RAYMOND REGION – probably CHUKCHANSI LOCAL TRIBE

The Chukchanci local tribe of Northern Hill Yokuts speakers are the most likely contact-period inhabitants of the Raymond region, although that group is well documented as sharing the adjacent Coarse Gold Creek region to the east with the Dalinchi Yokuts since the Gold Rush. Today the Sierra foothill Raymond region straddles the Madera-Mariposa county line and contains the tiny rural communities of Raymond, Daulton, and Knowles. Since the time of Barrett (1908) and Kroeber (1925), ethnographers have considered the region to have been the southernmost territory of Sierra Miwok speakers. Yet the Raymond region is so poorly documented that no ethnographic village place names are definitely known within it. One village, Chukchanau, vaguely documented by ethnographers as in the Fresno River vicinity, is likely to have been in the vicinity of the confluence of the Fresno River and Coarse Gold Creek, inside the Raymond region.

Indirect evidence for early Chukchansi habitation comes from the Franciscan mission registers. The registers show that families of Chauchila Yokuts (Dairyland region) began arriving at Mission San Juan Bautista by 1819, followed by familes of Thrayapthre Yokuts (Le Grand region) in 1821, then four young Siucsanthre Yokuts men, believed to have been Chukchancis, in the mid-1820s. That missionization pattern—and other contributing mission evidence—suggests that the Chukchansi were foothill neighbors to easternmost San Joaquin plains group near Raymond, the Thrayapthre Yokuts of the Le Grand region.

The Thrayapthre Yokuts disappeared from historical records in the 1830s; they were probably absorbed by the Chauchila. From the 1820s to the 1840s the Chauchila Yokuts raided Coast Range ranches for horses to eat. In 1845 J. C. Fremont engaged in a battle with horse-stealing “Chauchiles” at the west edge of the foothills in either the Le Grand region or the Raymond region. By that time the lowland Chauchilas may have been pushing the Chuckchansi eastward from the middle Chowchilla River to the upper Fresno River in the Coarse Gold region. The Chukchansi, under this scenario, squeezed the Dalinchi Yokuts out of? the small Fine Gold Creek portion of their original territory throughout the Coarse Gold region.

The Chukchansi Yokuts and Chauchila Yokuts led the multi-tribal resistance to the Gold Rush known as the Mariposa Indian War of 1851. Defeated, both groups and all their neighbors signed federal Treaty N in April of 1851. Both groups were soon moved onto the Fresno River Reservation, headquartered on the Fresno River at the east edge of the Madera region. For some reason, large numbers of Chukchansi do not seem to have moved back to traditional sites in the Raymond region in the later nineteenth century. It should be noted, however, that the only two Indians interviewed by any of the classic ethnographers in the Raymond region were Chukchansi Yokuts (see the Classic Ethnographers section below).

Environment

The Raymond region reaches from the edge of the San Joaquin Valley up into the lower Sierra foothills, with elevations ranging from 400 feet in the west up to 1900 feet in the northeast. The Chowchilla River runs through the northern portion, including the present Buchanan Dam (Eastman Lake) at the break of the foothills. The small Daulton Creek tributary of the Fresno River drains the central area, while the main Fresno River runs along the southeast edge of the region from its confluence with Coarse Gold Creek down to present Hidden Dam (Hensley Lake). Vegetation on the western portion was valley grassland, while the foothill portion was a mosaic of oak-savannah and chaparral.

Spanish Period Expedition References

No documented pre-1821 Spanish expedition passed through the Raymond region.

