They crossed the Bering Strait Bridge from Asia, intermingling, always south, until here, where our direct ancestors have lived in central California for at least three thousand years. The Sierra Nevada Mountain range to the Pacific coast area, north of San Francisco became our home. We lived in small scattered villages with no central authority to hamper us. Seven dialects were ours, the Coyote ancestor, trickster God created the earth, aided by the mighty bear, Uzumati, who gave us strength, communication, and bravery in all things.

              We lived in peace until the Spaniards came in 1500, then Franciscans enslaved us for their monasteries. Later Mexicans killed us and still later, gold miners murdered us, plus decimated our people through disease. A war of total annihilation was waged, our spoken word, of seven dialects, has become an endangered language, known only to scholars. Our people who numbered over twenty-two thousand in 1776 dwindled to four hundred ninety-seven by 1930. Today we try to live with a population of maybe three thousand. Once we were a hundred villages across this land, now we live in perhaps eleven. Miwok struggle to survive, to maintain our identity, and our culture, to remember the lost language, and perhaps recover some of our homelands. Coyote brother, and mighty Uzumati cry in the shadows, we are Miwok, original people.

MIWOK

Miwok traveled here, far from a frozen place,

Coyote then blessed us, food in plenty space.

Uzumati gave us heart, we prospered, life was good,

Gods were thanked, we loved the land, as only Miwok could.

The white man came and killed us, no land, no rights, no life,

What we had was yesterday, memory is a knife.

We are original people, Miwok