[ 3] The Nutunutu. This tribe extended along the south bank of the Kings R. from Lemoore nearly to Kingsburg.
[ 4] The chief center of the Telamni, who inhabited the oak forest of the Kaweah delta at and below Visalia. This had originally been a very large village but the disturbances caused by the Spanish expeditions had substantially destroyed it. The heavy mortality and great famine mentioned by Ortega were undoubtedly due to the continuous state of fugitivism, severe exposure to the weather, and inability to gather and store the customary stocks of food such as acorns and fish. No specific epidemic was recorded, such as is implied by Cutter (Ms, p. 213) on the basis of certain statements of the Father President, Mariano Payeras. However, no fulminating epidemic was necessary to produce the mortality. Starvation, exposure, and respiratory diseases would be quite adequate.
[ 5] The Choinok, who lived along Deep Cr., in the Kaweah delta, near and northeast of Tulare. The San Gabriel R. was the Kaweah.
[ 6] Sumtache (Tuntache, Chuntache). This was probably the principal village of the Chunut, on the northeast shore of L. Tulare. Bubal, mentioned frequently in the early accounts, was the village of the Wowol (see discussion in Kroeber, 1925, pp. 483-484 and Cook, 1955, pp. 44-45).
[ 7] The party followed the usual route over Pacheco Pass to San Luis Gonzaga and east into the valley.
[ 8] The stopping place may have been somewhere near Dos Palos, which is 20 mi. from San Luis Gonzaga. The expedition could scarcely have reached Mendota as stated by Cutter (Ms, p. 218) since the latter is nearly 50 mi. from the starting point and the ride was only 3 hours long.
[ 9] The villages along the San Joaquin R. from the great bend above Mendota to the vicinity of Newman had so completely disappeared in the early years of the nineteenth century that the Yokuts informants of Kroeber, Gifford, Gayton, and other modern ethnographers preserved no memory of them. Yet it is clear from the accounts of Pico and of other explorers and soldiers that they were relatively numerous and populous. The inhabitants seem to have been unusually disposed to the stealing of horses. Moreover, their habitat was on the west bank of the river and wide open to attack from the coast. For these or other reasons, they appear to have been completely obliterated.
The existence of 6 villages can be established with reasonable certainty (see discussion in Cook, 1955, pp. 51-52). From north to south they are: Cheneches, Malim, Nupchenches, Cutucho, Copicha, Tape. The first, Cheneches, was probably near the mouth of Mariposa Cr., north of Los Baños. The southernmost, Tape, was, according to Estudillo in 1819, 24 leagues south of, or upstream from, Cheneches. This would place Tape south of the great bend of the San Joaquin, roughly 20 mi. west of Fresno. Copicha was at the mouth of the Chowchilla.
[ 10] The general course of Pico’s party was southeastward along the connecting sloughs between Tulare L. and the San Joaquin R. On the 12th they reached the lower Kings R. in the territory of the Wimilchi (Gumilchis). At or near this point the junction was made with Ortega’s division.
[ 11] The route for the next several days is confused. The joint expedition moved back northwestward from the Kings R. to the San Joaquin area, where Pico had been previously operating.