The Geography and Dialects of the Miwok Indians - Yosemite Online

334 University of California Publications in Am . Arch. and Ethn . [Vol. 6
area has been described and bounded in detail in " The Ethnogeography
of the Porno and Neighboring Indians" which constitutes
a part of the present volume.
The second of the three areas lies on the northern shore of
San Francisco bay, and comprises Marin county together with a
small portion of the southern part of Sonoma and a very small
part of Napa counties. Within this area are two dialectic divisions.
The smaller, which may be conveniently termed the
Western Coast or Bodega dialectic area, comprises a very small
territory immediately about the shores of Bodega bay . The
larger division may be termed the Southern Coast or Marin
dialectic area, and occupies the remainder of the area . These
two dialectic areas have also been described and bounded in the
paper referred to above.
The third or main area occupied by people belonging to the
Moquelumnan or Miwok stock comprises, generally speaking, that
portion of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains
which extends from Cosumnes river on the north to Fresno river
on the south.
Information concerning the two smaller Moquelumnan or
Miwok areas in the Coast region was obtained, together with the
other information embodied in "The Ethno-geography of the
Porno and Neighboring Indians," during the years 1903-6. The
information here given, concerning the main or Sierra area, that
inhabited by the people usually specifically known as the Miwok,
was obtained during the summer of 1906, both investigations
being made as part of the Ethnological and Archaeological Survey
of California conducted by the University of California through
the generous support of Mrs. Phoebe A. Hearst. The more
recent investigation of the Miwok proper was combined with
other work to which it was to a certain extent subsidiary . With
a large area to be covered and limited time available, it was
impossible to go into great detail in the determination of boundaries
and sub-dialectic differences . Sufficient information was
however obtained to make possible a classification of the Miwok
language into dialects, and a reasonably thorough determination
of the boundaries of the family and of these dialectic divisions.
As is almost always the case in working over the ethno-geography