Tsnungwe

The Tsnungwe, also called the South Fork Hupa, are an Athabaskan-speaking people of the lower South Fork Trinity River in northwestern California. Their ancestors entered the region from the north around the year 1000 with other Hupa-speaking groups. Their name means the people of Ironside Mountain, and their speech was a dialect of Hupa, although many also spoke the unrelated Chimariko language of the Trinity canyon.

They comprised two local groups: the łe꞉lxwe around their principal settlement and religious center, and the Chima꞉lxwe of the New River, whom the Karuk called the New River people.

Their country bordered those of the Hupa, Yurok, Wiyot, Chimariko, Shasta, Karuk and Wintu, and their villages often contained speakers of several of these languages. Salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey from the river, together with black-tailed deer, formed the core of their diet.