Mission Register References

The “Siucsianthre,” certainly the Chukchanci, appear in Franciscan mission baptismal registers only four times. All four were young males baptized with people from other groups at San Juan Bautista. First to appear was 18 year old Quiuchu, baptized with Chauchila Yokuts and Uthrocos Yokuts in 1822; he was listed as an “Oyima” in Father Arroyo’s 1822 Padron (SJB-B 3088). Next was 25 year old Ippini, baptized in 1826 with a small group of two Chauchila Yokuts, two Cuccunu Yokuts, one Geuche Yokuts, and one Telehua Miwok (SJB-B 3552); he was said to be closely related to Proceso, an Oyima Yokuts (SJB-B 3087). The third Siucsianthre, seven year old Anechec, was baptized in 1827 among a large group dominated by Thrayapthre Yokuts (SJB-B3656); he was later noted as having died in the land of the Siucsianthres (SJB-D 2548). The final individual, eleven year old Mathnuis, was baptized in isolation in early 1829 (SJB-B 3787); he later married a Heuchi girl at San Juan Bautista (SJB-M 1015).

Arroyo de la Cuesta also baptized four “Chequisinthres” at San Juan Bautista. The sound structure of the name is not similar to any known group, with the possible exception of the Chukchansi. All were baptized on August 6, 1823 by Father Arroyo de la Cuesta, the same man who baptized “Siucsianthres” both before and after that date. On that day Arroyo also baptized eight Silelamne Yokuts (Merced region), seven Sutunuthru Miwoks (Mariposa region), and four Telehua Miwoks (Catheys Valley region). It is possible that Arroyo interacted with them through a Miwok interpreter who pronounced Chukchansi in a different way than Arroyo heard the word on other days. This is pure speculation, but it must be noted that there are no other known groups with which the “Chequisinthre” of Mission San Juan Bautista can logically be assigned. Later, Arroyo identified the four Chequisinthres as Telehua or Sutunuthru Miwoks in his update list to his 1822-1827 padron.

Arroyo de la Cuesta’s 1822-1827 Padron. Father Arroyo listed both the Siucsianthre and the Chequisinthre as marginal groups at Mission San Juan Bautista in his 1822 Padron. Siucsanthre was one among a cluster of three local tribes—the others being “Oyima” and “Pitcathre” —that he listed together within his thirteenth and last group at the end of his initial set of entries in the Padron on June 24, 1822. He introduced the cluster as follows: “There are the first [converts] of other nations, e.g., Oyima, Siucsanthre, Pitcathre, Putoyanthre, as are found among the baptisms, with which I finish this padron for now.” Later, on May 24, 1823, he re-opened the padron, adding names of new converts. At that time he began a fourteenth cluster of local tribes, “of the nations Telehua, Sutununthro, Puttoyanthre, Quilisquilis, and Chequisinthre, these last two understand little or nothing of the Tulareño language.” Clearly, this fourteenth cluster of groups in the padron represent the Sierra Miwoks who were just beginning to arrive at San Juan Bautista. Whoever the Chequisinthre were, Arroyo believed that they did not understand Valley Yokuts.

Mexican Period Expedition References

Fremont, 1845. John C. Fremont brought his third exploring expedition down the east side of the San Joaquin Valley from Sutter’s Fort in December of 1845. The party stumbled upon a “Chauchiles” village at the edge of the Sierra foothills just south of Mariposa Creek, probably on the Chowchilla River in the area where Madera, Mariposa, and Merced counties now meet. (That would place it within the CPNC Raymond region, and thus details of the interaction are reproduced here.) A battle ensued that led to a number of Chauchila deaths. Highlights from the diary, reproduced by Latta (1949), are presented here:

December 19, 1845. In a few hour we reached a beautiful country of undulating upland, openly wooded with oaks, principally evergreen, and watered with small streams which together make the Mariposas River.

Continuing along we came upon broad and deeply-worn trails which had been freshly traveled by large bands of horses, apparently coming from the San Joaquin Valley. … These and indications from horse-bone dragged about by wild animals, wolves or bears, warned us that we were approaching villages of Horse-thief Indians, a party of whom had just returned from a successful raid….

