Yosemite Indian History Test - the answers. See if you got it right.

A couple of days ago I put up a test for people who are interested in the history of the Indian people of Yosemite and also part of the history of California, Hetch Hetchy and the early gold rush.

Here is the test:

http://thehive.modbee.com/?q=node/5872

If you haven't taken it, don't cheat and look at the answers but go take it first and see how you did...THEN come back here and check the answers. No peeking the answers first unless you do the test, lol

Here are the answers;

1. B, the real definition of Yosemite is "The Killers or the Grizzlies". There was also "They are Killers". A, is the official Yosemite National Park definition, which is actually incorrect.

2. C, Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell. Dr. Bunnell was the only man of that group to meet and write about the Ahwahneechees or the Yosemite Indians. The others came into the area later after the Yosemite Indians had been cleared out and were talking to the helpers of the military.

3. A, 1851, that is the year that Yosemite Valley was officially 'discovered' by non-Indians.

4. C, it was documented that the first non-Indians to enter and 'discover' Yosemite Valley was Major James Savage and the Mariposa Battalion.

5. A, the discovery of Yosemite Valley, the first meeting between the whites and Indians, and who they were was documented in Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell's book "The Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian war of 1851 which led to that event". Dr. Bunnell was one of the only men to meet the original Yosemite Indians and wrote the majority of what we know about them.

6. A, Chapter XVIII, page 297, Dr. Bunnell wrote that Chief Tenaya, was the chief of the Yosemite Indians and that Tenaya was the "...founder of the Pai-ute colony in Ah-wah-ne". So A is the closest and correct description of what Dr. Bunnell wrote.

7. B, on the same page and chapter of Dr. Bunnell's book is this passage "Ten-ie-ya was recognized, by the Mono Tribe, as one of their number, as he was BORN and LIVED among them unitl his ambition made him a leader and founder of the Pai-ute colony in Ah-wah-ne". So even though many people believe that Chief Tenaya was born in Yosemite Valley, he was in fact born at Mono Lake in Mono County.

8. C, most historians don't know this, but we Paiutes do, Dr. Bunnell wrote that Chief Tenaya and his band spoke a "Paiute jargon" and "Mono", not Miwok, which is a totally different language.

9. B, Chief Tenaya and the Ahwahneechee band everytime they escaped went to Mono Lake and hid out with his relatives the Mono Lake Paiutes, who even gave him and his band land to live in at Mono Lake...which they would never have done if they were Miwoks, whom they were fighting at that time.

10. C, Hetch Hetchy Valley is located INSIDE Yosemite National Park which is flooded by the O'Shaunessy Dam.

11. A, the first non-Indians recorded to enter Hetch Hetchy Valley were the Screech brothers; Nate, William and Joseph.

12. C, Paiutes, this was documented in several books, but extensively in the "Notes on Hetch-Hetchy Valley" published in "Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CAS, 1868, series 1, 3:5, pages 368-370. Paiutes had a war with the Big Creek Indians, as reported by the Screech Brothers, an won. They retained ownership of Hetch Hetchy Valley until the whites pushed them out.

13. D, C. F. Hoffmann, he wrote the article as seen on answer 12 of the test. Hoffmann was the first California State surveyor who entered the area and spoke to the Screech brothers and other mountaineers. This is how Hoffmann acquired this information, from the early pioneers who first entered Hetch Hetchy Valley. You can read it here:

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/notes_on_hetch-hetchy_valley.html

14. C, 1850, Hetch Hetchy Valley was discovered one year before the discovery of Yosemite Valley. So Hetch Hetch Valley was already being settled, even though it was sparse, before non-Indians entered Yosemite Valley.

15. C, Chief Tenaya was not algined with Chief Bautista and Cypriano, who were chiefs of the tribes from the western side. The other chiefs sided with the white military hoping to cut a better deal. Many of the modern day Southern Sierra Miwoks or the American Indian Council of Mariposa are descendant from these chiefs and not from the original Yosemite Indians, but those who aided the military and James Savage.

16. A, while Pasqual, Chief Bautista and Cypriano signed the Fremont or Barbour Treaties giving up their land for a now defunct reservation, Chief Tenaya NEVER signed.

17. B, Chief Bautista, leader of the Poyantee or Southern Sierra Miwoks. That is because he was afraid of the Yosemite Indians and called them "The Killers". In one early newspaper Bautista called the Yosemite Indians "Monahs" and not Miwoks.

18. D, the answer is Chief Bautista, in his recently published book, Deeper Than Gold, Brian Bibby, writes that those now claiming to the original Yosemite Indians had a chief named Bautista. You could not be an original Yosemite Indian and also have Chief Bautista as your original chief. Bautista received that name because he was a Mission Indian and a neophyte.

