The Mennonites of Massanutten in the Shenandoah Valley

The White House, built in 1760, photographed in 1929. Built by my sixth great-grandfather, Martin Kauffman Jr., for Mennonite services.

My family tree is (perhaps oddly) full of religious leaders. 

One of my grandfathers was a Southern Baptist preacher, the other a traveling evangelist. My fourth great-grandfather, Robert Frazier Jones, was a Methodist minister who built his own log church outside Atlanta in the early 1800s. 

And several of my ancestors were Mennonites whose parents fled persecution in Europe. These families started out in the Mennonite community in Pennsylvania and ultimately moved south to Luray, Virginia, where they created a Mennonite settlement in the Shenandoah Valley. They included the reverends John Roads, Martin Kauffman, Sr. and Martin Kauffman, Jr. 

Four married couples, my sixth great-grandparents, were among these settlers of the valley next to Massanutten, a mountain named by the indigenous people of the area, most likely the Algonquins. Among them were Joseph Roads and Mary Strickler; Abraham Brubaker and Barbara Miller; Conrad Bieber and Maria Magdalena Kniesley; and Martin Kaufmann, Jr., and Mary Lionberger. 

Their great-granddaughter (and my third great-grandmother), Rebecca Roads, was born in Luray and moved to Licking County, Ohio, where she married my third great-grandfather, Isaiah Winegarner, in 1831. 

Joseph’s father, John Roads, was born in Switzerland in 1712 and immigrated to the U.S. when he was in his early teens. He married Eve Catherine Albright, whose parents were from the village of Gamburg, Germany, and they were among the first settlers of the “Massanutting Colony,” which was established in 1726 or 1727 in Luray. Although the majority of these early settlers were Mennonites, a few were Lutherans or Calvinists, according to the Spring 1994 issue of the Shenandoah Mennonite Historian newsletter. 

The journey could not have been easy. “The Massanutten settlers pushed a hundred miles beyond the Potomac and the frontier settlements into the heart of the wilderness, where they could expect no aid from their friends in Pennsylvania nor from the Virginians across the mountains,” Harry Miller Strickler, one of my distant cousins, wrote in his book Massanutten, Settled by the Pennsylvania Pilgrim, 1726.

“When those Swiss pioneers located this spot they found scenery not unlike their own beautiful Alps in Switzerland, not so sublime probably, not so awe-inspiring perhaps, beautiful scenery nevertheless -- ‘God-like scenery for God-like men for God-like purposes.’ The scenery is too beautiful, and too much like Heaven must be to be described by the most facile pen. So I will not attempt it, but advise you to go and see it for yourself,” Strickler wrote.

There were undoubtedly indigenous tribes living in the area at the time who were, at the very least, displaced by the new settlers. And more settlers kept coming. By 1758 there were at least 39 Mennonite families in the area, including my 6th great-grandparents. Strickler was born in the community. Brubaker was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and had moved to Luray by 1750. Miller, too, was living in the settlement by 1750. Bieber and Kniesley were married in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and arrived at Massanutten in 1756. Kauffman was born in Lancaster and came to the settlement before 1740, when he was still a young child. Lionberger was born in nearby Hawksbill Creek, and was living in Massanutten by 1760.  

Both Joseph’s and Martin’s fathers became important religious leaders in the nascent Mennonite Church. But Joseph’s family suffered a significant tragedy. In August of 1764, historians say, eight “Indians” and a white man, who some claimed was Simon Girty, attacked the Roads homestead. They were likely looking for money, as John had quite a bit hidden in a niche in the cellar wall. John and Eva were both killed, along with six of their children; Joseph and six others survived. The attackers set fire to the homestead, destroying it, but the hidden cache of money survived. 

This information comes from A History of Shenandoah County, Virginia, by John W. Wayland, written in 1927, and there’s a similar account in Strickler’s book. While it’s widely accepted that several members of the Roads family died on the same date in 1764, I can’t speak to the accuracy of the details. 

Another view of the White House.

Martin Kauffman, Jr., built a two-story house he called the White House -- because of its white-washed stucco exterior -- in about 1760. The building was used for Mennonite services for many years. In 1770 a new religious man arrived: John Koontz, a Baptist who converted many of the Mennonites to his faith, including Martin Kauffman, Jr. 