After a few miles of sharp riding, a small stream running over a salty bed, with clumps of oaks around, tempted me into making an early halt. Good grass was abundant, and this spot not long since had been the camping ground of a village, and was evidently one of their favorite places, as the ground was whitened with the bones of many horses.

While Fremont prepared to camp, four of his scouts followed the horse tracks right into a village, leading to yelling and shooting. The main Fremont party re-saddled and followed the noise.

In a short half mile we found ourselves suddenly in front of a large Indian village not two hundred yards away. More than a hundred Indians were advancing on each side of a small hill, on the top of which were our men where a clump of oaks and rocks amidst bushes made a good defense

The Fremont party killed some of the Indians, then returned to their own camp. They were followed by villagers who threatened them in Spanish:

Wait … wait until morning. There are two big villages up in the mountains close by; we have sent for the Chief; he’ll be down before morning with all the people, and you will all die….

The springs and streams herabout were waters of the Chauchiles and Mariposas Rivers and the Indians of this village belonged to the Chauchiles tribe.

The Fremont party eventually retreated from the hills and headed along the east side of the valley to the San Joaquin River. Along that stretch, they encountered other Indian people and killed some of them (Fremont in Latta 1949:34-38).

1846-1910 Historical References

Mariposa Indian War of 1851. The Chauchila and the Chukchanci were among the local tribes that joined in a resistance American traders and settlers called the Mariposa Indian War. The resistance began in the fall of 1850 and culminated with their defeat and the signatures of their leaders to US government Treaty N on April 29, 1851. We present here a summary of that war’s events, which involved local tribes who were living at the time in the Raymond, Le Grand, Coarse Gold, and Nipinnawassee regions. (The sources used here are the 1997 and 2004 works by George Phillips, themselves based upon a myriad of primary manuscripts).

At the start of the Gold Rush the Chauchila seem to have been living in either the Le Grand or Raymond region, perhaps both. In 1849, James Savage, a widower from Illinois, established trading posts along the Merced, Mariposa, and Fresno rivers, cohabited with a number of Indian wives, and hired local Indians to pan gold dust for him.

Late in 1850 some Indians from the region between the Merced and Fresno rivers attacked Savage’s northern trading post on the Merced River. As tensions continued to build, Savage attempted to help the local groups face the new reality of western conquest by taking a “Chowchilla” chief named Jose Juarez to see San Francisco in the fall. (Jose Juarez is not identifiable in any Franciscan mission records.) In San Francisco, Juarez boasted that the tribes were preparing to drive the whites from the mountains (Phillips 1997:42, 43).

In late November of 1850 a group of tribes gathered near Savage’s Fresno River post (near the later Savage Monument in the eastern Raymond region); Phillips lists the Potuyanthre Miwok, Nuchu Miwok, Chauchila Yokuts, and Pitkachi Yokuts. (It is hard to imagine that the Chuckchansi Yokuts were not there also.) Savage went to talk with them and urge them to avoid war, but his efforts were rejected. Then, Indian agent Adam Johnston arrived in the area and went to talk to the Chauchila chiefs at Savage’s Fresno River station on December 1. The Chauchila assured him they would not oppose the whites after Johnson distributed gifts.

On December 17, a combined group of Chauchila Yokuts, Chukchansi Yokuts, and Pohonichi Miwoks raided Savage’s Fresno River post, killed three men, and made of with goods and livestock. On the same day Savage noticed that Potuyanthre Indians living around his Mariposa post had withdrawn into the mountains and followed them to a camp in the higher mountains; they may have been diverting Savage away from the Fresno River attack (Phillips 1997:43, 44). On the same day (Phillips 1997:45).

On December 25, over one hundred Indians attacked a miners' camp and ferry in what may be the later Cassidys Bar area along the San Joaquin river, an area now flooded by Millerton Lake. One miner was killed and ten were wounded. Specific tribes were not mentioned, but just days before the local sheriff had warned all miners to leave the San Joaquin River after he spoke with Pitkachi chief Tom-quit at his village (Phillips 1997:47).

