One form this took was the Kuksu religion that was evident in Central and Northern California, which included elaborate acting and dancing ceremonies in traditional costume, an annual morning ceremony, puberty rites of passage, shamanic intervention with the spirit world, and an all-male society that met in subterranean dance rooms.

[3][4] Kuksu was shared with other indigenous ethnic groups of Central California, such as the Pomo, Maidu, Ohlone, Esselen, and northernmost Yokuts.

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.

[5] The record of myths, legends, tales, and histories from the Plains and Sierra Miwok is one of the most extensive in the state.

The published specific village locations were: Among the important landholding local tribes at the time of Spanish colonization in California were: The majority of the members of the Plains Miwok local tribes moved to colonial Franciscan Mission San José, in some cases through attraction and in other cases through intimidation, between 1812 and 1833.

In 1834 and 1835, hundreds of Plains Miwok survivors of the Central Valley's 1833 malaria epidemic were baptized at Mission San José.

Many Plains Miwoks moved back to their home areas, where between 1839 and 1841 John Sutter played the local groups off against one another in order to gain control of the lower Sacramento Valley.

Other Plains Miwok families remained in the San Francisco Bay area, intermarried with Ohlone, Patwin, and Yokuts peoples, and found work on local Mexican ranchos.

One settlement site is within the present day Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park near Volcano.

When encountered by immigrants of European descent, the neighboring Southern Sierra Miwok tribe referred to the Yosemite Valley residents as "killers".