The Karkin people have historically lived in the Carquinez Strait region in the northeast portion of the San Francisco Bay estuary.[1] They spoke the Karkin language, the only documentation of which is a single vocabulary obtained by linguist-missionary Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta at Mission Dolores in 1821[2] from Karkin speaker Mariano Antonio Sagnegse.[3] According to de la Cuesta, karkin means 'to trade.'[4][5] Although meager, the records of Karkin show that it constituted a distinct branch of Costanoan/Ohlone, strikingly different from the neighboring Chochenyo and other Ohlone languages spoken farther south and across the bay.[4] It is believed that there were about 200 Karkin speakers before colonization.[6]
Starting in 1787, some Karkin people began moving to Mission Dolores in present-day San Francisco.[7] In 1804 and 1807, Karkins resisted attempts by Mission Indians to recapture fugitive Indians who had escaped the mission.[8] The last Karkins moved to the mission between 1809 and 1810.[9] At the end of 1817, 49 Karkins were living at Mission Dolores.[10] By the end of 1823, 35 Karkin people lived at Mission Dolores, Mission San Francisco Solano, and Mission San Jose, seven of whom had been born in the missions.[11]
Beeler, Madison S. 1961. "Northern Costanoan." International Journal of American Linguistics 27: 191–197.
Callaghan, Catherine A. 1997. "Evidence for Yok-Utian." International Journal of American Linguistics 63:18–64.
Golla, Victor. 2007. "Linguistic Prehistory." California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Terry L. Jones and Kathryn A. Klar, eds., pp. 71–82. New York: Altamira Press. ISBN978-0-7591-0872-1.
Levy 1978, cited in "Karkin". Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
Milliken, Randall T. 1995. A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Region, 1769–1810. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press.
Milliken, Randall T. 2008. Native Americans at Mission San Jose. Banning, CA: Malki-Ballena Press. ISBN978-0-87919-147-4.