lisiánish | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Languages | |
| Chochenyo language |
TheChochenyo (also called Chocheño, Chocenyo) are one of the divisions of the IndigenousOhlone (Costanoan) people ofNorthern California. The Chochenyo reside on the east side of theSan Francisco Bay (theEast Bay), primarily in what is nowAlameda County, and alsoContra Costa County, from theBerkeley Hills inland to the westernDiablo Range.
Chochenyo (also calledChocheño andEast Bay Costanoan) is also the name of their spoken language,[1] one of the Costanoan dialects in theUtian family. Linguistically, Chochenyo,Tamyen (also Tamien) andRamaytush are thought to be close dialects of a single language.
The Ohlone tribes werehunter-gatherers who moved into the San Francisco Bay Region around 500 CE, displacing earlierEsselen people.[2][clarification needed] In Chochenyo territory, datings of the ancient Newark Shellmound,West Berkeley Shellmound, andEmeryville Shellmound attest to people residing in the Bay Area since4000 BCE.[3]
Chochenyo territory was bordered byKarkin territory to the north (atMount Diablo),Tamyen territory to the south and southwest, and the San Francisco Bay to the west, overlapping a bit with theBay Miwok andYokuts to the east.
During the California Mission Era, the Chochenyo moved en masse to theMission San Francisco de Asís (founded in 1776) in San Francisco, andMission San José of Fremont (founded in 1797). Most moved into one of these missions and were baptized, lived and educated to be Catholicneophytes, also known asMission Indians. When the missions were discontinued by the Mexican Government in 1834, the people found themselves landless. A large majority of the Chochenyo died from disease in the missions and shortly thereafter, with only a fragment remaining by 1900. The speech of the last two native speakers of Chochenyo was documented in the 1920s in the unpublished fieldnotes of theBureau of American Ethnology linguistJohn Peabody Harrington.
In 1925,Alfred Kroeber, then director of theHearst Museum of Anthropology, declared the Ohlone extinct, which directly led to its losing federal recognition and land rights.[4]
Today, some Ohlone, of which most are Chochenyo, have formed theMuwekma Ohlone Tribe. As of 2007, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe were petitioning for U.S. federal recognition.[5]
In 2017, Chochenyo chefVincent Medina and hisRumsen partnerLouis Trevino openedCafe Ohlone in Berkeley, focused on traditional Chochenyo foods and cultural restoration.[6]