Tribes Clash, Vying for Place in Yosemite History

Visitors to Yosemite Valley have for decades been taught about the Southern Sierra Miwok, whose ancestral ties to the park are venerated in books, brochures and a replica village built near the park's roaring falls.

Now, another band of American Indians is calling part of that story a total invention.

Joe Rhoan, who traces his ancestry to Paiute peoples from the park's eastern edge, claims his elders were Yosemite's first stewards and that the Miwok are playing down the Paiute role in the area.