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THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION
OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY,
CALIFORNIA


BY
S. F. COOK


ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS

Vol. 16, No. 2




UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS

Editors (Berkeley): R. L. Olson, R. F. Heizer, T. D. McCown, J. H. Rowe
Volume 16, No. 2, pp. 31-80
6 maps

Submitted by editors October 8, 1954
Issued July 11, 1955
Price, 75 cents


University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles
California

Cambridge University Press
London, England


Manufactured in the United States of America




CONTENTS

                                                                  Page

Introduction                                                        31

The population of the San Joaquin Valley in approximately 1850      33
    Contemporary estimates and counts for the entire region         33
    Analysis based upon restricted areas                            34
        Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers                              34
        Merced River, Mariposa Creek, and Chowchilla River          35
        The Cosumnes, Mokelumne, and Calaveras rivers               36
        The Fresno and the upper San Joaquin rivers                 36
        The Kings and Kaweah rivers                                 38
        The Tulare Lake basin                                       40
        The Tule River, the Kern River, and the Buenavista Basin    40

The aboriginal population                                           42
    The Tulare Lake basin                                           42
    The Kaweah River                                                45
    The Merced River                                                48
    The Kings River                                                 49
    The Upper San Joaquin, Fresno, and Chowchilla rivers and
        Mariposa Creek                                              50
    The Southern San Joaquin Valley                                 54
    The Northern San Joaquin Valley                                 56
    The Miwok Foothill Area                                         68

Summary and conclusions                                             70

Appendix                                                            71

Bibliography                                                        72


MAPS

1. The San Joaquin Valley from the Cosumnes River
      to the Tehachapi                                  facing page 74

2. Habitat areas 1A-2: the southern Yokuts and
      peripheral tribes                                             75

3. Habitat areas 3A-4C: the basins of the Kaweah
      and Kings rivers                                              76

4. Habitat areas 5A-6B: the Yokuts, a part of the
      Mono, and the  southern Miwok                                 76

5. Habitat areas 7A-14: the northern Yokuts, central
      and northern Miwok                                            77

6. The Lower San Joaquin River and Delta areas                      78




THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

BY

S. F. COOK




INTRODUCTION


Ecologically the great central valley of California forms a single
unit. Nevertheless it is convenient for the purposes of this paper to
divide the entire area into two portions, north and south. The vast
expanse from Red Bluff to the Tehachapi is too extensive to cover
demographically in a single exposition. Moreover, the northern tribes,
the Wintun and Maidu, are physiographically clearly segregated from the
southern by the northern extension of San Francisco Bay and the delta
of the rivers. Hence we shall consider here only those peoples south of
the Sacramento and American River watersheds.

The area possesses definite natural limits but its exact boundaries
must be to some extent arbitrary. On the north the line has already
been indicated: the south bank of the upper Bay and the Sacramento
River as far upstream as a point five miles below the city of
Sacramento and thence easterly along the El Dorado--Amador County line
into the high mountains. This follows Kroeber's tribal boundary between
the Maidu and the Sierra Miwok. On the west the line starts northeast
of Mt. Diablo and follows the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley to
the Tehachapi Mountains. On the east we include the Sierra Nevada as
far as was reached by permanent habitation on the west <DW72>. The
southern extremity is represented by the crest of the Tehachapi.

The region designated embraces the territory of the Plains and Sierra
Miwok, the Yokuts, the Western Mono