Chumash
The Chumash (proper noun Ughuigh , Oxoix ) are a Native American - tribe , which in Southern California both sides of the Santa Barbara channel was established.
The Chumash did not cultivate any fields, but lived by hunting , fishing and collecting wild plants in a seasonal rhythm, such as acorns , kelp or pumpkins . They also traded with their neighboring tribes, such as the Gabrieleño , Ipai and Diegueño . The gray fox is one of the animals they admire and they dedicated a “fox dance” to it, among other things. It is believed that they brought the gray fox to the southern three Channel Islands off California's coast. They contributed to the development of the dwarf island gray fox , an endemic species that descends from the gray fox but has genetic and phenotypic characteristics that clearly distinguish it from the gray fox.
The Chumash were organized in about 150 villages, which could have up to 1,000 inhabitants. The management of a village was incumbent on a chief , and this office was inherited. Furthermore, the Chumash society was divided into lower office holders, religious functionaries and commoners . The individual villages often quarreled among themselves about the course of borders, which could also lead to wars .
Of the estimated 15,000 Chumash on the mainland in the 17th century and the 3,000 on the offshore islands, around 280 still remain today as a state-recognized tribe living on the Santa Ynez Reservation in Santa Barbara County. The remainder fell victim to epidemics and white colonization of California. Around 1,500 people feel that they are descendants of the Chumash, but are not given tribal roles.
The last speaker of the Chumash language died in the mid-1960s. But there are attempts to revive the Ineseño language . The Chumash belonged to the North American cultural area of California .
The Chumash used a quaternary number system .
The sandstone rock, which is sacred to Chumash, is located in the Carrizo Plain National Monument , which was built in 2001 and is given special consideration by the conservation area administration. A cave decorated by the Chumash Indians with colorful pictograms with presumably ritual significance can be visited in the Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park located 20 kilometers north of Santa Barbara .
See also
literature
- Douglas J. Kennett: The Island Chumash. Behavioral Ecology of a Maritime Society. University of California Press, Berkeley 2005, ISBN 0-520-24302-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Chumashan Numerals" by Madison S. Beeler, in Native American Mathematics , edited by Michael P. Closs (1986), ISBN 0-292-75531-7 .
- ↑ Manfred R. Dederichs and Kay Dohnke: dtv Merian Rerisführer California , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1st edition, Munich, 1997, pages 182 and 183