Miwok Indians

Miwok Indians
Introduction:
This report is mainly about Miwok indians.
The pronunciation for the tribe is (mee-wok).
You will learn about Miwok shelter, food, and
clothing. You will also learn about the tools
they used, beliefs, customs and their traditions.
Coastal Region - Hand painted by
Valerie Zaparteza and Jordan
Shelter:
Miwoks lived in the coastal region. They
lived in conical -shaped houses. They were built
near streams,
bays, and
lagoons.
Their houses
were made
out of redwood
bark and tule
grass.
Tule grass is
just tall grass.
Miwoks had
two houses, one
to sleep in
and one to
store food
in.The houses
had a
willow frame
and a
grass
Miwok house
door.They
also had
sweat houses. Sweat houses were not slept in,
they were used for smoking food.
Food:
Miwok indians ate
deer, fish, berries,
acorns, seeds, fungi,
grasshoppers, mussels
and buckeye nuts.
Miwok indians ate eels, shellfish,and crab.
They also ate clovers, honey, sap, kelp, and
ducks. Miwok indians caught what they could
eat, nothing extra.
Tools:
Miwok indians used traps and stones for
hunting. They also used bow, arrows, and
fishing nets.They used snaresand clubs.A snare
is a trap that has a cage and a rope shaped as a
circle.
Clothing:
Miwok indian clothing were made out of
feathers.Sometimes the children wore very little
or NO clothing.For footwear they wore
moccasins.The girls sometimes
wore tule skirts and animal
skins.The women wore
bracelets and necklaces.
Roles:
Did you
know......girls were
taught how to tell
which plants were
safe and which
ones were
poisonous?
Miwok men hunted and were the
leaders of the tribe. Women harvested ,
gathered wood, and prepared the
food.The grandparents cared for the
children.The boys hunted also. The girls
cleaned the house. Boys and girls also
gathered wood and hauled water.
Beliefs:
Miwok indians didn’t believe in permanent
homes with walls because they wanted to be free
to roam around.They wanted to live WITH
nature.
Traditions:
Basket making was an important Miwok
tradition.Music was also important to them.
Miwok villages had shamans.The shamans
led the good and bad ceremonies.They could put
people in trances using local plants.Shamans
had the power to kill and cure illnesses and
diseases.They could also predict the future and
start the rains.
This report was mainly about Miwok indians.
You learned about Miwok shelter, food, and
clothing. You also learned about the tools they
used, their beliefs, customs and their traditions.