Revision as of 20:02, 26 July 2010

Volume 10: South Coast Ranges Analytic Zone

July 2010 DRAFT

By:

Randall Milliken,Consulting in the Past

With:

John Johnson,Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Patricia Mikkelsen,Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc.
Paul Brandy,Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc.
Jerome King,Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc.

Submitted to:
California Department of Transportation, District 6, 2015 East Shields Ave, Fresno, CA 93726

It may be anticipated that future scholars, undaunted by the huge mass of available published and manuscript data on California Indians, will work over the information on a tribe-by-tribe basis and prepare maps showing the domains of the identifiable or inferable tribelets. -R. F. Heizer 1966

Abstract

The in-progress Contact-Period Native California Community Distribution Model (CDM) brings together decades of research and mission record analysis into selected volumes that will eventually be part of a 15 volume print/wiki encyclopedia portraying the socio-political landscape of native California after first contact with the Spanish, between 1770 and 1830.

Volume 1 of the series presents an overview of the CDM model, explaining the process of ethnographic data analysis and regional mapping unit construction across all portions of California. Volumes 2-15 will eventually represent contextual overviews of each of the 14 analytical zones identified within California. Each zone has a group of independent, landholding regions (totaling 663) defined by mutual history, shared languages, and similar land-use patterns. An introduction to each volume will focus on multi-regional issues (overview of history, ethnography, and research techniques) followed by individual regional monographs (some complete, some unfinished) covering languages, environment, and early expedition, mission, historic, and ethnographic sources, as applicable. A comprehensive bibliography will conclude each volume.

Volume 10, entitled South Coast Ranges Analytical Zone, covers the Northern Chumash, Esselen, Ohlone, and Salinan language family areas. The zone contains 56 regions including portions of Fresno, Kern, Kings, Merced, Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties. Currently, the volume is in a state of partial development. It contains an attenuated introduction, eleven monographs in various stages of development, and a list of references applicable to the zone as a whole.

The CDM is also presented in a collaborative Wiki website (currently accessible through farwestern.com) which consists of several major elements—ACCESS data tables, GIS maps, and narrative text. In this format, the ethnographic data are available to scholars from academia, tribal communities, and agencies that can locate and organize data effectively, add new information as it becomes available, and generate feature articles that can include maps, pictures, or cross-references.

This series has been produced by Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc., with support from a number of district environmental branches within the California Department of Transportation.

INTRODUCTION
SOUTH COAST RANGES ZONE ETHNOGEOGRAPHY
Southern Ohlone, Esselen, Salinan, and Northern Chumash=

By Randall Milliken

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The South Coast Ranges analytical zone stretches along the California coast from Monterey Bay to San Luis Obispo Bay. It includes all inland valleys of the Coast Range eastward to the edge of the San Joaquin Valley. The languages of the core area of the South Coast Ranges were Salinan and Esselen. Northern Chumash was spoken at the south end of the zone around San Luis Obispo and Morro bays, while a cluster of related Ohlone-Costanoan languages were spoken at its north end, on Monterey Bay and to its east. The people of this entire area were removed to Franciscan missions between 1771 and 1810, four generations before the arrival of C. Hart Merriam, A. L. Kroeber, and J. P. Harrington.

The ethnogeography of the South Coast Ranges zone is more poorly-documented than that of all but one of the other 13 CDM zones; the exception is the largely-undocumented Colorado River zone. In a way the zone does form a distinct ethnographic area. It lies to the south of the fairly dense array of tribelet groups around San Francisco Bay and to the north of the highly-populated core Chumash area of the Santa Barbara Channel. With fairly light, but variable, population densities in the one-to-three people per square mile range, political organization varied from a few tribelets around Monterey Bay, to loose communities in most areas, to some inland dry areas with small mobile bands identified under cover terms such as Chalon and Cholam.

We are almost totally reliant upon the clues imbedded in the Franciscan mission registers to systematically reconstruct the ethnogeography of the South Coast Ranges. A number of studies since 1980 have begun that effort. The best current overview for the zone is Ethnogeography of the South Coast Ranges, with Special Attention to Priest Valley, Monterey County (Milliken 2006a). The findings in that study could inform the development of this CDM zone monograph. As it is, this monograph has not been built. It does, however, conclude with a comprehensive bibliography of South Coast Range ethnogeographic materials.