The Americans responded by sending out a posse of about 100 miners and settlers from various mining camps in the Mariposa district. A few days after January 7, 1851 they found the Heuchi, along with many Chauchilas and some Chukchansis, in a mountainous village of 60 or 70 huts; diaries indicate they traveled 50 miles, but that may not have been on a direct line. They burned the village and killed 30 people (Phillips 1997:49-52). This refuge may have been at Fresno Flats or farther east in the Bass Lake area.

On January 17, 1851 the settler posse went out again, by way of Fine Gold Creek. They found the resisting Indians “on the north fork of the San Joaquin” (Phillips 1997:53), which, if true, put them deep into the Sierra and far above the snow line of the North Fork region. Phillips summarized: “At a nearby village resided elements of the Chauchila, Chukchansi, Gawia, Nukchu, Potoyanti, Pohonichi, and Yosemite. Numbering some five hundred fighting men, they were led by Chauchila chiefs José Rey and José Juarez” (Phillips 1997:53). (Chief Jose Rey is probably the individual baptized at San Juan Bautista in 1837 as a 19 year old Chauchila [SJB-B 4298]). Again, the native camp was burned and the Indians retreated.

In February and early March of 1851 miners and settlers were attacked over a wide area of the Sierra foothills, from the Stanislaus River south to the Kaweah River. Among places where whites were killed were the San Joaquin River in the Friant region and Fine Gold Gulch in the Coarse Gold region. The Chauchila were blamed for most of the raids (Phillips 1997:55, 71).

Three new federal treaty commissioners arrived in the San Joaquin Valley in February of 1851, at the same time that state officials were organizing an official militia to suppress the Indians. The commissioners established Camp Fremont on the Little Mariposa River on March 8 and soon began talking with the adjacent Potoyanti (the Hunter Valley region) and Siyante (Cathey’s Valley region). The commissioners picked lands for their reservation north of the Merced River in the San Joaquin Valley. The Potoyanti, Siyante, and four local tribes of the upper Merced and Tuolumne rivers signed the first federal treaty (later called Treaty M) on March 19, 1851 (Phillips 2004:27).

Beginning on March 19, 1851, companies from the newly organized Mariposa Battalion went into the mountains to bring in the many resisting groups. One of the companies followed Tenaya’s Yosemite group into Yosemite Valley in late March. While the militia was chasing the various groups, the commissioners moved south to the Fresno River, where they arrived on March 27.

On April 9 some Indian women came in to the commissioners to say that the Chauchila would sign a treaty, but not until they had finished their mortuary ceremonies for Chief José Reyes, who had died of his earlier wounds. In mid-April a portion of the Mariposa Battalion headed towards the North Fork of the San Joaquin River by way of Coarse Gold Gulch, in search of the Chauchila. They found a deserted village and the remains of José Reye’s cremation. It turned out that the main group of Chauchila people had already gone down the San Joaquin River to the valley to meet with the commissioners (Phillips 1997:83-84).

The Mariposa War was nearly over with the signing of Treaty N on April 29, 1851 by all of the resisting groups except the Yosemites (probably composite Bull Creek region and eastern Sierra Monos) and “Monos” of the North Fork region. The Yosemites were captured by mid-May, by which time the Monos were believed to have fled over the Sierra (Phillips 1997:1-99, 2004:25-34).

