CHUMASH INDIANS
The Chumash Indians were natives to the coastlands in California, from Malibu to Paso Robles, as well as on all three of the Northern Channel Islands. There were 150 independent villages with a total population of 18,000 people. People in the other regions spoke a little differently although the languages were similar. The villages were made of ceremonial grounds, semi subterranean sweathouses, cleared playing fields, storage huts, and round thatched dwelling houses up to fifty feet in diameter and able to hold as many as seventy people. Their homeland was first settled about 13,000 years ago and with time, the population got bigger so some of them started migrating to other coastlands of California. With all these other villages they had access to different resources, which they would trade with one another in different villages. Some of the major groups were the Obispeño, Purismeño, Ynezeñ, Barbareño and Ventureño (named after the Franciscan missions San Luis Obispo de Tolos!a, La Purisma Concepcion, and Santa Ynez. With all this trading going on among the Chumash villages, it would have taken many days to travel by foot. Living on the coastlands they invented a seagoing plank canoe or in their language a "tom
according to its length-how many times it would wrap around a person's hand. The Chumash lived in houses or "aps" which were round and shaped like half an orange. They placed willow poles in the ground in a circle, and they were bent at the top to form a dome. Then smaller saplings or branches were tied crosswise. They used bulrush or cattails to cover the outside in layers, starting at the bottom with each row overlapping the layer below it, almost like shingling a roof. A hole was left open at the top for circulation, when it rained they covered the hole with skin. On a good day the cooking was outside but when it rained the cooking was moved inside. A fire could be lit in the middle as well which provided warmth. The Chumash homeland offered a wide variety of food supplies. Most of their food came from the sea. They ate many kinds of wild plants, also hunted small and large animals for food. They didn't do any planting of corn or other crops like others did. The Chumash roa! Work Cited "Chumash". Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago. Encyclopedia Britannic Inc, 1997. Volume 3 of Encyclopedia Britannica 24 Vols. Josephy Jr., Alvin M. "500 Nations" Alfred A Knope. New York 1994. Ed. Duane Champagne. "Chronology of Native American History". Gale Research Inc, Detroit 1994. Terrell, John Upton. "American Indian Almanac". Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York 1834. Http://www.sbnature.org/chumash and her relatives. This happened because if the men ever came back to the tribe, they could share some of the knowledge they have learnt. They did not practice agriculture but lived well by fishing, and hunting small and large game and birds, they also gathered an enormous variety of wild foods, like acorns from the California oaks. The average life span for the Chumash was about thirty-five years old, or even less. Some elders survived into their seventies and eighties. Fernando Librado was the last known full-blooded island Chumash, died in 1915. The Chumash specialized in many skills they were curers, astrologers, canoe builders, basket and bead makers, soapstone carvers, woodworkers, and rock artists. Most of the Chumash were hunters, gathers, and fishermen. The Chumash Indians didn't wear much. Women would wear a two-piece skirt of deerskin or plant fiber. It hung about knee length and had a narrow apron in the front with a wider piece that wrapped around the back. Men a! The Chumash used both twined and coiled weaving tec
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Approximate Word count = 1642
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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