Career
Atwell served as the Chairman of the Tachi Yokut of Santa Rosa Rancheria from 1967 until 2009. Atwell has been widely credited with improving the standard of living on the Santa Rosa Rancheria reservation during his forty-two year tenure as Chairman of the Tachi Yokut. Atwell was born on Tachi Yokut land, under a tree, on November 30, 1945.
His father was a medicine man. She taught Atwell indigenous Tachi Yokut traditions and hunting techniques. Clarence Atwell would later become a medicine man like his father.
As an adult, Clarence Atwell Jr. held bear dances and sweat lodge throughout California.
