The Yokuts occupied the San Joaquin Valley from the Kern Lake area in the south to the mouth of the San Joaquin River in the north. Within this vast territory were three distinct cultural groups: the Southern Valley, Northern Valley, and Foothill Yokuts.

Yokut, maker unknown, "Basket with Rattlesnake Motif," ca. 1900, sawgrass root, redbud, bracken fern, wool. California Historical Society, bequest of Mildred Mendia, Fine Arts collection.

The southern San Joaquin Valley once was filled with tule-covered wetlands, an area teeming with aquatic birds, migrating ducks and geese, schools of trout and perch, and great herds of tule elk and pronghorn antelope. The Southern Valley Yokuts fished from canoe-shaped rafts or balsas made of dried tules lashed together.

The Northern Valley Yokuts relied heavily on salmon and acorns for subsistence. Using harpoons and dragnets, they caught spawning salmon in the fall and spring. From the groves of valley oaks, they gathered great quantities of acorns that were ground into meal and cooked as a thick soup or gruel.

The mountainous territory of the Foothill Yokuts supplied them with a wide variety of food resources: deer, quail, acorns, mussels, trout, ducks, wild oats, manzanita berries, pine nuts, rabbits, and ground squirrels. The Foothill Yokuts developed several ingenious strategies for capturing game. They stalked their prey wearing disguises made of deer heads, antlers, and skins. They caught quail by constructing long fences with noose traps, powered by bent sticks under tension, set at openings every twenty to fifty feet.

"Yo'-kuts Tule Lodges," in Contributions to North American Ethnology, Volume III. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877. California Historical Society, North Baker Research Library collection, FN-32152.

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