Miwok Indians made the region that we now call Sonoma County home for over five thousand years until they were captured and forced into slave labor by early Spanish colonists at the close of the 18th century.
From the 600 villages uncovered in the area, archeologists learned that the Coast Miwok had an extraordinarily abounding and intricate culture that included hunting for large game and birds, fishing, gathering of acorns and processing them, making baskets and beads, as well as ritualistic ceremonies that incorporated dancing and music. The language of the Coast Miwok Indians was unusually elaborate and extremely complicated.
The Patwin Indians …
The Patwin Indians are one of five other tribes (the Ululatos, the Libaytos, the Malacas, the Tolenas and the Suisunes) within the larger Wintum group who lived in the Sonoma Valley area for approximately four thousand years until they too were brutalized by the invading Spaniards in the 1800s.
The Patwin Indians are best characterized as keepers and tellers of local myths, far-reaching legends, tall tales and oral histories of their own families and the community at large. The Patwins strongly believed that their spiritual leaders, the shamans, were able to speak with the dead and heal the ailing.
The Wappo Indians …
The Wappo Indians inhabited the general territory that is now Sonoma County and sustained their livelihood and rich traditions by hunting and gathering off the abundance provided by the land, and their beautifully crafted baskets were constructed so well that they could hold water indefinitely.
The entire Wappo nation was forcefully baptized and absorbed into the various