“Yokuts” in English means, “people” or “person”. To the Yokuts, it refers to “relatives”. Each subtribe has its own dialect, but they all belong to the California Penutian language family. They are characterized into three groups by geography and culture, they are the Northern Valley Yokuts, the Southern Valley Yokuts, and the Foothill Yokuts.
The Southern Valley Yokuts lived in the southern or upper end in the San Joaquin Valley. Presence of Yokuts in the Southern Valley date back to at least 8,000 years. Tulare Lake is a part of the Southern Valley and that is divided into between three tribes. They are the Tachi, Chunut, and Wowol.
In the southern valley summers are long and hot and winters are mild. This area has a lake-slough-marsh environment which provides the Yokuts with an enormous supply of animal and plant foods and a variety of plentiful wildlife. They fished with nets basket traps, and spears, hunted waterfowl such as geese, and ducks and collected shellfish. They also gathered roots and seeds. The rivers, sloughs, and the lakes are also used for transportation. They also traveled by foot, but preferred the water. They made their own canoe-shaped rafts out of dried tules put together.
There are two types of houses that the Yokuts live in. They are the single-family dwellings and and the communal residences. Single family dwellings are built near sloughs and marshes. They consist of tule mats over a wooden frame. These dwellings are not dug out because water would seep in. The communal residences are long and steep-roofed. They are built so that as many as ten families can live in it with a fireplace and a door of their own. They would also build mat-covered buildings to keep dried food in, but these are also owned by the entire community.
Families are made up of a husband, wife, and their children. This is the most basic family unit of the Southern Valley Yokuts. They use totem symbols to indicate “patrilineal totemic lineage”. Totemic symbols are normally an animal which is not to be eaten and is praised and looked up to. The mother’s totem is never passed to her children, but she still prays to the one her father passed on to her and her siblings. Most often the paternal moiety is passed on, but if there was a large family the husband sometimes “gave” his wife one or two children who accepted the responsibilities of the mother.
Clothing was very insignificant. Males went naked or wore one piece of cloth. Women wore a narrow fringed apron in front and a larger piece in back. If the temperature got cold, all they wrapped themselves in blankets or in skin cloaks made of animals. They normally went barefoot, but if they traveled they wore moccasins that they made. Men had no head coverings, but women wore basketry hats to carry food and other necessities.
Men had few if any tatoos and women had lines that zigzagged, and rows of dots that were mostly around the chin and across the corners of the mouth. Most of the men had piercings of the nose and and earlobes instead of a tatoo.
Many of the religious beliefs of the Yokuts focused on the weather. The shamans were the religious authorities. The shamans were believed to heal people. They took baths in springs every night, hoping to find supernatural power or power and advice from an animal that may come to the spring. This advice helped them to cure the other tribe members. If a shaman failed to heal or if they were suspected of being evil and using their power in a bad way, they were killed by the chief of that tribe rather than being protected by him.
Significant occassions for the Southern Yokuts were: birth, a girl’s puberty, marriage, and especially death. During birth, a mother squats and grasps onto a stake to give birth. She is attended by a midwife. If complications occuredr, then someone with more talent helped in the birth. A women had to follow certain taboos while pregnant, for example, she could not eat meat. After the women had the child she would lay on a bed of hot stones and ashes for two weeks to get rid of the effects of childbirth and then bathe.
Certain taboos were also followed during a girl's puberty. She was to remain indoors until the bleeding completely stopped and she could not eat meat. After the week was over people invited their neighbors for a celebration. A boy’s puberty received no attention.
Marriages were arranged and members married to people within their tribe. A year after the marriage, the couple moved in to the father's home.
After dying, they were instantly readied for a burial by an undertaker that was paid and usually a male transvestite. The body was placed with its head to the west or northwest in a grave outside the village. If a member of the Southern Valley Yokuts died away from home they were cremated. The taboos of death are that widows must cut their hair, stop washing their face, and remain alone until the burial ceremony. This is only done by the dead's immediate family. The name of the deceased is never mentioned in the presence of his family. It is believed that the soul leaves the body two days after burial and journeys to an afterworld in the west or northwest.
References:
1.) Wallace, William J. Southern Valley Yokuts. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1978
2.) Reid, Gerald F. Yokuts. Boston: 1991
3.) Tower, Christopher B. Yokuts. Detroit: Pacific NW, 1998
Written by: Erin Maday