Native Americans of the California Coast: The Chumash

The Chumash are a widespread group of California native people who lived along the southern California coast and the Santa Barbara Channel Islands.

Chumash Tribe Facts:

The Chumash Name

The name Chumash refers to several groups of California Indians who originally lived near the south-central coast of California, including the Channel Islands, and who spoke similar languages. The name was chosen by explorer and linguist John Wesley Powell, from a word used by the Coastal Chumash to refer to the Indians of Santa Rosa Island, Tcú-mac. They also called the natives of Santa Cruz Island Mi-tcú-mac. Each of the groups had names for themselves. Later groups were named based on the mission territories they occupied (Obispeño, Barbareño, Purisimeño, etc.).

Chumash Territory

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the Chumash’s home region was the coastline from San Luis Obispo in the north to Malibu Canyon in the south, and east as far as the western edge of the San Joaquín Valley. They also lived on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands: San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and Anacapa.

Language

Linguists believed that different Chumash groups spoke a variety of what linguists call “Hokan” language. This includes languages spoken by the Salinan, Esselen, Pomo, Yuma and Washo. Today many scholars believe that Chumash languages belong to their own language family.

Many of the place names in the Santa Barbara area come from Chumash words, like Cuyama, Ojai, Castaic, Lompoc and Malibu.

Chumash Religion

Before adopting Christianity, the Chumash had certain places that they considered sacred, and would go to those places to pray or make offerings for. They had at least one god, whom they referred to as Sup or Achup. They also had people known as shamans, who represented to the spirit world to their people and could perform important rituals and ceremonies. The shaman was often associated with a particular animal, such as rattlesnake or grizzly bear. People would call on the shaman to cure illnesses or bring good fortune, or to try and bring misfortune to their enemies.

Chumash Boats

The most important tool the Chumash had was a long canoe made out of wooden planks called the tomol. The word tomol meant “canoe” in the Chumash language, but also meant “pine.” That was because the tomol was often made out of pine planks. However, the best tomols were made out of redwood, which is softer and easier to craft than pine, and it also swells up and prevents leaks when it is wet. Since redwood trees don’t grow near Chumash territory, they would often search for redwood logs that had drifted down the ocean currents from areas further to the north. Tomols were very finely crafted and usually painted red. Chumash craftsmen would seal the canoes with naturally occurring asphalt to make them seaworthy. When Spanish sailors encountered the tomols on the open sea, they were very impressed by these vessels.

The tomol allowed Chumash mariners to travel far up and down the coast of California, hunting, fishing and trading with other tribes. It also allowed them to stay connected with towns and villages on the on the Channel Islands, off the coast of California.

Chumash Trade with Other Tribes

The various Chumash groups had trade relationships with other tribes both on the coast and far inland. They brought many items from the sea, such as abalone, clams and shell beads to the Yokuts of the Central Valley. In exchange, they received things such as obsidian, salt, black pigment and antelope skins. They supplied the Salinans in the north with wooden boats and beads. They even traded with the Mojave Indians who lived over 400 miles away.

Chumash Food

Acorns were the most important food for the Chumash, as they were for many California Indian groups. They also ate many small seeds, like those of the chia plant, and were very fond of piñon nuts. For cooking, they often made an olla or cooking pot and a comal or flattened pan out of steatite, a heat-resistant stone (also known as soapstone). Chumash people also ate many of the wild edible berries that grew in their region, such as the fruits of the elderberry, prickly pear cactus and manzanita bush.

Chumash people were very accomplished hunters. They were skilled at making bows and arrows, and would hunt mule deer for food and skins. Hunters also made traps for small animals, and would sometimes use fire to drive rabbits out into the open, where they would kill them with throwing sticks. They sometimes even ate bear cubs, but probably did not risk hunting adult grizzly bears.

Because they lived so close to the sea, the Chumash diet included a large variety of marine animals. Otter, sea lion, porpoises and even whales (when they washed ashore) would become food for the Chumash. Of course, with their tomol boats, they were able to collect a large supply of fish, as well as mollusks like clams, mussels and barnacles.

Chumash Games

Like most people, the Chumash loved to play games. Many of the games they played were common to other Indian groups in California. These games involved marbles, balls, sticks and other objects. One game they played was much like lacrosse and involved using sticks to try and roll a small ball into holes placed at either end of a field. The Chumash also liked to play games of chance or gambling games with dice or other objects. One of the most popular games was to try and throw a long pole through a hoop made of bark or branches as it rolled along.

