The Wintu (also Northern Wintun) are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California.[2] They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun (or Wintuan). There are four major groups that make up the Wintu people. There northern Wintun (Wintu) and the Central Wintun (Namlaki) are most common. Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wintu language is part of the Penutian language family but there are different dialects. Before the European colonization, different Wintun communities interacted with each other but were more inclined to communicate with others tribes to the east and west.
Historically, the Wintu lived primarily on the western side of the northern part of the Sacramento Valley, from the Sacramento River to the Coast Range. The range of the Wintu also included the southern portions of the Upper Sacramento River (south of the Salt Creek drainage), the southern portion of the McCloud River, and the upper Trinity River. They also lived in the vicinity of present-day Chico, on the west side of the river extending to the Coast Ranges. Today most Wintus live on reservations and rancherias in Colusa, Glenn, Yolo, Mendocino, and Shasta counties.[3]
The first recorded encounter between Wintu and Euro-Americans dates from the 1826 expedition of Jedediah Smith, followed by an 1827 expedition led by Peter Skene Ogden. Between 1830 and 1833, many Wintu died from a malariaepidemic that killed an estimated 75% of the indigenous population in the upper and central Sacramento Valley.[3]
Settlers hoped to come to an agreement with the Wintu tribes over land. They tried to take over Wintu land and relocate them west of Clear Creek in exchange for peace, money and citizenship. Instead there was disagreement, slavery, and war. At a "friendship feast" in 1850, settlers served poisoned food to local natives, from which 100 Nomsuu and 45 Wenemem Wintu died. More deaths of Wintu and destruction of their land followed in 1851 and 1852, in incidents such as the Bridge Gulch Massacre.[4] The Increasing population of settlers moving west, like for the California Gold Rush, put pressure on the settlers to relocate Native Americans like the Wintu.
The Wintu tribes had close ties to the natural resources in the region they occupied. More specifically, The Winnemem Wintu tribe translates to "Middle Water people" in their language. They believed they were born from water, are the water, and fight to protect the water. As a whole, hunting, fishing, and gathering plants are all part of their culture and cultural use. They use unique customs, traditional art, and independent spiritual beliefs within their way of life. When villages had extra food, they would sometimes invite neighboring tribes to feast, dance, and play games. Dance had many purposes in the Wintu culture and was not only used for entertainment. The suneh, or begging dance was done when one person would transfer property to another.
The Wintu people used to live in small semi-permanent homes that could be found along waterways. More specifically, River and Hill Patwin homes were dome-like.[5] River Patwin’s used sticks, straw, and other earthly resources to build their homes. Hill Patwin's homes had a similar structure but used conical bark. Larger communities had an earth lodge, which had two main purposes. The first purpose was that the structure could be used as a sweat lodge. A sweat lodge was used for spiritual renewal, purification, and connection to nature. The other use for the sweat lodge in Wintu culture is a place to sleep for unmarried men without families.
The Wintu people are known for fishing. The also rely heavily of wild foods to trade and use within their economy. Their primary food source was salmon fished from the McCloud and Sacramento rivers. Sometimes they would fish for Steelhead trout in the upper Trinity River. Men often hunted either individually or in hunting groups. Groups would use traps for mostly all types of animals they could find. Women gathered plants and other resources to use for food or tools like baskets.[6] Basket weaving was a large part of their culture and community. They used baskets for cooking, storing, sifting, and carrying purposes.[7] Basket weaving was also incorporated into fashion by weaving hats which many women wore.
Scholars have disagreed about the historic population of the tribes before European-American contact. Due to competition of resources, forces labor, disease, and other factors the Wintu tribe's population decreased. Alfred L. Kroeber estimated the combined 1770 population of the Wintu, Nomlaki, and Patwin as 12,000.[8]Sherburne F. Cook initially put the population of the Wintu proper as 2,950, but later nearly doubled his estimate to 5,300.[9][10]Frank R. LaPena estimated a total of 14,250 in his work of the 1970s.[11]
Kroeber estimated the population of the Wintu, Nomlaki, and Patwin in 1910 as about 1,000. Today the population has recovered somewhat and there are about 2,500 Wintun, many of whom live on the Round Valley Reservation, and on the Colusa, Cortina, Grindstone Creek, Redding, and Rumseyrancherias.[1] The estimated total of Wintu people is averaged at 2,500.
Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe
Present Day Wintu
The Wintu tribe had modernize their way of life while keeping their culture and history with them. The explain that their mission is to preserve, promote and protect the culture of the tribe while creating relationships and with those not in their tribe. Current tribal council members consist of Gary and Theresa Rickard, Vincent Cervantes, Gene Malone, Cindy Hogue, Bill Hunt, and Les Begly. They have a Museum and Cultural Resource Center that was built after they lost their recognition status by the federal government.[12]
In 1941, congress passed the Central Valley Project Indian Lands Acquisition Act. This led to the Wintu tribe losing access to the Upper Sacramento River, McCloud River, and Lower Pit River. To the Wintu people, these parts of land are sacred. By losing the river they also lost their prime source of food, salmon. In 2023 the Wintu were able to buy back the land where the rivers lay. They told reporters and writers that they plant to restore the winter-run Chinook salmon population.[13]
^ ab"Wintun Indians". California Indians and Their Reservations: An Online Dictionary. San Diego State University Library. Archived from the original on July 26, 2010. Retrieved June 30, 2010. The Wintun Indian people have three divisions: the Wintu, Norel Muk (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern). Their traditional territories are located in the greater Sacramento Valley, with the Sacramento River a major feature of all the regions. Their lands vary from the Wintu mountain rivers in the north, through the Nomlaki plains, to the marshes, valleys, and hills of the Patwin. Their languages are of the Penutian family. Their diet came from the semiannual runs of king salmon up major rivers, to acorns and other vegetable foods, to game. In the early 1800s, there were approximately 12,000-15,000 members of the Wintun Tribe. Spanish settlers arrived in Wintun territory by 1808, and the Hudson Bay Company trappers arrived sometime before 1832. Tribal unity was destroyed by the taking of land and the destruction of traditional food and material-gathering areas. Due to the introduction of cattle, hogs, and sheep, the construction of dams, and the Copper processing plants in the 1880s and early 1900s, the Wintun suffered a heavy toll on their health and survival. Today there are over 2,500 people of Wintun descent. Many live on the Round Valley Reservation, and on the Colusa, Cortina, Grindstone Creek, Redding, and Rumsey rancherias.
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Christopher K., and Kelly M. Mann. 1998. The Wintu and Their Neighbors: A Very Small World-system in Northern California. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. ISBN0-8165-1800-9.
Du Bois, Cora A. 1935. "Wintu Ethnography", University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 36:1-148.
Du Bois, Cora A., and Dorothy Demetracopoulou. 1931. "Wintu Myths", University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 28:279-403.
Hogue, Helen S., and Margaret Guilford-Kardell. 1977. Wintu Trails. Revised edition; originally published in 1948. Shasta Historical Society, Reading, California.
Hoveman, Alice R. 2002. Journey to Justice: The Wintu People and the Salmon. Turtle Bay Exploration Park, Redding, California. ISBN1-931827-00-1.
Kroeber, A. L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
LaPena, Frank R. 1978. "Wintu", in California, edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 324–340. Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
LaPena, Frank R. 1987. The world is a Gift. Limestone Press, San Francisco.
LaPena, Frank R. 2004. Dream Songs and Ceremony: Reflections on Traditional California Indian Dance. Great Valley Books, Berkeley, California. ISBN1-890771-79-1.
McLeod, Christopher. 2001. In the Light of Reverence. Videocassette. Bullfrog Films, Oley, Pennsylvania. ISBN1-56029-890-1.
McKibbin, Grace, and Alice Shepherd. 1997. In My Own Words: Stories, Songs, and Memories of Grace McKibbin, Wintu. Heyday Books, Berkeley, California. ISBN0-930588-85-1.
Towendolly, Grant. 1966. A Bag of Bones: The Wintu Myths of a Trinity River Indian. Edited by Marcelle Masson. Naturegraph, Oakland, California. ISBN0-911010-26-2; ISBN0-911010-27-0.
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