When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, the Mennobaptist community split; traditionally, Mennonites are pacifists who don’t support war. “Martin Kauffman, having first been a Mennonite ... retained most of their principles after he became a Baptist. These principles caused a division in the White House Church during the Revolutionary War, and Kauffman became the minister of a small number who did not believe in ‘slavery, war, or oaths,’” according to Strickler’s book.

Martin Jr. and many others created a new church, the Mennonite Separate Independent Baptist Church, resuming services at the White House. He also petitioned the General Assembly of Virginia for a military exemption similar to the one given to Quakers and traditional Mennonites, but the petition was denied. 

The separatist church began to disintegrate, but Martin Jr. and some of his followers moved away from the Shenandoah Valley, starting a new community called New Lancaster (now simply Lancaster) in Fairfield County, Ohio. His White House remains standing in Luray, and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. And my Winegarner ancestors -- dating back to Isaiah Winegarner and Rebecca Roads -- have been in Ohio for generations. 

While this group of Mennonites eventually led to the birth of my great-great paternal grandfather, Cyphus Winegarner, others descended from the same community are also found in my paternal great-grandmother’s line. Blanche Barr, who married Cyphus’ son, William Winegarner, is descended from Mary Strickler, who was part of the Shenandoah Valley Strickler clan, and from David Pence and Barbara Ruffner, whose families also lived in the Massanutten colony. It’s clear that the folks who left the colony remained close after relocating to Ohio, intermingling and marrying for at least a couple more generations. 

I have never been to Virginia, but would love to visit the area my ancestors lived. In addition to the White House, there’s some indication that a few of the other original homesteads are still around, possibly including Hope Farm, which was built on the land where the Roads family was burned. Those who were killed in that incident were buried near the banks of the Shenandoah River, just downhill from the house. I hope their spirits are at peace.

The Nesbitts of Berwickshire and County Down

My grandmother, Frances Nesbitt, was born in November of 1908 to Frederick Nesbitt and Louise Howell. But I didn’t learn until I was an adult that Nesbitt was the name of a longstanding Scottish clan with a lot of history behind it. 

The name is associated with the lands near Edrom in Berwickshire, Scotland, close to the English-Scottish border. Historians believe the name may have come from a geographical feature in this area; “nese” means “nose” in Middle English, while “bit” means “mouthful,” “piece of ground,” or possibly “bend.” The family name dates back to at least 1160, when William de Nesbite was listed as a witness to a charter by Patrick, Earl of Dunbar to Coldingham Priory.

The Nesbitts established two fortified houses in the 12th century, East Nisbet and West Nisbet. East Nisbet, now known as Allanbank, was located on the Blackadder Water near Allanton, although the original tower no longer exists. West Nisbet remains, and was extended in the 1630s to form the bulk of the present house, located in the Scottish borders. 

(There’s also a Nesbitt Castle in Zimbabwe, which was built in the 20th century by Theodore Albert Edward Holdengarde and then restored by Digby Nesbitt, a businessman from southeastern Zimbabwe.)

Nesbitts have two clan tartans, a primary one and one for dancing/performance, plus a badge that features a boar and the phrase “I byd it,” meaning “I endure.”

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Nesbitts pepper Scottish history, participating in the wars of Scottish independence and the Scottish civil war. Alexander Nisbet wrote a definitive book on the history of heraldry. His son, Philip, was knighted; he was later captured in battle and executed in Glasgow in 1646. Two other sons, Alexander and Robert were killed in the Scottish civil war. In the 1700s, some Nesbitt families moved to Ireland, and later to North America. 

My ancestors were part of this migration. I can trace my grandmother’s lineage back to what is now Northern Ireland; her grandfather, James Corry Nesbitt (that’s him with the tartans, above), was born in November of 1847 in Clanmaghery, a village in Tyrella, Ireland, and came to the U.S. in 1866, when he was 19. He moved to Ohio, where he met and married Elizabeth Woollard in 1880. According to the 1880 census, he and Lizzie lived at 260 East Town Street in Columbus, Ohio, and he worked as a dry goods retailer. The 1900 census shows James and Lizzie living with her parents at 247 East Broad Street in Columbus, and his occupation as “traveling salesman.”

