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The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan and the Muwekma, are the indigenous people of Northern California who have lived in the regions surrounding the San Francisco Bay and spanning south into the Salinas Valley since 500 AD. They spoke diverse dialects of the Penutian (Utian) language and lived in over 50 distinct villages and groups. Before Spanish colonization, they did not view themselves as one unified group of people. The Ohlone once lived by hunting, fishing and gathering and their world view included Shamanism. From 1769 to 1833, Spanish policies, including the California Mission system, brought tremendous upheaval, hardship and decimation to the Ohlone people. The Ohlone living today include the Muwekma Tribe in San Jose and Rumsen-Mutsen of Watsonville as direct descendents of the original people, currently petitioning for tribal recognition from the United States Government. Culture The Ohlone inhabited fixed village locations, moving temporarily to gather seasonal foodstuffs like acorns and berries. The Ohlone people lived in the Northern California coastal areas between Big Sur and the Salinas Valley in the south and the Carquinez Strait and Golden Gate on the San Francisco Bay in the north. Prior to Spanish contact, the Ohlone formed a complex association of over 50 different villages with about 100 to 250 members eachTeixeira, 1997, pg. 1, says there were approximately 50 independent nations or tribes with 50 to 500 people with an average of 200.. These groups interacted through trade, intermarriage and ceremonial events, as well as some internecine conflict. They were known for their excellent basket-weaving skills, as well as their dancing, crafts and body ornamentation. The Ohlones subsisted mainly as hunter-gatherers, and in some ways harvesters.Brown 1973 pg.3,4,25; Stanger, 1969 pg.94; Bean and Lawton, 1973 pg.11,30,39. (Lewis) "A rough husbandry of the land was practiced, mainly by annually setting of fires to burn-off the old growth in order to get a better yield of seeds -- or so the Indians told early explorers in San Mateo County."Brown 1973, page 4. Their staple diet consisted of crushed acorns, grass seeds and berries, while hunted game, fish and seafood (including mussels and abalone from the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean), were also important to their diet. They ate a diet of wild plants and animals, abundant through careful work (and spiritual respect), and through some active management of all the natural resources at hand. Animals in their mild climate included the grizzly bear, elk (cervus elaphus), antelope and deer. The streams held salmon, perch and stickleback. Birds included plentiful ducks, geese, great horned owls, red-shafted flickers, downy woodpeckers, goldfinches, and yellow-billed magpies. Along the ocean shore and bays, there lived otters, whales, and at one time thousands of sea lions, so many that it "looked like a pavement" to the incoming Spanish people.Teixeira, 1997 Margolin, 1978. In general, along the bayshore and valleys, the natives constructed dome-shaped houses of woven or bundled mats of tule rushes, 6 to 20 feet in diameter. In hills and where Redwood trees were accessible, they built conical houses made from Redwood bark attached to a frame of wood. One of the main village buildings, the sweat lodge was dug into the ground, its walls made of earth and roof of earth and brush. They built boats of tule to navigate on the bays. Generally, men did not wear clothing in warm weather. In cold weather they donned animal skin capes or feather capes. Women wore deerskin aprons, tule rush skirts or shredded bark skirts. On cool days they also wore animal skin capes. Both wore ornamentation of necklaces, shell beads and abalone pendants, and bone wood earrings with shells and beads. The ornamentation often indicated status within their community. Religion The pre-contact Ohlone peoples world view included Shamanism, one form this took was the Kuksu religion that was evident in Central and Northern California, which included elaborate acting and dancing ceremonies in traditional costume, an annual mourning ceremony, puberty rites of passage, shamanic intervention with the spirit world and a male secret society that met in underground dance rooms. Kuksu was shared with other indigenous ethnic groups of Central California, such as their neighbors the Miwok and Esselen, also Maidu, Pomo, and northernmost Yokuts. However Kroeber observed less "specialized cosmogony" in the Ohlone, which he termed one of the the "southern Kuksu-dancing groups", in comparison to the Maidu and groups in the Sacramento Valley. The natives who joined the Spanish Missions assumed the religion of Catholicism. Traditional narratives In their traditional mythology, legends, tales, and histories, the Ohlone participated in the general cultural pattern of Central and Northern California. Ohlone folklore and legend centered around the Californian culture-hero of the Coyote trickster spirit, as well as Eagle and Hummingbird. Coyote spirit was clever, wily, lustful, greedy, and irresponsible. He often competed with Hummingbird, who despite his small size regularly got the better of him. Six Rumsien myths that were published by Alfred L. Kroeber are available on-line. Mythology Ohlone mythology creation stories mention the Earth-Maker and Great-Grandfather in the Outer Ocean. They created the first people from clay. In another version of creation, the world was covered entirely in water, apart from a single peak Pico Blanco near Big Sur (or Mount Diablo in the northern Ohlone's version) on which Coyote, Hummingbird, and Eagle stood. People were the descendents of the Coyote. History Some archeologists and linguists hypothesize that these people migrated from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River system and arrived into the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area about 500 AD, displacing or assimilating earlier Hokan-speaking populations of which the Esselen in the south represent a survival. Recent datings of ancient shell mounds in Newark and Emeryville suggest the villages at those locations were established about 4000 BC.Stanger, F. M. Editor La Peninsula Vol. XIV No. 4, March 1968, pg. 4 Careful study of artifacts found in central California mounds has resulted in the discovery of three distinguishable epochs or cultural "horizons" in their history. The Mission Era (1769 & 1833)
