So you think you know the history of Yosemite and the Native People of that area in California.
You read all the little booklets and seen the interpretive signs that are in Yosemite, now see if you know the REAL history of Yosemite’s first people, the American Indians of one of the most famous parks in America. A park that was “discovered” during the early California Gold Rush.
So lets see how how much you budding California Historians, archealogists, anthropologists, and future and current rangers of Yosemite National Park know?
1. What is the definition of Yosemite?
A. Some of them are killers (the Paiutes)
B. The Killers or the Grizzlies
C. Yose’s tribe
D. An unknown Miwok word that means ‘edible seeds’
2. Who was the only man to meet the original Yosemite Indians and write about them?
A. Stephen Powers
B. C. Hart Merriam
C. Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell
D. Maj. James Savage
3. What year did the ‘Americans’ discover Yosemite Valley?
A. 1851
B. 1972
C. 1850
D. 1880
4. Who is credited in ‘discovering’ Yosemite Valley?
A. James Fremont and his expedition band
B. John Sutter and his men
C. James Savage and the Mariposa Battalion
D. Charles Weber and his gold mining Indians
5. Which book has everything we know about the original Indians of Yosemite?
A. The Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian war of 1851 which led to that event
B. The Yosemite Miwoks, by Stephen Powers
C. The Indians of Yosemite, by Galen Clark
D. The History of Tuolumne County
6. In the book about the first encounter with the Yosemite Indians, how did the writer describe the chief and the village of the original Yosemite Indians?
A. Chief Tenaya was the founder of the Paiute Colony of Ahwahnee
B. Chief Tenaya was the chief of the Yosemite Miwoks living in umachas
C. Chief Bautista was the chief of the Southern Sierra Miwuks of Yosemite
D. Chief Bautista was the chief of a combined band of Miwoks, Paiutes and Casson Yokuts living in Yosemite Valley
7. The writer said that the chief of the Yosemite Indians told him he was born…
A. in Yosemite Valley, where the Indian Village is located in the Park
B. at Mono Lake, in Mono County
C. in Tuolumne County on the Miwok reservation in a umacha
D. in a Miwok village at the foot of Yosemite falls.
8. The writer who met the chief of the Yosemite Indians said the chief spoke…
A. Southern Sierra Miwuk dialect
B. combined languages of Miwok, Paiute and Yokut
C. Paiute jargon and Mono
D. Central and Southern Sierra Miwok
9. When the chief of the Yosemite Indians was captured he kept escaping, where did he escape to?
A. He hid out with the Miwoks of Tuolumne who hid him out and protected him
B. He went to Mono Lake and the Paiutes gave him an allotment
C. He never escaped he stayed in Mariposa County and became the chief of the Mariposa Indians
D. The Mewuks of Calaveras helped him escape and kept him hidden for years until he died
10. What does Hetch Hetchy Valley have to do with Yosemite?
A. nothing
B. It is located above Yosemite National Park
C. It is located in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park
D. It is located in the Sequoia National forest
11. Who were the first non-Indians to enter Hetch Hetchy Valley?
A. Joseph, Nate, and William Screech
B. James Fremont and his expedition
C. Maj. James Savage and the Mariposa Battalion
D. Mexican governor Alvardo and his garrison
12. Which tribe did the first non-Indians say lived in Hetch Hetchy?
A. Tuolumne Mewuks
B. Southern Sierra Miwuks
C. Paiutes
D. Central and Southern Miwoks
13. Who documented that?
A. Stephen Powers, the journalist
B. C. Hart Merriam
C. James Savages
D. C. F. Hoffmann, California surveyor
14. What year was Hetch Hetchy Valley discovered?
A. 1851
B. 1972
C. 1850
D. 1901
15. Many of the descendants of the Yosemite Indians have three chiefs on their families 1929 California Indian applications. Which one of the chiefs does not belong in the group and why? Chief Bautista, Chief Tenaya, Cypriano?
A. Chief Bautista because he never helped the whites
B. Cypriano because he fought the whites to his death
C. Chief Tenaya because he was not aligned with the other chiefs
D. They all belong together because all three fought against the whites in a combined effort
16. Which one of these chiefs NEVER signed the Fremont or Barbour Treaty giving up their title to the land and Yosemite?
A. Chief Tenaya
B. Chief Bautista
C. Cypriano
C. Pasqual
17. Which chief, besides Russio, gave the Indians of Yosemite that name “Yosemite”?
A. Chief Tenaya
B. Chief Bautista
C. Cypriano
D. Pasqual
18. Recently California Indian expert Brian Bibby, working with the Southern Sierra Miwuk group, wrote in his book Deeper Than Gold that this chief was the leader of their people during the time of the discovery of Yosemite.
A. Pasqual
B. Cypriano
C. Chief Tenaya
D. Chief Bautista
19. During his second capture, which caused the death of his son, the Chief of the Yosemite Indians was trying to escape from the white military, how was he captured?
