"Some of Them Are Killers", is wrong for Yosemite Indians, created in 1978.

"Some of Them Are Killers".

 That is the official translation Yosemite National Park Service uses for the word "Yosemite" and then they explain that "Some of the them that were the Killers" were the Paiutes in the Yosemite group. But it is incorrect and fabricated 30 years ago.

That name and definition is an affront to the Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute Indian Community and all of the Paiute people. Plus being discriminatory and derogatory towards the Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute people, it is incorrect. The new definition was created in 1978 and the park service should have used the original one.

So we researched who might have created that new translation. It seems the new definition of "Yosemite" came back to a certain person working for Yosemite who might have not been qualified in his position.

Here is the Yosemite National Park Services' official definition of the meaning of Yosemites on their Yosemite National Park website.

http://www.nps.gov/yose/education/glance/first_people/first.htm

[Here is the official Yosemite National Park website. The Indians on this page are Francisco Georgely, a Chowchilla Yokut, top left. In the text part is a 1901 photo of Suzie and Sadie McGowan who are Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes. Suzie carrys her daughter Sadie in a Paiute cradleboard. They are not Miwoks. We want to know where are the pictures of Miwoks and who were they? The Yosemite National Park Service puts photos of Yokuts and Paiutes and then calls them Miwoks. Where are the old photos of Yosemite Miwoks and what were their names?] Where is the story of Chief Tenaya's father's taking the remaining Ahwhahneechee surviviors to Mono Lake? Where is the part where Chief Tenaya is born at Mono Lake from an Ahwahneechee (which is not Miwok) and his Mono Lake Paiute mother? That Tenaya lived there til he was an adult before he returned to Yosemite?

We Paiutes have seen this definition in other official governmental publications regarding the name of the Yosemite Indians. We have also seen this definition all over the net because different websites have republished this lie. Taking this definition right off the official Yosemite National Park webiste as the gospel. It is an insult to our people that a federal governmental agency would use this definition for the Yosemite Indians.

In fact one of our people went to Yosemite years back and told one of Yosemite museum personal that they were Paiute. The Yosemite worker replied "I hate Paiutes. You're the Killers". He was not amused.

Here is their official translation of the Yosemites "Some of them were Killers" and we have also seen "Some amongst them were Killers", "Some of them are Killers".

So where did they get this definition of Yosemite? Here is the definition by an Yosemite employee to explain that term:

 "Miwok people who lived west of Yosemite sometimes referred to the native residents of Yosemite Valley as Johemite. The name Yosemite is derived from this word, which translates "SOME OF THEM ARE KILLERS." Miwok people usually got along with each other, so the use of this term in reference to the Yosemite Miwok people by other Miwok speakers is confusing. Most Sierra Miwok people greatly distrusted Paiute people, but the Yosemite Miwok seem to have co-existed with them comfortably, even intermarrying. Perhaps the mistrust that other Miwok speakers had for Paiute people or for anyone who associated with them was reflected in the word Johemite."

Notice the last paragraph on the website and photo above;

"The Miwok people living west of Yosemite sometimes referred to residents of Yosemite Valley as Yohemite. The word Yosemite is derived from Yohemite, which when translated means “some of them are killers.”

The people living west of Yosemite were those Indians who were living in El Portal, Midpines and Mariposa, The Southern Sierra Miwoks. So who were the "Some of them are killers" they were talking about?

Here a website discusses the true definition and meaning of Yosemite:

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/origin_of_word_yosemite.html

First of all Tenaya and his band where not Miwok. One of the first persons to meet and wrote about Chief Tenaya and his band was the doctor of the Mariposa Battalion, Lafayette H. Bunnell.

In Lafayette H. Bunnell's book "The Discovery of the Yosemite and the Indian war of 1851, which led to that event" he writes;

http://www.abovecalifornia.com/lib/Houghton/18.php

"Ten-ie-ya was recognized, by the Mono tribe, as one of their number, as he was born and lived among them until his ambition made him a leader and founder of the Pai-Ute colony in Ah-wah-ne. His history and warlike exploits formed a part of the traditionary lore of the Monos."

Also Major Savage could speak Yokut and Miwok because Chief Bautista had given some of his women to Savage and he picked up their language, so Bunnell writes;

http://www.abovecalifornia.com/lib/Houghton/04.php

"Major Savage was our best authority. He could speak the dialects of most of the mountain tribes in this part of California, but he confessed that he could not readily understand Ten-ie-ya, or the Indian guide, as they appeared to speak a Pai-ute jargon."

In other parts of the book Bunnell writes that Tenaya's band was mainly made up of Mono Paiutes with with "outlaws" from the western tribes. Which never mentions which tribes they were outlaws from. That Tenaya's Mono Paiute band was taller and lighter then the "California Diggers" of the western slope.