Linguistic Groups

Ohlone-Costanoan: Awaswas, Mutsun, Rumsen, and Chalon languages

Western Disruption

Finished by 1810

Field Ethnography

Merriam and Harrington each gathered the names of villages and the languages of small family groups, albeit unsystematically.

Types of Landholding Groups

Tribelets: Rumsen of Carmel River, Calendaruc of Monterey Bay, Ensen of lower Salinas Valley, Mutsun of San Juan Bautista.

Loose Communities: numerous Esselen groups, Santa Cruz Mountains Awaswas-speaking groups, Salinan areas west of the Salinas River.

Independent Hamlets: mobile bands of the interior Coast Ranges, for instance Chalon of upper San Benito River and Cholam of areas east of San Miguel. Also numerous small semi-sedentary villages around Morro and San Luis Obispo bays.

Mapping Approaches and Constraints

The Priest Valley study (Milliken 2006a) documents very tentative geographic reconstructions from a body of quite opaque data.

Figure 1. Analytical Zone: South Coast Ranges

LITTLE PANOCHE REGION – OCHENTAC LOCAL TRIBE

By Randall Milliken

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Summary

The Little Panoche region is drawn to represent the possible homeland area of Ochentac and Millanistac people, small closely tied village groups that moved to Mission San Juan Bautista between 1798 and 1807. Like their Orestac neighbors to the north, they probably spoke Chalon Costanoan or a variant form of Mutsun Costanoan; evidenced by linguist priest Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta referenced differences in their numerals from those of the Mutsun at Mission San Juan Bautista. While the region’s boundaries are hypothetical and highly suspect, they probably do encompass most of the core area from which the Ochentac and Millanistac people derived. The boundary problem is part of a wider problem with identification of homeland areas from Los Banos Creek on the north to Silver Creek on the south, including the neighboring Potrero Peak, Panoche Pass, Griswold Creek, and Silver Creek regions. An additional problem involves the neighboring Oro Loma region just to the east, an area that includes the lowest foothills of Little Panoche Creek and which has been assigned in the CDM model to a Yokuts-speaking group with a large amount of doubt. Unfortunately, we lack any later classical ethnographic referents for the various groups that went to missions San Juan Bautista and Soledad from any of these regions. Future modelers will certainly be able to improve the boundaries in all these areas on the basis of detailed family reconstitution-based studies of the mission register evidence.

Environment

The Little Panoche region of the dry eastern Coast Range foothills encompasses upper Little Panoche Creek and the upper middle portion of Panoche Creek in the Planada area. Highest elevation is more than 3,600 feet at Cerro Colorado in the west and lowest is at about 800 feet along Little Panoche Creek as it passes through the Panoche Hills, the last low Coast Range ridge, at the boundary with the currently mapped Oro Loma region. Historic vegetation in this eastern Coast Range region of low rainfall was preponderantly open grassland, with blue oak woodland stands in the higher western portion.

Early Expedition References

None of the early Spanish or Mexican expeditions that kept diaries passed through the Little Panoche region.

Mission Register References

A total of 72 people baptized at Franciscan missions is currently assigned to the Little Panoche region. The great majority, 70, were baptized at Mission San Juan Bautista, with the remaining two baptized at Mission Soledad. Distances to the two missions suggest that some other people at Soledad came from this region, probably some of those that were identified in the Soledad records as Chalon people.

At Mission San Juan Bautista 18 converts were explicitly identified as Ochentacs, all between 1802 and 1807. Another 18 people were identified as Milanistacs, between 1801 and 1807. And four other baptismal entries, all by one priest, provide the documentation of the close relationship, or even synonymy, between the two groups: "Milanitacos y Ochentacos" (SJB-B 1380, Father Iturrate in 1804); "Milanistaco [text]", "Ochentacos, difunto en Soledad [margin]" (SJB-B 1516, Father Iturrate in 1805); "Milanistacos, como Ochentacos" (SJB-B 1517 Father Iturrate in 1805); "Millanistacos Ochentac" (SJB-B 1518 Father. Iturrate in 1805). A few years earlier two missionaries at Mission San Juan Bautista considered the Millanistacs to be a subgroup of the Pagsin: "Pagsin r[ancheria] Milicnixta" (SJB-B 0244, 248, Father Pedro Antonio Martinez in 1798, SJB-B 263, Father Martiarena in 1798). And one missionary considered Millanistac to be a Tamarron village; "Tam. Mirianixtac" (SJB 635, Father Lopez in 1800).

