The official Yosemite National Park definition of the word Yosemite is supposedly from the Southern Sierra Miwuks translation meaning “Some of them are killers”. They are referring to themselves as “some of them are killers”, which does not make any sense to us Paiutes.

If you are any tribal person you know that many times your nations and tribal people’s name is more often “the people” or something that refers back to your self identification. Many tribal language people know their original Native name for themselves. That is unless you work at the Park.

If you are taking a vacation to Yosemite National Park some people do some research regarding their destination. If you go to the website of the Yosemite Association, a non-profit that assists the Park. On their website here this the Southern Sierra Miwok definition of the meaning of Yosemite;

The Meaning of "Yosemite"

"Yosemite" is derived from a Southern Miwok word. It is clear that the early European-Americans first used the term "Yosemite" to refer to the Indian people who were reported to live in a yet-undiscovered mountain stronghold. Only in 1851, when the Mariposa Battalion first entered the Valley in search of the Yosemite Indians, did they coin Yosemite as a place name. Yosemite is derived from a Miwok word "Yehemite," which translates "some among them are killers." This is probably how Mariposa-area Indians referred to the people who lived in Yosemite Valley. Many southern Miwok people in Yosemite intermarried with Paiute people from the eastern Sierra. Traditionally, Paiute and Miwok were enemies. Thus, when Mariposa Indians referred to people in the Valley, they commented that some among them (the Paiute) were killers.”

The term “some of them are killers” for Yosemite people has never been seen before until the official Yosemite National Park’s Indian ethnologist Craig D. Bates wrote about it some 30 years ago around 1970. Before that this definition was never used. The real Miwok definition of Yosemite is “The Killers” and did not include the term “some of THEM…”

Craig D. Bates is a Caucasian who was married to a Mewuk woman at the time of his employment as the Yosemite National Park ethnologist in the early 1970s. Craig Bates had no university or college degree to hold that position as an ethnologist only the fact that he was married to a Miwok. Around 1970, to explain why the Southern Sierra Miwuk were afraid of the Yosemite Indians we believe that Craig Bates, using his official position as the Park’s “Indian expert” created this new definition that was never seen before. Craig Bates was heavily into his Miwok wife’s culture and was instrumental in revising Miwok culture in the Park. The only problem was the original indigenous Native Americans of Yosemite were Mono Paiutes who were once enemies of the Southern Sierra Miwuk and not Miwoks. Even today Yosemite National Park Service is refusing to correct the many inaccuracies we believe that Craig Bates wrote regarding the Indian people of Yosemite and the region. You would think Yosemite National Park Service would have the real definition of the word Yosemite instead of one that was created by one person who was married to a Miwok, but so far they have refused to correct this.

Craig D. Bates indicated that the term and definition came from Southern Sierra Miwok informants in interviews done by Sylvia Broadbent in her dictionaries and tales of the Central Mewuk and Southern Sierra Miwok. You can find Broadbent’s Miwok dictionaries online, but not once in her books did the informants refer to Yosemite Indians as “some of them are killers” in both dictionaries. In fact in the Miwok dictionaries Yosemite means “the killers” or “they are killers” and not “some of them are killers” indicating they were once enemies.

This brings us back to the definition of Yosemite by the Southern Sierra Miwuks as “Some of them are killers”.

The first indication that they were not the same people is the word “them”. Let me ask you Native language speakers, why would you call yourselves “them”? The definition of the word “them” in the dictionary means “refers to things or people other than the speaker or people addressed.” This means that you are referring to another group of people and not yourselves.

I know many will say that on the Yosemite Association website it states that it was the Mariposa area Indians living west of them who referred to the Yosemites as “some of them are killers” not the Southern Sierra Miwuks. Since the definition came from Sylvia Broadbent’s Southern Sierra Miwuk informants this means that the Mariposa area Indians in question were the Miwoks themselves. Broadbent’s informants were;

Chris Brown (Chief Leeme), of Bootjack (deceased November 1956)
Alvis Brown, of Bootjack
John Lawrence, brother of Susie Leonard (deceased 1957)
Bill Bolton, of Bootjack
Castro Johnson, brother of Henry Johnson of Mariposa
Rose Watt
Emma Lord
Benjamin (Banjo) Graham
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Graham
Charlie Bohan

Sylvia Broadbent’s informants in the 1950s were the ancestors of those now claiming to be the original Yosemite Indians the Southern Sierra Miwuk. They are the same Mariposa area Indians who lived west of Yosemite calling the Yosemite Indians “some of them are killers”. Why are the descendents of those who called the Yosemites “them” claiming to now be the same people? In other words they are not the same people. They are not the Ahwahneechees. The original Ahwahneechees were taken back to Mono Lake an absorbed back into the Mono Lake Paiute people in 1853.