Not one instance in any of the first written accounts were the Ahwahnees documented to be Miwoks, but they were said to be Mono Paiutes several times. Not until around 1900 did they start writing Miwok to describe the Ahwahnee Yosemites.

We believe that federal employees, who are biased in favor of the Miwok people because they were personally involved.

In the earliest written accounts Chief Bautista also known as Vow-chester, states;

"The other tribes dare not make war upon them, for they are lawless like the grizzlies, and as strong. We are afraid to go to this valley, for there are many witches there."

Chief Bautista, along with Russio, were the ones who termed the word "Yosemite" to Major Savage and that is where they got that name.

That would indicate that Chief Bautista and the other foothill tribes were afraid of Tenaya and his band. They feared entering Yosemite Valley because Tenaya's band was a fierce tribe of Mono Paiutes.

What is interesting is the Miwoks were afraid of the Ahwahnees (Yosemites), yet the Mono Paiutes were not. They considered Tenaya one of their own and bragged about him and his exploits. Tenaya enjoyed the title "Grizzlies" because it brought fear to his enemies. Yet we Paiutes gave Tenaya an allotment at Mono Lake when he fled the reservation on the western slope.

Even when Tenaya left the western slope reservation he did not go to the nearby Miwok territories, but made the long hard journey over the Sierra Nevadas to the homeland of the enemies of the Miwoks, the Mono Lake Paiutes. Why is that?

The true meaning of Yosemite was not "Some of them are Killers", but in Sylvia Broadbent's Dictionary of Southern Sierra Miwok documented that the Miwok informants said the meaning of Yosemite is Yose- is Killer or Grizzly bear and -mite is plural or persons. Yose- looks like the Spanish word for bear "Oso". There were many Spanish loan words in most Central California Indian langauges.

Here is the meaning Southern Sierra Miwok word for Yosemite from the Southern Sierra Miwok Dictionary;

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/history/southern_sierra_miwok_language/page_355.html

Notice the word for "Yosemite People" is Hihtoja-. That does not look like Ahwahneechee. The dictionary said to look under "hi.hy- nt". So I looked under Hi.hy- nt and guess what I found.

That means "Yosemite People" means "East" and "From the High Sierras and Great Basin". The Great Basin is where Paiutes come from. The east is also where the Paiute colonies are also located in the high Sierras.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Miwok_Tribal_Map_1.JPG

Notice the Miwok tribal area above from the earliest Map made by California Indian ethnologist C. Hart Merriam. The area in the east and right is Paiute.

Here is the Central Miwok word and meaning for "Yosemite". The word looks just like one of the Southern Miwok words for "Yosemite".

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/history/central_sierra_miwok_dictionary/page_51.html

Notice Yosemite means "The Killers" and not "Some of them are Killers".

That would conclude that "Yosemites" does not mean "Some of them are Killers". That would be a very long sentence and not a single word. I don't know where they got the "Some of them are...” from, but it was never in any of the older written accounts. We believe it was made up to explain away why the Miwoks were afraid of the Yosemites.

We have written several e-mails to the official Yosemite National Park Service webmaster and the management of Yosemite to change this and show the accurate meaning of the word Yosemite. The Yosemite NPS still would rather publish the libelous statement that offends the Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute people. That is why we would like this defination changed.

We expect the Yosemite National Park Service, a federal agency, to get the translation right, but instead they would rather quote the untruth.

We researched the Southern Sierra Miwoks and the majority of their ancestors, in 1928, wrote that Chief Bautista was their leader, not Tenaya.

The same Chief Bautista who was afraid to enter Yosemite Valley, but Bautista did offer his men to Major Savage to hunt down Tenaya. Bautistas people worked in the gold mines in and around Sonora for white mine owners and Savage. Bautista also signed the treaties.

That was their chief, not Tenaya who refused to sign any treaty.

That is why we believe the true meaning of "Yosemite" should not have been changed by the Yosemite park employee with an agenda.

I remember years back there was a similar situation when everyone thought that the Anasazi were the ancestors of the Navajos. For decades anthropologists and ethnologists believed that the Navajos were the descendents of the Anasazi, even a lot of the Navajo people believed this also until someone broke down the true meaning of the word. Anasazi meant "Strangers" and "Ancient Enemy" in the Navajo langauge. It turned out that the Anasazi were actually the ancestors of the neighboring Pueblo people, who the Navajos were enemies of.

Old Yosemite Indians book with Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute Taboose Howard on cover.

New Revised Yosemite Indians cover, with what looks like a Central Miwok from the Sonora area.

We expect impartiality and not bias history regarding our people and the Indian people of Yosemite.

We believe federal park employee's writings are biased in favor of their own families tribe.

Remember we are talking about federal employees working for the National Goverment Park Service, the U. S. Department of the Interior. 

cc: to Yosemite National Park