I recently became a Patreon supporter of Queer Nature, a queer-run nature education and ancestral skills program serving the local LGBTQ2+ community. They teach ecological and situational awareness in nature, as well as survival/self-sufficiency skills.
When I began supporting Queer Nature, I received a 30-page document called “Meeting the Land,” which describes their philosophies in more depth. One of their suggestions is to keep in mind that the flora, fauna and landscape elements in our regions had names before colonial/settlers gave them the names they may have today, and to be curious what those names might have been. Those of us from a white/settler/colonist background are definitely not entitled to these names, and we should not use them to signal that we are “good” or “not racist,” Queer Nature’s founders write.
“Respecting first names is about a lot of things, but it is partially about a personal practice of remembering and honoring that these beings have been in relationship with other cultures and ways of knowing for a long time and integrating that understanding into our ways of being as naturalists in socially/politically/ecologically apocalyptic times. Just the fact that these beings have names other than their names in colonial languages, or Latin binomial nomenclature, is vitally important,” they write.
When I wrote Sacred Sonoma almost 25 years ago, I included many of the Pomo/Miwok place names that were publicly available, wanting to lead readers down paths similar to the ones Queer Nature expressed. Many of these names indicate indigenous peoples’ relationship to a place. For example, one of the tribal villages near Cazadero was called Kaletcemaial, “sitting under a tree,” while another was called Kabebateli, “big rock place.”
But after I moved to San Francisco in the early 2000s, I did not look for information about the indigenous people who’d lived on this land for thousands of years before. It was only after reading “Meeting the Land” that I began to explore.
San Francisco history writer Gary Kamiya wrote a series of articles for the San Francisco Chronicle called “Portals of the Past.” In a few of them, he touched on the lives of the indigenous people who first made their home in San Francisco.
About 4,500 years ago, a linguistically distinct group of Ohlone Indians settled here. The majority of Ohlone tribes lived in the East Bay, where it was warmer and drier, which may be why the San Francisco residents came to be known as the Yelamu, or “western people.” They probably got the name from their eastern neighbors. But they were also likely known as the Ramaytush, from “ramai,” the name for the western side of the San Francisco Bay, and that’s also what their language was called.
Only a few hundred Ramaytush lived in San Francisco at any time, and they were pretty spread out. One group had a winter village near Candlestick Point called Tubsinthe and a summer village called Amuctac in present-day Visitacion Valley. Another group had a winter village on Mission Bay, just south of the ballpark, called Sitlintac; their summer village was near Mission Dolores, and they called it Chutchui. There was one more village near Crissy Field called Petlenuc. Construction crews and others have found remnants of Ramaytush activity in places along Islais Creek, in Bayview-Hunters Point, near Fort Mason, by Lake Merced, at Point Lobos and on the San Francisco State University Campus. The oldest skeleton in San Francisco, the 5,000-year-old remains of a woman, was discovered during excavations for the Civic Center BART Station.
In my research, I discovered something I wish I’d known sooner. In 2009, 104 small plaques were embedded in the sidewalk along King Street, between the Caltrain station and the ballpark. Each one offers a Ramaytush word and its English translation, a public lesson in the indigenous language history of our city. I pretty much never walk along King Street, so I’d never seen it.
I want to name that the Ramaytush were virtually wiped out by the Spanish Catholic Missionaries who established the Mission San Francisco de Asis in 1776, including Francisco Palou (a colleague of Junipero Serra’s) and Fray Pedro Benito Cambon. The last native Ramaytush speaker died in the 1800s, and there are only a handful of Ramaytush descendants left. Some are enrolled with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, mainly consisting of Chochenyo (East Bay). There is another tribe, not federally recognized, called Association of the Ramaytush Ohlone in San Francisco. This is not especially unusual. Although there are about 575 federally recognized tribes, there are another 245 who aren’t.
For those like me who haven’t or can’t take a stroll over to King Street, I wanted to make an online dictionary of these words and translations, grouped by topic. I only feel comfortable doing this because these words have already been made into a piece of public art, though I share them with the caveat that they were all collected by colonizers. Many more may exist, but they are not mine to know or share.
I’ll put the ones regarding nature and animals first, since that’s the idea that led me down this path of inquiry. You can find out more about how to pronounce these words, as well as efforts to revive the Ramaytush language, at the Reviving Lost Languages website. In the meantime, consider these words the next time you see a wiinahmin in your backyard or greet the hishmen in the morning.
Animals
Salmon: cheerih
Bird: wiinahmin
Coyote: mayyan
Dog: puuku
Turtle: ’awnishmin
Snake: liishuinsha
Deer: poote
Fly: mumura
Duck: ’occey
Nature
Lightning: wilkawarep
Earth: warep
Night: muur
Star: muchmuchmish
Thunder: pura
Chaparral: huyyah
Sun: hishmen
Day: puuhi
Ice: puutru
Tree bark: shimmi
Fire: shoktowan
Morning star: ’awweh
Rock: ’enni
Hill: huyyah
Sky: karax
Sky: rinnimi
Evening: ’uykani
Water: sii
Stone: ’irek
Grassland: paatrak
Bay: ’awwash
Numbers:
Two: ’utrhin
Three: kaphan
Four: katwash
Five: mishahur
Six: shakkent
Seven: keneetish
Eight: ’oshaatish
Nine: tulaw
Body parts:
Nose: huus
Bone: trayyi
Ear: tukshush
Fingernail: tuurt
Mouth: wepper
Eye: hiin
Heart: miini
Arm: ’ishshu
Chest: ’etrtre
Body: waara
Finger: tonokra
Tooth: siit
Leg: puumi
Neck: lannay
Blood: payyan
Foot: koloo
Tongue: lasseh
Hair: ’uli
People/relationships
Friend: ’achcho
Daughter: kaanaymin
Old man: huntrach
Wife: hawwa
Older brother: takka
Father: ’apaa
Chief: wetresh
Boy: shimmiishmin
Husband: makko
Girl: katrtra
Mother: ’anaa
Son: ’innish
They: nikkam
You: meene
Who: maatro
I: kaana
Actions:
To dance: yishsha
To drink: ’uuwetto
To kill: mim’i
To go: ’iye
To eat: ’amma
To speak: kiisha
To give: shuumite
Misc. nouns/adjectives
Red: chitkote
Black: sholkote
White: laskainin
No: ’akwe
Yes: hee’e
Ye: makkam
What: hintro
Good: horshe
Bad: ’ektree
Alive: ’ishsha
Dead: hurwishte
This: nee
That: nuhhu
How: panuuka
Pipe: shukkum
Tule raft: walli
Knife: trippey
House: ruwwa
Meat: riish
Arrow: pawwish
All: kette
Cold: kawwi
Tomorrow: hushshish