Yana (people)
The Yana are Hoka- speaking Californian Indians who used to live on the western slopes and foothills of the Sierra Nevada in northern California. The Yana no longer exist as a tribal association, although there are still some survivors.
Residential area and language
The approximately 100 km long and 60 km wide residential area of the Yana in Northern California comprised the eastern tributaries of the upper Sacramento River , from the Pit River in the north to the Feather River in the south. It was characterized by an endless number of rocky hills and narrow, rugged canyons , some of which were forested but mostly covered with bushes and shrubs.
The Yana language is isolated within the Hoka language family. There were four Yana departments, the northern, central, southern Yana and the Yahi, whose dialects were mutually understandable. An essential characteristic of the Yana language was the use of separate expressions for men and women. The differences were small; but women always used their words, while men used the masculine forms only among themselves and the feminine forms when addressing a woman.
The American anthropologist Alfred Kroeber estimated the population of the Yahi around 1770 at around 1,500 tribesmen. The total population of all Yana tribes prior to the California gold rush is reported to be around 3,000.
Culture
In general, life was tough in the harsh, barren environment. The Yana lived in earth-covered winter huts and thatched summer houses. They hunted various game species, caught salmon, and gathered edible roots, acorns, and wild fruits. Little is known about their social organization other than that they were divided into small groups and knew of class or rank differences. The Yana were relatively belligerent, a common trait among the hill dwellers of northern California. The individual groups shared one language, but had different dialects and cultural traditions. The Yahi in particular were independent and lived in a secluded and inaccessible area. This fact protected them from explorers and settlers until the 19th century.
history
When gold was found near the residential area of the Yana in 1848, conflicts arose, as everywhere with contact between the natives and whites. The Yahi lived the closest to the gold fields and suffered the most losses. Gold prospectors and settlers poured into the land of the Yana and blocked access to rivers such as the Feather and Yuba River , from whose abundance of salmon the Yana lived. As a result, most of the Yana and Yahi died of malnutrition or were victims of brutal attacks by white settlers. By 1865 fewer than 100 yahi had survived. The settlers intended not only to drive the Indians out, but to exterminate them. In 1871 the few surviving Yahi fled to the mountains, hiding in the wilderness of remote canyons for more than 40 years and disappearing from the memory of the white settlers. A few years later, of the last 100 yahi, only seven were left. This tiny group withdrew to the almost inaccessible Deer Creek Valley in order to survive.
The last known yahi was Ishi . He was discovered by a sheriff in Oroville in 1911 . Ishi was taken to the University of California's Anthropological Museum in Berkeley , where he lived and became famous. He helped the local anthropologists, especially Alfred Kroeber, in studying the Yahi language and culture. The Yahi were not familiar with the white people's diseases of civilization and consequently Ishi became infected with tuberculosis . He died on March 25, 1916 at the Parnassus Medical College. In 1931 the Anthropological Museum was relocated to Berkeley and is now part of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology . The artifacts made by Ishi are exhibited there.
Yana descendants now live on the Redding Rancheria Reservation in Northern California. In the US census 2000 45 residents of the rancheria were counted. However, descendants of other tribes from the region also live in the rancheria.
See also
literature
- Robert F. Heizer (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 8 California, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978, ISBN 0-16004-574-6 .
- Robert F. Heizer: The Destruction Of California Indians . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1974, ISBN 0-8032-7262-6 .
- Stanisław Klimek , Edward Winslow Gifford: Yana . University of California Press, Berkeley 1936.
- Theodora Kroeber : Ishi in Two Worlds . A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America, 2002, ISBN 0520229401 (German: The man who came from the Stone Age ). The book of Ishi by the second wife of the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber was the model for the film adaptations.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Yana people , accessed December 16, 2011.
- ↑ a b c The Yana / Yahi People ( Memento of November 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 16, 2011.
- ^ Ishi , accessed December 16, 2011.