The underlying casino controversy, though, goes back many more years, with the North Fork Rancheria formally applying in 2005 to have the Madera County land taken into trust by the Interior.

North Fork Mono Rancheria
North Fork Rancheria Of Mono Indians- Casino

(Redirected from Mono tribe)

Mono
Total population
A Mono couple living near Northfork, California, ca. 1920
approximately 2,300
Regions with significant populations
United States (California and Nevada)
Languages
Mono language 'Nim', English language
Religion
Traditional Tribal Religion, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Northern Paiute, Shoshone

Nov 03, 2019 Indian casino revenue neared $32.4 billion in 2017. Indian gaming operates in 29 states. 25 states allow Vegas-style Class III Indian casinos, 4 allow Class II-only casinos (bingo slots). 38 percent of all U.S. Gambling revenues come from the two states California and Oklahoma.
Federal judge on Tuesday tossed a suit challenging the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians' proposed casino, saying a rival gaming tribe and local community groups hadn't shown the federal.

Lands historically inhabited by the Mono people

The Mono/ˈmoʊnoʊ/ are a Native American people who traditionally live in the central Sierra Nevada, the Eastern Sierra (generally south of Bridgeport), the Mono Basin, and adjacent areas of the Great Basin. They are often grouped under the historical label 'Paiute' together with the Northern Paiute and Southern Paiute - but these three groups, although related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, do not form a single, unique, unified group of Great Basin tribes.

Today, many of the tribal citizens and descendants of the Mono tribe inhabit the town of North Fork (thus the label 'Northfork Mono') in Madera County. People of the Mono tribe are also spread across California in: the Owens River Valley; the San Joaquin Valley and foothills areas, especially Fresno County; and in the San Francisco Bay Area.

2Culture and geography

Tribal groups[edit]

The 'Mono' lived on both sides of the Sierra Nevada and are divided into two regional tribal/dialect groups, roughly based on the Sierra crest:

Eastern Mono live on the California-Nevada border on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in the Owens Valley (Mono: Payahǖǖnadǖ/Payahuunadu - 'place/land of flowing water') along the Owens River (Wakopee) and south to Owens Lake (Pacheta) are also known as the 'Owens Valley Paiute'^[1]

North Fork Mono Rancheria

Western Mono on the west side in the south-central foothills of the Sierra Nevada near Mono Lake as well as in the Mono Basin have been known throughout recorded history as 'Mono', 'Mona,' 'Monache,' or 'Northfork Mono,' as labeled by E.W. Gifford, an ethnographer studying people in the vicinity of the San Joaquin River in the 1910s.^[2]

Historically and in most textbooks to this day, the 'Mono bands' are either called Owens Valley Paiute (and generally counted as Northern Paiute) or Mono/Monache - but both form a common ethnic group, the 'Mono'.

Culture and geography[edit]

The current tribal name 'Mono' is a Yokutsanloanword from the tribe's western neighbors, the Yokuts, who however hereby designated the southernmost Northern Paiute band living around Mono Lake as monachie/monoache ('fly people') because fly larvae was their chief food staple and trading article.^[3] and not the 'Mono'. This 'Kucadikadi Northern Paiute Band', whose autonym Kutsavidökadö/Kutzadika'a means 'eaters of the brine fly pupae', are also known as Mono Lake Paiute or Mono Basin Paiute, a holdover from early anthropological literature, and are often confused with the non-Northern Paiute ethnic group of the 'Mono'.^[4]

The 'Eastern Mono' referred to themselves as Numa/Nuumu or Nüümü ('People') in their Mono language dialect and to their kin to the west as Panan witü / Pana witü ('western place' People); the 'Western Mono' called themselves Nyyhmy/Nimi or Nim/Nium ('People'); a full blooded 'Western Mono' person was called cawu h nyyhmy.^[5]

Mono Indians stand beside their Acorn cache in Fresno County, California, ca. 1920. Mono Indians used Acorns for their bread and families typically have 8 or 9 baskets of this size with acorns.

Eastern Mono (Owens Valley Paiute)[edit]

Owens Valley Paiute woman weaving a basket

The misnamed Owens Valley Paiute or Eastern Mono live on the California-Nevada border, they formerly ranged on the eastern side of the southern Sierra Nevada across the Owens Valley^[7] along the Owens Rivers from Long Valley on the north to Owens Lake on the south, and from the crest of the Sierra Nevada on the west to the White and Inyo Mountains including the Fish Lake and Deep Springs Valleys on the east. They were predominantly sedentary and settled in fixed settlements along rivers or springs (or artificial canals). The more intensive arable farming by means of partly artificial irrigation enabled them to build up food reserves and thus, in contrast to the 'Western Mono bands', to feed larger groups. The Sedentism is also reflected in their socio-political organization in different 'districts' (each with communistic hunting and seed rights, political unity, and a number of villages), whose name mostly ended with 'patü/witü', meaning 'place' or 'land'; each 'district' was under the command of a headman or pohenaby.

Some 'Eastern Mono' districts:

Panatü (Black Rock Territory, south to Taboose Creek)
Pitama Patü or Pitana Patü ('south place' = Bishop, California, extending from the volcanic tableland and Norton Creek in the Sierra to a line running out into Owens Valley from Waucodayavi, the largest creek south of Rawson Creek.)
Ütü’ütü witü or Anglicized to Utu Utu Gwaiti („hot place“ = Benton, California, from the warm springs, now Keough's, south to Shannon Creek)
Kwina Patii or Kwina Patü ('north place' = Round Valley, California)
Tovowaha Matii, Tovowahamatü or Tobowahamatü ('natural mound place' = Big Pine, California, south to Big Pine Creek in the mountains, but with fishing and seed rights along Owens River nearly to Fish Springs)
Tuniga witü, Tunuhu witü or Tinemaha/Tinnemaha ('around the foot of the mountain place' = Fish Springs, California)
Ozanwitü ('salt place' from the saline lake = Deep Springs Valley, they called their valley Patosabaya and themselves Patosabaya nunemu.)
Ka’o witü ('very deep valley' = Saline Valley, was Shoshoni with a few intermarried Paiute, but was accessible to Paiute for salt)

The tribal areas of the 'Eastern Mono bands' bordered in the northwest on the areas of the hostile Southern Sierra Miwok with which it often came to conflicts, in the northeast several Northern Paiute bands migrated, in the southeast and south the Timbisha Shoshone and Western Shoshone bands, in the southwest the Tübatulabal (also: Kern River Indians) and in the west the 'Western Mono bands'.

They were also more aggressive and hostile towards neighboring Indian tribes - most recently they fought the Americans in the 'Owens Valley Indian War' (1862 to 1863) with allied Shoshone, Kawaiisu and Tübatulabal to protect their cultivated land. They usually maintained a friendly relationship with the neighboring Northern Paiute, which was strengthened by mutual marriage; many members of the 'Eastern Mono' were therefore bilingual (Eastern Mono and Northern Paiute).

Their self-designation is Numa, Nuumu, or Nüümü<

North Fork Mono Indian Casino