The Nüümü and Payahuunadü
The speakers of Owens Valley Paiute call ourselves Nüümü ("the people"). Our homeland is the Owens Valley, a long, narrow valley in eastern California between the Sierra Nevada to the west and the White and Inyo Mountains to the east. In the language the valley is known as , often translated as "the land of flowing water."
Living in the valley
For thousands of years the Nüümü have lived along the streams that run down from the Sierra Nevada into the valley floor. They are well known among scholars for practicing irrigation of wild plant plots, diverting creek water through ditches to encourage the growth of seed and root crops. Historically, this was a comparatively uncommon practice among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Subsistence combined this cultivation with gathering (notably piñon pine nuts, tüba, from the surrounding ranges), hunting, and fishing.
Seasonal movement between the valley floor and the mountains, and a deep knowledge of the land's plants, animals, and water, are reflected directly in the vocabulary taught in the Grammar and Vocabulary sections of this wiki.
Upheaval and continuity
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought severe disruption including settlement, conflict, and forced removals, and later the large-scale diversion of the valley's water to Los Angeles, which transformed the landscape the Nüümü had shaped and depended on. Through all of this the community has remained in the Owens Valley, today organized in several federally recognized tribes, and the language and its knowledge continue to be carried forward.
See also The Language and Revitalization and the Kubishi Dictionary.