At Mission Soledad, the missionaries labeled the vast majority of their eastern Coast Range converts as Chalons, whether they came from the San Benito River just 15 miles east over the first mountain ridge, from the San Benito Pass area 25 miles northeast (where people went to San Juan Bautista as Pagsins), or from the San Benito Mountains 35 miles to the southeast. Thus, it seems that any Ochentacs or Milanistacs who went to Soledad (and that mission was just as close as Soledad to Little Panoche Creek) went there as Chalons that cannot be identified to specific watersheds or regions. All Chalons at Mission Soledad have been assigned to regions west and south of the Little Panoche region, but only upon an arbitrary basis for purposes of population density modeling. There is a good chance that the last large group of Chalons baptized during the 1805-1807 period at Mission Soledad, the group of February 26, 1807, were Little Panoche Creek region people.

-1900 Historic References

No ethnographic information is available for the Little Panoche region during the 1846-1900 early American Period.

Classic Ethnographic References

A. L. Kroeber lacked information about this region. He mapped it as Yokuts territory, but admitted that the language boundary east of the Coast Range divide was not known to him (Kroeber 1925:462). None of the other classical anthropologists documented any information for the region.

Recent Ethnographic References

Critiques are needed here on the "California" volume (Heizer, editor 1978)—articles by Wallace because he maps the area as Northern Valley Yokuts, and Levy’s article because the region is in the domain of his Costanoan chapter, even though he does not map the area as such. Also relevant are King and Hickman (1976), Milliken (1993, 2006a, 2006b), and Milliken and Johnson (2005), all limited distribution technical papers.

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR CANTUA CREEK REGION – LISOLI LOCAL GROUP

By Randall Milliken

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This western Fresno County region encompasses the boundary of the South Coast Ranges and San Joaquin Valley west of Fresno. It is still a rural area, the only town being tiny Three Rocks. The area ethnogeography is poorly understood. Indirect mission register reconstruction suggests that the people of the area moved to Mission Soledad under the name Chalon and to Mission San Antonio under the name Lisoli. They were probably Chalon Ohlone speakers. As of this writing, we link 32 baptized people to the Cantua Creek group; all are of Lysol rancheria. They include 12 men, 13 women, three boys, and four girls. One of the women baptized at Mission San Antonio in December 1804 was listed from "Lizu’l del otro lado de la cañada Atnel acia el Norte [Lizul beyond Atnel canyon (Priest Valley) toward the north]" (SAN-B 3034).

Environment

The western portion of the region is interior Coast Ranges land (the Big Blue Hills and the southern Ciervo Hills) reaching 4,000 feet in elevation near the Three Sisters rock formation in the southwest. The eastern portion of the region is on the flat alluvial fan that forms the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley, with elevation as low as 330 feet. Surface water in the region is limited to small springs and annual creeks. Arroyo Honda and Cantua Creek, the largest of the annual streams, carry surface water far out onto the plain only during the most intense winter storms. Upland vegetation is predominately blue oak savannah and grey pine-chaparral associations, with occasional canyon live oak and interior live oak stands. Native grasslands once covered the San Joaquin Valley plain.

Early Expedition References

No documented Spanish or Mexican period expeditions entered the Cantua Creek region.

Mission Register References

The center of the Cantua Creek region lies 44 miles north-northwest of Mission San Miguel, 46 miles east of Mission Soledad, and 50 miles northwest of Mission San Antonio. Each of those missions brought in people from dozens of small inner Coast Range rancherias. Most adults from the eastern-most groups were baptized between 1803 and 1810, although many Chalon people were still being baptized as late as 1815. Since direct evidence is lacking for placement of the relevant groups on the landscape, they have been tentatively placed through well-documented mission register analysis techniques (see Recent Ethnographic References section, below.)

0-1900 Historical References.— To Be Developed

Classic Ethnographic References: None of the classic ethnographers obtained specific information about the contact-era people of the Cantua Creek region.