Much of the 1890 census records were famously destroyed in a fire in 1921, but in those intervening years James and Lizzie had at least one child, my great-grandfather, Frederick Cookman Nesbitt, born in January 1881. In 1910 James and Lizzie were still living with her parents; he’s listed as working as a “com traveler” for a “cerfiet house” (if anyone’s got guesses, please comment below). They remained living at the Broad Street house in the 1920 census, after Lizzie’s parents had died, and James was working as the treasurer of an organization; which one isn’t listed. James Corry Nesbitt died in October of 1928; Lizzie lived until March of 1948.

James’ ancestors, including his father, William Nesbitt; his grandfather, Robert Nesbitt; his great-grandfather, also William Nesbitt; and his great-great-grandfather, James Nesbitt, lived much or all of their lives in Ireland, particularly the Woodgrange area of County Down. With the elder James the trail goes cold. We don’t know when or where he was born, or when he died. His son, William, was born in 1730, ostensibly in Ireland, and died in 1798 in Woodgrange. 

James’ father, William, came to the United States for at least a couple of decades. In the 1870 census he, and his wife Margaret, are listed as living in Ward 6 of Brooklyn; his occupation is listed simply as “Laborer.” They are shown living with their daughter, Ellen, and a 21-year-old William Nesbitt, likely a nephew or grandson. In the 1880 census, he and Margaret are shown living at 89 Carroll Street in Brooklyn, still with Ellen and William. He has no occupation identified, although by that time he was nearly 70. He died in 1888 at Clanmaghery. Clanmaghery Road, now also called the A2, still runs through Tyrella today.

I have not visited these regions of Ireland, though I’ve been to several other parts. Someday I’d like to see Tyrella and Woodgrange, and walk the coast near Clanmaghery Road. I’d like to visit the remaining Nisbet House and explore Berwickshire. I wonder if it will feel familiar.

Making friends with plants

Comfrey and chamomile.

Plant care has not always been my strength. I’ve had so many plants die from too much water, too little water, too much sun, too little sun, haunted soil -- who knows. But sometime in the past several years, I’ve slowly learned how to read plants’ cues. 

We are lucky to have a backyard, especially in a pandemic when it’s not as safe or easy to get outdoors into nature. But for a long time, our yard was next-door to a eucalyptus tree, which constantly blew a thick carpet of its leaves onto our soil, which discouraged anything else from growing. But a couple of years ago our neighbor cut down the eucalyptus, which opened up a lot of possibilities for gardening. 

Since then I’ve planted a variety of flora, some that are native to the Bay Area and California, and some that just do well here. We’ve got succulents and nightshades, chartreuse coleus and deep green impatiens with cheerful pink blossoms. But we’ve had a lot of trouble growing edible plants. Only cold-weather crops like kale and Brussels sprouts grow well in our cool and foggy city, and they often wind up so coated in aphids that they’re inedible. 

Herbs, on the other hand, seem to do okay. I’ve planted oregano and chives, mugwort and rosemary, yarrow and lavender that don’t mind the chill, and don’t attract every insect within a two-mile radius. 

This year I wanted to expand the number of herbs in my garden, and I began to wonder what the Ohlone Indians might have planted or foraged. At the same time, I didn’t want to steal information from a culture that isn’t my own. My own ancestors displaced indigenous tribes in other parts of the country, and even if they hadn’t, I have no business adopting their customs as my own. That said, the plants that grow well in the Bay Area have done so for a long time, and connecting with the land where I live means connecting with the plants of the region. 

The bulk of my ancestors came from Britain, Ireland, Scotland and northern Europe (Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia), so I started digging around for the earliest information I could find on the use of native plants in the UK and Ireland. Before the age of modern medicine, it’s likely they would have used these plants as medicine, and learned about them from their own ancestors. And some of them were likely to grow happily here in San Francisco, too. 

I found a couple of good resources in particular. One was the Anglo-Saxon Nine Herbs Charm, a chant that mentions nine plants, the healing they provide, and how to combine them together to make a medicinal salve. The poem mentions mugwort, plantain, shepherd’s purse, nettle, betony, chamomile, crab apple, chervil and fennel. It is included in a text commonly called the Lacnunga, a collection of miscellaneous Anglo-Saxon medical texts and prayers, written mainly in Old English and Latin. It dates back to the 10th or 11th century, though some parts of it are much older. 

