Yosemite: The First People

About This Item

A KRON-TV documentary film from 1990, presented by Suzanne Shaw, which looks at the history of the Ahwahnechee people of Yosemite Valley, in California's western Sierra Nevada mountains. Includes interviews with Native American people (Marshall Jack, Julia Parker and Jay Johnson) who are honoring the Ahwahnechee, archival photographs and historical accounts taken from Galen Clark and Lafayette Bunnell, M.D. (read by Sean Kilcoyne) and extensive views of Yosemite Valley. Also features views of 37 Native American people, led by Marshall Jack, who make a 50 mile walk from the East side of the Sierra Nevada to Yosemite Valley, to honor their ancestors: "All of them reliving the past, hoping to learn from it. Not letting it disappear." There is an account made of how The Mariposa Battalion entered the valley on March 27th 1851, in pursuit of Chief Tenaya and his people and what happened to the Ahwahnechee. This film was produced, written and photographed by Ken Swartz, with original music by John Rosenburg and Frank Macchia.

Originally aired on
KRON-TV
Date aired
9/30/90
Recording medium
1-inch Type C video tape
49:28
Rights for this video belong to
KRON-TV
Type of material
special program
Identifier
KRON 19
Views
11826

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Comments

Over a year ago, Joe Rhoan wrote…

(1) Chief Tenaya was a Mono Lake Paiute.(2) Vowchester a.k.a. Chief Bautista aided James Savage to help capture Tenaya. (3) History should also include the 1890 petition of the Yosemite Indian's claim to Yosemite National Park.(4) Documentation shows - There are no Yosemite Miwoks. (5) The upcoming proposed Indian Center in Yosemite should include photos of PokoTucket a.k.a. Captain John who was the last historic chief of Yosemite, 1878. (6) NPS of Yosemite are using Paiutes to depict Miwok Culture.

It should also be noted that the original Ahwahnee's and Tenaya's band fled to their homeland of Mono Lake, were they were absorbed into the Mono Lake population in 1854, but had always inhabited Yosemite National Park as their traditional homeland. This principal is based on the earliest written accounts of the Mariposa Battalion's Lafayette Bunnell. 

Today, the National Park Service, is in the process of rewriting the history of the Yosemite Indians; committing cultural genocide and other atrocities against this great nation. They instead are consulting with an unrecognized Indian group / non profit organization, who have been making decisions a federally recognized group should  be  doing.

Over a year ago, Yosemite Indian wrote…

This film quotes Lafayette H. Bunnell's book "The Discovery of Yosemite" but fails to quote accurately!  At 4:32, the film fails to state Tenaya was born at Mono Lake and was a Mono Lake Paiute. This film fails the true historical aspects of Bunnell's book which never mentioned the word "Miwok" but however documents the true history of the Yosemite Mono Lake Paiute! When Tenaya created the Pah Ute colony of Ahwahnee, he created this band out of Mono Lake Paiutes, not Miwoks. It appears as if this film was created to satisfy one the 7 points for Federal Recognition and this station bought into the lie, hook, line and sinker. The point would be to illustrate how the non profit American Indian Council of Mariposa still practice their "Traditional Ways." So odd how the members who are Paiute now call themselves Miwoks.

Over a year ago, Yosemite_Indian wrote…

Why don't they watch from Yosemite to Mariposa if they are Miwok? Why do the Miwoks walk the same path the Mono Paiutes entered Yosemite Valley if they are Miwoks? That is because the original Indians of Yosemite were PAIUTES, not Miwoks.

How do you think the white Mariposa Battalion FOUND Chief Tenaya and his village? The Miwok were the scouts and workers for the whites and LED them to Tenaya and his people who were hiding out.

Read that in Lafayette H. Bunnell's book "The Discovery of Yosemite". In the book it is DOCUMENTED that Tenaya was the founder of the PAIUTE Colony of Ahwahnee and that Tenaya spoke PAIUTE and that his band was made of Monos and Paiutes, not Miwoks. That is in the book noted in the final credits, yet the video said Tenaya's band were Miwoks...uh...no they weren't. They were Paiutes. Miwoks were AFRAID of the Ahwahneechees and were the Indians that called the Ahwahneechees the "Yosemites". In Miwok Yosemite means 'THEY ARE KILLERS' because they were afraid of them.

So the Miwoks were not the original Indians of Yosemite, but it was the Mono Lake Paiutes...in fact that is where Tenaya was born...so where was that in the video?

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