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

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Title: Genetics, Linguistics, and Prehistoric Migrations [DNA Analysis] Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 32 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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ARTICLE . Genetics, Linguistics, and Prehistoric Migrations: An Analysis of California Indian Mitcchondrial DNA Lineages . dohnson / Lorenz 41 their descendants today are affiliated with an “Ohlone” (Costanoan) group. Miwok-Costanoan (Utian) Samples. Four Miwok and four Costanoan lineages have been sampled for this study. The Miwok samples are all from the interior region, apportioned as follows: one Northern Sierra Miwok, one Central Sierra Miwok, and two Southern Sierra Miwok. The four Costanoan samples are all from southern groups. These include two lineages descending from women baptized at Mission San Carlos (one Ensen, one Tucutnut) and two lineages descending from women mentioned in the Mission San Juan Bautista records. One of the San Juan Bautista samples descended from a woman born in the Mutsun tribelet of Paigssin (Paicines); the other has not yet been determined. The last mentioned sample could conceivably be of Yokuts origin instead of Mutsun, because the female ancestor of this lineage has not been identified with absolute certainty in the mission records. Yokuts Samples. Whistler and Golla (1983) have divided the Yokutsan family into three principal branches: Poso Creek (Palewyami), Buena Vista (Tulamni and Hometwoli), and Nim Yokuts (Foothill and Valley tribes). Our samples do not include Palewyami lineages, but otherwise they are fairly well distributed among groups located throughout the San Joaquin Valley region. People from the various Yokuts tribes were baptized at many California Missions, from San José in the north to San Fernando to the south. Six of our Yokuts samples could be traced back to ancestors baptized at the missions (two at San Juan Bautista, three at San Antonio, and one at Santa Inés). The remaining Yokuts samples were obtained from people whose lineages could be documented through the California Indian enrollment records and genealogical data collected by various ethnographers (e.g., GaytonSpier n.d.; Harrington 1985). The Buena Vista Yokuts samples came from one Tulamni and two Hometwoli (Taneshach) lineages. One of the Hometwoli lineages survives today among Chumash descendants, resulting from a marriage between a Taneshach woman and an Inesefio man. The two other lineages from the Buena Vista group survive among Yokuts descendants who settled at the Tejon Indian community. The Nim Yokuts samples were relatively evenly divided between northern and southern groups. Five Northern Valley lineages could be traced to women from particular groups or rancherias: Silelamne (near Livingston), Zucuy (unlocated), Chauyat (unlocated), Chawchila, and Chukchansi.’? Two other Northern Valley lineages, one at San Juan Bautista and one at San Antonio, could not be traced to named groups, reflecting the tendency for some missionaries to designate Yokuts individuals generally as “Tularefios,” without regard to their specific origin. The Southern Valley and Foothill lineages were descended from women from Nutunutu, Tachi (3), Yawdanchi, and Yawelmani (2) groups. The donors of most of the Southern Valley and Foothill Yokuts samples are members of federally recognized Yokuts tribes. Origins of the Uto-Aztecan Samples The largest number of samples collected for this study originated among groups speaking Uto-Aztecan languages. Linguists classify California’s Uto-Aztecan languages into three major branches: (a) Tubatulabal, a single language; (b) Numic; and (c) Takic (Goddard 1996b; Mithun 1999:539). Most of our samples (33) descend from women who spoke languages in the Takic group, but samples were also obtained from people whose female ancestors spoke Tubatulabal (4) and two of the Numic languages (9). The Takic languages in southern California are regarded as having been introduced relatively late in prehistory. Tubatulabal and Numic Samples. Tubatulabal and several Numic languages are spoken by neighboring groups in the southern Sierra Nevada region. There has been considerable intermarriage among these groups, who practiced patrilocal post-marital residence, so that mitochondrial DNA lineages would be expected to be shared among them to a certain extent. Moreover, it is difficult to trace female lineages back beyond the mid to late nineteenth century, because the native peoples of this region were generally not drawn into the mission system and therefore names and villages of origin were not recorded for earlier generations. California Indian enrollment records, genealogical data in ethnographic fieldnotes (e.g., Harrington 1985, 1986), the Kelsey census of non-reservation Indians in 1905 (Kelsey 1971), and US. census records provided the principal means of tracing female lineages. Four lineages were determined to be Tubatulabal in origin: three directly traceable to women born in the upper Kern River watershed, and one reported as