Yosemite: The First People

A KRON-TV documentary film from 1990 presented by Suzanne Shaw which looks at the history of the Ahwahnechee people of Yosemite Valley in California's western Sierra Nevada mountains. Includes interviews with Native American people (Marshall Jack Julia Parker and Jay Johnson) who are honoring the Ahwahnechee archival photographs and historical accounts taken from Galen Clark and Lafayette Bunnell M.D. (read by Sean Kilcoyne) and extensive views of Yosemite Valley. Also features views of 37 Native American people led by Marshall Jack who make a 50 mile walk from the East side of the Sierra Nevada to Yosemite Valley to honor their ancestors: "All of them reliving the past hoping to learn from it. Not letting it disappear." There is an account made of how The Mariposa Battalion entered the valley on March 27th 1851 in pursuit of Chief Tenaya and his people and what happened to the Ahwahnechee. This film was produced written and photographed by Ken Swartz with original music by John Rosenburg and Frank Macchia.