Here is where the timeline goes. It was made using a combination of the timeline the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria website provided and information from the Cotati Historical Society history page.
For the scavenger hunt, I met with Emily Stock at the library multiple times to go over what we needed to accomplish. We met on September 10th, 12th, and the 13th. Emily had emailed a couple of librarians to ask questions about the archives, but she kept on getting told to contact other people. When push came to shove, we decided to just ask in person because clearly we were not going to get a straight answer. On the 14th, we finally managed to catch a librarian as she had some time in between classes. Hilary Smith is a subject librarian that specializes in a variety of topics, but I think the closest to ours are political science and sociology. When looking at the list of subject librarians on the Sonoma State Library website, the subject librarian who Emily had originally gotten in contact with was Lynn Prime, who is listen under Anthropology, but another person we will probably contact in the future is Laura Krier, who is listed as the subject librarian for Native American Studies.
The main problem was that while we were finally able to contact a librarian, the times for meeting for research help were technically Monday through Wednesday, but because we kept on being bounced around and needed to get this scavenger hunt finished, we found out that it is possible to meet with a librarian for research help on a semi short notice as long as we were okay with limited time. We could also have tried to make an appointment.
With the half hour we had with Hilary Smith, Emily and I were able to ask our questions! Hilary helped us as much as she could and found the call number for books relating to the Miwok for us while showing us how to use the search system, OneSearch. She also told us that while we have archives on campus, we don’t actually have an archivist. Sonoma State also has a special collections section that requires us to get in contact with the special collections librarian and make an appointment if we want to view anything, however we need to know beforehand what exactly it is we want to look at, so we’ll have to dig into that deeper as the course goes on. Finally, she told us that we have microform, not microfilm, and it’s on the second floor of the library. Thank you so much to Hilary Smith for helping us with this project!
A selfie with Emily Stock, Hilary Smith, and me!
Once our surprise questioning was over, we went upstairs to look for some of the books that we had found using the library database. After a few minutes of searching in one area, we laid eyes on a couple of books relating to the Miwok and Pomo and took pictures.
Pomo Basket Making: A Supreme Art for the Weaver by Elsie Allen
This book is Pomo Basket Making: A Supreme Art for the Weaver by Elsie Allen, and it is a primary text from Elsie Allen about Pomo basket making. Here is a link from the University library that gives more information about Elsie Allen.
This book is a secondary text filled with interviews conducted by ethnographer Isabel Kelly. This 2008 edition is a reprint of her notes and holds valuable information of the Coast Miwok that we can use for the future in this class! Here is a blurb I found online for it as well.
Here is the link for the Scavenger Hunt in Google Docs.
A sign on the side of the road that welcomes you to Cotati.
I took this photo of the welcome sign as I drove to the gas station. Since moving to Rohnert Park last year (2017), I’ve been interested in learning about my surroundings a bit more since this is a new place that I’m living in, and Cotati just kind of stood out to me. In comparison to the other towns around here at Sonoma State (which isn’t in Sonoma, funnily enough), Cotati just struck me as being different since it also isn’t a Spanish name. When asked to do this class, my thoughts went to the town of Cotati immediately, and I researched it. Sure enough, Cotati is actually from a tribelet of the Coast Miwok named the Kota’ti. Thanks to the glottal stop (the ‘ in Kota’ti), it’s actually pronounced differently from the current name of Cotati, however without confirmation, I can only make this claim due to studying linguistics since I am an Anthropology major. If I find out this is not the case, I will update this post. As for now, the reason the name has changed drastically is because this land area has gone through several claims via the Spanish, Mexican, and state and country land laws, Cotati formed when Wilfred Page, son of Dr. Thomas Stokes Page, changed the name from “Rancho Cotate” to “Rancho Cotati”, although when the ranch grew in size, it eventually dropped the first part of the name.
Source: http://cotatihistoricalsociety.org/history-of-cotati