Writing Assignment

In the last two weeks, Grandma C took the kids to the Santa Cruz Mission, and then to Yosemite, to learn more about Native Californians. Next week we are going to Chaw'se Indian Grinding Rock to learn more. We have been reading some of the pamphlets they picked up, and The Ohlone People of Central California, an educator's guide, by Douglas Petersen and Linda Yamane, and some articles off of the internet about current California Indian Cultural issues. For example, we talked about how some of the modern Ohlone community is trying to get recognition from the Federal Goverment, and why they can have different laws on Indian land.

We studied creation stories, housing, regions, marriage traditions, games, food staples and gender roles. They each wrote some comparisons between Miwok and Ohlone traditional cultures.

Sam: The Ohlone are Indians that live on the coast. They believe that they were created by hawk, crow and hummingbird out of clay. Also, different tribes of Ohlone speak eight different languages. An interesting fact is that there are sometimes 500 people in one village. They have awesome tule houses that can hold 10 or 15 people. Their square acorn granaries are made from tule too! They have an outside dance place and an inside ceremony place. That is a few facts about Ohlone Indians.

The Miwok are Indians that live in the Sierra Nevadas, on the coast, and in the valley of California. They believe that they were made by Coyote out of sticks. Instead of having a separate dance place than their ceremonial place, they had them together in a ceremonial roundhouse.

C: The Ohlone and Miwuk are alike and different in many ways. First, they make acorn mush the same way (more on that later), and are both tribes of Native American people. Secondly, the Miwuks have houses of bark, whiel the Ohlones have reed housing. Third, the Miwuk have covered granaries while the ohlone have mere baskets. Last but not least, the Miwuk thought they used to be crows while the Ohlone thought that they are made from rocks, black dye and clay. These two tribes are alike and different in many ways.