Another good resource is this post, from the Herbal Academy, about the gardens at Glastonbury Abbey. They include 11 plants that have been part of ancient British culture for centuries, including some brought over by the Romans, Saxons and Vikings. Among them are lady’s bedstraw, lemon balm, yarrow, meadowsweet, lovage, vervain (verbena), comfrey, elecampane, betony and woad. 

I knew a number of these plants would thrive in San Francisco, so I decided to add a few, including mugwort, comfrey, chamomile, lemon balm and vervain. Nettle already grows wild in the garden after the rainy season, and fennel grows like a weed in several spots in our neighborhood. Planting, growing, tending and making use of them makes me feel more connected -- to the ground under my feet, to the land where I live, and to my ancestors, who probably used these herbs as food and medicine. I love the idea that one of them could walk into my garden and recognize what’s growing there, know how to work with each leaf and bud.

An Unexpected Mouse

Sometimes, you find yourself trying to save the life of a creature that, in other circumstances, you’d kill without a second thought. 

On a recent morning, I went outside to fill the bird feeders when I noticed a small gray mouse on the patio steps. As I stood nearby, it first looked up at me, trembling. Its forehead bore a bloody, diagonal gash. A moment later, it turned away from me and huddled into itself, trying to hide. 

I immediately developed a couple of theories about how the mouse had come to be in its current state. Either one of the neighbors’ cats had attacked it but given up, or one of the local predatory birds -- we have ravens, crows, scrub jays and a red-shouldered hawk -- caught it but dropped it from the trees overhead. 

I know the second option sounds less likely, but one afternoon my partner and I were standing and talking in the yard when suddenly a rat fell out of the sky and thudded to the ground near our feet. When we looked up, we saw three crows on a branch overhead, looking sheepish. On another occasion, an injured rat I found in the same location as this mouse was later attacked and killed by a passing scrub jay. 

At any rate, I left the mouse alone, hoping that whoever had hurt it would come back to finish the job. A little while later, though, it hopped down from the steps and attempted to run across the patio. It turned out to have an injured leg, which caused it to careen around in circles. Eventually the mouse wore itself out and spent several hours huddled in the shade on the patio. 

After it regained some of its strength, the mouse made its way down most of the steps between our patio and garage. As night fell, my partner scooped the mouse into a box with some soft cloth (a company-logo ShamWow, plus a bit of insulation from where he suspected the mouse had probably been living in our garage). 

We’ve had mice and rats in our house before -- typically brought in by our cat, who isn’t a very good hunter to begin with and routinely forgets that, as a predator, she’s supposed to kill and eat her prey. If we can shoo them safely back outside we do, but we’ve also killed a few in snap traps baited with peanut butter. We’ve tried live-trapping them, but our local rodents are too smart to be tempted into them. I know: they’re invasive and carry parasites and diseases. But they’re also living creatures, and as long as they stay outdoors, I’d rather they be healthy and happy. 

When I checked the box the next morning, I was surprised to find that the mouse was still alive, and much calmer. I hadn’t expected it to survive the night. As I looked down at the tiny creature, watching its alert whiskers twitch, I began to wonder if any wildlife rescue organizations would be able to help it. 

I poked around online, and finally landed on the wildlife rescue branch of the Peninsula Humane Society. The woman I spoke with asked about the mouse’s injuries. She didn’t sound hopeful when I told her the extent of them, but she said I could bring the mouse to their facility and they’d do what they could. However, most invasive rodents -- this mouse almost definitely qualified -- would likely be euthanized, she said. 

My heart ached with that news, but I knew the mouse was suffering, and neither my partner nor I felt skilled enough to dispatch it ourselves. 

At the door of PHS, I handed the woman in blue scrubs the box, and she asked me to fill out a form on a clipboard. “You can call us later, if you’d like to know what happens to this poor little guy,” she said. 

I didn’t call. I had a good idea of what would happen, but I just didn’t want it to be real. 