Treaty N, 1851. The Chukchansi and Chauchila were among 16 local tribes of the upper Chowchilla, San Joaquin, and Kings rivers to sign federal Treaty N with U.S. commissioners, essentially bringing the Mariposa Indian War to an end. An earlier treaty (Treaty M) had been signed at a location closer to the Raymond region (on “the Little Mariposa River” in the Le Grand region) on March 19, but at that time the Chukchansi and Chauchila were higher in the mountains resisting the western settlers. The Chauchila, Heuchi, Chukchansi (all three Yokuts), Pohonichi, and Nuchu (both Sierra Miwok) all came out of the mountains to sign the treaty at a spot near the foothills on the San Joaquin River. There they joined local tribes from along the San Joaquin and others that had been brought north from the Kings River. The Treaty N reservation territory, described in the treaty text, was to be a very large stretch of plain along the base of the Sierra, from the Chowchilla River to the Kings River. The 16 tribes signed the treaty in three geographic groupings on April 29, 1851 (Heizer 1972:71-81; Phillips 2004:27, 30). The Chauchila and Chukchansi were part of the northern geographic group, along with the Heuchi Yokuts, the Pohonichi Miwok, and the Nutchu Miwok, all of whom “acknowledge Nai-yak-qua as their principal chief” (Heizer 1972:72). (See the Madera region CPNC monograph for more information about Nai-yak-qua of the Heuchi.) Also of note, none of the Chauchila or Chukchansi Treaty N signatories had a Spanish name; the Chauchila signatories were Po-ho-leel, E-keeno, Kay-o-ya, A-pem-shee, and Cho-no-hal-ma, while the Chukchansi were Co-tumsi, Ti-moh, Sa-wa-lai, A-chat-a-na, and Mi-e-wal (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), who paraphrased the documents, noted D. A. Enyart’s statement that “30 Chowchilla” and “220 Choot-chances” were at the Fresno Farm [a temporary federal reservation] in November of 1854. A report by M.B. Lewis on August 30, 1859 stated that 85 “Chow-chillas have moved from the Chowchilla to the Fresno River,” while the “Cooc-chances, the largest ‘unbroken’ tribe in the agency, originally on Coarse Gold Creek, some still there, some at agency” totalled 240 persons (Cook 1955:71).

Powers 1877. In his chapter on Miwok-speaking groups, Powers (1877:349) listed the “Middle Chowchilla” River, essentially the northern and central Raymond region, as the home of the “Chau-chil’-la” group. Given the dearth of concrete evidence for the original language of the region, and given the argument developed in these CPNC monographs that the Raymond region was the Gold Rush-period home of the Chauchila Yokuts and pre-1850s home of the Chukchansi Yokuts, it is frustrating that Powers did not document the source of his determination. In his Yokuts chapter, Powers (1877:370) placed the Chukchansi “on the San Joaquin, from Whisky Creek down to Millerton.” Even at his high level of generalization, none of the Raymond region falls within that description. It does include the North Fork (Whisky Creek is in that region), Coarse Gold (south portion), Auberry (north portion), and Friant (east portion) regions, and suggests that the term “Chukchansi” had been globalized to include all Northern Hill Yokuts speakers, including the Dalinchi, Dumna, and Kecheyi, by the 1870s. See the CPNC Coarse Gold region monograph for Powers' (1877:384-391) detailed description of a Chukchansi ceremony on Coarse Gold Gulch.

Classic Ethnographic References

Merriam 1902-1908. Merriam spent many days in the Madera County foothills over 1902-1908, yet no published notes have been found relevant to the Raymond region. The pertinent Merriam California journals ([1902-1934]) need to be examined for possible Raymond region material.

Barrett 1908. Barrett (1908a:Map 3) assigned the Raymond region, or at least 90% of its area, to speakers of the Southern Sierra Miwok language; he gave Yokuts-speaking groups only narrow strips along the southwest of the region (valley lowlands) and the southeast (south side of the Fresno River). In text, he offered no evidence to support the greater part of the region as Miwok-speaking. His assignment seems to derive from extrapolation downriver of a Fresno River Miwok-Yokuts boundary he established with some evidence higher up the Fresno River (approximately the Nipinnawassee-Coarse Gold regional boundary). Barrett wrote:

The boundary …. follows the divide between the headwaters of San Joaquin and Merced river 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 (Barrett 1908a: 348)

Barrett’s Miwok-Yokuts boundary in the Raymond region, seemingly established without factual basis, was later accepted by Kroeber and has continued to be accepted by researchers into the twenty-first century.