Secularization and Survival In 1834, the Mexican Government ordered all Californian missions to be secularized and turn their lands over to the government. Mission leaders attempted to protect and give some of the lands back to the Indians, but most lands were turned into Mexican-owned rancherias. The Indians became the laborers and vaqueros (ranch hands) of Mexican-owned rancherias. They eventually regathered in multi-ethnic rancherias, along with other Mission Indians such as the Coast Miwok, and northwest Yokuts and Patwin. Many of the Mission Indians went to work at Alisal Rancheria in Pleasanton, and El Molino in Niles. Communities also formed in Sunol, Monterey and San Juan Bautista. In the 1840's a wave of U.S. settlers enroached into the area and California became annexed to the United States. The new settlers brought in new diseases to the Indians. The Ohlone lost the vast majority of their population between 1780 and 1850, due to an abysmal birth rate, high infant mortality rate, diseases and social upheaval associated with European immigration into California. By all estimates, the Ohlone were decimated to less than ten percent of their original pre-mission era population. By 1852 the Ohlone population had diminished down to about 1000Cook, 1943 and continued to decline. By the early 1880s, the northern Ohlone were virtually extinct and the southern Ohlone people severely impacted and largely displaced from their communal land grant in the Carmel Valley. To call attention to the plight of the California Indians, Indian Agent, reformer, and popular novelist Helen Hunt Jackson published accounts of her travels among the Mission Indians of California in 1883.Jackson, Helen Hunt.Report on the Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians of California. Washington, Dc: Govt. Print. Office, 1883. LCC 02021288 The last fluent speaker of an Ohlone language, Rumsien-speaker Isabel Meadows, died in 1939. Some of the Mutsun Ohlone today are attempting to revive the language. Divisions There were eight major regional, linguistic divisions or subgroups of the Ohlone, from north to south: Note that "Language group designations are spelled as commonly found in English language publications... however many tribal, village and personal names which are not commonly found in literature present a problem. They were written by Spanish settlers who were trying to capture the sounds of languages foreign to them." Villages and tribes Within the eight regions listed above, there were over 50 tribes and villages who spoke the Ohlone-Costanoan languages, before being absorbed into the Spanish Missions circa 1795. Present day The Mutsun (of Hollister and Watsonville) and the Muwekma (of San Jose) are among the small surviving groups of Ohlone today petitioning for tribal recognition. The Esselen Nation also describes itself as Ohlone/Costanoan, although they historically spoke an entirely different Hokan language. Their tribal council claims enrolled membership is currently at approximately 500 people from thirteen extended families, approximately 60% of whom reside in Monterey and San Benito Counties. Ohlone tribes with petitions for Federal Recognition pending with the Bureau of Indian Affairs are: Population The Ohlone's population in 1770, around the time of missionary settlements, was estimated from 10,000 at minimum, up to 26,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area alone.Sources differ on population. Modern researchers readily will discount the original American anthropologist, Alfred L. Kroeber's population projection that 7000 Costanoans existed in 1770, because most anthropologists and experts since Kroeber thinks he was generalizing and undercounting. Cartier estimated there were about 10,000 at the time. Cook originally estimated 10,000 to 11,000 in The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization. However, Cook later admitted undercounting and projected there were 26,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area alone, in The Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970. Sherburne F. Cook describes rapidly declining indigenous populations in California between 1769 and 1900, in the Summary and Conclusions of his posthumously published book, The Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970.Cook, 1976 Cook states in part: "Not until the population figures are examined does the extent of the havoc become evident."Cook, 1976, page 200. "The first (factor) was the food supply... The second factor was disease. ... Etymology The Spanish explorers referred to the native groups of this region collectively as the Costeños (the "coastal people") circa 1769. Over time, the English-speaking settlers Anglicized the word into the name of Costanoan. (The suffix "-an" is English). For many years, the people were called the Costanoans