Chumash Entertainment

The Chumash were fond of songs and dances. During celebrations, such as a victory in war, Chumash men would often paint their bodies and wear feathers, while they danced for hours. Though they had no drums, they would play other musical instruments such as whistles, flutes and rattles.

Later, during the mission period, Chumash musicians became very accomplished at playing all sorts of Latin American and European instruments, such as guitars, violins, cellos and trumpets.

Families

Chumash families were often grouped together into clans. A clan is a group of families with common ancestors. Oftentimes these clans would be identified with an animal, such as the eagle or coyote. Villages would be made up of people of different clans, and it was common to marry someone from outside your clan. When two people got married, usually the husband moved to his wife’s village and lived among her relatives. 

Chumash Homes

Chumash people lived in homes, which they called aps. These homes were similar to those of other California Indians. They were usually round, and made of a frame of long poles, with grass and reeds woven between them. In the middle of the floor was a fire pit, and there would be beds with skins to cover them. It was normal to have a hole in the roof to let out smoke from the fire and to let in light, though sometimes they would have two or three other windows. Although most homes would be fairly small (about 18-20 feet in diameter) early Spanish explorers said they saw very large houses that could hold multiple families. Sometimes whale bones or vertebrae could be used for furniture or supports.

Village Organization

Each village had a chief or wot, who was its leader. The wot usually had a council of advisors. Sometimes there were groups of villages organized together under a paqwot, who was a major chieftain. 

In the village there would usually be a temescal or sweat house. It is a closed building dug into the earth with a small door. In the middle a fire was built in order to create a hot atmosphere that would encourage sweating. Like other California Indians, the Chumash people would use the temescal like a sauna, to cleanse and refresh themselves. After spending time in the temescal, they would often bathe themselves in cold water.

Rock Art

The Chumash were very talented artists. Some of the most striking examples of their culture are the rock paintings, known as pictographs. Many of these brightly-colored paintings were left on cliffs and in caverns in very mountainous and hard to reach locations, often near a spring or another source of running water, like a stream. Most Chumash pictographs are very abstract and made up of symbols, but sometimes they represent recognizable objects, like animals. A single rock could have hundreds of designs on it.

Encounters with the Spanish

The first recorded encounter with Europeans was with the expedition of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. There were certainly other encounters between Chumash and Spanish and other Europeans. In 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno also encountered the Chumash people, whom he described as friendly.

It wasn’t until 1769 that sustained contact between Spanish and Chumash people began to occur, with the expedition of Gaspar de Portolá. Portolá in his diaries also described his interactions with the Chumash as friendly. As time went on, the Spanish and Chumash began a close relationship of trade and work. In 1824, however, during the Mexican period, there was a large revolt of Chumash people against the government because of difficult working conditions at the missions. The revolt eventually came to an end, but tensions lingered for many years.

Junípero Serra and the Chumash

Fr. Junípero Serra, the founder of the Spanish missions in California, had learned of the Chumash, their complex culture and deep traditions. His great desire was to attract the them to Christianity and build a mission in Chumash territory. He accomplished this at the end of his life in 1782, with the founding of Mission San Buenaventura in the vicinity of a number of villages.

Chumash at the Missions

There were more missions established among the Chumash than among any other Native American group in California. Five missions were founded in Chumash territory: San Luis Obispo (1772), San Buenaventura (1782), Santa Bárbara (1786), La Purísima Concepción (1787) and Santa Ynez (1804). By the early 1800s, almost all of the Chumash had joined these missions. 

Read more about native life at the Santa Ynez mission.

Chumash Today

People often ask, “Do Chumash people exist today?” The answer is “yes.” There are many people today of Chumash ancestry, and Chumash people live all over California. They are represented by groups such as the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, Barbareño-Ventureño Band of Mission Indians, Coastal Band of Chumash Nation, and the Chumash Council of Bakersfield. The Chumash Indian Museum near Thousand Oaks, California is a great place to learn more about the culture of Chumash people.

Resources

Books

These books have helped me understand more about the Chumash. Click on the link to find the book in Amazon.

• California’s Chumash Indians. This short book is a project of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and provides an overview of Chumash life especially written for young people.
• The Rock Paintings of the Chumash: A Study of California Indian Culture. This classic book not only talks about Chumash rock art, but it gives a thorough introduction to Chumash culture.
• The Chumash and the Presidio of Santa Barbara: Evolution of a Relationship, 1782-1823. This is a great book for understanding how the Chumash relationship with the Spanish evolved over time.

Teaching Resources

Chumash Tribe Facts with Comprehension Questions (Teachers Pay Teachers). An introduction to the Chumash people. An excellent way to prepare students for their 3rd grade California Native American project and/or their 4th grade Mission project.