Editing Hetch Hetchy (section)

===Indigenous peoples===
People have lived in Hetch Hetchy Valley for over 6,000 years. [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American cultures]] were prominent before the 1850s when the first settlers from the United States arrived in the Sierra Nevada. During summer, people of the [[Valley and Sierra Miwok|Miwok]] and [[Northern Paiute|Paiute]] came to Hetch Hetchy from the [[Central Valley (California)|Central Valley]] in the west and the [[Great Basin]] in the east. The valley provided an escape from the summer heat of the lowlands.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=74}} They hunted, and gathered seeds and edible plants to furnish themselves winter food, trade items, and materials for art and ceremonial objects. Today, descendants of these people still use [[milkweed]], [[Muhlenbergia rigens|deergrass]], [[bracken fern]], [[willow]], and other plants for a variety of uses including baskets, medicines, and string.<ref name=hetchhetchy/>

Meadow plants unavailable in the lowlands were particularly valuable resources to these tribes. For thousands of years, Native Americans subjected the valley to controlled bushfires, which prevented forest from taking over the valley meadows.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=75}} Periodic clearing of the valley provided ample space for the growth of the grasses and shrubs they relied on, as well as additional room for large game animals such as deer to browse. In the 19th century, the first white visitors to the valley did not realize that Hetch Hetchy's extensive meadows were the product of millennia of management by Native Americans; instead they believed "the valley was purely a product of ancient geological forces (or divine intervention)&nbsp;... this was fundamental to its allure as a destination and subject."{{sfn|Bibby|2006|p=92–94}}

The valley's name may be derived from a Miwok word earlier anglicized as ''hatchhatchie'', which means "edible grasses"<ref name=hetchhetchy/><ref name="name">{{cite web| url=http://www.yosemite.ca.us/history/place_names_of_the_high_sierra/h.html#page_39 | title=Place Names of the High Sierra | access-date=2006-09-09 | year=1926 | author=Farquhar, Francis P.}}</ref> or "magpie".{{sfn|Simpson|2005|p=14}} It is likely that the edible grass was [[Dipterostemon|blue dicks]].<ref name=hoffmann/> [[Chief Tenaya]] of the Yosemite Valley's [[Ahwaneechee]] tribe claimed that ''Hetch Hetchy'' was Miwok for "Valley of the Two Trees", referring to a pair of [[Pinus classification|yellow pine]]s that once stood at the head of Hetch Hetchy.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=75}} Miwok names are still used for features, including Tueeulala Fall, Wapama Fall, and Kolana Rock.<ref name=hetchhetchy/>

While its cousin Yosemite Valley to the south had permanent Miwok settlements,{{sfn|Simpson|2005|p=4}} Hetch Hetchy was only seasonally inhabited. This was likely because of Hetch Hetchy's narrow outlet, which in years of heavy snowmelt created a bottleneck in the Tuolumne River and the subsequent flooding of the valley floor.{{sfn|Simpson|2005|p=13}}