4 1 the chumash people of california

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Scott Foresman Social Studies

Nonfi ction Main Idea and Details • Map

• Sidebars

ISBN 0-328-14853-9

ì<(sk$m)=beifda< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Fascinating Facts

years ago

out in the ocean that sometimes they lost sight

of land

hunt ducks

PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA

Scott Foresman Social Studies

Nonfi ction Main Idea and Details • Map

• Sidebars

ISBN 0-328-14853-9

ì<(sk$m)=beifda< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

Fascinating Facts

years ago

out in the ocean that sometimes they lost sight

of land

hunt ducks

PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA

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ISBN: 0-328-14853-9

United States of America This publication or parts thereof, may be used with appropriate

equipment to reproduce copies for classroom use only

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Maps

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Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.

Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R) Background (Bkgd) Opener: ©Nik Wheeler/Corbis

6 ©Marilyn “Angel” Wynn/Nativestock

12 ©Reinhard Brucker/Westwind Enterprises

13 ©Ian Shive Photography

14 ©Nik Wheeler/Corbis

Vocabulary culture hereditary site mission missionary

Write to It!

From what you have read about the Chumash, write two paragraphs that describe something about them that surprised you Tell what it was and why it was a surprise

Write your description on a separate sheet

of paper.

Before the Mexicans and the Europeans

arrived in California, at least twenty thousand

Chumash lived in the southern part of the state

and on the Channel Islands In this book you

will read about how they lived

Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois Coppell, Texas • Ontario, California • Mesa, Arizona

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American Indians are Eskimos, Aleuts,

and other people who lived in North America

before the arrival of European explorers

American Indians were the first people to

live in this country

There are hundreds of American Indian

groups, but you may not have heard of some of

them Some of the more well-known American

Indian groups are the Navajo, the Apache,

and the Cheyenne in the West and Southwest,

the Sioux in the Midwest, the Seminole in the

Southeast, and the Mohawk in the Northeast

The Chumash, a lesser-known group, lived

in California

American Indian Names

Many geographic areas in the United States have American Indian names

The Teton mountain range, the states Massachusetts and Delaware, and Lake Huron, a Great Lake, are just a few of these areas

OREGON

NEVADA

CALIFORNIA

ARIZONA

M E X I C O

Channe

l Isla nd s

sh PACIFIC OCEAN

N

Present-day national border Present-day state border

Key

3 The Chumash lived in southern California along the Pacific Coast

They also lived on the Channel Islands off the coastline.

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The Chumash Way of Life

Scholars have studied the remains of the

Chumash culture to find out how the people

lived They learned that the Chumash had a

three-class social structure It was made up

of a lower, middle, and an upper class The

Chumash also had craftspeople and groups of

specialists such as chiefs, doctors, and other

important people

Most of the Chumash people belonged to the

middle class Some were hunters, while others

prepared food Another group made tools The

people in the lower class lacked such skills The

upper class was made up of families who did

have skills and lived throughout the territory

What Does Chumash Mean?

The Chumash called themselves “the first people” and thought of the Pacific Ocean as their first home

5

Each village had a leader The most important person in a village was the chief,

or wot The title of chief was hereditary and

was passed down in the chief’s family The wot

represented the village at regional meetings

The chiefs would meet at council meetings to discuss tribal business and to pass laws that governed the entire group

A chief had many duties He or she decided where the hunting grounds would be and gave permission for other villages to hunt on his or her village’s property The chief worked with the other chiefs to provide emergency food and resources during disasters such as floods

The chief also settled arguments between neighboring villages, and, if necessary, declared war

The shaman, or religious leader, was also important He mixed plants and herbs to cure aches, pains, and fevers He might also forecast storms

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A Chumash Village

Each Chumash village site was on flat land

near water, rocks, plants, and animals The

Chumash needed rocks for tools and plants

and animals for building materials and food

The site had to be safe from natural disasters,

like floods, and had to provide some protection

from the village’s enemies Each village had a

space for ceremonial events, a playing field, and

a burial ground

Villages were different sizes A small village

might have as few as seventy-five people A

large village could have as many as a thousand

people The people in the village lived in

houses shaped like domes that were grouped

in clusters

Three children look at the inside of a Chumash house

7

The Chumash built their homes from the area’s plants and trees Each house was about fifteen feet in diameter and was tall enough to stand up in Wooden sticks were used to make the frame They then bent the poles inward and tied them together to create the dome’s shape

