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The Yana
The Yana Indians inhabited the rugged, volcanic region of the Southern Cascade foothills, above the Sacramento River. Speakers of the Hokan language family, they were divided into four linguistic subgroups, of which Yahi was the southernmost. Prior to the coming of the Spanish, the Yana probably numbered between 1500 and 2000. They hunted deer and other game, fished for salmon, and gathered seeds, roots, acorns, berries, and fruits.
Yana society was village-based. There were no social classes, but shamans and chiefs had high status. Chiefs enjoyed greater wealth and served as dance leaders. The villagers held ceremonies to ensure success in hunting, ward off illness, and guide an individual's passage through life. Each fall, feasts celebrated the acorn harvest and salmon run.
The Yana way of life was severely disrupted by the influx of Euro-Americans in the mid-nineteenth century. As ranchers and farmers laid claim to Yana oak groves, hunting grounds, and fishing areas, traditional subsistence activities became increasingly difficult to maintain and Yana territory shrank dramatically.
Contact with new diseases and a policy that condoned genocide decimated the Yahi. By the 1 860s, surviving Yana had been forced off their land and were working as domestic servants and field laborers in the Sacramento Valley. By 1872, there were fewer than seventy Yana left and only a few Yahi.
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