CHAPTER XXXV. 
THE YO!-KUTS. 
In the language of this nation yo’-kuts denotes ‘ Indian” or “Indians”, 
and no’-no, “man”. (It is a singular fact that nearly every language has 
different words for ‘‘man” and ‘“‘Indian”.) As often before, so here again 
it is necessary to adopt a word in common use as a basis of classification, 
since they have no national name. 
We have seen how the California Indians in the extreme northern part 
of their domain were, at the time of the American advent, being driven 
back and crushed out by the stronger and fiercer Athabascan races. Like- 
wise in the southern part of their habitat this peaceful race was slowly 
giving way before the incursions of the more powerful and warlike Paiuti 
of Nevada. All along the eastern side of the great interior basin the Sierra 
Nevada interposes an effectual barrier against the latter, protecting the 
Californians on that side; but the passes which occur at the northern and 
southern points of junction between the Sierra and the Coast Range allowed 
the Athabascan tribes and the Paiuti, respectively, to swarm in toward the 
rich and tempting plains of California, dispossessing the feebler peoples who 
were there before them. 
Living as they do at the lower end of the great basin, the Yokuts 
received the brunt of the Paiuti attacks. So severe were the latter that 
the Yokuts, as a geographically solid body of allied tribes, were cut in two 
in one place and nearly in another. Their habitat stretched originally from 
the Fresno River to Fort Tejon; but the Paiuti tribes, swarming through 
Ta-hi’-cha-pa, Tejon, and Walker's Passes, seized and occupied Kern 
River, White River, Posa Creek, and Kern Lake, thus completely severing 
the Yokuts nation, and leaving an isolated fragment of it at Fort Tejon, in 
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