To complete the house, the Chumash wove together mats made from bulrushes, or tall grasses, and tied them to the frame The mats were between two and three inches thick and were placed in a shingle-like pattern The thickness of the mats helped to make the house waterproof Each house had a door that was made from whale ribs In each roof was a hole

to let out smoke from the cooking fire

A Chumash Family

The Chumash lived in what are known

as extended family groups This means that several generations and branches

of a Chumash family lived together in one home

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Living Offshore

Many of the Chumash lived on San Miguel,

Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, or Anacapa These

islands are fifteen to thirty miles off the

California coast and are part of the chain of

Channel Islands

To make the journey between the islands and

the mainland, the Chumash built plank canoes

called tomols A tomol was a long, sturdy boat

that could hold up to fifteen people The boat

was made from planks cut from driftwood The

planks were sewn together with plant fibers and

animal hides The joints were sealed with pitch

or tar After the canoes were finished, they were

painted red and decorated with seashells

9

The Chumash and Fishing

Fishing was the main job of many Chumash men They had many ways to catch fish They attached fishhooks to a line and fished from

their tomols They often used fish traps The

Chumash also used nets to catch fish The Chumash diet also included shellfish, such as clams that they collected along the shore

The Chumash used spears, harpoons, and clubs

to hunt seals, sea lions, otters, and dolphins

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Hunting and Gathering

Hunting was a big part of a Chumash man’s

life Large animals, such as deer, elk, and

antelope, were often hunted Small animals,

such as rabbits and squirrels, were also hunted

The Chumash were stealthy hunters They

used duck decoys They also sometimes put

smoke into burrows to force animals that lived

underground to come out The Chumash often

used snares to catch small animals, while the

larger animals were killed with arrows or

stone-tipped spears

Chumash Hunters

Chumash hunters had to get close to the animals they were hunting because their primary weapons were spears and arrows Wearing animal skins often helped Chumash hunters

to close in on their prey without being noticed

11

In addition to hunting and fishing, the Chumash relied on certain plants for food Oak trees provided the Chumash with a plentiful supply of acorns All of the plant matter used by the Chumash for food was gathered, not grown

The Chumash were not farmers The plants they ate were all wild plants In addition to acorns, the Chumash people gathered pine nuts, different types of berries, and cattail seeds

The acorn was very important in the Chumash diet After acorns had been gathered, Chumash women would mash the nuts and pound them into flour After the flour had been cleaned, it was used to make different types of food such as breadlike loaves Because acorns and other nuts were so important to the Chumash diet, each household had a basket granary, or a place for storing food, where they would store nuts to eat during the winter

In the winter they would pick a variety of other plants and herbs The Chumash did not eat everything they picked Many of the plants they picked were used to make medicines

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Chumash Artifacts

The Chumash people demonstrated their

artistry in several ways The women were some

of the finest basket makers in the world The

baskets, made of plants similar to tall reeds, are

fine examples of beautiful workmanship Many

of them have complicated designs woven into

the baskets’ fibers

The men carved bowls, knife handles, bows,

arrow shafts, and needles from wood Other

useful items such as knives, scrapers, and

arrowheads were shaped from stone Fishhooks

were made from pieces of broken abalone

or mussel shells The Chumash also carved

wooden flutes, whistles, and pipes

This is a

Chumash gourd

13

This is an example of a Chumash cave painting

Chumash Rock and Cave Paintings

Like most American Indians, the Chumash had religious beliefs Their beliefs can be seen

in rock and cave paintings that have been found in remote mountain areas Although the subjects of the paintings are different, the style

is the same One Chumash painting shows a ship Others seem to be figures that are based

on heavenly bodies

No one really knows what the paintings mean Some scholars think that they are maps

or records of real events Others believe that they have a more religious meaning

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Chumash Festivals

The winter solstice, or the shortest day of the

year, was the most important event of the year

for the Chumash There was always a festival at

that time During such an event, people from all

of the Chumash villages would gather at a host

village They would trade goods, play games,

dance, arrange marriages, see their friends, and

have fun

At the festivals people

sang and danced They

played team games along

with games that tested an

individual’s physical and

mental skills Some

historians believe

that the cave

paintings were

made during the

winter solstice

festivals

Chumash and the Missions

By the time the Spanish arrived in the mid-1700s, the Chumash had a strong and growing economy It was during this period that the

Spanish began to build mission settlements

throughout California

Because the Chumash were traders, they would visit the missions to trade for European goods The

Spanish missionaries encouraged the Chumash

to change their religious beliefs to Christianity

The missionaries had the Chumash captured and forced them to live and work at the missions

Life at the missions was harsh The Chumash were overworked and underfed Because they had never had European diseases, thousands of them died because they lacked immunity When the Chumash tried to escape, their struggles failed

Today 287 Chumash live on the small Santa Ynez Reservation in California, and about 2,000 people claim Chumash ancestry

Chumash Population Decline

In 1775, as the missionaries were just beginning to arrive, the Chumash population was twenty-two thousand In 1885, one hundred years later, only eighty-four remained

By 1906 only forty-two were still alive

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Glossary

culture the way of life of a particular

people including customs, religion, ideas,

inventions, and tools

hereditary passed down from parents

to children

mission a settlement set up to teach religion

missionary a person sent by a religious

group to spread its religion

site a place where something is located