Yelamu

{{Short description|Ohlone tribe living in what is now San Francisco, California}}

The Yelamu were a local tribe of Ohlone people from the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. The Yelamu spoke a language called Ramaytush. The modern [https://www.ramaytush.org/ Association of Ramaytush Ohlone (ARO)] are the descendants of the Ramaytush.

File:Ohlone_war_dance_closeup.jpg of two Ohlone men living near Mission Dolores]]

Randall Milliken's study, "A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1810",{{cite book|last1=Milliken|first1=Randall|title=A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769-1810|date=1995|publisher=Ballena Press|isbn=978-0879191313|pages=364|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4WNyAAAAMAAJ|access-date=16 December 2017}} estimates that 160 to 300 Yelamu were living in San Francisco when the Spanish established Mission San Francisco de Asís on June 30, 1776.Teixeira, Lauren. The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area, A Research Guide. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1997. {{ISBN|0-87919-141-4}}.

Artifacts have been found across San Francisco from at least 50 different locations during modern construction activities within the city that were originally left by family groups that moved seasonally between villages around present day San Francisco. Additional villages existed to the south of San Francisco as well.

History

According to anthropologists, the Yelamu people and their Ohlone neighbors arrived in the San Francisco area between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. They lived on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in the region comprising the City and County of San Francisco before the arrival of Spanish missionaries in 1769.

The first four Yelamu people who converted to Christianity were baptized by Father Palou and Father Santa Maria between 1777 and 1779.{{cite web |title=8 - Home of the Yelamu |url=https://www.nps.gov/places/000/8-home-of-the-yelamu.htm |website=National Park Service |access-date=5 April 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210908104058/https://www.nps.gov/places/000/8-home-of-the-yelamu.htm |archive-date=8 September 2021}} They were absorbed into the Mission San Francisco de Asís that was founded in 1776 by the Spaniards, and became some of the first "Mission Indians" in the San Francisco area.

Villages

The largest of the three San Francisco groups had its winter village at Tubsinthe, near Candlestick Point and its summer home at Amuctac in Visitacion Valley. The second group moved between their summer camp at Chutchui village located along Mission Creek in the Mission and Sitlintac on the edge of Mission Bay that was filled in during the 19th century. The third community lived near Crissy Field at Petlenuc.

The Yelamu/Ramai villages south of San Francisco:

Ompuromo - Southwest of Lake Merced
Timigtac - Near present day Pacifica
Pruristic - Present day Pacifica
Siplichiquin - southeast foot of San Bruno Mountain
Urebure - Present day San BrunoBrown, Alan K. Indians of San Mateo County, La Peninsula:Journal of the San Mateo County Historical Association, Vol. XVII No. 4, Winter 1973-1974.Brown, Alan K. Place Names of San Mateo County, published San Mateo County Historical Association, 1975.

Yelamu

History

Villages

References

Further reading