Kroeber 1925. Kroeber (1925:Plates 37, 47) mapped the greater part of the Raymond region as territory of Southern Sierra Miwok speakers; he only assigned Yokuts lands to the far southeastern portion of the region, on the south side of the Fresno River west of Oneals. Yet Kroeber (1925:443, 481-482) did not document a single specific village location, Miwok or Yokuts, within the entire Raymond region. Curiously, he did mention three unmapped Chukchansi villages that may have been in this region. He wrote:

The modern Chukchansi list among their settlements certain places across the Fresno River, such as Aplau and Yiwisniu … Also well up on Fresno River was Chukchanau or Suksanau, “Chukchansi place” [1925:482-482].

More clues about Yokuts people in the Raymond region might exist in Kroeber’s pertinent Yokuts and Miwok field notebooks. In January of 1904, Kroeber worked at Raymond on the Chukchansi Yokuts language with native speaker Jim Johnson and at a location within five miles of Raymond on both Chukchansi and Chauchila Yokuts with Hoyima-Chawchilla descendant Molly (Kroeber Notebook 5709-21 columns 2 and 3, referenced in Kroeber 1963).

Latta 1949. Latta’s very general map in the inside cover of his 1949 edition shows the Pohonichi in the Chowchilla River country in the Sierra and the “Chauchila” on the adjacent San Joaquin Valley plain to the west. His Pohonichi area generally includes most of the Raymond and Nipinnawassee regions. The Pohonichi are never mentioned in the 1949 text, and therefore no discussion is given to the language of the Raymond region. The Chauchila, on the other hand, were considered an important group by Latta. He chose them as the exemplary Yokuts tribe of the San Joaquin Valley plains (1949:33-38): “This tribe has been known since its earliest contact with white people for its hostile attitude and horse stealing,” he wrote (1949:34). He described their pre-contact life ways as they might have been, and emphasized the value with which they probably held horses during the Mexican Period. Latta also devoted four pages to Fremont’s Memoir excerpt regarding an 1845 encounter with displaced Chauchilas at the edge of the foothills (see the Fremont text overview under 1840-1900 Historic References above). All in all, however, Latta’s 1949 information for both the Chauchila and the entire Chowchilla River area does not reflect direct information from his own informants.

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 Raymond region into two of his mapping areas, placing the southern portion in a Fresno River mapping area for the “Heuchi-Chukchansi-Dalinchi” (with parts of the Cottonwood Creek, Madera, Friant, Coarse Gold, and Nipinnawassee regions), while placing the northern Raymond region in a Chowchilla River mapping area for the “Chauchila” (with the Dairyland, southern El Nido, northern Madera, southern Le Grand, and northern Nipinnawassee regions). In text, he noted that the vicinity was “very poorly represented in the early documentary sources” and made no specific note of any groups tied to the Raymond region landscape (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 write about the “southern 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.”

Latta 1977. Latta added slightly altered information from 1949 in his 1977 edition, but made no significant additions to his information about either the Chauchila or Chukchansi. As in 1949, he relied primarily upon information from Kroeber (1925) for the ethnogeography of both groups.

Wallace 1978. The preponderance of the CPNC Raymond region was portrayed as Yokuts-speaking ethnographic land for the first time in the chapter maps of the Smithsonian’s California volume (Heizer 1978; Levy 1978:400; Wallace 1978:462). Yet neither of the pertinent authors, Levy (1978) for the “Eastern Miwok” or Wallace (1978) for the Northern Yokuts, comment on that departure from the mapping boundaries of Barrett (1908) and Kroeber (1925). Wallace’s (1978:462) very general map shows only the “Chawchila” anywhere near the Raymond region; he shows them on the Chowchilla River downstream from the Raymond region.