North Valley Yokuts

The North Valley Yokuts are the northern cluster of Yokuts tribelets of the San Joaquin Valley, whose dialects formed the Northern Valley Yokuts network of the Yokutsan, or Penutian, languages. Each tribelet held a stretch of river, with permanent villages of several hundred people under a winatun, or head chief, living on fish, tule roots, acorns and game.

The Yokuts first met Spaniards in 1772, and mission raiding parties later carried many villagers off to forced labour. In 1833 malaria, spread through the shared sweat houses, swept through the valley villages and left the northern Yokuts greatly weakened.