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There are a few dozen speakers of the three Sierra Miwok languages, and in 1994 there were two speakers of Lake Miwok. The best attested language is Southern Sierra Miwok, from which the name Yosemite originates. [3] The name Miwok comes from the Northern Sierra Miwok word miw·yk meaning 'people.' [4]
The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word Miwok means people in the Miwok languages. [citation needed]
Today, there is some debate about the original meaning of the word, since the Southern Miwok language is virtually extinct, but recent Southern Miwok speakers defined it as "place like a gaping mouth." Those living in awahni were known as the Awahnichi (also spelled Awani, Ahwahnechee, and similar variants), meaning "people who live in awahni".
While they did not have an overarching name for themselves, the Coast Miwok word for people, Micha-ko, was suggested by A. L. Kroeber as a possible endonym, [2] keeping with a common practice among tribal groups and the ethnographers studying them in the early 20th century and with the term Miwok itself, which is the Central Sierra Miwok word ...
Southern Sierra Miwok is a member of the Miwok language family. The Miwok languages are a part of the larger Utian family. The original territory of the Southern Sierra Miwok people is similar to modern day Mariposa County, California. The Southern Sierra Miwok language is nearly extinct with only a few speakers existing today. [2]
The original Lake Miwok people world view included Shamanism, one form this took was the Kuksu religion that was evident in Central and Northern California, which included elaborate acting and dancing ceremonies in traditional costume, an annual mourning ceremony, puberty rites of passage, shamanic intervention with the spirit world and an all-male society that met in subterranean dance rooms.
The Bay Miwok are a cultural and linguistic group of Miwok, a Native American people in Northern California who live in Contra Costa County.They joined the Franciscan mission system during the early nineteenth century, suffered a devastating population decline, and lost their language as they intermarried with other native California ethnic groups and learned the Spanish language.
Miwok myths suggest their spiritual and philosophical world view. In several different creation stories collected from Miwok people, Coyote was seen as their ancestor and creator god , sometimes with the help of other animals, forming the earth and making people out of humble materials like feathers or twigs.