The area between the Merced and the Kings rivers (see maps 1 and 4, area 5), which includes the courses of the upper San Joaquin, the Fresno, and the Chowchilla rivers, together with Mariposa Creek, is very poorly represented in the early documentary sources. The central valley itself, as far as the foothills, was apparently traversed by numerous expeditions and raids, and the population was largely missionized, killed, or dispersed. The written record is, however, quite inadequate. It is therefore not feasible to consider each of these river systems separately, as was done in the discussion of the population about 1850. It is preferable to discuss the entire region as a unit and, when necessary, pass to indirect methods of estimate. The Pitkachi on the San Joaquin are mentioned in 1806 by Moraga, who allows 200 persons to their rancheria. The tribe appears again in the baptism record of Soledad Mission (MS in the Bancroft Library, Berkeley) according to which 205 Indians from "Picatche" were baptized from 1821 to 1824 and another 18 in 1831. An additional 23 came from rancherias in the vicinity, a total of 246. Another rancheria, Capicha, is referred to by Pico in 1815, who said it was uninhabited at that time, the inhabitants having fled to the mountains. As late as 1853 Wessels said that the Pitcache, together with the Noo-to-ah, a Mono group, numbered 500 to 600 souls. Kroeber mentions three villages remembered by modern informants. If 246 Indians were baptized in one mission, the tribe as a whole must have numbered at least four times as many, or 1,000. If two fair-sized rancherias are mentioned by the Spanish observers, the entire tribe may well have possessed four or five, which again implies a population of 1,000. If there were approximately 300 survivors in 1853, by comparison with other open valley areas the original population must have been fully three or four times as great, or perhaps 1,200. If three rancherias were known to modern informants, they must formerly have been important places with anywhere from 200 to 400 people, again indicating a total of 1,000 for the tribe. Concerning the Hoyima there are two references, one by Pico in 1826 and one by Rodriguez in 1828. Pico states merely that he attacked the rancheria and captured 40 gentiles and 1 Christian, a fact which in itself would not furnish a very significant clue to population. He also noted "mucha guesamenta y cueros casi frescos de caballada que habian matado."