19. C, the Nutchus and Pohonochees blocked his escape. this was written in several books and accounts. From James M. Hutchings' book "In the Heart of the Sierras, 1888" Chapter V, Hutchings' writes "...but finding that he (Chief Tenaya) was cut off in the direction also, by the Noot-chu (Nutchu) and Po-ho-no-chee (Pohonochee Miwok) scouts..." Tenaya even cursed them for doing so.

20. A, even though James Savage could not speak Paiute, the same language of the Ahwahneechees and Chief Tenaya, he took an Indian who did named Sandino, but James Savage, the leader of the Mariposa Battalion could speak Poyotanee Miwok, even the royal Miwok language. Savage learned the Miwok language from his wives AND his good friend Chief Bautista, the same Chief Bautista who is related to many of the modern day Southern Sierra Miwuks now claiming to be Yosemite Indians. This is documented in Sam Ward's "Sam Ward in the Gold Rush", pages 62-63. Sam Ward made friends with Chief Bautista and on page 63 it is noted "Sam Ward was unlikely to rival him (James Savage) in one regard: it was said that Savage had learned, to their awe, a secret language known only to the major chiefs." So not only did James Savage speak Southern Sierra Miwuk, but the secret royal language of the chiefs.

21. B, James Savage was killed by another settler named Walter H. Harvey, who was reported to be the first county judge of Tulare County. That was written in Carl P. Russell's "100 Years in Yosemite", pages 30-32. Judge Harvey shot and killed Major James Savage in 1852, when Savage had struck Harvey. Ironically James Savage died a year before Chief Tenaya.

22. D, when the death of James Savage was reported his Indian wives and workers hurried to his side and cried and wailed over James Savage's body. Some even drank his blood. They were so upset they would not let anyone remove his boby until they calmed down. Savage's death and how his Indian workers and wives acted was written in several accounts. One was the Daily Herald, Sept. 4, 1852 called "Effect of Major Savage's Death Upon the Indians" and retold in "100 Years in Yosemite" by Carl P. Russell.

23. A, Chief Tenaya and the majority of his band were killed by the Mono Lake Paiutes. After the Mono Lake Paiute had harbored Tenaya and his band. They did so after they had gone on a raiding party to capture more horses from the Spanish to the south. When they returned they were surprised that Chief Tenaya and his band had left BUT took the Monos horses that they had left behind with them back into Yosemite Valley. When Tenaya and his people relaxed after filling themselves up with horse meat, the Mono Lake Paiutes snuck up on them and killed Chief Tenaya and the majority of his band.

24. C, a few men escaped from Tenaya's band, some old people were not killed AND the remaining surviviors of Chief Tenaya's Ahwahneechees were taken back to Mono Lake and ABSORBED back into the Mono Lake Paiute population. They became Paiutes again.

25. C, even though Yosemite Indian ethnologist Craig Bates and some of those claiming to be the descendants of the Yosemite Indians say that Mary Wilson was a Yosemite area chief, that is not true. During early times no woman could be the chief of the Yosemite Indians, that being the Paiutes. She could not have been a chief in her tribe, the Yokut people, because early Yokuts did not have women chiefs. Some claim she was the daughter of a fabled Miwok chief named Captain Jim, but in reality her father was a white name named Johnson. The others, Captain Sam, Captain John, and the real Captain Jim, were chiefs and captains of the early Yosemite Indians and they were ALL Paiutes.

26. B, that Indian village behind the Indian Museum in Yosemite National Park was created around the mid 1970s by mostly non-Indians, and not an ancient village. It is basically not a real village, but an exhibit. A faulty one at that.

27. A, Mono County, because during the early Yosemite Indian Field Days the majority Yosemite basket makers came from Mono Lake and other Paiute areas. The early Yosemite Indian basket competition was held where the Yosemite Indian basket makers lived...in Mono County and not in Yosemite Valley or other Mariposa County areas.

28. D, Paiute. On Captain Sam's 1929 California Indian Application, he states his wife, Susie Sam, the one everyone claims the "Southern Sierra Miwuk" from, was a Paiute. Captain Sam signed an affidavit, with thumbprint, two Indian witnesses who knew him for decades and even with the help of his own daughter, stating that everything he is saying is true and to the best of his knowledge, that he, and Suzie Sam were both Paiutes.

29. D, Paiute, on one of the only census taken that has Charlie Dick, son of Chief One-Eyed Dick, he says he is a "Piute" in his 70s and also a woodcutter for Yosemite National Park. In other writtings he states he is a Paiute and that he was born at Mono Lake. That is because in early times Paiutes would travel between both Mono Lake and the Yosemite Valley and the area.

30. C, on Lancisco Wilson's grave marker in the Yosemite Pioneer Cemetery it is engraved "Lancisco Wilson - PIUTE". So one of the earliest headmen of Yosemite, who was the headman of the village of Wahoga, was a PAIUTE, and NOT a Miwok.

I hope you got them all right.

Now, if you didn't get it right it is probably because you got your answers from the faulty "official" Yosemite National Park Service website or from the Yosemite Assocation or from their books.