Coconoon Indians. A Yokuts tribe of California, said by Johnston in 1851 1 to live on the Merced River, with other bands, under their chief Nuella. There are the remnants of 3 distinct bands residing together, each originally speaking a different language. The aged of the people have difficulty in understanding each other.” The vocabulary given by Johnston is Yokuts. Merced River is, however, otherwise known to have been inhabited only by Moquelumnan tribes. The Coconoon are also mentioned by Royce (Royce, 18th Rep. B. A. E. , 780) , together with 5 other tribes from Tuolumne and Merced rivers (all of which were undoubtedly Moquelumnan), as ceding all their lands, by treaty of Mar. 19, 1851, excepting a tract between the Tuolumne and the Merced. If these statements about the Coconoon are correct, they constituted a small detached division of the Mariposan family situated among Moquelumnan groups midway between the main body of the stock to the south and the Cholovone to the northwest.
- Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv, 413, 1854[↩]