Karkin people
The Karkin people (also called Los Carquines in Spanish) are one of eight Ohlone peoples, indigenous peoples of California.
For the language, see Karkin language.History[edit]
The Karkin people have historically lived in the Carquinez Strait region in the northeast portion of the San Francisco Bay estuary.[1] They spoke the Karkin language, the only documentation of which is a single vocabulary obtained by linguist-missionary Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta at Mission Dolores in 1821[2] from Karkin speaker Mariano Antonio Sagnegse.[3] According to de la Cuesta, karkin means 'to trade.'[4][5] Although meager, the records of Karkin show that it constituted a distinct branch of Costanoan/Ohlone, strikingly different from the neighboring Chochenyo and other Ohlone languages spoken farther south and across the bay.[4] It is believed that there were about 200 Karkin speakers before colonization.[6]
Starting in 1787, some Karkin people began moving to Mission Dolores in present-day San Francisco.[7] In 1804 and 1807, Karkins resisted attempts by Mission Indians to recapture fugitive Indians who had escaped the mission.[8] The last Karkins moved to the mission between 1809 and 1810.[9] At the end of 1817, 49 Karkins were living at Mission Dolores.[10] By the end of 1823, 35 Karkin people lived at Mission Dolores, Mission San Francisco Solano, and Mission San Jose, seven of whom had been born in the missions.[11]
In 1925, Alfred Kroeber, then director of the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, declared the Ohlone extinct, which directly led to its losing federal recognition and land rights.[12]
The Confederated Villages of Lisjan is a tribe made up of Karkin and six other neighboring indigenous groups.[13]
Corrina Gould is a Karkin and Chochenyo activist who co-founded Indian People Organizing for Change and the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust,[14] and is the spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan.[13]