The Native Californians: Here Before History Began

Before contact with white civilization, the abundant natural resources of California supported one of the highest population densities in North America. Most estimates place the California native population around 250,000, some argue two or three times that, about 10% of the native U.S. population. Like today’s pattern, the highest concentration of people lived on or near the coast. The ancestors of many of California’s tribal groups settled here at least 5000 years ago, in some cases more than 12,000 years ago.

California in 1800 supported about 110 major tribes or language groups, with twenty-eight of those spread along the coast. Many other tribes made regular sojourns to the coast to harvest the ocean’s bounty and trade and visit with the locals. Of the twenty-eight coastal nations, Volume One traverses the territories of sixteen groups, while Volume Two visits a dozen.

We don’t have space to discuss all these diverse cultures, So we recommend that you seek out the rich and varied literature on California’s Native Americans. For now, let’s take a quick overview.

Forget your stereotypes of Native Americans. No California natives lived in tipis. Rather they inhabited a diverse array of dwellings. None rode horses before white contact. California natives were among the most peace loving people on earth, though ritual war did occur. Elders of most tribes spoke several neighboring languages in response to the diverse tribal landscape. Tribes near and far conducted trade along well established trails usually open to all. Intertribal gatherings were important social events in which the whole village interacted with visitors, feasting, dancing, storytelling and game-playing, often over several days.

The Chumash were the largest of all California tribal groups, inhabiting the coast from Estero Bay to Malibu as well as the Channel Islands offshore. Some of the permanent Chumash villages in the Santa Barbara area housed more than 1000 residents. The Chumash were also among the most prosperous of California’s native groups, thriving on the abundant fish and shellfish available in the Santa Barbara Channel plus the diversity of plants thriving in the mild coastal climate. The stable and populous Chumash culture regularly produced a surplus of food to trade with their surrounding tribes. They made clamshell disk currency that was highly valued and widely distributed among their neighbors.

The Chumash culture was both innovative and complex. Circular houses, framed with willow poles and covered with tules, were often 50 feet in diameter, housing several families whose spaces might be divided into rooms by hanging mats. Unlike other California tribes, they built beds covered with rush mats and rush pillows for sleeping. The Chumash were the only California tribe to make and use fishhooks, which they carved from abalone shell. While the Yurok people in the far north also had seaworthy canoes, only the Chumash built tomols, boats built of pine planks sewn together with plant fibers, then caulked with the abundant tar found in local seeps. A tomol, one of the glories of Chumash civilization, was about 30 feet long, could carry two tons, and could be rowed as fast as a person could run. You can see a fine example of a tomol in Fleischmann Auditorium at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.