In fact, Alfred L. Kroeber, father of California anthropology, who knew of one of their constituent local groups, the Saklan (Saclan), from nineteenth-century manuscript sources, presumed that they spoke an Ohlone (a.k.a.

[1] In 1955 linguist Madison Beeler recognized an 1821 vocabulary taken from a Saclan man at Mission San Francisco as representative of a Miwok language.

The Kuksu religion (dubbed the Kuksu Cult by early historians) included a cycle of elaborate dancing ceremonies, each with its own group of actors and distinctive feather-decorated regalia, an all-male society that met in subterranean dance rooms, puberty rites of passage, shamanic intervention with the spirit world, and, in some areas, an annual mourning ceremony.

[3][4] Varying forms of the Kuksu Cult were shared with other indigenous ethnic groups of Central California, such as their neighbors the northern Ohlone, Maidu, Patwin, Pomo, and Wappo.

[5] However Kroeber observed less "specialized cosmogony" in the Miwok, which he termed one of the "southern Kuksu-dancing groups", in comparison to the Maidu and other northern California tribes.

"The major clues to the linguistic affiliation of these river mouth tribelets are provided by the personal names of female neophytes recorded in the baptismal registers ... Ompin, Chupcan, Julpun, and Wolwon [Volvon-ed.]

[9] Milliken subsequently used the same technique, applied to the original mission records, to identify two additional local tribes—Jalquin and Tatcan—as Bay Miwok speakers.

Milliken then inferred and mapped the relative locations of all seven groups, using clues from historic diaries together with mission register information regarding intermarriage patterns among East Bay local tribes.

[25] The Bureau of Indian Affairs denied the tribe's request for federal recognition in 2002, and other tribal groups have disputed their land claims.