Essay On Miwok Native Americans

arguments, and directed the hunting and gathering. A new chief of a tribe would be the son of the original chief. This would go on for generations. Each village in a tribelet had a speaker that would be the sub-chief if the headman couldn’t be there. Sort of like a vice president.

Kyen: The Miwok Native Americans hunted deer as their main source of food, but also hunted, grizzlies and black bears. They ate small animals such as rabbits, beavers, squirrels and woodrats. They fished for trout in the rivers and streams in the Valley for food, too. They cooked all these dead animals above an open fire or a stone oven that was heated by hot rocks. The main plants that they would eat were columbine, milkweed, wild pea, sheep sorrel and occasionally mushrooms and roots. They also ate seeds like pine nuts and acorns that they would smash and then add water to make a type of mush to eat. To do that they would use the surrounding rocks and grind them. This caused holes to be carved into the rocks. They also used smaller rocks to mush the acorns and pine nuts. The rocks they used were called grinding rocks. The Miwoks would make these buildings from twigs and branches and vines to store acorns and pine nuts for further use

They made the arrows from cedar wood and animal tendons called sinew. To sharpen and shape the arrows they would use pieces of antlers from deer. The spears were made like the arrows but instead of sinew to make the killing part they used obsidian which is a volcanic glass. The women in the tribes would make baskets from twining and coiling young willow tree branches and Redbud fibers together that allowed the Miwoks to be able to use these baskets to help them in gathering. They also made Tule Mats that are made from weaving tule reeds from marshy areas of the Valley. They also used woven tule reeds and branches to make rafts to travel across streams in the