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| Above, Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, near Camp 4 campground. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
About 50 years ago, the last remaining Native American village in Yosemite Valley was torn down.
It is about to return.
According to the Fresno Bee:
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK - Bill Tucker brushes pine needles from a flat, granite boulder to reveal bowl-shaped holes once used by his mother and grandmother to grind acorn and native plants for cooking.
“This is home!” the 78-year-old Miwuk and Paiute says at the site of the last Native American village in Yosemite Valley, destroyed by the National Park Service by 1969.
Nearly half a century later, the village is being rebuilt.
The project is personal for native elders like Tucker who once lived there and have remained near Yosemite.
Yosemite’s native community dwindled after a battalion of state militia found the area in the mid-1800s while hunting for Native Americans believed to be living in a mountain stronghold. Villages were burned and Native Americans were shot, hung or captured. Others fled to the foothills or eastern Sierra. The Park Service today officially recognizes seven tribes as having traditional ties to Yosemite.
Some resilient Native Americans found a way to stay. Early on, many worked service jobs, weaved baskets and performed traditional dances for tourists. Their last village – 15 small cabins near the Camp 4 campground, just down the road from Yosemite Lodge – was gradually leveled as its inhabitants lost seasonal or full-time employment in the park. Those who retained employment were moved into housing elsewhere.
A traditional Native American village is being rebuilt at the site of the last native village in Yosemite Valley. The original village was destroyed by the National Park Service nearly 50 years ago. The house Bill Tucker lived in was the only survivor of the burning of a cluster of houses lived in by Native Americans.
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