The heart of Coast Miwok territory...
"My people have lived on the coast for at least 8,000 years. To live in spiritual and physical balance in the same small area for thousands of years without feeling the need to go somewhere else requires restraint, respect, knowledge, and assurance of one's place in the world.
Kathleen Smith, Bodega Miwok, 1993
Jamai, or Welcome to Tomales Bay in the traditional homeland of Coast Miwok people. For hundreds of years Miwok people lived along the shores, building canoes from the abundant tule plants and harvesting shellfish from the waters. Clams, oysters, abalone and salmon supplied a rich diet from the bay with deer and elk grazing on the grasslands providing additional food. Tule reed canoes plied the bay carrying people to the villages up and down the coast.
European explorers noted the area as early as 1579 when Sir Francis Drakes ship is purported to have entered Drakes Bay and sailors explored villages throughout the Point Reyes peninsula. In 1775, Juan Francisco de Bodega y Cuadra sailed into the bay and is believed to have met and traded with the Seglogue tribelet of the Coast Miwok who lived on what is now known as Tom's Point.
The establishment of Mission San Francisco de Asis in San Franciso in 1776 began the missionization process and the dismantling of traditional lifeways for Coast Miwok people. The villages along Tomales Bay were emptied as people were brought to work at Mission San Rafael and Mission San Francisco.
As the mission system broke apart in the separation of Mexico and Spain, land grants were returned to Coast Miwok in Nicasio and at Olompali near Novato. Coast Miwok families also returned to live along Tomales Bay at Marshall and at what is now known in the National Seashore as Sacramento Landing. Legal challenges and government action eroded their land base to a small rancheria in Sonoma County.
The Graton Rancheria serves as the land base for the Coast Miwok who are organized as a federally recognized tribe "The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria". Miwok people gather in the homeland for two public celebrations each year, Strawberry Festival on the fourth Saturday of April and Big Time, the third Saturday of July.
For more information:
Volunteers are needed to maintain the Coat Miwok exhibit at Point Reyes:
KuleLoklo.com
For information on the Coast Miwok language:
Learning Coast Miwok
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Recommended Reading
The Coast Miwok of Point Reyes, Sylvia Thalman; Point Reyes National Seashore Association
Resources
Festivals at Point Reyes National Seashore
http://www.nps.gov/pore
Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin (MAPOM)
http://www.mapom.com
Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria
http://www.gratonrancheria.org
320 Tesconi Circle, Suite G
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
(707) 566-2288
Marin Museum of the American Indian
http://www.marinindian.com
(415) 897-4064
Tomales Regional History Center
26701 Highway 1
Tomales, California
(707) 878-9443
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