Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: On the Ethnolinguistic Identity of the Napa Tribe [Chief Constancio Occaye's Narratives] Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 21 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-03 23:20:24 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 05:45:53 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 05:45:53

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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While still living in Centreville, Yates became acquainted with an elderly Native Californian named Constancio, whom he describes as being “Chief of the Napas.” This man is likely the same individual with a wry sense of humor who was mentioned by Steven Powers in 1874: An old chief in Napa Valley was once peppered with questions about the origins of things by some Americans who appear to think the aborigines knew more touching earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, and various telluric phenomena than our own scientists. Turning, he pointed to the mountains, and asked, “You see those mountains?” He was informed that they saw them. “Well, I’m not so old as they.” Then he pointed to the foot-hills and asked, “You see those foot-hills?” Again he was informed that they saw them. “Well,” he added with simple gravity, “I’m older than they” [Powers 1874:546-549]. Constancio can be readily identified in the mission register databases compiled by Randall Milliken (2005) and the Huntington Library’s Early California Population Project (2006). His native name was Occaye, and he was baptized, when he was an estimated seven years old, on December 1, 1814 at Mission San José (SJO-B2747). Constancio’s father, Lamna, and mother, Mutmut, were baptized the following month and given the Spanish names Constancio and Constancia (SJO-B2737, B2798). All were said to be from the rancheria of Napian (Napa). Some 221 Napa tribal people were baptized at missions San José and San Francisco Asis—as part of the process of incorporating tribes in the Napa and Suisun areas into the mission system—between 1810-1822 (Milliken 1978, 1995:248; 2007:9). In 1841, Constancio Occaye married Bernarda, a woman born at Mission San José in 1821 (SJO-M2457; SJO-B4466). Bernarda’s parents had been baptized from the Tolenas, whose territory bordered that of the Napa tribe (SJO-B3160, B3161). Anthropologists have long assumed that the Southern Patwin language prevailed in the territory occupied by the Napas and the Tolenas (Barrett 1908a; Bennyhoff 1977:164; Johnson 1978; Kroeber 1925, 1932; Milliken 1995, 2007; Powers 1874). THE QUESTION OF NAPA ETHNOLINGUISTIC IDENTITY The Napa Indians have been considered to be of Southern Patwin affiliation ever since Gibbs (1853) and Taylor (1860) made claims to this effect, and an 1874 article by ‘Powers further established this identity in the anthropological literature (F ig. 1): Antonio, Chief of the Chemposels [a Hill Patwin tribe on Cache Creek]—a very intelligent and well-traveled Indian—gave me the following geographical statement, which I found correct, so far as I went: In Long, Bear, and Cortina valleys, all along the Sacramento, from Jacinto to Suisun inclusive, on Cache and Puta creeks, and in Napa Valley, the same language is spoken, which any Indian of this nation can understand throughout. Strangely, too, the Patween language laps over the Sacramento, reaching in a very narrow belt along the east side, from a point a few miles below the mouth of Stony Creek, down nearly to the