Recent Ethnogeographic References

Gibson 1983. Gibson (1983:180, 233, 234), using time-of-baptism and marriage pattern analyses, placed "Lysol" rancheria (also spelled Lezzol, Lizul, and Lisoli) in the Cantua Creek region. He identified 14 Lysol people baptized at Mission San Antonio and another ten baptized at Soledad. Milliken and Johnson (2005:83), in their hexagon-based spatial evaluation of the mission register evidence for the South Coast Ranges, agreed with Gibson, tentatively placing "Lysol" in their "Los Gatos Creek" hexagon, which included the Cantua Creek vicinity.

Milliken 2006a. Milliken (2006a:23, 33) delineated the Cantua Creek region in the Version 1.0 CDM study. He produced contradictory information regarding the rancheria group of the region. In the text of that study he argued that the Cantua Creek region was occupied by the Chapana (also spelled Chabant) group, baptized at Mission Soledad, and that "Lisoli" were in the adjacent Los Gatos Creek region to the south. But in his mapping, his population density table, and his related CDM Version 1.0 database, Milliken (2006a) assigned Lisoli to Cantua Creek, while placing Chapana farther north in the Silver Creek region. Milliken reiterated this conclusion in a study relating the Bay Area to the South Coast Ranges later that year (2006b:51).

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR SAN BENITO MOUNTAIN REGION – CHALON/ZULA LOCAL GROUP

By Randall Milliken

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This small, high Coast Range region, on the Fresno-San Benito County border, contains no modern towns. The people of this area were among the hundreds who went to Mission Soledad under the names of scores of small groups affiliated under the "Chalon Rancheria" umbrella. Chalon also included the San Benito and Upper San Benito River regions, and probably the Bear Valley and Cantua Creek regions as well. It is impossible to separate out which Chalon individuals at Soledad came from which of those regions. Chalon people were baptized at Soledad from the mid-1790s until 1815. A few of the San Benito Mountain people seem to have moved to Mission San Antonio under the name Zula during the same period.

Environment

This mountainous region includes 5,241-foot-high San Benito Mountain and the small valleys to its west and south, down to the 2,800-foot elevation. This rugged area forms the headwaters of the San Benito River (flowing to the northwest) and Los Gatos Creek (flowing to the southeast). Vegetation is predominately chaparral with grey pine or blue oak woodland. Coulter pine stands dominate extensive areas on San Benito Mountain itself. Coast live oak and interior live oak inhabit gullies and north slopes. One small, open, grassy valley exists where Wildass Road meets Coalinga Road, along the upper San Benito River.

Early Expedition References

No documented Spanish- or Mexican-period expeditions entered the San Benito Mountain region.

Mission Registers:

Zula at San Antonio, which ties to Lisoli to the east, Questspoy to the southeast, and Atsnil to the west. Many of these people re-aggregated at Soledad, suggesting their native language was Chalon Costanoan. Some also were tied to Nacion Zoltanel, which seems to be a San Antonio reference to Costanoan speakers.

0-1900 Historical References

To be developed.

Classic Ethnographic References

None of the classic ethnographers obtained specific information about the contact-era people of the San Benito Mountain region.

Recent Ethnogeographic References

To be developed.

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR COALINGA REGION – CHENEN LOCAL GROUP

By Randall Milliken

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The Coalinga region of western Fresno County has a single significant modern town, Coalinga. We model a pre-mission population of 200 for the area and a baptized adult population of ±80. As of 2008, the Chenen of Mission San Miguel are thought to have come from this region. The Escoyzama people at Soledad are considered to have been the same people, due to time of baptism and the small number of Chenen people in any records. The "zama" ending seems to be a Salinan word for houses, indicating that the speakers were Salinans. If they were the same group as the Chenen people, the evidence suggests that they were bilingual in Costanoan and Salinan.

Environment

Rainfall averages only nine inches; summer surface water was probably supplied by Los Gatos Creek, fed by the higher rainfall of the Priest Valley region to the west. the northern and downstream watershed of Los Gatos Creek, from Juniper Ridge on the west to the edge of the San Joaquin Valley on the east The hills and valleys of the southern and eastern portions of the region were covered with grassland, while the mountainous northwest quarter was a mosaic of chaparral and blue oak woodland.

Early Expedition References

To be developed.

