Division of the Ohlone people of Northern California
Ethnic group
The
Chochenyo
(also called Chocheno, Chocenyo) are one of the divisions of the Indigenous
Ohlone (Costanoan)
people of
Northern California
. The Chochenyo reside on the east side of the
San Francisco Bay
(the
East Bay
), primarily in what is now
Alameda County
, and also
Contra Costa County
, from the
Berkeley Hills
inland to the western
Diablo Range
.
Ohlone elders at
Alisal Rancheria
(now
Pleasanton California
)
Chochenyo
(also called
Chocheno
and
East Bay Costanoan
) is also the name of their spoken language,
[1]
one of the Costanoan dialects in the
Utian family
. Linguistically, Chochenyo,
Tamyen
(also Tamien) and
Ramaytush
are thought to be close dialects of a single language.
The Ohlone tribes were
hunter-gatherers
who moved into the San Francisco Bay Region around 500 CE, displacing earlier
Esselen
people.
[2]
[
clarification needed
]
In Chochenyo territory, datings of the ancient Newark Shellmound,
West Berkeley Shellmound
, and
Emeryville Shellmound
attest to people residing in the Bay Area since
4000 BCE
.
[3]
Chochenyo territory was bordered by the
Karkin
to the north (at
Mount Diablo
), the
Tamyen
to the south and southwest, the San Francisco Bay to the west, and overlapped a bit with the
Bay Miwok
and
Yokuts
to the east.
The
West Berkeley Shellmound
, a Chochenyo
shellmound
During the California Mission Era, the Chochenyos moved en masse to the
Mission San Francisco de Asis
(founded in 1776) in San Francisco, and
Mission San Jose
of Fremont (founded in 1797). Most moved into one of these missions and were baptized, lived and educated to be Catholic
neophytes
, also known as
Mission Indians
, until the missions were discontinued by the Mexican Government in 1834. Then the people found themselves landless. A large majority of the Chochenyo died from disease in the missions and shortly thereafter, only a fragment remaining by 1900. The speech of the last two native speakers of Chochenyo was documented in the 1920s in the unpublished fieldnotes of the
Bureau of American Ethnology
linguist
John Peabody Harrington
.
In 1925,
Alfred Kroeber
, then director of the
Hearst Museum of Anthropology
, declared the Ohlone extinct, which directly led to its losing federal recognition and land rights.
[4]
Today, Chochenyo descendants have joined with the other San Francisco Bay Area Ohlone descendants under the name of the
Muwekma Ohlone Tribe
. As of 2007, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe were petitioning for U.S. federal recognition.
[5]
In 2017 the tribe opened
Cafe Ohlone
in Berkeley focused on traditional Chochenyo foods and cultural restoration.
Wo We Are
Chochenyo tribes and villages
[
edit
]
The East Bay and eastward mountain valleys were populated with dozens of Chochenyo tribes and villages. See:
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925.
Handbook of the Indians of California
. Washington, D.C:
Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin
No. 78. (map of villages, page 465)
- Milliken, Randall.
A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910
Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1995.
ISBN
0-87919-132-5
(alk. paper)
- Milliken, Randall.
Native Americans at Mission San Jose
Banning, CA: Malki-Ballena Press Publication, 2008.
ISBN
978-0-87919-147-4
(alk. paper)
- Teixeira, Lauren.
The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area, A Research Guide
. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1997.
ISBN
0-87919-141-4
.
External links
[
edit
]