The raging debate continues on the future of Hetch Hetchy Valley. It has been a feature story in most prestiges newspapers and TV media. The story has been on most front pages and opinion pieces.
I believe that is good thing. That a debate on Hetch Hetchy is very good and that a person should see all sides on this issue. Restoration or keeping the dam is an important question that is in dispute and must be settled.
One of the main issues that we, as Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes have, is the Indian history of Hetch Hetchy. This is an important facet of the story of Hetch Hetchy and it should be remembered that before any dam was built there were Indian people who camped and lived in Hetch Hetchy Valley. Those people were the Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes.
One of the first written accounts of European-Americans entering the high Sierras was of Joseph Walker and his party, who encountered Paiutes on their trek across the west around 1833.
Then in 1850, Joseph, Nate and William Screech entered Hetch Hetchy Valley and were the first European-Americans to see the beauty and wonder that was the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
In the Valley they encountered Paiute Indian people camping in Hetch Hetchy.
1850 was a year before Major James D. Savage and the Mariposa Battalion entered Yosemite in 1851 to capture one of our leaders, Chief Tenaya (Ten-ie-ya).
My people would camp in Hetch Hetchy and roam the valley. They would travel throughout the area and camp at Piute Creek, Piute Mountain and Pate Valley (which J. S. Solomon wrote was misspelled and should have been Pait Valley). They would travel through all the Mono (Mono Paiute) trails to gather acorns, berries, seeds, roots and other foods.
John Muir wrote how he would see Mono Paiutes walking single file along the Mono Trails going back and forth through out the Yosemite-Hetch Hetchy area carrying burden baskets loaded with acorns they had picked. Muir wrote that sometimes my people would be painted in red clay which we Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes considered magic. We believed the red clay would protect us from evil. Some of the rocks around eastern Yosemite were painted with red clay by Paiutes.
John Muir with Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes. Many of them entered Yosemite Valley. This photo was taken around 1901 when Paiutes had just returned from collecting acorns in Hetch Hetchy at Chief Joe’s camp. The Paiute Indian woman is preparing and leaching acorns from Hetch Hetchy. We Paiutes collected and gathered our own acorns and were not traded. During this time C. Hart Merriam had interviewed the Paiutes who had just returned from their gathering forays into Hetch Hetchy Valley. There he met Chief Joe, Captain Jim, Jack Lundy, Nellie Charlie, who at that time was married to Joe.
C. F. Hoffman, the first official California state surveyor, interviewed the Screech brothers and other mountaineers and they said that Paiutes were the first people of Hetch Hetchy. The Paiutes had several battles with the Big Creek Indians from the lower foothills over Hetch Hetchy, but the Paiutes were victorious in retaining their ownership of Hetch Hetchy. Here is Hoffman’s written account of Hetch Hetchy and the Indians published Oct. 1867.
Hoffman later had one of the largest mountains of Yosemite, along the Paiute Tioga pass, named after him in honor of his work on surveying the Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy area.
After awhile more and more European-American gold seekers and water personnel kept having bad encounters with Paiutes in the upper Tuolumne River area. Paiutes did not appreciate trespassers entering what they considered their territory. They often attacked those intruders who in the earliest times wanted to control the waters of the upper Tuolumne.
Around June 28, 1861, one of the first dam tenders around the area above Hetch Hetchy, Jacob R. Giddes, was supposedly killed by Paiutes. Below is the account in the Gold Spring Dairy, the Journal of John Jolly, taken from the Tuolumne Historical Society.
On Feb. 11, 1858, John Jolly writes that whites in the area created vigilante groups to go after the Paiutes in the northern Yosemite area. Vigilante groups went to fight Paiutes who were in the Sierra Nevadas in the upper Tuolumne River, while the local lower foothill Indians worked in their mines.
Charles Augustus Stoddard wrote in “California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900 “, Beyond the Rockies; a spring journey in California, Chapter XXII, Hetch-Hetchy Valley:
Page 139 to 140:
“Hetch-Hetchy Valley became known to white men in 1867. Long before, it was a hiding-place for Indians, and it is still visited from year to year by Pah Utes [Paiutes] for the purpose of gathering acorns from majestic trees, under some of which we found shelter from the sun.”“In the summer of 1873, the remarkable cañon of the Tuolumne River east and a little north of Hetch-Hetchy was explored to Soda Springs, a distance of about twenty-two miles.”The vigliantes had temporarily pushed the Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes into Mono Lake, but it was only short lived. Our people kept re-entering the area secretly and continued to pick acorns and other plant foods. Below is an account of Paiutes entering Hetch Hetchy in 1903, by C. Hart Merriam, the noted California Indian anthropologist and ethnologist. This was taken from his personal notes.
It is a hard read, because the right and left part is cut off, but you can still read Hetch Hetchy.
Nellie Jim-Charlie. Her Paiute Indian name was Besa-Yoona. She and her family were mentioned in the above link as entering Hetch Hetchy Valley. They roamed the area gathering acorns and other foods. Her family was also some of the most prolific Native American basket makers in Yosemite, Mono Lake and through out eastern California.
My Great Aunt would recall how the old people would talk about how they would stay along Piute Creek, Piute Mountain and Pate Valley and talk about the old times. They would camp around Hetch Hetchy before it was flooded. They were surprised that the white man would flood such a place that was bountiful and so beautiful.
The old people lamented that Hetch Hetchy had the most abundant food plant species that they enjoyed.
We , the descendents of the original people who roamed Hetch Hetchy, wonder what our valley would look like today? We also want to be included in the story of Hetch Hetchy, our beautiful valley.
Oldest Native American basket found in Hetch Hetchy Valley and Central California – Paiute Indian burden basket.
cc: National Park Service
Part 1 of several parts concerning the American Indian indigenous history of Hetch Hetchy Valley.