Mission Register References

Ten different groups named in the mission records are assigned to the Coalinga region. In order of number of adults represented, they include Quetaayno (13 adults), Lysol (11 adults), Zula (nine adults), Staquel (17 of 29 adults), Quetspoy (eight adults), Questmeu (six adults), Teyeyau (four adults), Tepaseyat (three adults), and Zisjazama (one adult), as well as three unspecified easterners from Mission San Antonio. None of these group names, with the exception of Staquel, appeared in the Mission San Miguel records. Lysol people also appeared at Mission Soledad, but until more work is done, we assign five Soledad individuals to the region. All of these groups appeared in their greatest numbers at the missions during the 1804-1806 period, the very end of concerted Coast Range missionization. Adult baptisms for the region reached the half-way point in July 1805.

0-1900 Historical References

To be developed.

Classic Ethnographic References

To be developed. Special attention to works by Harrington, Kroeber, Mason, and Merriam.

Recent Ethnographic References

Gibson 1983. Gibson (1983:280) mapped the intermarried Staquel and Chenen groups in the Los Gatos Creek region: Chenen at the present town of Coalinga and Staquel in the Juniper Ridge area to its west. We give the Coalinga vicinity to Staquel, as well as Jacalitos Creek in our Avenal region. We place Chenen farther southeast on Zapato Chico Creek in our Avenal region. Results of further analyses of genealogies for this area from Missions San Antonio, San Miguel, and Soledad may support our conclusion or may indicate that Gibson (1983) was more likely to have been correct.

Milliken 2006a. Milliken (2006a:27) noted that Coalinga is one of the regions in which difficulties emerge in assigning communities to the region, due to very atypical marriage patterns. An example of a group with unexplainable kinship ties is Chenen, a large community baptized at San Miguel which had marriage ties to the presumed San Juan Creek groups (Etsmal and Pel), to east-side groups (Staquel and Sulaltap), and to groups in the western part of the Cholam Hills region (Joyuclac, Loyam, and Cheyne). Chenen kinship patterns are nearly identical to those of the Cholam group, a still larger group also baptized at Mission San Miguel. Yet, unexpectedly, no pre-mission marriages between Chenen and Cholam people have been discovered through selective kinship-chart diagramming. For this study, Chenen is tentatively assigned to the Los Gatos Creek region, following Gibson’s (1983:237-238) suggestion that the group came from "Chane," a pool of water on the plain east of Coalinga. Yet the Chenen community is not intermarried with either Quetspoy or Lisoli, two communities that have been assigned with Chenen to the Los Gatos Creek region. Full kinship charting and renewed study are needed for these groups and all other groups currently assigned to the contiguous Los Gatos Creek, Wartham Creek, Cholam Hills, and Kettleman Plain regions.

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR MCKITTRICK REGION – KOOSHUP LOCAL TRIBE

By Randall Milliken

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The McKittrick region lies along the Kern-Santa Barbara county border and includes only one town—McKittrick in Kern County. The Kooshup people of missions La Purisima and Santa Barbara are the most likely contact-period occupants of this poorly documented region. They are known only from their appearance in the mission records, an appearance unaccompanied by direct locational information (see Mission Register discussion, below). Kooshup people moved to missions La Purisima and Santa Barbara over the 1800-1810 period. An alternative group for the area are the Chulucucunach people, who moved to Mission San Luis Obispo during the same period. The two names may be aliases for the same people, but evidence of close family ties between them is absent. The language of this McKittrick region was never documented, although the region’s location suggests that its inhabitants were Central Chumash speakers.

Environment

The McKittrick region straddles the Temblor Range, an inner spur of the South Coast Ranges overlooking Buena Vista Lake. McKittrick Peak, the range’s highest spot at 4,332 feet, is at the region’s center. On the west, the range slopes down to the central part of the Carrizo Plain at 1,940 feet, and on the east to the single corridor of Temblor and McKittrick valleys, 600-1,000 feet in elevation. Rainfall at the summit averages more than 12 inches, higher than the surrounding arid lowlands. The rain supplies a number of small seasonal drainages and permanent springs in the uplands. Water that flows west supplies land-locked Soda Lake, a shallow ephemeral body of water on the Carrizo Plain. Chico Martinez and Temblor creeks are the largest east-flowing watersheds; they can carry water all the way to the Buena Vista-Tulare Lake connector sloughs in neighboring regions. During the dry months the native inhabitants of the region certainly relied on springs for water. Native vegetation was primarily grassland and chaparral. Stands of blue oak and coast live oak are found in a relatively large area (4 x 8 miles) along the northern part of the high central area.

