Estefana knew how to harvest native tobacco, acorns, salt grass, and other native foods of the South Fork of Kern Valley and Kelso Valley areas. She knew how to make "flat round" basket used for both sifting and ceremonies. Her baskets were also used to process piñon nuts picked from Walker Pass, Kennedy Meadows, and Greenhorn Mountain areas. "Estefana was also an excellent horseman—she could make her horses jump side to side and jump over large dirt ditches." Their ancestral language, Tübatulabal belongs to the Uto-Aztecan language family. In the current state of the linguistics of the Uto-Aztecan family, it is classified as a branch unto itself. Tübatulabal is a Uto-Aztecan language that, although definitely part of the Uto-Aztecan stock, is not closely related to other languages in that group. Unlike the related languages, the Tübatulabal most often ended in consonant sounds. They used individual names and suffixes to denote place in the family and relation to the dead. Tübatulabal have two dialects "paka'anil" and "bankalachi". Today, in Mountain Mesa, California, the Tübatulabal tribe has a Pakanapul Language Program that teaches the "paka'anil" dialect. The last fluent "paka'anil" dialect speaker was James Andreas, who died in 2009. He lived on the Miranda Allotment, located in Weldon, California. James Andreas spent his last 10 years teaching the Pakanapul Language Team the "paka'anil" dialect. The "bankalachi" dialect is similar to the "paka'anil", however, there is little known about the "bankalachi" dialect. The Tubatulabal people of the Kern river valley have survived historical trauma. Of the three bands of the Tubatulabal, the Pahkanapul were the only ones to survive the Whiskey flats Massacre of 1863. 35–40 tubatulabal people were lined and up and shot dead by the U.S. Cavalry led by Captain McLaughlin. The Tubatulabal tribe was almost wiped out because most were adult men who died in the massacre. "They never seemed to blame the local whites or act vengeful towards those who had made such a change in their lives." In an interview with one of the tribe members about the massacre conducted for a study stated " That morning the soldiers killed our people it caused a lot of heartache to our people physically, emotionally, and mentally.