Wintun, << wihn TOON, >> also spelled Wintuan, are a group of three Native American tribes from the Sacramento Valley of north-central California. The tribes are the Wintu, Nomlaki, and Patwin. Their territory originally extended from the Sacramento River to the foothills of the California Coast Range and from the source of the Trinity River to the mouth of the Sacramento. Each village consisted of an extended family of 20 to 200 people led by a hereditary male chief. For food, the Wintun hunted, fished, and gathered acorns. The Wintun had strong traditions of sacred song and dance. They took part in a religious revival called the Ghost Dance that began among the Paiute in the late 1860’s and quickly spread to other tribes.
In the early 1800’s, Spanish missionaries and settlers took many Patwin to live at missions. A malaria epidemic killed large numbers of Wintun along the Sacramento River between 1830 and 1833. During the 1850’s, white settlers and gold miners poured into Wintun lands. Fighting between Wintun and whites led to the forced relocation of the Wintun onto reservations by the United States government. Some escaped from the reservations. They worked for ranchers and lived in small communities called rancherias. About 1900, the government recognized the rancherias as Native American property. Today, many Wintun live throughout California, some of them on or near rancherias.