Early Expedition References

To be developed.

Mission Register References

To be developed.

0-1900 Historical References

To be developed.

Classic Ethnographic References

Merriam was told by a Buenavista Yokuts speaker about a group called the "Temploa" during his visit to the Tejon Ranch headquarters (see Tejon Creek region) in November 1905. Temploa was a general term applied to the entire Temblor Range by local some residents during the early twentieth century, but we have not been able to document any particular spot with that name. We mention that name here only because our McKittrick region encompasses the center and highest portions of the Temblor Range. Merriam wrote:

Temploa. Tribe, Too-lol’-min (Yokut). In their own language (Too-lol’-min):

The place: We’-ah-wi’-ling-al

The rancheria: Ah’-kah’ke We’-ah-wi’-ting-al

The people: We’-ah-wi’-ting-al cha-ahtch

The tribe: Too-lol’-min (same as at Buena Vista and Kern Lakes)

A neighboring rancheria (exact site not known by me) was called Wah’-pe-et by both the Too—lol’-min and Tin’-lin-ne [Merriam 1967:436].

Kroeber (1925:Plate 47) mapped the eastern portion of the McKittrick region within the territory of the Tulamni Yokuts of the Buenavista region. He wrote, "They ranged westward to Wogitiu in the vicinity of McKittrick" (1925: Plate 47, 478). He also commented about the western portion of the region, noting, "The Carrizo plains are doubtful as between Chuamsh and Salinans, and may not have contained permanent villages" (Kroeber 1925:551).

Recent Ethnographic References

Wallace 1978: Wallace (1978:448) mapped the eastern portion of the McKittrick region as the land of Yokuts-speaking people, using the Coast Range crest boundary that had been inferred by all researchers since Alexander Taylor in the 1850s. He marked the town of McKittrick as the site of an unnamed Yokuts-speaking village, citing Kroeber and Latta [Wallace 1978:Figure 1]. Wallace (1978) offered no original data on the contact-period people of the McKittrick region.

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR PALO PRIETO REGION – TISAGUES LOCAL GROUP

By Randall Milliken

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The Palo Prieto region lies along the Kern-San Luis Obispo county border in a dry area that lacks any modern towns. The Tisagues people moved from this region to Mission San Miguel between 1800 and 1812. They are known from the mission records, from a later Mexican-period map, and from the Harrington notes. Although none have been identified at Mission San Luis Obispo, they were almost certainly represented there under an alias group name. They probably spoke a Salinan dialect, but no sample vocabularies were ever taken.

Environment

To be developed.

Early Expedition References

To be developed.

Mission Register References

To be developed.

0-1910 Historical References

Following the mission period, the1844 land grant of Mauricio Gonzales was named Rancho de Cholame. The grant included the lower Cholam Valley around the modern Highway 41/46 confluence and north for a distance of about eight miles. Farris (2000:132-136) summarized the land-grant documentation. The grant’s diseño (map) showed lands north of the modern highways as "Cholamen" and the lands south of the modern highways as "Techague." Farris pointed out that the names on the map represented Cholam and Tisagues, separate but adjoining areas north and south of modern Highway 46 in the Cholam Valley.

Classic Ethnographic References

Kroeber 1925: In his Handbook, Kroeber (1925:Figure 49, Plate 1) split the area that we map as the Palo Prieto between a Salinan language area west of the Temblor Range crest and a Yokuts language area east of the crest. He did not offer any explanation beyond his belief that Salinan speakers held the entire Salinas River watershed and that Yokuts speakers held the lands to the Coast Range crest (see Kroeber 1925:546-548).

Harrington 1930: Harrington gathered a great amount of information about the vicinity east and south of the Estrella River from Salinan speakers. Harrington asked María de los Angeles Bailón, who had spent her youth on the Estrella River east of Mission San Miguel, about Cholam. During re-hearings of earlier comments and on place-name trips she made a number of comments regarding Cholam, Tisagues, and even Painted Rock on the Carrizo Plain:

Tecáwec, Mg. onde tomaban agua / on mas [re-hearing of Mason] M. umticúwec, at Cholam [María de los Angeles, February 1930, Harrington 1985:Reel 87, Frame 779].

