NAPA VALLEY
“ ... said to have been the cradle of the Suisún race.”
NAPA
Napa is the name of a county, river and city, the county adjacent to San Pablo Bay, into which the river falls. The town is the county-seat of Napa County, and is on the river of the same name, about thirty-nine miles northeast of San Francisco. The Napa Soda Springs are an interesting natural feature of this place.
Napa, accented in some of the old documents as Napá, was the name of an Indian tribe who occupied that valley, said to have been one of the bravest of the California tribes, and who constantly harassed the frontier posts. The entire tribe was practically wiped out by smallpox in 1838.
According to S. A. Barrett, in the University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Technology, there is a Pomo Indian word, napa, meaning “harpoon point,” between which and the name of the town of Napa there may be some connection.
Dr. Vallejo says the suffix pa signifies proximity, and that Napa means “near mother,” or “near home,” or “mother-land,” and that according to tradition Napa Valley was the cradle of the Suysun race.—(Memoirs of the Vallejos, edited by James H. Wilkins, San Francisco Bulletin, January, 1914.)