The Danger of the "Vengeful Indian Spirits" Trope

The spirit of a “Chumash Warrior” character depicted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Episode: “Pangs.”

The wildfires this year in California — and just in Sonoma and Napa Counties — have been incredibly intense. We’ve had family members evacuated in August and September, some for the second or third time. A couple of weeks ago, as the Glass Fire raged, I received an email from a reader of my book Sacred Sonoma. His theory of the fires, unfortunately, reflected dangerous stereotypes about American Indians that have been fueled by popular fiction. Read on:

Hi Beth,

This may seem crazy, a crackpot theory. But, I read part of your Sacred Sonoma book about the Pomo tribe and I thought I’d reach out.

When I was a kid growing up off of Brush Creek I would play next door at a vacant lot. I was convinced that the land plot was an Indian tribal burial ground, and I would always play there until I got scared and would run home.

Flash-forward thirty years to Friday night, when I visited Santa Rosa for the first time in awhile. A strong gust of wind came and I got the same feeling as I had as a kid ... it didn’t just feel like wind, but rather it felt like angry spirits had a bone to pick. It was the first time I felt that way since I was a kid.

Crazy, I know.

But then Sunday night came, and my family and I helped my mom evacuate. Since then, I’d wondered if the wind was in fact Indian spirits warning us to get away, or else.

That feeling and thought somehow got me to research online, and I found your book. In it, you mention that Melita Road was a known ceremonial site (which burned).

So yeah, I thought I’d reach out to share my crackpot theory that these fires could somehow be connected to the revenge of the Pomo.

The “Chumash Warrior” turns into a bear. Great.

Here’s my response:

Hi, thanks for your note and interest in Sacred Sonoma. The fires are indeed devastating and scary, but I would discourage you from pursuing the "vengeful native ghosts" idea. There are many Pomo alive and living in Sonoma County, surely including some in the paths of the fires, and I doubt they or their ancestors would wish this scenario on anyone. 

Fiction and film love the "dangerous Indian burial ground" trope, but it's deeply dangerous to the actual indigenous people who lived, and still lived, in the Americas: https://newrepublic.com/article/137856/suburban-horror-indian-burial-ground

Like Herb Caen, But Birds

A few days ago, I glanced into my backyard garden and saw a large, dark shape under the bird feeders. At first I thought maybe it was one of the neighborhood skunks, but quickly realized it was one of the neighborhood ravens instead.

Normally I see them hanging out on the utility wires in front of our house, or in various trees throughout the area, including the large Monterey cypress in our neighbors’ backyard. Sometimes I will put peanuts out on the stoop for them and watch as they greedily fly off with a nut in their beak, cawing to let their clan know there are peanuts available. I hear them chatting in the treetops, and their wingbeats as they fly by, but I’ve never seen one land in our yard before.

But there it was, casually eating birdseed from a bowl we’ve left on the ground for squirrels and doves (squirrels have destroyed four of our bird feeders in the past several months; don’t @ me). Despite how massive the raven was compared to the doves, let alone any of the other birds, it didn’t try to scare or intimidate any of them. We have pigeons who charge at other birds, finches who fight for the best feeder perch, and scrub jays who scream at everybody. But this raven was calm, enjoying a snack and a drink of water before it flew off to wherever it calls home.

I read somewhere a few years back that the screechy warning sounds made by scrub jays, squirrels and some other birds are a semi-common language of distress calls. Unfortunately, I can’t find it now, but it’s true that birds have networks to warn one another of predators (including us humans). We hear these pretty often in our neighborhood, whether it’s a warning about humans, a backyard cat, a tussle between jays and squirrels, or the occasional Cooper’s hawk that hangs out in the cypress tree or other spots nearby. Bird and mammal languages are often so species-specific, so it’s pretty cool that they have ways of communicating across those differences.

Speaking of hawks, I occasionally find a “pellet” cast off by one of the hawks, which they drop down from the cypress into our backyard. These pellets are mostly composed of fur, feathers and a collection of small bones (my kid loves to dissect them). We don’t mind having the hawks around, partly because they keep the rodent population in check. Our cat is a hopeless hunter. She’s black and white, so she can’t really hide. She’s too slow. And, while she does catch the occasional mouse or juvenile rat, she lacks any killing instinct and is prone to bringing rodents inside and losing them under the stove.