Tecúwec means "onde está pintado" o ’pintura’ [María de los Angeles, February 1930, Harrington 1985:Reel 87, Frame 779].

Tecúwes means "onde se pintura" is name of a plain—at tcolám’. Went to valle to S. of Cholam, cañada all the way came to plain where lots of tar & 2 spgs., & dried panocha 1/2 day. No plzn [place-name]—called it merely Tc’ál, panocha. Tsolám’ is SP. , tho Mig. pronounce it this way. But real name is Tecúwec [February 1930, Harrington 1985:Reel 87, Frame 781].

Mla has heard of the Piedra Pintada (in SLO County)... called it in M. Cá’yek cxáp [May 1931, Harrington 1985:Reel 86, Frame 520].

Mla Te ca we’c was the Cooy Inocente mentioned the lugar. This word means se pinta alguna cosa, mla imagines, but Dave cps. A. Te cewec, la lomadera. Mla agrees that Tcolam & Tecawec’ is the same place & it has 2 names, where the store is, she agrees [February 26, 1932, Harrington 1985:Reel 88, Frame 743].

Mla said at Cholame ranch last night that Tecawec & Cholam were 2 names for 1 place & did not agree that one n. goes to the store & the other the ranch. Tul. infs. might possibly know these names [March 1932, Harrington 1985:Reel 88, Frame 504].

The Shedd place 10.5 miles beyond Shandon, is un lugar viejo de los inditos, & was an indito... Mla was never at Piedra Pintado, but heard it mentioned as c. cxóp’ [March 1932, Harrington 1985:Reel 88, Frame 510].

Harrington and María de los Angeles may have been talking at cross purposes about Cholam and Tisagues (his Te ca we’c). At times he understood her as saying they were equivalent terms tied to the Jack Ranch Café area and Rancho Cholam. At other times, María emphasized a relationship between Tisagues and the Carrizo Plain far to the south, a relationship that did not hold for Cholam.

Recent Ethnographic References

To be developed.

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR PRIEST VALLEY REGION – ATSNEL LOCAL GROUP

By Randall Milliken

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Introduction to be developed using material from Milliken (2006a).

Environment

Priest Valley (2,600 feet in elevation) takes up much of the east-central part of the region. To the west, separated from the valley by a ridge of the Coast Ranges, lies the somewhat lower Peachtree Valley (elevation 1,000 feet). High points overlooking Priest Valley on the north and east, including Center Peak, exceed 4,000 feet. Average annual rainfall is approximately 18 inches. Major streams in the region include San Lorenzo Creek, which flows northwest through Peachtree Valley (then into the Salinas River beyond the region), and Lewis Creek, which begins in Priest Valley and flows northwest to join San Lorenzo Creek to the northwest of the region. Both streams are currently dry for most of the year but may have carried some year-round flow prior to the introduction of wells. Vegetation is primarily blue oak savannah, with extensive chaparral and grey pine on steep hills. Some valley oak savannah exists on the larger valley floors, while canyon live oak and coast live oak occur in gullies and north slopes.

Early Expedition References

No early Spanish or Mexican expeditions are known to have passed through this region.

Mission Register References

Patterns of baptisms at missions up and down the Coast Ranges indicate that most of the native people of the Priest Valley region should have moved from their homeland to Mission San Antonio in the late 1790s and the 1800-1803 time period. Yet no direct clues indicate which of many small rancheria groups baptized at that mission during those years actually came from Priest Valley. Indirect methods, including relative baptismal patterns and regional intermarriage patterns, have been used to reconstruct the probable groups of the region. Gibson (1983:18) used those techniques to map three small rancheria groups listed in the Mission San Antonio baptismal registers in this region: Ajole, Atnil, and Quetaayno.

We will argue in other sections that Ajole was farther to the southeast and that Quetaayno was farther east. Gibson (1983:227-228) did not consider Lachayuam for this upland area, despite its late baptisms, because he considered it to be equivalent to Alecha, a Salinas Valley village. Initial genealogical chart work shows many nuclear families with both Lachayuam and Chuclac members, indicating that they may be equivalent terms for a single group. Of interest, Lachayuam was also called San Lucas in early records, possibly another factor that led Gibson to place it on the Salinas River. Our population distribution model predicts a pre-mission population of 240 for this rugged but biologically diverse region and a baptized adult population of ±102.