in English language and records. However, since the 1960s the term Ohlone has been formally extended to mean the same group of indigenous people, often used to replace the term Costanoan. Some of the native people prefer to keep the name Costanoan, or to revitalize the word Muwekma, the word for the people in their native languages of East Bay Chocheño and Tamyen. The name Ohlone might have derived from a Spanish rancho called Oljon, and referred to a single band who inhabited the Pacific coast near Pescadero. The name Ohlone may have also come from the name of an Indian village or site near modern-day Half Moon Bay. Oljone, Olchones and Alchones are spelling variations of Ohlone found in San Francisco mission records. Language The Ohlone-Costanoan language family was commonly called "Costanoan", sometimes "Ohlone". It is a member of the Penutian language group, and the Utian linguistic subgroup and is comprised of eight sub-languages, or dialects according to Milliken: Awaswas, Chalon, Chocheño, Karkin, Mutsun, Ramaytush, Rumsen, and Tamyen. The divisions are roughly equivalent to the way languages of the Romance family have the same roots; For example, at the extreme ends of the region, it might be as if French was spoken in Berkeley, and Portuguese in Monterey. Neighboring divisions however could understand and speak to each other, only having colloquial differences. Ramaytush, Tamyen, Chochenyo and Karkin might have emerged as "distinctive linguistic Costanoan sub-groups within the Bay Area" due to amalgamating certain tribes together within the missions. The Costanoan language group is extinct. Native Names The native people were described as coming from (or belonging to) certain tribes (bands) or villages, or a certain linguistic group (as assigned by ethnolinguists), or a general region, or else from a certain "multifamily landholding group" ("tribelet"). Although many native names have been written in historical records, the exact spelling and pronunciations were never entirely captured and standardized in modern English. Ethnohistorians sometimes still resort to approximating indigenous regional boundaries, as well. Many of the tribal and village names come from the California Mission records of baptism, marriages and death. Some names have come from Spanish and Mexican settlers, some from early Anglo-European travelers, and some from the memories of Native American "informants". A few names were gleened from diseño of Mexican land grants made in California prior to the Mexican-American War. In addition, a large untranscribed trove of material is available for research in the records of Clinton H. Merriam housed at the Bancroft Library, and more material continues to be published by local historical societies and associations. Spelling and pronunciation Correct pronunciations of native words are tenuous at best. Many of the original sounds were first heard and copied down by Spanish missionaries using Spanish as a reference language, subject to human error, later translated into English and Anglicized over time. Spelling errors crept in as different missionaries kept separate records over a long period of time, under various administrators. In spite of this, we have some clues. The Ohlone researchers Kroeber, Merriam and others interviewed Native "informants" and were able to define some pronuncations on word lists. Ethnoligists have used this to some advantage to create phonetic tables giving some semblance of languages. (See Languages below) Native Words A partial table of words comes from Indian Names for Plants and Animals ... by Clinton Merriam. Merriam was primarily a naturalist (so chided by some), but gathered impressive data on California Indians, and his research endorsed by modern Research Guide. His list covers 400 Ohlone-Costanoan words. The words were accompanied by a picture to help insure accuracy, but Heizer noted the errors prone in the system of interview. The Indian words listed are by "phonetic English" pronunciations. Some special marks do not translate; they may require additional treatment by ethnolinguists. The Native Americans had no written language that we know of. Ethnohistorians and Linguists The main ethnohistorians and ethnolinguists of Ohlone began with: Alfred L. Kroeber who researched the California Indians with a few publications on the Ohlone from 1904 to 1910, and C. Hart Merriam who researched the Ohlone in detail from 1902 to 1929. This was followed by John P. Harrington who researched the Ohlone languages from 1921 to 1939. Other research was added by Robert Cartier, Madison S. Beeler, and Sherburne F. Cook, to name a few. In many cases, the Ohlone names they used vary in spelling, translation and tribal boundaries, depending on the source. Each tried to understand and interpret the data of a complex society and their languages before the pieces vanished. There was noticeable competition and disagreement at first: Both C. Hart Merriam and John P. Harrington produced much in-depth Ohlone research in the shadow of the highly published Alfred L. Kroeber and both competed in print with Kroeber's historic published works. In the Editor's Introduction to Merriam (1979), Robert F. Heizer states "both men disliked A. L. Kroeber." Letters between Merriam and Harrington attest to this situation. Merriam is also described as "being jealous of Kroeber." Recent Ohlone historians that have revisited all facts are Lauren Teixeira, Randall Milliken and Lowell J. Bean. They note the availability of mission records allow for continual research and understanding. Notable Ohlone pople Further Reading Notes See Also | |||||||||
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