descended a little—say a mile—and took a poor road to the right for about a mile … Walked 1½ miles along the north side of Chowchilla Canyon to an Indian camp and returned the same way.

My visit to the Chowchilla Indian camp, though brief, was interesting. Two families lived there, both Mu’-wa (they call it Mew’-wa). Both men and one of the women were away gathering acorns, leaving one woman and three children at home … [Merriam 1967:329].

Merriam’s published notes further indicate that he continued on to visit another village, about one-half mile from the first, on the south side of the Chowchilla River canyon. There Merriam interviewed a “Chowchilla Mu’-wu” man and his “Chuck-chancy” wife. He commented that they had baskets from Sonora, Mono Lake, and “two or three handsome large bowls of the Tulare root and made by Chuck-chancys” (1967:330). Other Merriam notes indicate these two Chowchilla River villages were Nowach and Olwia, about five miles south of Indian Peak (discussed below).

In a 1907 report on the Sierra Miwok, Merriam (1907:346-347) listed five Southern Sierra Miwok villages that fall within our Nipinnawassee region: “Chow-chil-lah, in Chowchilla canyon”; “Was-sa’-ma, on Wassama creek near Ahwahne stage station”; “Hitch-a-wet-tah, three miles above Wassama”; “Ah-pah’-sah, at Fresno Flat (on north side of Fresno creek) [Kroeber’s Chukchansi Yokuts village of Hapasau]”; and “Wa-hil-to, near Grub Gulch [Kroeber’s Wehilto].” He concluded that the Sierra Miwok were organized into local tribes, each with a set of minor villages that identified with one “first class” village.

The villages of the first class are of much consequence; they are the places where the principal ceremonies are held; their names dominate the surrounding country and are used by the inhabitants of the adjacent minor villages—instead of their own local names—to designate the people and place to which they belong….

But this is not all, for the name of a village of the first class is applied not only to the village itself, to its inhabitants, and to the inhabitants of the minor villages tributary to it, but also to a definite tract of country, often of considerable size, constituting the domain of the tribe [1907:343].

Merriam contributed to a long-standing confusion between the Miwok speakers of the upper Chowchilla River and the early historic-period Chauchila Yokuts of the San Joaquin Valley. He lumped the people of the Nipinnawassee region and Mariposa region into a single local tribe, the Chowchilla Miwok. He stated it more than once. In his 1907 publication he wrote:

The Chowchilla subtribe – apparently the largest and most powerful division of the Southern Mewuk – claim the country from Fresno creek to and beyond Mariposa creek, and from the easternmost limit of the tribe westerly to a point a little west of No’-watch rancheria, which is about 2 miles south of Indian peak (about 5 miles from Grub Gulch) [Merriam 1907:346].

Elsewhere he wrote, “Chowchilla is the name used not only by the inhabitants of the rancheria of that name, but also by the people of all the villages of the Chowchilla-Mariposa region” (1967:341).

Barrett 1908. Barrett argued for the Fresno River as the Miwok-Yokuts boundary in the Sierra, with a small area of Miwok control on both sides of the river in the Fresno Flats area:

[The Miwok boundary] …. follows the divide between the headwaters of San Joaquin and Merced rivers to the head of Fresno river. It then follows, in a general way, the course of this stream with its northeasterly and southwesterly trend down, at least, to a point a few miles west of Fresno Flat. Here it probably makes a slight swing to the south to include the vicinity of what was formerly known as Fresno Crossing, then returns to the river itself and continues down it to a point about due south of Raymond [1908a:348].

Barrett documented disagreement about the language spoken in the area of the town of Ahwahnee, but concluded that it had been Miwok:

According to certain informants the boundary left the river here [at Ahwahnee] and ran for a short distance to the north, including Ahwahnee and vicinity in Yokuts territory. However, the bulk of the information obtained places Ahwahnee in Miwok territory and runs the boundary between the Miwok and Yokuts directly on Fresno river itself, except, as above mentioned, where it swings to the south to include the vicinity of Fresno Crossing, at which point it was asserted by both Miwok and Yokuts informants that the Miwok occupied both banks of the river for a few miles [1908a:348].

Barrett discussed the term “Po-ho-no-chi,” known to him only from Powers, and expressed doubt that it was a Miwok name:

“Po-ho-no-chi,” which Powers gives as the name of the Miwok in the extreme south and which is at present quite commonly applied to them, particularly by the Yokuts to the south, may be a name not referable to Miwok origin. The term is apparently not used by any of the Miwok as a name for themselves, and the only derivation which could be obtained for it from them was that it comes from pōhō’nō, the name of Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite valley, and tcī, an ending signifying location or origin [1908a:343].