A. He tripped and fell and the Battalion scooped him up
B. There was an earthquake and the rocks fall in front of his path
C. The Pohonochee and Nutchu (Southern Sierra Miwuks) scouts blocked his escape path
D. His enemies, the Mono Lake Paiutes.
20. Which Indian language did Major James Savage learn to speak from his Indian workers?
A. Miwok, even the royal Miwok language
B. The language of the Yosemite Indian’s enemies, the Paiute language
C. Mission Indian language, because he hired Mission Indians
D. Maidu language
21. Who killed Major James Savage, the man who first captured the Yosemite Indians and was the leader of the Mariposa Battalion?
A. He was killed by the brave Yosemite Miwuks who fought bravely to the man to repel the Mariposa Battalion from their beloved Yosemite Valley.
B. He was killed by another settler named Judge Walter Harvey who shot Savage after Savage struck him.
C. He was killed by Joaquin Murrieta, the famous bandit in the area.
D. He was not killed but lived a long life with his many Indian wives, mining gold. He became a very rich man and died at the age of 101.
22. Who was with Major Savage, of the Mariposa Battalion fame, when he lay dying?
A. At the age of 101 he was surrounded by his children and servants in his mansion he built with all the gold he had prospected.
B. His men from the Mariposa Battalion as they bravely fought off the Yosemite Miwuks. Major Savage had been struck down by the bravest Yosemite Miwok warrior with an arrow to the heart.
C. A prostitute in a brothel in the mining town of Sonora
D. His Southern Sierra Miwok wives and workers who cried, screamed and wailed “Our white father is dead”.
23. Who killed the Chief of the Yosemite Indians?
A. Mono Lake Paiutes, because he repaid their hospitality with theft
B. Major James Savage of the Mariposa Battalion
C. The Yokuts
D. The Yosemite Miwoks killed their own chief in a dispute
24. What happened to the remaining Yosemite Indians?
A. The Yosemite Miwuks are still in Yosemite Valley, but they live in Mariposa County and became the American Indian Council of Mariposa.
B. They died out and there were none left
C. After the death of their chief the majority of the Yosemite Indians were taken back to Mono Lake and absorbed into the Paiute population.
D. The majority of the Yosemite Mewuks split and some became the Tuolumne band of Mewuks while the rest became Southern Sierra Miwuks. Some even became Cassons.
25. Which one of these Indian people was NOT a chief or captain in Yosemite and why?
A. Captain Sam, because he was a Paiute and no Paiutes were in Yosemite.
B. Captain John, because he was the leader of the Mono Lake Paiutes.
C. Mary Wilson, because she was not from Yosemite and no woman could be a chief/captain in Yosemite during early times.
D. Captain Jim, because he was not really a captain, but Yosemite Indian ethnologist Craig Bates, wrote he was a just some guy named Pete from Bridgeport
26. How long has the Yosemite Indian Village behind the Indian Museum been there?
A. It has always been there. It was like that when Yosemite became a park.
B. It was created by Craig Bates and other non-Indians in the mid 1970s.
C. It made during the late 1920s when the new Indian village was built.
D. It was made during the 1940s because the Yosemite Miwuks wanted to dance their traditional dances for themselves.
27. Where was the early Yosemite Indian Field Days basket making held?
A. In Mono County, because that is where the basket making Indians lived.
B. In Mariposa County, because everyone knows that the American Indian Council of Mariposa, who were the original Indians of Yosemite live.
C. Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Indian Field Days = Yosemite Indian basket making
D. Tuolumne County on the Tuolumne Indian reservation
28. On Captain Sam’s 1929 California Indian government application, with an affidavit, with his thumbprint, witnessed by his daughter, and two Indian witnesses who knew him for years, he says his wife, Susie Sam, is a…
A. Southern Sierra Miwuk
B. Yosemite Miwok
C. Chukchansi Yokut
D. Paiute
29. Chief George One-Eyed Dick, leader of the Yosemite Indians in the early 1900s, son Charlie Dick said in a 1930 General U.S. census he was a…
A. Southern Sierra Miwuk
B. Yosemite Miwok
C. Chukchansi Yokut
D. Paiute
30. Lancisco Wilson was related to Chief Dick. Lancisco was the headman of the Yosemite Indian village of Wahoga. What is engraved on his grave marker in the Yosemite Pioneer Cemetery?
A. Lancisco Wilson – Rest in Peace
B. Lancisco Wilson – Yosemite Miwok chief
C. Lancisco Wilson – Piute
D. Lancisco Wilson – Mariposa Indian leader
I will post the answers later….good luck on the test. If you can guess the majority of the answers you SHOULD be working in Yosemite National Park Service as a Yosemite ranger and interpreter.
* Here are the answers. Don’t peek now.
Answers to the questions - Don't Peek