A couple of weeks ago she caught a slow-moving, ill-seeming young rat that was eating some of the scattered birdseed in our yard. Our cat caught and played with it, but I kept her from bringing it inside. Once the rat got away from her, I brought her in and made sure she couldn’t get back out. But the rat ill-advisedly ventured forth and was discovered by a passing scrub jay, which attacked and killed it — but didn’t eat it, either. We’re glad the city takes meat in its compost collection.

I’ve saved the most adorable tidbit for last: I love watching birds feed each other. Once in a while, we’ll see a chickadee, junco or some other bird fly to the feeders, pick up a bit of food, and take it to another bird of the same species waiting nearby. It’s called “allofeeding,” and it’s sometimes done by adults feeding their juveniles, and sometimes it’s courtship behavior. Either way, it’s incredibly cute. The black-capped chickadees have a unique song associated with allofeeding, and I get excited every time I hear it.

First Names: San Francisco's Ramaytush People and Language

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

Poem A Week: Juggernaut

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz. Creative Commons.

For 14 years I carried
Two heavy globes of meat,
No toothsome peaches or
Swelling melons, no jugs
Of sweet milk or brass rings
You could knock to be let in. 

Unrelenting dogs followed me, 
Wet-jawed and hungry, hunting
Strong meat in weak flesh, 
Blind to the birds in the trees
Or fields of titmice, noses only
For the boar in the thicket. 

The weight split my spine,
Tore my muscles, hacked my head
To shards. I festered in darkness
And saw stars, wept while
Hardy vines cut furrows
Into my inadequate shoulders. 

So I lay on Anubis' slab, 
That head of all jackals, 
Made a deal: I gave him eight
Pounds of flesh, he called
The dogs from my shadow.
I would never see his kind again. 

Now my rosebuds bend lightly
Within the green vale, small
Matters swelling with the need 
To feed tiny mouths, invisible
To the flesh-starved animals
Whose jaws now slaver elsewhere. 

Poem A Week: Thallium Thrum

Photo by AndriyKo Podilnyk. Creative Commons.

What were the woods like on the day you arrived?
Did the moon throw its silver down upon the breast of the clearing,
betting which of you would be fairer and brighter?
Did the redwoods, steaming in the summer night, hold their breath
so their next lungful would be spiked with your newborn scent?
Did all the fantastic animals -- the basilisks and cockatrices,
sphinxes and griffins -- spread their wings wide over the smoky loam
and wait for the new beast to join their ranks?
(Did the Blemmys purse his belly’s lips and bend down to kiss
the soft crown of your hour-old head, dusted with gold silk?)
Did the low creek wish it were full and rushing, spilling its banks
strong enough to carry you in your cradle
like the captain of a wicker-woven ship speeding toward the sea?
Did the scuttling insects of the deep earth construct
a tiny castle and wait for their cochineal king to take his throne?
None of these, more likely;
but the blazing July sun, which learned its light from your eyes,
would have understood if the night had stepped aside
to make way for your foot’s first fall.

Poem A Week: The Silver Cord

Photo by novi raj. Creative Commons.

There's a thin filament line
Taut, silver and fine.
At one end is me, today,
And the other stretches back in time.

I know the one on the other end,
That girl I was at fifteen,
At sixteen, at twenty,
That girl always feeling so full. And so empty.

If I tug on the cord I can sense her resist.
But she is the one who pulls the line,
Baiting me and winding me in,
Reeling me back to her time.

An age of damp woods and rainfall
Of secret scents and low guitars
Where the boys stretch up like branches
And she loves, oh she devours them all.

She will not grow, she will not forget,
She will not die.
And sometimes her wound is so dark and wide
That I cannot, cannot hide.

She pulls the moss sack over my head,
And she presses his sweet lips to mine,
And I remember my thirst for his kisses,
His water, his salt, his wine.

Her high song rings in the valleys,
So loud she cannot hear my warning.
She does not want to hear my warning:
She will lose him when her mother dies.

And from that earthy hillside grave,
The woods will darken,
And the songs will fade.
And all that he was will be unmade.

And all that she was will be unmade.