Description
Long before Europeans came to North America, Indian people lived here for thousands of years. They adapted their ways of living to the land where they lived, forming separate groups with similar customs. In the land we now call California, more than 100 different tribes lived between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The largest group were the Yokuts, who lived in California’s great central valley. As a Yokuts grandmother explains to her grandchildren how the land provides all that they need, she tells about the materials and food the Yokuts use in their daily lives. She explains how they build their houses, make baskets, make and use the bow and arrow for hunting, gather and prepare acorns for eating, and much more. As she tells her story she reminds the children: ‘This is the way we have always done it, the way the old people taught us.”
