“Yokuts: The name of the Yokuts, pronounce Yo-kuts, is generally written with an ‘s’ whether singular or plural. It means ‘person’ or ‘people’ in the various dialects of the Penutian language family spoken by different Yokuts groups. The Yokuts Indians lived in a wide expanse of territory that is now located in central California along the San Joaquin River Valley and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
The Yokuts are classified in the California Culture Group. They were hunter-gatherers, depending on small mammals, fowl, fish, and wild plant foods, especially acorns, for their food. They constructed enclosures called blinds where they could hide to trap pigeons. They also hunted eagles. The following is a Yokuts prayer that was recited before killing an eagle:
Do not think that I will hurt you.
You will have a new body.
Now turn your head northward and life flat.
The Yokuts made exquisite baskets, coiling thin bundles of grass stems upward in a spiral and binding them with marsh grass. They also drew elaborate picture messages, called pictographs, on rocks.
The Yokuts did not make up a unified tribe. Scholars sometimes use the word tribelet to describe the political and territorial organization of the Yokuts and other California Indians, a category between a tribe and a village. The Yokuts had about 50 tribelets. A tribelet contained a main permanent village and several smaller satellite villages that were moved from time to time. Each tribelet had a chief and a shaman. A chief’s messenger carried his commands to other villages. A village crier made announcements within his main village. These various positions were hereditary offices, passed to a younger brother or to a son. Each tribelet had a distinct name to differentiate it from other tribelets, and a distinct language dialect. Sometimes, among the Yokuts, the different tribelets had disputes that led to violence.
The Yokuts, unlike most Indians, practiced cremation at death. When someone died, his or her possessions were burned along with the body, even the entire house in some cases.
The Yokuts fought in one of the few wars involving California Indians, the Mariposa Indian War. This conflict began in 1850 during the California Gold Rush when the number of whites radically increased. The Yokuts and neighboring Miwoks attacked miners and trading posts. The Mariposa Volunteer Battalion quelled the outbreak in 1851.
The Yokuts, who presently hold the Santa Rosa Rancheria and Tule River Reservation, have strong tribal ties and meet to celebrate traditional ways.”
Excerpted from: Waldman, Carl and Molly Braun. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York: Facts on File, 1988.
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