We tentatively assign the Priest Valley region to the Escoy, Chuclac, and Lachayuam people. The Escoy people, 13 adults, lived in the northern portion of the region; they also went to Mission Soledad. We place the mixed nuclear families of Lachayuam and Chuclac in Priest Valley itself (53 adults). To round out the adult population expected in our model, we assign 29 of the last unspecified Lix adults and one Zoltanel adult to this region. Most adult baptisms from the Priest Valley region occurred between 1802 and 1805. The halfway point in adult baptisms from the region was reached in October 1803, the same time that the coastal Estero Point reached the halfway point in adult baptism. Future work may show Mission Soledad connections to this region as well.

0-1900 Historical References

To be developed.

Classic Ethnographic References

To be developed.

Recent Ethnographic References

To be developed.

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR WARTHAM CREEK REGION – AJOLE LOCAL GROUP

By Randall Milliken

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This Coast Range crest region is on the Fresno-Monterey County border. To be developed.

Environment

The Wartham Creek regional landscape consists of rugged spur ridges and open valleys, with elevations as low as 1,000 feet just west of Coalinga and as high as 4,000 feet at Sherman Peak east of Priest Valley. The largest watershed is that of Wartham Creek, which flows east to Coalinga, and Los Gatos Creek in the northern part of the region. Upper Jacalitos Creek flows east to Los Gatos Creek from the southeast part of the region. West of the Coast Range crest, Upper Pancho Rico Creek flows through Slack Canyon and on out of the region to the west, while Indian Valley and Big Sandy creeks flow southward from the region. Vegetation is predominately blue oak woodland-savannah and chaparral with grey pine. Coulter pine stands run along the main Coast Range ridge. Coast live oak and interior live oak occur in gullies and on north-facing slopes. Poplar trees border the main course of Wartham Creek.

Early Expedition References

To be developed.

Mission Register References

To be developed using material from Milliken and Johnson (2005) presented under the heading Reason Peak Region.

0-1900 Historical References

To be developed.

Classic Ethnographic References

To be developed.

Recent Ethnographic References

To be developed.

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR KETTLEMAN PLAIN – LOCAL TRIBE

By Randall Milliken

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All to be developed.

Environment

Early Expedition References

Mission Register References

0-1900 Historic References

Classic Ethnographic References

Recent Ethnographic References

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR PYRAMID HILLS – LOCAL TRIBE

By Randall Milliken

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All to be developed.

Summary

Environment

Early Expedition References

Mission Register References

0-1900 Historic References

Classic Ethnographic References

Recent Ethnographic References

PREPARATORY NOTES FOR SILVER CREEK REGION – CHAPANA LOCAL TRIBE

By Randall Milliken

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To be developed.

Environment

The Silver Creek region has been drawn to include the eastern Coast Range foothills and adjacent San Joaquin Valley plain where Panoche Creek leaves the hills. Highest elevation is around 2,300 feet in the hills, while the lowest elevation out on the Panoche Creek alluvial fan is approximately 320 feet. This is a treeless area of low rainfall that was once entirely covered by native grasslands.

Early Expedition References

To be developed.

Mission Register References

To be developed.

0-1900 Historical References

To be developed.

Classic Ethnographic References

Kroeber (1925:465) lacked information about this region. He mapped it as Yokuts territory but admitted that the Costanoan-Yokuts language boundary was not known to him (1925:462).

Recent Ethnographic References

To be developed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cook, Sherburne F.

Farris, Glenn.

Gayton, Anna H.

Geiger, Maynard, and Clement W. Meighan

Gibson, Robert O.

Grant, Campbell

Greenwood, Roberta S.

Harrington, John Peabody

Heizer, Robert F.

Hester, Thomas R.

Horne, Stephen P.

Johnson, John R.

King, Chester A.

King, Thomas F., and Patricia P. Hickman

Kroeber, Alfred L.

Latta, Frank

Levy, Richard

Mason, J. Alden

McLendon, Sally, and John R. Johnson

Merriam, C. Hart

1898-1938 The California Journals of C. Hart Merriam. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Milliken, Randall

Milliken, Randall, and John R. Johnson

Priestley, Herbert Ingram

Wallace, William J.

Wollesen, Olive