Clearly, the term Pohonichi, in reference to a local tribe of the Nipinnawassee region, no longer had meaning to the Indian people with whom either Barrett or Meriam spoke. Barrett went on to note that the “tci” suffix is frequent on Southern Miwok placenames and is found on true tribal names among the Yokuts:

While the Yokuts to the south were divided into forty or more small tribes, each occupying one or more villages and independent of all the remaining tribes, … inquiry failed to disclose any such condition among the Miwok. … There seems to be a total lack of anything resembling true tribal organization. Even a federation of villages does not appear to have existed. … In property rights also these villages were entirely independent, each having its own special territory … separated by certain landmarks from the territories of adjacent villages [1908a:344].

In fact, the “chi” suffix means “inhabitants of …” in the Yokuts languages. The particle may have been absorbed by the Southern Sierra Miwok with the same meaning, or may alternatively, perhaps, indicate Yokuts versions of Southern Sierra Miwok place-names. Note that Barrett’s concept of Southern Sierra Miwok landholding groups was at odds with that of Merriam, who argued that clusters of minor villages did form village groups under head families that lived in major villages (i.e. “local tribes” in the terminology of this study).

Kroeber 1925. Kroeber (1925:Plate 37) followed Barrett (1908a) precisely in mapping the Miwok-Yokuts boundary along the Fresno River, for the most part, from Fresno Flat southwest to Raymond. He also mapped four villages of Southern Sierra Miwok speakers within the area here defined as the Nipinnawassee region (Nowach and Olwia on the Chowchilla River; Wasama and Wehilto on the Fresno River). While he listed them in his text, he discussed neither the sources for the locations nor the accuracy level of his map placements (1925:445); Merriam may have been his source (see Merriam notes above). Kroeber specifically addressed the Miwok/Yokuts boundary in the Fresno Flats area, the eastern edge of the region:

It is reasonably certain that Fresno River itself separated the Miwok from the Yokuts, except for a small tract below Fresno Flats where the Miwok held the southern bank of a northward bend of the stream. The exact location of the village of Hapasau is in doubt. The name is Yokuts; the location may have been on the Miwok side of the river [1925:448].

Kroeber (1925:Plate 37) mapped Hapasau, despite doubts about his evidence, just east of Oakhurst. That location is within the area mapped in this report as the Yokuts-speaking Coarse Gold region. Regarding the name Pohonichi, Kroeber reiterated Barrett (1908a), writing:

[The Miwok] of the extreme south are often known as Pohonichi, which appellation seems to be of Yokuts origin; whether connected with Pohono Falls in Yosemite is less certain [1925:443].

Kroeber did not indicate knowledge of the Po-ho-nee-chee signatories to 1851 Treaty N on the San Joaquin River.

Recent Ethnographic References

Cook 1955. In his study of the aboriginal population of the entire San Joaquin Valley and adjacent Sierra, Cook (1955:76) split the Nipinnawassee region into two mapping areas, placing the southeastern quarter in a Fresno River mapping area for the “Heuchi-Chukchansi-Dalinchi” (with parts of the Cottonwood Creek, Madera, Friant, Coarse Gold, and Raymond regions), while placing the northern three-quarters in a Chowchilla River mapping area for the “Chauchila” (with the Dairyland, southern El Nido, northern Madera, southern Le Grand, and northern Raymond regions). In text, he noted that the vicinity was “very poorly represented in the early documentary sources” and made no note of any specific group within the area of CPNC Nipinnawassee region (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 write about the “Miwok on the upper Mariposa and Chowchilla” and give them a population of about 975 on the basis of somewhat opaque reasoning involving Gifford’s village population counts and a factor of “reduction to 70 percent of the aboriginal population.”

Levy 1978. Levy (1978:400) mapped the Miwok-Yokuts boundary in the Nipinnawassee region along the west side of the Fresno River, essentially following Kroeber (1925:Plate 1). He mapped six villages in the region—Nowach, Olwia, Wehilto, and Wasema (citing Kroeber 1925), čihči (citing Broadbent 1964), and Hitch-ă-wet-tah (citing Merriam 1907)—under the general term “Mariposa Miwok.” He described Eastern Miwok political organization as based upon the tribelet, with each tribelet unit having several small patrilineage-based hamlets, although he did not attempt to delineate Sierra Miwok local tribeal territories.