Description
The Plains and Sierra Miwok were once the largest group of California Indian Miwok people, Indigenous to California. Their homeland included regions of the Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, and the Sierra Nevada. Miwok descendants numbered more than 5,700 in the early 21st century. The predominant theory regarding the settlement of the Americas dates the original migrations from Asia to around 20,000 years ago across the Bering Strait land bridge, but anthropologist Otto von Sadovszky claims that the Miwok and some other northern California tribes descend from Siberians who arrived in California by sea around 3,000 years ago.
Language
Plains Miwok is a Miwokan language
Culture
The Plains and Sierra Miwok lived by hunting and gathering, and lived in small local tribes, without centralized political authority. They are skilled at basketry and continue the traditions today. The original Plains and Sierra Miwok people world view included Shamanism. One form this took was the Kuksu religion that was evident in Central and Northern California, which included elaborate acting and dancing ceremonies in traditional costume, an annual morning ceremony, puberty rites of passage, shamanic intervention with the spirit world.